Business Money Books

This brief text is a good read for the novice investor who wants to learn more about equity valuation. Basically, it distills the drivers of stock values into two components: return on assets and earnings yield. Buy stocks with strong numbers in both of these categories and, over time, you will outperform the market. Only problem with this approach is that stock values are based on expectations of FUTURE performance. Stocks often have high earnings yields today because professional stock pickers expect their finances to degrade in the future. Forecasting future performance is what is most important. The author fails to stress this concept.

For the novice investor, the author is able to explain some of the more fundamental concepts of equity valuation in a straightforward manner. Yet, this text would be only one of a several books someone should read before trading individual stocks instead of purchasing mutual funds.

Very insightful, and excellently written. Despite the name this is not another shallow book, full of cliches and nothings. In a really entertaining fashion Greenblatt explains in very simple easy to understand illustrations, what stocks are, how they are traded and the basic principles of the stock market and market fluctuations. He then builds on these principles to teach the fundementals of wealth building that most successful investors utilize. Alot of basic principles that somehow a lot of smart investors forget. Great reading for the experienced, and novice alike! This book should really be required reading in high school and/or college.

The Little Book That Beats The Market is a great starting point for those interested in value investing. It's especially relevant for beginners. Greenblatt clearly and simply explains what makes a stock a good value investment, and the core theory of "buying great companies at low prices" is a simple definition of value investment. For beginners, following the strategy outlined in the book should offer excellent investment returns.

For more experienced investors, the "Magic Formula" makes a great initial screen. Using the "Magic Formula" results, you have a list of promising investments to research. In fact, there are websites like [...] that attempt to do just that.

A short, fun, and profitable read for beginners or experienced investors, I highly recommend this book.

I read every chapter of this book while at Borders except the last one, so I cannot vouch for the effectiveness of the "Magic Formula" website that seems to generate so much controversy. I can, however, clarify a glaring misconception in what Goldblatt wrote in his book.

Contrary to what many of the reviewers wrote (especially the negative reviewers), Goldblatt was not insisting that people focus only on Return on Assets and P/E ratio. Goldblatt was also not insisting on a definition of "capital" (within his concept of "return on capital")that leads to an over-emphasis on services over manufacturing. He illustrated perfectly his two pieces of investment data in the following ways:

First, Return on Capital can be best interpreted as a return on invested capital. If it costs $1 million to build a retail store and that store, within a year, generates $2 million, then the ROC is 100%.

Second, his other measure is really a profit-yield per share. You get this measure by taking the amount of profit generated by a firm, dividing it by the number of shares outstanding, and then dividing that by the share price times 100. So, if a company has a $1 million profit and it's selling a million shares for $10 a share, then the profit-yield per share is 10%.

These two concepts seem to form the core of value investing in that they discipline a person to invest in the market as if they were buying a business or a partnership share in the business. The relevant question in any such investment is always "how much will my partnership share make?"
All other factors are just risk management.

The trick is finding data to generate these statistics. I don't know how well Goldblatt's website does that.

As someone who is not in the real savy in business and has little to no financial advisory background- this book is right up your alley if you just don't understand the complexity of the stock market but are still interested in investing.

My brother is a financial analyst for a fortune 500 company and could not get me to understand the stock market and mutual funds etc- for the life of him! He read this book and then forced me to read it as well. I am glad I did because it was easy to follow and made me excited about investing my money into avenues that will provide much higher yields that 5 to 8% a year.

The author wrote this book for his middle school children to help them understand investing in the adult world so to speak- Well he did a phenomenal job and published it for the rest of us-

A good pick for beginner investors or people who would like to invest their money in stocks and funds with little background in the field. This would also be a good "starter" book for someone who wants to get into the stock market.

Gary Keller's book is a great introduction to the industry. It is helpful, not only from an agent's perspecitve, but also from a consumer one as well. Real estate is certainly a complex subject and it is certainly important to understand the workings of the industry especially if you are an investor making many real estate transactions. For teh agent, it provides a proven real estate model in which to set up your business.
The book takes the overall view, looking not at too many specifics or specific situations, but more of the overall picture on how to create your business plan from day one.

Having a business mission to link the corporate employees, residents and schools in my area, through my publication, anything about the business of real estate interests me.

