Free eBook! The Simple Web: A Philosophy for Getting What You Want

Mar 16, 2008

Free eBook! The Simple Web: A Philosophy for Getting What You Want
by Skellie

This is the free 27-page eBook version of a post series that appeared on Skelliewag in 2007. It’s completely open-source, so do whatever you want with it: offer it as a download on your blog or website, share it with friends, or sell it and make a million!

About the book:

Most hard questions have simple answers. The hard part is in the doing.

The question: how can I lose weight? can be answered truthfully in one sentence: eat three modest, healthy meals each day (and no more), and make exercising a habit.

But that isn’t good enough. It’s the how that gets us. It’s not enough to say what we have to do. We need to know how to do it.

As bloggers and webmasters, we want most or all of these things: more visitors, more subscribers, more comments, more money, more inbound links, and more people saying good things about us. Our wants aren’t in question. It’s the how that gets us. It’s the how that has us reading a dozen blogs a day, trying to find the answer (or at least a little piece of it).

You can stop searching, for now. The answer is in this eBook.

Click the cover below to download the 399 KB eBook .PDF

Cover source photography by visualpanic.

Skelliewag features daily discussions on content creation, great ideas you can use, and design tips. Join the community by subscribing!

rss feed

39 Comments, Comment or Ping

yungchin

Cool, I’ve no doubt this will be a great read as soon as I get to it. You might want to look at the licensing though:

The statement about sharing that you’re making in this blog post is potentially bad for you: it does not imply a requirement of *attribution* - like a creative commons license would! Also, there’s no mention of the licensing terms within the pdf itself.

(and, less important: “open source” does not imply “free to share”)

Mar 16th, 2008
Patrick

Awesome! This eBook is fantastic, Skellie. Now make one with new content in it and charge for it and I’ll put my money where my mouth is.

If you make an eBook with new content in it that I haven’t seen yet, then I’m willing to pay for it. I would seek it out if I had to, track you down and offer to buy it if I had to.

Not sure if other readers feel the same way or not, but I think you should know that your content really is that valuable to some of us out here….thanks again for all your great ideas!

Mar 16th, 2008
BW

Excellent resource and great that it has all been collated into one e-book. Nice job.

Only had chance to scan through it at the moment, but can see that there are some excellent ideas in there.

Any one know if there is a Creative Commons for dummy’s out there - to explain the various options that you can have?

Mar 16th, 2008
OldSailor

Very useful download. Keeping it as a library copy for any time reference.

Mar 16th, 2008
Copes Flavio

Thanks a lot for this e-book, it’s a very nice idea to wrap up an article series in this way

It will be a nice read.

Mar 16th, 2008
yungchin

BW, the CC web page makes that almost automatic for you:
http://creativecommons.org/license/

Mar 17th, 2008
skellie

Thanks everyone!

@ Yungchin: I don’t mind what people do with it. I can’t enforce attribution or copyright so I figure I’ll just give the book to the people and see what happens! If someone slaps their name on it, so be it — bad karma for them ;).

Thanks for your concern, though — I do appreciate it.

Mar 17th, 2008
Tibi Puiu

Finally! The first of many lets hope

Mar 17th, 2008
yungchin

Hi Skellie! I’m not sure if that’s true - there may be more you can do than you think. But, then, on the other hand it might save you a few heart attacks not to worry about these things, so I guess you’re making a good choice. I envy you for your relaxed attitude!!

Mar 17th, 2008
Bitten

Is this the ebook, you’ve prepared for so long (I remember you writing about it)? If so, then I’m kinda dissappointed, if it contains only some of your old posts.

Mar 17th, 2008
BW

@yungchin

Thanks for the link

Mar 17th, 2008
ptv

The ebook is great.

As far as I know not placing licensing terms in the work means, at least in Poland, that the work is copyrighted. For those who do not obey the law there is no difference. For second group it can be huge.

The best solution, at least for me, is browse mentioned ealier Creative Commons website, chose one of the licenses, and put it in the ebook.

