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Book Review of: Content Is CashLeveraging great content and the Web for increased traffic, sales, leads, and buzz Price: $16.18 Availability: Usually ships within 24 hours |
| Review of
Content Is Cash, by Author (Softcover, 2011) (You can print this review in landscape mode, if you want a hardcopy) Reviewer: Mark Lamendola, author of over 6,000 articles. This book lays out a solid plan for content marketing, using five types of publishing venue. For anyone who does content-based marketing, or who simply publishes decent content, this book is a "must read." II have yet to visit "social media" sites, and really do not like blogs. These are two of the publication venues of the five in the SONAR plan. However, I am currently using two of these venues--though admittedly at a much lower level that I probably should be. There is only so much time in each 80 hour work week.... After reading this book, I think I need to make some adjustments here. Another area is news releases. Ms. De Oca has me thinking about this area, which is one where I felt I had nothing to say. Even though I publish a twice-monthly eNL for Mindconnection, I hadn't considered repurposing any of that into news releases even though there's plenty newsworthy stuff. This is some low-hanging fruit. For several years, I worked in a traditional print publishing company during its transition to becoming a multimedia publishing company (e-publications, in addition to print). So, the idea of repurposing content isn't new to me. It's a proven revenue-generator and a proven way to wring more ROI out of a given amount of editorial work. The SONAR model that Ms. De Oca developed is really a framework for repurposing content. There are a few caveats to using this system, and she mentions them in the book. Two in particular she addresses are:
A third one she doesn't devote much page space to is writing competence. Since the target reader of this book is someone who is already developing content, it wouldn't make much sense for her to address this issue in depth. I just want to caution the reader that whipping out random thoughts laced with keywords doesn't cut it. You need an area of expertise, even if that means you research every fact instead of being the expert yourself.
If you are already in the practice of producing good content regularly, this book will probably help you monetize your work better. If you aren't much of a writer, then stick with what you're good at and find someone who can write for you. With the original text in completed, you can have your writer work the SONAR system at a small additional cost. Fortunately, Ms. De Oca does provide examples of good content. One I especially like is Agora. This book's one downside, if you want to call it that, is the serious reader makes a punchlist or task list. So now I've got work to schedule, but I think it's going to be worth doing. | |
About these reviewsYou may be wondering why the reviews here are any different from the hundreds of "reviews" posted online. Notice the quotation marks? I've been reviewing books for sites like Amazon for many years now, and it dismays me that Amazon found it necessary to post a minimum word count for reviews. It further dismays me that it's only 20 words. If that's all you have to say about a book, why bother? And why waste everyone else's time with such drivel? As a reader of such reviews, I feel like I am being told that I do not matter. The flippancy of people who write these terse "reviews" is insulting to the authors also, I would suspect. This sound bite blathering taking the place of any actual communication is increasingly a problem in our mindless, blog-posting Webosphere. Sadly, Google rewards such pointlessness as "content" so we just get more if this inanity. My reviews, contrary to current (non) standards, actually tell you about the book. I always got an "A" on a book review I did as a kid (that's how I remember it anyhow, and it's my story so I'm sticking to it). A book review contains certain elements and has a logical structure. It informs the reader about the book. A book review may also tell the reader whether the reviewer liked it, but revealing a reviewer's personal taste is not necessary for an informative book review. About your reviewer
About reading styleNo, I do not "speed read" through these. That said, I do read at a fast rate. But, in contrast to speed reading, I read everything when I read a book for review. Speed reading is a specialized type of reading that requires skipping text as you go. Using this technique, I've been able to consistently "max out" a speed reading machine at 2080 words per minute with 80% comprehension. This method is great if you are out to show how fast you can read. But I didn't use it in graduate school and I don't use it now. I think it takes the joy out of reading, and that pleasure is a big part of why I read. |
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