Careers Books

Great book,informative ,honest and the most helpful book I have read as a visual artist. This is the bible

This book is ideal for those of us artists who are just breaking into the selling part of our art careers. Lang offers really sound advice, good strategies for developing your professional image, and covers the full spectrum from selling directly to the public through smaller venues through selling through galleries. It's the kind of book you can refer to repeatedly over time, so good value for the money.

Excellent book on building a business in the arts. Timely, informative advice with lots of contacts, ideas, etc.

This book is pretty good for any artist looking to make a jump to the next level in their career. It was good enough for me to give it to another artist friend of mine, when I got done reading it. It's not the traditional cookie-cutter art business book(you see everywhere), and I did glean some insight by reading it. Recommended.
-Andie deRoux
[...]

Very well written and covers all you want to know about the business of showing and selling your art.
Easy to read, clear information. Although it covers only US artworld, most of the recommendations to developp a successful artist career can be used anywhere else, at least in the western world (the only one I know for now).
Worth reading and keeping handy if you want a chance to make it in the art world.

Carolyn Elefant, the well-respected legal blogger, advocate for solo and small firm lawyers, quality energy regulatory and appellate lawyer, and experienced writer has combined all of her prodigious talents in this book that provides solo and small-firm lawyers with a highly practical guide to opening and managing a law practice. Comprehensive and based on real-world experiences, this book is different from other "how-to" manuals -- it's far more useful than others I've read. Published in 2008, it's up-to-date and incorporates present-day marketing and other concepts. The book examines everything from the initial decision to go solo to planning to the realities of practice to marketing, and also includes FAQs and resources, as well as profiles based on interviews of a number of solo and small firm lawyers, who tell of their experiences. Read this book before you make the jump into the solo life, and you'll have far fewer surprises, and be much more successful at it.

If you've ever considered entering into solo practice, Carolyn Elefant's new book Solo By Choice is a must-read. But the book is so packed with practical advice about running a law office that I'd recommend it even if you're a seasoned practitioner or not currently considering going solo.

Solo By Choice presents a practical, pragmatic and realistic view of solo practice, including reasons to become a solo and a `reality check' on whether you're cut out for solo practice. The book contains step by step advice starting with what to do in your current position before opening your own firm or how to start a solo practice directly out of law school, including essential considerations such as malpractice insurance, choosing a name for your firm, and deciding whether (and where) to look for office space. But the advice doesn't stop there.

Most law schools don't teach the business issues that are essential for any solo (or law firm manager) to master. This book explores how to choose a jurisdiction and practice area, how to create a client-centric practice and how to determine which clients or matters to keep and which to refer to others. Elefant leaves no stone unturned, tackling difficult issues like dealing with `nightmare' clients, essentials of retainer agreements and billing and fees.

In today's climate, no book on solo practice would be complete with out discussions about staffing, outsourcing and creating reliable revenue streams, particularly when starting out as a solo. Elefant addresses them all and provides marketing ideas are straightforward and achievable by lawyers on any budget. For solos facing `growing pains,' the book discusses virtual law firms, affiliations, project partnering and networks.

Throughout, Elefant reminds the reader of jurisdictional quirks, ethical considerations and client concerns that could affect the would-be solo's decisions. She includes stories from her own experience going from a law firm environment to solo practice, as well as the real-life experiences of other solo lawyers (in their own words.) Her writing is straightforward and accessible and she provides resources throughout the book for more information on each of the topics she discusses.

If you're looking for a handbook for starting a law practice or going out on your own, this is it.

Robert Bly is one of the foremost experts in the B2B market, and I had the good fortune to study some of his material, under a course given by Steve Slaunwhite. This book, along with Six -Figure Freelancing by Kelly James-Enger, inspired me go plunge into the freelance writing world. Robert covers all the various categories: books, magazine articles, etc. If you want specific advice, then I highly recommend this book.
Randy Kemp
http://www.randykempcopywriting.com

I was blown away by the information in this book! I wanted inside secrets to help me have a successful business, and that is exactly what I got. Not only "secrets" but plenty of right-on advice! If you truly want to be a successful freelancer, then this is one that should be on your shelf. This is the 2nd book I've read by Robert Bly, and I will read all I can get.

