Book-Blog Hybrid That Works

I’m not sure how I stumbled across the blog Ultra-Gross: Your Source for Gross News, but I’m impressed. It gets the job done, which is to say it offers ongoing promotion of author Bart King’s The Big Book of Gross Stuff, published last year by Gibbs Smith.

The blog, like the book, is a compendium of short reports with a…certain quality in common. As such, the website functions as a continuation of the book, and I suppose a head start on a second volume, should the market demand one.

The site also offers a front door to draw in potential buyers through Google, with enough sampling to offer reassurance about precisely how gross the book is and enough new material to keep big fans coming back.

Not every book lends itself to this sort of promotion, of course. Even with other nonfiction topics, it would be hard to find such a steady supply of news to share.