Best marketing & sales books according to redditors

Apologies for being THAT Psych PhD student here, but there is this awesome pop-psychology book called The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell that basically describes in depth how trends happen (fashion trends, lifestyle trends, all of the trends). Its honestly a great read if you're into this kind of stuff! I'll summarize some of my fav points:

Gladwell describes three types of people that are essential for any trend:

• Connectors - these people are just insanely good at knowing and maintaining good relationships with a LOT of people. As a fun exercise, try to make a list of as many friends/acquaintances etc as you can, and trace them back to how you met them. Most people will find the same few individuals in their life who are responsible for a lot of the people they know. Basically 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon :)
  
  
• Mavens - these people are information and market EXPERTS. You know that friend who always seems to know exactly where you can get a better deal on literally anything? Who knows the best apps before others do? Who has knowledge to share on anything you could bring up? That's a market maven!
  
  
• Salesmen - these individuals have charisma up the wazoo. They are just that type who make you want to buy into whatever they're telling you about. Its impossible to not want to be like them. Ever seen that movie The Joneses? If you haven't you should. That is who they mean.
  
  Beyond these, he has great points about things such as the stickiness factor which describes something inherent about trends that is memorable and makes you continue thinking about the item/idea/etc. He talks about the context that allows a trend to flourish. There is a bonus awesome story about Paul Revere and how he was in a unique position to spread the word about the British coming. Awesome, right?

It's not just gaming journalism, it's all modern journalism.

Ryan Holiday - Read his books.

https://www.amazon.com/Growth-Hacker-Marketing-Primer-Advertising/dp/1591847389?ie=UTF8&ref_=asap_bc

https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285?ie=UTF8&ref_=asap_bc

I love reading these because it's so off base. No it is nothing like Mad Men. Chances are unless you are upper management you won't be making the industry average in salaries. If you want to take something away from it, watch how defeated they get when a client bitches about something not being right... then amplify that 10 fold, throw in a few "can we make the logos bigger", and put in a little working overtime to meet deadlines and going crazy. Another thing, if you aren't in college yet, you aren't "very good" with psychology or design... you may have gotten a good grade in AP classes and messed around in photoshop in your lab class, but there is much more to learn.

I'm not trying to be belittling, you just need to change your mindset completely on this as it seems pretty obvious you only have a media view of the field. Check out some ad work down by big companies. Check out the CLIO winners for the last few years. Read books on the subject like Ogilvy on Advertising or Hey Whipple, Squeeze This. Also, you aren't going to be doing all of these things, firms are done mostly in groups. You have your Accounts team (Pete Campbell, schmoozing and coordinating with the client), Design Team (Salvatore and Peggy, less copywriting now though) and sometimes Media and Project teams... depending on the agency. Each has their skills and contributions, so in all likelyhood if you want to work in an actual agency setting you will likely have to specialize. Like writing and planning? Take marketing. Like design and web-structure? Take Graphic Design and/or Computer Science. Psychology is not a particularly useful field in itself, as many of the psychological aspects are covered in their usefulness in the aforementioned majors.

Lastly, you won't know for sure what you want to do until a few years in, and that's fine. If you really like the idea of agency work though, DO INTERNSHIPS. There is no other way to get into the field and learn about the ins and outs. There are a lot of great things about the industry, but it's not all rainbows and panache.

This is going to get buried under the shitload of answers you are getting, but I hope you see this, or that it'll at least help someone else.

I've had this problem for a few months now : even hanging out with friends, I was losing the capacity of having a conversation. I started talking more and more about me, and the more I talked, the more I felt like a douche. So I took steps.
First, I started asking more questions about the stories people were telling, refraining myself to tell my side of the story, my view of the story, or just my story ('cause this behavior sucks ass). For a while, it was getting better, but it didn't feel natural.

After an evening at a friend's place, where we had a closeup magician doing a show, I realized that it was not only about what I was saying, it was about what I was thinking that made me feel like a douche. This guy, this magician, was so charming, so fucking captivating. It was my first time experiencing closeup magic, and I was just sold. After the show, I went and asked him how he was doing it. Not the magic tricks, but the social tricks. He told me that he read lots of books, and that basically, he was convincing himself before each show, to be who he needed to be. He was acting, he was playing a fucking nice guy who didn't give two shits about himself but only cared about others. And it caught on, became more natural. He mastered this skill, and went from doing magic shows all around the world (even Vegas) to giving conferences to leaders on how to be better managers.

After reading some of those books, and doing a bit of research, I understood what he was saying : Fake it until you make it. I actually discovered through some TED talks (amazing stuff) that you can fake it until you become it.

From my point of view, there's a couple of skills to master to become a good conversationalist. Body language is very important : to understand the body language of others to better adapt yours and be seen as non-threatening. You have to understand the science of influence, and how humans react to interactions with others. And to become a master at it : you have to be sincere. You can't fake honesty 100%. Somewhere along the way, your body language will screw you, or you'll slip and people will understand that you are faking it. That is why you have to become a character who doesn't fake it.

Here is the list of the books and videos I read/watched about those skills. Some where recommended on Reddit, others I just found them. The books are sorted by most important in my opinion. And even if I bought them (thrift or not), you can still find all of them online.

• Videos
  
• TED Talk : Body language and the power of the hands
  
• TED Talk : Fake until you become it
  
• TED Talk : How to manage your stress (when talking in public)
  
• TED Talk : How to speak so people will want to listen
  
• The Science of Influence
  
• Books
  
  
• How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie
  
• What Every BODY Is Saying - An ex FBI agent's guide to speed reading people - Joe Navarro
  
• Influence : Science and Practice - Robert Cialdini
  
• It's Not All About "Me": The Top Ten Techniques for Building Quick Rapport with Anyone - Robin Dreeke
  
• Yes!, 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive - Noah Goldstein, Steve Martin, Robert Cialdini
  
  
• Phil Hellumth Presents Read Em and Reap - Joe Navarro, Marvin Karlins, Hellmuth Phil
  
• The Definitive Book of Body Language - Barbara Pease, Allan Pease
  
  Hope it helps.

You should try reading 50 Scientifically Proven Ways To Be Persuasive, by Noah Goldstein, a man who's studied persuasive psychology for most of his adult life, and who explores the subject in great detail in his books. The tl;dr for purposes of this point is that, no, "Don't eat nuts" is not a good way to convey a persuasive instruction. It can even serve to be counter-productive, as it primes the mind for thoughts about nuts, which can actually stimulate a desire to eat them that wasn't previously there. A better way to convey the message really would've been to explain why the instruction was being given. It'd turn a "Whut, why? Mmm, I've got nuts in my bag, what harm could it do?" into "Oh, fair enough". It would ideally be followed up by periodic messages thanking everybody (specifically this - social persuasion is a powerful tool) for not eating nuts, and framing it as a favour to the crew and the girl.

Conventional thinking might tell you that "Don't do this" sets a rule that people will obey, but, well, that's just not how people work. People ignore rules all the time, when they feel like those rules are meaningless or don't apply to them.

I don't disagree with what you're saying, but it's ultimately unhelpful to conflate ideas. You literally said in your comment "you can be intellectual." Their leader is an engineer. Our leader is someone who is a showman. (And not the first one we've elected!) As an immigrant, I'm no stranger to the "quirks" of Chinese culture.

Nationalistic "brainwashing" happens everywhere though, which even America is no stranger to. Our wholesale worship of capitalism and the dollar and "freedom" (as we lock up chelsea manning??) seems like a result of "brainwashing" to me. We literally wrote the book on propaganda. https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Edward-Bernays/dp/0970312598

Anyway, If you want to say china is authoritarian and that is problematic, that is fine. But I'm just taking exception to this thread where locking up a painter is "anti-intellectual" because it's a weak argument and the general sentiment of 'China bad cause China' (maybe a result of American brainwashing??) is distasteful to me.

I believe they got this information from The Tipping Point, by Malcom Gladwell. It's a great read. http://www.amazon.com/The-Tipping-Point-Little-Difference/dp/0316346624

Just to add to this - public relations is actually a synonym for propaganda.
https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Edward-Bernays/dp/0970312598

It is really just any attempt to sway public opinion.

(That book is a must-read for all Americans I would add. For one thing it not only explains how prevalent propaganda is, but will familiarize you with some of the specific techniques and approaches used.)

1. Who benefits from this article/post/point of view?
   
2. Why now? Why did this not come up before?
   
3. Is this peer reviewed? Or is this astroturf? Or is this one lie that gets repeated by multiple sources because it fits their worldview?
   
   Two useful books that describe how there are whole industries created to bullshit you and spin their version of reality are:
   
   Trust Us, We're Experts: How Industry Manipulates Science and gambles with Your Future
   Toxic Sludge is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry
   
   > After spending years chasing them, it's now second nature to me to recognize press hits for what they are. But before we hired a PR firm I had no idea where articles in the mainstream media came from. I could tell a lot of them were crap, but I didn't realize why.
   
   > Remember the exercises in critical reading you did in school, where you had to look at a piece of writing and step back and ask whether the author was telling the whole truth? If you really want to be a critical reader, it turns out you have to step back one step further, and ask not just whether the author is telling the truth, but why he's writing about this subject at all.
   
   > Online, the answer tends to be a lot simpler. Most people who publish online write what they write for the simple reason that they want to. You can't see the fingerprints of PR firms all over the articles, as you can in so many print publications-- which is one of the reasons, though they may not consciously realize it, that readers trust bloggers more than Business Week.
   
   http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
   
   Sybil attack is a way to poison trust-based relations.
   
   An example of a hoax that spread because people wanted to believe this sort of thing is the AirTran 297 hoax spread mostly by right wingers. It parallels the hoax that one "Annie Jacobsen" put forth several years ago about some Syrian musicians that she claimed was another 911 hijacking attempt.
   http://www.insideairtran.com/?p=2200

Please read My Coffeehouse Nightmare before you consider this.

One of my family members works in the restaurant & hospitality industry, and apparently there's a running joke about how to make a small fortune is to start with a large fortune and open a restaurant.

Your idea is fantastic, but you need to have more stuff to sell, that will bring in foot traffic (preferably in a section where people aren't hanging out just reading and having their one-coffee-per-hour). Book stores, including successful used book shops, put a lot of work into their layouts and what books go where (you want the fast sellers and the stuff that draws in the casual browsers up front.) To this end, you might want to read through Why We Buy (which is a cool and eye-opening read regardless.)

BTW, I'm not saying "this is how you become successful and make lots of money", but rather, how you stay financially afloat in the face of rent, insurance, salaries, infrastructure overhead, etc.

You're absolutely correct. My answer was already long winded enough that I didn't really want to get into all of the causes. After all, there are many factors that went into the reduction of crime in the city, and I think Malcom Gladwell sums it up nicely in his book The Tipping Point:

> It wasn’t that some huge percentage of would-be murderers suddenly sat up and decided not to commit any more crimes. Nor was it that the police managed magically to intervene in a huge percentage of situations that would otherwise have turned deadly. What happened is that the small number of people in the small number of situations in which the police of the new social forces had some impact started behaving very differently… the second distinguishing characteristic is that in both cases little changes had big effects. All of the possible reasons for why New York’s crime rate dropped are changes that happened at the margin; they were incremental changes. The crack trade leveled off. The population got a little older. The police force got a little better. Yet the effect was dramatic… finally, both changes happened in a hurry. They didn’t build steadily and slowly. It is instructive to look at a chart of the crime rate in New York City from, say the mid-1960s to the late 1990s. It looks like a giant arch. In 1965, there were 200,000 crimes in the city and from that point on it begins a sharp rise, doubling in two years and continuing almost unbroken until it hits 650,000 crimes a year in the mid-1970s. It stays steadily at that level for the next two decades, before plunging downward in 1992 as sharply as it rose thirty years earlier. Crime did not taped off. It didn’t gently decelerate. It hit a certain point and jammed on the breaks.

So it was a number of factors leading to the decrease in violent crime, and effective policing was just a small part of the picture. The authors of Freakenomics controversially attributed the drop in crime to the legalization of abortion. However, as you pointed out, the decline in crime rates were not in any way confined to New York City, and many parts of the U.S. experienced a similar drop in these rates during the 1990s. At the same time, however, the number of incarcerations for drug-related and nonviolent offenses increased, which has clearly become a problem for aging and overcrowded prisons, not to mention the tremendous social ramifications.

Read The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell it illustrates the Broken Window Theory beautifully. Essentially if someone breaks a window on purpose in a building and you dont fix it other windows will be broken. If you clean it up no others will be damaged. This is used as both a metaphor and an example of how crime epidemics can be started and ended. Taking care of petty crime like graffiti or jumping the turnstile in the subway leads to lower crime rates overall, less murder, robbery, assault etc. i.e. clean up the window and others wont get broken.

Social Justice Warriors Always Lie: Taking Down The Thought Police by Vox Day <== A really important work

Propaganda by Edward Bernays

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini

SJW attack survival guide drawing on the work of Vox Day

How to Disagree Without Being Disagreeable: Getting Your Point Across with the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense

Google "verbal self defense" and a lot will pop up, if you are talking about 1-on-1 and small group contexts.
Google "influence" or "persuasion" or "propaganda" or "social change" if you are talking about large groups or society as a whole.

I've gotten a lot of emails that look exactly like this one and I immediately delete them because they're spam. You need to answer two fundamental questions: Why should they trust you? and Why should they pay attention to you? You're not giving them a reason to trust you because you're essentially a nobody with no track record. You're not giving them a reason to pay attention to you because there's nothing personalized or unique to them about this email, you talk way too much about yourself, and you don't talk enough about what you can ultimately do for them.

Here's a breakdown of the current email:

> I'm Joe, a Web Developer from X.

Intro is alright. Before that you might want to say, "Hi $name,".

> Recently I found your website, and, was curious if you would be interested in working towards building a new one?

Why? What's the business case for a new website over their old website? What's the benefit?

> I currently work for a web agency in X, who offer web services for small, medium, and, large businesses, though I'm looking for further work to help businesses in the area.

Is it you or the agency offering services? This is confusing. Help businesses do what exactly? You could say, "At $web_agency I've worked on projects for multi-million dollar businesses such as X, Y, Z but now I'm leveraging my experience to help businesses like yours in $your_market do A, B, C."

> I have worked on hundreds of websites and have been working in the industry for nearly 6 years.

But what results did you get? Did you increase sales by X% for ABC company? What can you do for them? Don't make it about yourself.

> Additionally, I have a strong knowledge in SEO, which can help your website perform better within Google's search results.

What's SEO? Why should they care?

> I am really good at what I can do, and, can offer an agency service with non-agency prices.

Don't tell, show. And don't compete on price, please...

> Let me know if this is something you would be interested in.
> If you would like chat and organise a meeting to discuss this further, feel free to email me back, or call me on X

Why not create an attention-grabbing hook like, "$name, let's set up a quick 5 minute call so we can discuss a few ways your website can be improved to increase appointments/sales/etc by 20% like I've done for my other clients."

I suggest you read Pitch Anything and CA$HVERTISING.

https://www.amazon.com/Dirty-Little-Secrets-Buzz-Attention/dp/1402213379/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488034199&sr=1-2&refinements=p_27%3ADavid+Seaman


Pretty confident a large portion of the posts about him on here are just him

You know how people bitch and moan about people posting "stupid" statuses and updates they don't care about? Well, the solution is to bring you information that is relevant specifically to you. The trend is to "personalize" the Internet for you instead of presenting you with an otherwise overwhelming amount of information.

You see it everywhere: in social media, news, and search results. There is a shift towards cultivating the mass amount of information available to you, for you. If you have 800 friends on Facebook, it's significantly more difficult for you to chronologically view everything that's happened. Using algorithms based on your likes, shares, page views, and general preferences, Facebook "curates" the information coming at you and presents to you the most relevant information. There is an insane amount of information available to you. If you were shown every status, every comment, every picture, everything that your friends posted in chronological order, it could be overwhelming or disinteresting to you.

The same thing happens when you use Google as well. The search engine "learns" from your searching patterns & preferences, then extrapolates "who you are," and returns appropriate search results. For example, if a sports fan searches for "panthers," they're likely looking for information on the football team. However, a nature-lover would likely be looking for the animal.

TL;DR there is a lot of information available to you, so the goal is to present you with relevant news to your interests

For more information, see:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Filter-Bubble-Personalized-Changing/dp/0143121235

The Tipping Point has a section explaining this process. Pretty good read.

I read the Tightwad Gazette books years ago. I think that's what got me started on the FIRE path. She also had a military husband and they ended up with 6 kids sort of accidentally, but they still retired early. It might be a little dated but she inspired me a lot even though I never had a lot of kids. I think her overall mindset is what impressed me the most. I think she still gets interviewed pretty regularly.

Right. The symptoms described in the article are psychosomatic, caused by stress. Meditation is not magic and can not cure physical problems (ie heart disease, cancer), but it will of course cure emotional-related issues.

Dr. Sarno's Book

This is a pretty fantastic source that helped me with a similar paper I wrote in a history of rock and roll class

Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn from the Most Iconic Band in History https://www.amazon.com/dp/0470900520/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_XSvUAb4PAVSKY

Sure

Ooof, Khmer was horrible. For books on propaganda, maybe take a look at these:

• https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Edward-Bernays/dp/0970312598 (1928 book, fresh after WWI)
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Munitions-mind-history-propaganda-Politics/dp/0719067677 (Historical)
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Mass-Persuasion-Historical-Encyclopedia/dp/1576078205 (An encyclopedic approach)
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Textbooks-Propaganda-Poland-Communist-1944-1989/dp/1412865581 (A case study on Poland)
  
  Fairly sure you can find them at B-Ok to sample.

Not sure if it's exactly what you mean but:

Malcolm Gladwell - The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

Edward Bernays - Propaganda

Walter Lippmann - Public Opinion / Phantom Public

Anthony Pratkanis - Age Of Propaganda: The Everyday Use And Abuse Of Persuasion

Noam Chomsky & Edward S. Herman - Manufacturing Consent

Noam Chomsky - Media Control / Propaganda And The Public Mind / The Propaganda System / What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream

Thomas de Zengotita - Mediated: How The Media Shapes Your World And The Way You Live In It

Jason Stanley - How Propaganda Works

Alain De Botton - The News: A User's Manual

This is the greatest and most important documentary ever made. Can't believe I had never heard of Edward Bernays before seeing this, I suggest buying his book Propaganda. The man was a genius at helping business turn active citizens into passive consumers. Now all you ever hear from people is "vote with your dollar!". Forget actual participation its all about what you consume that defines you.

Here is a [torrent](http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5119790/Adam_Curtis_Collection_(Century_of_the_Self__The_Trap__etc.) with all of his documentaries for anyone interested.

Hey Whipple Squeeze This is a really phenomenal overview of creating ads. It is a very engaging and informative read and is perfect for those looking to break into the industry.

Ogilvy on Advertising delves a bit more into the overall experience of working at an agency like what the account team does vs. media teams and so on in addition to actually making ads. It's a bit dated but I think it holds up pretty well. Sure a few of his predictions about the industry didn't come to fruition and the book primarily focuses on TV spots and longform magazine ads (you can't write about banner ads or Facebook ads in 1985) but I'd say a lot of the concepts Ogilvy touches on are pretty timeless.

Hire someone if you can. Copywriting is not something you can learn in a week. Sure, anyone can write, but persuasion, style, graphics elements are all elements you have to learn.

This is my best copywriting book of all time, and I have read a lot of them. It's simple, well-written, concise and very effective. Make sure to read "Elements of Style" a couple of times as well.

As for general pointers, here are a few quick, very quick tips:

1. Always keep your links blue. People like blue. People associate blue with a link. People want to click links. It's an urge. Come on, try not to click [this link] (http://youmightnothaveclickedbutyoulookedatitiwin.com)
   
   
2. Keep sentences short. Very short. People's attention span is low. After five seconds they won't even remember the beginning of your sentence. Here is an example: let's say you are trying to sell a product, and have very few times, and lots of variables to analyse from the webpage design to the text, where you have a complete control on every element of the project; basically, you only need to develop an excellent writing style and text and possibly mix it up with other graphical elements for other people and, first and foremost, customers, and you also need to think about the marketing department, which, obviously, will disagree with everything you do while you work for your prospective customer, while writing a first draft...
   
   Did you really read all that? Did you understand the message? Thought so.
   
   3) The simple most important point in copywriting is the header. Final answer Adwords can cost up to $1.00 a click. You know how much time most people will spend on your website after costing you a dollar? 5 seconds. Five little seconds. You have five seconds to impress them and the header is the first - and most of the time the only - thing they will read. Make it clear, outstanding, not too long and make it arise curiosity.
   
   Let me give you an example. Say you never went to reddit and had five seconds to decide whether it is a good website. Which header would be the most effective?
   
   "Well visitor to our fantastic website! My name is Mark and I created Reddit for people, just like you. Reddit is a place where blah blah blah".
   
