Michael Gray, aka Graywolf, just posted a review of Make Easy Money with Google on his site. The review is very fair, describing Make Easy Money with Google as a “good book” for “people with little or no experience with contextual advertising programs”, which is exactly the audience I was aiming for when I wrote the book. Check out the review, and then browse through Michael's site — it has some great summaries of AdSense information based on Michael's own experiences with AdSense.

Elliot Lee left a comment on my last posting asking a few simple questions, and here are my answers.

1. What do you do for a living? My full-time job is a software developer at iAnywhere Solutions, where I've worked for about 12 years now. (Yes, that's long in this industry!) However, I also write about computing topics, though up until now it's mostly been technical books and articles.
2. What is actually in the book? Make Easy Money with Google teaches you how to build money-making web sites and blogs with no programming required. It shows you how to start with a few ideas, choose among them, prepare the material you need, get yourself a domain name, find a hosting service, build your web pages, join the AdSense program, place ads on your site, and finally get some visitors to your site. Everything you need to know to get started with a web site or blog.
3. Would my mother find it useful? Yes. I wrote the book for my father, a computer user, not a techie. I walk the reader through the basics, like why web-based advertising is important and how it works, how to choose the right kind of content, how to build simple web pages using HTML and CSS (using the Nvu web authoring tool), and so on. And of course I walk the reader through the AdSense system. For non-techies, it's a great book. If you already have a web site up and running, this book's not really for you. Check the reviews on Amazon to see what I mean: the non-techies love it, the techies think it's too basic. I've never claimed this was a book for techies, and from the mail I've been getting it's clear to me that my intended audience — the non-techies — think it's right on the mark.

You can find out more about the book by reading the detailed description and viewing the table of contents. Or send me mail using the link at the bottom of each page on the MakeEasyMoneyWithGoogle.com site.

As I recommend in my book, I regularly check my web server's referral logs to see who's visiting MakeEasyMoneyWithGoogle.com. It's a great way to find other sites linking to mine, including blog entries of course. Anyhow, imagine my surprise in finding this entry in yesterday's logs:

gweb.corp.google.com/adwords-ext/html/policy/resources/Google_Trademark/Escalated_Domains.htm

Oh-oh, it looks like MakeEasyMoneyWithGoogle.com is on Google's list of “escalated domains”, probably because the domain includes the word “Google” in it. Google is protective of its trademarks. I wasn't able to place any AdWords ads that directly referred to my book's title (Make Easy Money with Google) or to the companion website because of those policies. I'm expecting the Google hit squad to knock on my back door at anytime now:

Knock, knock.

Me: “Yes?”

Large guy of Italian descent: “Youse Eric Gooriay?”

Me: “It's actually pronounced jeeg-air. It's French.”

Guy: “Yeah, whatever. The only French things I like are fries. Look, my bosses have sent me out to let you know they're not happy with ya.”

Me: “They didn't like the book?”

Guy: “It's the way the book uses their name. It's a sacred name, ya know, and you can't just use it like you've done.”

Me: “Actually, I didn't choose the name, the book publisher did. My working title was very lame.”

Guy: “Doesn't matter. I mean, we'll go speak to them, too, I'm sure. But youse got the G word in your domain name, too.”

Me: “Well, sure. The book's called Make Easy Money with Google, so naturally the domain is MakeEasyMoneyWithGoogle.com.”

Guy: “Look, I can't tell you what's natural and what's not these days, but I will tell you this: the Two Big Guys ain't too happy about this. We just might have to break some legs, you know what I mean?”

Me: “That would be good publicity for the book, actually. So it wouldn't be that bad in the long run. But don't you have better things to do? Like track down click fraudsters who give you a bad rap?”

Guy: “I'm not here to bust any legs yet, just to give ya a warning. We'll be in touch later, I can guarantee it.”

Stay tuned for more!