Economics Books

Everyone should read this book - its a life changer. However, even better, but for some reason being overlooked by the world, is "Leaving Microsoft to Change the World" by John Woods. I don't understand why 3 Cups is being promoted by booksellers and is being given such high profile, where John Wood's book is not. John Wood went on to create the organization Room to Read which has a much broader goal, to build schools and libraries in developing countries around the world, not just one country. His book is a better read from start to end. I found that 3 Cups got bogged down with the details of the local politics. My suggestion; read both, but if you only have time for one life changing book, than choose the John Wood book!

I think this book was amazing. "Dr. Greg" spoke at my university which was amazing in and of itself, then after reading this book I have to say he is one of my heroes. The book is well written and gives insight into the many dilemmas facing the US in Afghanistan today while also providing an inspiring story of one man's mission to change the world and do what most believe is utterly impossible. Fantastic Book!!!

I bought this book because I was looking for something inspirational, and while it is a nice story, it is so poorly written I find it hard to recommend. It would have been interesting to see what an established writer like Jon Krakauer (Into Thin Air) would have done with it.

THIS STORY OF GREG'S TENACIOUS VICTORY WILL REMAIN A LIFE BOOK i WANT TO SHARE WITH OTHERS. IT HAS GIVEN ME INSIGHT INTO A DISTANT REGION. A TIME LINE, GLOSSARY AND EVEN A LIST OF CHARACTERS WOULD HAVE BEEN EVEN BETTER.THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE TIME TO SHARE THIS EXPERIENCE WITH THE WESTERN WORLD.

In this egomaniac, me age, it is refreshing to read about someone who thinks about helping others. Recommend this book to those who are xenophobic and who are afraid to travel outside the well trodden luxury hotel path.

I used Dan Poynter's Self-Publishing Manual as a guide when I self-published my parenting/healthcare book entitled A Gift for Life: A Complete Record of Your Child's Health History! Dan's manual is straight forward and very user friendly. I was able to independently produce a quality product without wasting a lot of valuable time.

This is by far the best book on self-publishing that I have read.

Dan does a really good job of telling you how the publishing industry works, and explaining how you can make more money by taking control of the publishing process yourself.

The book has a USA bias, but much of the content is also relevant to UK, European, and international authors and budding publishers.

In the 13th Edition that I have read, the chapter on Print-On-Demand (POD) appeared to be something of an afterthought and did not specifically mention companies like Lulu, CreateSpace, Lightning Source and BookSurge that are revolutionaizing the self-publishing industry. This may well have changed in the later editions.

Tony Loton, author --
Book Publishing DIY: The Do It Yourself Guide to Self-Publishing using Lulu and CreateSpace

I fully endorse this book as I love it. It has completely steered me in the right directions every step of the way self publishing my first children's picture book. I love it and if you are pondering self publishing you NEED this book. So buy it for sure no matter what type of book you are thinking of publishing...fiction, novel, art or childrens. I am still picking this book a lot even after my book came out. Great tips on writing, printing, promoting & etc! Mommy's High Heel Shoes

This book is very helpful to anyone wishing to self-publish their own book. It is filled with useful information and leads the reader to other useful resources outside of the book including Poynter's own website. Unfortunately, many of these outside references carry a price tag greater than the cost of this book. All in all, I would recommend this book to any self-publisher as a standard reference guide.

What Elvis was to rock n' roll, Dan Poynter is to self-publishing -- The King. His book contains what you need to know to self-publish your own book.

Mark Levine, author of The Fine Print of Self Publishing: The Contracts & Services of 45 Self-Publishing Companies Analyzed Ranked & Exposed

I think this is a great purchase... Just got it and I like the way the lessons are so far

Excellent book. Very detailed. Absolutely convincded me that I wanted nothing to with this business. The author demonstrates that it is difficult and tricky business,potentially very lucrative, but not a get rich quick scheme. Since I would like to get rich without this much work, I'll pass on this method. And I truly thank this book for steering me right. I take off one star only for the author's occasional right wing rants. But I guess he's entitled. He worked very hard to get rich, and he shares his secrets openly in an inexpensive book, rather than trying to hoodwink you out of thousands by means of an infomercial. If he's got a few screwball political ideas, God bless him.

