Book Reviews and Recommendations

One of the greatest gifts someone can give you is a reference to a good book.

I read a large number of books - many as research for the books I write, others just because I love to read them. My topic areas include business and marketing, writing, and cognitive science.

These are links to the book review posts. Visit the Resources pages to find suggested readings for either writing or marketing.

Rethink the Bins: A Book Review

Garbage and recycling making a question mark

Why are there different recycling options in every city you visit? Where should you throw away that compostable plastic spork that came with the take-out meal? Why do you have to sort recyclables in one town and not another?

Recycling used to be one of the “simple things” you could do to save the earth. But lately it’s gotten more complicated.

In Rethink the Bins, Julia Goldstein writes with crystal clarity about a complicated, often murky subject—what happens to our waste and how we can take action to reduce it.

A Book That Makes a Difference

This is a writing blog, so why review a book about recycling? Because this book checks two boxes that particularly interest me:

Writing about complicated topics with clarity
Books with a strong sense of purpose

This book embodies both attributes.

First, it does a wonderful job of explaining the complexities of recycling and composting.

The sections of the book cover where household waste goes, recycling, composting, and waste streams. It answers those pesky questions at the start of this blog, and reveals many more fun facts along the way.

For example, I learned that food waste is a major source of methane from landfills, so composting your food scraps helps with greenhouse gases.

More importantly, this book motivates action. It’s an interactive workbook that you can use to manage your own household waste streams. The book offers several strategies for measuring your household waste so you can better control it.

The book is always encouraging and engaging. As Julia writes, “Your efforts to reduce waste do matter. We don’t need a hundred families in the US achieving zero waste, We need millions of families in the US achieving more moderate waste reduction goals.”

After reading this book, I’ve become more aware of the waste, and feel more empowered to reduce my waste streams further.

Whether you’re writing a book hoping to make a difference in the world or simply interested in reducing your footprint, this book has lessons for you.

Find out more about the author on her website, JuliaGoldsteinauthor.com. Find the book on Amazon or on Bookshop. Or order it directly from your favorite indie bookstore.

Brag Better Book Review: Advice for the Qualified Quiet

Hand holding megaphone next to cover of the book Brag Better

Do you have a hard time owning your expertise and authority? Meredith Fineman’s new book Brag Better challenges you let the world know about what you’ve done.

A Review of Brag Better by Meredith Fineman

Are you a member of the Qualified Quiet: the people who keep showing up, doing great work, and waiting for others to notice their contributions or excellence?

If you want to make an impact with your work, you have to step out of the Qualified Quiet. You need to speak up for yourself and let other people see you.

Meredith Fineman offers detailed advice for how to do that in her new book, Brag Better: Master the Art of Fearless Self-Promotion.

Cover of Brag Better by Meredith Fineman — *Brag Better* by Meredith Fineman

Why You Might Need This Book

As someone who has spent much of her life as a card-carrying member of the Qualified Quiet, I find the advice in Brag Better invaluable. Fineman gets to the heart of a problem that many people face, particularly women: not knowing how to talk about their own accomplishments in a way that others need to hear.

The title might put you off for a moment. Bragging? Self-Promotion?

Many women, of a certain age and in Western cultures, were brought up not to brag. Don’t be braggy. Don’t put yourself forward. We have internalized those values.

But there’s a difference between bragging, with all of its negative connotations, and letting others know about your accomplishments.

You’ll note that the subtitle is Fearless Self-Promotion, not Shameless Self-Promotion.

What You’ll Find

The book begins with the why and how of “bragging” or speaking up for yourself. Here’s a hint:

Being a member of The Qualified Quiet is a good thing. It’s not a weakness, it’s a strength. We need you. You are essentially the backbone of our society and workforce. We just need to hear from you.
Meredith Fineman in Brag Better

She outlines four key elements of effective bragging: gratitude, pride, presentation, and showmanship. Be thankful for the opportunity. Take pride in your accomplishments. (That doesn’t sound too boastful, does it?)

