Well, someone had to do it, and I think I’m the first. I’ve archived my first two years of twittering to a hardback book. (For those of you who don’t get Twitter, and those who are just bored by it’s sudden, seeming ubiquity: move along. Nothing to see here.)
I wanted to test Lulu‘s capacity for hardback books, to continue experimenting with the literary cornucopia machine, and to see if you could make a traditional diary/journal in retrospect. And you can, and it’s quite nice (apart from some weird kerning issues). No, most of it doesn’t mean anything, certainly not to anyone else, but it makes physical a very real time and effort.
(It’s a seriously good way of practicing your InDesign scripting skills too, all you book design nerds and Start-with-XMLers.)
When Twitter is inevitably replaced by something else, I don’t want to lose all those incidentals, the casual asides, the remarks and responses. That’s all really. This seems like a nice way to do it, and I’ll probably do it again in a couple of years time.
And yes, I’ll make one from your tweets, if you ask nicely and pay me a lot of money.
Update: Here’s the very hacky, very simple script I used to get all my tweets, as several people have requested. Use at your own risk. There’s almost certainly a better way.
[…] para informar clientes sobre novas fornadas de pães e guloseimas. O Twitter já rendeu até um livro (não-publicado) cheio de “twittadas” e algumas escolas do Reino Unido estão pensando […]
Pingback by Twouble with Twitters « — April 7, 2009 @ 11:48 am
[…] Twittbook: Livro Com Twittadas […]
Pingback by Pauta Livre News Podcast #3 | Pauta Livre News — April 8, 2009 @ 7:44 am
Where did the cover illustration come from? Great project.
Comment by Austin — April 8, 2009 @ 11:58 pm
@Austin – it’s an old print of a New England whaler, from the Wikimedia Commons.
Jonathan and Anonymous – play nicely please. But I’m not going to repeat this again: It is NOT for sale.
Comment by James Bridle — April 9, 2009 @ 1:44 pm
[…] d’abord, un peu d’histoire. Tout a commencé avec l’idée étrange qu’a eu James Bridle : récupérer une archive contenant tous les twits qu’il avait posté sur Twitter depuis […]
Pingback by Anthilemoon » Archive du blog » Créer un Tweetbook ou un Blogbook — April 10, 2009 @ 3:37 pm
[…] Bridle ha scritto MY LIFE IN TWEETS… due anni di updates della sua vita raccolti in un unico […]
Pingback by Enciclopedia in 140 caratteri. Il nuovo standard è deciso da Twitter. | FastForward Blog — April 17, 2009 @ 12:12 pm
[…] os tweets em livro. E foi exactamente isto que fez James Bridle (@STML), editor do blog Book Two, fez. Segundo o autor, que gosta de experimentar as possibilidades da internet, a ideia era testar […]
Pingback by Tweets viram Livro — April 17, 2009 @ 3:12 pm
I love the idea behind this, but never been a codeslinger and my days as an XML slinger are loooooooong past. Wondering how long it will be before someone sets up a site to semi-automate this process, at least enough to turn it into a PDF e-book (which could presumably then be printed through Lulu, Blurb, etc.). I’d pay quite a bit for something like this, though not nearly what I expect it would actually cost James to do it. :)
Comment by Jesse Wilkins — April 21, 2009 @ 6:46 pm
Great idea, James!
And what about the results in marketing?
@laisbueno
Comment by LaÃs Bueno — April 27, 2009 @ 6:22 pm
[…] In March 2009, James Bridle compiled all two years of his tweets into a 270 page hardback book. James thinks he was the first […]
Pingback by Tweetbook « Social Archivist — August 21, 2009 @ 7:45 am
[…] very reminiscent of James Bridle’s Tweetbook and a prime example of hacking current technologies to get what doesn’t, but should exist: I […]
Pingback by Newspaper » Lone Gunman — October 1, 2009 @ 4:02 pm
[…] Twittter (que não passa de um microblog) já serviu de fonte para vários livros tanto aqui quanto lá fora — sim, você leu direito: livro inteiros só com frases publicadas no […]
Pingback by Aprendiz de Escritor » Arquivo do Aprendiz » Blog vira livro que vira filme! — October 9, 2009 @ 1:00 am
[…] @stml: The Mad Genius: Brit James Bridle should be celebrated high-and-low for his brilliant experimentations in the future of publishing, but he seems to fly under the radar of the mainstream. James is behind such initiatives as: Bookkake, Bkkeepr, BookSeer, BookCampLondon, the first Tweet Book. […]
Pingback by 15 (More) Twitter Users Shaping the Future of Publishing — October 24, 2009 @ 7:37 pm
[…] of bypassing publishers entirely, thanks to services like Lulu. That’s what prolific Twitter user James Bridle did, creating the first ever “Tweetbook,†aptly titled My Life In Tweets. Not exactly […]
Pingback by From blog to book deal. — October 31, 2009 @ 11:38 pm
[…] de twitterisation en un ouvrage qu’il aura finalement lui-même autopublié, sous le titre My life in tweets. Il s’agit par ailleurs d’un volume 1, allant de février 2007 à 2009. La suite […]
Pingback by Le roman tiré de Twitter : les tweets de l’internet au papier « Blog sur les fictions émergentes — February 5, 2010 @ 8:56 pm
[…] tweets becomes more mainstream? Already, there are a couple of projects where individuals such as James Bridle have self-published a compilation of their tweets. While this is still at the individual level and […]
Pingback by Is Re-Tweeting a copyright violation? | { enygmatic } — February 24, 2010 @ 5:25 pm