From blogs to books

Ice caps are melting, pirates are roaming the waters, the economy is in the crapper, and pigs are giving out their colds. But Neil Pasricha doesn’t write about any of those things. Pasricha writes about all things awesome.

His blog, 1000 Awesome Things, is a daily chronicle of the good. Watching your odometer click over a major milestone, the first squeeze from a new tube of toothpaste, and today’s, number 766: finding the last item in your size at the store. If that is Stuff White People Like, this is stuff everyone likes.

And like it, they do. His site has had over 3 million hits since he wrote his first post on June 20, 2008. Then in mid April when the nominations were announced for the Oscars of Online, the Webby Awards, the buzz went into over-drive. The offers started pouring in. Literary agencies started to call, and eventually Pasricha inked a deal—with Erin Malone of New York’s William Morris Agency, the same agency behind fellow Torontonian Christian Lander’s book of the blanche.

At the Webby Awards, Pasricha was a hit. He won both the People’s choice and the judge-selected Webby for Personal or Cultural blog. But for a recipient of “the Internet’s highest honour”, Pasricha is a newbie in business of blogging. This time last year, he didn’t even know how to work Wordpress.

“I am really, really tech un-savvy,” Pasricha swears, explaining he relies on friends to explain the web’s finer details. He has a friend to run his Twitter account, which lists short forms of his posts. “I’m a grandma,” he jokes. “I check e-mail and use Microsoft Word.” Until a month ago, he says he was using a six-year-old desktop. At one point in the conversations, he calls RSS web feeds “RRS” then shouts “Ha!” realizing he’s gotten it wrong.

While other bloggers are characterized by narcissism, indulgence and lifecasting (that’s you, Julia Allison), Pasricha is ultra low-key. He insists his existence is simple. He was born in Oshawa, and now lives in Toronto, is single, and works a 9-5 in HR. But after work he returns home, staying up late into the night, typing up eloquent and optimistic musings. He strives for quality and consistency, and is willing to stay up until 3 a.m. if it means pumping out the perfect post.

In the beginning, he was only getting 5 hits a day. Until he e-mailed his parents the URL. They passed it on to other friends and family. His hits doubled. Pasricha saw the power of forward button. Then on post number 980, something happened. Fark.com put his post on playing on old, dangerous playground equipment on its front page. It emerged on the blogosphere’s radar. Soon, Wired ran an article critiquing the blog but calling a particular post “a home run.”

The site exploded. Now, Pasricha is in it for the long haul. He keeps up with his daily posts, but his target ceases to seem any closer. “I’m not very good at math,” Pasricha laughs, claiming it wasn’t until a commenter calculated the date that he realized he’d be blogging out awesome until April 20, 2012.

That should give the site time to mature, and him time to monetize. Pasricha recently returned from New York, where he was discussing book deals. With any like, he’ll follow in the shoes of bloggers-turned-book publishers like Tucker Max, but to this day, he hasn’t made a cent. For now, it’s all about reminding readers of the brighter side. After all, he says, “There are so many good things in life.” No Neil, make that so many awesome things.