Fineman asks that we redefine bragging:

“Bragging Better requires cultivating pride in your work and then taking small actions that help you share it with those around you.”

She offers advice and exercises for talking about your accomplishments. Then, she looks at how to apply these practices in various situations. There’s solid, practical advice on a range of topics, including:

What to put in your bios and personal website
How to pitch media
Public speaking
Salary negotiations

Fineman includes plenty of stories and inspiration to help you take the next step, as well as how to deal with negative reactions or pushback.

If Not For Yourself, Then for Others

If you’re still uncomfortable with the idea of promoting your accomplishments, learn how to promote others. She suggests that you use these skills to elevate the voices of those around you.

“Raise your voice because others cannot. Raise your voice because it is your duty to others whose voices can’t be heard or aren’t allowed to be used.”
Meredith Fineman in Brag Better

Find the book on Amazon or on Bookshop.Org

Other resources:

Listen to my interview with Jennifer Dulski, author of Purposeful.

Read my review of Talking from 9 to 5 by Deborah Tannen.

The Story Behind The Forever Transaction

An Interview with Robbie Baxter

I first met Robbie Kellman Baxter in 2015, when her book The Membership Economy had just been published. We met at a conference when she delivered a keynote talk on membership. As I had just published Subscription Marketing, we formed an immediate kinship over our commitment to encouraging businesses to take a long-term perspective of their customer relationships.

The Membership Economy had a major impact on businesses adopting subscription and membership models. It also cemented Robbie’s position as an expert in this field.

Her latest book, The Forever Transaction, is released this week. If you’re in a business built on relationships (and most businesses should be), I strongly encourage you to spend part of your “staying home” time reading this book and sharing its ideas with your colleagues.

Robbie generously agreed to chat with me about the book, her writing process, and how she came to be an expert in subscriptions. Listen to the entire interview here.

Here are a few highlights of that conversation that tell the story of how her latest book, The Forever Transaction, came to be.

Her background in membership and subscriptions

I’m always fascinated with how the experts in an area earn their place. Like many of the authors and experts I’ve encountered, Robbie’s answer to that question is nuanced. She chose her area of expertise, but it also chose her.

When she started her consulting career, Robbie wanted to own an area of expertise that was both unique and identifiable. One of her early clients, in 2001, was Netflix. She says, “I fell in love with their business model. I thought to myself, this is something that’s really interesting, that nobody else seems to be looking at in a disciplined or thoughtful way. Maybe this is my thing.”

At the same time, people started calling her because they learned that she had worked with Netflix and wanted to get some of that magic in their own businesses. So the market confirmed the strength of the subject area.

As she worked with clients, she analyzed the overarching principle, exploring how they applied in different settings. She says, “I was learning things that allowed me to come into a new client and predict what their problems and challenges were, and have useful ideas to help them based on my frameworks.”

The story behind The Membership Economy

As her research and expertise grew, people told Robbie to write a book to support her consulting practice. So, with her characteristic diligence, she researched the process, dove into the project, and landed a book deal with McGraw-Hill.

The resulting book was much for than a one-pound business card for her consulting practice. She had a message to share with the world, and the book did so effectively.

She tells me, “I wrote The Membership Economy because people didn’t get what I was saying. I would say, ‘You should really consider subscription pricing, you should consider a membership model. It can work for you to smooth out cash flow, improve your valuation on the public markets, be more attractive for acquisition, learn more about your customer behavior, and better predict what products they’re going to need in the future, if you take this long-term mindset.’ CEO after CEO would say, “Well, Robbie, it’s not really relevant for my business….’”

Her key message was an important one: your success doesn’t depend on the pricing model. It’s all about having the mindset of treating customers as members. According to Robbie, membership “is a metaphor for helping organizations focus on the long term, which justifies the subscription process.”

Membership is a metaphor for helping organizations focus on the long term.”

She shared this message at a pivotal moment—in 2015, when subscriptions were just starting to transform many industries. Delivering the right book at the right moment in time changed her career. She says, “It’s changed the kind of work I do, it’s changed my reputation, it’s changed how I get work, it’s changed how I spend my days.”

