Heather Condon, hcondon@wiley.com
@WileyBiz/201-748-6017

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

140 CHARACTERS: A Style Guide for the Short Form
By Dom Sagolla, Co-Creator of Twitter

“One could change the world with one hundred and forty characters.”
– Jack Dorsey, Co-Founder of Twitter

San Francisco, CA – Twitter – the 140 character online service that allows users to share, discover and connect with anyone, anywhere in the world – has abruptly swept the globe, taking many by surprise. Business owners, celebrities and regular Joe’s alike have unabashedly criticized or made fun of the medium, rather than fully understanding its purpose, potential, and power.

Several books have been written by “social media experts” trying to explain the secrets behind Twitter and how anyone can use it to their advantage. Convincing companies to incorporate Twitter into their marketing strategies has become easier since competing companies have seen phenomenal results. However, according to Dom Sagolla, a co-creator of Twitter and author of the new book, 140 CHARACTERS: A STYLE GUIDE FOR THE SHORT FORM (Wiley; $17.95; Paperback Original), “The constraint of 140 characters is an opportunity for creative self-expression of all kinds. With Twitter and the short form, we have inadvertently invented a new genre of literature.”

With 140 CHARACTERS, Sagolla shares the way to develop a personal voice and make the most of your messages. 140 CHARACTERS aims to do for Twitter and other social networking sites what Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style did for good writing via lessons in grammar and composition.

“Fragment. Then there is a sentence. Sentences become paragraphs. Inch by inch, a book is written.”
– Dom Sagolla

“The talkative habits of e-mail and superfluous chatter will be replaced by poetry and one-liners, the haiku and the hyperlink,” predicts Sagolla. In a world of three second attention spans, the short form is not just confined to Twitter, but also Facebook, LinkedIn, and text messaging. One will have to learn to say more with less: if there is a smaller word that means the same thing, use it. If there is a link to a reference, shorten it. “Wherever possible, use fewer words,” explains Sagolla. “This is harder than it sounds, but once you get past the basics of grammar you start getting into the really interesting aspects of poetry and word design.” Most of the advice in 140 CHARACTERS is focused on helping the reader to find the right words.

A handbook for an emerging class of writers and journalists, this book is written to include readers in the evolution of Twitter and the short format.

“We’ve defined a mere 1% of what Twitter is today. The other 99% is up to you.”
– From the Foreword by Jack Dorsey

The print and digital download is accompanied by an interactive Hypertext Edition for iPhone, published by Sagolla’s company DollarApp. See 140characters.com or twitter.com/thebook for details.

About the Author

Dom Sagolla (San Francisco, CA) helped create Twitter.com. After attending Swarthmore College, he worked as a software engineer in Silicon Valley during the dot-com boom. Dom earned his Masters in Education from Harvard University in 2000. Since then he has helped engineer Macromedia Studio, Odeo and Twitter, Adobe Creative Suite, and now produces iPhone software with his company DollarApp in San Francisco. His successes include the official Obama ’08 iPhone App, as well as two iTunes Staff Favorites: Big Words, and Math Cards. @Dom has over 9,200 followers on Twitter as of September 2009, and manages more than 25 other brands.

140 Characters: A Style Guide for the Short Form
By Dom Sagolla
Foreword by Jack Dorsey
John Wiley and Sons
978-0-470-55613-9
October 2009; $17.95; Paperback Original

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Twitter Co-creator Dom Sagolla to publish “140 Characters: A Style Guide for the Short Form.”

Printed by John Wiley & Sons, the book is scheduled to appear in bookstores in the US and Canada on 10/19/09. The product of four years of research and writing, this field manual to social media has three major features:

1. The definitive history of Twitter, from an insider’s point of view
2. New grammar rules for short-form writing, and a catalog of writing styles
3. Inspiring quotations from comedy to poetry from some of the best writers, including the Twitter creators

Three ways to think about 140 Characters:

• The equivalent of Strunk and White’s Elements of Style for today’s social media & marketing messages
• A handbook to help you develop your own unique short-form writing style with simplicity, honesty, and humor
• The authoritative approach to Twitter, written by its creators to include other social networks like pure text messaging

For marketers and business owners, social media is an increasingly important avenue for promoting a business-this is the first writing guide specifically dedicated to communicating with the succinctness and clarity that the Internet age demands.

140 Characters is a much-needed guide to the kind of communication that can make or break a reputation online. Appearing alongside the printed edition, an abridged Hypertext Edition will also be published specifically for iPhone by DollarApp in San Francisco. For more information please visit http://www.140characters.com.

Press Inquiries

• press@140characters.com (Dom & Wiley PR) – 415.287.7775 (Dom)
• Book Jacket Art
• Author’s Photograph
• Author’s Biography

Book Premiere

Tuesday October 20, 2009
7:00pm
BookShop West Portal
80 West Portal Ave.
San Francisco, California 94127

Press & Blog Coverage of 140 Characters

• Teknision: Celebrate the Short Form (08/20/09)
• La Informacion: Casi 300 páginas… para aprender a twittear en 140 caracteres (08/19/09)
• Haraka Haraka Haina Baraka: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Tweetie (08/14/09)
• Christian Science Monitor: Sued for a tweet: How not to deal with complaints on Twitter (08/01/09)
• YouTube: @dom on ’140 Characters’ (08/01/09)
• Wall Street Journal: ‘Twitterature’ to Hit the Bookstores (06/24/09)
• Strange Love Live: Live from Bar Camp! (05/03/09)

• Christian Science Monitor: Oprah tweets, Twitter arrives (04/17/09)
• @ThePodcast: Interview with Dom Sagolla, The Guy Who Helped Create Twitter (04/08/09)

• Westwood One Radio: Twitter Turns Three (03/21/09)

• Nightline: Sign of the Times (02/26/09)
• New York Times: Anatomy of a Tweet: Twitter Gets a Style Guide (02/13/09)

I’ve already begun to work with Shannon Vargo over at Wiley, to bring this work to print and digital download.

In addition, my company DollarApp is producing a companion application which should ship by the time the book appears in print this Fall.

This arrangement would not have occurred without the help of Erin Malone & friends at William Morris Endeavor, and Adam Jackson at the Internets. I’d also like to thank Jon Varese for encouraging me, and thank YOU for reading and commenting on this site!

The book is currently in development, but you may view a brief excerpt on the new About page.

Stay tuned!