I’ve been waiting for Anne to talk about “the book” first, and now that she has I’m comfortable talking about it here.

Anne Truitt Zelenka wrote a book building on the Web Worker Daily brand ::think of that Shake & Bake commercial from years ago:: …and ayyyyye helped!

It’s called Connect!: Web Worker Daily’s Guide to a New Way of Working and it will be out early next year. Here’s the cover, blown up enough so you can see what’s under Anne’s name.

My role to warrant that “with”? Exactly as Anne describes:

I like to think that the book I’ve written with Judi’s help represents something of a whole-brained approach. I provided much of the right-brained thinking while Judi offered left-brained balance with her editorial review. We both can do the whole-brained thing, I think, but it was good to have the dialectic of castles in the sky (Anne) with foundations in the ground (Judi).

If you’re expecting a verbatim book version of Web Worker Daily, guess again. This isn’t a guide to getting the most out of Google or 257 tips for reading email, although there is some of that. Rather it’s a manifesto of sorts around a shift to a new professional mindset that uses the connected web to work smarter. You don’t have to work from home or a coffee shop to get something out of the book. Anne is a brilliant writer who has found early truth where others can only see in hindsight.

Wiley Publishing originally brought me into the project purely as technical editor. They knew I knew the content, and I worked well with Anne.

Catch was, I had absolutely no idea what a “technical editor” was supposed to do on a book that wasn’t really technical. So I did what I typically do in those situations…I followed my gut and did what felt right to me. What ended up happening is that I found myself balancing Anne’s concepts (which I agreed with wholeheartedly, even if she didn’t think so at times) with a healthy spoonful of, “so how does this relate to the average Joe and Jane right now?” practicality. I’m a process geek, what can I say?

I hope you’re looking forward to picking it up off the store bookshelves come January 2008 as much as I am. 🙂