DOFOLLOW BLOGS

Probably the best out there, but not perfect
Although there are hundreds of blogging books in print, from my surveying this one appears to be the most relevant practical guide -- so I gave it an extra star. I liked it for the following reasons:

(+) good tips on building readership (plus some SEO)
(+) explanations of importance of garnering and giving referent links
(+) practical tips on monetization
(+) coverage of some useful tools I might not have otherwise discovered
(+) highlighting some popular blogging platforms
(+) engaging writing style
(+) accessible as a book you could give to a co-worker, or even less-technical family member
(+) gets reader excited about blogging

However, it has the following problems:

(-) some material highly subject to aging (e.g., blogger how-to steps could have been omitted)
(-) promotion of some obnoxious tools (e.g., White Smoke grammar helper, user-unfriendly Microsoft Live Spaces)
(-) very little mention of WordPress (you wouldn't realize its popularity by reading this book)
(-) not enough emphasis on blog *reading* (Google Reader got one sentence, but its features and best practices could been expanded to a whole chapter). Optimizing your reading habits/patterns is a critical skill for surviving blog-bombardment
(-) no mention of the role of pinging (and necessity by some services)
(-) too many interviews (police wives and military perspectives didn't add anything for me)
(-) a number of grammar and spelling mistakes
(-) audience target may have been too broad (I would expect Apress to have had a better techie focus)

Overall, I thought the book could have been half the length and still had the same impact. But as a new blogger I got quite a bit out of the book, and I still recommend it to anyone who is not already a pro. Just be prepared to do a lot of skimming, and try to get a library/used copy that has important points highlighted.

The one book you should read about blogging
If you are going to recommend just one book to someone who wants to get started reading, following and creating a blog, this is the book. Author Bob Walsh goes far beyond the usual treatment of the topic and gives you tons of practical tips, suggestions and information about resources. I've been blogging for over a year and I learned a ton from Bob's book. Don't waste your time with other books, go right to source and read this one. I highly recommend it.

Good Primer For Business
To put it succinctly, Clear Blogging is the kind of book I would give to a boss or manager to educate them about what blogging is, can be, and a hint of technicalities on the back end. While a good book and a great overview of what is entailed with blogging, there are not enough nitty-gritty details to satisfy someone who is of a technical nature or someone who has been blogging for a while.

However, for someone who needs to know what this blogging thing is about and how they might be able to use it for their business, either directory or indirectly, this is the perfect place to start. I would estimate that at least half of the book is made up of interviews with either bloggers, people who run blogging companies, or marketing type folk. These interviews, though they get a little long and predictable after a while, lend real life examples to the lessons being taught.

Additionally, there is sufficient attention given to topics such as podcasting, monetization, and social networking to give you a good start on finding out more about these areas.

All in all, for any body wondering where to get started, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Clear Blogging. And if you are already in to blogging, I will bet this book can still teach you a few things.

Best book I've found on blogging
Bob Walsh goes a long, long way past the usual, superficial approach. ("Blogging is great - here's how to set up your blog on TypePad.") The interviews with well-known bloggers are an outstanding feature of the book - they are insightful and very useful - they'll help you understand what you're committing to, how to run a successful blog, and what you can expect to get out of it. Also, Walsh gives the best advice I've seen for advertising your blog via Technorati, Feedburner, et al., and for using social networks to promote your message. Great job. - George (fitnessintuition.com)

I totally love this book
I've been blogging in a ho hum way for over a year - but this book has opened up blogging for me in a whole new way.
I would recommend this as an intro... middle and advanced book. It has tons of stuff for every level. Of course I'm at the beginning level so maybe I'm not the perfect judge but I can say it has enough stuff for me to follow up with for at least a year!
What I really like are the interviews, the links and the detailed information (step by step) to do or check things out. And... besides the book I'm getting just as addicted to his web site... http://clearblogging.com

Excellent source for Real Estate Bloggers
There are many great books on blogging, this book in particular was extremely helpful to me as a new blogger not only because it relates specifically to my field, but because it helped me with basics and it was easy to read and follow. The book is up-to-date, filled with great resources and examples and recommend it to anyone who is considering blogging. It talks about subjects like finding your voice to finding your audience in order to be successful at blogging.

