The Winners of the 2007 Lulu Blooker Prize have been announced.

They are as follows:

Overall Winner (and Non-Fiction winner) - "My War: Killing Time In Iraq" by Colby Buzzell

Fiction Winner - "The Doorbells of Florence" by Andrew Losowsky

Comics Winner - "Mom's Cancer" by Brian Fies

Included below is the official press release in its entirety.

NEWS RELEASE – MAY 14, 07: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

U.S. SOLDIER’S IRAQ MEMOIR WINS GLOBAL PRIZE FOR BOOKS FROM BLOGS

Judges: “A Triumph For Blogs Over Traditional Media – Would Never Have Been Written Without Blogging”

Prize Announced As U.S. Military Clamps Down On Soldiers’ Blogs

Cult Book Acclaimed by Kurt Vonnegut, and…
Arianna Huffington: “Endlessly surprisingly… delightfully profane…”

“Accidental Author” Never Expected To Write A Book His “Blog of War” Produces “Best Book To Come From Iraq War”

LONDON – May 14, 2007: A cult book born from a blog (online journal) written by a U.S. machine-gunner in post-invasion Iraq has won the world’s only prize for “blooks”, or books based on blogs.

“My War: Killing Time in Iraq”, by Colby Buzzell, has topped 110 entries from 15 countries to win the 2007 Lulu Blooker Prize (www.lulublookerprize.com) – sponsored by Lulu (www.lulu.com), the self-publishing website and marketplace for digital content.

The announcement follows hard on the news that the US military has ordered its soldiers to stop posting to blogs without prior content approval. This could spell the end of military blogs or “milblogs”, and of milblog blooks -- a nascent literary genre, which Buzzell has helped pioneer. “’My War’ may be the last frank and open milblog blook”, says Paul Jones, chair of the Blooker judges.

Buzzell’s book wins the $10,000/c. £5,000 first prize, having already won cult status and critical acclaim for its raw, grunt’s-eye view of modern war. Some rate it the best book to come from this Iraq war. The late Kurt Vonnegut, Buzzell’s own literary idol, wrote him a fan postcard, which now hangs on his wall.

Arianna Huffington, the columnist, author and blogger who was among this year’s Blooker judges, calls Buzzell’s book “endlessly surprising… delightfully profane… … an unfiltered, often ferocious expression of his boots-on-the-ground point-of-view of the Iraq war.”

Buzzell, 31, is an “accidental author”, who never set out to write a book. His book came about after he traded a dead-end life in San Francisco to join the Army.

“Kids from the suburbs don’t really the join the military”, he writes. “At least not where I’m from.” But this skateboarder and hard rock fan from the north California suburbs did join -- and soon found himself in “a placed called Iraq” as a machine-gunner in the controversial Stryker Brigade Combat Team, a new kind of army unit using the latest combat technology.

Shortly after reaching Iraq, Buzzell “discovered something called ‘blogs’ and started blogging from a war zone; mainly to kill time.”

He would dash each day into the Army tent that housed a cyber-café, and blog about the chaos, fear and violence around him: the blog of war. While TV channels broadcast Army briefings, Buzzell blogged about relaxing to Metallica on his iPod and fellow grunts scouring the Web for porn.

By the time the Army closed down his blog, it had built a growing following among fellow bloggers, mainstream media and interested publishers. “I was getting hundreds of emails a day”, recalls Buzzell.

The resulting book has now been translated into seven languages. It tells what its publishers call “the real stories of the war: a firefight where the resistance came from ‘men in black’; a night spent chain-smoking in the guard tower, counting the tracer bullets being fired overhead; and the hesitation of a young soldier who has been passed from platoon to platoon because he was too scared to fight”.

“The success of books like “My War” reflects the growing recognition of ‘trickle-up writing’, or writing that starts online’, says Bob Young, CEO of Lulu.com, the Blooker’s sponsor.

Judges Say: “A Triumph For Blogs Over Traditional Media”

The Blooker judges are all independent of Lulu and were unanimous in naming “My War” this year’s Blooker winner. “I loved the fact that it undercut many of the mainstream-media-fueled assumptions about the war -- both positive and negative”, says Arianna Huffington, the Blooker judge, who has herself been called “queen of the blogosphere”.

