1. Start the right kind of blog.

Your personal blog isn't good enough. Book deals for personal, story-telling blogs fizzled out a few years ago. There's just too much research for the publisher and no guarantee of mass appeal. The latest book deals look more like movie deals: A conceptual hook will draw people in even if some of the jokes fall flat. There are three kinds of blogs that recently got deals:

A. Whimsical Recognizable Aspects Of Everyday Life
Examples: Stuff White People Like, Postcards From Yo Momma
Likable, easy-to-understand blogs with a regular format. The title explains the whole concept. Make an idea you can explain in one short sentence. It's easy to market, easy to remember, easy to get blogged.
Suggestions: Ideas I Had In The Shower; Things My Kids Said

B. Unique Life Story That's Actually Many Short Stories
Example: The Secret Diary Of Steve Jobs
This is very tough, and I don't personally recommend it. You must either be a famous or extraordinary person or impersonate one. But you have to be a great writer too — there are two sites full of terrible spoof blogs.
Suggestions: Fake Obama; How I Was Actually Raised By Wolves

C. Tiny Works Of Art
Examples: Indexed, Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle, I Can Has Cheezburger
The perfect grist for a coffee-table or "tiny" book. "Indexed" is just little jokes in the form of graphs, "Cheezburger" is of course photos with captions, and "Obama" is simply random slogans about how much the presidential candidate is a cool guy, kind of like "Chuck Norris Facts" (which also got a book deal). Again, stick to one format and fully explore it. If doing the same thing over and over wasn't a path to success, you'd never hear of Jackson Pollock or Dilbert.
Suggestions:

2. Discover yourself.
After a couple of weeks, you should have enough material to start spreading your blog around. Don't just wait to get discovered, but don't overmarket yourself. Put a copy of your blog on Tumblr and LiveJournal for readers that wouldn't otherwise follow you. (Since I started reading Tumblr blogs I find myself checking other blogs less.) Start following other people on those sites, which is less crass than commenting on normal blogs and putting your URL in your signature.
If your blog catches on there, you can start submitting to bigger blogs. But you might want to have a friend do it. I have a few regular tipsters who point me to good blogs by their friends. I'm more likely to follow their leads than someone self-promoting. Still, a well-written e-mail to Gawker's tipline might get you a mention. Same goes for Boing Boing. By that point linkbloggers like Jason Kottke and Rex Sorgatz will notice you if you're worthy.
If you do self-promote and no one picks it up, start over. (If you're reading this article, you're not in it for the love.)
Meanwhile back on your blog, don't stop writing. I stupidly gave up on my blog Bad Idea A Day just when people started to notice it. Now I'm restarting and I have to earn my readership from scratch. Also, have an about page so you're ready for Step 3.

3. Ask to meet an agent.
If your idea is wildly successful but no agent has called, find Kate Lee. The agent (who doesn't have an easily googleable home page) was profiled in the New Yorker in 2004 when blog book deals were still novel. Though Gawker didn't think the trend would stick, Lee kept selling blogger books. Last year she sold blogger Rachel Sklar's Jew-ish; this week she sold Postcards From Yo Momma, written by Jessica Grose of Jezebel and Gawker alum Doree Shafrir.
Of course you could talk to other agents; White People was sold by William Morris's Erin Malone.

So did it work? If not, try again. If so, go to hell you lucky bastard. I'll be spitting at you during your reading, next to the guy from White Whine.

We will say this for "Stuff White People Like"—if it was a list, it might be quite funny. "Expensive sandwiches" is a funny phrase. But, christ, the execution? The writing? We make no bones about the literary or even humorous merit of our daily output, but please compare "Stuff White People Like" entry #14, Having Black Friends, to that once-controversial piece of ancient internet satire Black People Love Us, a site that identifies its targets with more care and pierces them with more skill.

