Ted Demopoulos has had a long and distinguished career in the business community. He has advised such companies as IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Motorola. He has an extensive speaking background in and is a sought after guest at business and technology focused events. Well, enough with the flattery and on with the review. If you are in the market for a “how to” manual for blogging basics full of technical data, html and design code, this isn’t the book for you. However, if you are interested in a broader perspective collected form the folks who are “in the trenches” and doing it, you have just found you rally point. Demopoulos goes to great pains to look at the broad spectrum of “bloggers” out there. There are insights from folks like Seth Godin who have an established track record of success as well as folks like me who are fairly new to the world of blogging. Demopoulos breaks the book down into eight major groupings and then seeks out input from people who are currently at every stage of success in these groupings. Part 1 covers the basics of what a blog is. What you discover is that what a blog is depends on who you are. If you are a business representative, a blog is a way to get you warm fuzzy side out to the public. If you are self reflective and relationship oriented, a blog is a way to share and communicate in a whole new way. If you are a writer, a blog is a way to stay in touch with your audience on a day to day basis. In part 4 Demopoulos examines some of the techniques for monetizing a blog. This is my favorite part of the book. I particularly the brilliant start up piece on page 90 on how to get the best from your AdSense advertisements (this is a completely self serving plug for the section I contributed to the book. No, I have no shame). It is also worth mentioning that this particular section, number 50 of 101 pieces, is exactly in the middle of the sections. A mere coincidence? Ha, I think not (in fact, I think coincidence is exactly what it was). At this point, I am taking particular interest in the section entitled “Promoting Your Blog And Tracking Statistics.” Like may of you, I am at the stage where I have done a fair job of establishing the identity of my blog but have a chink in my armor when it comes to promotion. There is even a section by the self proclaimed “Blog Traffic King” Yaro Starak who took his blog from 0 to 1000 visitors a day in 6 months. Other portions of the book have content from folks like Seth Godin on various and sundry aspects of blogging. If you only budget 20 buckskins for books on blogging this year, you won’t go wrong investing in this one. The downside? The mans name is really hard to spell! What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting: Real-Life Advice from 101 People Who Successfully Leverage the Power of the Blogosphere Reg Adkins writes on behavior and the human experience at (elementaltruths.blogspot.com).
