Ok, so it's not quite a year since DJing for Dummies was released in the UK, and certainly not yet a year since the U.S. release, but as I'm feeling chatty, i thought I'd throw a message onto this blog, let all of you know I've not abandoned my own book!

What I've loved since the book's release is the amount of people who've been in touch regarding it. Sure, it's great receiving loads of emails telling me how much the book has helped them move on in the DJ world, or more often, given them the boost they needed to get away from the plateau that the new DJ hits after a couple of days standing in front of two decks (be it CD or vinyl) not knowing what to do - BUT (at the end of that length of a sentence, there HAD to be a "but" - what I love even more is how many people have come to me, and come together through my website and its forum to share their collective love of DJing, and ask more questions, offer interpretations etc.

As DJing has evolved through vinyl to CD to laptop/mp3 DJing, one thing has always stayed constant - that the DJs who stick with it love the music, love performing and love standing behind two decks and a mixer for an entire evening. I can't stand in the same place for 6 hours normally, but plonk me in front of two 1210's, a DJM800 and a couple of CDJ1000's - and I'll be there until you physically remove me. And this is what I've experienced through the book over the past year. People contacting me telling me they loved the book (which is nice) but telling me more how they book helped them embrace their love of DJing through their expanded understanding of the music and structure that the book covers.

Sure, I'd love the say I'm responsible for their growing love, but the thing is, it's the music that does it. Whether it's my first love - trance/progressive house stuff, or my guilty love of rock music - or whatever your flavour is - it's always the music that'll keep you coming back, never the affectation of how cool it is to be a DJ.

Though, it must be said, it is REALLY cool to be a DJ :-)

I hope you enjoy the book if you buy it, and please feel free to join me and the other folks at recess.co.uk if you feel like sharing the musical love.

C.ya - and Merry Christmas - (or add your preferred Holiday season farewell here: "......")

John (Recess)
www.recess.co.uk
www.djrecess.co.uk/php (the forum)

Go to Amazon.com to see what I'm on about.

I'm not exactly a review-whore, I like to see if people have written stuff about the book, but as it's not exactly The Da Vinci Code II - there's not that much out there. I know I shouldn't take bad reviews badly, but when I fell upon Amazon.com's listing of the book, and saw someone giving it 1 star, I had that "Pit in the stomach" feeling that's normally reserved for going all-in on a bluff and being called. But then I read the review.

I can only guess as to where this guy is coming from, but the fact that he ends the review with 'if you don't have talent or a sense of rhythm, you're wasting your money' led me to write an essay length reply to it - as I fundamentally disagree with what he wrote in the context of the book I've written - which is simply that ANYONE can learn how to mix and beatmatch by going through the techniques I've put in DJing for Dummies. Whether you'll become a great DJ or not is going to be down to skill, knowledge, time, luck, talent, knowing the right people etc - but that still doesn't mean you won't be a DJ.

So, I just wanted to put something in here to clear up this fact. The book is for ANYONE. As long as you read and understand what I've written, dedicate the time and concentration needed to develop the hand/eye/ear co-ordination you need in order to be able to beatmatch properly - and you can hear a bass drum - you WILL eventually learn how to mix and beatmatch. The rest of the book goes into how to refine your mixing, so that if you do have skill/luck/talent/ etc - when coupled with the information on how to get work, and how to work a crowd when you're DJing in front of 20 or 2000 people - you can be a great DJ. Those of you who don't have that extra shot of luck/skill etc - will STILL be DJs, will STILL be able to play in front of people, will STILL make great mixes - so everyone's a winner!

1 star... c'mon. Sounds like bitterness to me, but then - I have taken it a bit personally...

Anyway, anyone who feels like posting in a good review, or just marking his as 'not useful' - that'd be nice... but I'd never ask you to do that for me...

John
www.recess.co.uk

Hi folks,

So, the book's been out since December in the UK - and looking at the Amazon rankings, and all the emails I've been receiving, it's been doing well! I guess I should try to play this cool and not be surprised by it selling well, but I can't - I really do get a kick out of each and every sale!

The US release was set for Feb 2nd - but looking at Amazon, it seems that there's been a two week advance on this date, and it's now available for you good folks. It may just be European imports, or it could be a full release, I'm not too sure. But, I'll look through some of the US competitors, see if they also stock it, just so I know.

As to the book itself, if you do buy it, I'd love to hear from you. The website that was the foundation of this book (www.recess.co.uk) is now a resource for it - which means you can contact me directly, or through the forum, you can watch video clips (which I'm adding too each week) listen to audio clips, and check for updates on the book's content.

There's a couple of embarrassing errors in there (like my Sister-in-Law's name being spelt wrong (it's Vicki, not Vikki) and Timo Maas' name being spelt Timo Mass) but more importantly, the website contains updates on information about DJ gear, techniques, genres, concepts and styles, as well as expanding on some of the subjects in the book which needed to be curtailed due to page length.