This book is loaded with lots of good information and gives you a very precise picture of the copywriting business. Whether you are interested in writing advertising copy or other types of free lance writing, it's an excellenct resource book for any writer to have. The information was well organized and easy to reference. Highly recommended.

This was my favorite book that I read on the topic. It was packed with information and an easy read. He provided examples and a broad depth of knowledge on the topic - great book, well worth the money. I would also suggest START AND RUN A COPYWRITING BUSINESS by Steve Slaunwhite and THE WELL FED WRITER by Peter Bowerman.

Considering a freelance career in copywriting? Then you should read this. Once again Bob Bly has come up with a clear, concise book that touches on all the basics you need to know to get your new business up and running.

I bought this years ago when I was starting out as a professional copywriter, and it was--and is--an invaluable resource.

Every single piece of information necessary to "fit in" is written in this book. What would you do if you had to entertain the Vice President of your company ? It did happen to me. With the informations provided I was able to handle details like a pro. And, I am able to share some info with my team on how to take care of "high profile" clients. Extremely helpful !!!

DON'T TAKE THE LAST DONUT: NEW RULES OF BUSINESS ETIQUETTE is an important pick for any who would understand the protocols of business, from making a proper business introduction and creating a good first impression to handling small talk, conferences, and email. It's an important pick for any business library and also for any college-level library where students are entering the work world for the first time, covering all the latest basics of business etiquette and standards.

This book is a must read for anyone in business, no matter your age. Judy tells it like it is in the world of business as far a social behavior is concerned. Life is all about the small things and being properly mannered is very important. This book will allow you to be home-charm schooled !

Enjoy

Ms. Bowman provides an elegant and hugely informative guide to navigating the modern business setting, often using her own experiences (both the exquisitely graceful and the occasional faux pas) as illustrative examples. Her thoughts should be particularly valuable to those who are in sales and networking oriented businesses, as it clearly lays out how one makes an introduction, exchanges business cards, makes "small talk", gives a presentation, and entertains at a restaurant.

Missing from the book, however, are practical tips for those who are not constantly meeting others for the first time, but who interact with fellow employees everyday in the office/cubicle. There is no practical advice for dining with co-workers (where there is no clear host/guest relationship), participating in meetings with team-mates, giving feedback to others (career advice, firings, promotions) or inviting others for after-hours drinks.

The practical reason for this, I believe, is that Ms. Bowman is a solo entrepreneur herself, always looking for new clients for her consulting businesses, and therefore does not think too much about office employees at large firms. Nevertheless, much of her advice will be valuable to anyone aspiring to be an executive, since the higher you rise, the more you end up having to sell and network with clients.

As a side note, the editing job was left unfinished, and there are many sentence fragments, missing or misspelled words (e.g. "Luis Vuitton"), and dangling modifiers that make you wonder what the author intended to say. Despite these imperfections, the quality of the information and the anecdotes make this work shine.

This book covers a wide variety of topics needed in the graphics world today.
It has lots of visuals that are current with today's trends.

The amazon price for the new version of the book was the same as the used book price at the campus bookstore.

I got my book on time and it was in GREAT condition... thenx

This has been a really good experience. I have ordered several items and have not been disappointed yet. I have confidence in ordering. I hope that you keep up the good work and customer service.

For years, I beat myself up because I hopped from job to job because as soon as I mastered a task, I got bored. Every time I fell in love with a new hobby, I tried to make it a career, only to feel boxed in as soon as it began to take off. I thought I was afraid of success or lazy or undisciplined, but none of that was true. Barbara Sher taught me that I have a beautiful mind--like Leonardo da Vinci. Well, maybe not that good, but I have a hungry mind that needs stimulation. I have nothing to be ashamed of.
Since reading her book, I have written and published travel articles, entered the Pillsbury Bake-off, and started grad school--none of which I would have wasted time on before because they weren't "worthy" activities. I've learned that anything that feeds my soul is worthy and every fleeting interest fills my creative reservoir. Most importantly, I'm the happiest I've ever been since I quit trying to fit into someone else's mold.
If you're feeling flaky or lazy or guilty because you're interested in absolutely everything, read this book.

