Turn Your Worthless Weblog Into A Priceless Pamphlet

The Magical Hanukkahtime Section Variety Hour is an eight-day festival of light reading. BC Magazine's sports editor spreads his Gentile love in every other section but his own. And because it's Hanukkah, the gifts of are substandard quality: in this case, it's an article. Today: BC Books.

Not just anybody can go on the Internet and start up their first blog. Because everyone already has. This kooky "web-log," along with its Internet "on-line maga-zeen" counterpart, are threatening the way of the paper life.

But that doesn't mean bloggers don't want to write books. See, that's the last bastion of writing deemed official. Someone actually had to put these words through a publisher and have it approved. Whoa.

So how can we... actually, wait a second. First we must discuss notable curmudgeon Bill Conlin. The Philadelphia Daily News columnist and full-time coot recently likened bloggers to 18th century pamphleteers, who "hung on street corners handing them out to passersby."

Two things here: (1) Even if he said that Hitler would have killed bloggers if they were around back then, his comparison is apt, even though it shows his age and overall cootsmanship, and (2) The word "passersby" is one of the most fascinating plural nouns in the history of wordsmithery.

All right. Back on track. So how can we bring back the self-made Thomas Paine-style pamphlet business back? After all, the average web-log-ger has a Vitamin D deficiency. The sunlight will do wonders for them.

I suppose a methodology like the one Blurb sells would work (Make your own book! Professional printing! And so forth!), but that's a little too much like the clip-on tie. We can tell it's not a real book, and you just look foolish.

Go rudimentary and let it show. Write your book — and by book, I mean "series of unrelated blog entries" — and print it out on paper. Find a nearby Kinko's, and make several copies. Be sure to turn the pages at a three-degree angle so they're noticeably yet subtly askew. (You can also do this beforehand, if you have page layout software like InDesign and pre-rotate your words. It's the extra effort that makes it glorious.) Now find your most raggedy outfit — you know, that outfit you wore last Tuesday — and fill your satchel with copies of your book.

Article Author: Matthew T. Sussman

Sussman is the sports editor of BC Magazine and the executive editor of Technorati. He also writes for Deadspin and Toledo Free Press. He and Tuffy can be heard hosting the Treehouse Fort, Sundays at 12 noon ET. Plus, he Twitters. …

Visit Matthew T. Sussman's author page — Matthew T. Sussman's Blog