Tag Archives: books



Amazon is about to launch something that will change everything….

November 16th, 2010

They’re going to let you loan books.

Digital books that is.

Suddenly they have overcome probably the second highest sales objection to digital books (first being you can’t replace a book, which people rapidly get over once they see a Kindle).

But what they’ve changed is, there is now a cost to loaning someone a book, in the past you could loan a cd and still enjoy the software of music yourself. Now you won’t be able to.

It’s that cost which will keep ebook prices up, get more people on board, but change consumers perception of digital goods.

They will have more tangibility and perceived value.

If you haven’t yet, consider what digital goods, tokens, experiences you could offer to make your service more compelling. Or consider maybe what you are giving away at the moment is vastly undervalued.

PS this blog is available on Kindle, for a couple of bucks a month, that’s their charge not mine.


Opportunities are a vacuum for ideas, you just need to connect the two

April 11th, 2010

Just to revisit let’s look at Will Smith’s two things to be successful:

Running & Reading.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEMEBBwO6J8

They do go hand in hand. Reading gives you knew ideas and running gives you an opportunity to digest them.

So why is it one person reads books takes away tremendous value and nada for others.

The reason I ask is I know plenty of intelligent people who read ‘the books’ yet they don’t appear to be that much improved by it.

The reason is opportunity, they don’t have the opportunity or the ability to make an opportunity to execute the ideas they’ve gleamed.

No opportunity = no risk = no success = no learning.

So why would we expect them to get the most out of it?


The books I most recommend

December 15th, 2009

These are some of my most recommended books, pick them up buy a couple of copies.

  • Direct from Dell by Michael Dell
  • Dot Bomb by David Kuo
  • Maverick by Ricardo Semler
  • E=mc2 a biography of the world’s most famous equation by David Bodanis
  • 80/20 rule by Richard Koch
  • The Dip by Seth Godin
  • Tipping point by Malcolm Gladwell
  • E*Myth by Michael Gerber
  • Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss

If you can buy these have a read and create a whole new platform of knowledge for yourself…


Its happened to music…. now for books

January 21st, 2009

Browsing a book shop over the holidays I was scanning the business section.

Now as a bit of a side note, I don’t read any old book, I like to limit the ‘content’ that I engage with so purchase books that others have read and recommended.

And I thought about all the rubbish books there must be.

Think about it.

How does a book come to be?

You merely have to be a) good enough b) persevere through the process.

The publishers have the distribution, editors, marketing materials.  If you can get through that process wham your book is out.

However with self publishing I think books are going to emulate whats happened with music.

As the number of books released each year soars, the talent pool is going to increase, and the ‘average’ books just aren’t going to sell.  As everyone will buy the remarkable books within their interest.  The long tail is only going to grow.

Never been a better time to be remarkable huh? 

I wonder what publishers are doing to be proactive.


5 Books you should read

September 18th, 2008

As a Friday bonus (two posts one day!)

Reading I would highly recommend as a platform of knowledge would be:

The Dip by Seth Godin (must have)

Screw it Let’s Do it by Richard Branson (short version, very motivating)

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell (Interesting insights into how we make snap judgements)

E-Myth by Michael Gerber (Teach you all the things you will wish you’d done first time around)

The world of Karl Pilkington by Karl Pilkington (Absolute rubbish with an artistic genius kind of take but hey you need a break)

Grab one from the library, a friend or from the book store.



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