   -or-
   
   "Interesting, funny, educating stories, upvoted by people like you"
   
   It's obviously still weak even under its second form, and it would be tough to write copywriting for reddit anyway, but you get the point.
   
   4) Unless what most people think, perfect grammar and orthograph are not a must You know where my perfectly-written texts end? In the thrash bin. The best copywriting I've read had various mistakes and ineffective sentences. Perfection does not sell. Nobody wants somebody perfection, despite what most people think. The fact you want perfection implies you will never be satisfied.
   
   That being said, do proof-read your text. Mistakes make you look like a fool, and too many of them will ruin your credibility.
   
   5) Sub-headers, Post-scriptum, facts, testimonies, guarantees are the most read element of a copywriting, in decreasing order of importance People like Post-scriptums. It should be the last thing on your page.
   
   6) Work on it, split-test it, think like a customer You cannot know how they think until you get data feedback. You won't get it right the first time unless you are extremely good and experienced.
   
   7) Your first copywriting attempts will be thrashed immediately. They will be incredibly bad. I am looking at my first copywriting attempts and they are simply ridiculous. The worst mistake? Too long. Keep things short. People are busy. No need for a ten-pages copywriting page if you sell a $10.00 product. Avoid technical terms. Be direct, friendly, professional and do not use hear-say.
   
   8) Everything is important in copywriting. Even positionning. Every pixel that lights or doesn't light up on a computer is important. What you don't put is almost as important as what you put. When you copywrite you need to think of everything. Everything. Rythm, pace, style, wording, positionning, color scheme, elements...
   
   9) Use everything you have. Bolded, italics, underlined, cross-lined, bullets points, and CSS to its full extent
   
   10) Call to action. Don't forget it
   
   This is FAR from all, and I haven't even discussed style, the most important elements in copywriting, but it should be a good starting point.

Would love to add anyone on Goodreads if you use it too :) [Add me](https://www.goodreads.com/thedoerco
)

• Tested Advertising Method
  
• Ogilvy on Advertising
  
• How to Change Minds is a sales book, but it's got an easy to understand framework to understand how people make decisions that I have found useful for marketing
  
• The Ask Method Gives some great jumping off points on how to ask questions for marketing research, and how to organize that information to make decisions about your marketing and your product
  
• Positioning and Repositioning by the amazing marketing strategist Jack Trout of Disney and Coke, are good foundation reads if you don't know anything about marketing. If you know what a USP is, skip Positioning but I did like Repositioning. I did like Positioning as a refresher of a variety of different concepts that I have read more detailed individual books on.
  
• Integrated Marketing Communications to learn about more broadly how to make all of your marketing communications work together towards a common business goal. The book itself is about using marketing campaigns across different channels (tv, radio, print, online) in a coordinated effort, but it will help you understand how to use email, social, paid ads, and other marketing systems you develop together.
  
  Second Influence. Getting Everything You Can is good if you are basic in marketing, I would not recommend it for people who are more advanced.
  
  If you don't know what a "business goal" is, you need to read this:
  
  
• Scaling Up Every marketer should understand the processes that drive growth in businesses, because you are trying to manipulate those levers with marketing. You can also reverse engineer your prospect's business and explain the gains of your services in the terms of processes that drive their revenue when you're pitching them, too.

Great book. link

This is a great idea for a challenge. I'm not so great at budgeting but I always enjoy reading about other people's money-saving victories.

Budget cooking resources. I only know of two budget cooking cookbooks for vegans, Eat Vegan on $4 a Day by Ellen Jaffe Jones, which I don't have, and Vegan on the Cheap by Robin Robertson, which I do.

https://www.amazon.com/Eat-Vegan-4-00-Day-Conscious-ebook/dp/B006IS83W0/

https://www.amazon.com/Vegan-Cheap-Robin-Robertson-ebook/dp/B00BKROO22/

Vegan on the Cheap is a good money-saving cookbook, especially if you're fast in the kitchen. The thing about trying to budget is that you often have to trade time, creativity and effort for money. Some of the recipes in the cookbook are geared toward making your own staples rather than purchasing them at the store. Others use affordable ingredients like potatoes, cabbage, lentils and winter squash to create tasty main courses. Each meal lists its supposed cost although food has gone up in price since this cookbook was published, so I'm not sure how helpful that is.

While I don't own it, Miyoko Schinner's The Homemade Vegan Pantry is a cookbook of staples. I suspect it's also money-saving for that reason. Maybe those who have this cookbook can weigh in on whether it is?

https://www.amazon.com/Homemade-Vegan-Pantry-Making-Staples-ebook/dp/B00NRQXT70

These are a couple of college cookbooks that say they have affordable vegan recipes, though I have no personal experience with them. Maybe someone can weigh in on them? The are:

PETA's Vegan College Cookbook

https://www.amazon.com/PETAS-Vegan-College-Cookbook-Delicious-ebook/dp/B01CO4HH4Q

Student's Go Vegan Cookbook by Carole Raymond

https://www.amazon.com/Students-Go-Vegan-Cookbook-Recipes-ebook/dp/B003EVJKIU

There is a new money-saving vegan cookbook in the works that won't be out until June, Frugal Vegan by Katie Koteen.

https://www.amazon.com/Frugal-Vegan-Affordable-Delicious-Cooking-ebook/dp/B01MQ3O7DK/

Finally, I'd like to recommend a book on money-saving that is entertaining as well as educational, The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn.

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Tightwad-Gazette-Promoting-Alternative/dp/0375752250

Dacyczyn and her husband's dream was to raise a family of six kids, but to do this, the Dacyczyns had to become radical money savers. They tried and tested many money-saving strategies, and eventually began to publish a newsletter. Their newsletter subscribers contributed suggestions of their own. This book is a compilation of all their newsletters. It is somewhat dated, since they were published in the 1990s, but many of the money saving tips in it can still be applied.

Did you know that soy flour sold in bulk makes a good egg substitute in baked goods? I didn't either, until I read this book. Did you know that you can calculate the energy costs you accrue when you turn on the oven for an hour? This book shows how it can be done. The book also has some strategies for how to grocery shop -- the authors take in account not only prices at the supermarkets in their area, but also the cost of gasoline when they make multiple trips.

They're not vegan, and many of their strategies were too radical for me, but I really enjoyed reading about their creativity and ingenuity.

These are all the resources I know of, off the top of my head, but I'm really looking forward to hearing what books and blogs others have tried!

Yes, there are plenty of "paid shills," plenty of voter rights abuses, etc. Your mistakes are as follows:

1. Believing OP was a paid conversation steerer as opposed to just some fucking guy.
   
   
2. Believing you, and perhaps your buddies/kindred spirits on whatever dark corners of the web you frequent, are the only "enlightened" ones aware of the problems in our world.
   
   
3. Believing that there has ever been a "pure" thought completely free of influence by externalities.
   
   
4. Believing that the thought leadership effects of propaganda/advertising are some kind of secret that only you are aware of as opposed to a well-researched topic of study.
   
   
5. Believing there's a "real" reality.
   
   
6. Believing there is such a thing as a global cabal -- or, in other words, believing that every powerful bad actor in the world has the competence, willingness, and resources to work in concert together on some kind of unified world domination plan. Not everything about the world we live in is an intended consequence, you know.
   
   
7. Sincerely believing that "divide" is spelled "devide"
   
   How about instead of reading conspiracy theories online -- which could possibly be posted by anyone, even these scary bots you refer to -- who don't you read an actual book from a credible source? Try:
   
   

• Edward Bernays' Propaganda
  
  
• Sherry Turkle's Alone Together
  
  
• Stan Goff's Full Spectrum Disorder

https://www.amazon.com/Hey-Whipple-Squeeze-This-Creating/dp/1118101332

Accounts, not accounting, mate.

Very broadly speaking, an agency is divided into two parts: Accounts and Creative. Accounts is the liaison between the agency and the client. They define broad objectives, general strategy and make sure the trains run on time. Creative makes the actual ads.

You don't need experience to make a book. You just need good ideas and maybe a friend who's handy in graphic design. That said, very few creatives find jobs without going to portfolio school first. Read Hey Whipple, Squeeze This and see where it takes you.

Good question. Tbh marketing is fairly easy to understand at a conceptual level. Most people I have met in the industry that are good at marketing are able to understand customers and find insights within data, but most of those things are learned.

I would recommend (in order of affordability):
Hey Whipple Squeeze This
Ogilvy on Advertising
Advertising Concept and Copy

Each is more complex than the last so Whipple would be a cheap and easy start to understand marketing concepts. Hope this helps.

Check out [this book] (https://www.amazon.com/Hey-Whipple-Squeeze-This-Creating/dp/1119164001) - great, definitely recommend.

Ah, that's one of the more traditional shops.

I'd say that what everyone else here still stands. As a graphic designer, you do have the framework to be an AD, it just means changing your portfolio's focus.

So instead of worrying about kerning and grids, you need to focus more on USPs and brand messaging. Let on pixel pushing and more big picture thinking.

If your library has these books, Ogilvy on Advertising and Hey Whipple are great starters for understanding the creative process.

Seaman wrote a book on taking advantage of native advertising and guerilla marketing.

https://www.amazon.com/Dirty-Little-Secrets-Buzz-Attention/dp/1402213379/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1523303361&sr=1-4&refinements=p_27%3ADavid+Seaman&dpID=51A-epwvg3L&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

He also was promoting goldmoney which is part owned by Soros.

HE WROTE A BOOK ABOUT ONLINE MARKETING AND HOW TO GET EYEBALLS. Why people trust this guy as anything other than someone trying to make money is beyond me. Here's a link to the book

I highly recommend Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive, which is basically a simplified and actionable version of his more popular book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.

Note: I have not read the latter book.

PsyBlog is also great (not related to Cialdini).
And of course, How to Win Friends and Influence People is a classic and is still relevant.

For social media you should check out different company blogs. Those are really helpful. I like the Buffer and Hootsuite blogs a lot.

But books are way better than online websites

For marketing you should read Traction by Gabriel Weinberg

Ryan Holiday's Growth Hacker Marketing and Trust Me, I'm Lying are insanely informative and fun to read.

It's always been like this. If you're interested check out:

Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times by R. McChesney

Necessary Illusions : Thought Control in Democratic Societies by N.Chomsky

Our Unfree Press: 100 Years of Radical Media Criticism by R.McChesney

Beyond Hypocrisy: Decoding the News in an Age of Propaganda by E.Herman

Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Media by M.Parenti

Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex is Destroying America by R.McChesney

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by E.Herman and N.Chomsky

Constructing Public Opinion by J.Lewis

The More You Watch the Less You Know by D.Schecter

The Political Economy of Media: Enduring Issues, Emerging Dilemmas by R.McChesney

Gender, Race, and Class in Media: A Critical Reader by Dines and Humez

Beyond Consumer Capitalism: Media and the Limits to Imagination by J.Lewis

Propaganda by E.Bernays

Make-Believe Media: The Politics of Entertainment by M.Parenti

When News Lies by D.Schecter

Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda by N.Chomsky

Will the Revolution Be Televised?: A Marxist Analysis of the Media by J.Molenyeux


All these guys have youtube lectures if you aren't much of a reader. Alternatively check out the following documentaries:

Manufacturing Consent

The Myth of the Liberal Media

The Power of Nightmares

Psywar

Class Dismissed: how TV frames the working class

The Power Principle

Project Censored: Is the Press Really Free?



Or you could even do a course in media literacy and watch Sut Jhally's lecture series on Media, Public Relations and Propaganda.

The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat By Oliver Sacks is an amazing book about odd neurological disorders and what they do to people. It is a fascinating, well-written book that was very easy to read.

Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain By Oliver Sacks is another very interesting book about how music affects the brain.

The Definitive Book of Body Language is another good book that'll make you a bit more observant of people.

The Art of War is always a classic, good, and informative read.

Those have been my favorite. I have a friend who suggest The Tipping Point is a really good book, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

Hope that helped.

Edit: Me grammar wrongs

Recommended Reading:

• Nudge (by Richard Thaler)
  
• Predictably Irrational (by Dan Ariely, he's great)
  
• Drunk Tank Pink (by Adam Alter)
  
• The Design of Everyday Things (by Don Norman, the godfather of cognitive psych)
  
• Brain Rules (by John Medina)
  
• The Tipping Point and What the Dog Saw (by Malcolm Gladwell)
  
• edit: Thinking Fast and Slow (by Daniel Kahneman)
  
• edit: The Emotional Life of Your Brain (by Richard Davidson & Sharon Begley)
  
  (Those are just the ones I have sitting on my bookshelf... I have a dozen more on my Kindle that I can add to the list if you're interested.)
  
  ---------
  
  Authors & Speakers (lots of TED Talks):
  
  
• Dan Ariely
  
• Malcolm Gladwell
  
• Rory Sutherland
  
• Daniel Pink
  
• Simon Sinek
  
• Robert Sapolsky (evolutionary biology professor at Stanford and hidden gem)
  
  ---------
  
  Let's start a book club! :)

A couple I've enjoyed lately:

Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus

The Red Market: On the Trail of the World's Organ Brokers, Bone Thieves, Blood Farmers, and Child Traffickers -

They're both enjoyable reads, not especially boring or academic.

I also second /u/Createx's Freakonomics recommendation. That book was great. Along the same cause and effect theme is The Tipping Point.

I am not sure about any Canadian Forces specific books. But some standard military officer books that in my mind are good to read about leadership and wisdom would be:

• The Good Shepherd by C.S. Forester
  
• Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian
  
• The Art of War by Sun Tzu
  
• Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein
  
• [The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell]
  (http://www.amazon.com/Tipping-Point-Little-Things-Difference/dp/0316346624/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1342986110&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Tipping+Point+by+Malcolm+Gladwell)

Allright, I'm calling BULLSHIT.

First, they CAN get their credit cleaned up enough to get a freaking 50% mortgage on a paid off house. I just ran some figures and even with higher interest rates, a 10 year mortgage at 7% interest is going to run them $570.00 a month. If they work on their finances they can probably get closer to 5% which is $476.00 a month (if they live in the county a USDA mortgage might be as little as 3%, which is $434.00/month).

If they can get the USDA mortgage, which puts them at just over their 'budget', they can find the rest of the money by getting rid of their storage unit, selling the shit inside and NOT paying that bill anymore. Seriously, if it's been in a storage unit for 13 years, they don't freaking need it.

That is pretty cheap for a living expense, AND it's only a 10 year note, so they'll own it free and clear in the not-to-distant-future.

I'd suggest, if they are up for it, a 'gift' of The Complete Tightwad Gazette and anything by Dave Ramsay or Clark Howard.

They are making a financial problem. They can freaking fix this. And if they have NO credit, that's different from BAD credit, and frankly with NO Credit and owning a house free and clear, there's PLENTY of mortgages you can get, so that is BULLSHIT.

Pointing a gun at your foot and then pulling the trigger is not an adequate reason to fuck up your kids lives.

Myofascial pain and CPTSD are enormously comorbid.

I would suggest the following books for your friend. They don't talk about pain in terms of CPTSD but they do talk about pent-up rage, the people pleasing personality, anxiety and things of that nature and their influence on pain.

Unlearn your Pain

The Mind-Body Prescription: Healing the Body, Healing Pain

The MindBody Workbook

The Divided Mind: The Epidemic of Mind-Body Disorders

What your friend should understand is that pain is a side effect of chronic hypervigilance from her trauma. And that treating the trauma will, in turn, treat the pain.

Men hvis det havde været en Russisk rigmand som ejede et medie og havde forbindelse til KGB / FSB så ville du lige pludselig tro mere på historien. Specielt hvis det er vestlige medier der siger det. Ik? ik? jov

Edit: jeg synes du burde læse den her bog: https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Edward-Bernays/dp/0970312598

Because Falwell's own words were quite specific about this: he and his followers were constantly saying that people with AIDS should be segregated from the rest of the population, that they were dangerous and evil – those were the words he used – and even that LGBTQ people should be imprisoned and executed. His church continues to support such proposals outside of the US, as well, even today. If these things are somehow not malicious, then the word has lots its entire meaning. There can be nothing more malicious than threatening people with death and suggesting they do not even have the right to exist.

And using an image "just to catch the eye" is a core element of propaganda. It wouldn't work very well if it didn't catch the eye, would it? Sure, he wanted to "sell his stuff" – i.e., have people give him money. That's pushing for material and/or ideological support – a central intent in almost all propaganda.

I think you may not be very familiar with Falwell and his movement if you think there wasn't malicious intent.

You can start here:

https://www.amazon.com/Jerry-Falwell-Rise-Religious-Right-ebook/dp/B07MKPDCD4

https://www.amazon.com/Falwell-Inc-Religious-Political-Educational-ebook/dp/B01ARRWPKI

https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Edward-Bernays/dp/0970312598

I realize you didn't go to advertising school and probably didn't put together a portfolio, nor are you at a big name agency, so I figured I'll throw in a few reading suggestions to fire up your brain and help you build upon your base of knowledge so you can speak with greater authority on the subject.

Hey Whipple (http://www.amazon.com/Hey-Whipple-Squeeze-This-Creating/dp/1118101332/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369356964&sr=8-1&keywords=hey+whipple)

Advertising: Concept and Copy (http://www.amazon.com/Advertising-Concept-Third-George-Felton/dp/0393733866/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369357028&sr=1-3&keywords=the+advertising+concept+book)

Advertising Concept Book (http://www.amazon.com/Advertising-Concept-Book-Second-Barry/dp/0500290318/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369357028&sr=1-1&keywords=the+advertising+concept+book)

The Copy Book - This book is one of my favourites because it just deals with writing and it's big and glossy and wordy. (http://www.amazon.com/D-AD-The-Copy-Book/dp/3836528320/ref=pd_sim_b_11)

Also just look through annuals and always keep good writing and good ideas at the front of your mind. The

Luke Sullivan.
"Hey Whipple, Squeeze This!"

If you haven't read this yet, start there.

Anyone able to fill me in on the situation about the guy who has been exposed for being a self proclaimed attention whore and sensationalist surrounding a very serious subject that he is attempting to monetize rather than expose exhaustively with detailed and well researched journalism?

Make more repetitive, rambling videos that beg for money Seaman all while you make bunk predictions and cryptic retarded claims about a secret race of black donkey people that rule the world from earths invisible moon in an attempt to discredit the real important subject that you are also covering.

Or shall we mention his book once again?

...Come on guys.

Get this book. Read the chapter on creative briefs.

Then, get this book. Read the whole thing. Twice.

Then get this book. Read the chapter "How to Get an Idea." Then read the chapter "How to Craft Copy."

Pick 5 brands. Not small unknown brands, but brands that have agencies do their ads. Make 3 ads for those brands.

You'll have to write 100 headlines to get 2 or 3 good ones. Once you get more experience, you'll be able to squeeze out the gold with less effort.

Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This by Luke Sullivan

The Advertising Concept Book by Pete Barry

Those are two English books I have been exposed too when I was learning advertising as a sidetrack on design school. I'd say next to these search something good about storytelling commercially and how to think lateral.

Good luck and my best tip would be, fall in love with the to market product/service/person and have fun!

Sweet. Another suggestion, depending on what type of work she does, I recommend a great book that specifically talks about creating good advertisements. If she designs anything relating to branding, brand identity or ads, this is a must read - however, if she does these things theres a high percentage she might have read it.

Hey Whipple, Squeeze This

best of luck to y'all with the wedding

I am not even in social media, yet I am the one who knows what this means...

...

Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/006227306X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_hLEDwbAXJCGZ4

Can't recommend it enough.

I think you just broke my brain.

I suggested you modify your marketing strategy so that you weren't so dependent on search ranking... you basically told me you do a heap of other things but they don't help with your search ranking.

I'm not sure you got what I meant, so let me say it this way:

When you're getting 10,000 visits a day from Facebook, it doesn't matter where you show up in Google

Okay, now let's do a tear-down and see if we can help you a bit.

1) Your SEO strategy sucks

If your entire SEO strategy is based around people finding you when they Google "La La Land", then you've got problems.

First of all, this rarely works as a growth strategy. If people are google'ing you, they already know who you are. Unless you're getting traffic simply because people google "La La Land" randomly and end up finding your store. That's not a viable long-term strategy.

Secondly, you need to utilise your blog. The more content you write, the more information there is for Google to decide what your site is about, so that it can show it to people that aren't just searching for "La La Land". Write about gift ideas for people from Glascow, write about unique gifts for dog people, etc. There are billions of SEO resources out there, go read some.

2) Your social strategy sucks

Why are you posting the exact same posts to Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter? Stop using IFTT, it's not just lazy, it's ineffective.

Like, take a look at your twitter posts - the text doesn't even fit on the damn post. Your tumblr posts just link to your Instagram feed, which means to get to your website people need to click twice. You need to create content that's crafted for each platform that you're marketing on. Go read Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook for a basic overview of this idea.