Why she wrote The Forever Transaction, her latest book

With the experience of the first book behind her, Robbie knew she would write another one. “Writing a book taught me a lot about how I think and how I come up with ideas. I learned that writing a book forces me to take everything I’ve done and make frameworks and distinctions and rules that can be helpful on an ongoing basis. Having learned that, I knew I would probably write another book.”

Today, in 2020, you don’t have to convince companies to consider a subscription model. Most understand the potential. But in the years since her first book was published, many non-profits and companies have turned to Robbie to help them in their struggles. “Wherever they are in the subscription maturity, there’s a special set of challenges that are different from business-as-usual transactional business challenges.”

And so began the next book. She says, “I wrote The Forever Transaction to help companies that were struggling. I wanted to share what I’d learned in the trenches, working with dozens if not hundreds of subscription companies. This book is more about the how than the why.”

Having seen the book as it came into being, I can testify to its success. The Forever Transaction is filled with practical advice for doing the hard work of transforming a business, delivered with clarity and engaging storytelling.

You might think that launching a book into this pandemic is tough timing. Obviously, the many in-person events scheduled for the book launch have been canceled.

But in many ways, this is exactly the moment that non-profits and corporations alike need the advice in this book. Because the most resilient organizations are those with strong relationships with their customers—the ones that treat their customers as members.

To learn what keeps authors like Robbie up at night or to hear our thoughts on what constitutes a good business book, listen to or read the rest of the interview here.

Find The Forever Transaction on Amazon. Or, support your indie bookstore and order from BookShop.

Fanocracy: A Book Review

Reading Fanocracy by David Meerman Scott and Reiko Scott will change the way you think about being a fan in your own life and cultivating fans for your business. Marketers everywhere should read this book to transform the way they think about supporting customers.

The Full Review

One thing I enjoy about David Meerman Scott’s writing is how he observes from the world around him and then synthesizes its lessons for business and marketing. In his latest book, Fanocracy, that perspective is expanded by that of his daughter, Rieko. In addition to being a physician by training, she appears to be observant and thoughtful—and a skilled writer.

The book looks at fandom from both sides: the experiences of the fans themselves, and the practices of those businesses, institutions, and artists that develop and nurture their fans—fanocracies in the book’s terminology.

The Scott’s define a fanocracy as “an organization or person that honors fans and consciously fosters meaningful connection among them.”

The fan’s perspective

The multi-generational perspective from the father-daughter author team makes the book particularly useful as it explores what it means to be a fan, and its importance in our lives. The book includes examples from the world of medicine, cosplay, fan fiction, live music, professional sports, and much more.

Fandom forges connections, helping us create shared identities with people who would otherwise be strangers or colleagues we know only in passing. It brings us together in times of alienation and division.

In other words, fandom connects and unites us in healthy and productive ways. This book made me realize the importance and joy of being an unabashed fan of something.

The business perspective

In this light, building a “fanocracy” business isn’t just about getting more sales or dominating your competition. Those things may happen, but as a side effect of nurturing fandom.

Creating a fanocracy is about adding value to your product or service through a sense of community, involvement, and identity. The Scotts write:

People are going to be most invested in that which creates a sense of intimacy, warmth, and shared meaning in a world that would otherwise relegate them to a statistic.”

Turning your business into a fanocracy isn’t necessarily easy. Part Two of the book includes nine steps for building a fanocracy, including:

Getting closer to your customers
Letting go of control of your creations
Giving more than you have to

The book includes a wide range of examples from traditional fan domains as well as businesses. A few of my favorites include MeUndies (subscription underwear!) and Grain Surfboards.

The book will get you thinking:

What are you a fan of?
How does that experience enrich your personal life?
How can you encourage these kinds of feelings in your most loyal customers?

Building a fanocracy isn’t necessarily easy, but it’s generous and meaningful. And in a world filled with big data, artificial intelligence, and subscription fatigue, cultivating and nurturing true fans is a great business strategy.