Mar 17th, 2008
Custom Blog Designs

Awesome! I’ve downloaded it and am going to print it out to keep on file. Looking forward to reading it all over (again). Thank you for doing this

Mar 17th, 2008
skellie

@ Bitten: it’s not — I’ve actually been approached to turn the ‘big’ eBook into a book, which I’m scheduled to finish in October, and my guess is that it should be out in early 2009. I’m excited about it!

@ PTV: I didn’t think of that — but I’m not going to prosecute anyone, so it should be OK? If not, I can add an Attribution 2.0 license, but only if it’s necessary to protect distributors.

Mar 17th, 2008
Nenette

Thanks for compiling this! I’m sure I’ll enjoy reading it again, especially now that it’s in pdf form.
I too echo everyone’s concern for the protection of your work. John Chow released a free ebook way back. I think all he asked was to keep his links and attribution intact. Not sure how he enforces that… you may want to do the same.
But yes, I also admire your relaxed attitude about the whole thing… very zen.

Mar 17th, 2008
Kalena

Nice job Skellie - I’ll be blogging this and recommending it to my Search Engine College students. BTW - to get around the copyright issues, you should issue this under a Creative Commons license.

Mar 17th, 2008
dinsan

Thanks Skellie .. will download when I finish Today’s shift … I am new reader here, and really moved by the dept of posts, so an Ebook should have something more in it… pretty sure about it..

Mar 17th, 2008
Bente Lilja Bye

Hi Skellie,

Congratulations!

I think the e-book is nice. It does not matter that you have presented the material before. The way it is organized and published in your e-book is useful, also for a reader of your blog for some time.

Mar 17th, 2008
Ina

Hello Skellie, I have been waiting for your e-book. Now I can bring your writings on the pda everywhere. Thanks a lot.

Mar 17th, 2008
filmfangirl

Skellie,

This is THE BEST! I’m so glad I subscribed to your feed. This was just the gift I needed in my inbox this morning, so I could relax, stop worrying, and focus on some simple actions to take that will help me do more with and get more from my blog. Thank you so much!

Cheers,
filmfangirl

Mar 18th, 2008
Amy - Write From Home

Skellie - this is very cool. I know I will benefit from reading this, and I’m sure my readers will too.

Mar 18th, 2008
J.D.

Very nice!

I like the focus on effectiveness and simplicity.

I think a large part of success in life is about reducing friction, focusing on what’s important, and measuring against effectiveness.

I also like the focus on value delivered. I think success in today’s world is about delivering incremental streams of value.

Mar 18th, 2008
maheshexp

Skellie, I was expecting such a book from you.
BTW why is this free?
Is this question answered in the book?

Probably you could make out an printed copy too.

I’m downloading it. Will get back to with more questions, so that you might get ready to make another book.

Mar 18th, 2008
Richard H

Thank you Skellie. Good work-great price!
Please let us know when the book is out.

~ Another happy subscriber

Mar 19th, 2008
Mario Sanchez

Thanks Skellie! You are gold…

Mar 19th, 2008
Justin

I just stumbled across your blog today and may I say what a great welcome gift this was

Mar 19th, 2008
Dave Wilkinson

I think you’ve done a great job here. Website owners do tend to get carried away with complexity.

I’m going to pass this on to all my new clients before they start planning their sites. Thanks.

Mar 19th, 2008
Mike Reeves-McMillan

That’s a big lump of gold, Skellie, thanks. I’ve already gone through and (I believe) improved the look of my site, following your easier-to-implement suggestions; now to try a few of the more long-term ones.

Mar 20th, 2008
Ralph

Thank you for this free-ebook “The Simple Web: A Philosophy for Getting What You Want”.

Why say i thank you? Simple… With your thought about a simple web i get new ideas about a simple web in future.

Mar 25th, 2008
Randy Place

Thanks for the free e-book.

Apr 2nd, 2008