General comments:

Instagram

• Your Instagram feed should have videos on it
  
• Why are you not using Instagram stories? This would be a great place to showcase some of the behind-the-scenes of creating your products.
  
• Are you just dumping photos, or are you sticking around to engage users on Instagram? How much time are you spending each day browsing Instagram and engaging with other accounts?
  
  Twitter
  
  
• 1-2 hashtags per post (currently: 0). Once you stop auto-posting you can fix this.
  
• Similarly, spend 10 minutes a day tweeting stuff that isn't photos of your products. Engage with other accounts.
  
  Facebook
  
  
• Consider re-sharing a few bits of social media content that are relevant to your consumers (ie, stuff that's gone viral that you've seen in your feed). (I don't mean download + reupload, I mean 'share')
  
• Consider creating content similar to the above. What sort of stuff do you see popping up in your personal feed that you think you can replicate within context of your store? Maybe you can do a time-lapse video of you creating some of the art you make
  
• Try not to have just an entire feed of product photos. Look at your content mix, think about other types of posts you could make that are relevant to your audience.
  
  3) You don't have an on-site content strategy
  
  There's nothing on your website that you can use to lure people to it.
  
  Go on your blog right now, and write a 500 word post ranting about <some subject relevant to your customerbase>, with a headline that is interesting enough that might get them to click the link if you post it to Twitter. Have a think about the different type of content you could produce that would appeal to your buyers. Is it an infographic, is it instructions on how to choose Christmas gifts for spoiled millenials, this sort of stuff.
  
  You want to create the sort of content that when you post it, people will click "share".
  
  
  

Because making loose correlations between anecdotal observations is a lot easier than thinking about socioeconomic issues. Because humans are hardwired to be tribal, and most of our self selected tribes are monochromatic. Sapiens, Outliers, and The Tipping Point touch on these flaws in our wetware.

I hate to quote statistics without citing the source, but the source was a lecture in psychology and I don't have notes about the citation. About 4% of men and 2% of women (4% in women around the age of 40 due to a drug commonly taken by pregnant women at the time) are homosexual. Individuals can form close acquaintances with about 150 people (The Tipping Point), so there are good odds that about six people you personally know and regularly interact with are gay.

You mean [Dr. John Sarno's] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-Body/dp/0446675156) books?

I’ve had hypertonic pelvic floor dysfunction for 18 months now. Started when I had a real stressful life event happen to me and triggered the whole thing. Pain started in tip of my penis and epididymis, then moved to perennial area, buttocks and side of my abs. Originally my pain was at a 7-8 out of 10 but has now slowing progressed downward to 2 after doing the below regime. It’s still affecting me but I’m getting control of it and confident I can get rid of it completely (as many people have).

It is posited that the root cause of hypertonic pelvic floor is a central nervous system and sympathetic nervous that’s gone haywire, usually do to emotional or physical trauma/stress.

Here are the things that have helped reduce the pain the most for me.

1. Stop catastrophic thinking. Catastrophic thinking triggers stress which triggers your central nervous system which triggers your pelvic floor to tighten.
   
   Your pain in your penis is referential pain coming from tense pelvic floor muscles. This condition won’t kill you (though it will annoy you) and most people resolve it 100% but it requires a multi modal approach to curing and takes discipline and time (months)
   
   
2. Do lots of exercise to increase blood flow in the pelvis. It goes away for me completely when I jog or play soccer. Try to do aerobic exercise everyday.
   
   
3. Do pelvic stretches every morning
   
   https://www.pelvicpain.org.au/easy-stretches-to-relax-the-pelvis-men/
   
   
4. Read ‘Headache in the Pelvis’ and read ‘the Mindbody prescription
   
   https://www.amazon.com/Headache-Pelvis-Wise-Anderson-Protocol-Definitive/dp/1524762040
   
   https://www.amazon.ca/Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-Body-Pain/dp/0446675156
   
   
5. Do internal trigger point release on the pelvic floor to release muscle tension in the short term. Look at buying the thera wand available online.
   
   https://www.physiotherapyroom.com/Therawand-Trigger-Wand
   
   ‘Headache in Pelvis’ book has trigger point release techniques in the book.
   
   
6. Meditate 20min in the morning and before you go to bed and learn reverse kegels and belly breathing .
   
   I use the headspace app on iOS to help:
   https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/headspace-meditation-sleep/id493145008
   
   
   
7. Stay away from stimulants (caffeine/alcohol) it activates your central nervous system which triggers your pelvic area to tighten and flare up.
   
   
   
8. Eat healthy and get lots of sleep. If I sleep less than 7 hrs my flare ups happen way more.
   
   
9. Take a high quality all in one men’s vitamin (optimen) and fish oil.
   
   10.. Some people also complain that orgasming triggers flare ups as it causes the pelvic floor to convulse via spasm. Just so you know.
   
   Good luck, you’ll beat this.
   
   And post back when you do, its important that other people hear your success.

Gun violence is actually way down:

http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/08/study-gun-violence-plummeted-but-people-think-it-increased/

What is way up is media trying to make it seem like there is an epidemic as part of a public relations (propaganda) campaign against the Second Amendment.

If you haven't already this is a must read on this subject "Propaganda by Edward Bernays" http://www.amazon.co.uk/PROPAGANDA-Edward-Bernays/dp/0970312598

Edward Louis James Bernays was a pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations". He combined the ideas of Gustave Le Bon and Wilfred Trotter on crowd psychology with the psychoanalytical ideas of his uncle, Sigmund Freud.

Some very interesting things in this article. For instance,

>One of the most disconcerting developments of the ugly 2016 Presidential campaign has been ongoing criticism by mainstream media sites and pundits of competing sources of news and information. This attempt at information control is reminiscent of the line of thinking argued by Walter Lippmann and Edward Bernays, both members of the Creel Committee. The Creel Committee was the first systematic large-scale government-sponsored propaganda effort, which turned the formerly pacifist US into an eager antagonist of Great War Germany. The Committee was remarkable in the range of channels it used before the days of mass media to reach citizens and pump out stories of German barbarism, including bogus accounts of German soldiers bayonetting babies. Many member of the American public were horrified in the 1920s when they learned of the operation of the Creel Committee and the ease with which it had manipulated mass opinion.

>Apologists like Lippmann and Bernays argued that modern life had become too complicated for ordinary people to understand; that citizens needed to have their information screened, interpreted, and presented by experts, such as members of the media. Bernays in his 1928 book Propaganda tried to rehabilitate the term, arguing that the word originally referred to religions presenting their message to potential converts, and that governments and businesses were justified in presenting the most persuasive version possible of their case, including using emotional techniques and validators to bolster their image. To illustrate how routine propaganda was, Bernays took the front page of a New York Times edition and ascertained that half the stories were propaganda.

>In other words, the notion that the public should accept elite minders and gatekeepers as their sole source of information comes straight from successful first-generation propagandists.

Follow @mojcamars on twitter and check out her blog on www.superspicymedia.com. She started out the same as you and she details how she got started finding clients.

Basically, she started by searching on Twitter for people who needed help with their social media accounts. She would give away completely free advice to people and the premium stuff she would charge for. She said when giving free advice she doesn't mention her website or anything like that upfront... she only does so if the conversation calls for it. Most people will find out about your website/services anyway when they visit your Twitter profile.

Check out her site. I highly recommend it.

Also look into Gary Vaynerchuk on YouTube. He goes into detail about this many times. You should be putting out free content daily, just like Mojca does. By doing so, you establish yourself as an authority in your space while at the same time gaining a following which leads to sales/clients. Read "Jab, jab, right hook" and "#AskGaryVee: One Entrepreneur's Take on Leadership, Social Media, and Self-Awareness".

Good luck!

To echo everyone else, marketing. You can either pay a firm to handle it for you or do it yourself. For the latter I leave you with these resources.


Marketing Indie Games on a 0$ Budget, Konsoll 2013 talk by Emmy Jonassen. Link


Emmy's website, filled with great resources. Link


"The Marketing Guide for Game Developers", outline article on Pixel Prospector. Link


The Big List Of Indie Game Marketing, a resource list for all things marketing, also on Pixel Prospector. Link


"Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World", by Gary Vaynerchuk. An excellent book on how to utilized the various social media platforms for marketing. Amazon Site Link


And lastly, the weekly "Marketing Monday" threads here for feedback and creative inspiration.


Edit.

Fixed linking. Returning to Reddit after a year and some change worth of hiatus. Have to relearn old tricks.

Gary Vaynerchuk is a social media master. When I first was hired as a Content Strategist for an agency my boss gave me the book below. It’s a couple years dated, but the overall premise still holds. He examines each platform and pulls real-life examples to demonstrate. I still refer back to it!

Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World

In theory any company can create a compelling and active Facebook page but honestly, there are just some things that are more interesting than others.

I happen to have an easy target market for FB: Women ages 25-50 in upper incomes who love fashion, family, and parenting.

If you had an an insurance company it would be a lot more difficult to find compelling shareable content that relates to insurance. So what you have to do is the "Jab, Jab, Right Hook" where you appeal to other things your target market is interested in and then for every 5 jabs (shareable content) you right hook them with a call to action in regards to your specific product.

For example, your non-profit could start to tug on heart strings by showing the people who are getting help by the grants. Tell stories about how your non-profit benefits others. Share other non-profit stories in your same genre. Post articles about the different areas your non-profit focuses on.

Facebook is like a great big cocktail party and you want to be the the most interesting and compelling person at the soiree.

I need a citation to back this up? I think you're just avoiding a discussion and the post definitely wasn't addressed to you otherwise. The point is, people regularly do this and you're more than likely kidding yourself if you think you don't avoid a discussion with someone and prefer to be around like-minded individuals, it's simply human nature.

Here, if you're really interested in the subject, buy and read this:

https://www.amazon.com/Filter-Bubble-Personalized-Changing-Think/dp/0143121235

Eli Pariser has been preaching about this problem for quite some time now. Here is his book, "The Filter Bubble" further condensed into his Ted Talk. From the description, "As web companies strive to tailor their services (including news and search results) to our personal tastes, there's a dangerous unintended consequence: We get trapped in a "filter bubble" and don't get exposed to information that could challenge or broaden our worldview. Eli Pariser argues powerfully that this will ultimately prove to be bad for us and bad for democracy."

That will come with time! I suggest reading some books that will help you on self-improvement:


The Tipping Point and The Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcom Gladwell


Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman


Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

like how we shut up and let the Sackler family create the opioid epidemic, killing tens of thousands of people a year for the last few decades.

let's not listen to those doctors that tried to warn us that they were very addictive and deadly, because most doctors and scientists didn't agree yet. let's just wait and do nothing, because that works.

sike

it's called a grassroots movement. the minority has to keep voicing or nothing will change, the powers in control will keep thinking nothing is wrong and not change anything

i suggest reading or looking into Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point to understand why it doesn't work the way you think it should.

​

I can go on and on with more cases of drugs that ended up recalled, many tens of years after they were in the market before enough damage happened the FDA was forced to act, but here's a link

https://web.archive.org/web/20190604093229/https://prescriptiondrugs.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=005528

3 great books to read, in descending order of importance:

The Mousedriver Chronicles (Couple of kids out of Wharton starting a company around a mouse shaped like a golf driver)

The Art of the Start (Guy Kawasaki- Entrepreneur's instruction manual.)

The Tipping Point (Malcolm Gladwell- good explanation of how to select the few important things to do to make your snowball into an avalanche.)

Hit me up via pm if you have any further questions. You're where I was about 2 years ago.

Oh boy, have I got some stuff for you. There's endless information about how to market your podcast. Here's some stuff to get you started.

• Libsyn Webinar: Growing your podcast audience
  
• Libsyn Webinar: Social media best practices for podcasters
  
• Talk: Growth Hacking by Sam Ellis
  
• Podcast: Masters of Scale - Why finding fans that love what you do is the most important thing to growing
  
• Talk: GaryVee on marketing online in 2018
  
• Talk: Seth Godin on getting you idea to spread
  
• Book: Small Giants - why targetting a small audience is the key to becoming a giant
  
• Book: Tipping Point or in other words, what is critical mass, how to get there, and why it's important to growing your thing.
  
• Article: 1,000 True Fans
  
  There's tons more on this topic. Let me know if you want more. I'm also curious to hear what you do yourself to grow your show and what's worked.

Dude, I'm super fucking frugal. Lemme help ya out.

First: you get bills reduced by threatening to cancel, call and say you want to cancel. They will offer you some kind of deal. Prior to doing that shop their competitions so you know when you're getting shafted.

Coupons and sales: Weekly you get the fliers for the grocery stores and what's on sale. The front page has their loss leaders, these are items that they are either just breaking even or losing money on, just to get you in the door to spend more money. Coupons can be found online and in sunday papers, coupons combines with the weekly sales fliers = mucho savings.

Cloth diapering is cheaper in the long run, if you choose not to go that route then combining coupons with sales is the best way to do it.

In my area milk is cheapest at costco, but it's two gallons at a time. If you don't think you can drink a whole two gallons in about two weeks then open one, pour some a glass of milk, drink it, put the top back on the jug and stick it in the freezer, taking a glass full out from it will allow for expansion and the milk will last two weeks from when you defrost it.

Buy this book it is worth every penny and then some.

ETA: Get clothes at consignment sales (mothers of multiples sales etc), stuff there too, or craigslist, thrift stores etc.

Try really hard to breastfeed, if you can do it you'll save tons on the formula, alternatively you can get donor breast milk from hm4hb etc. Once babies are old enough for solids making your own is cheapest, especially if it's just the stuff you guys are eating, for example yesterday we had rice, chicken and peas for dinner, I pureed the leftover peas and gave them to Ben today. Personally I've found my immersion blender to be the best thing ever for making baby food.

Your money or your life. Old, but I think it has worthwhile messages. And you could get it second-hand.

Ditto for "the completentightwad's gazette".

Well hey there I think you're on to something here!

Trauma can be a sticky thing, especially long term severe abuse in childhood. We all have stress responses that are designed to keep us safe. If a tiger leaps out of the woods on your morning walk to school your body will rocket into a state of fight-or-flight to keep you safe. In a normal situation, when you're able to run from the tiger or the zookeeper catches it your body will realize the situation has been resolved and you are now safe. It sends the "all safe" signal, the stress response smoothes out and your subconscious is able to process the experience and integrate it into the story of your life experience. "Remember that time the tiger escaped from the zoo and we almost got eaten on the way to school? Whew! That was close haha!" Feeling safe in a nest of family and friends is also vitally important. You can share the story, bond over the experience and move forward together.

But what if the traumatic attack was never resolved? What if that tiger held you down over and over again and beat and brutalized you? What if the tiger was your father or your mother, the very people you rely on to take care of you and protect you? Now who do you tell? You're tiny, the tiger is big and strong and it hurts you over and over again every day.

When the body goes into a flight-or-flight response big metabolic changes occur to get you ready to fight for your life. Digestion is stopped. Complex thought and long term planning cease. Blood rushes to your arms and legs to prepare you for battle.

All pain is the same. Whether it's caused by a broken arm or emotional abuse, the neural circuitry in the brain is the exact same. It's said that "neurons that wire together, fire together". Pain responses can be conditioned, learned and seared into your mind and body.

Maybe you outgrew that tiger attack... sort of. But if you weren't able to actively do something about it or process the guilt and shame of that experience you are still carrying around that incomplete memory somewhere in your body. Body memory is different from a cognitive memory. The narrative version of our lives, which we tell to people to describe who we are, is a different version of memory from the physiological memory where trauma is inscribed. Traumatic memories do not come with a start, middle and end. Instead they reappear in fragments, particular smells, the color of the wallpaper, the timbre of someone's voice heard through a thin wall, the sheets of a bed pulled up over your face. These traumatic memories cycle over and over again outside time. It's as if they're happening NOW and on some level they're happening ALL THE TIME. It may be subtle, but the body is constantly sending out signals that "I'm not safe! I'm not safe! I'm not safe!"

You may become agitated, angry and lash out. You might also become lethargic and depressed, withdrawn from anything that might throw you off your delicate balance. It may be hard to focus on long term goals or concentrate deeply on a single topic because so much of your energy is subconsciously preparing for another tiger attack. As said above, digestion and normal body regulation is disrupted. The body is flooded with stress hormones all the time. This may have immediate impacts on your emotional well being. Over time, after days, weeks and years of disrupted behavior, healthy eating patterns may be destroyed, sleep may be shallow or barely existent, your persistent exhaustion and irritability may disrupt your social life.

Eventually these symptoms and disruptions can snowball into huge chronic pain problems with excruciating physical symptoms. Thoughts of frustration and shame and self-loathing only exacerbate the problem. It may be as if your emotional immune system is attacking itself, which only adds more damage. Life can spiral out of control.

There is hope however.

The opportunity to heal is available to everyone if you're willing to face and befriend your pain and come to terms with the shadow experiences that have been ruling your life from the past.

After all, what other options do you have?

What happened, happened. All we can do from here is bring compassion to ourselves and move on to brighter things.

The first step is to establish a feeling of Safety. From the tone of your writing it seems like you've found a point of stability and you're taking Big Action to look into the mechanisms of your syndrome. Very well done, you're off to a great start!

I think I will refer you to some Authors who have laid out some extensive groundwork on the topic. Have a look around and continue to explore body based therapies. It doesn't have to be all clinical. If you're able, go out for a swim or take an easy movement class. Try acupuncture and massage therapies. If you can find a talk therapist with whom you feel very Comfortable and Safe, continue to explore that route as well.

Here are some resources you might find helpful:

Unclenching Blog - How I cured my chronic pain
https://unclenching.com/2017/11/18/how-i-cured-my-chronic-pain/

Mind/Body Syndrome - Pain Recovery Program
http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/painrecovery/

Tension Myositis Wiki
https://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/The_Tension_Myositis_Syndrome_Wiki

Dr John Sarno's Book "The Mind/Body Prescription"
https://www.amazon.com/Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-Body-Pain/dp/0446675156/

Bessel Van Der Kolk "The Body Keeps the Score" on Traumatic Memory and PTSD
https://besselvanderkolk.net/index.html

Dr Gabor Mate - Focus on Trauma and Addiction
https://drgabormate.com/

​

Best wishes!

I agree with what everyone is saying about calling yourself an expert. I've had this conversation many times. Client testimonials, something everyone should get, will speak much louder than any title you can give yourself.

I'm a big fan of Gary Vaynerchuk He has some great videos and key note presentations on his website.

Books
The Thankyou Economy, Marketing Lessons Grateful Dead Business

You do not need to be a Grateful Dead fan to enjoy this book.

Twitter @JoltSocialMedia, @socialmouths

Blogs
Hubspot
Seth Godin
Situation Interactive
Ajax Union

I highly recommend Google Hangouts and LinkedIn Groups as a way to get more information. I run a Social Media hangout every Tuesday

On LinkedIn groups you can get information and also share your own knowledge.

There is a ton of information out there about social media and new articles from across the web come out every day. It can be overwhelming at times. My recommendation is to find a few sources you like and go with those. Take the information you think is practical and useful and try to implement it.

Get on every big social media platform out there and learn the inner workings of them. Tear them apart and learn every feature. Click on everything. Whenever possible be an early adapter. The sooner you can get on a new social network the better. There are many smaller ones that are under the radar. It can't hurt to be familiar with them.

Lastly, don't be afraid to experiment.

• Max Weinstein
  http://www.maxweinstein.net
  My weekly Google Hangout
  
  
  
  
  

There's actually a couple books about their approach:

https://www.amazon.com/Marketing-Lessons-Grateful-Dead-Business/dp/0470900520

Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead. My uncle does lectures for PR/Marketing firms and things like that. :)

What kind of marketing will you be doing?

There are a lot of good resources out there. I've been in some marketing role for the past 10 years (developer working in support of B2B marketing, B2C/e-commerce, currently B2B targeting large corporations) and depending on what you are doing I could help point you in different directions.

One thing you have to figure out is how metrics driven you will be. The past few years have shown a big shift from marketing for marketing's sake to true measurement of performance (i.e. ROI).

There is a great book called "Marketing Metrics" that talks all about this. There's another good web site, MarketingNPV.com that talks about marketing measurement.

While that is at a higher level (in other words, if your boss doesn't do this stuff now it will be hard for you to come in and try to change his mind) you will want to focus on a few other things. Some books that have helped me a lot in terms of general marketing education:

Building Strong Brands - if the role is more brand focused. Obviously doesn't hurt to learn this stuff as growing and updating your perspective always helps.

Copywriter's Handbook - I think this is necessary for any marketer. Learn how to write succinct selling copy. In my experience, learning how to use words well is a key skill in any marketing role. I've used it to write tag lines, brochure/collateral copy, web copy, large PDFs for lead generation, press releases, etc.

Copyblogger - Good online resource. They are very salesy (always trying to push some eBook or webinar), but if you can deal with that there is some good knowledge there.

