Customer Reviews

The IT Girl's Guide to Blogging with Moxie

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've had a few blogs over the past several years that never got off the ground, because I'd get stuck (and/or bored with it) and let them sit there, collecting cyberspace dust. This fun book is just the kick I needed to start over and make it into something I can be proud of and will enjoy doing. All the main points of blogging that you need to know are touched upon and easy to follow. Even if you're not exactly new to blogging, it's easy to skip through to the parts you do need because the chapters are all outlined very well. Overall, a fun and witty, well-organized buy for anyone wanting to dive into the world of blogging!

I just started my own blog earlier this year. It's been quite a learning experience, one that would not have been so painful if i had read this book first. If i had, i would have learned how to find the right *me* tone, where to get insiration from, how to get people wide and far to come to my blog, and how to handle comments good and bad. Oh, and mix the perfect martini. I had such fun reading this book, I recommend it for anyone who wants a blog that's all that and a pair of Jimmy Choos.

I don't believe in writing negative reviews, it's just that this needs to be said so take it with a grain of salt, after all it's just one opinion.

I bought this book because I expected to find a guide written in everyday terminology. The book is dubbed as "written by women for women" but it's more like written by high school cheerleaders for themselves.


There is no depth to the topics - most topics just mentioned but not explained in any detail. For instance there is nothing about how to create your own blog banner, just a blip about finding your own personal style.

I found the design of the book to be distracting. The use of cute icons (latte cups & cell phones) and different font styles take away from the actual "meat" of the book and make it hard to follow, kind of like having several people talking to you at once and not hearing any of them.


There are too many unrelated metaphors and cliches that have little to do with the content unless you knew the "inside joke". This is much too girly girl for my taste. Speaking of tastes, rather than drink recipes, lotion recommendations and party ideas, an appendix and resource list would be more useful. I do give credit to the glossary and comprehensive index.


On a positive note, there are several interesting quotes throughout the book. The information could be useful once you sift through all the clutter but Sherlock who has the time!?

I've been a fan of the Moxie girls since day one and was so excited to see they were finally working together on a book project. I only wish a resource like this had been in existence when I started blogging in 2001. And just in time before things get too overwhelming with all that fancy book-learnin', it's cocktail hour! A very fun, informative read and a definite beginning point to start the journey down the road to blogging...with Moxie! Blogging is constantly evolving and changing, so be it Flickr or Twitter, this resource has it all covered from beginning to present.

This is a book we should have had when we began thestoryhome podcast, our new children's audio story site. Yikes, we had so much to learn! But lucky for us, we had Joelle and Moxie at the design helm, and her wonderful hip wisdom guided our blog-steps along the golden path to launch. The book is a full of the wit, charm and spot-on tech savvy advice we grew to rely on during our web building journey. To all those who are entering the blog world, take our advice, Moxie's book is the best!It's all the key information a best friend in the business would explain to you patiently over coffee, or perhaps better, a martini.

Hello! I recently picked up this book and have read it cover to cover,
marked it up, and used it to make changes to my own blog. I can't tell you how much fun I had reading it - what a blast. And because of this book I'm on my way to starting my own business, thanks to all of the fabulous advice from the Moxie Girls. Their own site is a lot of fun too, and chock full of powerful advice. I'm very grateful to the Moxie Girls for sharing their wisdom and experience.

I've known Joelle and Kathy for almost 4 years and was so excited to get a copy of this book. They are smart, witty and down right fabulous! And that is certainly reflected in The IT Girl's Guide to Blogging with Moxie. The beginner blogger can learn all sorts of tips for having a great blog and even the more experienced blogger can find some useful tricks they might not have known about. If you are looking for an informative and helpful tool that's also fun and entertaining, this is the book for you.

Ok, so I bought a few other books on blogging and wasn't sure if I should spend the money on this one. Truth be told I wanted to buy it because it was so cute and pink! But my rational side was worried that because it was pink and girly, it might be light on the real information that I needed.

Boy was I wrong! I'm glad I bought the book. While it is pink, it's actually super user friendly and it breaks down tons of information that although I already had a blog up, I was still foggy on. Stuff like tagging, blogrolls, trackbacks, feeds and copyrights.

What I do is read the book and as I come to something useful and new, I open up my lap top and follow their simple 1-2-3 steps and voila! Now I'm pinging all over the place :)

It really is much more useful than I thought it would be, probably one of the most useful books on the topic I've bought so far.

But I do wish that they had covered some issues that come up for MAC users like myself. There isn't even so much as a word about iweb or mac at all. So a lot of the website building stuff I couldn't use because I built my blog in iweb. But if you're a PC user this book is probably even better for you!

All in all, being a mac girl I wish they could have covered some of the problems I've run into ... like it's practically mind numbing to try to claim your blog on Technorati if you're working in iweb. I haven't been able to yet and they don't even mention stuff like that, but I wish they had. But to be fair, I haven't found any other blogging books to cover iweb either. I guess us mac chicks are just out in the cold till Apple catches up on stuff like tagging and trackbacks.

Other than that, I highly recommend the book. It's pink and it rocks.

Update as of 4/1/08: Since reading and rereading Blogging With Moxie I have realized that I NEED to move on from iweb to a wordpress blog hosted on an outside server. It's a little more complicated but necessary if you really want traffic and eventually earn a little cash off your blog. Apparently iweb's code is horrible and makes it almost impossible for Google and the like to find you.

So thanks to Blogging With Moxie, I'm about to throw my hat in the ring and play with the big boys! ;)Thanks ladies for writing such a great book!

I've been a longtime reader of both Joelle and Kathy's blogs, and have followed them through their careers as designers for the past 3 years or so. When I heard about the book, I didn't hesitate to order my own copy, and then dutifully waited the few months before it actually arrived on my doorstep.

When it finally came, I read through a good portion of it right away. The tips it gives on blogging and setting up blogs in certain formats seem very helpful and clearly defined. I'm not much of a techie, personally, and actually have a hard time even dealing with HTML code! But this book will definitely help me put it all in perspective and get me to the new heights I want my blogging to go to in the next 1 - 5 years!

Great job, girls! The book reads like you're talking to me directly, which I certainly appreciate. As a techie-loser, I can use all the help I can get, and having a comfortable guide to this sort of "world" makes me feel like there's someone out there who understands where I'm coming from. Looking forward to more material from you both in the future!

This book was fun to read with lots of helpful references to get you started on your own blog. It's not overly techie and when it has to go there, it does so with a lot of panache.