So, when Masoud Riazati, a San Diego Keller Williams Real Estate Broker, offered me a copy of this book, I gladly accepted his offer.

From the first page, all the way through, I related to this book, and have profitted, during my reading this book.

"The Millionaire Real Estate Agent," is a great follow up to "The Art of Selling to The Affluent" by Matt Oechsli, because they are both thorough, entertaining, fun, focused upon the reader embodying a millionate mind set, and they both are written in a style that makes you, the reader, feel as though the author is having a face-to-face with you, as questions and "light bulb moments," arise.

Also, having read "The Millionaire Next Door," Stanley, and "Think and Grow Rich," by Napoleon Hill, it's great that Gary Keller has taken the step-by-step approach to guiding readers to acquire the millionaire mind set.

Charts in Keller's book are also so easy to follow, and worth adapting into your office Operations Manual, as a guide to keep you on course, towards your $1,000,000 net income goal.

The only challenge that I had in reading this book was asking myself, "If real estate agents do listings to be successful, what does listings equate to, in my business? Am I already doing the equivalent? If so, how do I quantify this into expected revenues?"

Usually, I like to power read through non-fiction books, while I take copious notes. And I like to reread great non-fictions, until there is nothing left for me to gain from them. But, "The Millionaire Real Estate Agent," was different.

There is so much to learn from this book, about being in, and growing your busines, that I wanted to savor ever "ah ha" moment. And there were many of those moments for me, in this book. This is definitely a book that I will reread, again, because by creating the systems in this book, I will be ready to go to the next business level.

I recommend this book to anyone who is in, or plans to be in business. This is also great for those who are in leadership positions, working for someone else.

I am a real estate agent. This book hits the nail right on the head. You take what you want and need and leave the rest. A must read for any real estate agent or anyone thinking of becoming one-especially in this down market.

Whether you are an agent or a manager, you will find this book to give you a road map to success. Out of all the real estate books I have read, this one gives you the focus and steps necessary to achieve your goals. This was, by far, the best investment for my business.

~Michelle Fradella, Broker - Picayune, MS

If you want to read a book on how to spend a million dollars, without making a single dime, this is the book for you. Keller spends a great deal of time showing you how to blow money, but he offers you NO program for earning money. If you are new to selling real estate, you need to learn how to prospect for new business, qualify customers and clients, present to them, close the sale, service the customer and close the transaction. This book does not tell you how to do any of that. Amazon has much better books available to you: Ray Smith's "Master Blueprint for Real Estate Sales" or Dave Stone's "Training Manual for Real Estate Salespeople", both out of print, but available, are way better choices for you!

This book has SO much information on how to save money. I don't think I could ever apply all the tips, but the ones I have applied have really helped! I like to open the book and find one tip to do for the week rather than trying to apply everything at once. You can save money with a bit of time and creativity.

Brilliant ideas that anyone can use to save money. More than just a how-to, it teaches a whole new mentality, and a creative viewpoint that spills over into every area of life. Once bit by the Tightwad bug, you will never go back to wasting your money. Amy Daczyczyn also has a wonderfully whimsical sense of humor that makes me wish she lived next door. Good reading.

I enjoyed this book tremendously. She has a great style of writing and a lot of the information was helpful. Perhaps even more than the specific ideas, I think it helps me come up with my own ideas, be more conscious of unnecessary spending and less wasteful in general. I have already bought another one for someone else, who also loved it.

I've had the original series since they came out, and I still go back to these books for information. Not only does she give advice, she shows how she came up with it and how to modify it to your life.

I use her recipes all the time (have the granola one memorized, we use it so much). It's worth having this just for the recipes. These books are how I was able to stay home with my kids, even though I made twice what my husband did.

Although I gave this five stars, there are a few things you might want to know (if it matters). The index in the originals was not that great. I don't know if they've improved that in this combination or not. Since the books were set up from a magazine, there are many very short articles, so it doesn't read like a book. But I found it very entertaining. Even though the pricing is from the 80's in many cases, you can make up your own price lists using her principles.

If you like being told what to do, this probably isn't the book for you. If you like having the information to figure it out yourself to suit your life, you'll love these.

I've read about twenty 'save money' books and this series is the best.

