The Book

[Curious]

I haven't read all the reviews of The Power of a Transformed Wife that are on amazon or elsewhere around the internet, but I want to be as complete as possible so before we really dig into the book, I thought I would take a moment to talk about the quality of the actual book.

It has a glossy front and back outside cover with a "regular" paper feel on the backs of both covers.  The copy of the book I have was used and had obviously been flipped through a number of times.  The covers seemed a bit dingy to me, but it was hard to tell whether that was intended design or from the previous handling.

The binding is very sturdy with no cracks, breaks or loose pages despite the handling.

The pages are a nice quality, something a little better than regular copy paper.  There were no smudges on the interior pages, despite the prior handling.  I didn't try a highlighter but based on my previous experience, the book should take highlighter with no problems.

The book has 240 pages (it's very repetitive and could probably be half that size with better editing).  The back side of each chapter end page is covered in bits of the logo from the cover (see the cover image here).  There are also various graphics at the top of each new chapter and used to delineate subject changes within chapters.  there is also a tiny vine by each page number and a bible quote at the end of each chapter.

The first thing that caught my attention was on the bottom of the front cover which says:

Quote

 

LORI ALEXANDER

of the lifestyle blog ALWAYS LEARNING

 

It seems like a major branding mistake to send readers to a blog you are no longer updating, rather than your shiny new blog based on your book.  I realize she wrote on Always Learning for years, but if you want to change your branding you should promote the new brand and link to the old one.

The only URL on the book covers is to lorialexander.blogspot.com.  Once you get there, you are met with a post directing you to thetransformedwife.com.  The URL on the book should be to thetransformedwife.com and once there a link to the old archived blog should be given.  It looks unprofessional and is not a good way to build your new brand.  I'm surprised her editor didn't offer some advice in this area.

The back cover has the usual summary of what the book is about and the author bio.   The bio says she "has a burden to teach and mentor women."   I know using words that have a traditionally somewhat negative connotation in a positive way is a fundamentalist/evangelical thing (see: convict), but again this seems like an error if your goal is to grow your new brand.

The bio also says her pots have been read by more than 5 million people, which I guess sound impressive until you do a little math.  According to Lori, she has been blogging for a little over 6 years.  We don't know if she is using unique visitors or page views, but most bloggers go with page views.  Even if we go with unique visitors that is a little less than 1 million people per year.  For comparison, we get between 4-5 million unique visitors a year and between 20-25 million page views a year.

Perhaps it's not fair to compare Lori's blog to FJ.  How about to Love, Honor, and Vacuum though?

Here are what is available on Lori's blog from Alexa as of today (1.19.18)

and here are LHV from Alexa as of today (1.19.18)

Still not very impressive, IMO.

Next time:  We crack open the book!

[BlackSheep]

@Curious, you're being quite thorough with this. Anyone who can drag themselves through that book surely deserves a medal.

[quiversR4hunting]

 @Curious did the post-it flags leave marks or damage the pages? I know in court files the post-it flags leave marks on some paper. Usually the damaged paper in the court file is the old carbon or 2 decade old copy paper. 

I can't wait to read all your thoughts on the book!

[Curious]

7 hours ago, quiversR4hunting said:

 @Curious did the post-it flags leave marks or damage the pages? I know in court files the post-it flags leave marks on some paper. Usually the damaged paper in the court file is the old carbon or 2 decade old copy paper. 

I can't wait to read all your thoughts on the book!

The post-it flags did not leave any marks on the page at all.  I've moved some of them around on pages so I could read what was under them or to mark another section and the paper has held up quite well.

The spine is also holding up really well.  There are no creases or anything on it.  You can't tell the book has even been cracked open looking at the spine.

I will give credit to whatever vanity publisher she used.  The book is quite well made.

[Curious]

It says it's published by Turning Page Books.  I can't find any info on them with a quick google search, however.