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Following are the books I’ve written that are still in print and up-to-date. Click on the links to see them listed on the Amazon.com site.
Highlights:
Creating Web Graphics For Dummies
Creating Web Pages For Dummies, 6th Edition
Internet Marketing For Dummies
Outline on Dummies.com – Book page on Amazon.com
Every time I write a new book I tell myself, exhausted, “never again.” At some later point, I forget my promise and start coming up with book ideas. After a while, I sell a publisher on one of them, and I’m writing again.
The idea for Creating Web Graphics For Dummies came out of my own frustrations as a Web page creator and the experiences of those who have read my other books or participated in my online classes. Putting a single image in a Web page is pretty easy, but getting the images you want, putting them where you want them, and not making the user wait for eons to see them is hard. Creating Web Graphics For Dummies shows people how to solve these problems.
I own dozens of books about Web publishing, and have searched far and wide on the Web, but have never seen a book that really explains the basics that most people who are new to Web publishing need to know. Let alone how to get started without first plopping down $500 or so for a copy of Photoshop! And then learning the whole darn program, when you really only need about a third of it for most Web graphics work.
So Creating Web Graphics For Dummies covers Windows Paint, which is free, and Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop Elements, which are each under $100, as well as “full” Photoshop. The book comes with a CD-ROM that has free trial versions of many popular programs on it and points out a wide range of Web resources that you can use for free. And finally it explains what to do if you find yourself swamped and need to call in a pro for help. My coauthor, Peter Frazier, is a Web graphics professional, and he helped keep the book on track from proposal through finished product; Jake Richter, a long-time graphics and Internet pro, gave it an impressively thorough technical review.
Outline on Dummies.com – Book page on Amazon.com
Back in the early 1990’s I was working for Apple Computer in Silicon Valley when everyone I worked with started talking about the Internet and the Web. I took a class or two that Apple offered and then watched, with some envy, as several coworkers left to start a Web software company. They created a tool, PageMill, that was purchased by Adobe and became the first truly easy-to-use Web authoring tool. The leader of the group, Robert Seidl, was an amazing software developer and marketer, and one of the hardest-working people I’ve ever met.
I thereby got the idea to do a Dummies book about getting on the Web. HTML For Dummies was already out, so I had to come up with a fresh angle. I thought the HTML book was a bit “techie,” so I hit on the idea of a book that used existing, free tools and services so readers could get on the Web very cheaply and very easily. I got Arthur Bebak involved to help on the technical side and with developing the CD-ROM, and the rest is history.
Early editions of the book featured GeoCities (before Yahoo! bought it), PageMill, FrontPage Express (a “light”, free version of FrontPage) and other tools. PageMill and FrontPage Express are both hors d’combat. I still feature GeoCities, but have had to update the book in many ways to match current tools and sites.
The book was hard to write and has sometimes been hard to keep updated, as things on the Web change so fast. However, I’ve persevered, as have my readers, and the book has become a big hit. Creating Web Pages For Dummies has sold over three quarters of a million copies and I’m hoping it will reach the magical “one million sold” mark in the not too distant future.
Outline on Dummies.com – Book page on Amazon.com
Richard Mander and I wrote this book to bring the basic principles of Web usability to a wide audience. Richard’s a usability pro who runs a top usability company, Zanzara Inc., and I’ve worked with him before at Apple Computer and on many other projects. My main qualifications for working on this book are my years of working with Richard, my years of writing experience, and my passionate belief in the importance of the subject.
This is the only book I know of that really shows you how to maintain usability in your site as it grows from a simple site to a robust, full-featured informational or e-commerce site. It also shows you how to do both informal and formal usability tests. If you’re building or managing a serious Web site, or hope that your current site will grow, following the recommendations in this book may save you a great deal of time and money.
Outline on Dummies.com – Book page on Amazon.com
Frank Catalano and I wrote this book to share the secrets of marketing on the Web – marketing is, after all, most of what a typical business Web site does. Frank is a long-time marketing consultant who’s kept his perspective, and his integrity, through more than a decade of computer and Internet industry ups and downs. I’ve been product marketing manager for a Web-related product and have spent a great deal of time using Web sites for marketing analysis, so between us we know the topic well.
Internet Marketing For Dummies tells you how to market your company, products and services on your Web page and also how to use other tools such as e-mail to create a complete online marketing presence. It’s full of practical advice and insights from two people who’ve worked productively in the field for years and years.
I’ve written many books over the years. The list pointed to here on Amazon.com includes all my books in English plus some foreign language editions and some books by other people named Bud Smith! This list is mostly of historical interest, but if you really want to see just about all my work, it’s worth searching through.
Here are links to the amazon.com book pages for several books I’ve used in my own work:
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