The information included in this book has made my job much easier and has expanded my knowledge base and expertise. The organization I have derived from it is most valuable.

This is an excellent book by Thomas as he thoroughly takes you through the process of purchasing an investment property. He provides a wealth of resources on nearly every aspect of investing by listing websites and addresses.

His forms are great for providing you with an idea for approaching home owners. However, the tone of the letters are some what dismissive--but that's just my opinion.

The only area that needs enhancing is providing one with an idea as to estimate value in the property. He does not provide as much detail as others (i.e., Steve Berges "The Complete Guide to Real Estate Finance for Investment Properties"). With that said, it is an excellent resource and I highly recommend it.

I bought this book and then went to some training in Tennessee and was impressed with all the detail given on how to do a succesfull short sale. I have then applied these techniques in my real estate business to give me one more tool in my arsenal to make money.
Sandy

The aim of the book is to change your thinking about business in order to lead you to find out new ways about how to improve continuously your business model. There are many useful examples and questions in the book that help you gradually to change your company , starting from the analysis of the current business model, then helping you to create an improved business model and finally to create a business model innovation for continuous improvement. It is an amazing book.

This book will open your mind on how to launch a bew business or innovative product or server. However the authors could write this book in a more simple way and not with a hard to read english text.

Mitchell and Coles have done businesses a tremendous service in writing this excellent book. They have done so by providing a practical toolbox of ideas with which to stimulate entrepreneurs, business leaders and managers to enhance and improve their business prospects in today's very competitive marketplaces.

I must admit to having struggled with this book for a long time. Not because of difficulty in reading and understanding. To be sure this is a very lucid and comprehensible book and is accessible to all levels from a twelve year old bringing out his lemonade stall for the third year in a row and adding iced tea to his product range to the CEO of a major corporation.

My struggle was with trying to make overarching sense of what lessons the authors were trying to encourage readers to learn. It became clear to me after several periods of reflection upon completion of the text. The crucial significance of this book in a practical way lies in understanding how deep into national economic systems the process of globalisation has seeped. We see the reults in our everyday lives, how quickly new or improved products come into the marketplace. We see how quickly established businesses change or die, we see cheaper and better products come from remote parts of the world leaving us a greater part of our disposable income to spend on the things we would prefer to spend on them.

It is clear that in life and not just in business the process of change has quickened and that as individuals we must be more adaptable and more attune to the world around us to the opportunities that exist. It is as if we need to become our own business in ourselves.

Mitchell and Coles focus on but one part of this continuous change and that is on the business model. Their strong focus on this area has great strength but we must also learn the broader lesson from their well researched work. To survive in today's world we must not only accept change but we must embrace it as people, as workers, as entrepreneurs. It is as Schumpeter pointed out inherent in the nature of capitalism. But, to be sure it is inherent in the nature of all life, as Hayek observed. We must change or die.

I would heartily recommend this book to everyone, for there is much to be gained from within it's pages. Mitchell and Coles have produced an excellent book which far and away exceeds it's remit as a business book.

The Ultimate Competitive Advantage is a gold mine with a rich vein of unusual ideas from Mitchell and Coles' nimble minds. Its stated purpose is to help readers develop and implement a superior management process for continuous business model improvement. The book goes ahead to do just that.

The authors' approach make deliberate what used to be an accidental, hapazard, uncertain and hard to repeat process.

This book, like Mitchell and Coles' others, is best used as a workbook. After each chapter, several questions are posed to stimulate your thinking, and 95% of the value of the book will be unlocked for you when you take the time to think through them rigorously. Serious entrepreneurs looking for fresh ideas for getting out of the rut and improving their businesses will.

This is a practical book, but it is not a "how-to-book" instead, it deals with the what, when and why; with such tangibles as pricing, cost of doing business and benefits to stakeholders. The authors- Donald Mitchell and Carol Coles researched and found out that unsuccessful companies doggedly apply outdated business models while the successful ones improve their models every 2 to 4 years. The book provides a straightforwad and a systematic method which any company can use to review and improve its business model basing on its key components: pricing, cost of doing business and benefits to its shareholders.