Books to Give Writers: 2019 Edition

One of the best gifts you can give someone is a book that will change their lives. And do you know who really loves getting books as gifts? People who write.

I carry bits and pieces of the writing advice I’ve heard around in my head. Sometimes, I bring back up an image from Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic. At other times advice from Stephen King’s On Writing rattles in my head.

In case you need shopping inspiration for the writers you know, here’s a list of books I’ve read in 2019 that will stay with me, paired with the kinds of writers who might love them.

Note: A few were published early than 2019—they just made it to the top of my reading list this year.

For anyone looking for inspiration to write

Some Day is Not a Day In the Week by Sam Horn

I heard Sam Horn speak at a conference this year, and saw her enthusiasm light up a room full of writers. This book channels all of that inspiration and encouragement. If you’re looking for rocket fuel for doing something important in 2020, read this book.

For anyone struggling to find the time and attention to write
Successful writing is all about managing attention. I have three recommendations for people struggling to find the time and battling distraction.

Indistractible by Nir Eyal

Indistractible isn’t only about managing the distractions of attention-seeking technologies; it’s a guide to living an intentional life in an interrupt-driven world. I loved the underlying psychological studies. Personally, I’ve started timeboxing my days and found a greater sense of peace in doing so. Productivity is fine, but peace is better.

Read my review of Indistractible on Medium.

Deep Work by Cal Newport

Reading this book made me focus on where and how I spend my time. Newport’s general thesis is fascinating: just at the time that we have more things pulling us away from deep work, it’s growing in value as a life skill. I found the theory fascinating and the advice useful. The book has given me the courage to reclaim more deep work time and “budget” my shallow work.

Reader Come Home by MaryAnn Wolf

In Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World, Maryanne Wolf argues that the digital world is transforming our reading brains, and not always for the better. Only by understanding these changes can we figure out how to navigate them and form a brighter future for a literate, and digital, society.

Read my review of Reader, Come Home.

For fiction writers

Wired for Story by Lisa Cron

A story proves itself not on the paper but in the reader’s brain. In Wired for Story: The Writer’s Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence, Lisa Cron offers valuable insights and practical advice for crafting better stories. ( I hear that her book Story Genius is quite good as well.)

Read my review of Wired for Story.

For nonfiction writers trying to convince others

The Misinformation Age by Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall

The Misinformation Age by Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall offers important insight for scientists, journalists, nonfiction writers, and anyone who wants to combat the spread of false beliefs.

Read my review of The Misinformation Age.

Writing to Persuade by Trish Hall

If you want to change people’s opinions with your words, and particularly if you want to write an opinion piece that makes an impact, read this new book by the former editor of the New York Times Op-Ed page. Writing to Persuade by Trish Hall interweaves fun, behind-the-scenes stories about the workings of the Times opinions page with solid advice grounded in both research and experience. It’s both informative and entertaining. Read my review here.

The Influential Mind by Tali Sharot

I have pages of notes from this book; it’s filled with incredible research and valuable advice on how to persuade people from a cognitive science perspective. It covers topics like why evidence doesn’t change beliefs, how emotions work in persuasion, and how leading with fear tends to inspire inaction rather than action. It’s a terrific book.

Of course, my own Writing to Be Understood is a strong addition to this list. It came out last year, but the audiobook was released in 2019.

For women who want to publish a book

Write On, Sisters by Brooke Warner

If you’re a woman who wants to write a book, or if you want to support a woman on this path, pick up a copy of Write On, Sisters! Voice, Courage, and Claiming Your Place at the Table by Brooke Warner. Read my review of Write On, Sisters here.

For Entrepreneurial Authors

The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur by John Jantsch

If you’re an indie author, then you’re truly a solopreneur. You’ll find strength and wisdom in this lovely book by John Jantsch. Read my review of The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur here.

BookBub Ads Expert by David Gaughran

The community of authors owes a huge debt to David Gaughran for so generously sharing his wisdom and insight into BookBub advertising. BookBub ads are a valuable tool for authors, if you do them right. This book will show you how to do them right.

