Naked Conversations arrives....

My pals Robert Scoble and Shel Israel are the proud parents of a brand new book! Their excellent book on blogging, i.e. Naked Conversations, arrived today, and is now shipping from Amazon. I am sure that it will arrive at your friendly local Borders or Barnes & Noble shortly.

The guys gave me a copy last week at CES. I was thrilled, not only to get a copy, but to have had a very small part in making it happen.

As the legend is told, the idea for Robert to write a book came from Andy Ruff. Andy is one of the finest young men I have ever known as well as one of the brightest. How I got to know Andy is too long a story for this post, but I truly value Andy’s friendship, intellect and ability. One day Andy and I were doing something in Mt. View, and Andy said that Robert should write a book. I instantly recognized that this was a great idea, but knew also how busy Robert was at Microsoft, and how writing a book like “Naked Conversations” would both be a lot of work, and work that needed to be done quickly.

I also knew that Shel was an excellent writer. So I arranged a dinner with Andy, Robert and Shel. We were all sitting in a little restaurant in Palo Alto, everyone had a glass of wine, and I said to everyone, “Andy’s got a great idea….” and handed the microphone to Andy, and the rest as they say is history.

The book is really excellent, even down to things like the cover art and the type font.

Congratulations guys, I hope you sell a million copies! 

Comments

[Graham English]

"Congratulations guys, I hope you sell a million copies!"

I'm responsible for helping them sell 1 copy :)

Thanks for inspiring the book. I'm a Naked Conversations evangelist now.

[shel israel]

Thanks Buzz for the instrumental role you played in all this and thanks Graham for the first of the million copies you and Buzz wish us.

[Alan A. Reiter]

Hi Buzz,

I am always amazed at how plugged in you are!

Just ordered "Naked Conversations" that I have been waiting to read, especially because I write a "corporate" (of sorts) weblog, www.WICWeblog.com, and might be asked to develop another one.

I am also amazed at the price for the digital edition of the book; I bought the hardcopy version -- both editions are the same, discounted price on Amazon.

With the digital edition, based on Adobe Acrobat, you typically can't print it (according to Amazon) and it won't work on a Pocket PC or Symbian device.

And the morons in publishing wonder why people don't by more electronic books! There are, of course, a variety of reasons, but charging the same for the paper and electronic editions certainly is one significant reason.

It's why I didn't get the electronic edition to read on my X41 Tablet PC.

[shel israel]

Alan,
We called Buzz the Connection King and there's good reason. For the record, I agree with you regarding the price and value of the digital version. Also, our experience with the blog says that most people seem to prefer reading something of this length in book form. All that aside, I'm sorry to have an unhappy customer.Can you return what you have, in favor of the old-fashioned Hardcopy? If not, I can try to arrange for the publisher to send you a complementry edition of the book. You can follow up with me at shel@itseemstome.net.
--

[Dave Rakowski]

While Adobe typically does have some of the most oppressive DRM terms on the planet, I had no problems at all 1) printing my copy; and 2) transferring it to a Pocket PC.

Agree 100% that the pricing part is ridiculous.

Dave Rakowski
Allentown, PA

[Alan Reiter]

Hi Dave,

I made sure to include in parenthesis, that that's what Amazon says in its information about the eBook.

I realize that different publishers have different restrictions. It probably would be in Amazon's interest to clearly state what can and cannot be done with each specific eBook it sells so potential customers know what to expect.

I love paper-based books, but I also realize the many advantages of Books. I am somewhat frustrated that publishers simply don't seem to understand how to effectively market them.