103 marketing professionals have joined together to write The Age of Conversation, a marketing book about the importance conversations in the period of social media. All proceeds will be donated to Variety, the international children’s charity. This is a first-of-its- kind online collaboration between people around the world who have never met each other.

This new book was inspired by Drew McLellan, who heads an advertising agency McLellan Marketing Group and blogger of Drew’s Marketing Minute. His partner is another top marketing blogger, Gavin Heaton, Interactive Director at marketing agency Creata, in Sidney, Australia and blogs at Servant of Chaos.

McLellan and Heaton, through their blogs, invited other marketing professionals to commit to writing essays about conversation. They set what they thought would be an impossible goal — 100 bloggers. Within seven days they had commitments from 103.

“We’ve been amazed at the variety of approaches that have been taken, and with hardly any duplication or overlap,” said Heaton. “This book explores the art of conversation and how it is changing the face of marketing from virtually every angle possible.”

Originally posted on July 16, 2007 @ 12:54 pm

SharedBook Inc., the reverse publishing platform provider, has launched a Blog2Print widget. Content owners on Google’s Blogger platform and their readers can now turn blog posts into a printed book with a single click. Additional compatibility will become available later this summer.

Blog2Print is a quick and easy way for blog owners to compile their favorite posts in printed book format. The widget also gives bloggers the ability to monetize their content through the sale of newly created books. Content owners can sign up to receive a 20 percent share of the retail price of all blog books made by others of their content. When users click on the Blog2Print button to print blog content, they are given several options. They can upload a cover photo, select all blog posts or the dates of the entries they would like to include in the book, and choose whether the posts should appear in reverse-chronological or chronological order. They can also select an introduction, or write their own.

“Built using our open API which is available for anyone to use, the Blog2Print widget gives individuals a simple way to capture the online content that is the most relevant to them in a structured book product,” said Caroline Vanderlip, CEO, SharedBook Inc.

Originally posted on July 9, 2007 @ 8:40 am