“Blogs are by nature personal, passionate, raw, intimate, and immediate”, she says. “At their best, they offer an unparalleled window into the head and heart of the blogger. And that’s why I responded so strongly to ‘My War’.

“Buzzell never takes the easy route of painting Iraq in black and white tones. His account gives flesh-and-blood -- and anger, scorn, bile, and unexpected humor -- to the Iraq debacle. His delightfully profane account loses nothing in the transformation from blog to blook.’

Julie Powell, winner of the inaugural Blooker last year and a judge this time, shares the enthusiasm: “There’s this sort of dumb-ass tone that makes the insights, when they come – and they come a lot – all the more explosive.”

Rohit Gupta, the writer, blogger and Blooker judge based in Mumbai, India, comments: "It is this powerful effect of a soldier running to the cyber cafe between raids and drills that gives “My War” its distinctive merit. This blook was made possible by blogs as a medium; it is unique to blogs."

Nick Cohen, the British columnist, writer and fellow Blooker judge, agrees: “Of all the books in the competition, ‘My War’ is the one most likely to last. If, in 20 years time, people want to know what it was like to fight in Iraq, they can pick up ‘My War’ and find out. It tells what it's like to be a grunt fighting in the Sunni Triangle – with more power and authority than the best ‘embedded reporter’ could manage. It is something of a triumph for blogs over traditional media.

“And it would never have been written if blogging had not been invented. In theory, Buzzell could have kept a diary, gone home and turned it into a book. In practice, he wouldn't have had the self-confidence. His blog gave him strength because it attracted praise from hundreds of readers in the eight weeks before the authorities stopped him posting from a cyber café at the US base in Mosul. Their encouragement made him realise he could make it as an author.’

“Want To Write A Book?”, Asks Buzzell. “Start A Blog”

Despite his book’s success, Buzzell today hesitates to call himself a writer. Asked his day-job, he replies: “I don’t really have one. I’m currently un-employed and my days pretty much consist of ‘hanging out’ during the day, and at night I drink.”

What advice does he give those who ask him to get published? “After I tell them, “I don’t know”, I usually tell them to go start a blog. It’s what I did, and if you think about it a blog is the best and most affordable way for an absolute nobody with no formal journalism or writing education to be a published.”

Blogs And Blooks Are Blooming – A New Blog Every Half-A-Second

A blog or web-log is narrowly defined as an online journal but blogs increasingly take diverse forms. Technorati.com, the leading blog search engine, now indexes over 70m blogs, with 175,000 new ones created every day – more than one blog every half-a-second. This makes blogs the fastest-growing kind of new media.

Meanwhile, a growing number of bloggers are now publishing traditional, printed books or “blooks” based on their blogs.

“Blooks are the latest landmark in the history of books”, says Young. “They are a new stage in the life-cycle of content, if not an whole new category of literature, with its own creative process and emerging literary style.”

The Blooker honours blooks in three categories: Fiction, Non-Fiction and Comic-Blooks, with the winner of one, this year Non-Fiction, named the overall winner. It is open to any blook published in English anywhere by anyone, making it both the geographically largest and most eclectic literary prize in the world.

Other Blooker 2007 Winners: Postcards and Doorbells

“My War’s” closest rivals for this year’s Blooker were a book of teenage post-cards and stickers and one of stories and photos of “The Doorbells of Florence”.

“My Secret: A Post-Secret Book” by Frank Warren, was named runner-up to “My War” in the Non-Fiction category. It comprises some 175 handmade postcards revealing the innermost secrets of teens and students worldwide.

It is based on a blog (www.postsecret..com) that has become a web sensation, attracting nearly 3.5 million visitors a month – making it one of the world’s 10 most popular blogs. His book, which has become a bestseller, contains his pick of the 100,000-plus anonymous postcards he’s received so far.

“Post Secret is a multi-author collaboration of the type for which the net is becoming famous’, says Paul Jones, the American academic and internet pioneer who chaired this year’s Blooker judges. “It’s the work of a group of people unknown to one another but driven by a common obsession and collected by a reliable editor.”

Fiction Winner: “The Doorbells Of Florence”

The winner of the Fiction category is “The Doorbells Of Florence”, a British blogger’s self-published book of photographs and stories, which had already been tipped by one critic to become “one of the cult books of the decade”.