I am leading a frugal life these days after getting out of the rat race and finding that I have a great desire to not be a working stiff. Working part-time means an iron fisted budget. "Your Money or Your Life" is what got me started on this path, and "The Tightwad Gazette" was published with people like me in mind. I had heard about the newsletter for years, and finally thought to read this book.

As other reviewers have noted, frugality isn't a religion. You can pick or choose how involved you want to be. For me, the crucial discovery has been that there are many things I can abstain from without noticing a huge difference in the quality of my life. I will never give up travel... it is an essential part of my life. But there are other day-to-day things I don't miss at all. Since reading this book a few months ago, I have started making my own pizza and bread (VERY good suggestion; it cuts the price in half and is surprisingly easy to make, even without a food processor), I'm more conscious of turning off lights, and I've assembled a price book. None of this was difficult and it was fun. In the first two months, I managed to save $300 from an already meager budget.

What is difficult about this? Like any habit, it is a discipline. I have lost hours making bread dough, bargain hunting, and making my own tomato sauce. But I find that I enjoy the feeling of taking care of myself and not wasting money. I had great fun assembling the price book. I now know the lowest prices to expect for a lot of items, and it's fun to be on top of things.

As a single person, a lot of "The Complete Tightwad Gazette" did not apply to me. I skimmed over sections on kids' craft projects and clothes issues, of which there are a lot. I would say I picked up only a few ideas I'll implement over the long term, but it was still fun reading about others' habits. This is a fun book, well worth the price.

I was in Orlando at a convention, and I saw Larry Winget speaking. He was AWESOME! He spoke in a break out session on this book. I then bought and read the book. It did not take me long. It is thoughtful, entertaining, and eye opening. WOW! He is a straight shooter and does not say things all nice and sweet. But he makes his point to get you to turn things around in your life. Larry Winget is an amazing speaker and author! This book should be read by every single American. Especially in the state of our economy. Buy it! Read it! Apply it in your life. You will be glad you did!

This book is great for those who don't want any fluff and sympathy. My debt was caused mainly because of 9/11 and the affect it had on my business, as I lost most of my small business customers almost overnight. Its been difficult to not only rebuild my business, but still keep my head above water to pay my creditors. Larry gives you easy homework, I've read the book completely, and knowing what my homework will be in order to get back on track, I've given myself the time and direction to gather the information needed to complete the homework tasks and move in a much more forward positive direction. Thank you Larry for putting out such an easy to read and practical book for those of us who just need simple, uncluttered help in trying to get out of the jam we are in and looking forward to less stress and more savings.

Larry "The Cable Guy" Wingnut is what's wrong with America: an ignorant prole spreading uberklass idiotology. The favorable reviews here are as illiterate as Right-Winget is mindless. Susan Jacoby's "The Age of American Unreason" is a book about such socio-pathic narcissists' favorite subject: themselves. Too bad they can't read. They'd find out what the rest of the world knows: pinheads like Winget and his ilk are prime examples of why Amerrycaca is, as Merle Haggard puts it, "rolling downhill like a snowball headed for hell." The nation of Jefferson, Madison, Washington, Adams, and Franklin has become the nation of George Bush, Ronald Raygun, Al Sharpton, Jane Fonda, and Larry Winget. As such, it's a nation that can no longer govern itself. Its only hope is to continue being governed more and more by multi-national corporations, which are increasingly run by other nations, none of whom are as incompetent as America, which is losing two wars at once because it can't even beat a gang of camel jockeys.

I recieve it in about seven days and the book was in excellent condition. I read the book cover to cover in one weekend, that how good it was.

Larry Winget is truly a guy I can relate with. His personal style of straight talk instead of the BS is what makes me trust him. Not only that, Larry doesn't fill the book up with hype and get people's hopes up for nothing. No, this book is about common sense, practicality, and truly American in the sense that it reminds us that our financial destiny is in our hands. We live in the greatest country on the planet and we have no excuse when it comes to getting rich and achieving financial prosperity. I really liked how Larry tells you to find that one great idea that will change your life and start doing it. This book is so important to me (along with Larry's other book It's Called Work for A Reason) that I plan on sharing it with my close friends, family, and definitely my kids as they get older. Buy this book, read it, highlight it, take notes and prepare to do what's necessary to get ahead.