Good luck! Marketing can be very fun... just prepare yourself, in this industry there are a lot of people who are much better at marketing themselves than marketing their company or product. Fortunately, as more executives and marketers start focusing on measurement of results, these people will be weeded out.

Hope this helps.

Here is what I recommend currently:

For beginners:

Free: https://www.coursera.org/courses?languages=en&query=digital+marketing

Paid: https://www.udacity.com/course/digital-marketing-nanodegree--nd018#

(You can get it free if you take the courses with out the degree)

Foundations To Advanced Topics:

Paid: http://neilpatel.com/advanced-marketing-program/

(Neil Patel is one of the few Internet Marketers I would trust. He has successful businesses and is fairly transparent)



Books that can help you with marketing:


Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion - Once you read this book you will see the techniques used everywhere in marketing. Once you understand the techniques you can apply them yourself.

The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller - Everyone talks about copywriting, but IMO most copy is written way to salsy and is obvious. I have had much better results using stories to sell and most of my sales pages use story telling techniques to bring the reader on a journey.

The Copywriters Handbook - That said, you should still understand the point of copy and this book does a good job. Once you know the fundamentals of copywriting you can sell almost anything.

What to avoid:

Avoid any courses that are selling Techniques or formulas (I.E: My Super Awesome Snapchat Method that brought in $5000") while most have useful information the issue is simple:

Formulas/Templates/Tactics will only get you so far and won't always work. Yes, some methods have been proven to work time and time again, but you are still better off learning the fundamentals of marketing and sales over reusing tactics and templates.

By learning the fundamentals you will be able to rapidly test and try new things to see what works and doesn't. This will give you more flexibility and success in the long wrong.

Most people sell courses around tactics because most customers want a lazy way to make money. Do they work? yes and no. There is no real answer - these tactics may work for you or not as there are a lot of things to factor in.

When buying a course check out the instructor. A lot of Internet Marketers only had 1 success before selling courses on the subject. If someone claims to be an awesome marketer and doesn't have more than 1 success as proof, something is wrong and most likely that success was a fluke.

Most trustworthy marketers normally will have a long track record of successes or at the very least have well known clients (Google/Facebook/Coke/etc).

TL;DR: Avoid tactics/templates/Formulas and learn the fundamentals of marketing.

I started with books. Lots and lots of books. Here are a few of my favorites (not affiliate links)

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

How to Write a Good Advertisement

The Copywriters Handbook

CA$HVERTISING

Documentaries:

Human Resources

The Century of Self

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

Books:

Naomi Klein - Shock Doctrine

Edward Bernays - Propaganda

Walter Lippman - Public Opinion

Wilhelm Reich - Mass Psychology of Nazism

Slava Gerovitch - “New Soviet Man” Inside Machine: Human Engineering, Spacecraft Design,and the Construction of Communism

Edit: OP also important is to consider Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs; Reproduction (sex), Subsistance (food, air, sleep) followed by safety/security, belonging (family, society), esteem (self-confidence) and finally self-actualization. Control these and ultimately you control the masses.

Both 1984 and BNW aboard these subjects with different emphasis (BNW - reproduction, 1984 -security and esteem).

Propaganda by Edward Bernays

Edward Bernays is widely considered to be the pioneer of public relations. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays)

Propaganda is probably his most well-known book: http://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Edward-Bernays/dp/0970312598

This https://www.amazon.com/dp/039472903X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_-LmozbRFSJV3K

And this https://www.amazon.com/dp/006124189X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_dMmozbWME8S98

And for fun read, get Matt Beaumont's "e" and "e squared": https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/s/ref=is_s_ss_i_0_9?k=matt+beaumont&sprefix=matt+beau

Also, get this for general knowledge of some of the great work done in particular medium: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1118101332/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_0Qmozb5TPRJCS

Welp I guess we're downvoted for mentioning a book:
https://www.amazon.ca/Hey-Whipple-Squeeze-This-Creating/dp/1118101332

"MTIV ..." by Hillman Curtis is a great read, and is packed with wisdom and inspiration.

"Hey Whipple, Squeeze This!" by Luke Sullivan is about advertising. So it's not exactly a design book, but it's all about thinking outside the box and making it in the real world as a professional creative, which totally applies to us. Plus, Sullivan is a really fun writer.

Finally, "Make it Bigger" by Paula Scher is an excellent memoir by a living legend.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0735711658?pc_redir=1398499744&robot_redir=1

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1118101332?pc_redir=1398472389&robot_redir=1

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1568985487?pc_redir=1398526939&robot_redir=1

One of the best things I heard when going to college for advertising was to think "What is the one thing that will get the audience you want to buy your product? Make that the focus." You're not going to come to that conclusion without researching. Find out the purpose of the product, the objective of the ad, the benefits the product has, the point of difference it has against competitors, the tone of the brand, the target audience, the target concern of that audience and then use all of that to solve a barrier that the audience or brand has. And if you really want to get creative read some of the many amazing advertising books out there when you are out of ideas. Good luck!

Ogilvy on Advertising

Truth, Lies, and Advertising

Hey, Whipple

Bill Bernbach's Book

The Book of Gossage

Funny you say that, because he wasn't pushing people to buy actual, physical gold (which would have been smart), he wanted them to invest in gold through a company called Gold Money. So, digital gold, I guess. He was an affiliate and got paid for referrals, just one of his little get rich schemes. He did bring help give a voice for and raise awareness for Pizzagate, so he hasn't been completely useless, but he is a self promoter who wrote a book back in 2008 detailing exactly how he's been operating since.

Edit: Here it in his own words here.

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/emarketing/64890.html

https://www.amazon.com/Dirty-Little-Secrets-Buzz-Attention/dp/1402213379/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224614580&sr=8-1

Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive

There's a fantastic book on this topic named Why We Buy.

Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping--Updated and Revised for the Internet, the Global Consumer, and Beyond by Paco Underhill
http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Buy-Shopping-Updated-Internet/dp/1416595244

Paco Underhill, mad scientist of retail science recommends as few mirrors as possible, because mirrors disctract shoppers, and can break a shopper's concentration. That is why they are often hidden in dressing room areas and not out on the floor. I can't speak to the stores that you were in, but you are correct, in general mirrors are actually disappearing from many retail stores.

For B2B sales I highly recommend:

The B2B Executive Playbook: The Ultimate Weapon for Achieving Sustainable, Predictable and Profitable Growth - https://www.amazon.com/B2B-Executive-Playbook-Sustainable-Predictable-ebook/dp/B005VSIWS8

The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation - https://www.amazon.com/Challenger-Sale-Control-Customer-Conversation/dp/1591844355/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=challenger+sale&qid=1566649998&s=books&sr=1-1

​

That second book is more sales-focused if that's specifically what you're looking for. The first is about operating and growing a B2B organization as a whole, especially related to sales.

The Challenger Sale is good.

Everything starts w/ making a good product

Marketing

• Find a niche, go to where they go and target them with thoughtful cool posts like /u/koleraa and /u/ccrama said. Be real, responsive, and follow up
  
• This works better for apps than games b/c you can engage ppl in problem solving your app, but I'm sure there are gamer communities
  
• For a game you might need more of a "stunt", read Growth Hacker Marketing for ideas here
  
  Don't have a "leaky bucket"
  In normal words: make sure ppl who install your game have a good experience right away and come back. Set up analytics so you can track this. If you are failing, work on the game and don't market yet. You should watch all of these free Y Combinator online startup classes, but #6 is most relevant here.
  Design the game to be viral
  This is where you've got it easier than normal apps, games can be designed to share and engage other users. I recommend reading Hooked for ideas on how to build a habit forming app that ppl will want to share. NOTE: annoying tricks don't work and no one wants that.
  
  Crossing the Chasm is less relevant to a game but an insightful classic on the old "how do I develop a market for a technology product".
  
  All of these strategy require focused and consistent effort to have a chance. I'm in the same boat you are so hopefully we can make something happen :)
  
  BTW I'd be happy to share my notes on all these books if ppl are interested.

Definitely check out growth hacking. Here's a great book on it that explains what it is and gives examples how popular companies implemented it:

Growth Hacker Marketing: A Primer on the Future of PR, Marketing, and Advertising https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591847389/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_puSMwbTR1CNBB

Cashvertising - Looks cheasy as hell, but it's by far the best book I've read on the subject. Lots on what makes someone buy, how to present it, etc.

> I hold out vague dreams of being a writer, and have completed one novel with another on the way, but that's not capitalistically viable. If I churned out some kinky monster-fetish schlock or wrote harlequin romances, maybe I'd be a slightly more productive cog in the machine.

Shut the fuck up. Being writer is hard without people like you writing some niche shit and expecting to be prised by general public. It won't happen. Ever. You know how many writers are in your position? Most. You either are writer who will publish something closer to market's demand and make every nth book more artsy OR you'll find a tiny but loyal audience.

Now you're just complaining.

Writing is neither "drinking latte and taking notes in my Moleskine" nor is it "a poet with a life broken tells how it is". Writing is mostly you typing, day in, day out, without much chances for success, for your audience.

Your woe is me story is nothing special, and had you spent the time you've spent arguing on reddit, writing short stories, you could at least self-publish something for 99 cents.

You can start here.

https://www.amazon.com/Publish-Repeat-No-Luck-Required-Self-Publishing-Success-ebook/dp/B00H26IFJS

It is Not a Rumor.

• The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade
  
• Chasing the Scream
  
• Dark Alliance: Movie Tie-In Edition: The CIA, the Contras, and the Cocaine Explosion
  
• The Big White Lie: The CIA and the Cocaine/Crack Epidemic
  
• Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America, Updated Edition
  
• Drug War Capitalism
  
  See Also:
  
  
• Propaganda by Edward Bernays
  
• Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America's Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years
  
• The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government
  
• Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon: Laurel Canyon, Covert Ops & the Dark Heart of the Hippie Dream -- CIA created the counterculture drug movement.
  
• The Open Conspiracy: What Are We to Do with Our Lives? --HG Wells

Propoganda by Edward Bernays, who largely invented the field of public relations and state propoganda, was first published in 1928 but is still a very relevant and engaging read.

Sure ask away.

Regarding Answer 1:

Over at /r/illimitablemen we recently had a little discussion about manipulating the media. Since this subreddit is confidential I can not share what I wrote but here is the little part about the book:

I haven't read the book and have no intention of reading it, since I am not the biggest Ryan Holiday fan. He recommends to start with the smallest companies and work your way up? Sounds fucking retarded and not a valuable strategy if you really want to leave a dent.
I haven't been aware that Ryan Holiday is supposedly THE guru to turn to for political PR. Gave me a good laugh. Anyway, what I do have is [... little later someone posted his concept of trading up the chain A joke of an Wikipedia article that should be removed as soon as possible since it is obvious that this was solely written for the backlinks and poses no relevance to nothing]

Choose the smallest platform and pray for it to get whispered down the lane? Marvellous idea! Someone give that guy a Nobel Prize.
Of course, there are numerous cases where this did happen. But you must be one huge retard to rely on it. This is the last resort and only valuable if you have 0 connections and no inclination to build any.

Listen to people who have real and not merely theoretical knowledge. They all believe Ryan to be an imbecile, which is even worse considering that Ryan is the apprentice of Robert Greene.
[...]
Yesterday I watched the (amazing) football game with [someone] and I asked for their PR book recommendations, having this thread in mind. 5 out of 5 said that they never read PR books on a regular basis. [one guy] said that he hasn't even read a book about PR since his studies.
PR is interesting in the sense that it is is nothing you can really learn from books. The books that come closest are books about war & strategy.

Anyway, we did come up with some good books, especially propaganda minister Joseph Goebbel's favourite:
Edward Bernays, Propaganda (get this even if not employed in the PR sector). Other good books by him: Public Relations, Crystallizing Public Opinion & Engineering of Consent.

Number 2 is Ansgar Zerfaß, though his books are way too expensive for the average, mentally healthy person. Edit: Pirates yohaaay [link removed]

and the third one is Guerilla PR 2.0. by Michael Levine. Comprehensive and updated for the modern environment.

Answer 2: People have been slinging dirt at Hillary for years, so she is used to it. But I have the feeling that Donald Trump, unlike the rest of us, is not cooking with water, hence his dirt just might stick. On the other hand he is pretty far behind in the polls. Polls that are prone to errors and can drastically change given certain circumstances.
Obama having Clinton's back is terrible and will most likely influence the outcome to a certain degree.

Me, personally, I hope that Trump wins since it is better for Russia and therefore better for Europe. I am sick of seeing European farmers, as well as many other professions, lose their job, just because the fucking American elite wants to play Cold War 2.0, and use a trade embargo against Russia.

All because of what? The Crimea? Fuck that, I couldn't care less. Split the Ukraine up, give the part up to Lviv to the Austrian-Hungarian Empire and the rest to Russia.

Please ask question 3 again so I don't forget about it, but I need some fresh air now.

Sorry I'm a little late to the party, but I thought I'd add my two cents.

The great thing about copywriting is that anyone can do it, no matter their background. So don't stress about having the "schooling" needed for the job. All you need is a good work ethic and clever skills.

First — Definitely read up on all the books listed in other comments.

I'd also look into [Hey Whipple Squeeze This] (http://www.amazon.com/Hey-Whipple-Squeeze-This-Creating/dp/1118101332) by Luke Sullivan, [Pick Me] (http://www.amazon.com/Pick-Me-Breaking-Advertising-Staying/dp/0471715573) by Nancy Vonk & Janet Kestin, and any and all advertising annuals you can get your hands on. Annuals are a great way to learn what works and see it in action. You can find some [recent award show annuals here] (http://www.welovead.com/en/bookshelf).


Second — Build your book.

Free time is a great asset. Use it. In order to really break in, you'll need a portfolio or spec book. This is a book of ads you've created that prove you can solve problems and write. Pick some products and make a campaign for them. The rule of thumb is 3 products with 3 ads each to show you can expand the idea beyond just one print or digital execution.

Many people go to portfolio school to build their book, but it's not necessary for everyone. I didn't do it and many copywriters I know didn't either.


Third — Network.

Although all of the above are important, they won't mean squat if you're not in the right place to talk to the right people. Try joining your local advertising club and go to their events. I'd also strongly suggest looking into [Portfolio Night] (http://www.portfolionight.com/12/). This is a global event held throughout the year that brings young creatives face-to-face with advertising professionals. Not only is it a great way to get some feedback on your book, but an outstanding way to network. You'll meet others like you and start conversations with the very people who could land you your next job.

Hope that wall of text helps. Good luck, man.

Read

Here are three books to get you started:

• Predatory Thinking
  
• Creative Mischief
  
• Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This
  
  Get noticed
  
  Advertising is mostly about making sure that people see your product in the mess of crap that people have to deal with. If you want to break into advertising, it's the same principle.
  
  The trick is to treat your submission like a brief. How can I grab their attention? How can I prove myself quickly?
  
  Alec Brownstein is a good example. As The Guardian says:
  >He bought Google Adwords spots next to the names of six ad executives he wanted to work with, and waited for the job offers to come in.
  
  >And they did.
  
  Build your portfolio
  
  Find your best stuff. Make some new stuff (just make sure you put that it was for your own pleasure, and wasn't used).
  
  Make your portfolio an example in itself.
  
  Make a kickass covering letter
  
  Letters of note has a great one for inspiration. It starts off:
  >I like words.
  
  Don't confuse the kinds of copywriting
  
  Not all kinds of writing are advertising. Copywriters will also do business letters. They'll help clients with their brand's tone. They'll write copy for webpages.
  
  Ad agencies might be interested in that. But they're going to be more interested in your headlines. That you can grab someone's attention and make them cry and laugh.
  
  Don't fucking give up
  
  It's going to be tough. But you can do it.

Hey you should start by researching student books these are the people you are up against. Look at the products they pick. Try to do print for the most part. It's the easiest way to get your idea across quickly which will be good when a CD has about 3 mins to look at your book. Here are a ton of student books:
http://brandcenter.vcu.edu/people/alumni/
also look on creative circus's alumni page as well.

In terms of "prompts" that's kind of on you when creating a portfolio. Find a product that needs fresh messaging try to beat the work they are currently doing.

Also I can't stress how important reading "Hey Whipple" will be for you. You'll find what you are looking for in there. http://www.amazon.com/Hey-Whipple-Squeeze-This-Creating/dp/1118101332/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1450214586&sr=8-1&keywords=hey+whipple+squeeze+this

Read Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This front to back.

Then, from there, it depends what you're going to be doing. I'm a copywriter so I read a lot of books tailored to that.

• Advertising Concept Book
  
• Creative Advertising
  
• Contagious
  
• And spent a lot of time on www.moderncopywriter.com looking at books to base mine off of.
  
• I've heard the Ogilvy books are good. I should read them.
  
  If you're not going in the creative side, there are still plenty of other books - and I think Whipple applies to all.
  
  

I just bought Hey Whipple Squeeze This as a parting gift for our intern, and The War of Art for myself.

And I have these in my list on amazon. Would love to get some opinions on them:

 

How to Win Friends and Influence People

by Dale Carnegie

 

Secrets of a Freelance Writer: How to Make $100,000 a Year or More

by Robert Bly

 

Words that Sell

by Richard Bayan

 

Tested Advertising Methods

by Caples and Hahn

 

Writing That Works

by Kenneth Roman and Joel Raphaelson

 

Confessions of an Advertising Man

by David Ogilvy

 

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing

by Al Ries and Jack Trout

 

The Robert Collier Letter Book

by Robert Collier

 

Nicely Said: Writing for the Web with Style and Purpose

by Nicole Fenton and Kate Kiefer Lee

 

Letting Go of the Words

by Janice (Ginny) Redish

 

Essential English for Journalists, Editors and Writers

by Harold Evans

 

Can I Change Your Mind?: The Craft and Art of Persuasive Writing

by Lindsay Camp

 

Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer

by Roy Peter Clark

 

Read Me: 10 Lessons for Writing Great Copy

by Roger Horberry and Gyles Lingwood

 

Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: The Classic Guide to Creating Great Ads

by Luke Sullivan

 

WRITE IN STEPS: The super simple book writing method

by Ian Stables

 

On Writing Well

by William Zinsser

 

The Wealthy Freelancer

by Steve Slaunwhite, Pete Savage and Ed Gandia

 

Write Everything Right!

by Denny Hatch

 

The Secret of Selling Anything

by Harry Browne

 

The Marketing Gurus: Lessons from the Best Marketing Books of All Time

by Chris Murray

 

On Writing

by Stephen King

 

Writing for the Web

by Lynda Felder

 

Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content

by Ann Handley

 

This book will teach you how to write better

by Neville Medhora

First off, read this a few times if you haven't yet. Like right away. Multiple times.

Second, your portfolio is garbage (that's okay, mine is too and I've been doing this for 10 years). In my opinion, it doesn't show enough thinking--it's a collection of executions, most of which are kind of generic. The best thinking on there is the #antiselfie concept for Canon. That could be a great campaign, but you can't just one-and-done it. Show it in multiple executions, more headlines, maybe write a short Anti-Selfie manifesto. Show thinking that goes beyond ads or Facebook posts. Like, what if Canon bought outdoor space in front of classic selfie backdrops that told people to turn their cameras around, get a life, etc.?

Then do more campaigns like that. If you can, find an art director who will do the comps for you. I know it feels like the writing and thinking should stand on its own, but having a pro-quality comp makes the ideas look more pro.

Keep at it!

Hi Dan, recently graduated graphic designer here. A good gift to give is a graphics tablet. It increases productivity a lot and it is kinda like drawing, though there is a bit of a learning curve but you get used to it after a few days with it.

I recommend this brand Wacom Intuos Art Pen and Touch digital graphics, drawing & painting tablet https://www.amazon.com/dp/B010LHRFYU/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_FdmvybKD0ZDC0 they are the apple of design tablets.

Other alternatives are graphic design books. I book that helped me a lot thought school because of my professor is Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: The Classic Guide to Creating Great Ads https://www.amazon.com/dp/1119164001/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_iimvybHF3B2Q7 it helps you understand the creative process of design and conceptual design. It can be applied to different aspects of graphic design doesn't really have to be in advertising.

Hopefully this helps. Get you started, also now is a good time to do freelance or internships or both. I started freelancing during my junior and senior year and internships. The more experience she can get the better and fill up and make a portfolio both printed and online. The sooner the better.

> Right, but they offered it.

This is you saying they offered the cash.

When I stated that they never offered the cash up front:

> Of course not.

So which is it? Is it they offered the cash up front, or the "of course not"?

The key here is CASH UP FRONT. Not CASH AFTER THE SACRED LOTTERY. You want to motivate people? CASH.UP.FRONT.

> The most common reason for crew to go over their permitted hours is weather delays. Does United control the weather?

DOES THE CUSTOMER?

You don't get it. You don't even comprehend the difference between "offering the cash up front over the PA so everyone knows about it" and "involuntary bumping". It doesn't require looking into the future or controlling the weather or whatever.