Its author is Andrew Losowsky, 29, a British blogger, journalist and photographer now based in Madrid. His book comprises a collection of 36 colour photographs of Florentine doorbells, each accompanying a “strange story about the people and things that may or may not live inside”.

Since the photographs that inspired the stories were first posted on the photo-sharing website, Flickr, Losowsky bills it as the first volume of a new literary genre called “flicktion”, defined as fiction based on photographs. Losowsky self-published the resulting book on Lulu.com itself.

“The style is more Calvino than Dickens”, says Paul Jones, referring to Italo Calvino (1923-1985), the Italian writer known for quirky short stories written with a touch of fantasy: “Each image invokes a new tale related to the others in the collection only because they also come from pictures of similar objects in the same town and are written by the same author.”

The winner of the Comics Category is “Mom’s Cancer”, by Brian Fies, a graphic novel telling the true tale of Fies’ mother’s battle with metastatic lung cancer, and how it affects both patient and family. It began as serialized web comic, that garnered a growing readership, followed by a book deal.

“Mom's Cancer takes web comics beyond science fiction parodies and fan boy remixes of superhero comics”, says Paul Jones. “The story telling is engaging. The story is important, as well as fun, surprising and rewarding to read. Well-drawn and a real winner.”

THE BLOOKER WINNERS IN FULL

• OVERALL/GRAND WINNER
And Winner Of Non-Fiction Category
My War: Killing Time in Iraq by Colby Buzzell
Publisher: US: Berkley/Penguin Group (September 5, 2006); UK: Corgi Adult
Price: $15.00 USD (paperback); £7.99
Source blog: My War - http://www.cbftw..com/

Non-Fiction Runner-Up
My Secret: A PostSecret Book by Frank Warren
Publisher: US: Regan/HarperCollins (October 24, 2006); UK: Orion
Price: $19.95 USD (hardcover); £12.99
Source blog: PostSecret – www.postsecret.com

Fiction Winner
The Doorbells of Florence by Andrew Losowsky
Publisher: Prandial Publishing/Lulu (self-published)
Price: $29.85 USD (paperback); £16.45
Source website: http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewlos

Fiction Runner-Up
Monster Island: A Zombie Novel by David Wellington
Publisher: US: Thunder’s Mouth Press/Avalon (April 1, 2006); UK: Snowbooks
Price: $13.95 USD (paperback); £7.99
Source blog: www.monsternovel.com

Comics Winner
Mom’s Cancer by Brian Fies
Publisher: Abrams Image (March 1, 2006)
Price: $12.95 USD (hardcover); £7.95
Source website: www.momscancer.com

ABOUT THE LULU BLOOKER PRIZE
(www.lulublookerprize.com)

The Lulu Blooker Prize is the world’s first literary prize for “blooks” -- books based on blogs, websites or other online content. It is awarded to English-language blooks in three categories: Fiction, Non-Fiction and Comics (based on web-comics). One of the three category winners is deemed the overall winner and receives the first prize of $10,000/ c. £5,000, out of a total prize of $15,000/ c. £7,500. Its name comes from the word “blook” but also pays an affectionate nod to another important literary prize. It is sponsored by Lulu (www.lulu.com), the world's fastest-growing provider of print-on-demand books and premier marketplace for digital content, including a growing number of blooks.

ABOUT LULU: Lulu (www.lulu.com) is the Internet’s premier marketplace for new digital content, with over 200,000 recently published titles, and over 5,000 new titles added each week, created by people in 80 countries. Lulu is changing publishing by enabling the creators of books, video, periodicals, multimedia and other content to publish their work themselves with complete editorial and copyright control. Lulu empowers these individuals and corporations to create high quality content products to sell directly to their customers and the rest of the Lulu.com marketplace. With storefronts provided as well as other marketing assistance, creators are fully supported to profit from their work. With Lulu offices in the US, Canada and Europe, Lulu customers can reach the globe.

FURTHER INFORMATION:

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• Will Paget: 0798 9301610; 020 7323 6963; will@pagetbaker.com
• Peter Freedman: 07884 266329; peter@think-inc.co.uk

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