Rothbard repeatedly refers to the Federal Reserve as a "federal agency" when it's actually a private corporation. This fact alone condemns the fed more than any of the information in his pamphlet and he SOMEHOW LEAVES IT OUT! How can an author overlook such a simple fact? Seems to me this was written to confuse people about the true case against the fed - ITS NOT FEDERAL!

The Case Against the FedThis book is a good primer on the Federal Reserve and banking in general. It is not a hard read and is interesting to those who want to learn about this very important part of our economy. Anyone who has even a remote interest in this book should also check out "The Creature from Jekyll Island". THE CREATURE FROM JEKYLL ISLAND - A Second Look at the Federal Reserve - 2008 Edition This book really gets into the subject in a fascinating way. It is really an eye opener and presents the Fed, banking, savings and loans, etc. in a way that is not only instructive but extremely entertaining. This should be a required text in every school!

This book gives a simple case for changing the money under the federal reserve system to gold system of money. After reading the history of the creation of the FED, I see clearer the need for fiat money and a system to control it. We should continue the federal reserve system and teach people how it benefits a society when run properly.

Recently I read a book by Ron Paul and in a review I questioned some of his criticisms of the Federal Reserve. It's not that I'm some kind of defender of the Federal Reserve it's just that his alternative (having Congress in charge of monetary policy) seemed horrifying. Some folks politely urged me to do some further research on the subject suggesting this book so I've done my due diligence and read it.

There is a reoccurring theme when I speak to or read material from self described Libertarians. Apparently the Federal Reserve is a very devious organization that illegally counterfeits money. Counterfeiting is one of the most repeated charges I've heard leveled against the Federal Reserve and it never really made sense to me so I looked up the words definition in the American Heritage Dictionary. Counterfeiting is defined as, "To make a copy of, usually with the intent to defraud; forge". Other definitions said basically the same thing. Is U.S. currency a fraud or forgery given the fact that it is printed with the permission of the Federal government? The accusation seems baseless and bizarre. Since this is one of the primary legs of Mr. Rothbard's argument it leads me to question his entire case.

The main crux of the author's argument, if I understand it correctly, is that the Federal Reserve was created by and for the protection of United States banks to allow them to reap profits above and beyond what would naturally be possible. By going off the gold standard and allowing the Federal Reserve to create money out of thin air, inflation is driven up. The author writes, "The gold standard no longer servers as any kind of check upon the Central Bank's expansion of its credit" but I'm not even sure how the gold standard operated as a speed bump. Is it because it's a finite resource?

Much of the rest of the book is nothing more than a history of how the central bank was initially pushed in the United States. The author lists all the players involved and I do mean ALL the players. Page after page lists name after name until I became dizzy. I guess it's all supposed to sound very conspiratorial but it grew tiresome. His point was that the central bank was created at the behest of wealthy bankers. Is this shocking? I'm not sure. Unless I'm mistaken it WAS created to protect the integrity of banks to ensure customer confidence. Considering the book is a mere 151 pages this lengthy section seemed to be completely superfluous filler. This was the section that dragged the book down to two stars for me.

So in the end the author suggests abolishing the Federal Reserve, liquidating its assets and going back on the gold standard. Somehow I feel as if I'm missing some salient point. Hard currency has become rather quaint in this day and age. Well over 90% of my purchases are done without physical cash ever changing hands. It seems that just about anyone can create money out of thin air by purchasing using credit. I will agree that many of the regulating agencies in our country are set up more to lock out competition than to regulate industry but there seems to be no lack of banks. If the authors point was that the FDIC causes banks to engage in risky behavior I'm not sure that that's true either. I really have to question whether the advocates of returning to the gold standard and abolishing the Federal Reserve actually understand the ramifications or if it just feels good to get rid of a powerful institution. Getting rid of institutions seems to be one of the great pleasures of Libertarians with the Federal Reserve joining the IRS and the public school systems as primary targets. Seems like a bad idea to me but what do I know.