You got good at selling tickets? Great. You're so good at selling tickets that you oversell them? Super. Now get good at SELLING THE BUMP.

All the accounts I read were that the airline supervisor sounded annoyed at the passengers for not volunteering. Great fucking salesmanship to sound annoyed that people won't take you up on your shitty offer. The way they handled it probably elicited a "fuck you" right off the bat from every customer in there.

What you do is get a smooth motherfucker to get up on the PA to go, "Yo yo yo, our fuckup is your gain, I got $800 cash money for the next guy that steps up and takes the next flight. And you'll be laying the cut straight in first class with this big ass wad o' cash in yo pocket. You know what $800 cash looks like? This is what it looks like. (Holds up a giant wad of cash.) You won't even be able to sit right with this thing in yo pocket, but that's OK, because you'll be sittin' on that uncomfortable bulge in first class, and because we all know that $800 cash money feels real good, don't it? Yeah, this guy here knows what I'm sayin'. Man, if I were on this flight I'd take it. I have taken it before, and it is AWESOME. We'll put you up for the night and set you up for the next flight first class like a boss. And listen, between you and me, they might need a volunteer on that next flight too so if you want, you might be able to double this big ass wad of cash. (Holds up two wads of cash.) So step on up and get dis money before the guy with the shady look in his eyes next to you takes it." "Whoah whoah whoah fellas I can only do dis for 4 people, so 9 of you that just stormed the podium gonna have to go back."

You do that, you might still need to call airport security -- because the passengers are beating each other up trying to GIT DAT MONEY. It will look like Walmart on Black Friday. How is it Walmart is better at motivating customers to trample each other over a $50 VCR and the airlines can't peaceably move someone with up to $1300 cash? IT'S BECAUSE THEY SUCK AT THEIR JOBS.

There are probably multiple better ways to do this that break your little "Passenger's Dilemma" game that you're so deathly afraid of. You have to drop the "Sanctity of Lottery" madness though. That just has to go. It's counterproductive.

I just remembered something ironic. The last book I brought with me on a flight was this:

https://www.amazon.com/Yes-Scientifically-Proven-Ways-Persuasive/dp/1416576142

There is an entire science behind being persuasive. You ever read that book?

Maybe the airlines only understand the fist and boot because their mental toolkits are so limited. That's what happens most of the time when people feel like they have to resort to force. They're just frustrated because they're mentally limited.

> Because they have an airline to run. They're going to have to bump people in the future to solve staffing emergencies, and it's reasonable for them to attempt to preserve the efficacy of the tools they have to manage that situation. And the 80-220 people on the other flight also had the right to make their flight, too. Or did you think they should all miss their flight just because a doctor thought he was more important than the other 80 people on his flight? How is that fair?

Wow, not only is that hypocritical, that's not even any argument that I actually made.

I'm not saying that other people should miss their flights or whatever.

I'm saying UA should pay up. In the 0.0043% of instances where involuntary bumping occurs (UA 2016), they can pay the fuck up, cash money, up front, and avoid all of this bullshit. They have the money.

There were, what, 4 high school students on that flight. You think they wouldn't have snapped and been like, "Man, that's enough for a new iPhone 7. I'll miss a day of school, fuck it. Best.field.trip.evar."?

But no, UA insisted on this voucher bullshit, and then went from that to sacred lottery in zero flat. Because they don't want to fucking part with the cash, and the fist and boot are all they understand.

That's the fucking point.

Here's a book about it. The author owns a business that studies how people shop and then implements plans to get them to buy more. Why We Buy https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Buy-Shopping-Updated-Internet/dp/1416595244/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485965941&sr=8-1&keywords=why+we+buy

Unfortunately, this type of risk assessment is done in nearly every major industry. Read Toxic Sludge is Good for You for some particularly scary examples.

Toxic Sludge is Good For You is a good read.

You mean you don't wake up every day and enjoy a fresh glass of Roundup? It's delicious and nutritious and the non-profit that dumps it in our streams and rivers is in no way responsible for this ad-comment.

This is nothing new, by the way.

Toxic Sludge is Good for You

All corporations have claimed great social benefit of their pollution from the beginning of the last century.

http://www.amazon.com/Toxic-Sludge-Good-For-You/dp/1567510604

Here are half-a-dozen good ones for you:

• The Axemaker's Gift: Technology's Capture and Control of Our Minds and Culture, by James Burke and Robert Ornstein
  
• Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, by Marc Reisner
  
• Ceasefire!: Why Women and Men Must Join Forces to Achieve True Equality, by Cathy Young
  
• The Essential William H. Whyte, ed. Albert LaFarge
  
• No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, by Naomi Klein
  
• Toxic Sludge Is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry, by John Stauber & Sheldon Rampton

The Heartland institute is the main propaganda organ for injecting right wing falsehoods into the climate debate. As it turns out, they were also the main propaganda organ for confusing the issue re tobacco for decades, causing millions of deaths. There was no ambiguity in the science about smoking and there is no ambiguity in the science about the causes of the current climate change, so if you think there is, you have wedded yourself to the manifestly evil Heartland Institute. (Not that WUWT is any better but that's another topic).

A good book on the subject of how the PR industry successfully distorts perception of reality (although a bit dated now) is http://www.amazon.com/Toxic-Sludge-Good-For-You/dp/1567510604 "Toxic Sludge is Good for You". It's history of how the PR industry kept people smoking since the conclusive studies of the 1950s is particularly damning.

Of course, lung cancer is an infinitesimally small thing compared with the danger from climate change, which will kill billions if not stopped, and it can only be stopped by the full efforts of entire civilizations at this point -- so those who continue to indulge in casting doubt are indeed the very worst criminals in all history.

No shit. Memes weren’t as common 10 yrs ago.
This book was written over 20 yrs ago and it talks about how media can be manipulated. It’s evidence that ppl have been believing shit just as much as they do now.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1567510604/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1522570431&sr=8-2&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=Lies%2C+Damn+Lies+and+the+Public+Relations+Industry&dpPl=1&dpID=71XADYYG13L&ref=plSrch

You really need to stop believing bullshit without evidence.


Recency bias is a hell of a drug

Being more personable only matters in relationship based selling. What customers care about more than you being some cool as guy they want to take to launch or invite to parties is if you can make a true impact on their business and teach them something they didn't know before.

It's called Challenger Selling, I implore you to read the book The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation

Alternatively you can get the gist if you watch this YouTube video
The New High Performer: Why Challengers Succeed - CEB Sales Summit

The Challenger Sale would be a great book for you to read.

I am a huge fan of the Challenger sale.

https://www.amazon.com/Challenger-Sale-Control-Customer-Conversation/dp/1591844355/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1503067846&sr=8-1&keywords=the+challenger+sale

I really liked The Challenger Sale - http://www.amazon.com/Challenger-Sale-Control-Customer-Conversation/dp/1591844355/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425955496&sr=8-1&keywords=The+challenger

Hello hackpro,

Couple things I would initially suggest. Read these 2 books:

1.) The Blue Ocean Strategy: A "red ocean" is a market where a product or service is already manifested, aka saturated or even oversaturated. A "blue ocean" is walking into that market and changing the game. This book has a TON of great tips and mindset pointers when trying to do what you do. Here is the Amazon link:

http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Ocean-Strategy-Expanded-Uncontested/dp/1625274491/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1459345146&sr=8-1&keywords=blue+ocean+strategy

2.) Growth Hacker Marketing: This book is just plain awesome. I have read it 3 times. It goes through quite a few tactics to get your product/service visable and has some great case studies (dropbox, evernote etc.) showing how they made it with little to no marketing, but rather pushing their products via exclusivity and making smart calculated moves. Here is the amazon link for that:

http://www.amazon.com/Growth-Hacker-Marketing-Primer-Advertising/dp/1591847389/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1459345183&sr=8-1&keywords=Growth+hacker+marketing

Post the above 2 books - I would really try to niche market your product. If you do not have a budget for paid search or media, I would focus on finding small to medium communities, join those communities and talk about your product, get sugggestions from community members, offer free beta tests (not sure what your product is, but you mentioned dropbox so I am assuming its software related) etc. Then, move up to larger communities/bloggers etc.

Content is king. Make TONS of content about your product (articles, video, etc.) and get it in cycle in your focus niche. I would focus on a message that sets you apart. You mentioned that the competition is mediocre, so in a creative "non bashing way" just highlight your strong points.

Just my initial $0.2 cents. If you have any deeper questions feel free to let me know.

-Rob

• Good one and any others from the author https://www.amazon.com/Marketers-Are-Mars-Consumers-Jersey/dp/1508977119
  
• Book https://www.amazon.com/Growth-Hacker-Marketing-Primer-Advertising/dp/1591847389, also he has some courses in marketing field

I wouldn't call these methods growth hacking. True growth hacking starts with the actual product/service and builds the marketing into it. This is sometimes referred to as a "viral loop". The classic example is Dropbox's referral program, which rewards a user with more file space, if they refer a friend. Dropbox gets the initial user to market their product, a new user, plus the initial user now has more space, so they're potentially using the product more than they were prior to the referral. The key here is that the focus of the viral loop is totally on the product (free advertising, increased user count, increased product engagement).

It's a brilliant tactic when done right.

If you're interested in a basic guide, I'd recommend this book by Ryan Holiday.

Think of it this way. If the offer is a car for sale on the car lot, your landing page is the salesman. There's a million ways they can add value, but more than that, they are intended to drive the intended action. Just like the car salesman, the affiliates landing page, turns that passively interested person into a buyer.

edit: read this. http://www.amazon.com/CA-HVERTISING-Ad-Agency-Psychology-Anything/dp/1601630328

This site has some good ads to swipe, with explanations for some of them:
http://swiped.co/

To start off, these books should help to get the basics down pat:

1. https://www.amazon.com/This-book-teach-write-better/dp/0989895300/
   
2. https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Sales-Letter-Attract-Customers/dp/1440511411
   
3. https://www.amazon.com/Adweek-Copywriting-Handbook-Advertising-Copywriters/dp/0470051248/
   
4. https://www.amazon.com/Write-Copy-Sells-Step-Step/dp/161448502X/
   5.https://www.amazon.com/Online-Copywriters-Handbook-Everything-Electronic/dp/0658020994
   
5. https://www.amazon.com/CA-HVERTISING-Ad-Agency-Psychology-Anything/dp/1601630328/
   
   If you want to go deeper, and become an expert copywriter follow what the late great Gary Halbert says here --> https://www.thegaryhalbertletter.com/newsletters/zfkj_hands_on_experience.htm
   
   All the best on the journey.

If you're already motivated, then studying books about specific skills will help you more than the general entrepreneurship books.

For example, starting an online business, I found books on copywriting, seo, content marketing, conversion rate optimization to be very helpful. (The book Cashvertising is one that comes to mind.)

These are the books I've read recently and liked a lot:

• CA$HVERTISING: How to Use More Than 100 Secrets of Ad-Agency Psychology to Make BIG MONEY Selling Anything to Anyone
  
• Write. Publish. Repeat. (The No-Luck-Required Guide to Self-Publishing Success)
  
• Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It
  
• The Education of Millionaires: It's Not What You Think and It's Not Too Late
  
  These are not affiliate links.

A few recommendations:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1601630328/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 (Ca$hvertising)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0887306667/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 (the 22 immutable laws of marketing)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591845335/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 (Seth Godin)

There's too many to name. There's not really a lot that pack so much punch that they're more important than getting your hands dirty and doing.

I'd say start by going through what you've already written and recruit a few beta readers to see if anything is publishable. Edit as necessary and then learn how to format.

I've found Let's Get Digital and Write. Publish. Repeat. to be very helpful. Also Million Dollar Outlines.

You'll want to start going through the posts here to learn about covers and do's and don't's for the various publishing platforms. Learning how to self-publish and the conventions of the erotica genre might seem a bit overwhelming but hopefully there's a few ideas here you can start with.

There's as good a chance that a traditionally published collection would get lost in the noise (or worse: the publisher's slush pile). Lots of luck and hard work is required either way.

For a short story collection, one benefit of self-publishing via KDP, Smashwords, etc. is that you can choose to publish each story individually for a super low price (or offer one for free as a promotion, if you like), and also publish the collection as a "volume discount" deal (cheaper than buying all stories separately). That way there's very little risk for the reader to try out one of your stories, and if they like it, they'll be more inclined to buy the collection.

I got a lot of great ideas from Write, Publish, Repeat. These guys have distilled a lot of good info about the self-publishing world into a solid book. I suspect it will answer a lot of questions you currently have.

Not specifically for advice on media start ups, but Gary Vaynerchuk's books deal with social media marketing, and I think are critical for any up-and-coming business, but especially if you're in the digital media industry and want to engage with folks directly in this way.

[The Thank You Economy] (https://www.amazon.com/Thank-You-Economy-Gary-Vaynerchuk/dp/0061914185/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1510421556&sr=8-1&keywords=the+thank+you+economy&dpID=41L836nMSGL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch)

[Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook] (https://www.amazon.com/Jab-Right-Hook-Story-Social/dp/006227306X)

Yes! You got the idea. And also social media is about giving and then only asking. Provide your followers with great content and then ask to buy your products. I advise everyone to read this book: https://www.amazon.com/Jab-Right-Hook-Story-Social/dp/006227306X by Gary Vaynerchuk

Many jobs as Digital Marketer for small/medium companies will require you to know how to use social media and a good knowledge of adobe software. Here where I live (UK too) we have a startup accelerator and many tech hubs with many marketing jobs available around. It could be a good idea to look for those people and ask...

Also, there's a great book on social media/graphic skills you might find interesting. Should you get a job as 'social media guy' in any company, this would help you a lot: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jab-Right-Hook-Story-Social/dp/006227306X

good luck!

Here are all the books with amazon links, Alphabetical order :)

---

• Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1591396190
  
• Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh et al. Link: http://amzn.com/160941280X
  
• Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown Link: http://amzn.com/0804137382
  
• Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days by Jessica Livingston Link: http://amzn.com/1590597141
  
• How Google Works by Eric Schmidt et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1455582344
  
• Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World by Gary Vaynerchuk Link: http://amzn.com/006227306X
  
• Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way by Richard Branson Link: http://amzn.com/0307720748
  
• Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1400064287
  
• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck Link: http://amzn.com/0345472322
  
• Never Eat Alone, Expanded and Updated: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time by Keith Ferrazzi et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0385346654
  
• Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable by Tim S. Grover et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1476714207
  
• Rework by Jason Fried et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0307463745
  
• Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else by Geoff Colvin Link: http://amzn.com/1591842948
  
• The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss Link: http://amzn.com/0307465357
  
• The Choose Yourself Guide To Wealth by James Altucher Link: http://amzn.com/150100994X
  
• The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison: *God Doesn't Think He's Larry Ellison by Mike Wilson Link: http://amzn.com/0060008768
  
• The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz Link: http://amzn.com/0062273205
  
• The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business by Clayton M. Christensen Link: http://amzn.com/0062060244
  
• The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries Link: http://amzn.com/0307887898
  
• The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime by MJ DeMarco Link: http://amzn.com/B004BDOUAI
  
• The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by Ryan Holiday Link: http://amzn.com/1591846358
  
• The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1885167776
  
• The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-By-Step Guide for Building a Great Company by Steve Blank et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0984999302
  
• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell Link: http://amzn.com/0316346624
  
• Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth by Gabriel Weinberg et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1591848369
  
• Unlabel: Selling You Without Selling Out by Marc Ecko Link: http://amzn.com/1451685319
  
• Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0804139296

Are you giving away a story free to subscribers? Where in your front matter / back matter do you put your CTA (Call to Action) to entice them to sign-up? Do you use images or just text? For every 100 books you sell (or give away free), how many subscribers are you getting on average? It's work, but it's soooo worth it.

ETA: Throwing some power words into your CTA/headline might help too. The Lust column on that page, for instance, has some juicy words to use for your CTA/headline. Have I mentioned the importance of your CTA/headline enough yet? ;)

ETA TOO: If you want some homework, read Influence by Cialdini and/or Tested Advertising Methods for some basics on marketing. For even more author-specific newsletter tips, check out Mark Dawson and/or Nick Stephenson.

Well there's the sequel of course: Superfreakonomics. And everything by Malcom Gladwell kind of falls into the same genre: The Tipping Point, Outliers, Blink... Then there's The Long Tail by Chris Anderson of Wired and Bad Science by The Guardian's Ben Goldacre....

A Short History of Nearly Everything is also absolutely brilliant 'popular science' but not as 'generation now' as the ones above.

That's just top of my head. All of these books are a few years old but still a great read. I'd say they're all typical Redditor reading if that makes sense.

Yes, protests ARE a great start! But there needs to be steps beyond that also that are in place. A plan to get to what you need.

Good book: http://www.amazon.com/Tipping-Point-Little-Things-Difference/dp/0316346624

Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point is all about the phenomenon of how certain things become popular seemingly overnight. It's not a new phenomenon, nor is it limited to YA books, or books at all.

Books!:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Tipping-Point-Little-Difference/dp/0316346624/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1370576210&sr=8-4&keywords=malcolm+gladwell

http://www.amazon.com/Blink-The-Power-Thinking-Without/dp/0316010669/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1370576210&sr=8-6&keywords=malcolm+gladwell

A mental mind fuck can be nice

Are you thinking about The Tipping Point or Blink by Malcolm Gladwell? I don't know if he is entering the Obama Administration in any way, but I would not be incredibly surprised, and the books are similar enough in style and scope to be compared against Freakonomics.

Happy belated birthday. I finally have some time to respond to this when I'm at the office and have relevant things handy.

Books to read:

• 
  
  
• The Board Member's Book: Making a Difference in Voluntary Organizations by Brian O'Connell, published by the Foundation Center. If you only read one of these books, read this one. Despite the title, this book is about creating and using good volunteers at all levels. For organizations I work with, every time a new "class" of volunteers comes in, I like to give all of them copies of this book and have a few discussions about it.
  
  
• Developing Dynamic Boards by James Hardy. This book is more focused on the board of directors, and it's very detailed-- a good textbook and road map.
  
  
• The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. This one may even have been translated into Estonian. In brief, it's a system for looking at big processes and finding the places where your effort can make a difference.
  
  
• Good To Great: Why some companies make the leap and others don't by Jim Collins. This book looks at factors that create success or failure in growing organizations.
  
  
  

> In order to bring in enough money to live, I'd probably have to advertise […]

My main point is that word-of-mouth can be very powerful, viral advertising. I highly recommend reading The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.

> […] and work with unknown clients. That's when things get stressful and annoying.

My secondary point is that if you're aquiring clients through closer connections such as friends, friends of friends, or even friends of friends of friends, yes, they will be progressively more "unknown" and "untrustworthy" but it's still (in my opinion) the best method of finding the most trustworthy first.

What have you got to lose? Not much, when you consider the flexible time schedule. That is, start with a full-time job supporting you financially, and do freelance work in your (little) free time until you reach a point where you can support yourself with a part-time job plus freelancing. From there you can try progressing to supporting yourself mostly or fully with freelance work.

> That's when things get stressful and annoying.

So, your present job is neither stressful nor annoying?

Truth Lies and Advertising by Jon Steel

Madison Valley by Leif Abraham

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

Otherwise you should set up an RSS feed with an app like Newsify that includes sites like Adweek, Ad Age, copyranter, KISSmetrics, etc. The industry is constantly evolving and it's worth it to keep up on what's going on now.

Actually...this reminds me the point of the book "Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell. The whole book describes situations where a small change started a snowball effect and created a huge change. In fact many of the stories are about political situations with a conquering power and resistance where a small group of people where able to make such a difference where they eventually beat the big powerful controlling government.

One of the stories was about how the IRA was able to fight back against the British for so long even though the British army was so powerful. Another was in France when it was controlled I think by the Nazi's (don't remember exactly but sounds right). How a small group of locals where able to oppose the controlling power.

This is the description from Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Tipping-Point-Little-Things-Difference/dp/0316346624

> The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate. This widely acclaimed bestseller, in which Malcolm Gladwell explores and brilliantly illuminates the tipping point phenomenon, is already changing the way people throughout the world think about selling products and disseminating ideas.

On the flip side the book explains why so many dictatorships are so concerned about anti-government speech and want to control all the media.

Anyway I guess the point is...you just have to get enough of a momentum behind an idea so that it starts spreading and can topple entire regimes.

So I think that part is actually very realistic. Hitler understands that all of his subjects have to think that they are absolutely controlled and that there is no alternate way except death.

These films show an alternate way.

Game Theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoners_dilemma

Also, the people making decisions are very rarely highly motivated 20 year old professionals who want to change the world. Unfortunately.

