Photo: Joy Deangdeelert Cho - Layout - Bloesem

Friends, I have another fun giveaway to do today, this time Joy Deangdeelert Cho's latest book, Blog, Inc. - a book about how to have a successful blog published through Chronicle Books.  Times have really changed since we started out blogging (circa 2005), in fact, Joy was one of my first blog friends –and she was also very generous in offering her opinions about the blogging business when we were all first starting out, and so I'm more than happy to promote her book here today and offer a giveaway to one of our readers, courtesy of the folks from Chronicle Books!

This is a great little book, for those starting out and even for the seasoned blogger (like me) -I always believe in improving and changing with the ebb and flow of things.  So in this season of giving, I would highly recommend it for someone who is thinking of or is on the adventure that is blogging.  I remember that first year or so - it was probably the most exciting, it's just a natural progression to want to share your work, your life and in my case my appreciation for design with the world. Back in 2003/4 when I first was considering starting a blog (it took me a year or two to jump in) - I was learning communication design at Emily Carr and thought it would be a good way to catalog work that inspired me.  It was just before Etsy opened and finding beautiful design was much harder then.  I remember digging deep into the abyss of the scary old internet, running into the beautiful work of (and blogs) of Camilla Engman, Lisa Solomon, Ward-o-matic, hulaseventy, Nebo Peklo, Happy Mundane, Everybody Likes Sandwiches , Bloesem, and of course good old Design Sponge (I remember her green, orange and grey polka dotted blogger template like it was yesterday) Fun fact, I recently ran into a site (the wayback machine) a web archive of sorts where you can look at old site pages and how they looked back then - my blog circa 2006 - check it out - (click on the links too - which will take you back to what i was following - some of them are still there)!  I sort of miss those days to be honest, it was such a supportive and rather small knit community; but it's exciting to see where everyone has ventured since, from book deals to established art practices and so on.  And I'm so honoured to have Camilla, Lisa, Jeannette and Andrea drop in here every once in a while to do a post.

And so without rambling on too much - here's the details on the giveaway!  Leave a comment at this post by Wednesday, Dec. 19/12 evening 9pm (Pacific) - and I'll announce a winner Thursday, Dec. 20/12.  Anonymous/Unknown comments not eligible.  Good luck!

Blog, Inc. is available through Chronicle Books and Amazon.  I also saw it at West Elm, if time is an issue - you can pick up a copy there.

Update!  Random Generator picked comment no. 30 for the win!



Congratulations to Bree of Dream in Fashion - your comment was #30 ! Please email us with your snail mail details so we can get Joy's book out to you!  Yay!