A focus on all the wrong things
I delayed buying this book, hoping that it wouldn't be as bad as it proved to be.

It's a muddled brain dump of both good and bad advice about blogging, but with a focus on all the wrong things.

The single biggest problem is that it panders to the standard real estate agent thinking that there's a magic bullet out there that will give the agent an edge over his or her competitors. The current magic bullet is blogging.

Left out of the books is any serious discussion of what should have been the starting point: a blog can't attract an audience without a focus on delivering something of value to a targeted audience.

The authors pay modest homage to this concept, but virtually everything they write undermines it. They encourage agents to write about anything and everything, and tell them what they want to hear: you can be an expert simply by claiming to be one and having a blog.

Agents should spend the time learning something substantive that consumers want to know instead of reading this book.

The popularity of this book will do much to undermine any potential value that real estate blogging has to those agents who want to pursue it as a way of developing, honing and communicating real expertise. An army of idiot brokers will, on the advice of the authors, be babbling on with no focus and will discourage anyone from even looking at the occasional good real estate blog.

Real estate blogging, if the authors of this book find an audience that follows their advice, will be just as useless a field of garbage as real estate agent Web sites have become.

Blogging Captures the Imagination of the Real Estate Industry
In 2004, however, blogs unexpectedly vaulted into the forefront of major media, and today there are thought to be more than 30 million bloggers contributing on some kind of regular basis - a community that grows by the thousands every single day.

Blogging is rapidly developing into an instrument whose purpose, among others, is to establish an online presence, improve visibility, build a sense of community, maintain an open dialogue for clients and prospects, and offer valuable information - all of which is accomplished in a facade-less, unfiltered, much more candid way.

Therefore, by definition blogging has a huge potential in real estate - both for brokers and agents. It is another untapped, powerful tool for the tech-savvy agent, another hi-tech weapon in the real estate sales arsenal that should be used in tandem with the myriad of Internet-related innovations like websites, search engine optimization, and video and audio broadcasting, to strengthen the agent's overall marketing package and enable him or her to present a homes sale or purchase experience that leaves client expectations in the dust.

As more traditional marketing avenues and vehicles continue to lose market share to their digital cousins, the real estate industry would be wise to gain as much understanding as we can about all of the potential advantages inherent in the organic World Wide Web, and all the new strategies, including blogging. In this new book, Richard expertly details and clarifies this new phenomenon for real estate professionals. It is the best book on blogging for real estate professionals.

Embrace, explore, and engage it. Conquer its intricacies, share in its knowledge base, maximize its huge potential and then set a path to become the real estate blogging authority in your local market.


Stefan Swanepoel
Thirteen time author including
Real Estate confronts Reality (1997) Real Estate confronts the Future (2004) and Swanepoel Trends Report (2007)

A great resource for real estate professionals
Real estate agents certainly have a much harder job today than they did in the pre-Internet days. I often wonder how so many of them continue to make a living when there are a variety of online solutions for buying and selling a house. How do they justify their commission? Stand out in the crowd?

One way to become better known as the local real estate expert, and a very good one, I might add, is to consider getting into the blogosphere. Become the well-known real estate expert in your community. Offer all sorts of great insight on how to prep your house for sale or what to look for in your next home purchase.

If you're in the real estate business or know someone who is, Realty Blogging is a "must read." The authors do a fantastic job of putting everything you need to know about blogging in general, but aimed at the real estate market, in a book that's less than 200 pages long. Much of their advice can also be applied outside of blogging (e.g., positioning yourself as the expert and exploiting niches). Another nice touch is that they not only offer coverage of the more popular blogging platforms, they also set up their own, where readers can start a blog in an environment that's very realtor-friendly.

The best real estate agents also seem to be outstanding at personal networking. Blogging is a natural networking extension, but with the added benefits of being much broader and offering 24/7 access. I know a lot of the real estate agents out there are "old school" and all, but I think any agent without a blog is really missing a huge opportunity. If you're the new real estate agent in the area, what better way to build brand recognition and a following than starting a blog to share your real estate wisdom and advice?

I also like the form factor of this one (small trim size, less than 200 pages, inexpensively priced) and wonder what other vertical segments might be right for a blogging book like this...

