Book Review: Blogging Tips - What Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Blogging

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or by Email.
Thanks for visiting!

I had the wonderful opportunity to spend some time getting to know Lorelle VanFossen a bit while we were both at SOBCon a few weeks ago in Chicago. She is one of those high energy folks that I imagine would be exhausting to try to keep up with long term.

She was incredibly helpful to us at SOBCon. If you were there you know how much she helped Gorgeous there at the front registration table, for example. The two of them were the dynamic duo out there.

Lorelle’s Credentials

Lorelle is one of those folks who has probably forgotten more about blogging than many others have learned yet. She’s been writing and running her own web sites for over 10 years, since long before there was such a thing as blogging software to make it easy for us.

Whenever I’ve needed some info about WordPress, Lorelle’s blog has long been one of my go-to sources for tips, pointers, and a heads up on what is coming down the pike in new WordPress updates. She is listed on the WordPress.org About Page as one of their documentation and support folks

I asked Lorelle why Lorelle on WordPress is on WordPress.com and not a self hosted site and how she got started working with them on their documentation. I wish I had written down exactly what she said, but here is the gist of her response as I remember it.

I’ve got a gift for breaking things. So over the years I’ve become one of the crash test dummies for WordPress. They let me play with it. I break it. Then Matt and the guys go and fix the bugs I find.

That’s a gift every software developer could use!

Suffice it to say Lorelle is an expert on blogging in general and WordPress in particular.

So imagine how thrilled I was when Liz told me a few months back that she was writing a new book on Blogging Tips and we were going to be able to give a complimentary copy to each of the SOBCon ‘07 attendees! Little did I know that SOBCon would be the debut of the book. I was actually fortunate enough to get my hands on a copy even before the official release date!

The Book

Let me just start by saying that Blogging Tips: What Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Blogging is a must read for every business blogger. At $12.95 (plus $3 shipping in the US) this book is a steal.

There is more high quality information crammed into the 98 pages than any book I’ve yet seen on the subject. And very little of the information is WordPress specific.

You can read the book straight through or use it as a reference guide. Lorelle laid it out with short sections with lots of headers and tons of short bullets points to make the info easy to find. And all of the information is incredibly useful.

Do you want to know how to get your blog to display the < and > characters so that you can show how to code some html?

Do you have a plan for what to do when bad things happen to your blog?

You can find out all that and tons more in this book.

Here are some other things that Lorelle covers

• Planning Your Blog
• Blog Structure and Design
• Building Blog Content
• Blog Writing
• Blog Interaction and Community Building
• Blog SEO and Page Rank
• Blog Administration and Management
• Blogger Rights

Bottom line, Go get your copy now. You can order Blogging Tips: What Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Blogging at the brand new Blog Herald Store. (How cool is that? One of the best blog resources is now offering analog resources!)

And no, I’m not getting compensated at all for recommending this one. It’s not even an Amazon affiliate link. That doesn’t matter. Just order your copy today. You’ll be glad you did.