In the growing world of marketing everyone wants to be involved. Whatever the latest marketing and business trend that is out there at your local Barnes and Noble will likely to have the public behind it. No matter how repetitive these new books are, people still are getting behind them.

Most marketing books just plain suck. Some of their authors are just in it for money. Then again, there are those such as Seth Godin of “The Purple Cow” who are just plain human and will actually exchange emails with you answering any of your questions.

That’s why I thought the new Slate article from Tim Wu was excellent. He reviews the new Chris Anderson book , The Long Tail. The idea of the Long Tail is quickly going to be grabbed by the masses though. Public be warned that this idea will fade out as soon as you grab ahold of it. The Long Tail does something only the great marketing books that will sell like a powerhouse can do. They uncover a not so obvious phenomenon that’s right under our nose and helps us understand it.

Anderson developed The Long Tail Theory in Wired magazine back in 2004 to describe how economic business models of Amazon.com, Netflix, and others have created their riches. The theory was developed 2 years ago and the book only recently came out.

The problem with this book is that the focus is purposely too broad which helps appeal to a wider audience and increase book sales.ÂÂ

Even the author of “The Purple Cow“, Seth Godin told me via email that he wanted to appeal to a broad audience to help increase book sales.

Think of how multi-level marketing and being an IBO works. Everyone sees how easy it is and thinks they will be able to make money when in reality the appeal is soo broad that the market becomes over cluttered.

My Bottom Line:

Don’t think of every marketing book out there as a great resource. A great marketer who writes a marketing book is looking to.. of course… market their book to the largest audience to generate the most sales. Just don’t expect every book out there to solve your problems.