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

Leo Babauta, author of the widely popular productivity blog Zen Habits argues that our attachment to 24/7 connectivity is nothing less than an adiction, one that is causing us to be less productive, more stressed out and, ultimately, less happy.

Fortunately for us, he has also written Focus, an excellent ebook that shows us how to break the habit (download the free version here). In Focus, Leo builds upon recurrent themes of his blog, like simplicity, minimalism, and the importance of living in the moment, and comes up with a simple but detailed program to rid ourselves of distractions and regain our ability to concentrate, prioritize and get the really important stuff done.

While his advice may sometimes fly against conventional wisdom, you will find yourself nodding your head in agreement when he argues against multitasking, the habit of compulsively setting and meeting goals, and striving to do more (when we really should be doing less, more important stuff).

If you like the free version, there’s also a paid version complete with how-to videos, interviews with experts and several bonus guides.

In a discipline as hyped as social media marketing, it could be all too tempting to dismiss a book that promises to teach you how to make money off it.  How to Make Money with Social Media by Jamie Turner and Reshma Shah, however, is the real deal, and will help you do just that.

The book is a thorough guide on how to use new and emerging media to grow your business, and runs the gamut from clearly explaining what social media marketing is, to describing specific ways that you can integrate it into the fabric of your business and brand strategies.

The book briefly covers all the important social media platforms (Linked In, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.) and for the sake of clarity divides them in three groups, depending on what their main purpose is: networking, promoting or sharing. It then teaches you how to use them all in conjunction, to generate what the authors call “circular momentum”, a state of flow that when achieved will maximize the effectiveness of your social media strategy.

I particularly like the parallels the authors draw between social media platforms and places or situations in the bricks and mortar world (i.e.: Facebook is like a pub, LinkedIn is like a trade show and Twitter like a cocktail party). Another handy feature of the book is the lists of takeaways at the end of each chapter, which summarize the most important points and suggest action steps to put them into practice.

The authors’ style is casual and humorous, and will put even the most novice or skeptical reader at ease and in the best frame of mind to learn.

I find this book relevant to both beginners and more advanced users, and applicable equally to the small business arena or the corporate world. Beginners will find it very clear and easy to follow, while more advanced users will want to keep it handy as a reference guide to help them refresh social media marketing’s most important concepts.

Posted via email from Mario Sanchez Carrion | Posterous

I read and enjoyed the original Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds, but felt that something was missing. While the book did a great job at explaining the planning and delivery stages of effective presentations, it didn’t offer much about the actual design phase.

While some praised the fact that Presentation Zen was not “a book about making slides” I actually did want a book that could teach me how to make attractive, clear and effective slides. Presentation Zen Design is that book.

In it, you will find actionable, how-to advice on topics like: choosing the the right font, working with color, creating attractive visual compositions, using images and video, and other tips and techniques to improve your slides and create powerful presentations.

The book is also vintage Garr, with plenty of references to Japanese culture, and interesting parallels between Zen principles and aesthetics and presentation design. Garr’s personal brand also shines through his choice of images and sample slides, which make Presentation Zen Design part how-to manual, part coffee table book.

For best results I would highly recommend reading both the original Presentation Zen and Presentation Zen Design, as both books complement and support each other.

Posted via email from Mario Sanchez Carrion | Posterous

Brand DNA: Uncover Your Organization’s Genetic Code For Competitive Advantage

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.

Free has generated a lively debate in the blogosphere, with some questioning the validity of its conclusions, others finding some merit to them but hoping that we can find a way out, and others fully embracing them as the inevitable way things will be from now on.

The book is full of interesting examples of how companies and entire industries have been build around giving away stuff. There is a comprehensive chapter on Google (probably the best known company that has been able to build a business around a wide array of free services).

There is also a very good example that I think summarizes the main point of the book: that as previously scarce things become abundant, new scarcities are created, and with them, new ways of making money. Anderson goes back in time to remind us how in the early days of radio, musicians got paid for life on-air performances. That business model was killed by records, which became the new way to make money. Nowadays, of course, the recorded music industry is being challenged by the zero marginal cost of distributing music over the Internet, which has forced musicians to embrace other ways to make money, like live performances and licensing.

My impression after reading this book is that we are not necessarily doomed by the economics of free, but we do need to work on creating business models where we can turn giving away stuff to our advantage (for example, to build an audience faster) and then find related products and services where money can be made.

