Is blog–>fame–>business book the new standard?

A phone conversation today made me realize how the business book world might have a new standard.

Recently, it was announced that Gary Vaynerchuk will be getting a seven-figure book deal.

I like to assign marketing/consumer culture books in my marketing classes, and on the phone today I realized that Vaynerchuk’s book deal is a departure from past book/fame/blog models.  I’ll use Douglas Rushkoff and Rob Walker to contrast Vaynerchuk’s book/fame/blog model.

Take Douglas Rushkoff, whose books Coercion and Get Back in the Box I like to discuss in my classes.  Ruskoff’s book/fame/blog model (and I use “fame” in the post-fragmentation sense) would go like book–>fame–>blog.  Ruskoff has wrote Media Virus and Coercion, became famous for these books, and now has a blog with forum section.

I think Rob Walker’s book/fame/blog model is more like book–>blog–>fame.  He wrote Buying In, started his blogs murketing.com and unconsumption.tumblr.com, and is now famous.

Which brings us back to Gary Vaynerchuk.  Gary Vaynechuk’s book/fame/blog model is blog–>fame–>book.

I know there will always be exceptions to these rules and that people will become famous for a variety of reasons; however, I think that in the business/marketing/consumption book world more books are going to be from people who have proven through their blog that they’re book-worthy.