Recently I was asked to help update my church’s member directory. Recalling a bad experience with Olan Mills a few years ago, we decided to go the do-it-yourself route. Two professional photographers who are members of the congregation did the photography. I designed the directory in QuarkXpress. For the printing, I used Lulu.com. Lulu is an on-demand Internet-based publisher. You upload a PDF file to their site and then you can order as many copies of the book as you want. Lulu charged about $6 each for our directory – an 8-page full-color letter-sized booklet with a stapled cover, also full color.

There might be cheaper ways to do this, but the speed, quality and ease of Lulu was impressive. I would strongly recommend it to anyone who needs a book printed.

When I launched this blog earlier this year, having fun was only part of my motivation. I also hoped to raise my profile as a professional writer. Those of you who work in media – especially my friends in book publishing – know I have been relentless about promoting this site, perhaps to the point of annoyance.

Well, two months of hard work has paid off! Today I’m proud to announce that I’ve signed a deal with Random House to turn History Eraser Button into a book! The book will be much like what you read here every day, printed on paper and with at least 1/3 all-new content.

I’m not allowed to disclose how much I’m getting paid for this contract, but if you’re thinking “about $300,000,” I’d say you’re pretty close.

Already, my editors/marketing people have been discussing which blog posts will be easiest to re-purpose. “No right to be good” is a popular favorite, and will be stretched to fill a chapter. “This Ikea is going to suck” is good for at least five pages. “Please don’t talk to me about real estate” was never fully realized and can be greatly expanded. We figure we can fill a whole page by printing the word “Howahya?” in 72-point Helvetica. Sterling will be writing a lengthy introduction

Books, as history reminds us, were the original content aggregators.

But before I get too ahead of myself, I should thank all of you who have been so supportive of this project. I also hope you will buy my book when it goes on sale. I don’t want to sound like I’m begging, but the book really means a lot to me. If it does well they might let me write another one. The publication date is one year from now – April 1.

My friend Ned Vizzini is among those who contributed to the book Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure, the SMITH Magazine project recently featured in The New Yorker and probably lots of other places. The concept is pretty simple: Write a six-word story about your life.

Ned and other writers will be reading their six-word memoirs at KGB tonight at 7.

Curiously, the KGB event page misidentifies the subtitle of the book as “Sex-Word Memoirs.” Come to think of it, that’s a way better idea. Here’s mine:

Only thought of five words. Fuck!

More brainstorms welcome in the comments.

Another writer has fessed up to fabricating a memoir…

…or, in other words, living a complete lie.

…or, in other words, overselling a novel.