Tag Archives: #smallbusiness

Books for Those Who Are Going Out on their Own in Business

Perhaps it’s the recent taste of Working from Home; or perhaps you want to diversify your income stream; perhaps you’ve retired, but don’t want to feel idle; or perhaps you want work that fits better with your lifestyle choices. There are lots of good reasons to start your own business, and there are more tools and support for budding entrepreneurs than ever before.  So if you think that now is the time to work on that business idea, we have the right guides to inspire you to stop dreaming and start doing!

Side Hustle: Build a Side Business and Make Extra Money without Quitting your Day Job by Chris Guillebeau

The author of the New York Times bestseller The $100 Startup shows you how to launch a profitable side hustle in just 27 days. Side hustles are income streams that supplement your regular paychecks – it may be your first taste of starting your own business, or you may simply want to diversify your income in these uncertain times.  In Side Hustle, Chris Guillebeau presents a framework for effectively starting your mini-business – from how to generate and select ideas, through development to launch, with the steps broken down into approachable daily tasks.
Peppered with anecdotes and tips from his own extensive experience, Side Hustle shows that you don’t need an MBA or lots of capital to get started.  If you’ve been thinking about turning your passions or talents into profit, Side Hustle is the motivation you’ve been waiting for.

How To Build an Online Business: Australia’s Top Digital Disruptors Reveal Their Secrets for Launching and Growing an Online Business by Bernadette Schwerdt

As a TEDx speaker and award-winning business leader, Bernadette Schwerdt has access to top business leaders from around the world – and she has interviewed many of them in order to create her insightful business books. How to Build an Online Business is a follow-up to her successful Secret of Online Entrepreneurs, which identified strategies and insights through in-depth interviews with e-business leaders. This update features top digital disruptors including Uber, Booktopia, and Catch of the Day. The “warts and all” stories of these companies, plus Bernadette Schwerdt’s in-depth analysis of the strategies, tech tools and leadership principles they used to grow their business, reveal the underlying patterns common to all successful online businesses – what they did right, what they did wrong, what they would do differently and the strategies they used to build an online business.

Company of One: Why Staying Small is the Next Big Thing for Business by Paul Jarvis

Small is beautiful according to Paul Jarvis. In Company of One, he encourages us to redefine what business success means, by suggesting that, for many solo and small businesses, it is smarter, more profitable and more enjoyable to stay small rather than expand.  Paul argues that blind growth is the main cause of business problems, and leads to more time, more stress, more responsibilities, and more expenses; instead he suggests that success can come from developing richer relationships with existing customers, based on trust, humanity, and empathy.  For entrepreneurs wondering about your next steps, this innovative, contrarian book may be just what you need.

Start Before You’re Ready: the Young Entrepreneur’s Guide to Extraordinary Success in Work and Life by Mick Spencer

Part memoir and part business manual, Mick Spencer wrote Start Before You’re Ready to encourage and help young people chase their entrepreneurial dreams.  His is not a conventional success story – he managed to develop a sense of adventure and an entrepreneurial spirit, despite chronic health issues and learning disabilities.  By starting his business ONTHEGO (OTG) in his early twenties, and growing it into the international success it is today, he has defied the bullies and naysayers, and achieved success on his own terms.  With plentiful tips on resilience and overcoming adversity, Start Before You’re Ready challenges you to get outside your comfort zone and encourages you to learn ‘on the go’, focussing on what you can do rather than what you can’t. 

The 1 Minute Commute: Turn your Skills into a Business You’ll Love, Be your Own Boss, Work from Home by Robert Gerrish

For many of us, the pandemic has offered a taste of a 1-minute commute (aka Working at/from Home); if this has strengthened your resolve to strike out on your own, then Robert Gerrish should be your go-to guide.  Robert Gerrish has spent over 20 years helping Australians succeed in solo businesses, including as co-founder of Flying Solo, Australia’s largest online community of solopreneurs. His special interest is in developing lifestyle-friendly businesses, helping business owners live they lives they want. The 1 Minute Commute collects his most up-to-date advice, on how to take creative charge of your career and be your own boss.  From freelancers and soloists to entrepreneurs and micro-business owners, this book will give you the knowledge and skills to shape your professional life to fit your lifestyle.

