Like most "overnight successes," this one actually resulted from years of steady craftsmanship. With no professional writing credentials or audience, Ouzounian began posting a sexist, profane, politically incorrect Web site using the pseudonym Maddox. By 2006, his daily readership reached 150,000, and a specialty publisher persuaded him to compile the blog material into a book.
When his book was ready, Ouzounian needed only to press a button to create a No. 1 bestseller on Amazon: sending an e-mail to his registered readers, telling them his book was for sale.
Maddox is one of several young amateur comedy writers who've struck gold in book publishing after proving their material on a blog. Other recent bestsellers include_ Real Ultimate Power: The Official Ninja Book_, by Robert Hamburger (a pseudonym), I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max, and The Modern Drunkard by Frank Kelly Rich.
Some of the humor bloggers try to appear as adolescent and rude as possible. For example, Hamburger's book description on Amazon begins this way:
Dear Stupid Idiots,
A lot of you have been saying that I don't know anything about REAL ninjas. But that's a bunch of bull crap! You dummies don't know anything. And maybe YOU should get a life. I bet a lot of you have never even seen a girl naked!
#www.TimBete.com. # Here's a humor blog for grown-ups. Tim Bete uses this site to publish his award-winning parenting humor column, previously featured in the Christian Science Monitor _ and several parenting magazines. He used the blog as a launch pad for his 2005 book _In the Beginning ... There Were No Diapers. #Politics#