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Click for text of an episode, or for audio. New text episodes added every weekday, audio frequently.

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All About Blooks

Blooks are online books like hackoff.com distributed on blogs. Other people may implement blooks differently. We have changed the way we've implemented this blook because of the helpful feedback we got from readers.

The first question you may have is "why would anyone distribute a book on a blog?" Good question. There are four reasons. First, blogs are where the readers are. Second, readers find blogs without the help of traditional gatekeepers; blogs are "discovered" and become successful (or don't) in an interesting democratic way. Third, online distribution makes it economically feasible to distribute free copies of the book. Fourth, an online book should do things a print book can't.

Using the format of that special kind of website called a blog lets me make the online edition of hackoff.com interactive in ways that the print editions won't be. For example, there is a faux company website hackoff.com/thecompany for the fictional company I wrote about in the book. Some links in the blook are live. There are blogrolls of posts on other blogs which review or discuss hackoff.com.

Some people certainly prefer to read physical books; for them the blook may only be a way to sample and decide which "real" books to buy and bring to the beach. Others like to listen. There are accompanying podcasts for the episodes of this blook.

The technologies like RSS (real simple syndication) which have grown up around blogs are helpful in keeping up with the current episode of serialized blook. You can subscribe to hackoff.com and get new episode by email or in feed readers like Yahoo, Bloglines, and newsgator.

blooks on RSS feeds

Most feed readers order posts from newest to oldest by default. And usually they are doing the right thing. However, blooks are meant to be read from the first episode to the last, not the other way around. This order won't matter if you avidly read each new episode as soon as it comes out. The order will matter if the episodes pile up because the one you want to start at will be below the first one you see.

Fortunately, many feed readers do allow you to reorder individual feeds so that the oldest is first - that's the order you want for hackoff.com.