Publisher Proposal--Partial Assembly

Below is the portion of the publisher's proposal that I've been assigned to complete. Robert is still banging out the critical TOC, and competitive analysis and expects to have both done in the next few days. This is all a better document by orders of magnitude because of the constructive, critical and wise input from over 100 people so far. Thanks to you all. Please started shreddng the following document as well. The vision is getting clearer, the framework sturdier, but we are still not there yet. At this point, please focus on content only. We will deal with wordsmithing and proofing after we we are as tight as possible on content. Thanks again to you all.

The Red Couch

-How and why business should blog

By Robert Scoble & Shel Israel

With help from the Blogosphere

Overview

The Red Couch explains the why and how of blogging to business people. Using recent case studies throughout its 250-300 pages, it will demystify this disruptive technology and explaining why it is more efficient, credible and effective than traditional business communications tools and explains why it is likely to change or destroy the usual marketing mix of ads, PR, websites and collateral materials.

Based on at least 50 interviews with people at all levels and in all sorts of businesses, the Red Couch intertwines some of the experiences of its two authors, one of whom is Microsoft’s leading blogger and the other of whom is a veteran marketing consultant. It argues, in compelling terms, why blogging is not just another tactical communications distribution channel, but rather, a new strategic medium for drawing companies and their constituencies closer together for the benefit of both. The Red Couch provides a quick survey of the powerful but simple tools needed to get started, then illustrates how the are used to improve a company’s business and it provides finer points to mastering the new medium.

The authors will discuss why traditional marketing tools——press releases, websites, advertising and so on have become less effective even as they become more expensive and why some may never work again. It explains why its good business to shake off traditional taboos, such as praising competition, publicly discussing product prior to official launch, and allowing mid-level employees to blog without traditioBnal business filters.

The business community is already aware of the increasing ubiquity of blogging, but as happens during nearly all technology revolution, it is the slowest to adopt innovation, the longest to use it once adopted, and the place where it will prevail only if it can continuously and favorably impact the bottom line. This is as it should be, and the The Red Couch will explain how companies that adopt blogging will prevail in the next chapter of global and local business adjustment, and those who do not are likely to face the same fate as the village blacksmith who ignore the early automobile.

Target Audience

The target audience is any business decision maker as well as any business marketing consultant. It will be of value to CEOs, sole proprietors, CMOs and any in-house marketing staff. But it will also be valuable to mid-level employees involved in product development, customer support and human resources because The Red Couch explains how to blog without getting fired for being candid.

Outstanding Features

The authors believe they have access to the best-known business bloggers and the heads of large companies who allow blogging. They are hoping to include exclusive interviews that may not be available elsewhere.

Most of this project is being executed in the public eye, via The Red Couch blogsite. The authors expect to gain input, wisdom, useful criticism and content from its visitors. In a way, they are co-authors. This intentional transparency of our business project is in part proof-of-concept, but it also has enormous awareness-building attributes.

Timing, Scope and Size

The authors expect this book to be completed by mid-September. It will be between 250-300 pages in length. The authors hope to have this book on store shelves in Q1 06, precisely when they believe businesses will be reaching a crescendo of awareness about the need to blog.

Competitive Analysis

TK from Robert

Promotion/Marketing

Both authors hold superior credentials in promotion and marketing.

Israel was a PR executive for more than 20 years and has 10 years journalistic credentials. He has been involved in more than 10,000 interviews during his career. As a consultant he continues to advise senior executives on media and conference presentations. He is an occasional presenter at conferences and has been interviewed on radio and in print.

Scoble, is Microsoft’s best-known blogger and is frequently a speaker at a growing number of conferences. He has experience in conference promotions and is among the most sought-after bloggers for interviews. In recent months, he has received prominent coverage in Fortune and Fast Company magazines, has been scheduled to be a keynote speaker at (Robert fill-in), and has been interviewed for audio blogs (podcast) internationally.

