Reading Fanatic Reviews
BusinessWhere Can I Find Wi-Fi? by Kayla Kurin
Available at Amazon, iBooks, Kobo, Mondadori, and Angus & Robertson
Where Can I Find Wi-Fi?*
Want to Be a World-Traveling Nomad?
If you have ever considered traveling the world or living in a foreign country (not just as a tourist), this book gives not only one woman’s personal story, but her personal hints, tips, and tricks learned from a life living and working on the road. The book is well organized. The first section is about being just a regular nomad, either volunteering or find work in other countries. The bulk of the book is about being a digital nomad, whether as a freelancer, an entrepreneur, or working remotely for a company. The author has set up several businesses that have allowed her to add to her bank account while still enjoying travel around the world. I like how she interweaves her personal experiences with the tips, techniques, and the knowledge you need if you are going to consider this kind of lifestyle. Before you book your first plane ticket for the new nomad life you envision for yourself, I recommend reading this book to get a sense of what it is really like as well as some ideas that will help you make the transition more smoothly.
Work from Home by Michael Cobble
Available at Amazon only
Free with Kindle Unlimited
Work from Home*
Too Short and Generic
This book is so short that it could almost be considered a pamphlet. The author touches on some very basic ideas about how to make money from home. Honestly, so little is said in the book, that you can just about read the table of contents and take away about as much as if you had read the book itself. The subtitle seems to imply that he will mention specific companies that you can work for from home, but the only ones that I saw were the common freelancer sites (like Fiverr and Upwork) and an affiliate marketing hub. He very briefly goes over ideas like freelancing, selling online, blogging, and affiliate marketing among a few others. When I say briefly, I mean very, very briefly–he touches on ideas but gives no true guidance or blueprint if you are interested in a particular idea. Scattered throughout the book are a variety of affiliate links like to Aweber and Bluehost. To me, the book almost feels like it is just there to get you to click on his affiliate links. If you’re interested in working from home, I would suggest a different book that will help put you more firmly on the path to what you are hoping to achieve.
Minimum Viable Marketing by Brandi C. Johnson
Available at Amazon only
Free with Kindle Unlimited
Minimum Viable Marketing*
Solid Marketing Information for Business Owners
In the currently wild-and-crazy publishing field, so often nonfiction books have little substance, seeming to be cobbled together from a variety of websites and other sources. I am pleased to say that this book is not one of that ilk. The author has worked in marketing at a corporate level for a long time and has been coaching private clients as well. She brings her expertise and knowledge to this book that does offer incredible value even if it is clearly meant to be a lead magnet for her mailing list and services. The book is just chock-full of information.
First she defines marketing and what she considers to be the critical components of it these days, namely your website, email marketing, and what she calls amplification channels (like social media and other platforms); she suggests picking two of the latter to focus on. The book covers a broad range of topics. Even a brief glimpse at the table of contents makes you think, how minimum is this, really? There are so many pieces to the puzzle, and I actually do believe marketing is overwhelming these days for a small business owner or entrepreneur who doesn’t have a dedicated marketing staff.
For some topics, she goes into greater detail than others. She relates a fair amount of information about email marketing throughout the book, including down-to-brass-tacks ideas for your welcome series of emails. But even on topics that she doesn’t discuss at length (like YouTube and Pinterest), she gives solid tips and strategies. There’s a lot of talk about branding, niches, and other hot buzzwords in marketing these days. I will have to admit that as a struggling entrepreneur, I wish modern marketing wasn’t quite so complicated as it seems to be in these days of human-to-human marketing. If you are an entrepreneur or small business owner, you will most likely find many nuggets of wisdom in this book that will help you level up your marketing game.
Equity Crowdfunding by Nathan Rose
Available at Amazon only
Free with Kindle Unlimited
Equity Crowdfunding*
Learn More About This Novel Way to Raise Capital
Have you heard of the concept of equity crowdfunding? It’s a relatively new way of raising capital for a small business. Think of it as the grown-up version of Kickstarter; instead of getting a company or person’s product, you get shares in the company. It is definitely a novel way for startups and entrepreneurs to not only fund their business but to market it. This book goes over the concept in great detail. It is very well organized, starting with defining what equity crowdfunding is and goes on to explore whether or not it is right for your business. Then he looks at the different equity crowdfunding platforms and options that you’ll have to choose from. Once you’ve decided that this is for you, the book gives you further insight into how to craft your offer and run it and even what to do after your campaign is over. If this is something you’ve thought about or sounds intriguing to you, this would be the perfect book to pick up to see if it would be right for you.
Kicking Financial Ass by Paul Christopher Dumont
Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Kobo, Thalia, Mondadori, Angus & Robertson, Indigo (Chapters), and Bol.de
Kicking Financial Ass*
Surprisingly Helpful Book
I think it is unfortunate when an author or a publisher believes that they have to oversell a book. This book is a victim of just such a stratagem. This is actually quite a detailed, well-thought-out, and well-written book about how to get your financial house in order. So I have issues with the title, subtitle, and book blurb. The title suggests a humorous or edgy approach, and the subtitle—as it begins with a rather strange directive—supports this theory as well. The book blurb makes you think that it is going to be more about retiring early or entrepreneurship. While the book does address the former, that isn’t really the main thrust of the book. The book is really about getting your financial house in order and aligning what you do financially with your own personal values so that you can live a better present and future.
This book is meant for millennials, but I believe that most people could find benefit from it even if everything doesn’t apply to you, because of your age group or for any reason. The book is broadly divided into four parts: foundations, growth, investing, and living your life. The first part begins with getting your money mindset correct by considering your approach two money. This part moves on to take a look at where your money is going and looking at your savings. Then he looks into having an emergency fund before diving into debts. In the growth section, he discusses a salary negotiation and having a side hustle. In the investing section, he looks at index funds, retirement accounts, and real estate. The final two chapters that make up part four step more into the mindset perspective, looking at purpose in retirement and happiness with your financial goals.
