About the Book(s)

Blogging For Dummies III: Look for it in 2010!

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 07/16 at 12:56 PM • About the Book(s)

I did something pretty exciting this week: I signed a contract to write the third edition of “Blogging For Dummies!”

“Blogging For Dummies, 2nd Edition” came out in January of 2008. Shane Birley was my co-author, and we had a lot of fun (there was also some stress) in working through the book. We really poured as much knowledge as we could into the 368 pages of the book, but you can never cover everything. Doing a third edition is going to give us a chance to respond to the feedback we have received from readers, and to get even more great information into the book. So much has happened in the blogosphere in the year and a half since the second edition was published!

The third edition will be published in January 2010, and I’ll let you know as soon as it is available to pre-order on Amazon.com. In the meantime, we’re about to embark on the writing part of the job, so if you have any suggestions for things that simply must be part of the third edition, or that we got wrong or missed the first time, leave a comment and let us know! This is a great chance to shape how the book comes together so that it is exactly the resource your need!

imageThere was some other exciting “Blogging For Dummies” news in the last couple of weeks: I received copies of “Blogging For Dummies, 2nd Edition” that looked a little odd. Turns out the book has been translated into Italian! “Blog per negati” is what the book is titled in Italian. It’s pretty fun to see it, even though I don’t speak Italian myself. There is also a “Blogging fur Dummies” (German).

 
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Exciting stuff: Blogging for Dummies and SXSW panel

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 08/23 at 07:59 PM • About the Book(s) -- Blogging Events

Blogging for Dummies coverHi all, two exciting pieces of news have made me put the blog back in action today. First, I’m working on a new book: Blogging for Dummies, 2nd Edition.

The first edition was written by Brad Hill, but the publisher—Wiley—wanted to revise the book this year and Brad wasn’t able to fit it into his schedule. So Wiley asked me if I would take the book on, and I’m working away at a revision. Revising a book like this is challenging. Wiley doesn’t really put any of the Dummies books out of print, so I wanted to write a book that would be different enough from the first edition that Brad and I weren’t in competition. Ideally, someone who buys the first book would also benefit from the second. But also, blogging sure has changed a lot! So there’s loads more stuff to try to fit in. I’ll post the proposed table of contents when its a little more firm. At this point, the book should be out in March 2007, and in the meantime you can definitely finds lots of great blogging information in the first edition: Blogging for Dummies.

The other exciting news is that my fellow blog designers and I have put together a panel proposal for SXSW Interactive for 2008: Blog Tool Death Match! We’re really excited to get out there and try to evangelize for our favorite programs, but we do need your help. There are more than 680 panels proposed for SXSW, but only about 120 spots. You can vote for us in the SXSW Panel Picker to help us get there, though. Go to http://panelpicker.sxsw.com, register to vote, and once you’re in, do a search for “death match” and you’ll get our panel to come up. Give us a 5—we’d really appreciate it and we’ll do our darndest to give you a great great panel. Here’s what we proposed to the organizers:

Every blog project starts with the same question: Which blog platform is the right one to use? Answering this question correctly can make or break the final product. Get the nitty-gritty on each platform from experts who will defend their software choice against all challengers. Will it come to blows?

THREE TAKEAWAYS: Our three panelists will argue vehemently about the strongest features and flaws of each platform. Expect tosee sites demonstrated that highlight the best of each blog software choice, and bring your own questions and criticisms to get tips and workarounds.

PANELISTS:

Thanks!

 
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Talking to Other Dummies Authors

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 11/04 at 09:32 AM • About the Book(s)

I’m in San Francisco for the first ever Dummies Authors Conference. There are about 50 Dummies authors here, and the day is packed with discussions about marketing books, the uses of agents, and general Dummies best practices. It’s going to be an interesting day! You can check out the agenda here.

There’s been a bunch of press already, but the most exciting news of the day is that the conference is up for being featured on the Evening News with Katie Couric. In fact, you can actually vote to send Steve Hartman to the conference tomorrow by going to http://www.cbsnews.com and clicking on Assignment America. We’re up against some guy who can talk really fast and a California prison program to send female juvenile delinquents to finish school (“Can etiquette, fashion and dance really set a girl straight?”). Wouldn’t you rather get the inside scoop on the For Dummies books? Of course you would. Go vote.

And, if I haven’t convinced you already, check out the other press coverage today:

Here’s a nice quote from the SFGate.com article:
The “dummies” label could be the weirdest aspect of the whole franchise, as the authors are not really supposed to assume their readers are dumb, just uninformed. The publisher, in an official statement on the matter, calls it a “term of endearment.”
 
