Thanks to Jim Connolly’s twittering I came across this very interesting article on his blog today. It’s about honesty and trust on-line. What do you think?

I was researching today for some up to date content on email marketing when it occurred to me to check what are the latest books on the subject.

Having done that it then occurred to me that it might be helpful to my blog readers to see some of what I found, so here first is a collection from Amazon.com, and then for the benefit of UK-based readers there’s a similar listing from Amazon.co.uk.

For several weeks I have referred here and there to the “Brunlea-Web family of useful web sites”. It is now becoming more of a reality rather than merely a dream.

Following on the annoucement of time-for-more a couple of weeks back the latest addition to the family is Brunlea-Web.com. This is a mini-site on which we will periodically promote four or five selected products or services associated with the building of business on the internet, the selection changing every few weeks.

My experience of the past year in establishing BrunleaBooks on the web, both for used books and new books, has been both fascinating and disturbing. It has taught me much about the vital importance of avoiding the hype of “get-rich-quick” merchants, furiously promoting one another’s products as the best thing since sliced bread, and milking the gullible of their cash.

I decided to avoid like the plague this dangerous vortex of “internet marketing” scams, but of course the web is a valid place in which to do business and there are products, services and advice to be had from reputable organisations, large and small. My aim is to identify some of the the best and to promote them without exaggeration. I do not and probably never will myself merit the title “marketing guru”, but having spent much of my life in other fields working with many of the world’s top specialists in their respective subjects, I’m now looking out for those genuine experts in this area of business who really do deserve to be listened to and learned from.

On this first edition of the site you will find only a few product banners with no associated text other than sectional subtitles. Subsequently, however, I aim to provide links to reliable, well-written advisory papers (and, of course, books) on e-commerce topics. There are many, but they need to be sifted out from those written chiefly to suck their readers into the maelstrom of viral affiliate links.

We will, of course, be using affiliate links ourselves but will try to be completely transparent about this and give a promise that we will under no circumstances promote a product simply because it carries a high commission rate.

The Brunlea-Web – take a first look at it now.

More soon,

Yours bookishly,

- David -