Christian Lander, the originator of the blog, Stuff White People Like, which has now been turned into a book was talking on Radio National’s The Book Show the other day. The timeline of what happened to him in 2008 — the “most ridiculous year of my life” — is very funny. And, if you have a blog, both envy-inducing and terrifying.

On 18 January 2008, a date he usually writes on a whiteboard when talking to a crowd, he was at his home inVancouver, talking with his friend, Miles via Instant Messaging about the US show, The Wire. Miles, a Phillipino, said he “just didn’t trust any white person who didn’t watch The Wire,” and they started joking about what white people were doing instead of watching The Wire. They thought, “mmm … well, they’re probably going to therapy … or to yoga … or getting divorced.”

The last thought in particular made them laugh so much Christian knew “it was blog time”. He went to WordPress, the same WordPress used by the blog you’re reading now, the same WordPress on which “thousands of people start a pathetic blog every day,” including the three or four he himself had started the year before. He typed in the words “Stuff White People Like” and took it from there.

Two weeks later he was getting about 100 hits a day (from my point of view, a very great day). When he had about 25 entries he decided it was pretty funny and that he should send the link to his friends, a group of about 20 to 30 people, none of them “influential or … like, working for the New York Times,” but either “unemployed or in graduate school.”

What happened next is that they sent the link on to their friends and within just a couple of days, the traffic had “spiked to 1,000 hits a day.” He then decided to register the .com domain for the site, and on that day the site was linked to from the US site, Comedy Central, just before crashing in a heap from the huge number of hits. By 10 February (count them, just 23 days after launching), the site was getting 30,000 hits a day, shortly after, 100,000, and then 800,000 hits a day.

At this point he says, “I’m crap at my job … I’m not doing any work … just doing interviews all day long” with media outlets including National Public Radio (NPR), the New York Times, the LA Times and so on. “I really should have been fired,” he says.

By the end of February, literary agents and Hollywood talent agents started contacting him, and by 1 March (44 days after launching the site) he signed with an agent. By 31 March he’d been given US book deal, a whole 30 days to write the second half of the book, and had quit his job. By 30 April, the original manuscript of the book was done. By 1 June, the final manuscript was done. By 1 July, the book was published. By 14 July, it was on the New York Times bestseller list.

From joking with Miles to New York Times bestseller list in 177 days.

To listen to the program, click here.