I like to begin my day early. There is something comforting about getting to work before everyone else. You feel in control, well prepared, and unique. Wake up a few minutes too late, however, and you rush downstairs to find yourself lost in stream of people. The atmosphere is competitive and confusing, and its quite an unpleasant experience, especially if you haven’t had your morning cup of coffee.

Breaking into a new field can be like that. There are so many professionals all around you, writing blog posts, making twitter comments, giving speeches at conferences. It´s easy to feel lost, and ill-prepared, not knowing where you fit in or where you are going.

That is where Erin Kissane’s latest book, The Elements of Content Strategy, comes to the rescue. Her guidebook is a great introduction to content strategy for the web. Simple and explanatory, with chapters on basic principles, the craft of content strategy, and tools and techniques for the trade, The Elements of Content Strategy lends a wise and gentle hand to the lost and scared novice, pointing out the way to go.

My favorite thing about the book is the vivid and enlightening examples Erin gives comparing the online world to the real world. One such example paints a fruitless search for an item in a hardware store. The customer goes to the store looking for an upholstery hammer, only to be bombarded with mission statements, misguided directions, marketing scams, and finally denied access to the very section the hammer is located.

“Please return to the front of the store and try your search again!”

It’s a funny example, but how many times has the same thing happened to us when looking for something online? And, more importantly to business, how many of us have returned to the site to search again or simply clicked on a more user-friendly competitor’s page?

It is examples like this and others that help the reader understand that the web is not some fantastical other-dimensional world of codes and numbers, but rather a real place, where the careful creation, execution, and maintenance of content really makes a difference first for the user, and then for the company.