This is an awesome book! Easy to read on setting up a personal finance plan for life & remaining debt free for life! Teaches great concepts we are never taught in school or from our parents. Highly recommended for everyone!

I bought this book and have since loaned it out to several friends. For me, the greatest help was Mary's 80-10-10 plan. The idea is to live off of 80% of your salary, save 10% and give 10% to charity or tithe. I was never taught this concept and found it helpful. She also tells you how to pay your credit cards off 1 at a time. If you feel like you are treading water, about to drown in debt-- this book will rescue you IF you follow the advice.

This is a great book. I found it very easy to read. Mary speaks from personal experience and it's like have a close friend right there with you in the trenches. We've begun to implement her plan and I can already see a difference in our monthly expenses. It's not an instant fix, but then we didn't get in this financial hole in a day either. Steady progress without any steps backwards, that's our goal.

Thanks Mary for taking the time to share what you've learned with the rest of us. You're making a difference one family at a time!!!

Fantastic book! If everyone in the country read it and did what Mary recommends, this country would not be in the situation it is!

After reading this book and implementing Mary's plan, my husband and I were able to organize our credit and shorten our payments from 15 years down to 5! We are two years into it, and only have three more to go before we are debt free. I cannot express how great this book is. Mary addresses how to live without using credit, how to pay off the credit you do have, and how to make sure you don't need to fall back on credit in the future. She suggests in the book to use her website to plan your payments on current debt. It costs $20 to enroll, and I would highly reccomend it. It allows you to plug all your debt into the worksheet, and it tells you which bills to pay first, second, etc to get the debt payed off the fastest. Well worth the $20!

I purchased this book due to the high number of reviews and 5 star ratings. I normally don't go out of my way to review a book, but I really don't understand the 5 star rating.

The positives: This guy has a decent amount of what seems like quality insight into the financial markets and probably a good plan to follow. However, having yet to try to implement it, I'm not sure how well explained the plan is or how well it works.

The negatives:

1)There is an incredible amount of repetitiveness in this short book. My god! He must repeat hundreds of times how his plan will work great if you follow it. I don't doubt that it likely is a decent plan, but I kept reading and reading and he kept talking about how great his plan is and how brokers and most financial info is garbage, garbage, garbage. The repetitiveness was unbelievable. Funny part is, the meat and potatoes of the strategy were in one of his early chapters, the one related to mutual funds. Yet, he kept selling and selling his method and bashing all the way through this short book. I thought I missed something. I couldn't believe he was done explaining his method and then went on selling it and going off on tangents that he doesn't recommend you use - buying individual stocks, options, commodities, etc.

2)The book has a somewhat entertaining conversational style, but it is poorly organized. He has a number of good and interesting points, but they're scattered throughout the chapters and aren't logically organized. I would prefer to see summaries at the end of the chapters with more meat and potatoes.

3)A couple of times during the book he points to his CPA-audited return of close to 40% during a particular year as proof that his system works. Sorry, but I need a hell of a lot more proof than one year of results. Anyone can have a good year, especially in a bull market year. This comes off as shady, like I'm dealing with a huckster. This proves nothing. In fact, it seems like he's hiding something by not showing a more complete picture of the results of his system over the years.

Final Thoughts:

I would probably have given this book 3 stars because the advice, if you can weed it out of the repetitiveness and poor organization, is likely decent, but I felt compelled to lower the book's overall rating, because I think it's misleading. There's too much sizzle and not that much steak. I have no clue why this book has a 5 star rating with so many reviews. Maybe the conversational style is less dry and more accessible to some people. I have no idea. It needs better organization, less repetition of the same points, and probably needs to focus more on the actual recommended method. It also seems that the tools needed to follow his method require paid services for market timing and locating quality mutual funds. Also, no mention of ETFs in place of mutual funds using the strategy.

It seems like there are possibly a lot of friends/shills reviewing this book to get the rating so high. Therefore, I give it a 2, although it probably deserves a 3 and perhaps a 4 or 5 if it was better organized and perhaps had a better proof of the track record with the recommended method, and spent more time detailing the method and results in reality.