While I have no doubt that the Fed and other central banks can and do create inflation, Rothbard's introduction to money is so simplistic and so misleading that it stopped me cold in my tracks. If his conclusions are based on the foundation laid in the introduction, the whole argument is worthless. Rothbard's argument in the introduction is that only the Fed is permitted to print Federal Reserve Notes (correct) and that these notes are the only money in existence. This last statement is a grave error, Rothbard is confusing money with legal tender. The notes are the only form of legal tender in circulation but there are many other forms of money in circulation as well: bank deposits, mortgage loans and any other form of credit increases the money in circulation -- not the legal tender but money as perceived by markets. If we are to believe "Irrational Exuberance," even stock certificates act as money because they create the "wealth effect." All this is ignored by Rothbard in his introduction to money.

The purpose of Rothbard's introduction is to show that the ordinary citizen cannot create money and therefore cannot create inflation and the logical conclusion he arrives at is that only the Fed can create inflation. This is nonsense. Any society can create money. In jail they use cigarettes as money. Before the Fed was created money existed in many forms including sea shells and animal pelts.

Inflation is the setting to right of the unbalance between the supply of money (too abundant) and the supply of goods and services (too scarce). But the market does not care if that money is a piece of paper printed by the Fed, gold, the wealth effect of stocks or the bubbly prices of real estate.

I must conclude that Rothbard twisted economics into the service of politics.

I found this book very interesting. Author is a psychologist and analyses the market crowd's behavior from a psychological point of view. I read only 65 pages yet, but already have many interesting advices to use in my trading.

The book has 3 parts, psychologie, technical analyses and moneymanagement. This is a great book for beginners with technical analyses, but an even better book for the parts on psychologie and money management witch are the basics for every trader. No matter how good youre system is, if youre mind and money management are not in balance you will loose anyway. A must reed for every trader imho.

The first audience that will find this book useful consists of those new to trading. Elder provides a good overview of technical analysis, with chapters on charting, trendlines, patterns, and some well-known indicators such as MACD, momentum, Stochastics, RSI, etc. He doesn't overwhelm the reader with information and he also provides trading rules.
The second audience, people who have been trading a while and who have survived long enough to know they need to find out some more about psychology, probably won't find those chapters as interesting. But his chapters on psychology, both individual and mass psychology, are very helpful. He identifies what makes a winning versus losing trader and his chapter on risk management is outstanding. He discusses emotion and probabilities, money management, and how the professional trader must look for quality before money. One thing he stresses is that you must learn from your trades--the trade isn't over when the position is closed out. This constant study is what will help you change and improve. He also writes in an easy to understand manner. The only reason I gave this four stars and not five is that this information is that the book is very expensive for what it contains.

This is definitely a classic for all time.I wished I had read this book 10 years ago...

I bought this book 7 years ago when it was one of the bestsellers in the trading book catergory and I am suprise to see today that its still one of the best sellers.
Serious, I don't think I really get a lot out of this book and I don't understand why people are so crazy about it?? One reason I can think of, maybe it is a good book for absolute beginners who has no idea about trading what so ever.
But if you want to learn more about trading, ie. the skill to use, the way to manage your money. You will be very disappointed. Throughout the years, I read a lot of trading books which offer way more than this one.

The book is a great guide to following six steps to get control of your finances and gives a wealth of tips and information on how to save money. Their website [...] further assists you in meeting your goal of financial freedom with online tools and tips.

Wealth Odyssey: The Essential Road Map For Your Financial Journey Where Is It You Are Really Trying To Go With Money?

Jason Zweig does an excellent job at summarizing the research about what happens inside our heads when we think about our different relationships (feelings, greed, confidence, risk, fear, surprise, regret, and happiness - each with their own chapter) with money and investing. Our brains have spent more time evolving in hunter gatherer and agrarian settings than they have in the modern technological age. That hard wiring inside our heads affects our thinking and reactions - often without us even realizing it has happened.

Among the observations in the book: Our expectations are more intense that the experience. Most of us don't understand our own behavior. And much more.

The work may disappoint some in that there are few suggestions about how to use this kind of new found knowledge when designing an investment allocation. In my opinion, this is not a major weakness with his work. There has to be research with modern medical machinery on the phenomenon before application can follow. This is not to say that works applying this research are not out there, only to say that the purpose of Zweig's work was to review the research to date on the inner workings of the brain, period. The first step in recognizing what we do is to recognize how our brains actually think: when and where the thinking, or reacting, processes occur.

A companion book to this one would be Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely which researches our behavior through experiments on people, how we act and react to different situations related to money, rather than the mechanics and chemistry of inside the brain when confronted with those situations.

