Comments on: Blogging books: what category do they belong to?

By: Mark White

Mark White — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 14:43:04 +0000

Ted – that’s great to hear and hopefully that is the way that the UK market will go as well. At the moment, we are still behind the US in understanding just how influential they can be from a marketing/business perspective so I guess that is why they get left in the Computing section.

I’m afraid that your 1st book (Blogging for Business – for anyone who hasn’t yet read it, and shame on you!), wasn’t in the bookshop I visited. Luckily, I have my own well thumbed copy at home though!

I hope that when your next book arrives on the shelves over here, that we will be at a stage when I can confidently go to the Business/Marketing section, safe in the knowldedge that I will find it there!!

All the best, Mark

By: Ted Demopoulos

Ted Demopoulos — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 14:22:05 +0000

My blogging book – or soon to be books – are in the marketing section of the bookstore.

My publisher made a decision to ensure the books are not too technical so they don’t end up in the “computer section” (“Ted, don’t make it technical, we want it in the business section”).

In the US at least, most are in the business/marketing section, although some (e.g. “Blogging for Dummies”) are in the computer section.

And thanks for your contributions to my next book Mark!

By: Mark White

Mark White — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 11:39:13 +0000

Mark – good to hear that they were highlighting blogging in that way, though still in conjunction with web publishing which, as I mention in the post, is only natural at the moment. I think that the table will continue to grow but that in 5 years time the landscape in terms of blogs will be very different as will the subjects being covered.

From a technical level, I see websites and blogs converging more with the functionality being common to both. Let’s face it blogs are already websites and websites can be blogs. All very confusing! Ultimately, it’s how you use them which differentiates the two and the potential uses of blogs are just going to keep expanding .. so watch this space!

By: Mark McGuinness

Mark McGuinness — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 06:15:59 +0000

I was in Waterstone’s Picadilly the other day and they had a table display devoted to blogging/web publishing, I think it was hovering between the computing and business sections. I had a browse and my impression was there wasn’t much that would be news for readers of sites like this – but I suppose that’s not the point, the books are there for people who don’t already know about blogging. So was interesting to see this little ‘island’ afloat between the technical manuals and management ‘how to’ books – I wonder how big the table will be in 5 years? Or whether the information will just be common knowledge in the business section?