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Some of you probably know me from the microblogging service Twitter. In fact, I bet you do, since I think that’s where most of the (paltry) traffic to this blog comes from. If you’re not familiar with The Twitter, it works like this:

Step 1: write 140 characters.

That is the only step. For some reason, the publisher of a popular book series (let’s call it “For Dummies”) has decided that there should be an entire book about how to use Twitter. There shouldn’t. I just told you how to use it, so save your money.

Unless, of course, you need a book to tell you WHAT to write on Twitter. I write things I think are funny, and a handful of people laugh at them and award them little virtual gold stars. It makes me happy. Because I live in a bubble where my friends and I crack wise about bodily functions and things from the Internet, I sometimes forget that most of Twitter isn’t like that. Most of Twitter is marketing.

Predictably, the book on Twitter isn’t being written by someone funny or entertaining. It’s being written by someone who posts 100 times on a slow day, and talks about things like conversations and communities and branding and … I don’t know, money? This doesn’t seem sustainable to me. Marketers can market to marketers and make friends with marketers and talk about marketing all day, and it’s not particularly interesting to regular people.

So don’t read it, right? I don’t. But a whole lot of other people do, because they’re climbing on top of each other to associate themselves with the people who have the most marketers reading them, so that they can market themselves to still more marketers, and become what I can only guess is called Market King of the Market.

That’s the audience for this book. I’m sure a lot of people will buy it, and it will make some money for the publisher. Good for them! Also, possibly good for the future of Twitter as a business, so that it can continue to exist as a place where I’m allowed to have chuckles and make friends. Fair enough. It’s just sad that a lot more people will be on Twitter, working. No time for dick jokes, ladies! I can’t rest now that I’m in The Market. Got to rack up some more followers, and some of them might even have Secrets of Success!