Ariely's work also does not include how to design a portfolio allocation. Neither of these works intended to. They intended to describe our behaviors. Knowing how and why we behave the way we do is just as important, maybe more so, as portfolio design. In fact, my observation is that people are often in more of a hurry to design the perfect portfolio, as an end in itself, than understand the what-and-why of the portfolio and their relationship with it and investing.

A fascinating field of study, which is just beginning to be able to explore the inner workings of our minds through modern non-invasive methods, to tell us why we behave the way we do with money - we're only human.

I usually enjoy books on personal finance and psychology as I believe these two subjects to be quite interesting and fascinating so when I came across this book, I was really excited since it puts these two subjects together in one reading. Basically it explains how your emotions can sometimes disrupt logical thinking when it comes to your personal finance. The writing is not as focused as I would like, but there are some pretty interesting points. The most important one that seems to repeat throughout the book is that what you expect is always better than what you finally get. My wife is living proof.

This book provides awesome insight into how we make investment decisions. I read lots of investment books & highlight the sections I think are important to reread later. It would've been easier to black out the passages that wern't important to me. Hopefully, with this knowledge I'll make better decisions. Everyone should read this book

"Know thyself" was the recommendation from the Greek philosophers. This books leads you to that same objective. The impressive difference is the Greeks did not have MRIs to scan their brains when we were thinking deep thoughts.

Zweig does two very important things.

He brings science to the process of making investments. It's not quant models of the S&P, but an understanding of the 'investor.' We are human and we respond, even in the Wall Street world, based on circuitry configured over a million years of living off the land. His prolific description of experiment after experiment convinced me that his lessons were real and based on the best behavioral science available (and I hope there is more on the way). The book is not a screaming-head extorting the wonders of the magic method of getting rich. What a relief!

The second very valuable aspect of this book is Zweig does not talk down to you. He takes you on a journey through your brain -- much more complicated than I understood. But you don't get swamped by the complexity -- this is not an anatomy text. As a matter of fact, it was a little scary for me because I'd stop to contemplate what I was contemplating. It's a little zen-like.

He encourages you to examine your investing failures and successes then relate those decisions to the mechanisms between your ears.

"If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master;
If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same."
'If' by Ruyard Kipling; 1895

Will you become a billionaire? Not likely. But then, that wasn't likely anyways. You will say, ten years down the road of investment, I'm here because I want to be here and here is where I belong. With all the millions of baby-boomer Americans (I'm one of those) facing the retirement future -- this book sets the tone. Read, enjoy, learn, prosper.

If even a blindfolded chimp can pick stocks successfully, how come you and I can't?

Part of the problem seems to be that the human brain was programmed by thousands of years of evolution to operate in a particular way; and while human brains are very, very good at tasks that are similar to the tasks our ancestors faced a couple of hundred thousand years ago, investing in financial markets requires us to perform new analytical tasks that just don't come that naturally to us. The habits learned over thousands of years of evolution just don't work that well in today's financial jungle.

But help is on the way!

Zweig's book presents some interesting information about studies in behavioral finance, evolutionary psychology, and neuroscience (e.g., MRI studies of the brain activity of people pondering "investment" decisions), and then uses that information to help explain how people make investment decisions and how they could do better.

The book is very well done. Each chapter covers a separate topic like Greed, Confidence, Risk, Fear, Surprise, Regret, and Happiness. Most chapters contain a brief "man in the street" discussion of how the chapter's subject emotion influences investing behavior, followed by a discussion of brain activity in subjects actually engaging in behaviors relevant to the chapter's topic. It was very interesting to see how "man in the street" views are supported or contradicted by controlled, scientific studies.

Most chapters contain anecdotes illustrating the chapter's topic. There are some pretty sad stories. Even people you'd think would know better frequently do some really dumb things. "Human nature" is hard to overcome, even for professionals.

For example, I think everyone knows that when Enron collapsed, its employees lost not only their jobs but also their nest eggs, because their 401(k)s contained so much Enron stock. Everyone knows that sad story, and certainly no professional would ever let the same thing happen to him/her, right? Well, during the recent Bear Stearns meltdown, I heard a news report about the 401(k) plans there. Do you think the Bear Stearns employees learned anything from the painful lesson that Enron taught? Sad, sad, sad.

