Clare Christian is Managing Director and Publishing Director of The Friday Project and Managing Director of parent company, Friday Project Media Plc. Clare made the less-than-obvious move into publishing following a degree in Zoology. She is now an experienced publisher who has worked for several of the large publishing houses, including John Wiley, Orion, Pearson and Hodder
Headline.

Alongside her day job, she has worked on a number of web projects, including co-founding the award-winning satirical comment sheet The Friday Thing in 2001. In 2004, Clare selfpublished (with Paul Carr) London by London, the book of their hugely popular London by London website. The success of this book provided the seed for the development of The Friday Project and the launch of the company in 2005. The Friday Project is the first mainstream publishing house in the world to specialise in bringing together the worlds of print publishing and web publishing. Their primary aim is to turn the web's best sites into the world's best books, and they are also working to bring web talent to other media including television and mobile. The Friday Project

Clare Christian, WWN Talk - 12 Mar 2007

HOW TO TURN YOUR BLOG INTO A BOOK
Report by Lorna Read

Our March speaker was Clare Christian, Managing Director and Publishing Director of The Friday Project. Having worked for several large mainstream publishing houses such as Orion, Pearson and Hodder Headline, she developed an interest in the web and, in her spare time, co-founded award-winning satirical newsletter, The Friday Thing, in 2001, and the website, London By London. In 2004, she self-published, with Paul Carr, a book of London by London, which was so successful that it led to the launch of The Friday Project in 2005, and Friday Books.

The Friday Project is unique in that they gain their publishing inspiration from the internet with the aim of, in Clare’s words, ‘developing brilliant books from the web’. In fact, 95% of their titles have a web element and their editors are skilled at translating web content into a publishable book. Unlike mainstream publishers who usually have a timelag of at least a year between buying a title and getting it into print, Friday often commission just four months ahead of publication, given that most of a book’s content will already be up there in a blog or on a website and will probably just need a bit of tweaking. They have 44 books scheduled for publication in 2007 and 60 for ’08 but, says Clare, they are always on the lookout for new ideas. But, she warns , “don’t start a blog specifically to get a book deal as this is unlikely to work.”

Although The Friday Project do not pay an advance, this has the advantage of allowing an author to start earning royalties right away, instead of having to pay back the advance from sales first. They also pay a higher than usual royalty, meaning that at the end of the day, authors could earn a lot more than if they were being published by a big publishing house and maybe paying 15% to their agent, too. Their bestselling title to date, Blood, Sweat and Tea, taken from the online diary of ambulance driver Tom Reynolds, has sold 25,000 copies since August ’06.

“We’re looking for writers all the time,” said Clare, “and we’re very flexible with regard to subject matter.” Two of their upcoming books are My Boyfriend is a Twat by Zoe McCarthy, and In Search of Adam by Caroline Smailes. Caroline started a blog about her novel, which is where Friday picked it up. It’s dark, gritty literary fiction, in complete contrast to Zoe McCarthy’s book, which is a series of witty snippets from her website, themed as a handbook. Also due for publication soon are Confessions of a Chatroom Freak by Mr Biffo, a zany collection of online conversations, and Greeting the 500 by Jules Segal, the humorous saga of how a drunken bet turned into months of tracking down the famous in order to stage an auction of memorabilia for charity.

“We’re always on the lookout for freelancers,” was another bit of good news from Clare. That means editors, copy editors and proofreaders. If you wish to offer your services, or have an idea you’d like them to consider, then take a look at their website first The Friday Project then contact Clare Christian at clare@thefridayproject.co.uk and do give her time to reply, as she has an enormous number of ideas and submissions to consider.