A Must-Have for Any Bloggers' Library...
Man! I thought I was inspired to be a Blog-master before the book showed up on my front porch! Even after I read only a few chapters my mind was about to *POP!*- but in a good way... Realty Blogging was referred to my by a fellow blogger, so I ordered it right away. See, I am new to the Blogosphere and am NOT very tech-savvy, not even a little bit. So, there were a lot of "unknowns" to me about blogging. Besides the fact that this book was crammed packed with useful information, what I LOVED was that it was not written in "Geek-Speak" -I could understand everything. (Yay!) I also appreciated how it broke down all the different facets of blogging- what it is, why a real estate agent should do it, and how to effectively maintain a blog... It is a valuable reference book for any real estate agent in any stage of blogging. Because it was so packed with info., I will be able to reference it again and again as I grow as a blogger. Buy it. Read it. Keep it handy.

This was very basic book
This book covers very basic topics and some that I could not imagine would be interest to anyone just starting. Such as the information about hiring extra staff or incorporating your business. There was much good information. But frequently you will be thinking, "Well yeah I think I already know that".

It's 96 pages, NOT 200
Upon searching for a blogging book I came across this one. Amazon.com had the book listed at being 200 pages. I bought it and was very disappointed to see when I got it that it was only 96 pages! I have written Amazon.com asking them to correct this error and hopefully they do by the time others buy the book. It's making it look like the book is double the size it really is, which would mean it's packed with more info than it really is.

Having informed you of this gross error in book size I can tell you my thoughts on it. Save your money. Seriously, this book is for the very beginner, like someone that doesn't even know what the word "blog" is. Plus, it's so small that all the information could be found by doing a couple of quick google searches on how to start a blog or make money from a blog. It's very disappointing and not worth the price. A book this size and with this little info should have cost around tops. It's very light on content and hypes the amount of money that can be made from them.

Another thing that really bothered me with this book is that the author doesn't know that it's "Web site" and not "website" and "Internet" and not "internet." For someone writing a book about Web sites or the Internet you would think they would have learned the correct way to spell/write them. While they are frequently spelled wrong by the masses, they could log right on to m-w.com and verify the correct spelling, especially since it's a writer that is making this mistake. Every time I read it spelled wrong it made me cringe... which was a lot of times!

If you know nothing at all about blogs and have money to burn then I would say buy it. You'll have it read in a couple of hours. But if you know what a blog is, do a few searches online and save your money... instead just put it into your blog!

Follow up a week later: After hounding Amazon.com they finally updated the site to reflect that the book is 96 pages and not the 200 it was listed as having before. I'm thrilled they made the change, but can't help but to wonder how many thousands of people bought a book thinking it was 200 pages when it was really 96 when they got it in the mail.

Good for startups wondering how to set up a blog
Start your Own Blogging Business is short but dense with info. With absolutely no fluff, the book offers quick tips on setting up a blog to complement the small or home business.

Information (briefly) covers: choosing your blogging platform, planning your blog style, choosing a domain, selling ad space, optimizing layout and setting up news aggregators. Short passages introduce why you need to use something - for example, trackback URLs - and how to install them.

The section on making your media kit is unique among the blogging books I've seen, and useful enough to copy and stick in a business plan.

The last chapter inexplicably discuses whether your business should be a sole proprietorship, partnership, S or C corp, or an LLC. This is an odd choice for this kind of book, which until now has been all about blogging. Setting up the legalities of your business is something one would probably buy another book for! This was an odd choice to add to an already short blogger's book.

At under one hundred pages, much of the richness of the blogging world just isn't expressed. I am sure some readers will find this is all they actually need. Otherwise I suggest purchasing this *with* Blogging for Dummies and using them together.

Recommended for home and small office owners seeking a quick read about blogging, or for showing one's boss how easy it can be to set up and run a blog for your business.

Helpful, answers many questions.
My title says it all. The book inspires though and fills in many of my questions. Good job!
CliffordS

Start Your Own Blogging Business
This book is truly a tool to be used when you desire to learn how to market online. The small history on blogging made me feel comfortable enough to get a blogging space without fear. The internet is a powerful tool, and with books like Start Your Own Blogging Business, the source for beginning your career on the internet.Start Your Own Blogging Business (Startup)