The bottom line, as Zweig's book shows, is that investing generates very powerful emotions. Recent, scientific studies can help us understand why our emotions are so powerful and why they make us do some of the things we do, which in turn can help us control our emotions and make better investment decisions.

The book's actual investment advice is pretty standard: diversify, re-balance, pay attention to costs, don't chase performance, etc.; but knowing more about how our brains work helps show why that standard advice is so appropriate.

P.S. There is some technical language about brain anatomy, but it is pretty limited; about what you'd hear in an episode of "CSI: Las Vegas" or "Bones."

Absolute beginners who know nothing about the Internet and/or business will probably find this book useful, though not necessarily more useful than many free online resources. Fox clearly doesn't know much about the technical aspects of the Internet, but nothing he says is so terribly wrong that it will make a difference. Likewise, the general business information is cursory, and adds nothing to free information available online from the SBA and other groups, but it's accurate as far as it goes.

Fox makes a few points that are quite sound: you don't have to know a lot about technology or business to get started selling stuff online; it's better to get started quickly and learn as you go than to develop a perfect business plan that never gets executed; and overspending at the beginning is a bigger danger than being undercapitalized.

It doesn't take an entire book to reveal these "secrets"; nor is Fox a particularly compelling writer. But not being horribly wrong is actually better than average for a "get rich on the Internet" book. I also appreciated that he didn't advocate spamming or deceptive SEO practices, though he could have done his readers (and, thereby, the rest of the world) a service by covering these issues in more detail. His discussion of copyright could also be both improved and expanded.

While I don't necessarily recommend this book, I don't know of a better one to recommend for an absolute beginner who thinks they might want to get rich online. For general background on starting a small business, I would recommend the classic Small Time Business Operator, 10th Edition: How to Start Your Own Business, Keep Your Books, Pay Your Taxes & Stay Out of Trouble (Small Time Operator).

Title a little deceiving but the book is packed with information and should be read by anyone planning to start an internet business.

At last I found what I needed to learn. Clear structure of all the actions you have to undertake to get started and build your own e-business.

I'd never heard of Scott Fox before, but from what I read in the book, he's been quite successful at making money online. He's worked with some big names so it appears he knows what he's talking about.

The book spends most of the time covering the nuts and bolts of choosing a subject area (niche), determining its feasibility to make money, creating a web site and making the big bucks. He uses lots of case studies of people who are currently making money online, which is very useful.

I finished the book optimistic, but still a bit vague on the next action step. I'm in a bit of analysis paralysis, which he actually discusses briefly in the book. It's where you spend so much time planning and preparing to make money and learning to avoid all the pitfalls that you never take action. The book has given me some more ideas on how to make money, and I plan to refer back to it in the future as I take action.

If you're unfamiliar with how people make money online, it's a great book to help you learn. If you already know about the general methods of making money like drop shipping, selling on eBay, product development, affiliate marketing, digital information products (aka eBooks), then you probably won't find anything new.

Scott Fox covers everything in this how-to book on starting your own internet business. Parts 1 and 2 start with brainstorming business ideas and researching them to be sure they're viable and moves on to explain different business models and how these relate to the ideas you've just brainstormed.

In Part 3, Fox explains the technologies behind the website(s) you are about to build and makes recommendations for how to do it cost effectively. He shows you how to choose a domain name, build a website, and develop "content" (all of the written material on your site).

Part 4 is the best section in my opinion. It's all about marketing and driving business to your site whether you have no budget, a small budget, or a real budget. And what good is having a fabulous site if no one knows about it, right?

Part 5 covers legal stuff and, as expected, is a bit drier than the rest of the book. But it covers important ground and Fox does it in a straightforward and easy to understand way.

One other thing about the whole "millionaire" thing in the title that others have commented on: Fox's point is that even if you're not making millions in your new e-commerce business, you can still live like a millionaire. How? By living on your terms and working when and how you want. And maybe you only make $500k or even only $250k so you're not actually a millionaire. But you know what? The average person isn't making that working 40, 50, 60, or 70 hour weeks working for someone else.

I'd absolutely recommend this book to anyone who needs the kick in the butt necessary to start their own thing. Fox's style is simple and easy to understand, but at the same time encouraging and motivating as hell.