Buy this book TODAY! It saved me a fortune!
My father in law talked about this guy "Al Thomas" at all the holiday dinners. I never gave it any second thoughts. I should have. Long story short, my father in law dies, leaves his wife a nice portfolio and I get his book collection. While selling the books I came to "If it doesn't go up, don't buy it" by Al Thomas. It looked interesting especially in this market; it was around August 20, 2008. I was losing money since the beginning of the year so I decided to read it. I started reading and could not put it down until it was done. I followed his advice and ended up selling everything in my portfolio on August 28. Al Thomas saved me a little over six figures as of 12/5/2008 and I didn't even buy the book!
Now I know why my father in law was always in cash when the market tanked and I wasn't. DO NOT DELAY, BUY IT. The price of this book is nothing compared to what it will save you during this downturn and the next one and the one after that, ect.
This is my first book review; I felt I must spread the word about my personal "Warren Buffett". I cannot stress the importance of this book in my investment library; it stands alone at the top. I don't know why Al doesn't have his own TV show on CNBC but he should.

The book is a mediocre. The author spent most time attacking others. The key things can be finished in 10 pages.

I also subscribed the author's "Over the shoulder". It turned out he gave conflicting info. For example, on 10/9/08, he advised to sell all the 401K if still holding because he thought market will still be down for 25-40%. The next day, 10/10/08, he sold his own bear funds because he estimated a rebounce of the market. He gave readers different advice other than he actually does.

I gave 3 stars because I still would like to test what is written in the book. With the time going on, the book may turn out to be a "look-back" and worth nothing.

LIfe is full of choices, the authors objective is not to make you rich, it is simply to make you a better investor/trader. Almost all investing is speculation, it's just measured in time. The book is based on a realistic philosophy that has come from decades of experience. The choice you must make is what type of quality of life you want? The author has communicated through the pages that the only one who cares about your money is you. Only .2% of market participants account for 90% of profits, this book eludes to why that is. In reality, protection of your principle is the most important aspect of any trade or investment. The fact that 90% of the shares are owned by 10% of the population should shed light on the traditional market pyramid structure. Certain mutualfunds have performed quite well over the last 30 years, they serve three principles, provide for retirement, a better return than a bank account and keep up with inflation. What mutual funds you are in depends on the time and effort you put into your financial awareness. No one knows what will be the best investment or trade over the next 30 years, but applied knowledge is power. Whether or not you make money is not dependent on what book you read, it is the information you have and what you do with that information at a specific time. YOU ARE THE RISK MR INVESTOR/TRADER/SPECULATOR, YOU ARE EITHER AN ASSET TO YOURSELF OR A LIABILITY. GOOD LUCK, YOUR GOING TO NEED IT WITH THESE POLITICIANS ON BOTH SIDES.

I love this book for one reason -- it enabled me to avoid the bear market of 2008. Based on the advice in this book for using a simple 200 day moving average chart, I moved from stock mutual funds to cash in January, 2008, with minimal losses. Thank you, Al Thomas. After I lost about 40% in my retirement accounts in the 2000-2002 bear market, I decided to turn my back on buy-and-hold investing and find a better way. If you are down 40-50% this year, do yourself a favor and listen to this author for a way to avoid the next bear market. Believe it.

I rate it 2 because it is not my cup of tea. I do find the idea of positive thinking can be applied to what I am doing although really that is the only idea in the book. There are many examples of miraculous things that happenned, but I dont know whether it is described as it happens or whether it is described as the author wants the reader to see to prove his point. Things just happen too easily without describing there are hard work involve to achieve what you want to achieve. I wonder if I can have the most positive thought about being famous yet stay at home and do nothing about it and still can fulfilled my dream?

This book does more for you because it requires some input on your part. Involving your personal information which enables you to acknowledge some blocks and helps you make the changes you need in order for your dreams and desires to be manifested. I highly recommend this for anyone who feels like they are in a rut and need to get out or anyone who needs some help in reaching for the stars with a definite purpose.

