In my opinion, blogging and book writing go hand-in-hand. All it takes to bridge the gap from blog to book is a bit more forethought, discipline, and structure, and of course a publisher, and BOOM! you’ve got a book. Well, there’s a bit more to it than that. My experience co-authoring a book (The Art of SEO) was nothing like that. But still, it’s nice to romanticize the process — simply assemble your blog posts into a cohesive structure and send it off to a publisher. What could be simpler?

More often than not the author’s blog is an afterthought. The book came first. Then the blog came second as the book’s marketing vehicle, a complement/supplement. I’m not knocking it, but it’s great to see a high-quality blog turn into a high-quality book.

As both an author and a blogger, I can really appreciate when a blogger succeeds in transforming their blog into a book. It’s inspiring. One of my favorites is PostSecret, which was turned into a whole series of books. More prototypical examples of blog-to-book projects are The Long Tail (blog / book) and The Search (blog / book). Both are excellent blogs, and excellent books. Sometimes Twitter feeds turn into books too, like S*it My Dad Says. That’s some funny stuff. Now it looks like CEO blogger Steve Spangler is coming out with a book too. His is called Naked Eggs and Flying Potatoes. A curious title. In actuality I think his book is more of an amalgamation of his video content than his blog posts, but nonetheless the finished book looks impressive. Congrats Steve!

Folks often ask me if I’m going to write another book. My answer: I doubt it. It’s too painful (like birthing a baby, though, as a man, I can’t truly appreciate the pain of childbirth), and it pays less than minimum wage if you work out the numbers. Folks will then chime in with “Yeah, and why bother with a physical book anyways when everybody’s migrating online!” That I don’t agree with. There are a very large group of holdouts — me included — who still prefer the feel of printed books, who enjoy the experience of curling up with a good book rather than a laptop or ebook reader. And yes I own an iPad, but I don’t read books on it. And I don’t plan to anytime soon. Call me a Luddite.

Earlier this month I went to Las Vegas to attend (and speak at) PubCon, a conference renowned among search engine marketers. Many of my fellow SEO professionals in attendance were also bloggers. The organizers of Pubcon, including Brett Tabke and Joe Morin, had the foresight to offer the bloggers an irresistible offer, a “Bloggers Night Out“…

“So to put a twist on things, we are excited to announce that we have secured several hundred tickets to some of the best live theatre that Las Vegas has to offer. After years of having conferences in this town we’ve made a few friends and now these friends of ours at venues such as Blue Man Group, Cirque Du Soleil, MGM Grand, Treasure Island and The Wynn Las Vegas have graciously offered us tickets for our attendees in the hopes that they wouldn’t mind compiling a little review telling them what you think of their shows.”

I was really, really impressed with the generous offer. So I put my hand up. And I’m pleased to say that I was one of the lucky recipients to the Cirque du Soleil show called “Ka.” I’m a huge fan of Cirque du Soleil and had high expectations for this show. And boy it did not disappoint! I had a great seat and to take the show in. It was quite a different show from the ones I had seen in the past, such as La Nouba, Alegria, and Saltimbanco. It was a spectacle full of warriors swinging from ropes and jumping off balconies. They did the most amazing stunts on the stage as it rotated and tipped to the vertical.

It’s really forward-thinking on Cirque du Soleil’s part to agree to participate in something like this for Ka and for their other show, Mystere. Not only did I enjoy their show immensely, but I was clearly happy to blog about it to tell you what an amazing time I had (as you read in the paragraph above).

Now my challenge to you: can you emulate Cirque du Soleil’s marketing prowess by giving something of significant value away to bloggers? Reach out with this gift to bloggers in a positive, non-demanding way, and then get out of the way so those bloggers can spread the word about your quality service, product or, in this case, show.