Part inspirational, part how-to manual, Hugh McLeod‘s new book: Evil Plans: Having Fun on the Road to World Domination is a personal testimony on how to live a life that matters.

The premise of the book is that life is too short to do something you hate, and that we must hatch a plan to change that.

That Evil Plan, as he calls it, starts by nurturing our passions. McLeod speaks from experience, as he was able to transform his passion (drawing existential cartoons on the back of business cards) into a thriving online business that has given him the freedom to live life on his own terms.

But as his own story (an “overnight success” 15 years in the making) exemplifies, achieving success by following your passion is not simple, easy or fast-but it’s definitely worth the effort. An Evil Plan, McLeod says, requires hard work, a keen understanding of niche marketing, and leveraging the Internet to create our own global microbrand.

Although the ideas in this book are not necessarily new (if you’ve read Linchpin, by Seth Godin, Career Renegade by Jonathan Fields or Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk, you’ll be able to find many common themes) what makes this book different is McLeod’s unmistakable in-your-face voice, the personal stories told from the heart that give life to his account, and the dozens of thought-provoking cartoons that illustrate it’s pages.

If you are new to the entrepreneurship/personal branding online space, or if you’ve already taken steps in your journey toward entrepreneurship, this book will provide you with valuable insights that will make a profound impact in your professional (and personal) life.

Other reviews from around the web:

• Pam Slim
• Jonathan Fields
• Amazon User Reviews

Brand DNA: Uncover Your Organization’s Genetic Code For Competitive Advantage is to small business branding what E-Myth is to small business systems. In E-Myth, author Michael Gerber uses the fictional story of Sarah, a passionate but struggling entrepreneur, to remind us of the curse of the technician: the mistake many small business owners make by assuming that a particular skill or passion can be easily turned it into a business (we now know that passion and skill are not enough, and that we need to have systems in place; in other words, we must learn to work ON our business, not IN our business).

In Brand DNA, authors Carol Chapman and Suzanne Tulien tell us the story of Meg, an ambitious but also struggling entrepreneur, who has fallen victim to another common small business myth: that doing more “marketing” and constantly tweaking our logo, packaging, etc. will automatically get us more business.

The authors make a convincing case that before spending any money on marketing we must first define what our brand is all about, what makes it different, and what are the behaviors that are more likely to communicate and reinforce that message.

They also ask small business owners to take a cue from world class brands like Starbucks and Apple, who spend most of their marketing efforts and money in building an outstanding customer experience instead of advertising.

Other books have also covered this topic at length, but what I find valuable and different in this one is that by using the story of Meg and her brand, Ecologé, it adds clarity to concepts that otherwise would be too dry and difficult to grasp in the absence of a specific example.

The book also goes one step further by providing an interactive section with practical exercises so that you can apply the book’s main ideas to your own small business.

If you are a newly minted entrepreneur just starting a small business you will find this book extremely valuable and relevant. If you are a seasoned small business owner with several years of success under your belt, it wouldn’t hurt to give Brand DNA a quick read if only to make sure that you’re covering all the bases in your branding efforts (let’s not forget that losing sight of the basics is one of the most common reasons why entrepreneurs sometimes get in trouble).

I was so impressed with the presentation Marty Neumeier put together for The Brand Gap, that I decided to order his second book, Zag: The Number One Strategy of High-Performance Brands, which deals with the subject of differentiation (when everyone else zigs, zag!). This book is a great manual and reference guide on how to discover, design and maintain your brand.

The book explains how to build a brand in 17 steps. Each step is a fundamental question (i.e. Who are you?, What is your vision?, etc.) you need to answer before moving to the next one.

The author gives you a detailed list of assignments to help you answer each of the 17 questions effectively. He also applies the process to a fictional wine bar concept, which makes his dissertation easier to follow.

ZAG is written in a format that Neumeier calls a “whiteboard overview”, meaning that the book uses plenty of graphics, resembling a well crafted PowerPoint presentation, with the text substituting for the life speaker.

Neumeier is a branding genius, and he writes his books the same way he designs brands: with absolute clarity, focus, and nothing superfluous that may detract from the central message he wants to convey.

I read ZAG in just a couple of days. Once I started I couldn’t put it down. The book has so many valuable quotes and insights that it is a virtual highlighter magnet.  Apparently, the author was well aware of this and conveniently listed the most valuable passages of the book in the last few pages. Some examples:

Complete this sentence: our brand is the ONLY ______ that ______.   If you can’t say you are the “only” go back and start over.

Your value proposition is the reason your brand matters to customers.  One proposition per brand.

Best practices are usually common practices.  And common practices will never add up to a zag.

ZAG was definitely worth reading, and I’ll be keeping it close by for future reference.