237 Bloggers Worldwide Collaborate to Benefit Charity
A year and a half ago, an online conversation between two marketing professionals in the U.S. and Australia evolved into a collaborative writing effort by more than 100 bloggers from nine countries that created a book called The Age of Conversation. The project raised nearly $15,000 for Variety, the international children's charity.
Following the success of the first book, which was published in the summer of 2007, Drew McLellan and Gavin Heaton, organizers of the first project, are about to publish Age of Conversation 2, which compiles written thoughts on the role of conversation in marketing today from 237 marketing professionals who blog in the U.S. and 15 other countries.
McLellan, who heads McLellan Marketing Group, a Des Moines, Iowa advertising agency, has been writing a blog for more than two years. His blog, DrewsMarketingMinute.com, is among the 25 most-read marketing blogs. Heaton, who works for global software giant, SAP, writes ServantofChaos.com blog from Sydney, Australia, which is also a top 25 marketing blog.
The project has an unusual story behind it, involving online connections between people around the world who had never met each other face to face.
After McLellan had written about Wharton University’s effort to create a collaborative book, Heaton suggested online that they get a few fellow bloggers to try it.
“Three e-mails later, we had named the book and the charity. It just fell into place," McLellan said. “The Age of Conversation was the perfect topic. The marketing industry is abuzz about how citizen marketers are changing the landscape, and these books capture that new phenomenon from a uniquely global vantage point.”
Through their blogs, McLellan and Heaton 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.
No sooner had the first book been published when the two began planning for Age of Conversation 2. The new book will be available on October 29, 2008 in three formats – an e-book, softcover and hardcover. All proceeds will again be donated to Variety, the international children's charity.
Pricing for The Age of Conversation 2 is:
- e-book: US$12.50 ($10.00 going to charity)
- paperback book: US$19.95 ($8.02 to charity)
- hardback book: US$29.95 ($4.60 to charity)
Purchases can be made online from October 28, 2007 at www.lulu.com/ageofconversation.
A social media release is available at: http://pitch.pe/961
This is awesome - I can't believe I am just hearing about this now. Very excited to read the book, ordering a copy now!
Posted by: Ashley | October 30, 2008 at 01:41 AM
Ordering now!
P.S Need to change your date in second last paragraph from 2007 to 2008!
Posted by: Katie Harris | October 30, 2008 at 09:37 AM
I'm very much looking forward to reading this. Congratulations on the release!
Posted by: Michelle / chelpixie | October 31, 2008 at 05:05 AM
Excellent work, can't wait to read it.
Just tried to buy the hardcover, but Lulu charges 120$ for shipping one book to Norway.
Not a brilliant deal on my part, so I'd have to stick to the e-book version unfortunately.
Thought you'd like to know. :o)
Posted by: Helge Tennø | November 02, 2008 at 05:05 AM
Fabulous job, all...As a co-contributor of AOC 1 & AOC2, I've gotta say, this one is even more robust and insightful.
If any of the fellow co-authors check in, could you please shift my link to:
www.shapingyouth.org/blog
It's not pulling inbound links to the right source/our main blog; my bad, I didn't know Technorati had TWO versions of our nonprofit somehow. Sorry for the hassle. Excellent job everyone...can't wait to read each and every one...it'll take awhile!
p.s. the paperbacks I ordered have already shipped so kudos to Lulu for service WITHIN the U.S.! :-)
Posted by: ShapingYouth | November 05, 2008 at 09:41 AM
Fabulous job, all...As a co-contributor of AOC 1 & AOC2, I've gotta say, this one is even more robust and insightful.
If any of the fellow co-authors check in, could you please shift my link to:
www.shapingyouth.org/blog
It's not pulling inbound links to the right source/our main blog; my bad, I didn't know Technorati had TWO versions of our nonprofit somehow. Sorry for the hassle. Excellent job everyone...can't wait to read each and every one...it'll take awhile!
p.s. the paperbacks I ordered have already shipped so kudos to Lulu for service WITHIN the U.S.! :-)
Thanks, Amy Jussel
Posted by: Amy Jussel | November 05, 2008 at 09:42 AM
This is a wonderful project. Congrats to all involved.
Posted by: Allan | November 13, 2008 at 07:39 AM