Review by Tom Carpenter:

This is the 12th book I’ve read on blogging. The books I’ve read have run the gamut from marketing brochures clothed in the covers of a book to real sources of valued information. This book is clearly in the latter category and I would place it in the top one or two positions as my favorite so far.

I appreciated the author’s very quick overvew of “what is a blog”. Blogs are very easy to understand and the authors who have gone on for 20+ pages just describing a blog have obviously just been shooting for page count. This author gets into the real meat of the topic very quickly. The brief overvier of professional blogging as opposed to just blogging in chapter 1 was also helpful.

From the first chapter on, it’s all about getting your game on. You have to realize that blogging your way to a six-figure income does not happen overnight just like building an email list (in a valid way) that has hundreds of thousands of opt-in emails doesn’t happen overnight. This book holds your hand along this prolonged journey.

Review by Jeff Lippincott:

I loved this book. It is the first one I have read that actually explains how blogging can be used to make money directly. Most books I have read, and what I have experienced, indicate that blogging is not something to be done to make money directly.

In this book the author explains that there are direct ways to make money from one’s blog, and there are indirect ways.

Direct Monetization:

>>Advertising

>>Sponsorships

>>Affiliate commissions

>>Paid reviews

Indirect Monetization:

>>Freelance writing contracts

>>Book deals

>>Speaking engagements

>>Consulting opportunities

>>Service contracts

>>Sell your own products

After reading this book I am still a believer that blogs are not something to consider if you want to make money from them directly. However, it can be done! But probably not the way you would think. It’s not done by creating a blog, i.e., one blog and making it popular online. It’s done by creating many blogs. Creating an empire of blogs and getting well connected in the blogoshere does it. Writing on any topic that can generate advertisers, sponsorships, affiliate commissions, and paid reviews does it. One blog won’t do it. Two blogs won’t do it. But a lot of blogs creating little streams of income will do it.

The authors provide us with some lessons they have learned about blogging:

1. Blogging for income takes time

2. Take it one step at a time

3. It takes hard work and discipline

4. Follow your dreams

Does this sound familiar? It should if you regularly read books for entrepreneurs. Blogging for bucks is just another small business. Instead of writing content for an arsenal of magazines, you are writing an arsenal of content for various blogs. Instead of selling paper copies of writings, you are selling through Web 2.0. And you are using Web 2.0 strategies and tactics to make your blogs profitable.

If you have an interest in blogs, and you want two books on the subject that discuss blogs from completely different perspectives, then read this book and read “Blog Schmog” (ISBN: 078521576X). Both books are well written, organized, and sound. If you read both of these books, then you should have a pretty good idea of what blogs are all about, what you can do with them, and what you cannot do with them. 5 stars!

Review by Jill Florio:

Like many Dummies books, this book is comprehensive! It’s a thorough introduction to blogging from rank Internet newbie, to the typical active

blogger seeking to learn more about the medium.

As a 2008 book, it’s reasonably current. This is one of those Dummies books the publishers will need to update annually. I recommend readers always seek the latest possible edition of any blogging book, as popular technologies change so rapidly in the field. RSS, comment spam, social networks and podcasting are all given their due space. An entire chapter is devoted to adding and managing photos for your blog.

Two large chapters offer the fundamentals of blogging for business and adding advertising. This won’t be specific enough to get any would-be pro blogger rich, but *does* provide enough basics to get started with affiliates, AdSense, TextLink Ads, AdBright and the like.

Lots of screen captures and sidebars explain complex concepts quite clearly. I enjoyed one sidebar in particular about why comment spam exists (and hint; it’s more about page rank juice than possible click-throughs).

I’d recommend this book for the newbie through advanced blogging beginner. Intermediate level bloggers looking to to brush up on the basics would likely enjoy adding this as a reference to the bookshelf, and might find a few gems they originally missed.

