Dummies: A Reference for the Rest of Us!

Last week there was an Indy Christian Geeks lunch at my favorite coffee shop. During the lunch, I had a special gift delivered from the good folks at Wiley Publishing (also here in Indianapolis!). The guys had some fun… snapping some photos and uploading them to Twitter within minutes with great titles like, “The Secret is Out!”.

Kidding aside, Wiley has really had an incredible impact in the publishing industry with the Dummies brand. By blatantly packaging and branding their books For Dummies, they were able to instantly overcome peoples’ anxiety on the subjects they wrote about. Dummies now has over 150 million books in print and more than 1,400 titles. Dummies is the world’s bestselling reference brand.

The Dummies brand doesn’t stop at the logo… the writing styles of the books is conversational, consistent and comforting. The books can easily be flipped through to find the right checklist, or could be read from cover to cover. In speaking with Wiley, they’ve really got the publishing down to a science!

I spoke to Kyle Lacy, author of the upcoming Dummies Twitter Marketing for Dummies and he said it was an incredible experience writing the book. Kyle said the editing team was supportive, efficient, and quick to get his content into shape.

Dummies has expanded, with online references and even Dummies Newsletters! You can catch them on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, too! Check out their site – there’s a TON of material there. I found this great little tutorial on How to Create a Facebook Page for your business.

Go check out the Dummies site and do a search… you’ll be surprised at what you’ll find. I found everything from getting more fiber in your diet to Wilderness Survival (perhaps there’s some overlap there!).