How to Make Your Blog a Book, 4 Easy Ways

Are you ready to discover how to go from blog to book?

Do you have a blog? If the answer is yes, there’s a good chance you also have a book or at least the beginning of a book somewhere in there. Don’t let that go to waste.

Being an author is one of the best day jobs for writers. Have you ever considered becoming an author?

This guide shares how you can easily go from blog to book.

You already have a few things going for you. First of all, you have a library of content you can work with, a general direction for your book, an audience interested in what you have to say, and a marketing platform that will keep growing as your blog attracts more readers.

But going from blog to book is not as easy as it may seem. It takes more than simply putting a bunch of blog posts together – at least if your goal is to write a book that meets the publishing industry’s standards.

There are some things you’ll need to know. This is what this article is all about: how to go from blog to book.

Let’s get started understanding how easy it is to go from blog to book. You’ll be a published author before you know it.

My Experience Going from Blog to Book

Do I have experience in order to share I consider going from blog to book “easy?”

Yes.

I have gone from blog to book three times. My books are published on Amazon.

When you go from book to blog, you have a choice of whether you want to self-publish. I made the choice to self-publish each time through the Amazon Kindle Program.

Amazon makes going from blog to book hassle-free. In exchange, Amazon takes a sizeable cut of your profits, but you pay for convenience.

I’ve published ebooks and a hard copy through the Kindle Program.

How to Go From Blog to Book in 4 Steps

Decide on a Subject and an Angle for Your Book

Your blog posts are the raw material, but you probably want your book to be more than a collection of blog posts. Then you need to figure out what you want your book to be about. Maybe your blog is already focused on a topic, and that will make things easier. Then you’ll just have to choose a unique angle.

Then again, maybe you’re interested in a variety of subjects, and you used your blog to explore them. In that case, your posts may be only vaguely related.

Related Reading: The 50 Best Lifestyle Blog Post Ideas You Need to Get Unstuck Now

You’ll want to make two lists: one with some of your favorite posts that you’d like to see published in a book and another with possible topics or angles for your book. Maybe there’s a topic you’re really excited about, but you’ve only written a few posts about it. That’s alright because you can always write more, and it’s better to choose a topic that motivates you to come up with fresh content.

You’ll also want to consider the shelf life of your content. It only takes a few minutes to update a blog post, but this won’t work with a book, so you want to make sure that whatever content you include in your book can withstand the passage of time.

Outline Your Book

Once you’ve decided on a topic for your book and brainstormed some ideas for it, you’re ready to start working on an outline.

The outline should be based on the type of book you want to write about and what you believe would work best for your target audience, rather than trying to fit in as much of your already written material as possible.

For example, if your blog is mostly about your life, you can look for patterns in your experiences to come up with a coherent storyline and focus on the lessons you’ve learned. Then you can start organizing your content into parts and chapters.

The outline should flow naturally and communicate your overall message to your readers. Think about how you want to position your book and what you want to express through it. If this requires some heavy editing and writing additional material, it will be worth it. You have to put your readers first.

Gather All Your Relevant Blog Posts in One Place

After you have an outline, you can go through your blog posts to see what might fit. What do you have that addresses the topic you’ve chosen for your book? What could be edited, and what do you still need to write?

You can search by category or by using your tags. It depends on how you organized the content on your blog. Copy and paste everything you find into a document to create a manuscript. You can also use an online to merge PDF files.

Then start reading through all the posts you’ve chosen and only use the ones that fit. Don’t try to make them fit, so you have less content to write. This will be tempting because many blog writers start this kind of project thinking that most of the writing is one. But this mindset will work against you.

It’s a different experience for readers, and if you want your book to be marketable, you need to take that into account. The pages and chapters need to have a natural flow. If you try to make it fit, the readers will notice.

Don’t be disappointed if half of the blog content that covers your topic will need to be rewritten. That’s what usually happens.

Rewrite and Expand Your Material

When you go through your blog posts, you’ll most likely notice gaps where the content doesn’t cover parts of your outline which means you’ll have to write more. This will feel intimidating at first, but it’s actually good news. It means you came up with a concept that goes beyond the material you’ve already written, so you have more to say.

Plus, this also means that your audience will get to read stories you haven’t told or information you haven’t yet explored.  

Some of your fans will have probably read through all or most of your posts, and when they buy your book, they’ll be rewarded with some new material. Once you start writing, you’ll be glad those gaps exist because they’ll give you an opportunity to express yourself in a different format.

And since a book is a different format, it will also need an introduction and a conclusion, and your blog posts most probably won’t cover this. You’ll need to write them from scratch.

Likewise, you’ll need to adapt your blog posts to the new format. When you’re writing for a blog, it’s usually better to avoid long sentences and lengthy paragraphs. Most blog readers want to be able to scan a post before they start reading, so it’s recommended to use bullet points, images, hyperlinks, and maybe a call to action.

But this won’t look good in a book. Too many images and bullet points would be distracting. On the other hand, you can write longer sentences and paragraphs and explore certain themes or arguments in more detail.  

Blog to Book FAQs

Can you turn your blog into a book?

Yes! I have done it three times.

How do you book a blog?

Easy! Just combine your blog posts into a book. There are minor tweaking that needs to occur. For instance, if you publish a hard copy, you won’t want to include live links, but otherwise, booking your blog is pretty simple especially if you go through the Amazon Kindle Program. They make self-publishing easy.

How do I turn my WordPress blog into a book?

Simple.! Just combine your WordPress blog posts into a book. There are minor tweaking that needs to occur. For instance, if you publish a hard copy, you won’t want to include live links, but otherwise, turning your WordPress blog into a book is pretty simple especially if you go through the Amazon Kindle Program. They make self-publishing easy. They take a significant portion of your sales, but you pay for convenience.

Wrapping Up: How to Go From Blog to Book

In closing, this guide shared four ways you can go from blog to book.

Is it your blogging dream to be a published author? Thanks to these strategies, now you can.

This guide gave you actionable strategies to seamlessly go from blog to book.

Readers, please share so bloggers discover this action plan.

I look forward to your views in the comments section. Have you ever gone from blog to book? What are your experiences? Are there steps you would add?

Authors: Janice Wald and a Contributing Author

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