Advanced bloggers won’t find much useful here…but as it’s a Dummies book, that’s to be expected!

From all the blogging books targeting the beginner, this one offers the most bang for your buck, and really does a nice job of holding your hand along the way.

Review by PARCS:

Don’t let the “dummy” title fool you. With so many blog “how-to” papers written, I wanted a good “how-to” book that would walk me through and hold my hand as I venture into the blogosphere. Susannah Gardner and Shane Birley provide just that … a perfect reference book that takes you one step at a time until you are ready to publish. Thanks Susannah and Shane.

Review by Boston Book Addict:

As someone who has long been a blog reader and commenter and more recently, blogging on a small scale, I was naturally very interested in this book and whether it would live up to its name as a “complete guide to blogging.” While like most books it is not 100% perfect it does come close and gives some great information. It is a great mix of practical advice as well as commentary from Huffington Post bloggers and other bloggers from around the web.

The book starts by giving the history of blogging and then in Chapter 2 goes into the basics of getting started. This chapter reads like a FAQ section giving the reader advice on everything from figuring out what to write about to mentioning the variety of software available to blogging to the issue of copyright.

Chapter 3 is all about getting your blog noticed which will be especially appreciated by those who have already started blogging but who may want more traffic. The tips are very practical and from my own experiences actually work. It also gives tips on monetizing your blog but is realistic about the fact that a blog isn’t an instant ticket to riches.

Chapter 4, my personal favorite, is about finding your voice. Given how many blogs are already out on the internet I think for many new bloggers this chapter is helpful as it asks you to consider both what you will feel most passionate about and what you think your potential reader would want out of your blog.

Chapter 5 takes the notion of getting your blog noticed one step further by talking about how you can foster a community through your blog.

Chapter 6 is the history (albeit a brief one) of the Huffington Post and Chapter 7 talks about the impact of the blogosphere on mainstream media. These were honestly my two least favorite chapters as they were less practical in nature and particularly in the case of chapter 7, I have seem similar content covered in other books. (I work in communications so the impact of bloggers on mainstream media is something that is constantly up for discussion.) However, I imagine that if I were a bigger Huffington Post fan I probably would have enjoyed chearing more about the history. I imagine the same would be true for Chapter 7 if I had not already read so much about this.

The last section of the book features the blog roll, more blogging terms, website resource list, and also a ‘best of’ Huffington Blog posts.

Overall I think this was a pretty solid book and provided a good balance of giving tips, providing blogger commentary, and giving a lay of the land. I think the blogger quotes were especially interesting because it was intriguing to see their takes on things. I also loved when the book contrasted how a mainstream newspaper covered a particular even with how they thought a blogger would cover it. It did a good job of highlighting the difference in tone.

The only thing that I disliked about the book at times was the heavy use of sidebars. On one hand, I liked it because this content was interesting and calling it out as a sidebar made it easy to reference. At other times I found it distracted me from the main text because the side bars sometimes took up the majority of a page. I often had to flip back and reread content to remind myself of where I was which broke the my flow. In my opinion, this is only a minor complaint. I also think the book had a lot of perspectives of writers/actors/reporters turned bloggers and could have benefited from having more tips from more ‘citizens turned bloggers’ as they say. This isn’t to say they don’t have any, because they do, but given that I think many of those who read this book will fall into that camp I think having more can only be helpful.

Overall, I think this was a great book. I definitely walked away with ideas of how I could make my blog more successful and enjoyed reading some of the ‘best of’ content.

Review by Furry Girl:

I give this book three out of five stars, and while its good points have been covered by other reviewers, I’ll air my three grievances. This book would be better if it were 2 inches smaller and about two-thirds the length, and if it was targeted more towards people who have something useful to say to a wider audience.

First, the book has extra large outside margins to accommodate occasional quotes, but a quick flip through the book shows that as just a lot of blank space padding out the book and giving it a more square shape that your average book. Seems like a waste of paper meant to make the book’s uncommon shape stand out in physical book stores, and my little eco-gripe with the book.

