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Content Is Cash

Book Review of: Content Is Cash

Leveraging great content and the Web for increased traffic, sales, leads, and buzz

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Review of Content Is Cash, by Author (Softcover, 2011)

(You can print this review in landscape mode, if you want a hardcopy)

Reviewer:

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:

  1. It takes time to produce results. It does not bring overnight success.
  2. You must schedule time to work on it.

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 reviews

You 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

  • Books are a passion of mine. I read dozens of them each year, plus I listen to audio books.
  • Most of my "reading diet" consists of nonfiction. I think life is too short to use your limited reading time on material that has little or no substance. That leads into my next point...
  • In 1990, I stopped watching television. I have not missed it. At all.
  • I was first published as a preteen. I wrote an essay, and my teacher submitted it to the local paper.
  • For six years, I worked as an editor for a trade publication. I left that job in 2002, and still do freelance editing and authoring for that publication (and for other publications).
  • No book has emerged from my mind onto the best-seller list. So maybe I'm presumptuous in judging the work of others. Then again, I do more describing than judging in my reviews. And I have so many articles now published that I stopped counting them at 6,000. When did I stop? Probably 20,000 articles ago! (It's been a while).
  • I have an engineering degree and an MBA, among other "quant" degrees. That helps explain my methodical approach toward reviews.
  • You probably don't know anybody who has made a perfect or near perfect score on a test of Standard Written English. I have. So, a credential for whatever it's worth.

About reading style

No, 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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