Book review: Blogging - The Essential Guide

It's quite a challenge to write a book about blogging.

Not that there's a lack of things to say - quite the opposite in fact. It's just that the landscape is always shifting, and the issues changing.

Traditional publishing moves incredibly slowly in comparison to blog publishing, so the only thing you're certain of is that by the time you've published your blogging book, it will be out of date.

However, there are many books about blogging published so clearly there's a demand.

So, what to do?

Ellen Arnison approached the subject from the mental health perspective with her book Blogging for Happiness. And now Antonia Chitty and Erica Douglas have approached the subject by stripping it back to basics with Blogging - The Essential Guide, and they recently sent me a review copy.

So you won't find any mention of the current debate on follow vs no follow links which has been raging throughout blogland over the last few weeks. What you will find is simple and straightforward inspiration - lots of advice on how to get started and more importantly, how to keep going. I thought the chapters on law and basic online skills were particularly good.

Though I think new bloggers will get the most out of this book, it has tips to offer wherever you are in your blogging journey. I've been blogging for 5 years and I learned stuff. And it's all very nicely designed and beautifully laid out - I think this is particularly important for an information-heavy book, as without clear design it can become too much to take in.

I would have liked to see an index or glossary with this book - when you're mentioning stuff like page rank, Klout or creative commons to a novice audience, some sort of explanation is surely necessary. When I'd finished reading it I wanted to go back and look stuff up, which was hard to do without an index. I also felt that at just over 100 pages the RRP of £9.99 is on the steep side, though Amazon currently have it at a much better value £6.99.

This is a useful guide to keep by your laptop and return to repeatedly. But don't assume that it's simply a book for beginners. It's a book for bloggers, and we all have something to learn.

 

Blogging - The Essential Guide by Antonia Chitty & Erica Douglas is out now and widely available

Comments

[Antonia]

Thanks for taking the time to review it Joanne.

[Joanne Mallon]

No problem Antonia, good luck with the book!