Both are adept at the interview and are willing and eager to participate in press tours to business and tech business publications who have a high likelihood of covering this book, not only because the authors are known, but because of the currency and controversy of the subject matter.

Post-publication, the authors intend to conduct a book-seeding campaign of more than 100 volumes, putting The Red Couch into the hands of business, technology and blogging influencers, to whom they have clear access.

Authors

Robert Scoble is Microsoft's best known bloggers, with over 3.5 million visitors to his main blogsite annually. During his day job he helps run Microsoft's Channel 9 website and can be seen with his camcorder taping interviews and getting people inside looks at Microsoft's people and technology. He started blogging in 2000, when he helped plan the CNET Builder.com Live conferences in the late 1990s and two speakers, Dave Winer and Dori Smith, told him that blogging was "hot." Within a few weeks he'd been invited to Steve Wozniak's Super Bowl party. He is a former marketing director for UserLand Software, a developer and marketer of blogging and knowledge management software. He was a sales support manager at NEC, where he answered phones and email for the mobile devices division learning the value of customer relationships. Earlier, as an editor for Fawcette Technical Publications, he helped plan the VSLive and CNET Builder.com Live conferences. In high school, he learned the basics of word-of-mouth retailing while working behind the counter of a San Jose, CA camera store.

Shel Israel has been consulting innovative, early phase technology companies, mostly start ups for more than 20 years. He is editor-in-chief of Conferenza Premium Reports, the leading newsletter covering technology conferences, where technology trends are often first spotted. In the span of his career, he has played a key role in introducing some of technology’s most enduring products including: SoundBlaster, PowerPoint, Filemaker, MapInfo and Sun Microsystems workstations and more. He played pioneering roles in the introduction of such technology categories as Desktop Presentation, Desktop Mapping, PC Sound, PC Databases and e-tailing. Most PCs today contain one or more products, Israel helped to introduce.

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strong>Contacts

Robert Scoble

RScoble@Microsoft.com

(425) 205-1921

Shel Israel

shel@itseemstome.net

www.itseemstome.net

(650 )591-4911

Comments

[/pd/pd]

Under promise ..over deliver.. !!

Are you sure that.. "The authors hope to have this book on store shelves in Q1 06" ???

[Curt]

OK, I know I've peppered this thing with my gibberish, but I hold you responsible, Shel. "The Red Couch." No offence to RS or the couch, but man I hate that title. It's afflicted with terminal cutsieness. It has the forced adorableness of many business book titles. It sounds contrived. I feel I can see into your deepest and least wholesome thoughts: "Man, see, people are going to start saying, 'let's Red Couch this bad boy.' Ick. I know it's an organic outgrowth of the real life that produced the book, but it doesn't communicate. I have the sneaking suspicion I'm alone in this opinion. So be it.

[Steven Streight aka Vaspers the Grate]

A blog, improperly implemented, can cause a project to go haywire, sending efforts down twisting paths of irrelevance and low priority.

A book blog faces the danger of becoming a communal book, a book written by committee, thus depriving it of a powerful single focused force.

[shel israel]

Steve/Vaspers,

Two very good points. Robert and I are the collaborators and that is difficult enough. We turn to the bloggers out their for feedback and advice because it will help Robert and I write a better book. But it is our book and we will not lose sight of that.

[Steven Streight aka Vaspers the Grate]

Yes, I'm confident of that my friend. I realized after I posted that comment that it could be taken a pessimistic condemnation, and I'm apologizing if it seemed that way. I just blurt out my thoughts, sometimes not thinking of how others might receive them.

Have you ever posted some text online, then had people argue endlessly against a misinterpretation of what you said, like in a discussion list or bulletin board?

You keep clarifying, and quoting your own text, but they insist on putting words in your mouth and then complaining about the very words they put there? It's hilarious and so very human.

So please don't think I'm assuming you guys are not carefully considering all possible angles. That's what makes this blog fun to go to. The evolution of ideas.