Six Reasons for a Book Blog

I received some email today from Deb Owen, someone I do not know, whose primary interest in me was my connection to Cape Cod.  But in her email she also wondered why anyone could possibly decide to blog about a book. In the past several months, I have wondered the very same thing. As we come to the last two chapters and 5000 words of this saga, I've given this matter a good deal of thought.  I know that I will be starting my next book as soon as I recover from this experience and that I most certainly will use a book blog again.

Here are my reasons:

1. A Wealth of Insight and Information. Bloggers have pointed us to at least a score of the cases we cite in Naked Conversations.  They have pointed us to facts, statistics and provided balanced views on a great many subjects. I

2. Dynamic fact checking. While it is never a pleasure to have your mistakes pointed out to you, it is very valuable in writing a book. I will confess a dirty little secret. In early chapters, when we were well behind schedule, we tossed a few things out, in the faith that the blogosphere would correct it.  They did a vigilant and superior job of it. Naked Conversations is a more accurate book thanks to our audience.

3. Word of mouth engine. If you read our early chapters you know that we think that blogging's miracle is that it takes word of mouth, the best marketing technique and scales its reach and speed. The blogosphere has generated a great deal of word of mouth on behalf of this effort and we hope that will tranlate into sales when we actually go on the shelf in January 2006.

4. Publisher's Auction. Early in the book blog's history, four book publishers found us. This led to competitive bids for publishing rights. We have no doubt that this increased our advance of royalties payments significantly. The book blog gave us options that we otherwise would not have had.

5. Increased my Perceived Authority. When we started, Robert was already sought by the media for comments in articles on blogging but I was not. Now, as we near completion, I am interviewed by the press approximately once weekly and speaking inviations have started to come in. I say "perceived" authority, because I have played a role of the reporter in this book writing process and the real authorities are indeed Robert and all the remarkable people I got to interview in the preparation of this book.

6. A chance to share. JD Lasica, David Weinberger and Dan Gillmor all influenced this experiment by completing book blogs before this one. That inspired and shaed what we have done here.  By injecting intervie notes and content regarding the experience of writing a book, we'd like to think we've broken a few inches of new ground. We hope it helps the next aspiring author who will take book blogs beyond what we have done so far, and thus make it easier for whoever follows her or him.

My thanks to nearly all of you who have helped us so much along this unfinished journey. I have to say "nearly," because there have been a few who chose to contribute unkind and nonconstructive comments.  This low ground tone seems to be on the rise in recent weeks, and I personally hope that it is just indicative of transitional pains caused by the untrammeled growth of this remarkable new medium. More about that later.

Comments

[orcmid]

I can't imagine not doing a book blog, based on what I see you accomplishing here. If I was more organized I would have blogged most of my M.Sc thesis (and maybe will yet), though the rules about such things can make receiving feedback and contributions rather trickly. But after that's all wrapped up, I will be starting a software+CD-ROM book project and I can't imagine not doing it on-line. You're my inspiration.

[shel Israel]

Thanks for the kind words, Dennis. I look forward to following that project on yur blog. When you're ready to look for publishers, I'd be happy to introduce you to our folks at Wiley. So far, they've been great.

[Jozef Imrich]

Shel and Robert,

There could be an entire chapter on enteprising women and the business blogging ... I wonder what the percentage % of business female bloggers might be

Blogging is supposed to be democratizing the world of information, empowering the individual The feminine blogstique

Jay Rosen has a thought provoking post at his Press Think site entitled: PressThink, Live from the BlogHer Conference

Just for fun: Naked Shel and Robert ;-)

[Robert Scoble]

Shel, you're a real authority in my eyes. Far beyond what I've done. I got lucky in riding a wave early. You've been doing it in Silicon Valley for decades. That isn't luck, it's skill.

[Jozef Imrich]

PS: Sample Chapter of note provided courtesy of Wharton School Publishing:
Driving Luck: How You Innovate Determines What You Innovate

[Walter Lounsbery]

I am sorry to hear that this blog is collecting inappropriate comments. Let me propose a theory about those postings. Unfortunately, this theory is not good news if it proves to be correct.

I believe that there are a large number of people, but a small percentage of people on the Internet, who habitually act rude in public forums. They are an active group, prodded on by the "open loop" nature of their actions. In other words, there is little material feedback that works to slow their actions. They can do an incredible amount of damage without seeing any direct effects, or perceiving the amount of destruction. Compare this with a drug addict who has a habit that takes a direct toll. There is a real limit in that situation. The rude comment junkie may not even think their comments are inappropriate or damaging. It's like people that lack the "sarcasm gene" and can't percieve communication as others do.

Before the days of blogs, the rude comment junkies were occupied by news forums, Web forums, and outlets like Slashdot. But as traffic on the forums decreases, as moderators become more active or automated, these people start to move on to other things. This is the bad news.

I hope that one characteristic of blogs will hinder the spread of verbal crud in blog comments. It is possible that easier moderation and control of blog comments will make it too difficult to get exposure. Maybe this will discourage the majority of these rude comment junkies.

[shel Israel]

Walter,
Thank you for this. I think you are right. I am appalled at some of the things said, not just on this site, but over at Scobleizer. It certainly diminishes the joy of blogging. To me they're a pack of snarling Chihuahuas nipping at the buttocks of someone significantly classier than they can ever dream to be. I for one have lost my sense of humor on the issue and if it continues, a great many prominent bloggers will have little choice but to turn off or filter comments.