Blogger to Publisher: The Daily Beast will print...eventually

This weekend Galley Cat has noted that The Daily Beast is in the midst of its first publication. For over a year, this comprehensive emag/blog has been covering current events, arts, politics and entertainment. (They even have weekly crossword puzzles). Partnered with Perseus Books, the Beast is launching their first book "Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America" authored by John Avlon.

Without even broaching political issues, the Daily Beast is ruffling the publishing industry's feathers, again. In the current, infant stage of literary digitization, most publishers stick to hard copy books first, and then, maybe, they will later release an ebook version. Not so with the Beast. Jumping right into ebook form, the Daily Beast promises a paperback to come.

While established publishers are upset at the Daily Beast's strategy, the move makes sense. Shaped from Avlon's blog posting, the book itself evolved in an untraditional manner; why should the publication be any different? The digital world is the Daily Beast's native environment. Here it has readership, presence and support, so extending its ventures first in cyberspace, where it is at its strongest, just make sense. For ink-and-paper publishers, digital moves are the ventures and experiments they must contend with; it is their last frontier. For a blogger gone publisher, the process is, more or less, reversed. Holding the book in their hands is the last unknown, the leap of faith, and the final proof the they have arrived.