The main importance of this book for small business owners, in my opinion, is that it will open our eyes and minds to new ways of charging for products and services, and will help us understand the complicated dynamics of pricing in an Internet economy.

As we internalize the concepts discussed in this book, we will come to accept that some of the things that made us money in the past may need to become a marketing cost, as we strive to create multiple, new streams of income that feed each other.

It is in this environment that Guy Kawasaki earned his chops as an entrepreneur. The former Apple evangelist, venture capitalist and founder of Internet ventures Truemors and Alltop, has distilled decades of experience in his latest book, Reality Check, and does it in a way that is both informative and entertaining.

The book is thick but you won’t find filler or superfluous content. The chapters are short and focused on very specific business topics, from how to send effective email, to how to deliver a presentation, to how to prepare an effective business plan, to how to make a pitch.

They are often written in a list-of-top-tips format that makes identifying the main takeaways easy. Also, since each chapter deals with a specific topic, you can read them in the order you want at any time.

Guy also enlisted the help of top experts to write some of the chapters, like Penelope Trunk on career advice or Garr Reynolds on presentation design, so you’ll be learning from the best.

If you’ve already read Guy’s other books or his blog, you may find some of the material repeated. However, the value of Reality Check is in the way the content has been organized and summarized, and enhanced with new material to form a cohesive volume that covers virtually every aspect of running a business.

If you want to be successful in the business world, either as an entrepreneur or as an employee, this book will definitely give you an edge. Highly recommended.

The author, who left a career in law years ago to pursue his dreams as an entrepreneur, describes in great detail seven often overlooked ways to make money doing what you love.

He starts by explaining how each particular strategy can work for you, and follows through with real life examples and a list of resources for you to dig deeper on your own. Then, he continues to guide us through the process of marketing our dream, the basics of Internet marketing, and how to use blogs and social media to make our mark in the world and gain influence.

Perhaps the passage of the book that I liked the most is when the author talks about conventional wisdom, and how it gets in the way of identifying opportunity. Learning to defy conventional wisdom (or what others may call “thinking out of the box”) is the best way to discover niches that nobody is addressing and that you can turn into a business.

With that frame of mind and the practical tips in this book, you shouldn’t have any problem finding work that is at the same time lucrative and fulfilling.

• What’s the best way to make money from your blog?
• How do you market your blog?
• Which five blogs do you regularly read?
• What would you do differently if you could start all over again?
• What’s the most common mistake new bloggers make?
• And many more…

Stephane Grenier has already done that for you in his new compilation: Blog Blazers – 40 Top Bloggers Share Their Secrets. At a retail price of $16.95, it is a real bargain considering the wealth of information that these blogging pros share with you throughout the book.

The featured bloggers are experts in a wide array of fields: small business, entrepreneurship, internet marketing, technology, software development, dieting, personal finance, etc. I was especially glad to see Aaron Wall, Pamela Slim and Ramit Sethi featured in the book, three remarkable people I have followed since the beginning of their blogging journey.

No matter what your area of expertise is, there are plenty of actionable tips that you can take away from each of the 40 bloggers. Obviously, due to the topic of this blog, I paid special attention to bloggers specialized in small business, entrepreneurship and Internet marketing. I particularly liked the tips shared by Anita Campbell (www.smallbiztrends.com).

One common theme that transpires in the book is how little money bloggers spend marketing themselves. Most of them don’t spend money directly, but instead spend time networking, reaching out to other bloggers and writing really good posts.

Also, around 60% consider that they make more money indirectly, using the blog as a platform to get consulting, speaking and other related gigs, while the other 40% make more money directly, through advertising or affiliate sales.

Another valuable takeaway from the book is learning what blogs these pros regularly read. I discovered around ten great blogs that I didn’t know about, which I have now added to my feed reader.

To make the most out of the book, I recommend that you read it with a highlighter handy to mark out all the tips that resonate with you. Think about this: if you get just one good tip per blogger, you will have forty specific, actionable steps that you can follow to improve your blogging.

I would like to congratulate Steph and thank him for his dedication in putting together this useful best practices manual, and finish with one thought that circled my mind after reading the book: would it be possible to create a companion site to the book, where ordinary bloggers could answer some of the same questions, and have their answers featured in their own individual page?

I don’t know how feasible that would be, but I think it would be a particularly effective way to further promote the book, build community, and expand the best practices repository from 40 bloggers to perhaps hundreds or thousands.