While no one would deny that The Huffington Post is a successful and influential blog, and is therefor in a place to offer advice, the incessant talking about how great it is and the stories it broke, combined with a lot of “best of” selections is overkill. I suppose if one had never read or heard of blogs before, it would be useful to read so many examples of what gets written in blogs (anything!), but I would imagine most of the book’s readers read blogs every day already. At least one-third of the book is about how the Huffington Post got started or excerpts from the site. Personally, I didn’t find it all that relevant in a “how to blog” book. It’s not as though a reader has no other way of finding out, if they wanted to, “What kind of things are on The Huffington Post?” The authors repeatedly entice potential bloggers with the fact that one of the great things about blogging is that there is no editor dictating a piece’s length to you. It seems like this book could have used a cut-happy editor.

Lastly, there’s a bunch of rally-the-troops, “Even YOU, a lil’ stay-at-home mom, who wants to write about your boring and petty frustrations, CAN HAVE A BLOG!” stuff. Some of us, however, don’t need to be sold on the concept of blogging. Some of us already have topics that interest us and experience writing about them. Some of us aim to reach wider audiences than sharing summaries of our daily lives on LiveJournal. I would have liked to see a chapter about fine-tuning one’s messages and reaching target audiences for people who, pardon my snobbery, but actually have something of value to say to the world. I realize that most blogs are just tiny personal journals meant only to entertain the author and their friends, but I’d have liked to see a lot more from this book beyond the predominantly surface-level advice for people who are coming from a place of, “Golly, what could I write about? What are my interests? What are blogs?”

All in all, though, I do recommend the book for beginners, and cautiously recommend it for non-beginners. I wish it had less fluff and more intermediate-level advice. Many of the reviewers here praise the book for helping readers find their voice and a topic that interests them, and that’s all good and well, but what about people who already had those two things covered long before picking up the book?

Review by Dawn C. Edmonson:

If you are thinking of starting a blog, are new to blogging or you’re like me, and have been blogging for several years, this book is a wonderful go-to reference for just what you need to know to be a great blogger! Tara covers all the important aspects of blogging from how to start your own blog to making your photographs look great to blog etiquette….plus there are so many wonderful bloggers featured inside. They share their take on blogging, what works for them and even the blogs they must visit on a daily basis. I love it ~ even as a seasoned blogger, there’s still so much I can learn!

Review by Gina M. Smith:

What’s not to love about Blogging for Bliss by Tara Frey? It features several dozen eye candy blogs in a handy softcover square.

Want to know how to start your own blog? It’s all there, whether you want to blog for fun or profit- from promoting your own business to accepting advertising on your blogs. Frey digs into all the major blog programs: Blogger, Typepad, WordPress.

She knows whereof she speaks, having had an on-line journal since 2004 and a popular virtual on-line shop, Bella Pink. He blog is known as Typing Out Loud or TaraFrey.com, [...]. Frey may be familiar to some hard-copy readers, having been featured in Romantic Country Homes magazine and has been a contributing editor for Romantic Homes magazine where, among other things, she highlighted not-to-be-missed blogs.

Calling blogs “the personal journals of the 21st century,” Frey takes her Bliss book readers on a journey of some of the most notable and widely-read blogs from around the country and around the world.

I enjoyed the book simply for the introduction to blogs I had not seen before, and for the beautiful showing of blog banners, both new and familiar. If you want to find more favorite places with the same kind of sentiment as Frey, Bliss will serve as your handbook. Good thing it is softcover; I have it dog-eared already from checking out all the beautiful blogs she profiles. You’ll want to be at your computer while looking at this book! And keep it right there handy for future visits.

Newbies will appreciate her helpful glossary of e-mystifying terms, like domain mapping, IP address and Icerocket; links to helpful resources for bloggers, explanation of those cutesy abbreviations like OTOH and TAFN, and HTML, with simple codes for beginning bloggers.

