2006 January

Author of The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence

“ As an author and speaker on customer service, I am constantly talking to Corporate America about being more responsive to the people who buy their products and services. Establish a dialogue with customers. That's where corporate blogging comes in. Using humor, insight, opinion and fact, Debbie Weil has produced an invaluable handbook for starting—and sustaining—the conversation between buyers and sellers. ”

Senior vice president and general manager of Business Critical Servers, Hewlett Packard

“ The first clear-eyed look at the what and how of blogging as a corporate communications strategy. Both entertaining and informative, Debbie Weil's book allays fears surrounding blogging and provides sensible advice on how to write an effective blog, who should write it and how to measure success. This excellent primer will satisfy even the most skeptical of managers. If you fear you'll get it wrong, this book is the best place to start in order to get it right! ”

I’ve gotten the copy-edited [does copy-edited have a hyphen?? that’s the kind of thing the copyeditor knows… and I don’t] manuscript back from Portfolio and am going through it page by page.

I feel like I’m back in sixth grade. It’s covered with red marks and scribbles in red pencil. I’ve been instructed to respond to the copyeditor’s suggested edits in a different color pencil. Not pen, mind you.

Oh, and to harken back to pre-Internet days, the manuscript arrived as 250+ loose pages with a giant rubber band around them. Lots of details and stuff to pay attention to. But so far this isn’t as taxing as writing the damn thing.

Tuesday, January 31st, 2006Filed in How book publishing worksAdd a comment

Finally! What a labor. Still lots of tweaks and small revisions to come. But I submitted the manuscript on Monday and my editors at Penguin Portfolio have "accepted" it. Now it goes to the copy editor.

And in case you’re wondering, yes this meant round-the-clock writing and revising and not much of a holiday over Christmas and New Year’s.

Had the pleasure of emailing back and forth with Wired editor Chris Anderson late one night last week. He’s working towards the deadline to finish his manuscript for The Long Tail and also says he finds it a real challenge.

You can find the Amazon listing for The Corporate Blogging Book here.