The Blooker Prize
What We Did
We created the Blooker Prize, the world’s first literary prize for “blooks” – books based on blogs or other online content.
Outcome
The first Blooker Prize, awarded in 2006, won global media attention on a scale that, well, staggered all involved.
The 2007 Blooker then won even more; the BBC alone covered it over 20 times.
In just two years, the Blooker made a global name, respected by bloggers and mainstream media alike.
Coverage for it repeatedly drove huge traffic to Lulu.com, the self-publishing site that sponsored it, helping Lulu’s traffic rise almost seven-fold in barely 18 months and its business grow over 10% PER MONTH.
Even the boss of Lulu’s biggest rival hailed the Blooker as “absolute genius”.
Googling the Blooker at one stage delivered 755,000 search results. The word “blook” entered the Collins English Dictionary, whose editors credited the Blooker for its rise.
“Julie and Julia”, the first Blooker winner, became a hit Nora Ephron movie, starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams.
Coverage
Some highlights of the coverage include:
- 755,000 Google results
- Over 5,000 blog-posts
- Over 1,000 pieces of mainstream coverage
- Over 20 pieces of BBC coverage one year alone
- “Cooker Beats Hooker to Win Blooker"
- “Absolute genius.”
