Building a WordPress Blog People Want to Read (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: theme editor, incoming links, publish status, Blog People Want, Futureproofing Your Blog, Media Library (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Having your own blog isn't just for the nerdy anymore. Today, it seems everyone—from multinational corporations to a neighbor up the street—has a blog. They all have one, in part, because the folks at WordPress make it easy to get one. but to actually build a good blog—to create a blog people want to read—takes thought, planning, and some effort. From picking a theme and using tags to choosing widgets and building a community, creating your blog really starts after you set it up. In this book by blogger extraordinaire Scott McNulty, you learn how to:

• Install and get your WordPress blog running.
• Set up your site to ensure it can easily grow with you and your readers.
• Be the master of user accounts.
• Manage your site with the WordPress Dashboard and extend its capabilities with plug-ins.
• Make the most of images.
• Work with pages, templates, and links and—of course—publish your posts.
• Deal with comments—if you even want readers commenting at all.
• Find a theme—or build one yourself.
• Maintain your site and fix common problems.
  

About the Author

Scott McNulty is a simple geek living in Philadelphia. Scott has been blogging for just over nine years about whatever strikes his fancy. He runs more WordPress blogs than anyone should, and even has a few other blogs using other blogging engines. More of Scott's words can be found on his personal blog, blog.blankbaby.com, or at Macuser.com, where Scott is a senior contributor, or Obsessable.com, where he writes a weekly feature about technology.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Peachpit Press; 1 edition (December 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321591933
• ISBN-13: 978-0321591937
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #41,211 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #28 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Home Computing > Blogging & Blogs
  #74 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Web Development > Web Services

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Best starting resource. See other resources. , February 7, 2009

By	justtroy - See all my reviews

I purchased this book with 2 other titles: a DVD, "How to Theme WordPress" by Aleks Monahan which I think is a very good and more advanced tutorial specifically on template design and theming WordPress (review already posted on that DVD's page) and "WordPress For Dummies" by Lisa Sabin-Wilson.

This book is a good book for novices and I think it has the potential of becoming the de facto standard for novices instead of the bulkier "WordPress for Dummies" by Lisa Sabin-Wilson.

If you're new to WordPress, get this book. The page layout was very nice and the fonts were easy on the eye, I finished it in just 1 day. It will get you going with the basics very quickly (except in one instance, read below). It's written in a way that assumes no previous knowledge of WordPress. For example, on page 3, the author says: "WordPress can be extended by little bits of code called plug-ins." This smooth and flowing style of writing can be very helpful to you if you're a new WordPress blogger.

One section where this book fails truly miserably (and hence the 4-star review) is the section "Setting up the MySQL Database". I'm not new to WordPress. I've used it for blogging for more than 2 months now on the free wordpress.com site, and I'm now beginning to consider moving to my own domain website. I'm sad to say that the "Setting up the MySQL Database" section failed me there.

The author says "you need to create a MySQL database... the installation will fail if you don't set this database up beforehand." But then he says that setting up the database is "beyond the scope of this book" and gives some very brief pointers that do not compare to the level of detail most users in need of this information would find helpful. I was disappointed that I had to look elsewhere for this information e.g. it's covered in Sabin-Wilson's "WordPress for Dummies" in more than 2 pages and on Aleks Monahan's "How to Theme WordPress" DVD. I wished McNulty covered it too. It would have made the book a "complete" guide for new bloggers.

Most other sections were very useful. The author discusses some very interesting features like how to set up your blog to accept posts by email and how to automate the process even more. The section explaining uploads and how to configure them is very helpful if you're like me interested in moving to your own WordPress site under your own private domain. I found the book also strong on how to handle media and images and enjoyed those sections.

I found Scott McNulty's information on templates in the themes section very shallow in comparison to the DVD tutorial on theming by Aleks Monahan. This is not necessarily a negative. The book is intended for beginners after all and the author admits that what he's presenting is small tweaks to existing themes. For templates and theming, I highly recommend you purchase the DVD by Aleks Monahan. It's very good, an eye opener and nice to watch regardless of whether you want to create your template or not. I'm not ready to create my template yet, but found the DVD very informative and now that I've watched it, I might get to the stage of creating a template of my own sooner. You can use the templates chapter by McNulty as a primer.

The book also discusses plug-ins and how to open a plug-in to edit it if you want. The author also touches very slightly on how to start setting up a plug-in but the information again is very shallow in this section. Some code showing how to build a sample plug-in would have been great. 1 full example would be enough. The section "Plug-ins no blog should be without" is also very good and he mentions the WP Security Scan plug-in which I'm getting for sure, very useful, and other useful plug-ins too.

If you're new to WordPress, buy this book, it's a light read, really easy on the eye (not to be underestimated) and it's well written and nicely formatted. But don't depend on it as the only source. It's a good way to get started. See the other resources mentioned.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not as helpful as the dummies book, March 3, 2009

By	B. Lian - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I purchased this book and the Wordpress for Dummies book together. After going through both, and having zero prior experience with Wordpress, that I found this book somewhat haphazardly organized and often lacking in key functional details. In addition, the descriptions and interface he refers to do not appear to correspond with the most recent version of Wordpress for Windows, despite the book's 2009 copyright. Could be that he is not using a PC version, not sure. This aspect could be frustrating, particularly when layered on top of inadequate explanations. Again, I knew nothing about this program before purchasing these two books. I found the Dummies book a lot more thorough (although possibly more remedial) on nearly every topic. This book might be ok if you're a little familiar with blogging and you're good at mental gymnastics. Otherwise you'll probably need another text to supplement.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best WordPress Guide I've Read, January 4, 2009

By	Howard Hall (langhorne, pa United States) - See all my reviews

Scott McNulty's Building a WordPress Blog People Want to Read is the perfect jumping off point for people who want to start blogging (or site-building) with one of the world's most popular platforms, especially if they have no idea where, or how, to start.

Using a brand of wit familiar to fans of his tech and personal blogging, McNulty lays out the fundamentals of getting started, from the benefits of using WordPress to installation and effective utilization. But it goes beyond technical advice to practical ideas for being a better blogger -- something the author also knows a bit about.

As a veteran WordPress user, I can attest to the accuracy and utility of the techniques explained clearly and concisely in Building a WordPress Blog People Want to Read. It even offered me a few helpful pointers for streamlining my own blogging process.

If you're a current or prospective WordPress user looking for a guide to getting the most out of your experience, you may want to skip past the guides catering to idiots or dummies and check out this simple yet smart offering.