Bliss will also help you explore the various platforms in depth, choosing a home for your blog, and the all-important style, colors, widgets and fun blog accessories to achieve a personalized and custom look, even if you are not computer savvy.

A big attraction of Frey’s blog has always been her photography. In her book she discusses how to take–and edit–blog-worthy photos, with a discussion of proper equipment as well as public photo-sharing and storage sites.

Lastly, if you just want to understand more about the popular no-longer-just-a-phenomenon called blogging, Frey offers blog etiquette tips about comments, spam, and general manners for both bloggers and readers.

It’s an indispensable little book. Try it; you’ll like it. Blogging for Bliss, and blogging, whether as a reader or a writer, add much to the human language.

Review by Marcus Connery:

This a great book for anyone thinking about blogging be it for business or just for pleasure. Even if you are just doing a personal blog, the point is you want people to see it, otherwise you could just write in a journal and put it under your pillow. They lay out in very detailed yet understandable terms how to go about getting it set up, what options you have, and where to go do so. Then once set up, the whole point is getting it out there. Thats where this book really shines. Lots of books and articles and yes, even blogs, have been written about how to blog. These guys take it to the next level and explain how to get it out to the masses.

All in all, concise, informative, and easy for people that might not be all that tech savvy. Just what I was looking for.

Review by Jerry Saperstein:

DL Byron and Steve Broback have really done an excellent job in writing this very thorough primer on blogging for business. The book, actually, is more than a mere primer: its breadth is surprising. They’ve managed to cover virtually every aspect of business blogging in a mere 180 pages. Quite an accomplishment and one the authors can certainly take pride in.

The approach is linear, beginning with an explanation of what a blog is, determining the focus of your business blog, the varieties of blog, design, tools for blogging, writing the blog, getting noticed, monitoring and managing and ending chapter on syndication and other fine points they refer to as “beyond blogging”.

What is impressive is how much solid information the authors manage to convey without overwhelming the reader. The writing style is comfortable and spare. They avoid technical language and do a good job of explaining each point.

Overall this is one of the best books on blogging I’ve seen. It is practical, not theoretical and the authors left dogma and cant at the door. They are clear that blogs are not miraculous but can certainly help a company advance toward its goals.

Well done and a worthwhile read that will serve as a quick reference after you’ve read it.

Jerry

Review by Toneah Lassanah:

I found this book after starting 3 blogs. Before, I had low traffic, I didn’t quite understand Adsense, and had gotten sucked into phony affiliate marketing programs. After reading the book, my traffic has increased threefold, I’ve signed up for Google Analytics, and I now have 6 blogs. I have yet to make much money yet, but this book is taking me in the right direction.

Review by J. Weiss:

If you don’t know what a blog is, but for some reason decide you want to start one, then this would be a great place to start. The first third of the book covers “what is a blog”.

The next portion deals with promoting your blog. These may be good for someone just entering the blogging world, but most of us have heard of Technorati and RSS feeds. Even if you haven’t, you’d be better off with a book that covered more strategies with more depth.

The book gives an overview of the “business” of blogging, but the details are so sparse and basic that you’ll have to pick up another book on the subject anyway.

It does a decent job of weighing the pros and cons of different blog services, but, to me, that alone is not worth the price.

Again, if you are a newbie, this book is a good, quick way to get caught up. If not, save yourself the money and buy a different book.

Review by E. Pope:

I’m a blogger already, and I bought this book because I wanted to learn more about driving business with my blog.

Unfortunately, most of the book isn’t about driving business. It’s about how to blog – what blogging platforms are out there, how to choose your fonts, the length of your posts, etc.

There are some pieces about business that are useful. But they’re sprinkled between so much other stuff that it took a lot of reading to find them.

