Pondering whether to progress my book writing project by self publishing, or finding a traditional publisher, I came across Seth Godin’s Advice for Authors. Sound advice indeed. After further surfing and reading I gained more insight into the book writing business, and the upshot is that I have decided to write my book by blogging it gradually. It is tentatively titled “The New Rules of Brand Protection”
The choice of title is inspired by David Meerman Scott’s book “The New Rules of Marketing and PR“. As I read David’s book the thought popped into my head that actually the internet is changing the rules in all industries. Marketing and PR are just one example of an industry undergoing transformation.
It reminded me of my blog piece back in March on the Impact of the Social Web where I mentioned how entire industries – such as print media – are having to rethink their business models.
David’s book helped me to formulate my views. I realised that what my book is really about is how the new world order is transforming the old approach to brand protection. Advertising and the old ways of promoting brands are under challenge. Many businesses are realising that promoting a brand exclusively on mainstream media to tell the brand story – the ‘broadcasting TV advertising’ approach – does not work on the web. Yet the web is too important a medium to ignore in cultivating a brand.
Given that the way in which brands are promoted is changing so fundamentally, it is hardly surprising that brand protection is also in need of rethinking.
In my article here I discussed how the use of web 2.0 technologies which have enabled ordinary citizens to post content online is what has driven this revolution. Every one of us needs to be alert to what is being said about us and our businesses on the web.
As I write sections of my book, I invite other lawyers, brand owners, writers, bloggers, interested individuals, anyone to follow along, and to contribute to the process.
Please offer your suggestions, let me know if you think I am off track, and help me by contributing your thoughts. I hope the book will take no longer than 6 months to write, but given my over optimistic tendencies, it is safer to assume it will take a year. Next week I will publish an ebook on it.
on Oct 23rd, 2009 at 2:27 am
Good to hear that someone is writing a book. Writing a book via blogging updates is something that I had pondered sometime ago but did not pursue. In the end, I went the self publish way. But since you are going on such a journey, I wish you the best of luck.
When I started on my book, I had a mission and a fixed purpose. I though I have something to tell, so I put it down on paper…..uh, it was on a pda ( paper is so passed). Seeing that your mission is about ‘protecting brands’, I would imagine that there are not too many methods of doing it.
Maybe you should try ‘new methods of branding’ since that could trigger others to tell about their out of this world technique of branding. If at all it fails, at least it is more Web2 than anything. But I suppose you will find the journey interesting and not least of all surprising. Best of luck!