There were lots of great blog posts this week from the lady authors of Portfolio, here are a few to check out…
Adelaide Lancaster talks about easing into entrepreneurship
Pam Slim shares 10 ways to stay connected with your ever-growing network
Amber Mac has 5 tips for making your meetings iPad-friendly
Laura Vanderkam on setting “twice a week” priorities
For the second year in a row, the editors of Small Business Trends are holding a Reader’s Choice Award for the Best Small Business Book.
The awards recognize the year’s best new books for small business owners and entrepreneurs. A total of 47 books have been nominated (including 4 Portfolio titles). You can help choose the winners — the 10 books that get the most votes from readers like you will receive a Reader’s Choice Award.
UPDATE (12/8/2009):
We’re thrilled to share the news that ESCAPE FROM CUBICLE NATION by Pam Slim was chosen for a Reader’s Choice Award by the readers of Small Business Trends.
You can see the full list of winners here: Small Business Trends 2009 Reader’s Choice Winners
If you’re trying to decide where to start your own business, this list up on CNNMoney might help.
They’ve gathered a bunch of useful statistics, from number of small businesses to average wages and crime rates. The list of top places to launch surprised me—notice the lack of Silicon Valley and New York metro-area locales.
At the top for large cities:
top medium places:
top small places:
More: http://money.cnn.com/smallbusiness/best_places_launch/2009/index.html
Portfolio author Pam Slim wrote this great article for yesterday’s New York Times about chasing your career dreams.
Slim says times of economic turmoil offer a great opportunity to reinvent your career. Because if you’re going to live with uncertainty (and still work like crazy to secure your livlihood) you might as well pursue something you care about deeply.
Pam’s Twitter followers (@pamslim) offered valuable feedback when she was writing this – everyone from surgeons who long to be musicians to entrepreneurs who would rather drive a UPS truck.
Pam’s book Escape From Cubicle Nation: From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur is being published later this month, and is a must-read for anyone dreaming to get out of their day job. Publishers Weekly called it “the perfect balance between emotional encouragement and practical advice” and “a standout in the start-your-own business genre.”
In publishing, a “sleeper” is a book by a non-famous, first time author with huge potential. We think we have a classic sleeper coming in May, with Pamela Slim’s Escape from Cubicle Nation: From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur.
Hats off to our art director Joseph Perez for this cool jacket, which features fantastic blurbs from Martha Beck, Seth Godin, Bob Sutton, John Jantsch, and Rich Sloan.
We’re also thrilled by this excellent advance review in Publishers Weekly:
Inspired by her successful blog of the same name, life coach Slim shows readers how to navigate the terrifying yet gratifying transition from corporate drone to entrepreneur. She strikes a perfect balance between emotional encouragement and practical advice: “Hating your job intensely,” she writes, “is not a business plan.” What’s here is: the nitty-gritty of getting a business off the ground, legal considerations, making the best use of social networking sites, the components of a business model, organized creative brainstorming, financial advice, shopping for self-paid insurance and benefits, and helpful anecdotes of real-life entrepreneurship. With her humorous insights into corporate life and an appealing no-nonsense yet empathic tone, Slim deals swiftly and incisively with anxiety, fear and hesitation. Readers will cheer as she teaches the tricks behind finding “what makes you purr”—what people will pay you to do, what you have a great passion for and what you are genetically encoded to do. This is a standout in the start-your-own business genre.
You can check out Pam’s blog at www.escapefromcubiclenation.com or follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/pamslim.
Like many young publishing people in New York, I live in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. My neighborhood is full of artsy young hipsters with tattoos, tight jeans, and ironic haircuts. It’s also the home of Norm Brodsky, an ultra-successful entrepreneur and coauthor of The Knack. Norm isn’t exactly your typical Williamsburg resident, as you can see in this video (also a great primer on small business basics):
Norm lived in Williamsburg long before the hipster invasion. I’m glad he stuck it out—he’s one of my favorite neighbors. And I’m not his only fan. Right now, The Knack is the customer favorite in the management category on Audible.com!