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Found an Error in Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies?

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 02/25 at 08:49 AM • About the Book(s)

I heard from my publisher yesterday that they are going to be doing a reprint of “Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies” and that I have a chance to fix any errors, typos, and other problems that are in the current book. This isn’t a new edition, so there won’t be new chapters or anything, but I can fix URLs that are wrong and similar problems.

So, if you have found any, this is the moment to let me know! Leave me a comment or drop me an .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Thanks!

 
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Online Influence: What Blogs Mean to Your Business

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 11/02 at 05:04 PM • About the Book(s) -- Blogging Events -- Blogs

I’ll be speaking to a joint meeting of the High-Tech Communicator’s Exchange and the Web 2.0 group Society for Technical Communication on Nov. 15, in Vancouver. Come on by!

Get the details here.

 
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Day 2 in Asia

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 09/17 at 03:55 PM • About the Book(s)

Book Talk SignThe big event for today was a talk I gave in the MPH Bookstore in the Mid Valley Megamall (Asia’s biggest mall!). This store was huge. Vast. And crowded. I’ve been in large bookstores before, but never one where there were so many bookcases packed in. This place had books.

My talk went well; I spoke for about an hour and hopefully managed not to make a fool of myself. Travis took a bunch of pictures that don’t leave me with much room to believe that, but no one laughed, so that’s OK. I did get a fair number of questions, and good ones, so it became a nice back-and-forth, better than I’ve had in some classrooms!

My thanks to Wiley marketing exec Lai Wai Ching who arranged the event, and ferried me over to it, and then poured a drink into me afterward.

On the sightseeing front, Travis and I went to the Petronas Twin Towers. You may recall these as the tallest buildings in the world. In fact, they are now the second-tallest. They are enormous. You can go up to the skybridge between them but we were too late to get tickets that didn’t conflict with the book talk later, so we’ll try that again on Monday. In the afternoon we went to Chinatown and resisted the temptation to buy bootleg versions of nearly every movie in the theaters right now.

In case you were wondering, Malaysia is hot, at least by my Canadian heat tolerance-weakened self. Hot and muggy.

 
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In-depth Review of Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 07/11 at 10:19 AM • About the Book(s)

My fellow panelist at Blogher, Elisa Camahort (we’ll be talking $$ and Sense), has taken the time to write a lengthy review of Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies. She makes some good points about things I could do better in a revision, but is also finding the book useful. It’s always a good sign when a reviewer says she’s dogeared certain pages!

She offers numerous handy suggestions, tips, tricks, suggested vendors etc. I have already implemented some of Gardner’s suggestions and found a new, better site meter based on recommendations in this book. I’m going to go find an iTunes Now Playing plug-in because she brought it to my attention. The next time I launch a blog I just may try one of the software tools she suggest. (Even though I already use four different tools, I’m always looking for the one that will do everything…and let me do it with minimum hair-pulling.) And I think I have a great place to start to explore adding audioblogging to my blogs, based on her section on that.


Thanks, Elisa!

 
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Catching Up

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 06/14 at 03:07 PM • About the Book(s)

I apologize for the long silence on this blog. Last week was One of Those Weeks. You know the ones—they are the weeks where the only hours you aren’t working at the few you’re sleeping or in the bathroom. So it was productive, but boy, do I need a vacation.

I did take a quick break last night to duck into a book store. Believe it or not, I still hadn’t seen my book in situ, so to speak. I wandered around the huge business and computer section and eventually found “Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies” in the Sales and Marketing section—and it was certainly keeping exalted company!

image

I snuck a quick picture with my camera phone and left happy.

 
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Motivation Through Procrastination

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 05/27 at 04:39 PM • About the Book(s) -- Blogging Tips

I’m working today on writing the pages I need for the BitTorrent for Dummies book deadline I must meet on Monday (I know it’s a holiday—what’s up with that!), but you may have noticed that I’ve posted several times to this blog.

Procrastination on another big project is sure a great way to get work done on other projects, or on your blog!

I hope my editor isn’t reading this. wink

 
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Need BitTorrent Stories

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 05/23 at 01:47 PM • About the Book(s) -- BitTorrent

So I mentioned a while back that I’m writing another book, and that this one is about BitTorrent.

(BitTorrent is a distributed file-sharing technology. I’m sure that explanation answers all your questions!)