Review by Kim Butler:

Whether you are a small business owner or the member of a large corporate marketing team, “Blogging to Drive Business” covers all the bases from Blogging 101 to more in-depth blogging topics and techniques.

The book starts with blogging basics, blog terminology, explanations of different types of blogs, and how to create a blogging strategy. The authors cover the major blogging platforms currently on the market and offer suggestions on how to pick the best one for your needs. They also go into the importance of combining your blog with other forms of social networking and offer details about Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

An entire chapter is devoted to what to write about. It covers ideas for internal blogs, product blogs, industry resource blogs, and using your blog to create an online community. The technical aspects of writing a blog are discussed, including how long your blog posts should be, writing effectively, editing, and design. I was very happy to see the detail in which search engine optimization (SEO) of blog posts was covered, which detailed urls, keywords, tags, categories, images, and titles.

For larger companies, there is sound information to consider on who will write the blog in your organization, who will manage it, resources on where to find professional bloggers for hire, and how to hire a blogger. It also goes over associated tasks for an in-house position that would handle your corporate blog and how to write a job description.

The authors also covered promoting your blog and getting more viewers through a combination of efforts from how to submit to search engines to online press releases and other social networking.

Images, video, audio, podcasting, SlideShare, and screencasts were discussed with suggestions on how to use them in your blog and your blog posts and how to optimize the various formats for search engine visibility.

There are a ton of relevant resources throughout the book and an appendix. The book also offers a number of case studies that give real life examples on how these blogging techniques have been used.

I would highly suggest this book to anyone just starting out in blogging, for anyone looking to improve the visibility of their current blog, or for bloggers looking for ideas on how to add some fresh content to their posts. The techniques and suggestions in “Blogging to Drive Business” can be used by companies of all sizes. I’ll be recommending this book to clients who are interested in the world of corporate blogging.

Review by Jeff Lippincott:

I liked this book on blogging. When I first spotted this title I wasn’t sure I wanted to pick it up. The author is a professional writer. He has written a lot of books. And I’ve read a few of them. I’ve even posted a book review for one or two of them on Amazon. The author’s books for the most part come across as term papers to me. They can be kind of mechanical and don’t always dig too deeply into the subject material. But this book is better than most of his previous works. Maybe it is because he is an active blogger himself and much of what he covers here came from first-hand knowledge?

I am by no means an expert when it comes to blogging. But I have read quite a few books on the subject and I have two blogs of my own which I haven’t been contributing to lately. In my humble opinion this book is one of the better ones I have read on blogging. I was very happy to see some coverage of Blogger-dot-com and WordPress-dot-com, two free services that anyone can (and should) take advantage of when building an online presence for themselves or their business(es). I was not familiar with Vox-dot-com or Blogster-dot-com before I read this book, but now think they are nice services to get involved with, too.

The book is well organized and well written. It is fairly comprehensive. It has 15 chapters and a glossary. The target audience is probably small business owners who are seeking to take their company online so they have an online presence where they can promote themselves, their expertise, their credibility, and how much of an authority they are. Blogging is an important ingredient in the mix, and by reading this book you will probably be well on the road to using your blogs both efficiently and productively. 5 stars!

PS. To learn more about this book I encourage you to visit the Search Inside feature Amazon offers which includes the book’s Table of Contents. Enjoy!

Review by New Blogger:

I read summaries and reviews of a number of blogging books before deciding to purchase this one. I’m really happy with this book, and am impressed with the amount of topics Jason Rich covers in a succinct, knowledgeable and easy to understand way. Just the right size handbook.

Rich talks about everything from vlogging to the look of your site to search engine optimization. And because his book is new for 2009, buyers now will find everything completely up to date, unlike some of the other books. He gives realistic advice on monetizing a site, and becoming popular as a blogger.

Rich also interviews well known bloggers for tips on how to get your blog out there and get page views. Overall, it is a very comprehensive read that you can skip around to various sections where you want to learn more.