This is a list of the top 10 books I read in 2016 and recommend them to you in 2017 if you haven’t read them already. Let me know what you think of my list or what other books should be on it.

1) Open: An Autobiography Andre Agassi

Note: If you don’t read any other book this year, read Open by Andre Agassi. It’s that good.

2) So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed Jon Ronson

3) Medium Raw Anthony Bourdain

4) TED Talks Chris Anderso

5) Fully Present Susan Smally, Diana Winston

6) The Five Elements of Effective Thinking Edward B. Burger, Michael Starbird

7) How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big Scott Adams

8) Kitchen Confidential Anthony Bourdain

9) Do No Harm Henry Marsh

10) Talking to Crazy Mark Goulston MD

I finished the book ‘Inbound Marketing Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs.’ The book gave me some great ideas and would recommend this book to any newbie getting into the social media game. The following are some of the highlights in my book review part 2:

– Create a Twitter account for your company even if you don’t plan on using it

– Add Digg to blog

– Get articles on Digg

– Get on YouTube

– Produce “remarkable” content that people will share

– Use twitter.grader.com

– Let employees be themselves on social media web sites

– Convert visitors into paying customers

– Don’t make visitors think, you need a call to action

– Use a sales funnel

– Use web reach as a criteria in hiring new employees. Does this person rank #1 in Google on their name?

– The top CEOs in the world all have one thing in common that they are a little bit paranoid

– website.grader.com

– Need to download an RSS reader and follow blogs and Google Alerts

– Sign up to Stumble

One of my new years resolution was to push myself on the education front. I’m about half way through the book ‘Inbound Marketing Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs’ by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah. The book has some book tips on SEO and Social Media Marketing, but it’s not very technical. This is good if you are a newbie to marketing, but I wish they would get past common knowledge type marketing. The stuff that most marketers know already if you have been in this field.

What is Inbound marketing

Inbound marketing is marketing that attracts visitors to your message/web site. Instead of using outbound marketing which is using traditional resources such as TV, radio, newspaper your company creates a “remarkable” message and visitors come to your companies web site which drives sales. Marketing is no longer an uninvited guest that seeks to barrage customers with marketing message after marketing message the goal is to attract the customer to your company using “remarkable content.”

Some interesting points the book makes

– Think of you web site as a hub, like New York city. You web site should be like the Grand Central Station linking Twitter, Facebook, RSS, LinkedIn, etc. All your social media accounts should intersect through your web site.

Things you should do as a marketer in this new Social Media Era

– Start a blog in sub domain example XYZ.com/blog

– Avoid free blogging sites, the goal is to OWN your OWN content

– Write White Pages (7 pages or so industry news)

– Create online videos 2-3 min. long

– Create webinars

– Create pod casts

– Create web casts

– Be an authority in your field

– You need to be or sell something remarkable

– Spend 1/2 time writing titles for blog posts

– Crate remarkable content

– Run web site through grader called http://websitegrader.com/

– Make a business FaceBook page

– Make a business LinkdIn page

– Start a LinkdIn Group

I’m not done with the book yet so please check back soon. If you haven’t done already please subscribe or comment.

I just began reading a book that I got on my birthday titled, ‘The 4-Hour Work Week Escape 9-5, Live anywhere, and Join the New Rich’ by Timothy Ferriss.

I’ve only delved into the first 30 pages, but some exceptional words of wisdom spouted by the author Timothy Ferriss hit me. Mr. Ferris says, “If you can free your time and location, your money is automatically worth 3-10 as much.” This fits perfectly for the affiliate marketing lifestyle. Your time is free because you can work as much or as little as you want, even making money while you sleep. Additionally affiliate marketers location is free because you can do affiliate marketing anywhere in the world with a broadband connection.

Going into this quote further Timothy Ferriss explains, “Being financially rich and having the ability to live like a millionaire and fundamentally two different things.” I totally agree with this statement because if you make $100,000 a year, but only have 2 weeks of vacation or less what’s the point of making all that money in the first place? Now say you make $60,000 a year as a Blogger, but only work 2 hours a day and can take vacations whenever they want. Who would you rather be? Conventional wisdom would say the wealthy man making $100,000 a year, but I’d take the Blogger making $60,000 any day. Wouldn’t you rather be Blogging on a tropical island in the pacific than stuck in an office stressed out beyond belief? It’s about quality of life rather than money in the bank.

“Money is multiplied in practical value depending on the number of W’s you control in your life: what you do, when you do it, where you do it, and whom you do it with.” The author calls this the freedom multiplier. Using the freedom multiplier the author argues “the 80 hour per week investment banker is less powerful than the person working ¼ the hours for $40,000.” He looks at the “lifestyle output of the money.”

I like this book so far because it’s counterintuitive. It’s a new perspective on something, especially since the invention of the Internet and the flattening world, is now possible to achieve. Because of the Internet one can be free from time and space and achieve a billionaire’s lifestyle at only a fraction of the income.

I’ll keep you posted on any new revelations I learn from the 4 Hour Work Week!