Reading that I found enlightening:
http://www.amazon.com/Vested-Outsourcing-Five-Rules-Transform/dp/0230623174/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343969056&sr=8-1&keywords=vested+outsourcing

http://www.amazon.com/The-Tipping-Point-Little-Difference/dp/0316346624/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343969137&sr=8-1&keywords=tipping+point

http://www.amazon.com/Freakonomics-Economist-Explores-Hidden-Everything/dp/0060731338/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343969152&sr=1-1&keywords=freakonomics

Read "The Tipping Point"
The salient point in there is that once you reach a certain IQ (around 130) it doesn't matter anymore. You've got all the faculties to do whatever, and it's no longer a measure of ability.

Basic Economics - Thomas Sowell

Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age - Duncan Watts

Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means - Albert-Laszlo Barabasi

Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Theory of Networks - Mark Buchanan

The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins

Sperm Wars: Infidelity, Sexual Conflict, and Other Bedroom Battles - Robin Baker

Motley Crue: The Dirt - Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band - Neil Strauss

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The World is Flat - Thomas Friedman

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference - Malcolm Gladwell

The Wisdom of Crowds - James Surowiecki

Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster - Jon Krakauer

The Climb - Anatoli Boukreev

Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner - Dean Karnazes

The Idea Writers - Tons of Case Studies, but they're all told excellently.

It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want To Be - Inspiration not to settl and to do great work.

Baked In - A lot like an updated Purple Cow. All about integrating product, management, and marketing.

Blink or Tipping Point - About the little things that cause shifts in culture to happen.

Also, some Seth Godin action never hurts. Definitely recommend his blog.

If you want more "How to make ads" type stuff there are more down that path, too. Just let me know.

Okay! The author was a lady who back in the 70's (I think) had a newsletter she sent out that was finally consolidated into book form. She was raising a bunch of kids and trying to save $ so she & her family could have the house & lifestyle they wanted on just her husband's salary. Here's the Amazon on it:

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Tightwad-Gazette-Promoting-Alternative/dp/0375752250

You may be able to find it at a library. She was pretty popular back in the day.

I'm under stress in a lot of ways, but none of that is helpful to you.

I have some reading suggestions for you that may help you dig yourself out from under your financial bind. You can get these books for free from the library.

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Tightwad-Gazette-Amy-Dacyczyn/dp/0375752250/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344868366&sr=1-1&keywords=amy+dacyczyn

and

http://www.amazon.com/How-Survive-Without-Salary-Conserver/dp/1895629683

For the emotional stuff

http://voices.yahoo.com/how-find-peace-during-overwhelming-stress-depression-259037.html

Hang in there, Brother.

Nothing lasts forever, not even pain. It will pass and new moments will come.

Yes, before work or school would not be the appropriate time to medicate.

You may find this following book helpful The Mindbody Prescription: Healing the Body, Healing the Pain. It is certainly different but Howard Stern raves about it having cured his 20+ years of back pain.

https://www.amazon.com/Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-Body-Pain/dp/0446675156#productDescription_secondary_view_div_1469988663602

I'll try (and fail, probably) to keep this short.

Several years ago, I was in terrible pain and was diagnosed with herniated discs. I was told it might be related to weight lifting, or computer use, etc., etc. Had the MRI's that proved it, had the spinal fusion which failed to alleviate the pain, etc., etc., etc.

Basically, I got so desperate that I was seriously considering just stringing myself up from the rafters, because I felt like there was no way I could go through life with this much constant pain.

After the second (failed) spinal fusion surgery, and upon being advised to have a third, I decided that the dozen doctors I'd seen in the prior 1.5 years clearly didn't know what the hell they were talking about.

So, I took things into my own hands and....guess what? Found a cure.

After doing a fair amount of studying, I've come to the conclusion that back-pain/herniated-disc/etc., are all incorrect, and are in fact symptoms of one of the most mis-diagnosed conditions in the country.

Basically, the long and short of it is: after two years of neurologists, occupational therapists, every anti-inflammatory and pain-medication in the book, and two back surgeries...I read a book and followed the exercises mentioned in them, and was cured in about two weeks.

And yes, I expect anyone reading the above to be very skeptical of that claim. Go ahead and be skeptical; I encourage it. All I can say is, if things aren't improving, you probably don't have much to lose by spending two days reading a $10 book.

It's not brain surgery, but it requires a certain amount of discipline for at least a couple of weeks.

It's all based on the work of a professor of medicine at NYU named Dr. John Sarno.

If you are interested in a very basic, step-by-step kind of plan, i.e., a "Do X tomorrow morning, Do Y the next day, Do Z the following day" type of thing, this is the best book for it, by Fred Amir:

http://www.amazon.com/Rapid-Recovery-Back-Neck-Pain/dp/0966982614/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266587108&sr=8-1

If you are interested in the actual science behind why this stuff works the way it does (which might be useful to read, because otherwise some people might think this is crackpot medicine, or some new-age-crap, as opposed to the science-based treatment that it is), then read this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-Body-Pain/dp/0446675156/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266587189&sr=1-1

You might wonder why, if Dr. Sarno is the scientist behind this, why I recommend the first book instead, which is not written by him. Reason being that, in my experience, Sarno's own books are great for understanding the science and so forth...but the first book by Amir actually presents a much better and more specific step-by-step plan for what to actually do about it, whereas Sarno can get bogged down in the science of why it works...but isn't as good about saying "Do this, then do this, and then do this."

If you want to read more about Dr. Sarno, here is a link on Wikipedia. I don't expect you to change your entire treatment program based on PM on reddit, but if you are as desperate as I was, you'll probably find spending $10 for the book and 2 days reading it to be a mighty fine investment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Sarno

Best of luck. It' possible the above does not apply to you, and I am not personally a doctor and obviously can't diagnose you. But I can say what you described fit my situation to a "T", and I very strongly suspect it's the same condition I had. And I can tell you, without any doubt whatsoever, the system cured me.

For the record, I am in no way associated with either of the above authors or books and receive no financial or other consideration from them or anything related to them.

I just have a lot of sympathy for people undergoing what I went through, and are dealing with a medical establishment that simply does not, in the main, accurately diagnose and treat this problem.

TL;DR: I had the exact same problem and was cured of it by reading a $10 book and following some simple exercises.

The explanation hinges on whether you are prepared to accept the existence and function of the subconscious or unconscious portion of the human mind. If you can accept it, there is a very adequate explanation (largely not accepted by mainstream medicine) that has fallen out of favor, though has never been disproven.

Obviously, if the pain is caused directly by injury or disease that can be explained with clinical diagnostic, then the pain is caused by that injury or disease. However, where there is no obvious explanation for the pain, the pain may be caused by stress or essentially, your own brain. What is pain caused by the brain? Psychosomatic illness or symptoms. What is the psychosomatic illness caused by? Suppressed or repressed anger -- the most powerful emotion. Why would the brain cause you pain? To offer a distraction from your unsolvable or inescapable problems or let downs in life that you may consider inescapable, to, in essence, allow you to function.

The brain frequently picks a 'favorite' site to locate physical psychosomatic pain. I carried my psychosomatic pain in my shoulders/neck for many years, and after a back injury, my brain then 'preferred' to locate my psychosomatic pain in my back instead. Long after my back injury had healed, I still had un-explainable back pain (like 3 bloody years later!).

​

Please let me explain (and sorry for the wall of text, oof).

​

Sarno^(1,2) believes that the purpose of psychosomatic symptoms or pain are to offer a distraction, to relieve the person suffering of emotional pain, by substituting physical symptoms instead. The bigger the stressor, the more unsolvable, the more intractable, the more emotionally painful it is, the greater the risk is of developing psychosomatic symptoms, and the greater the resulting psychosomatic pain.

Psychosomatic illness or symptoms causing pain are largely unconscious, as in not under any direct voluntary executive conscious control, reactions to strong emotions, particularly anger. This doesn't mean the pain is made up, it means, we aren't even aware its made up, and cannot certainly just pretend it away. The pain is very real, the muscle tension is real, the symptoms are real. The cause, however, is not organic: it is our own brain.

How does the brain cause pain? As Sarno^(1,2) points out, there are studies that show that enervated muscle tissue suffering from psychosomatic pain actively has lower oxygen content. Sarno believes that the brain is capable of utilizing the autonomic nervous system to deprive target tissues of blood flow, and hence oxygen. Nerves that are deprived of oxygen are capable of generating pain.

Massaging the affected areas may increase blood flow, and hence, temporarily alleviate the tension symptoms.

What do psychosomatic symptoms include? They can include muscle pain, particularly lower back pain that doesn't have any obvious cause, depression, anxiety, sleep problems, IBS, fibromyalgia, among others.

Freud is largely credited with documentation and early work on this, however, his insistence that psychosomatic illness was as a result of repressed sexual feelings missed the mark.

Later work (by Sarno^(1,2), Hanscom^(3), Schechter^(4), Schubiner^(5), and Kellerman^(6)) has shown that suppressed or repressed anger or rage is the primary emotion that drives psychosomatic illness. Why repress rage? Because those of us who act on it and lash out end up ostracized, in fights we may not win, hurting people, losing our jobs, or ending up in jail. Thats why. As social animals, we evolved to repress rage.

How does suppressed or repressed anger or rage work? According to Kellerman^(6) ,Sarno^(1), and Luskin^(7), subconscious anger is generated when we experience let downs, stress or our 'wishes' or expectations in life don't get met. Note this is normal: we either (1) don't get what we want, (2) don't get what we want the way we want it, (3) in the amount we want it in, (4) or when we want it.

The anger may also be the result of grevious insult or injury, caused by accidents, abuse, crime (assault, rape, or murder of family member or loved one), see Luskin^(7).

Certain personalities of people, as Sarno^(1,2) pointed out, seem to be at higher risk for developing symptoms of psychosomatic illness. People who suffer from 'goodism', or want to do the right thing and internalize anger very readily may suffer moreso from psychosomatic symptoms.

According to Hanscom^(3) and Sarno^(2), symptom relief provided by massage therapy, accupuncture, chiropractic manipulation, physiotherapy may simply be providing temporary relief of the pain caused by psychosomatic illness, but in the end all of these are possibly a placebo, and do not treat the cause (again, if the cause is not an obvious injury or clinically diagnosable disease).

One way to rid yourself of the anger causing the psychosomatic symptoms is to forgive those who have transgressed against you or caused you emotional suffering. As Luskin^(7) points out, many people who suffer from anger and hurt, decades later, caused by grevious injury or injustice, gain better emotional peace of mind by forgiving.

The more I read about it, the more I am fascinated by anger as an emotion.

​

References:

1. Sarno, John. The Divided Mind: The Epidemic of Mind-Body Disorders. 2009. Harper-Collins. https://www.harpercollins.com/9780061860584/the-divided-mind/. Also, thankyoudrsarno.org
   
2. Sarno, John. The Mindbody Prescription: Healing the Body, Healing the Pain. 1999. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446675156/
   
3. Hanscom, David. Back in Control: A Surgeon's Roadmap out of chronic pain. 2016. Vertus Press. Also www.backincontrol.com.
   
4. Schechter, David. Think Away Your Pain: Your Brain is the Solution to Your Pain. 2014. MindBody Medicine Publications. Also https://www.mindbodymedicine.com
   
5. Schubiner, Howard. Unlearn Your Pain. 2010. Mind Body Publishing. https://www.amazon.com/Unlearn-Your-Pain-Howard-Schubiner/dp/0984336702. Also, https://www.unlearnyourpain.com/.
   
6. Kellerman, Henry. The 4 Steps to Peace of Mind: The Simple Effective Way to Cure Our Emotional Symptoms. 2007. Rowman & Littlefield. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0742558789.
   
7. Luskin, Fred. Forgive for Good: A Proven Prescription for Health and Happiness. https://www.amazon.com/Forgive-Good-Proven-Prescription-Happiness/dp/006251721X
   
   ​

Consider the impact that stress and your emotional state are having on your condition. Read Dr. John Sarno

http://www.amazon.com/Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-Body-Pain/dp/0446675156

http://www.amazon.com/Divided-Mind-Epidemic-Mindbody-Disorders/dp/0060851783

Not a class, but could be used in a marketing class:

https://www.amazon.com/Marketing-Lessons-Grateful-Dead-Business/dp/0470900520

Edit: I see you actually answer a lot of my questions on your front page. Didn't read it before. Um...maybe lots of text on the front page isn't a great idea either? Perhaps a website also needs a "landing strip" to slow down the minds of shoppers in the same way they use the concept in big box stores? see: Why We Buy by Paco Underhill for more on this concept

Another vote here for removing/reducing your use of flash. In a simple site layout like yours, its just not necessary. I feel like the site is very bandwidth "heavy" for delivering relatively little content. Maybe just the gallery could be flash, and the other, non-dynamic parts of the site could be more conventional code of some type?
Also, if your photos are really huge, there are a number of ways to make them take up less megabytes while still preserving image quality. Adobe Photoshop's "save for web" feature does this well, can't think of others at the moment, but i'm sure they're out there.

There may even be a lighter way to handle the gallery itself. Not sure. Might want to ask over at /r/webdesign
Sometimes even old-school frames will get the job done.
See: http://www.edmunddavidson.com/

Last thing, the photos need to be better. It doesn't help if the pics are huge if they are also blurry and poorly lit. Build a cheap light tent and use a tripod with a timer. Clarity is key.
http://www.digital-photography-school.com/how-to-make-a-inexpensive-light-tent

As for your knives themselves, the stuff looks good for beginning pro work. Nice clean lines on the blades. Bit clunky in your handles though. Handguards could be a little less square on some of that stuff, and the handle scale to metal fits are a tough bastard to get perfect aren't they?

Beyond that a number of questions:

• Are you forging or just doing stock removal?
  
  
• Do you do your own heat-treat or outsource it?
  
  
• Are you making your own damascus or buying pre-forged bars?
  
  
• Do you offer any kind of guarantee or warranty on your knives?
  
  
• Do you provide sheaths for your knives? if so, can we see them?
  
  
• Do you currently hold, or hope to obtain an ABS journeyman or master smith rating? (not that you need it...plenty of fine knifemakers out there who prefer not to deal with them, but it does convey some bragging rights if you can pass their test.)
  
  
• How about an inspiring picture of you in your workshop? The custom knife community is built on personal relationships between the makers and customers. We need to know who you are. (also helps if you have a huge gnarly beard :)
  
  
• Can you make me a katana with a blade steel folded 1 trillion times and can cut through a tank barrel? (hint: the correct answer is no.)

No Photoshop. If it's a writing course, stick to the writing. They can learn Photoshop somewhere else.

Good choice on getting Hey, Whipple. It's a great book for advertising in general, and Sullivan is a writer, so there's just that much more value in it. This book also lays out some good basics succinctly. It's not gospel, but it's a start.

I found some tape recording of a consultation session he did with clients - pretty amazing.

Heres Some more:
My Life in Advertising and Scientific Advertising

https://www.youtube.com/user/kopywriting/videos

https://www.youtube.com/user/marketingshowtv/videos

https://blog.kissmetrics.com/

http://socialtriggers.com/

The Ultimate Sales Letter: Attract New Customers. Boost your Sales.

The Copywriter's Handbook: A Step-By-Step Guide To Writing Copy That Sells

Writing That Works; How to Communicate Effectively In Business

Give Flat Earth News a read, it's not even about political news, just news in general. There are examples showing how everyone uses bad scientific conclusions and just poor reporting in general to make false conclusions to further a goal or just to make money.

Also if you like that you'd also like Propoganda by Edward Bernays.

Uh, guess who actually wrote THE bible on propaganda.

https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Edward-Bernays/dp/0970312598

Another good article is

The Tie that Binds: Sadomasochism in Female Addicted Trauma Survivors
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10720160216050?journalCode=usac20

Access it here:
http://dx.doi.org.sci-hub.io/10.1080/10720160216050

I believe this is the correct Stephen Southern. He may have done further research, I am unsure. I know these doctors also like hearing personal stories too. It can assist with their research.
https://www.mc.edu/faculty/u/Southern

This article is eerily similar to your experience.

Essential Papers on Masochism (Essential Papers on Psychoanalysis)
https://www.amazon.com/Essential-Papers-Masochism-Psychoanalysis/dp/0814734952/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1501473753&sr=1-1&keywords=9780814734957




Also, if you dig back away in my comments this used to be a trolling account, I'm not going to lie. Yes I do go to the gym, yes I have been kicked out of Planet Fitness lmao. I'm also 100% against BDSM and the whole "Red Pill" mentality to be honest I find that whole subreddit extremely funny. But I digress, this is reddit..You don't have to listen to me, just follow the current research and truly start digging, you will find answers, and many simply show BDSM is in no way shape or form healthy.

To be perfectly honest, this type of behavior has a tie-in with Evolutionary Psychology and Primatology. If you are interested read about Psychology of Institutionalized violence. We witnessed it during Roman Coliseums, Bull Fighting, Boxing, MMA, etc. Violence is a HUGE part of our species.

If you look at our history as primates we have engaged in many perverse activities, especially war.

Also I read your edit. It's honestly pretty eerie how similar it is to a email I sent to a Psychologist and what I have said previously in conversations with medical professionals. I'm not going to lie I'm a big wigged out right now!

My email read as follows. I had to redact some information, but it should sound identical to your thoughts. I typed this email 2 months ago.

"She has an unhealthy liking with Sexual Masochism and a pornography. Knowing her currently compromised mental state, emotional vulnerability, and ESPECIALLY claims of sexual assault/abuse/molestation as a child I feel there may be some kind of SERIOUSLY messed up relationship between these two. These types of power dynamics and their relationship, especially if they existed previously, are not healthy.

At one point she suggested erotic asphyxiation and being bound, whipped, gagged, punished, humiliated, wanted pain inflicted on her, arm twisting, etc. Yes, I understand people do kinky things in the bedroom, but there is NOTHING okay about wanting someone else to injure you, humiliate you, or cause you bodily injury. I specifically remember giving her a stern conversation about how women and men should be treated as equals in a relationship.

I KNOW this behavior has also caused her bodily injury. It was CLEARLY welts from being hit. She could barely sit down. She also had body injuries during this time that I couldn't account for. She has also had bruises and cuts that I couldn't account for. Once again, knowing her mental state and past traumas, it's all really troubling.

Lets be honest, this behavior is a bit beyond using some sex toys, slapping butts, etc in the bed. This kind of relationship is wrong beyond comprehension. Taking advantage of a psychologically impaired person with a serious mental illness, childhood trauma, and substance abuse problems for your own sadistic sexual gain is SERIOUSLY MESSED UP!

I strongly feel this behavior is being used as a defense mechanism to mask previous traumas that have occurred in her life."

I have no idea if the info went anywhere, or if the young woman is a lost cause. To be perfectly honest, you can't help everyone, it's just a harsh reality.

If you want to learn more about Psychology in general. I world first start with the master of propaganda, Edward Bernays. He was related to Sigmund Freud(imagine that!) Then read into Pavlov and B.F. Skinner.
https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Edward-Bernays/dp/0970312598

People say it's "quackery," but I see the affects of their teachings in every aspect of society.

As the neuroscientist posted in this, she couldn't believed it happened to her, but it does.

Also, when it comes to Childhood Traumas, it becomes extremely hard to navigate fact from fiction. Childhood Sexual Abuse(CSA), and Childhood Abuse in general is strongly linked to pathological lying and grandiose delusions.(It's a coping mechanism) I've heard stories(anecdotal) of some therapist simply tossing in the towel because dealing with someone with Anti-Social Personality Disorder is extremely difficult and sometimes impossible.

I'm also glad you got out of that relationship and found a healthier place!

Edward Bernays literally wrote the book on propaganda and it was his work with United Fruit Company that led to that coup. Bernays, nephew of Freud, was from whom Goebbels learned his trade.

Commenting again to add: This guy spent a TON of time building up his audience before he even started his shop:

> Before actually launching his store, Melvin spent a good deal of time building an audience on Instagram. “Hands down, Instagram has been the greatest in terms of ROI on every dollar spent,” notes Melvin. In 3 months, he’s managed to build over 130k followers on Instagram and find ‘loopholes’ to utilize Instagram as a go-to channel for building an eCommerce business.

Having a "Field of Dreams" mindset of if you build it, they will come will doom the company (says the lady who's a marketer lol). The fact that you've been using ads is a step in the right direction, but try selling value rather than product at first, and find a way to grab their email addresses. Then, create emails that give them more value and reason to open the email. (Something in addition to discounts--that's asking for money). Then, you get them to commit to a sale. That's a long-term sales funnel, but it gives you something to work on: Ad > Landing page > Sign up > Email campaign > Purchase > Retention.

Also check out Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook--good book on how to give value before asking for a sale on social media.

I liked Jab Jab Right Hook.

good job changing the link after i pointed it out, it was clearly going to ?tag=vl-something... here is the other one.

http://www.amazon.com/Jab-Right-Hook-Story-Social/dp/006227306X?tag=vglnkc2770-20

there is nothing wrong with putting affiliate links anyways.

Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook is one I've seen referenced a lot from social media experts. I found it to be very good for foundational knowledge and general approach.

