Building a WordPress Blog People Want to Read [Paperback]

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.

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.

This is an a reasonably adequate technical manual on setting up a WordPress blog. The book is definitely not a guide to building a blog "people want to read" as the title asserts, because there is virtually nothing about blog content to be found in the book. About a page at the very end and nothing more. In a response to an Amazon review criticizing this lack, the author says that a whole chapter on content was left out. My feeling is that if that was the case, the title should have been changed to more accurately reflect the content or the lack thereof.

McNulty provides step-by-step directions for setting up a WordPress blog. Newcomers to blogging and the Web may find this level of instruction helpful. The somewhat more experienced will find that the web provides more than adequate instructional materials. [...]

McNulty's writing style is relatively straightforward and clear, though he makes the mistake that many tech authors make these days and tries to be a comedian. He isn't and his attempts at humor are intrusive.

There are many graphics and examples in the book, which is good for the neophyte.

Overall, this isn't a bad book, but it is not a standout in any way. Just be aware that this book does not deliver on its title - it has nothing to do with generating the content or marketing for a blog "people will want to read". The book's title is all hype and nothing more. Ironically, McNulty says on the last page of the book: "People judge a book by its cover. You can admit it - the awesome cover is at least part of the reason you bought this book."

Sure was, Scott, and the misleading title is why I wouldn't recommend this book over others on WordPress.

Jerry

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 34 reviews  3.9 out of 5 stars