What if it Does Work Out? How a Side Hustle can Change your Life by Susie Moore

Many of us dream of monetising our skills with side hustles – and there are more opportunities to do this than ever – but hesitate out of fear of failure.  Susie Moore’s guide to side hustles focusses on overcoming those fears – as the title suggests, visualising your business Working Out rather than Not Working Out.  Using her skills as both a life coach and business coach, she shows how recognizing your skills, understanding your potential, and knowing your purpose in life can lead you to living a life of full satisfaction. Having helped over 500 clients develop successful businesses, Susie Moore has packed this book with useful advice, tips and resources- the perfect motivational and practical injection you need to get started.

How to support local businesses with Booko

While we are all staying safe at home and turning to online shopping we thought we would make it a little easier for you to support your local stores. We have compiled a list of booksellers with local warehousing in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Please note that some stores (such as The Book Depository, Boomerang Books, The Nile and Amazon) dispatch their products from various warehouses, so make sure you check where the product is getting shipped from and what the delivery estimate is.

Remember to ensure your local region is set to the country you are shipping to (this is done by clicking on the flag in the top right hand corner of the booko website). Also, it is important to check that the book, DVD, LEGO set or game you are looking to purchase is ‘in stock’ before clicking to buy, this will ensure a swift delivery time.

Booko is user-supported. When you buy through affiliate links on our site we may earn an affiliate commission. This doesn’t affect the results of the searches.

Here are some of the top selling books in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Top Selling Books in Australia this month:

Grown Ups by Marian Keyes

They’re a glamorous family, the Caseys. Johnny Casey, his two brothers Ed and Liam, their beautiful, talented wives and all their kids spend a lot of time together – birthday parties, anniversary celebrations, weekends away. And they’re a happy family. Johnny’s wife, Jessie – who has the most money – insists on it. Under the surface, though, conditions are murkier. While some people clash, other people like each other far too much. Everything stays under control until Ed’s wife Cara, gets concussion and can’t keep her thoughts to herself. One careless remark at Johnny’s birthday party, with the entire family present, starts Cara spilling out all their secrets. In the subsequent unravelling, every one of the adults finds themselves wondering if it’s time, finally, to grow up.

The Mirror and The Light by Hilary Mantel

England, May 1536. Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the space of a heartbeat by a hired French executioner. As her remains are bundled into oblivion, Thomas Cromwell breakfasts with the victors. The blacksmith’s son from Putney emerges from the spring’s bloodbath to continue his climb to power and wealth, while his formidable master, Henry VIII, settles to short-lived happiness with his third queen, before Jane dies giving birth to the male heir he most craves.Cromwell is a man with only his wits to rely on; he has no great family to back him, no private army. Despite rebellion at home, traitors plotting abroad and the threat of invasion testing Henry’s regime to breaking point, Cromwell’s robust imagination sees a new country in the mirror of the future. But can a nation, or a person, shed the past like a skin? Do the dead continually unbury themselves? What will you do, the Spanish ambassador asks Cromwell, when the king turns on you, as sooner or later he turns on everyone close to him? With The Mirror and the Light, Hilary Mantel brings to a triumphant close the trilogy she began with Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. She traces the final years of Thomas Cromwell, the boy from nowhere who climbs to the heights of power, offering a defining portrait of predator and prey, of a ferocious contest between present and past, between royal will and a common man’s vision: of a modern nation making itself through conflict, passion and courage.