If you are on of those people who tries something, then gets bored with it, then tries something else and nothing seems to be 'THE THING' that you want to do in life' then this book is for you! You'll find that there's nothing wrong with you - you're just a SCANNER! Barbara Sher tells you how to live happily doing just what you want to do! No matter what you are interested in - then not - you will not feel guilty anymore for not having that GOAL in life that others have and learn to be happy in your own skin, doing your own things! A Must-Read if you fit the profile - and not a bad read for those who live with you! I am so much more at peace with myself and refuse to let others dictate what I 'SHOULD BE DOING' anymore! Thanks Barbara!
Signed Been There Done That in Sedro-Woolley, WA!

It was such a relief to read this book and realize I am not the only one who suffers from what my family has termed "Career ADD." Scanner is a much friendlier word. I have always felt that my abilities were unique and special, but I have also suffered the reality of being pulled in too many directions to be really effective at anything.

The best parts of this book, for me, were learning that there are other people who are so similar to me, and utilizing a number of the suggested exercises to great effect.

I suspect that those who gave this book a negative review are either 1) not actually scanners themselves, or 2) expecting more from a book than is fair. Was every single page useful to me? Of course not. Nor did I expect it to be, because everyone is different, and I didn't expect the answers to life's questions to appear in a few hundred pages. No career book can do that.

In particular, I can't agree with a couple of points in Dr. Goodwin's review - first, that Sher tries to neatly categorize scanners into different typologies. While she does come up with titles for different types of scanners that share similar characteristics, Sher herself clearly states that no one will fall neatly into any category. But heck, you have to organize a book somehow.

Second, I can't agree with the assertion that Sher's insights are not new. While others may have published works about "scanner" types or about meandering careers in the past, I fear one might have to be a career counselor to be aware of them. The fact that Sher is reaching a broad audience with this idea IS new, otherwise it would not have struck such a chord among us scanners. If Dr. Goodwin were herself a scanner, and were she not a career counselor, with access to many other similar tomes, she might feel the same way.

For those of you out there who truly are scanners, do yourself a favor and read this book. Will it solve all your problems? No. Will it give you some hope and direction? Yes.

I should have known better than to pick up this book. If there's one thing I can't stand in a self-help book, it's a relentlessly cheerful writer who categorizes and labels people into different, pat little groups so she can give you lots of standardized remedies.

In this book, the writer postulates that there are a group of people which she calls Scanners, who are so interested in so many things in life that they don't get things done, and feel like they're bad people because they don't want to choose one path in life. The first section of the book is devoted to explaining what Scanners are and how they think, and includes exercises for helping a Scanner feel better about him/herself. The second part further categorizes Scanners into different types (the Serial Scanner, the Double Agent, etc.) and suggest careers or jobs that can work for them.

All of this sounds like it would be helpful, but much of the advice is just common sense, almost all of the career advice is something that I have thought of before, and a lot of it even comes from her own readers via her website's bulletin board.

And frankly, I have to disagree with Ms. Sher in her thinking that it's okay to jump from thing to thing if that's what you want to do. There have been times in my life where I have started something, only to lose interest after a while, but if I pushed myself through that point of disinterest, I gained a much richer understanding and pleasure of the project.

She does have at least one good exercise in the book though, and that's why I'm giving it two stars. She encourages readers to keep a daybook, and write down all the crazy dreams and ideas that one might have. Then, instead of thinking that one has to *do* all those things, just keep the book as a memento of those ideas, in case one ever has the time to get to any of those things. In essence, dreaming up ideas and planning fantasies becomes the object in itself, which I think is a really great idea that takes the pressure off of someone who feels they have to do it all.

But most of the book is just stuff you can come up with yourself, and it certainly won't help me to organize my time, my life, or help me choose a career.

This book is excellent, it is filled with tips to make you an excellent assistant. I am very interested in becoming an assistant. I feel I am more prepared for any job. There isnt a page in this ENTIRE book that doesn't have highlighter marks on it. This book is an excellent resource, full with useful stories of working for high level execs. It is very easy to read, I've bought another book on being an assistant and found it to read like a textbook and as large as one too.

I have been an Executive Assistant for 13 years and I found so much great advice in this book. I think this is a must have for anyone who has made a career out of being an assistant. I keep this book at work and refer to it all the time now. Money well spent!

I'm not a organizational assistant, but I have to say this book has great techniques for everyone. Though, to be frank, this book got me more interested in the author's tellings of her interactions with a highly influential power broker (George Stephanopholous) than how to effectively organize time and resources.

