The way that's most effective is the one you fish most effectively. Really.

There's a dozen ways to float fish, with bait, jig, spinner blade, fixed float, sliding float, round float, cylinder-shaped float, with split shot, with leader, no leader, dragging bottom, dead drifting..........you get the idea. And they all work.

Pick one method, fish it a while, and you'll get comfortable with it. I started out with a spinning rod, fixed float on my mainline, and a jig. After I got the feel for that, I tried all sorts of variations in presentation. Just about everything I've tried has worked..........from running spinner blades under a float for silvers, to swimming a jig, to a pink worm on a jighead.

That's a pretty good book and video combo you have there.........you should be able to go out and do some damage.