When we launched the Quirk eMarketing Textbook in July last year, it was a huge experiment for us. We had spent almost a year writing a book which we felt the marketing world wanted, but you never know. With this in mind we printed 2000 copies of the book, which believe it or not is actually quite a lot for a textbook, especially when you’re giving it away for free online and students are notoriously cheap (well I know I was anyway!). Our expectations at the time were such that we hoped to get through these initial books by the end of 2009 at which point we’d print more.

Well… so much for that! In less than 6 months we’ve sold all the books which has exceeded even our wildest expectations. But even cooler than that, we’ve had almost 50 000 downloads from the site and have had over 100 educators from over 20 countries sign up to use the book at the Universities and Colleges at which they lecture. That for me is the real win here. At Quirk we are passionate about education. The Quirk eMarketing book was our way of giving to that cause whilst hopefully doing a bit of brand building at the same time. In my humble opinion we have done exactly what we set out to do and more. I couldn’t be a happier guy right now.

So with all that out the way, we pushed our plans for the second edition dramatically forward and today we’re very proud to be releasing it to the world. The second edition of eMarketing: the essential guide to online marketing, contains 4 new chapters: eMarketing Strategy, Market Research, Customer Relationship Management and of course, Mobile Marketing. These new chapters were added at the request of the many educators around the world who are using our book to teach. The second edition also contains 6 new case studies and a complete set of data updates across the entire book. In a nutshell, we think it’s awesome and hope you do too.

One of the best things about this update is the way in which it was done. Unlike the first edition which was completed under a shroud of secrecy, we decided to open up this process by blogging the new chapter structures before they were written and then the initial drafts once they were written. The feedback which we received from the community during this process was fantastic and it’s no doubt meant that we have a far better book than if we’d gone it alone. It seems Social Media works, who would have guessed;).

As a final note I must of course take a moment to pay tribute to the fabulous QuirkStars who made this project possible. The book may have my name on the front cover, but that’s mainly because the universities need someone to reference. This book is really a team effort and it's important to me that the world knows that.

Firstly a massive thanks must go to the lovely Sarah Blake who really bore the brunt of the time pressures on this new edition. It wasn’t easy getting it done to deadline, but despite many a stressful moment, we’ve produced something which I think is magic. Secondly I must thank Lyndi and in her own special way Sue, for their project management and ability to get work through a design team already overburdened with client work. On the design side, Gav, Peter and Solveig - you guys rock. And finally to all the Stars who read, read and proofread some more to help us add to and improve all the chapters particularly Suzan, Shaun, Manners - thank you.

To all of you out there, as usual the book is licensed under Creative Commons and available as a FREE download online. Please read it and let us know what you think. It's our goal to keep this book up to date as the best resource for eMarketing knowledge, and it's going to require all your help to keep it there.