I love this book. Joe Vitale is a wonderful author and has a way of speaking in his writing that is direct and gives you some ideas of different approaches to this topic. I recommend this book highly.

This is a very slim volume. If you are looking for a complex program to change your life, with many exercises and ideas, this is not for you.

Strangely, however, the short text did have a powerful effect on how I viewed my world after I read it. Joe's list of things to do is pretty short (list what you don't want, list what you do want, and then a few more steps, equally as simple.) What did happen is that I decided to restructure my thinking, considering every thought as to whether it was positive or negative. I also decided to fill up an envelope on my desk with "thank-you notes" to God, thanking him for all the positive things happening every day. (Not particularly something in this book, but based on Joe's ideas.) Each day, I jotted down an thank-you whenever something good happened. Then I popped it into an envelope I'm keeping on my desk. A week later, the envelope was full to bursting. Some seemingly negative things happened but I decided to treat them like opportunities, keeping a cheerful frame of mind while dealing with the issues. If nothing else, I felt good during the process.

Maybe this is all about how you view the glass; a half-glass full of refreshing water, or a half-empty glass heading to a full-fledged drought. For whatever reason, despite the fact this is a very short book, it can get you to thinking. Maybe that's it's power.

The only reason I give this book one star is because everything in it is also in Vitale's other book The Attractor Factor. Attractor is an expanded and much better version that I rated 5 stars and which I highly recommend.

I love this book. It has everything in it that is going to help me make all my dreams of homesteading come true. this is my new bible.

I absolutely love this book! It is full of just about everything you need to know about anything you need to know about being self sufficient.

This is an excellent reference book for a person just starting out in the back to the land movement. It lets you know how much you can do with your land, reviews the pros and cons of different livestock, gives recipes for soap and the like, explains how to slaughter your own animals (if you so choose), and the like. We've made great use of this book while starting out, even on a lot as small as an acre. Nice candid tone through out. A wealth of knowledge worth more than the price.

For someone who knew nothing of outdoor, independant living, I walked away from this book a wealthy, knowledgeable person after having read it. In a nutshell, please buy this book FIRST! You will find that after buying this book that you will need very few other books out in the market. This author addresses everything you need to know about various topics of outdoor, independant living, and if she doesn't have all the answers, she forwards you to other sources that will get you the specific info you need. This book is worth the money. I bought it to learn more about gardening, and came away learning so much more. This is a book that one MUST purchase as a staple in their book collection.

The Encyclopedia of Country Living

We have purchased twenty plus copies of this book each year for several years. It makes a wonderful gift for missionaries that are going to mission fields all over the world. It includes everything from how to milk a goat to almost anything you need to know, including numerous recipes. Feedback from missionaries has always been favorable. In addition, my wife finds it useful here at home. It's very handy for a homemaker.

Not only is this book packed full of useful information, but it is also a good read. From the very first pages, it will convince you of why -- and how -- you should harness the power of Amazon for marketing your book(s).

My only slight criticism is that it is very Amazon-centric despite the more generic title. I know that Amazon is the centre of the book-selling universe, but many of the techniques are also relevant to other retail web sites. For example, Barnes & Noble Essentials Lists (which are like Listmania!)

Steve does describe other ways to market and sell your books; e.g. from your web site or blog, via eBay, and so on.

Book marketing can take up a lot of your time, maybe more than the time spent writing the book! So one of the biggest challenges for readers of books about 'book marketing' is figuring out which techniques to focus on. This book has some nice graphs and charts that show the effectiveness of techniques such as 'recommendations'.

One thing for sure: you shouldn't waste your time on paid-for advertising when these free techniques are more effective... and more credible.

Tony Loton, author --
Book Publishing DIY: The Do It Yourself Guide to Self-Publishing using Lulu and CreateSpace

"Plug Your Book" is a practical, insightful guide to promoting a self-published (or even a trade-published) book in the Internet age, with an emphasis on Amazon.com and other e-tailers and e-strategies along with some traditional approaches. It's clearly written, well-organized, and useful. A good value for an author looking to optimize sales.

