There are more words on Second Life than what I’ve written. Indeed, there are more words than just the SLogosphere contains, or even the newspapers. For the book publishers have taken note of the phenomenon, and several good titles have been published already. More are undoubtedly in the works.
Titles are listed alphabetically by primary author, and by secondary authors if needed.
Carr, Paul, and Graham Pond. The Unofficial Tourists’ Guide to Second Life. New York: 2007, St. Martin’s Griffin. $9.95; ISBN 0312376480.
Rymaszewski, Michael, et al. Second Life: The Official Guide. Indianapolis, Ind.: 2007, John Wiley and Sons. $34.99 (includes CD-ROM); 047009608X.
Tapley, Rebecca. Designing Your Second Life. Berkeley, Calif.: 2008, New Riders. $29.99; 0321503015.
Terdiman, Daniel. The Entrepeneur’s Guide to Second Life: Making Money in the Metaverse. Indianapolis, Ind.: 2008, John Wiley and Sons. $29.99; 9780470179147.
Weber, Aimee, Kimberly Rufer-Bach and Richard Platel. Creating Your World: The Official Guide to Advanced Content Creation for Second Life. Indianapolis, Ind.: 2008, John Wiley and Sons. $39.99 (includes CD-ROM); 9780470171141.
White, Biran A (Ansel Gasparini). Second Life: A Guide to Your Virtual World. Indianapolis, Ind.: 2008, John Wiley and Sons. Indianapolis, Ind.: 2008, Que. $34.99; 0321501667.
I believe that 99 percent of the people will learn about SL in SL. The technical requirements of writing a book mean any book on SL will be outdated by the time of publishing. Blogs and flickr twitter and being inworld are the best way to know about SL. Of all of these, Aimee Weber’s is the only one I would even want to pick up. Nice to have a list of them though, that’s appreciated.
You are most likely right on this — and, indeed, now that the hype period is over, you can’t find a book on Second Life anymore unless you’re quite lucky. But I think these are still handy, even though now slightly dated, for getting a beginning look at the Grid and rousing up interest.