Now the Christmas season is over, we can all get into some proper promotion of the book (rather than just relying on the Christmas shopper to buy it) so keep your eyes peeled for any news on that front. I'm travelling out to Boston, New York, Ottawa and Toronto later in the year, and I'll be sure to post updates in here as to book promo tie-ins.

Anyway, enough from me. Hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year, and if you buy the book, enjoy it - and if you feel like it, get in touch.

Yours,

John Steventon
www.recess.co.uk

PS. And no, I'm not the guy who writes the comic strips ("Take Me Away From All This" etc). He's a good guy, I got in touch a few times with him just to ask if he minded that there might be some confusion over author names - and he was great about it. If nothing else, some of you DJ folks might stumble on his books, and buy them too - or some of his fans may be closet DJs, and buy my book!!)

Anyway,
C.ya.
John.

Yup - I'm scared as hell here! The book got its UK release toay. I'm currently holding a copy in front of me (well, that's a lie, I'm typing - it's sitting next to me) and I still can't believe it's real.

It'll probably be Monday before it'll be on the shelves of your local bookstore, but Amazon etc are now shipping DJing for Dummies.

It's been a long, hard 10 months spent writing it, though it has been a lot of fun. I've met a lot of really nice people along the way - there really IS generosity out there you know - it's not just selfish people who run the world. There's people I've met that I'll miss, there's peope I've met that I'll remain friends with - and to be honest, there's not that many people I've met who I wouldn't want to meet again.

The Recess.co.uk website will now become more of a resource for the book than a site dedicated JUST to teaching people how to DJ. It's important that there's still info on there for the new DJ, but due to copyright issues etc, I can't have competing works on my own site for people to see for free. But i'll still include a lot of info.

Man I hope you like the book...

Thanks for all the support while I was writing it. And if you buy it/rent it/steal it/borrow it - and read it - I hope you enjoy it.

Recess (John).

Hi folks.

It's the 6th of November, and (in the UK) it's only 25 days to go until the release of DJing for Dummies. It's been proof-read by various people (including me luckily), the images have been checked, and I've had one last panic about letting my baby go into the real world. There's nothing left to do that sit back, and wait to hold it in my hands.

It's been a long time coming really. It was more than a year ago that I got in touch with the Dummies folks after reading 'Final Cut Pro for Dummies' and wondered if they had a DJing for Dummies book. As they didn't, and I currently run what is considered the fore-most place to go on the internet if you want to learn how to be a DJ, I thought I'd chance my arm and see whether they'd be interested in DJing for Dummies - fortunately for me, they were!

So, writing began in early 2006, with the first submissions completed by July 2006. A quick holiday to Ibiza for some final research (and a visit to a lot of good clubs) and all the changes and suggestions from the editors were dealt with, with the book hitting 'completion' by the end of September.

By the end of October, the book was proof-read by the Dummies people, and handed back one more time to me for more proof-reading - which brings me to now.

With nothing to do...

It's really funny, I spent so long completely immersed in the book - I'd do my day job (an editor for a TV company), go home - write the book - go to sleep - wake up - go to work... you get the idea.

Now, I come home from work, and find I have so much more time on my hands. Sure - I've got 9 month's worth of housework that my (loving) wife had been doing to make up for - but once that's done, I still find myself with a couple of hours with nothing concrete ahead of me. Which is really odd.

And also leads to me overthinking the book too! "Did I miss something? Did I really catch all the spelling errors? What if Numark release something that makes what I wrote wrong? What if Vestax release the best cross-fader in the world?" and so on. You might not think it amounts to much, but it really does!

At least I still have the website to work on. Where it was once the place to go to read about how to learn to be a DJ, what equipment to use, what to look out for the first time you play live etc - all that's now in the book. And as loving as I am to people who want to learn to DJ, I kinda need to scale down the amount of info on the site that's also in the book.

So, the site will now be restructured to be a resource for the book. Audio and Video clips of mixing will be on there, further info (like all my worries mentioned above) will be on the site, so the book is 'technically' never out of date - and it'll be a place to come and ask me questions - or play a mix to me for some comments on how to improve your skills.

It's still going to be a place to go if you want to be a DJ, but recess.co.uk is about to come out of its shell and become a new being...

...if I can work out how I want it to look...

So - like I said, nothing left to do but wait. The book gets a UK release first, with a Feb 07 release for everyone in the States. I'll keep coming back here and post updates on how the book's received, how sales are going, what knock-on effects the sales are having for me personally, and just generally say hi and keep you all up to date.

I hope you either a) Enjoy the book, and find it a really good, entertaining, and helpful read - or b) Plan to buy it, and then go back to a) again.

C.ya
Recess (John)