Love from Both Sides: A True Story of Soul Survival and Sacred Sexuality

If only I'd found Steve Weber's book last year! What a wealth of information for a first time writer. Writing a book is daunting - takes forever, yes? Then finding a publisher is almost impossible, right? - but once that happens, and amazingly it did for me, I was like a a deer-in-headlights about the marketing and publicity. But now that I've found Steve and his book, I think I'm in love. He charts out what needs to be done and makes seem so easy. Thank you so much!

I recently finished writing my first book in nearly 20 years and was looking for information about selling it online. I bought Plug Your Book! by Steve Weber and I'm glad I did. I really had no idea just how drastically the book publishing industry has changed since the 1980's.

One strategy that I started using as a result of reading this book is writing book reviews on Amazon.com (hence this one). I had never written a book review in my life until I read Weber's book. Now I write them all the time.

This has been one of those rare buying experiences for me - the product I bought actually exceeded my expectations - by a long shot. This book is packed with useful information for authors and publishers. I really don't think you can get this kind of information anywhere else.

I highly recommend Plug Your Book!

Mitch Paioff, Author, Getting Started as an Independent Computer Consultant

Getting Started as an Independent Computer Consultant

I found that the book had some very important and valuable information, giving both pros and cons of different aspects of online marketing...in the rapidly changing field of book publishing, this book is a must read. If you don't use all of the book's suggestions, (I ended up using a totally different web host than those originally suggested in the book because it seemed much more user-friendly to my neophyte sensibilities), it will certainly get you pointed in the right direction. Thanks a bunch to author Steve Weber for laying it all out!!!

I find the paraphrase of Ghandi's quote that I used in my review title the perfect summation of this book's intent. In the style of a parable, The Go-Giver tells how an ordinary man learns to be extraordinary by giving the best of what he has to offer in areas he had previously thought irrelevant or unimportant to his perceived goals. Showing the power of one person to empower others to excellence and fulfillment by choosing to come alongside another individual in focused contact over a short period of time and exposing him to life-altering truths, this entertaining and quick read has the potential to change the world by starting with the reader himself. Though pivotal to the book's focus, success is almost a secondary byproduct to the fullness of life possible through committed application of the lessons it contains. Don't miss reading this volume, and be prepared to find you will want to keep copies handy to share with many others.

I enjoyed reading this book. Just enough substance and not a lot of "dragging on". If you follow a diet of positive reading, this is a good one for the collection, but not the only one.

I just finished reading this book and loved it so much I wrote a blog post about it!

The book is a parable, so it's a quick and fun read, about a flustered young account exec who is not going to make his numbers and loses a very big deal he calls The Big Kahuna. The journey of his introductions to some very magical characters, each of whom teaches him one of the 5 laws of stratospheric success, is transformational. Read more at the blog post [...]

If you want a quick read with lessons to jump your business results, this is the one. Joe, the main character, learns how to pay it forward in a business environment. Of the five laws of success discovered, The Law of Value, The Law of Compensation, The Law of Influence, The Law of Authenticity, and The Law of Receptivity, for anyone trying to do business in Social Networking 2.0 right now, The Law of Influence offers a straight path to success: Your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people's interests first. Particularly a good philosophy for introverts since the focus is - on others. The Go-Giver will undoubtedly rank as a classic alongside Og Mandino's The Greatest Salesman in the World.

Not only is this a powerful business idea - it's a powerful story that will impact your success in EVERY aspect of your life and business IF you apply the laws. Because as Pindar, the mentor in the story, tells the young, frustrated go-getter, Joe "it's not about the seeing, it's about the doing." And he shares his "Trade Secret" 5 laws, the doing of which put Joe (and anyone else who follows them) on a path to stratospheric success that he could never have even imagined when he first sought to meet the man who became his mentor. The first 2 laws are the basis for every business fortune created under the free enterprise system and laws 3,4 and 5 are the mindset that allows us to create that wealth in a way that benefits our world and others around us, builds relationships with people who will gladly aide us in creating our success and allows us to attain riches, both of the tangible and intangible variety. Whether you own a business, work for a business or just want to add value to the world and benefit from it, this is a must read and a must do.