"Stuff White People Like" is a retrofitted Sinbad routine. It's the internet equivalent of Michael Scott re-telling a Chris Rock joke. In The New Republic, the man who attemped to popularize the terrible let-us-never-speak-of-it-again term "grups" not only leveled these criticisms but also pointed out why "white people" love "Stuff White People Like." Three reasons: "it's funny 'cause it's true", "it's funny because I'm superior to those white people", and "white people dance like this."

In The Root (an online magazine this white person likes), Gary Dauphin puts it succinctly: "Usually, even jokey talk about whiteness has a whiff of danger to it, but SWPL is likely the safest, most affable racial satire ever, a loving high-five between friends passing as critique." (He also points out that white people like stealing and repurposing elements of black identity.)

And, yes, those are the intellectual criticisms. But didn't we mention that we're also sick of the hand-wringing? The side-choosing? It's just a stupid occasionally entertaining blog! But then the author—who is apparently Canadian, and thus an authority on what white people like, even though he has friends of varying ethnicites—received $300k to turn it into a book and so now we're probably going to have to hear even more debates about What It All Means whenever this book is actually published, unless of course by then President Barack Obama has led us all into the glorious post-racial fruitopia of tomorrow.

Long story short, too-clever-by-half liberal arts school graduates like blogging, regardless of race. And the rest of the nation, white, black, or otherwise, doesn't give a shit.

St. John, best known for his thick locks and most-emailed metrosexual story, is working on a book about a youth soccer team in Clarkston, Ga. Universal has already acquired the movie rights for the yet to-be-published book based on an article he published in the New York Times last year.

In light of the fact that St. John's movie deal was worth $2 to $3 million, he only needs the Times for their health care coverage. But the piece was great promotion for the book and subsequent film. St. John, who also wrote a book about Alabama football based on New York Times reporting, is bigger than the Sunday Styles breaches he started in. The Times isn't playing the fool. By letting St. John go on a semi-sabbatical, they got to run a great a story first while keeping St. John under contract.

Wall Street Journal writers are upset about this new deal. But they're forgetting that the paper will also help with promotion. If reporters want to be brands, it's only fair for their papers want to be their agents.

"Journal Seeks a Cut in Reporters' Book Deals" [NYO]

"Refugees Find Hostility and Hope on Soccer Field" [NYT]

It is now 11:30 am.

The streets outside the Iraqi Islamic Party Headquarters, in the neighborhood of Yarmouk, are slowly emptying. Traffic disappears; shop owners decide it is the time to take a break. The street kids are nowhere to be seen.

The men are in position.

12:00 noon. The meeting ends, goodbyes are said, cards exchanged.

Another call. Perhaps a hand signal.

She is in the second car.

The first car drives out of the compound.

Three minutes later, her car follows.

She is sitting in the backseat.

It is her last day on Earth.

The week before a major battle had taken place on Haifa Street, a five minute drive from the bureau but outside the Green Zone... I wanted to get to Haifa street, what was being called "an insurgent stronghold." It took two days to process the request.

Andi had come over to the bureau Thursday afternoon. Everything was going well until I was about to leave her alone in the office. I got worried she would check my email on the screen of my computer.

"I have to close my email account, I don't want you looking at my email."

"What are you hiding," she asked.

"Nothing," I said," but I know if you see the name of any girl you'll get upset."

She didn't like this, and for about fifteen minutes I apologized, before we went to my bedroom.

This time, she forgave me quickly; she seemed to have gotten upset only because that was what was expected, the role we were so used to playing. I say something stupid, or do something stupid, she gets angry at me, I beg and apologize, tell her she is the love of my life, and we make up. We layed down for about an hour or so. We didn't have sex.

The messages I sent her from my Iraqna gives me space for only 25 of them, and they don't have a date.
Love you cub [jan 17.
Love jan 17
Hug panda [jan 17
Cub?
Cub?
Cub love you
Leaving now love
Love cub
Love you
Love
Hi cub
I miss you
Love you cub
Love you baby
Almost over!
Love you
Oh cub
Love you
Love cub
Be careful love
Love
Going home soon

April Fools! —Jon