I’ll post more about BitTorrent, but before I do I need a bit of help. I’d love to hear from anyone who:

  • Could help me get in touch with Bram Cohen, the creator of BitTorrent, for a short interview
  • Knows of an example of legitimate uses of BitTorrent that I can use as examples in the book (The torrent of SXSW music files is a great one.)
  • Uses BitTorrent for business or education purposes like sharing training content or software apps
  • Is a BitTorrent expert and knows just the right anecdote for the book

Thanks!

Incidentally, it’s Victoria Day here in Canada. Happy Victoria Day!

 
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My First Review!

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 04/21 at 09:47 PM • About the Book(s)

I discovered that Tom Duff has reviewed Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies on his own blog, Duffbert’s Random Musings—and kindly said some great things about it. This is the first review I’ve seen out there, unless I’ve missed one. Anyone seen one? Anyone written one? Leave a comment and let me know.

I want to also take a minute and explain the delay in getting the book out to you all. There was apparently a problem at the printer, at virtually the last minute, that pushed back the actual release of the book by about two weeks. They are out in the world now, fulfilling all that pent up demand wink.

 
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Reviews

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 04/15 at 09:55 PM • About the Book(s)

“A very good selection to give to your boss if s/he wants to investigate the subject.”
—Tom Duff, Duffbert’s Random Musings, 4/12/05

“I wouldn’t be here typing this brief review if it weren’t for her book. Easy to read and apply. Is ‘unintimidating’ a word?”
—Stan Dubin, Small Business Success, 4/26/05

“No legal marketing professional or lawyer looking to expand business, whether you are publishing a blog now or soon will be, should be without Susannah Gardner’s new book Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies.”
—Kevin O’Keefe, lexBlog

“So far the best book on blogs is Buzz Marketing With Blogs for Dummies. I loved the book and it explained everything.”
—Blog Noggin, 5/14/05

“Damit schafft sich das Buch eine interessante Nische, die es auch gut bedient. Die Leser benötigen keine besonderen Vorkenntnisse, sondern erfahren von Grund auf, was Weblogs auszeichnet, wie man ein Weblog einrichtet und wo die Besonderheiten von Business-Blogs liegen. Aber Susannah bleibt nicht bei den technischen Grundlagen zur Einrichtung eines Weblogs stehen. Sie gibt zahlreiche Tipps und Hinweise zum Führen erfolgreicher Business-Weblogs.”
—Markus Stolpmann, eDings

“Let me make one thing perfectly clear from the beginning: Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies is an extremely helpful and thorough book about blogging.”
—Elisa Camahort, Worker Bees

“Get the book, Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies by Susannah Gardner. Though the title suggests the book is about marketing, this is really a complete “how to blog successfully” manual. I’ve read several books on blogging, and this one is by far the best.”
—“Create a Blog to Boost Your Business,”  By John Nardini, Entrepreneur Magazine

If you’ve written a review, or have seen one online, leave me a comment and I’ll include it in the list.

 
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BitTorrent for Dummies

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 03/16 at 04:28 PM • About the Book(s)

The big news here is that I’ll be writing another book: BitTorrent for Dummies. It should be out in October.

I’ll be helped by the able Kris Krug and intellectual property lawyer Michael Overing.

We’re all pretty excited about this. When we’ve firmed up the table of contents I’ll try to get it up for you to look at. In the meantime, if you have a suggestion about an issue, topic or technology—or any other input—please just message me.

 
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A Little Press

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 03/11 at 12:30 PM • About the Book(s) -- Blogging News

This is probably more exciting for me than all of you, but still, check out the article “Tell Me About It: How Business Blogs Work for You” on Internet.com’s Small Business Computing.

The writer, Michelle Megna, has done a nice job summarizing the benefits of blogs for small businesses. She’s also put in a few cautionary notes, but has done it in such a way that people aren’t likely to run screaming for the lawyers.

Oh yeah, and I’m mentioned wink

 
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Book Availability

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 03/11 at 09:25 AM • About the Book(s)

So, for everyone who has been asking just when this book will be available, here’s what I know:

March 11: (today!) the book is released from the bindery, presumably bound
March 25: (approximately) books are on the shelves in bookstores that have placed orders
April 1: (no fooling) books are on the shelves in Canada
Mid-April: books are available in U.K. bookstores

Here’s a tip: If you want to have a copy available in your bookstore, you can always ask them to order it. This will ensure that it will show up, even if the store hasn’t placed their own order.

 
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