This is EXCELLENT advice. You have to provide "content" to your users, and not just the promotion of your stuff. Content marketing may be the term, not sure, but check out this book: Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook.

This might sound odd, but you could try your hand at copywriting, at least the short copy and direct mail variety. You have a limited space and have to make every word count. "Tested Advertising Methods" and "How to Write a Good Advertisement" are good starts, especially the information on using short words and sentences.

The main idea is to use a more direct style and make every word have more meaning, and to be honest, copywriting is one of the best ways I know how to do that.

These are some of my sources:

Tested Advertising Methods

Cashvertising

No B.S. Direct Marketing: The Ultimate, No Holds Barred, Kick Butt, Take No Prisoners Direct Marketing for Non-direct Marketing Businesses

Outrageous Advertising

Mind you, these books are filled with the stuff that works (with the evidence to back it up (I've used them successfully, too)).

Nothing against your girlfriend, but if you are going to counter a marketing argument, please provide some sources. Someone may read your post and it may end up costing them a lot of money due to incorrect information.

Copy writing is something I have been studying for years, and asking a question as a headline is a sure fire way to disqualify disqualified prospects. Thus saving you the time and hassle of working with bad leads.

Thanks for the input, it adds to the discussion.

Cashvertising

Great book on marketing, the psychology behind it, and how to put it all together. Very information-rich, not much fluff. Definitely a book to always have around.

Scientific Advertising

Often credited as the book that started the scientific, data-driven approach to advertising and marketing.

Tested Advertising Methods

Another classic that all marketers/advertising professionals should read.

Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples is a quick read that goes into the psychology behind why people buy. It really helped me get a clear idea on how to structure my copy when I first got started.

Check it out: http://www.amazon.com/Advertising-Methods-Prentice-Business-Classics/dp/0130957011.

I don't understand the argument. You're keen that I'm being delivered personalised results, but insist that I am the only person in the world who aren't given identical results to you. And that's somehow related to the religion of the original creators of the content people are linking to.

“Differently from the rest of the world” is what keeps me from walking away. I shall retire from the conversation with these links. To people who live in the same world as I do. Where people get different results, based on where they are, what tracking software they allow, what language they've set their browser to, what OS they're using and what the search engine / ISP want them to see.

• TED talk
  
• Mandatory wiki-link
  
• Book: DE, ES, FR, IN, IT, UK, USA
  
• MIT

I wrote a term paper on a similar topic (The filter bubble and collaborative filtering). Got a lot of information from this book, which is a really good read even without writing a paper.

Oh! Found it via an old bookmark. The Filter Bubble.

https://www.amazon.com/Filter-Bubble-Personalized-Changing-Think/dp/0143121235

Thanks!

For others interested in this topic: I highly recommend a book called The Filter Bubble that explores how algorithms impact our social and political lives.

I'll throw out The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You (related Wikipedia article), which discusses splinterization of the Internet driven by innocent personalization algorithms. Regardless of what position you take on that particular problem, I think it's representative of the sort of non-technical social issue that will increasingly come up in the software field.

A more technical book I've always liked is The Zen of Assembly Language by Michael Abrash. Michael Abrash is one of the old brilliant iD guys, bouncing around all over the place and now at (ugh) Facebook working on the Oculus Rift. The technical parts of the book were hilariously outdated when it came out, focusing on 8086 assembler when the 80486 was already widely available. It's still an excellent read for approaching optimizing low level performance, as well as being a great work by a very good technical writer. You should be able to readily find PDF copies on the internet.

I'm from California and I see what you're saying, with people equating Trump to Hitler and things like that, which I personally think is insulting for people who were actually affected by the Holocaust and things like that. I've literally heard some people say that Trump was going to put gays and immigrants into internment camps once he was elected, which is possibly the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

I think Facebook is purposely designed to be an echo-chamber, so that it guarantees people stay on there longer. The more you see people that agree with your views, the more likely you are to use their platform, the more you use their platform the more Facebook learns about your likes and dislikes and the better they can show you things that you like and remove things you dislike, and the cycle continues
Here are some interesting sources that talk about how social media acts as an echo chamber of sorts:?

https://www.amazon.com/Filter-Bubble-Personalized-Changing-Think/dp/0143121235

http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/07/24/486941582/the-reason-your-feed-became-an-echo-chamber-and-what-to-do-about-it

?

The Filter Bubble - good read on this...

I'll do the best I can to reply to both the reply you referenced as well as your director's cut.

> The concept that he alluded to is called the Marketplace of Ideas -- it's a very well-known and time-worn theory of free speech.

Your argument here is that the Marketplace of Ideas is popular, therefor it must be valid and true. This is an example of the Bandwagon fallacy.

The Marketplace of Ideas is a system gamed easily, just like how an actual marketplace is gamed easily to cause certain products to become the better selling ones and not necessarily the best product. It's duplicitous in it's nature in that it advertises "Variety" and "Fairness" and "The Best Ideas will naturally Rise to the Top" but in actuality it's controlled by those who run the means of dissemination; the Store (Social Media) and the companies willing to sell the most attractive product regardless of quality (Politicians). Cambridge Analytica is a prime, recent example of how easily the system can be gamed and how effective gaming that system is.

This isn't a new criticism, either, and is one that is specific to the modern world and our environment and circumstances. If you, as you say, aren't intellectually lazy and would like to challenge your view on this, I'll recommend a quick starting video:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94tms2pIjYs

 

and the gentlemen's book: https://www.amazon.com/Filter-Bubble-Personalized-Changing-Think/dp/0143121235

 

> Your argument is the basic underpinnings of censorship, which is essentially reduced to "Well, the public is just too stupid for rational thought, so we need to make sure that they aren't exposed to pernicious speech."

 

You're now committing a strawman fallacy. At no point in time did I call anyone stupid or even lazy. In fact, I specifically stated that wasn't the case at all and was simply acknowledging the reality that most people, regardless of whether they ought to fact check properly, will simply process what is conveniently placed in front of them and already adheres to what their normal intuitions and beliefs are because challenging that is time consuming and mentally stressful. People are busy and/or lazy, whether you want to accept it or not. Politicians are counting on it.

 


>
I would just add that I think we must be discerning consumers of information. You don't go to a grocery store and feel overwhelmed by all the different brands of macaroni and cheese, or spend hours struggling to decide what lunch meat you're going to make sandwiches out of next week. You have lots of choices, but you filter them down to what is relevant - what do I need, what do I want if I have a little extra in my budget - and then you check out.

 

Not sure if you realize it, but you're actually proving my point in your analogy. What you're not doing is acknowledging that the products that you are seeing in that marketplace aren't sorted by value per quality. In fact, the whole PLACEMENT of product in a supermarket is 100% about what company makes the store the most profit and therefor gets eye-level placement; not to mention all of the other products that simply don't get any placement at all due to not "paying" enough (via lack of wholesale discounts to the store). Does this system make sure that you get exposed to the best products worth your money while you're strolling down the aisles? Of course not.

 

> When people talk about information overload, I really think they're just trying to pass the buck.

This is an ad hominem argument. Why are all people suffering from information overload actually just trying to pass the buck and be lazy? I'm not sure I understand your argument here other than "I feel this way."

You then go on to elaborate the following points:

• Not all news is worth paying attention to.
  
• People should ration wisely what they spend their thought cycles on.
  
• Politicians lie, therefor take what they have with a large grain of salt.
  
• People generally only read what is in their echo chamber, which Facebook can't fix (it can, see Filter Bubble book).
  
• Bias exists everywhere, especially when talking about complex things like how the country is run.
  
• We all want the simple 15-second soundbite, but this is a bad thing.
  
  I hope you don't think I misrepresented anything you said up to this point with my summary. I agree with all of these individual points except for the idea that Social Media companies are powerless to help. They can in fact, and are culprits in the current climate of things as it exists today.
  
   
  
  > So when you say information overload, I say this. If a person doesn't have the time to really look into something themselves, and appreciate the complexity of it so that they do it carefully, to listen to both sides of the argument and try and fact check and draw their own conclusions, then I don't think that issue matters very much to them. I think that they want to feel like they're informed without actually doing the work to be informed. They want the credit without doing the work. They don't want to think. They want to be TOLD how to think.
  
   
  
  Again, you're making an ad hominem argument about how people are lazy and that if they don't spend hours and hours researching and properly fact-checking a given topic, they don't actually "care" about it.
  
   
  
  This doesn't make any sense at all, when you try to extend that mode of thinking to things that you entrust to experts every day. Do you trust your medical doctor? Do you trust your mechanic? Do you trust your accountant? Do you trust your insert service professional here ? My guess is that you don't research everything that you are presented with by these types of individuals. You probably did some initial research to figure out who people recommend, or who has what qualifications, but ultimately after selecting the person that you chose, you take their expertise at face value and don't research every diagnosis to the level that a medical professional does or look at engineering manuals the way a mechanic does, etc.
  
   
  
  You do the best to find qualified opinions and then trust in their diagnosis of the topic at hand. This is how most people go about making decisions or holding opinions on complicated topics.
  
   
  
  > And I'm sorry, but I don't think my rights to draw my own conclusions should be stepped on by the government, or by corporations just because some people are too busy, or lazy, or otherwise uninterested to actually think for themselves. And I don't think anyone's rights to say what they believe, even if its a complete falsehood, should be trampled on because those busy/lazy/uninterested people might believe it.
  
   
  
  
  Another strawman argument. I'm not saying that fact-checking is something that the government or corporations should be in the business of at all. I'm saying that the system needs to be fixed so that it isn't so easily gamed and swayed to benefit those that are actively set out to deceive people, and that part of the solution to this is the acknowledgement of the problem (the system is easily gamed) and actively demonstrate proclivity to correct for the loopholes that generate people's Filter Bubbles.
  
   
  
  In sum, I'm not advocating for censorship at all. I'm advocating for strengthening the systems by which people predominantly consume their information so that when people inevitably try to come to a conclusion on a topic, that they do so having been exposed to as close to 50% one side and 50% other side as possible instead of 95% one side and 5% other side.
  
  
   
  
  Give the truth a fair shake is all I ask.
  
  
   
  
  <3

Hey there, thanks for subscribing!

Since you're coming in in the middle of the month, I wanted to let you know that we selected Tipping Point:... by Malcolm Gladwell as the January read.

Here is a non-affiliate link to the book's amazon page if you're interested in joining for January.

Thanks again!

Start With Why [Simon Sinek]

48 Laws of Power [Robert Greene] (33 Strategies of War, Art of Seduction)

The 50th Law [Curtis James Jackson]

Tipping Point:How Little Things Can Make a Difference and Outliers: The story of Succes [Malcolm Gladwell]

The Obstacle is the Way, Ego is the Enemy [Ryan Holiday] (stoicism)

[Tim Ferris] (actually haven't read any of his books, but seems to know a way to use social media, podcast, youtube)

Get an understanding to finance, economics, marketing, investing [Graham, Buffet], philosophy [Jordan Peterson]

I like to think us/you/business is about personal development, consciousness, observing recognizable patterns in human behavior and historical significance. It's an understanding of vast areas of subjects that connect and intertwine then returns back to the first book you’ve read (Start with Why) and learn what you've read past to present. Business is spectacular, so is golf.



To Add:

Irrationally Predictable:The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions - [Dan Ariely] (marketing)

The Hard Things About Hard Things - [Ben Horowitz] (business management)

Black Privilege: Opportunity Comes to Those Who Create It - [Charlamagne Tha God] (motivation)

The Lean Startup: Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses - [Eric Ries]

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, How to Build the Future - [Peter Theil]

The Four-Hour Workweek seems to spark up a lot of controversy when mentioned, I was even skeptical when reading it, but it honestly changed my life. It inspired me to become an entrepreneur, it's packed with case studies that inspire you to escape 9 to 5, and has plenty of great resources for someone starting their first online business, or for anyone looking to improve their work efficiency and spend less time at the office.

I'm also currently reading:

• The Tipping Point
  
  
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
  
  
• How to Win Friends and Influence People
  
  
  May seem overly mentioned or cliche, but they're cliche for a reason!

for anyone who wants to know where you got that idea

leí sobre el caso famoso y el efecto espectador en The Tipping Point

un buen libro.

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference - Malcolm Gladwell

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business - Charles Duhigg

Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman

------------ On my list -----------------

Think Like a Freak - Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner

This might be a much smaller scale, but in Gladwell's Tipping Point he explores people he calls "mavens" and "connectors". These are relatively small numbers of people who disproportionately influence the masses even without being assigned powers. Your question reminds me of that book.

It's funny how pedophilia only became a problem when people started talking about it...pretty sure Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book about that phenomenon.

Check out The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. I had the same question, and it answered it.

Before killing yourself to try to promote a company that's paying you less than minimum wage you should make sure you have a clear path to success mapped out. If you double the listeners of this radio station by breaking your back for a pittance -- who's say that the owner/manager decides to hire someone with a more marketing-focused background once they have additional revenue coming in?

A good plan would be to do this: Schedule a meeting with your superior and tell him that you're interested in expanding your roles and responsibility with the organization. Make sure to stress that you're not trying to shirk your current duties and responsibilities but rather you have an interest in helping the company to grow. Ask him, politely but plainly, if company growth could somehow benefit your wages / salary; for example, if you do well and show that you're improving the company over the next 30-60 days, if that could translate directly to another £1. Then another £1. And so on.

Be careful about this because it could backfire and you could lose your job entirely, but it's worth the effort because then at least you know where things stand. Once you know where things stand - go wild. Buy some basic marketing books such as Zag: The Number One Strategy of High Performance Brands and The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. These don't necessarily have immediate strategies/tactics, rather they'll help your mind start working properly in terms of what type of marketing strategies can be successful. Then, for immediate strategies, start reading sites like Entrepreneur's Marketing section every day. You'd be surprised at many growth efforts are simply logical. The formula is simple: knowledge + time = growth -> success.

Good luck!

EDIT: Source - I build companies.

Also if your looking for a great book on the monkey-sphere and other cool psychological things, I highly recommend checking out The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

Copywriter's Handbook

Ogilvy on Advertising

My Life in Advertising by Claude C. Hopkins


Pick Me: Breaking into Advertising and Staying there - By Nancy Vonk Invaluable to me when I was in school. Read it more than my textbooks

Zag: The Number one strategy for high performance brands

Tipping Point - Malcom Gladwell

http://www.amazon.com/Tipping-Point-Little-Things-Difference/dp/0316346624

Although I'll admit that this is the first I'm hearing of the Rob Ford plan, I'm skeptical that there's going to be any removal of murals that were created with the property owner's consent and participation. (Possibly paid for in part by the property owner).

I could be wrong, but I'm sure the "good" graffiti is safe.

> are going to come back 5 times harder with the spraypaint and the sharpies just to piss them off.

That's not true.

Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point (http://amzn.to/hGgGmT) has a write up of how that goes:

> "We had a yard up in Harlem on one hundred thirty- fifth Street where the trains would lay up over night," Gunn said. "The kids would come the first night and palm the side of the train white. Then they would come the next night, after it was dry, and draw the outline. Then they would come the third night and color it in. It was a three-day job. We knew the kids would be working on one of the dirty trains, and what we would do is wait for them to finish their mural. Then we'd walk over with rollers and paint it over. The kids would be in tears, but we'd just be going up and down, up and down. It was a message to them. If you want to spend three nights of your time vandalizing a train, fine. But it's never going to see the light of day."

It's specific to Subway cars, but it relevant. Graffiti takes work and costs money (cans of paint add up). That's not in unlimited supply for those who're willing to do it. Even if it ends up being a war of attrition, the city has deeper pockets for dealing with the issue than the individuals who want to paint everywhere.

EDIT: I should add that he's not going to be able to make it go away 'forever' - just while he's paying attention to it. Graffiti creeps back in as soon as you stop posturing and posing over it.

Podcasts:

• Online Marketing Made Easy
  
• Growth Marketing Toolbox
  
• Social Media Marketing
  
• Build Your Tribe
  
• Everyone Hates Marketers
  
• Pat Flynn Smart Passive Income
  
• Masters of Scale
  
• How I Built This
  
• Tim Ferriss
  
• Startup School with Seth Godin or Akimbo
  
• GaryVee Audio Experience
  
  Books:
  
  
• Anything by Seth Godin
  
• 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing
  
• Blue Ocean Strategy
  
• Small Giants
  
• Crush It
  
• The Tipping Point
  

What about this? https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Tightwad-Gazette-Promoting-Alternative/dp/0375752250/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485351961&sr=8-1&keywords=tightwad+gazette

The Tightwad Gazette is available as a single volume. http://www.amazon.com/The-Complete-Tightwad-Gazette-Dacyczyn/dp/0375752250

Someone wrote to The Tightwad Gazette about how they would sew designer tags onto generic clothes that they sent their children top school in.

The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn, is highly recommended. Thrift is a state of mind, and very helpful to those who take the time to learn.


http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Tightwad-Gazette-Amy-Dacyczyn/dp/0375752250

Read this: https://www.amazon.com/Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-Body-Pain/dp/0446675156

Helped me cure RSI/carpel tunnel five years ago, I have two friends who I've recommended it to and it's helped both of them. It sounds a bit like pseudoscience junk but the author is an NYU medical doctor and it's legit.

This might be of some help to you. May not be a fit, but worth the read.

This Dr. writes about the mind/body pain connection.

She's right.

http://www.amazon.ca/The-Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-Body/dp/0446675156

Read this book:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-Body/dp/0446675156

Check out the reviews. Search for "knee"

I had chronic back pain for several years, then I saw a story (either on reddit or hacker news) about this book called "The Mind Body Prescription". I know this sounds crazy, but simply reading the book made most of my pain go away. I can't state emphatically enough that I'm not some kook. I hate pseudo-science garbage, I hate chiropractors, I hate "alternative" medicine, but I highly recommend that you give it a look. The worst case scenario is that you're out $10 and 2-3 hours of time (it is a fairly short book). The best case scenario is that you don't hurt all the time. Here is a link, (not an affiliate link, I'm just trying to help) - http://www.amazon.com/Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-Body-Pain/dp/0446675156 - or just search it on amazon.

Whether it is this book, or something else, I hope you find something that helps you.

Worked for me-

https://www.amazon.com/Great-Pain-Deception-Faulty-Medical/dp/0615462219/

https://www.amazon.com/Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-Body-Pain/dp/0446675156/

Have you tried this (or anything similar) for your chronic pain? I know it looks stupid and useless but according to plenty of perfectly sane and skeptical people it can make a profound impact.

Not trying to suggest that your chronic pain is invalid or anything, and personally I haven't read this yet, I just saw it mentioned in a discussion on Hacker News yesterday and I'm kind of intrigued.

I've been dealing with chronic pain and fatigue for about a decade now, so I've read quite a few of these books. I would recommend one of John Sarno's early books, Unlearn Your Pain by Howard Schubiner, or The Great Pain Deception by Steve Ozanich.

I switched to evil/spacemacs a few years ago when my RSI was worsening to see if it helped. It helped for a short time but then my RSI started coming back. Vim keybindings can also cause RSI.

​

However I don't regret learning evil. I really enjoy modal editing. Also, trying out spacemacs exposed me to lots of cool packages I didn't know about before. Though I'm using my own config these days, whenever I'm trying out a new language I usually check the spacemacs config to see what packages are installed there.

​

Over the years I've tried various things that have been more or less helpful for RSI:

- Conquering carpal tunnel syndrome and other repetitive stress injuries

- http://www.workrave.org/

- Voice coding (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SkdfdXWYaI, https://github.com/dictation-toolbox/aenea)

- Mind-body prescription (it's a bit wacky, I don't agree with all of it, but I think there's something to it & a lot of people seem to find it helpful)

- Standing desk

- Back massage (https://www.amazon.com/Tiger-Tail-Ball-Roller-Corded/dp/B0078PX01G/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=ball+rope+back+massage&qid=1558366141&s=gateway&sr=8-4)

- Exercise

he has two books. which one do you mean?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Healing-Back-Pain-Mind-Connection/dp/0446557684/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_bdcrb_top?ie=UTF8

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mind-Body-Prescription-John-Sarno/dp/0446675156/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=MWWGAD4BD918X0CCDB61

Don't know if this will be of any help but about ten years ago I experienced chronic carpal tunnel syndrome and pain in my wrist, along my arm and in my shoulder. It was absolutely debilitating and went on for months. I tried so many different things including trigger point therapy, had physiotherapy through my local NHS, saw an osteopath but nothing worked and I was in agony. I then read this book; http://www.amazon.com/Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-Body-Pain/dp/0446675156/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1419634173&sr=8-1&keywords=mind+body+sarno.

It sounds crazy but the pain I had had for over 6 months dissipated after reading the book, taking in the information and since then if it ever starts to come back I think about the information in the book and the pain goes. I got the book very cheaply from ebay. He has written another book more specifically about back pain; http://www.amazon.com/Healing-Back-Pain-Mind-Body-Connection/dp/0446557684/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1419634173&sr=8-3&keywords=mind+body+sarno

Totally recommend his theory/treatment.

