It looks as if Robert Scoble (along with Shel Israel) are challenging themselves to write a book on business blogs. Presumably, it will be entitled The Red Couch.

Of course, the de facto BEST BUSINESS BLOG BOOK OF ALL TIME is Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies being written by Susannah Gardner (she let's me call her Susie). I'm the technical editor for it so, heck yea, I'm prejudiced. By the way, it's available for pre-order right now on Amazon.com.

I came across an ebook the author said could be given away, so I am. It's 50 Ways to Promote Your Website. Some of them are obvious, and some not. At the very least it might give you some ideas you hadn't thought of. Click here to download it.

Is blogging just an overblown fad or a revolutionary new medium you can't afford to ignore?

B.L. Ochman, noted Internet strategist, PR guru and influential blogger gives you straight talk about blogging. She gives you scores of examples of successful business blogs, advice on what to blog about and why, plus dozens of resources you can use immediately.

Ever have something good just fall out of the sky when you weren't even expecting it? Well, that happened to me following my interview with Susannah Gardner regarding the Dummies book she's writing Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies. I've been given the job of serving as Technical Editor for the book!

English author Horace Walpole called such an occurance Serendipity. The Cajuns of south Louisiana call it Lagniappe. I call it a Blessing, for which I am very grateful!

I just had a conversation with Susannah Gardner, the author of an upcoming Dummies book entitled Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies. The book is due to hit the shelves the first week of March 2005.

Susannah, or Susie as her friends call her, is writing the book from a business and marketing perspective rather than as a basic book on blogging. When asked why Wiley, the publishing company behind the Dummies series, wanted to take that tact as opposed to a more basic book, she referred me to Acquisition Editor Melody Layne. As it turns out, it is a market-driven decision that makes perfect sense. Here is what Melody had to say:

The Dummies series looked at the topic of blogging for well over a year. We also looked at how other basic books on blogging were doing in the marketplace-- not very well. The conclusion that we came to was that we needed to do a book that addressed how people were using blogs, not just how they were setting them up.

Setting up a blog is easy enough if you're going with a free hosting service. It gets more complex when you decide to host your own or roll in RSS feeds. There's plenty of technical stuff you can cover, but the blogs that have captured the public's attention over the last year or so have either been ones that give people insight into the workings of a company or a political campaign or blogs that act as independent news outlets-- getting current events info and insight out into the world that isn't as easy to obtain from the professional press.

A plain blogging book just wouldn't have cut it, and it probably would have been misshelved. We want this book in the business section of the bookstore, where the people who need it are more likely to find it, not the tech section where mostly techies, who are already blog-savvy, are shopping.

Never fear, among other content the book will include sections dealing with things like HTML, different blogging platforms, writing for blogs, etc. (The stuff a basic book on blogging might consist of.)

As with all Dummies books, it will have a practical, how-to point of view that includes best practices, case studies, and issues surrounding legal ramifications. Susie hopes to make a case for business blogging by talking about it helps to build better customer-relationships and create an open, more transparent look inside the company or corporation. The goal, of course, is to build customer loyalty and create customer evangelists who will spread the company's message on their own.

Susannah admits that she is not an avid blogger herself, but that she knows many bloggers. She is a self-confessed "lurker" in the blogosphere. I asked her point-blank if she felt she understood blogging from the inside out. She indicated that she did. With her extensive internet and journalism background (She co-authored another Dummies book, Dreamweaver MX 2004 for Dummies), I have no doubt this will be a well-written, comprehensive book that will scratch an itch among business bloggers.

A few days ago I asked why there was not a "Blogging for Dummies" book in print. I asked that question of the folks at Wiley Publishers, the publisher of the infamous Dummies series, and, lo and behold, there will be! Here's the scoop from the company's Acquisitions Editor:

"[T]his one is in the works. I've been working on trying to find the right angle for a blogging book for some time. It's going to be called Buzz Marketing with Blogs For Dummies, and you'll see it in early Spring next year."

So, not only is it going to be a book about blogging, but how to use them for marketing purposes as well. Hmmm. . .sounds familiar!

Why hasn't someone written a "dummies" book for blogging yet?

There's a new book out. It's called "Building Your Business with Google for Dummies." It purports to be the "first-ever book to show businesses step by step how to capitalize on advertising programs offered by Google, the world's #1 search engine." Brad Hill, the author, also writes the search engine marketing blog at WebLogs, Inc.

The point I want to make is this: Someone can build a business through the intelligent use of one Internet application, in this case Google. Think about that for a minute. Does that sound as revolutionary to you as it does to me? To think that one search engine has not only become such a cultural phenomena that its very name is now a verb used in our vocabularly (We don't search for something, we "google" it.), but that entire business fortunes can be built using it alone! It would take people with far more grey matter than me to probe the depths of the significance of that fact.

But, wait, there's more!

Click to read more ...

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to consult with the CEO of a start-up Internet business, CleanFilms.com. (Their business model is similar to NetFlix, with one difference, they provide edited, family-friendly versions of Hollywood films.) I believe they have a Purple Cow on their hands and, until yesterday, didn't even know it.

Click to read more ...

I'm reading Michael Katz's book E-Newsletters That Work, and I highly recommend it as a hands-on, practical primer for any small business person considering developing an email newsletter. It's written in short "chunks" of information, and answers questions like "What do I do if I can't write?" or "What do I write about?" It also covers the gamut from creating the content, to layout and formatting, to delivery and list management.

If you're considering starting an email newsletter for your business, this is a must read.