Top Selling Books in the United Kingdom this month:

Blue Moon by Lee Child

In the next highly anticipated installment of Lee Child’s acclaimed suspense series, Jack Reacher comes to the aid of an elderly couple . . . and confronts his most dangerous opponents yet. Once in a blue moon things turn out just right. This isn’t one of those times. Reacher is on a Greyhound bus, minding his own business, with no particular place to go, and all the time in the world to get there. Then he steps off the bus to help an old man who is obviously just a victim waiting to happen. But you know what they say about good deeds. Now Reacher wants to make it right. An elderly couple have made a few well-meaning mistakes, and now they owe big money to some very bad people. One brazen move leads to another, and suddenly Reacher finds himself a wanted man in the middle of a brutal turf war between rival Ukrainian and Albanian gangs. Reacher has to stay one step ahead of the loan sharks, the thugs, and the assassins. He teams up with a fed-up waitress who knows a little more than she’s letting on, and sets out to take down the powerful and make the greedy pay. It’s a long shot. The odds are against him. But Reacher believes in a certain kind of justice . . . the kind that comes along once in a blue moon.

The Dark Side by Danielle Steel

The Dark Side is a powerful and unsettling novel of loss, motherhood and the innocence of childhood from the world’s favourite storyteller, Danielle Steel. Zoe Morgan was just ten years old when her life changed forever. Her sister, Rose, died of a rare illness, her parents turned into people she didn’t know, and Zoe’s lonely childhood drove her to excel in her studies. As a graduate of Yale, Zoe takes a leave of absence from medical school to work in a shelter for abused children in New York, where she meets well-known child advocacy attorney, Austin Roberts. Austin is bowled over by her beauty, brains and talent. He is her first love and the man she marries. Austin and Zoe have a perfect life and, after the birth of their longed-for daughter Jaime, Zoe knows that the aching void she had lived through for twenty-four years is finally complete. But it is only then that the true impact of Rose’s death all those years ago affects their lives in a way that nobody could ever have imagined.

Top Selling Books in the United States this month:

Joy at Work by Marie Kondo

In Joy at Work, KonMari method pioneer Marie Kondo and organizational psychologist Scott Sonenshein will help you to refocus your mind on what’s important at work, and as their examples show, the results can be truly life-changing. With advice on how to improve the way you work, the book features advice on problem areas including fundamentals like how to organize your desk, finally get through your emails and find what sparks joy in an open plan office. Like how the key to successful tidying in the home is by tackling clutter in the correct order, Joy at Work adapts the inspirational KonMari Method for the workplace, taking you step-by-step through your professional environment so that you can identify the most joyful way to work for you. Once you’ve found order in your work life, you can feel empowered to find confidence, energy and motivation to create the career you want and move on from negative working practices.

My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me by Jason Rosenthal

On March 3, 2017, Amy Krouse Rosenthal penned an op-ed piece for the New York Times’ “Modern Love” column —”You May Want to Marry My Husband.” It appeared ten days before her death from ovarian cancer. A heartbreaking, wry, brutally honest, and creative play on a personal ad, in which a dying wife encouraged her husband to go on and find happiness after her demise. The column quickly went viral, reaching more than five million people worldwide.  In My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me, Jason describes what came next: his commitment to respecting Amy’s wish, even as he struggled with her loss. Surveying his life before, with, and after Amy, Jason ruminates on love, the pain of watching a loved one suffer, and what it means to heal, how he and their three children, despite their profound sorrow, went on. Jason’s emotional journey offers insights on dying and death and the excruciating pain of losing a soulmate, and illuminates the lessons he learned.  As he reflects on Amy’s gift to him, a fresh start to fill his empty space with a new story, Jason describes how he continues to honour Amy’s life and her last wish, and how he seeks to appreciate every day and live in the moment while trying to help others coping with loss. My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me is the poignant, unreserved, and inspiring story of a great love, the aftermath of a marriage ended too soon, and how a surviving partner eventually found a new perspective on life’s joys in the wake of tremendous loss.

Enjoy and stay safe!

Why good leaders make you feel safe.

This is hands down one of our favourite Ted Talks of all time and by the look of the 10.5 million views…it appears to be yours too. Simon Sinek explores why good leaders make you feel safe. Definitely worth taking a break and watching with a cup of tea.

#tuesdaychat

Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Whitney Wolfe Herd and Estée Lauder. They have inspired, encouraged and taught us. Which business leader is your favourite?

PS…be sure to bookmark the blog because on Thursday we’ll be sharing a handful of autobiographies from some of today’s most inspiring business minds.