This is a great book for both those starting out in the assistant field as well as those looking to become more proficient in their current positions.

It covers all the topics with good, solid advice. Some of the topics covered are phone work, dealing with paper, types of communication, how to conduct yourself and many more. It even goes over when it's time to 'move on' and how to tell your boss you are leaving.

A very thorough book that I would recommend for anyone interested in this type of work.

Wow! Wow! Wow! This is the best book I've read about how an assistant can grow and not be just a ordinary assistant. I feel that it's a step by step handbook to becoming the greatest assistant anybody has had. I've learned LOTS from this book and sharing all this information with my colleagues. The way we should be well informed before communicating something to third parties, and also what we can and can't say. We are very sure that are school will have the best assistants around. Congratulations Heather Beckel

I can boil this book down to one thing: Do informational interviews with real attorneys in order to see if the law is right for you. The book has some lengthy and, in my opinion, not too useful self-assessment exercises. And just when they get you thinking that they are going to impart wisdom about what it is that real lawyers DO, they tell you to go out and schedule informational interviews with real lawyers. This is a great idea, but you don't need to read the book to get it. If you really can't think of enough questions for an informational interview, then pay the $10 to buy this book and use the appendix. Otherwise, don't waste your time.

Two years ago I attended law school for a short period before quitting, and now I am interested in going back, but I wanted to evaluate my reasons for going back to make sure I was going back for the right reasons. This book was very helpful in doing just that. Also, as many reviewers have said, I wish I would have read this book before attempting law school the first time around because I think I could have avoided the pit falls that originally led me to quit. Reading this book was a big help and I would suggest it to anyone thinking about law school.

About the greatest thing about this book is cover which is even not that great. For someone who proclaims to have gone through law school as the author claims, the book is very poor in written form. The book also does a LOT of repeating and dressing up "facts" in a way that is often used by marketers to sell their product. Although there may be one or two good points in the book, most of it is common sense. Basically, it is an expensive way of telling you to ask yourself the questions as to whether or not you know what lawyers do and whether or not you have researched the field of law enough to have the confidence to head to law school. Like I said before, she (the author) has some valid points but everything in the book can be found online for free and is basic common sense. I would'nt suggest forking out the cash for this reading.

The major problem I found in this book is the lack of editing. There are serious grammatical errors, misspellings, missing punctuation and sentences with no logical end.
If you are thinking about attending law or graduate school, this book should be one of the first books to read in the junior year. The career strategies are extremely helpful to anyone making the drastic choices near the end of undergraduate studies. I felt like most of the information is useful to any student who are considering career counseling, since it will get you thinking about what life will be like after college.
Unfortunately, I have twenty years experience after college in the work force, learning and utilizing most of the strategies in this book. If you have worked in any career after college, then I wouldn't recommend this book.

aside from the success stories of everyone who has left the legal profession? I appreciate some of the self-assesment tools, but the remainder of the book is filled with anecdotes about miserable law students and lawyers who were much happier when they made a school or career change. The subtitle should be changed to "NO! We don't think you or anyone should be a lawyer!" Ridiculous.

Good information, presented in a light fun manner. Great intro to objectives book. Only thing keeping it from a 5 is it was a little long for the actual amount of info presented if you have previous knowledge on writing well-structured instructional objectives.

Written by the patron saint of trainers everywhere, Robert Mager provides a quick, humorous and easy-to-understand read in what is the heart and soul of training--objectives.

This book offers the readers choice solutions or answers. The reader then turns to the page choice to see if she selected the right choice or not.

Another essential about this book is besides being less than an afternoon read, it is essential to review time and again when you are writing instructional objectives.

Buying this should be one of your objectives!

This book is the easiest read I've had in studying education. It is a "choose your own adventure" in education. Read about how to write instructional objectives and then turn the page to find out if you understand what you've read. Very simple and to the point. You don't need any other book to help you write objectives!

This book is a quick and enjoyable read. The content is very easy to understand. Through the use of humor and skill testing questions, Mager has made learning fun! As a student, I survived many of the poorly written objectives that Mager describes in this book. It was nice to realize I wasn't the problem...the objectives were! I look forward to using this guide to develop clear, concise objectives so students can focus more on the joy of learning and be more successful at it.

Very straight-forward and easily digestible read. Step-by-step instructions will have you creating meaningful objectives, which translate into meaningful instruction.