Converting my blog into a book is something that I’ve wanted to do for at least three years. But I couldn’t find a converter that worked properly, so I set the idea aside to work on my other projects and forgot about it until I discovered FastPencil. I decided to give it a try.
The first step involved connecting to my blog by entering my username and password. You can also use your RSS feed, if you’re not comfortable giving out your personal information. I went with the former option and waited for a solid 10 minutes while it imported all of my posts.
The Good Part
After that process finished, the screen showed a listing of every blog post that I had made. I’m able to drag posts in whatever order I decide to put them in, which is great because I’d like to categorize the posts for easier reading.
I’m able to export the file onto my computer in .txt format for editing and customized layout in InDesign. Or, I can edit them online with the word processing tool if I want to perform basic changes.
The PDF conversion took about 15 to 20 minutes because I had over 1,000 pages, which included a nicely formatted Table of Contents as well as chapter bookmarks.
The Bad Part
The software imported my posts just fine, but not the reader comments! If I want to include those, I’ll have to perform a manual copy and paste for all of my posts. That’s a big time waster.
Also, some of the formatting got stripped. That wasn’t a big deal with short posts. With long, heavily formatted posts, it’s a disaster because I have to indicate where the paragraphs breaks are and figure out how I’m going to place the screenshots or images in their original places.
I have a lot of images on this blog, but not all of them came through with the import. The ones that did come were attached to the post chapter. I attempted the drag-and-drop method and hit two obstacles: the image plopping down where it wanted to go and becoming blurry when I tried to resize it. This problem reminded me too much of my struggles with Word.
After clicking on the image, I discovered that I could change the float position and drag the graphic position between the title and the content sections for a few of the posts. I found this feature very limiting. Worse, it didn’t always work.
Conclusion
This feature isn’t terrible, but there is plenty of room for improvement, especially where images are concerned.
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Sounds almost like heaven.
I would love to ‘package’ my blog and see if it could pay for a tank of gas.
The writing market is so flooded with shit these days that it’s hard to get any piece of writing to go anywhere.
I am so frustrated.
Great post, Deb.
M
.-= michaelm´s last blog ..At teh Monkey Bar =-.
Just read your previous post.
So many questions regarding the final output from a blog.
Wonderful idea but I think someone has to hone this thing . . .
M
.-= michaelm´s last blog ..At teh Monkey Bar =-.
I know what you’re saying, Michael. I can’t believe some of the books that made it through the traditional publishers’ gateway. For instance, there is this book called I’m with Stupid. I don’t consider myself a book snob in anyway, but that title put me off.
Regarding the blog “packaging”, I wish there was a good piece of software out there (online or off) that will allow you to export your blog as it is, with the option of including the comments. That would be sweet.