This book is chock full of ideas and things for you to think about in your approach to your finances both now and in the future. The author freely admits that most of these ideas are not his own. He does have an MBA and is a certified financial analyst, but he also states that he has gathered information from various places online. Honestly, there is much that will help people here, both in mindset and in practicalities. It will get you thinking about what you do with your money now, what you want to do with it in the future, and why you want (or shouldn’t want) to do all these things. If you want financial freedom now and years from now, I would recommend reading this book—whether you are a millennial or not.
Confessions of a Crypto Millionaire by Dan Conway
Available at Amazon only
Free with Kindle Unlimited
Confessions of a Crypto Millionaire*
One Man’s Cryptocurrency Story
This book is written memoir style by a man who was able to make money by getting in on bitcoin and ethereum. While you do learn a lot about blockchain, bitcoin, and ethereum in the book, this is really more of his story, detailing his life from workaday corporate employee to crypto millionaire. The prologue is his screed against corporate America and in praise of alternatives like cryptocurrencies. I know a little about cryptocurrencies from watching a few documentaries, but it was fascinating to watch in action from a personal perspective, seeing it make a difference in one man’s life. If you have any interest in the subject, the book is a fascinating read. There was only one thing I didn’t like about it. It has a surprising amount of profanity including variations on the F-word. I just don’t like profanity in books, whether it’s fiction, memoir, or nonfiction. Other than that, though, I found it to be a compelling read.
Affiliate Marketing by Ankur Agarwal
Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Kobo, Scribd, 24 Symbols, Thalia, Mondadori, Angus & Robertson, and Bol.de
Affiliate Marketing*
Bare Bones Blueprint for Affiliate Marketing
It’s kind of funny, but just the day before this book became available on my favorite book review site, I actually bought access to some software produced by the author. So he does know affiliate marketing from the inside because he actually creates products that affiliates can buy and use, sell, and license. Unfortunately, in this book, he has oversold in the subtitle what he’s going to share. As someone who has done affiliate marketing in the past and is beginning to increase her efforts again, I can tell you that what he offers in this book is a solid, though bare bones, way to approach affiliate marketing in 2019. Everything he talks about in this book is indeed things you need to think about currently if you want to become an affiliate: niches, branding, products, lead pages, bonuses, email lists, social and other marketing, et. But the amount of information he gives in this book is really only just enough to get you started. In some of the areas he discusses, there is not really enough for you to truly get started; it’s more like he’s letting you know the parameters of the game but not giving the game away completely. You would still need to do quite a bit of research to get yourself up and running as an affiliate. I would call this a blueprint for affiliate marketing, but nothing beyond that—not even the rough frame, so to speak, to carry the architect metaphor further. But if you are interested in affiliate marketing, this book will definitely give you insight into what you need to consider if you are thinking about venturing into affiliate marketing.
Negotiate without Negotiating by Aaron Leyshon
Available at Amazon, Kobo, Mondadori, and Angus & Robertson
Negotiation without Negotiating*
Some Good Techniques for Collaborative Negotiation, Introvert or Not
In this book, the author combines two topics, introversion and negotiation. I found his section on introversion to be not wholly correct. I am wondering where he got some of his information from. The section did mention, of course, the Myers-Briggs test and the different types of introversion defined by it as well as something I had never heard of that uses the acronym of STAR (social, thinking, anxious, and restrained types of introversion). About the first third of the book or so discusses introversion in general, not really relating it to negotiation at all.
The negotiation section of the book takes up the bulk of it. I didn’t really find it to be super specific to introverts in negotiation; he just seemed to share some good insights into the process that anyone could use. I found the title to be a bit disingenuous because, of course, the book is actually about negotiation. It is just that the style that he proposes is more collaborative than adversarial, but it is still negotiation. I enjoy nonfiction, and I read a lot of it, but I found myself completely surprised that the author used mild profanity throughout the whole book. I don’t like seeing profanity in fiction, and I don’t particularly appreciate it in nonfiction. I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen this happen in a nonfiction book that is about a business topic. I hope it doesn’t become a trend, as it has in some genres of contemporary romance. All in all, the author did share some good techniques for collaborative negotiation.
13 Things Successful Entrepreneurs Don’t Do by Catherine R. Booth
Available at Amazon only
NOT with Kindle Unlimited
13 Things Successful Entrepreneurs Don't Do*
Would Barely Fill Up a Few Sheets of Paper
This has got to be one of the most ridiculous “books” I have read in a long time! It is barely more than a thin pamphlet (maybe three-typed Word pages), offering little more than no-brainer platitudes with no explanation or examples. You will gain as much from the book by reading the table of contents as reading the actual book itself. Each “chapter” is one paragraph about the topic heading. Even within this paragraph, the author is sometimes contradictory. Don’t waste your time.
You Can Build a Profitable Online Business and Love Every Minute of It by Ankur Agarwal
Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Kobo, Google Play, Scribd, 24 Symbols, Thalia, and Bol.de
You Can Build a Profitable Online Business and Love Every Minute of It*
Decent Overview, But Not Enough Detail
Everybody wants to get into online businesses these days. With so many people out there on the web, entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs see a potential gold mine. This book seeks to show how to build a profitable online business, as the title states. The bones of the book are sound in terms of the skeleton structure needed for modern online marketing. He discusses research and development, product development, funnels, mailing lists, social media, and webinars. Unfortunately, he only gives a paragraph or two for some subheadings in these topics, not enough to really tell you anything about how to actually build a profitable online business. If you’re completely new to the topic, this could be a good overview, but there isn’t enough detail for you to actually go out and start an online business.