TypePad for Dummies Review

TypePad has been a popular blogging application for years, but there hasn't been a really good book to help people actually use TypePad until recently when "TypePad for Dummies" was released. "TypePad for Dummies" is part of Wiley Publishing's popular "For Dummies" series of books (I wrote Google Blogger for Dummies and Blogging All-in-One for Dummies), which is an excellent collection of books about a myriad of subjects intended for a beginner audience. "TypePad for Dummies", by Melanie Nelson and Shannon Lowe, is a great resource for people who prefer to learn from a book.

"TypePad for Dummies" is written for a beginner audience, so it starts with a helpful introduction to blogging before diving into the nuts and bolts of using TypePad as a blogging application. Next, you learn how to set up a TypePad account and profile, what can be found in the TypePad dashboard, and how to create, write, and edit your first blog post.

Once the basics are covered, you learn how to converse with people on your TypePad blog through comments as well as some more advanced tasks such as using TypeLists and widgets, adding multimedia to your TypePad blog, and tweaking and finding your TypePad theme. The book also includes useful chapters about social media, making money with your blog, and importing, exporting and archiving.

As with all books in the "For Dummies" series, "TypePad for Dummies" is written in a friendly tone that is neither condescending nor assumptive, and as with all books in the "For Dummies" series, each chapter is modular. That means all chapters can stand on their own, so you don't necessarily have to read the book from start to finish to find value from it. Instead, you can pick and choose the chapters you need to read without feeling as if you missed some vital piece of information from another chapter that you didn't read.

All books in the "For Dummies" series include a section at the end of each book called "The Part of Tens," which offers lists of additional tips, tricks, resources, and so on that readers can benefit from. "TypePad for Dummies" includes a list of tips and tricks, a list of places to find TypePad resources, a list of bloggers using TypePad well, and a list of blogging etiquette tips in the "Part of Tens" section, which readers should find particularly useful.

Additionally, "TypePad for Dummies" includes two appendices that teach readers how to map a domain name to a TypePad blog and how to use third-party stat counters.

"TypePad for Dummies" is an excellent resource for beginner bloggers who want to use TypePad as their blogging application. It's clear, concise, and easy to read. In fact, it's one of the best books currently available to learn how to use TypePad at a beginner level.