For authors who are getting discouraged and need a boost

Dear Writer, You Need to Quit by Becca Syme

Becca Syme must be one heck of a writing coach, because she’s written a wise and wonderful book for writers. It’s not long, but if you put its practices in place, this book may have a lasting impact. If you’re flailing around on your writing career or feeling that you’re not “enough” yet, read this book.

For writers in the workplace

Better Allies by Karen Catlin

This book is the antidote to toxic corporate culture in any industry. Catlin’s practical, empathetic suggestions address systemic problems, unconscious bias, and the general obliviousness that make people feel unwelcome in the workplace. Whether you want to better understand, support, or advocate for underrepresented groups, this book will help. Read it and share it.

Read my interview with Karen about inclusive language.

Talking from 9 to 5 by Deborah Tannen

In this fascinating book, Deborah Tannen explores how mismatched conversational styles affect women and men in the workplace. I highly recommend it for writers, as well as anyone who works with other people. (That’s pretty much most of us.) Read more in my review here.

Lost in Startuplandia by E. Keller Fitzsimmons

Lost in Startuplandia is a wise, honest look at navigating the harsh realities of entrepreneurship.

Read my review on Medium.

And of course, I’d always recommend The Workplace Writer’s Process for those workplace writers on your list.

I hope you find inspired gifts ideas on this list!

If you want more, check out these ‘gift posts’ from previous years:

Books to Give the Writers in Your Life (2018)

Books for the Writers in Your Life (2017)

*This post contains Amazon affiliate links. Any money earned in affiliate sales helps support me buying and reviewing books.

The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur: A Review

John Jantsch is well known in the marketing community as the author of the small-business-marketing classic, Duct Tape Marketing.

His latest book, the Self-Reliant Entrepreneur, is something entirely new. It’s philosophical and thought-provoking, yet still highly relevant to the audience of entrepreneurs that he reached with Duct Tape Marketing.

Most of the book is a daily journal of reading and contemplation, with one page for each day of the year, featured passages from authors in the American Transcendentalist movement. The days of the year are organized into “seasons” of entrepreneurship: planning, discovering, evolving, and growing.

Each day’s excerpted passage is followed by Jantsch’s personal commentary, applying the reading to the challenges and dilemmas that we face today. Each entry concludes with a question that you can complete on your own, applying the theme of the day to your daily work.

The resulting combination is both straightforward and profound.

As an example, the entry for October 21 (the day of this post) is titled “Expert on You.” The passage begins with a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self-Reliance:

Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution; the only wrong what is against it.

Jantsch’s commentary spins this theme to the entrepreneur. My favorite part is this:

Don’t let anyone tell you that your purpose or idea or dream is the wrong one. You may need to develop a thick skin, but you don’t have to listen. You’re the only expert on you.

Reading this book is like having a thoughtful conversation with a wise friend.

Having read the electronic version, I’ve ordered the physical book, so I can have the tactile satisfaction of revisiting it—opening it to the day, reading the passage, and contemplating my business.

I look forward to spending a year in quiet, thoughtful (albeit virtual) conversations with Jantsch through this book.

3 reasons authors should read this book

I’ve included this in my “books for writers” category for three good reasons:

Reason #1: Authors are de facto entrepreneurs.

Even if you’re traditionally published, you’re at the helm of your author business. If you’re self-published, you are also a indie publisher. The advice here is applicable to authorpreneurs of all kinds.

As Jantsch writes in the introduction,

Being an entrepreneur is as much about who you choose to be as what you choose to do for a living.

Reason #2: The curated quotes are wonderful

Authors love books. Jantsch pulls gems books you may not have visited since college, if at all. I realize now that I didn’t appreciate Thoreau when I read him in college. (What 18-year-old has time for self-reflection?)

Jantsch also introduced me to a few women authors of the period that I did not yet know, for which I am grateful. (I’ve got to read up on Margaret Fuller now.)

Reason #3: Self-reflection is golden

Jantsch’s wisdom and thoughtfulness will encourage you to step back and think about what you’re doing with your books, your writing, and more.

We all need more self-reflection in our lives.