My dad (hippy but smart) swears on this book. “Mind over body baby”

So you've had RSI for the last 7 years!? Props to you for keeping going! Typing out that post must have been a painful process. IANA doctor, so take this all with a grain of salt as you should anything on the internet.

First thing is to find out if you've done any serious damage to your wrists. Is it at all possible for you to have a scan or something similar done? That would be a great start.

Rest and gentle stretches seem to be the way for most people, tendons can heal but they heal a lot more slowly than muscles do. There are many things on the internet, but a really good book I bought (one of 3) is It's Not Carpal Tunnel Syndome. It says it's for computer professionals, but it's for anyone really. I also read through this book and it seemed to have some good advice.

But honestly, what got me through was a thing called TMS. It's hard to grasp, that something like RSI (especially as severe as you have it, it seems) can be caused by your mind but it worked for me. It sounds really, really insane, but I was at the point where I was giving up and just thought 'screw it'. There's a pretty recently made program that could be a starting point, but I recovered by reading through this book and putting in to practice some of the exercises he goes through in the final chapters. It genuinely sounds like a shill from the outside, like someone trying to make money off of the suffering of others, but you don't have to spend any money on it.

Good luck with whatever you choose, /u/TexturedMango. There's a facebook group that will give you excellent advice too if you want the link to that.

> Yet doctors can't find anything physically wrong.

Maybe there's nothing physically wrong. Check out Dr. Sarno's book on healing back pain:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-Body/dp/0446675156/

IT IS WRITTEN

You should read the book Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping
http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Buy-Science-Shopping/dp/0684849143

it explains a lot of the psychology and "tricks" used in detail with a lot of case studies

For anyone interested in a book about this, check out Why we buy. Gives a good insight into the science of shopping.
http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Buy-Science-Shopping/dp/0684849143

For a really interesting discussion of this, check out Why We Buy. It provides a fascinating look into some of the surprising things that shape consumer behaviour.

Influence by Cialdini is a must read for just about anyone, in any occupation.

As a business owner, Predictably Irrational is a must read. As is Why We Buy. The Way of the Weasel is also a good one.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0684849143

this one does a pretty good job.

Not got any Sullivan, but Andy Maslen's a mainstay of my reference library:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Copywriters-Handbook-Step-step-Writing/dp/0805078045

Also this:

http://www.amazon.com/Copywriters-Handbook-Third-Step-Step/dp/0805078045

And this (not only about copywriting, but definitely game-changing thought):

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

The guru of direct response copywriting https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0805078045/ref=tmm_pap_new_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&condition=new&qid=&sr=

The Constitution says everyone is entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but God forbid we should try to save anyone's life. I believe it was George Carlin who said some people only care about you before your born, and after that they don't give a damn if you die.

I would like to say I used to consider myself a Libertarian Republican, but after studying this issue, the IMF and World Bank, I found the data did not support my belief system -- unless someone was obviously lying to push an agenda that is.

As Chalmers Johnson likes to say
>When I get new information I change my opinion. What sir do you do with new information?

I would also recommend reading Walter Lippmann's Public Opinion and Edward Bernays's Propaganda

>so there's another one I have up on you.

I'm amazed at your clairvoyance. Pray tell, what kind of phone do I have then?

> you refuse to learn how apps and mobile phones work,

Again, a failure in research. I'm a professional IT admin, and support around 150 android and iphone devices in far more rigorous an environment than a personal phone would likely be.

>nd you believe that an imaginary narcissist in the sky will save you, and maybe even me, if you pray hard enough.

Again you are showing your ignorance.

But I'm gonna throw you this bone, so you can stop looking like a fool in the future. (I wish!)

Salvation depends solely on accepting Jesus as your personal Savior.

That's it.

You don't need to even touch a Bible tbh.

You don't even need to be a particularly good person (I don't know many who are).

All you need is a sincere desire. That's it.

Ok, I'm done talking nice to you, back to my accustomed vitriol:

Our modern culture isn't the 'pinnacle' of anything.

Everything is always in transition, always changing.

100 years ago, advertisements were little pictures in catalogs that told you the features of the product. They didn't enjoin you to spend your money for a vapid promise of a 'life experience' as modern advertisements do.

That's because some genius psych students started applying psychological manipulation techniques to advertising.

And everything changed, and mostly got worse.

And its become so accepted in the modern day that millennials are literally clueless about a world without ubiquitous advertising.

And rally to defend it simply because they're addicted to the media it is attached to.

>GrilledCheese_monger for the win today!

There is absolutely nothing more cringeworthy in an online debate than to declare yourself winner halfway through.

https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Edward-Bernays/dp/0970312598/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1495280102&sr=8-1&keywords=propaganda

more on the origins of propaganda

I'd like to give you some better statistics on gun ownership and crime rates but unfortunately I don't have the time at the moment.

Let me know if you'd like to talk about it further. Hope you have a good day!

Propaganda - Edward Bernays


If you're looking to read a seminal text on mass communication this is the Old Testament.

The Wikipedia on Mr Bernays is also a fascinating read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays#Propaganda

Welcome! Here are some resources I recommend:

Books

• "Propaganda" by Edward Bernays; Wikipedia & Amazon - Classic book explaining the fundamentals of propaganda. Was later used by Nazis for inspiration
  
• "Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media" by Noam Chomsky; Wikipedia & Amazon - examples of how mass media lie and deceive
  
• "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" by John Perkins; Wikipedia & Amazon
  
• "War Is a Racket" by US Marine Corps Major General and two time Medal of Honor recipient Smedley D. Butler; Wikipedia
  
  Films
  
  
• "Inside Job" by Charles H. Ferguson; Wikipedia & Internet Archive - Fine documentary about 2008 economic trouble and how greed shaped it even at the highest levels
  
• "9/11: Decade of Deception" by Ryan Dawson; Youtube - Scientifically based 9/11 documentary
  
• "Dark Secrets : Inside Bohemian Grove Full Length" by Alex Jones; YouTube - A young AJ goes into the Bohemian Club
  
• "The Order of Death" by Alex Jones; YouTube - Followup to previous Bohemian Club film
  
  Short videos
  
  
• "American War Machine" by Joe Rogan; YouTube
  
• "Bush admits that Iraq Had Nothing To Do With 9/11"; YouTube
  
• "Israel Lobbyist suggests False Flag attack to start war with Iran"; YouTube
  
• "Rahm Emanuel: You never want a serious crisis to go to waste"; YouTube
  
• "How Ron Paul Was Cheated Out Of Presidency"; YouTube
  
  Subreddits
  
  
• /r/moosearchive - extremely useful subreddit with many links concerning conspiracy-related topics
  
  Other
  
  
• "Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment" by John P Holdren; Infowars article - Obama science czar wrote a book advocating depopulation methods including adding sterilants to drinking water and 'Planetary Regime' that controls optimum world population/resources
  
  

Hey whipple, Squeeze This by Luke Sullivan.

http://www.amazon.com/Hey-Whipple-Squeeze-This-Creating/dp/1118101332

Advertising is a great way to look at a bunch of jobs in the creative field. I think no matter what, you should consider yourself a freelancer, even if you do get a fulltime. In the creative world, you are your brand, and your work is just part of it. Your personality, work ethic, personal style, people who you know, is all part of it. Still interested? Firms big and small are always looking for interns, even now while you're in high school. Do you know anyone in the field who might be interested in having you hang around?
Also I'd recommend this book to perk your interest in advertising: http://www.amazon.com/Hey-Whipple-Squeeze-This-Creating/dp/1118101332/ref=asap_B000APJCEA?ie=UTF8

Don't ever let someone tell you that you can't do something. I'm a dyslexic copywriter but I still generate great work. Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of Hey Whipple, Squeeze This. I PROMISE you that it will help you in your quest to make the switch.

Mi-a placut mult Confessions, dar suna foarte bine Introvert Power, o sa citesc musai, am vazut ca a ajutat Confessions, dar omul cam tinde sa uite daca nu face un obicei din ce invata :)

Din pacate, ai dreptate ca e formatul limitat, trebuie cautat bine, cele care sunt disponibile in format kindle se vad si ok si n-au neaparata nevoie de culoare: Logo Design Love a fost excelent, o baza buna a fost White space is not your enemy, cu ceva greutate am citit pdf-ul The fundamentals of graphic design si acum citesc The creative process illustrated - desi, ce-i drept, e clar mai mult despre creativitate, dar la fel mi-a facut placere sa citesc Hey, Whipple, squeeze this.

Altceva de design cu imagini si explicatii, mai comprehensiv, clar nu merge pe kindle. Si daca ai recomandari pentru mine legate de design, pentru kindle or not, nici nu stii cat mi-ar placea sa ascult!

Cool - you had an idea in about 30 seconds of reading/thinking. Awesome start. Now throw more time at it and come up with more ideas. Like 50-100 ideas. And not just rewrites of the same thought, but as much variety as you can muster. The saying that 'the best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas' is absolutely true.

Once you've got your 50-100 ideas on a page, figure out which 2 or 3 are the strongest, most interesting ideas. Everything else goes in the bin (I've literally thrown out about 80% of the work I've produced over the last 22 years) and you start tweaking the way those lines are written, or throwing an image in with them and see if that makes it stronger. Just keep pulling things apart and rejoining them in new ways. It's really like playing with a bunch of Lego (which is fun!).

You don't know how this thing is going to look in the end. But you keep trying stuff until you feel like it's right.

Buy, beg, borrow or steal a copy of 'Hey Whipple, Squeeze This'. It's got an awesome chapter on finding new ways into a brief and new angles on a headline.

Good luck. :)

10 years and you still write like someone who's trying to impress his English teacher. Your writing would sound old-fashioned even for a cover letter. This is not how you move inventory in 2018.

May I interest you in the Plain English initiative? Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This would also be a good read for you

Oh god, he still has believers?

At least this time the account is really gone. He had a habit of deleting his accounts for attention before later restoring them in the hope he'd get more Patreon subscribers. He even deleted his own YouTube videos on Feb 26th last year so this is a nice anniversary.

He's a shill for himself.

http://gawker.com/270281/how-to-be-a-publicity-whore-author-underqualified

https://jezebel.com/270369/self-promotion-guru-david-seaman-totally-got-our-memo-shat-all-over-it

https://www.amazon.com/Dirty-Little-Secrets-Buzz-Attention/dp/1402213379

Uhg. People. David Seaman is not a journalist. I found his stuff on Business Insider and included it in an article I wrote for a small, local online news publication. He threatened to sue me and the newspaper for calling him a phony or something like that. He wrote a book about how to use social media and the internet to make money by creating "buzz." He first did this with a "joke" free Paris Hilton campaign and it got him fired from Jezebel according to a blog post (on Jezebel). Then he said Business Insider fired him when they actually just told him he needed his content edited before being published. Creating "buzz" via fear, explosive accusations (he said Obama's renewal of the NDAA in 2012 would cause dissidents to be imprisoned as terrorists, he said the government was secretly preparing to film all Americans 24/7, the list goes on and on). I tried to challenge him but all he did was threaten to sue me, block me from his twitter after I tweeted at him 6 times over 2 or 3 weeks, then he posted pictures of me on his google plus page and asked anon to go after me on twitter. I vowed to avoid him, but I heard his name on the radio and I think if you want to watch anything David Seaman makes, read his book "Dirty Little Secrets of Buzz" and then decide if you can trust ANYTHING he says: https://www.amazon.com/Dirty-Little-Secrets-Buzz-Attention/dp/1402213379

different guy?

His statement is true if you consider that it's also true of men as well. People have very, very similar behavioural patterns, including, ironically, the notion that they're all unique snowflakes. Not quite 100% overlap, but enough that you can make predictions. It's the basis of books like 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be More Persuasive.

You can break down /u/n0c0ntr0l's statement like this: All humans are very similar because of their genetics, but women are just slightly moreso.

I think that with the integration of increasing perceived value techniques, Jeff Walker style Launch marketing, some persuasion supplementation, using stories in marketing, Neuromarketing, Web Copy techniques, and many others, all put together in combination - anything's possible. How possible something is I think depends on your perception, and how and if you are familiar with persuasion and how businesses persuade and make something sound 'fair'.

Second, I don't actually mind getting pirated. If those people want it and can't afford it, they should have it. I don't want to stop them. I don't view it as a loss.

I'd rather not go the route of donations... it's honestly too much work.

Some that guide my everyday work:

Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive!

Competition Demystified!

Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger!

This is poor behavior from a salesperson, but I also think consumers have some responsibility to be a little informed about what they're buying. Of course the "power balance" is going to be a little skewed towards the well-trained, well-informed salesperson but I think the buyer needs to take a little responsibility for themselves before they fork-over hundreds of dollars.

Two books really informed my perspective on honest salesmanship: Getting to Yes and Yes!. Hoakey titles, maybe, but really good information on ways to effectively sell and market your product or idea without using dishonest tactics.

As a 10+ year marketer, some of the other comments about particular books going out of relevance fast is correct; most of the marketing books in my bookshelf are already out-dated and some are only a year or two old.

That being said, one of the best marketing books I've ever read isn't technically a marketing book: Yes! 50 Scientifically ways to be more persuasive. It is AMAZING and there are so many lessons in there that I've used in different ways.

​

I'm running a blog to try and help small businesses keep on top of marketing from a "DIY" perspective. In the spirit of not self-promoting I'll not link to it here; but if there is some specific topic you're interested in my covering, let me know, and I'm happy to queue up an article about it in the next few months!

Why We Buy ,a retail bible.
The Knack ,real life advice.
Good luck!

> Not a single company cares what a consumer wants.

I think this is your overall thesis and the base of your argument. Don't get me wrong, any company's first motive is always profit. But if a company doesn't deliver the experience they promised to their customers, they aren't going to last very long before a superior competitor takes their place. This is more easily observed in tech industries since the rise and fall happens so quickly but the consequences of bad marketing are inescapable regardless of industry (inb4 comcast).

> They built up ★$ based on this italian authentic espresso/coffee house model. Once they cemented a reputation with the actual service, marketing took over. Get rid of employee training, get ride of benefits, maximizes advertisements and store design to emphasize the perception of what ★$'s is. It has little to to with substance now, it's about showmanship.

The positioning of starbucks changed in the consumer's mind. This mind sound like a load of horse crap but this is the process marketers go through, try to figure out where you are in the consumers' minds, be more like that and hope it works out. If it sounds superficial, it's because it is. It's nothing like a science, it would be better compared to art. You sometimes just have to feel out the right move to make and go for it. Starbucks realized fewer customers cared about the quality of their coffee, and more cared about the free wifi and cozy locations with nice decor where they could meet people. That's the value of starbucks now, so that's what they ran with. Does it suck for everyone that liked the old starbucks? Of course, but there are thousands of other coffee shops (at least where I am) that do the authentic coffee experience thing with more attention to detail than Starbucks ever could at its current scale. You may call it doubling back on his word (which it is, admittedly) but I would call it adapting to a changing market. As you said, the bottom line is showing profit to the shareholders.

>Very few people NEED a smart phone, but it has become as ubiquitous as car keys. Why? Because we are hairless apes that like shiny things. That is what marketing is about.

Other than hairless apes, we are also incredibly dependent on social interaction and iPhones offered a way to satisfy that need.

A popular mantra is that marketers "create needs" but in reality they just find needs and people later realize they have them.

>I've taken enough psychology and philosophy courses to have a pretty good understanding of the human psyche.

By the way, I didn't mean to call your credentials into question I was just trying to get a feel for your background. Although I would suggest that you look further into the difference between psychology and organizational behavior. There is a huge difference between what one human will do and what a group of humans will do, might interest you to read Why we Buy which delves into market research and all that. It's actually fascinating how in-depth researchers will go to ensure that the maximum amount of product is moved.

>I like the noble idea that marketers are there to help a consumer, but I've never seen any evidence of this.

Well it's not quite that noble. Their main focus is still on making profit. But the end goal is to have both the company and the consumer profit. That way the customer is more likely to come back for more. It's just like bartering with more steps and numbers in between, no one's trying to screw anyone over (for the most part) they're just trying to find a purpose and something to do that works, and if that thing is selling overpriced coffee or smartphones or whatever, as long as everyone's happy I can't find an issue with it.

>People will find the goods they need, they don't require assistance in that. Marketing is to sell you stuff you didn't need.

If you're talking about satisfying the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs then yeah, but humans get more and more complicated as they satisfy more and more needs. People might not know they wanted instagram but that little notification that someone they care about liked their post might bring their day from terrible to great.

It's easy to say all that shit is superficial, and if you're still struggling to eat then yes, it's not something that should be worried about. But increasingly we have a growing population of lost, worried people who don't know what to do with themselves and who don't understand why they feel bad. Advertisements and the discovery of new things that could lighten your day can be a little blessing of a distraction for someone with very little other purpose in their life.

And it doesn't have to get that dark. Sometimes you're walking down the street feeling a little peckish and then you see a big sign for pretzels and you think "yes that would hit the spot!" And you get one and if it's good, it's a positive experience and you're distracted a little longer by that happiness.

Also, since I have a feeling this argument is coming, I'm not arguing that distracting yourself from finding the truth and your purpose in life is a good thing, and taken to the extreme it could be devastating. But you can't spend your entire life trying to find your purpose every waking second because you'd go insane. Distractions can ease that little feeling of depression and anxiety that some people feel is only a few bad days away from creeping back.

>Cheers! Thanks for indulging my asinine debate.

You as well, and I don't think it's asinine, I think it's something a lot of people are thinking about but not talking about and it may become an issue in the upcoming years as the line between government and business becomes more and more blurred, and I think it's important we try to establish a precedent sooner than later.

Oh no, I took that as anecdotal. And I will say off the top of my head, Why We Buy by Paco Underhill is a really interesting read about retail marketing/psychology. It's probably a little borderline for a lot of people reading this thread since some of it is about following shoppers around in a very spyish manner for behavioral research, but it is really interesting nonetheless for anyone regardless of profession. I'd suggest it.

There's actually a good book about this phenomenon called [Why We Buy]
(http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1416595244).

Have you read Why We Buy? You will love it, if this is how you feel about shopping. Paco Underhill invented the science of studying people as they buy, why they respond to things like this. Funny funny book. It was assigned reading for my master's Consumer Behavior class.

http://www.amazon.com/Toxic-Sludge-Good-For-You/dp/1567510604

A lot of people get confused by how the media seems to defend an irrational system (capitalism) by misinformation and lies by omission whilst employing rational people (journalists) and not directly bribing or coercing them, which would be the conspiracy theory you're quite rightly not proposing. This book really helped me to understand a key aspect of how this symbiosis operates.

I remember reading about this here

My current company has me selling off this god awful fucking outdated book and "technique." So obviously I do what I think is best for the modern era.

I get the core content of what he's trying to convey, but my sales leadership is more outdated than this dude's outdated pop culture references.

I think the best sales books are The Challenger Sale, The Challenger Customer, and The New Solution Selling

AND!!! Personally, I think, especially as you progress into a more advanced sales career, THE takeaway of what it is to sell in a modern world is best encompassed in The Challenger Customer...it more or less boils down to the fact that customers are more informed than ever, old-school "slick" sales techniques do not work, and by the time the customer is meeting with you, they are like 75% into the buying process.

The days of being the smooth talking sales guy are over (thank god!).

Start with Miller-Heiman
http://www.amazon.com/New-Strategic-Selling-Successful-Companies/dp/044669519X/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1464613332&sr=8-5&keywords=solution+selling

Then up your game with the Challenger Sale
http://www.amazon.com/Challenger-Sale-Control-Customer-Conversation/dp/1591844355/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1464613441&sr=1-1&keywords=challenger+sale

Be relevant and realize that CEOs rarely research decisions, rather they rely on members of their team to do the research and report findings to them for a decision.

There's a lot of talk about influencer selling these days purely for that reason and, in my mind, it's a more effective way of selling to C-Suite decision makers than just going to the top. I'm a big fan of having allies on my side within the organization and selling through them is one of the best ways to cultivate an advocate for your business.

Keep in mind too that it's rarely the CEO that feels pain specific to the product that you're selling and that there are others even within the C-Suite that likely feel it more (think COO, CMO, VP Sales, etc.) Being able to solve someone's specific problem as well as providing a different perspective allows you to be more valuable to an organization and makes you more resistant to competition, especially competition based on price.

I'm glad that my previous post helped you.

I'd also recommend The Challenger Sale if you want a specific process. Here's a recap.

Sure! The best resource are blogs; here's some I read every day:

• Anthony Iannarino - The Sales Blog: http://thesalesblog.com/
  
• Geoffrey James - Inc.com Sales Source: http://www.inc.com/author/geoffrey-james
  
• Jim Keenan - A Sales Guy: http://asalesguy.com/
  
• Jill Konrath - Fresh Sales Strategies: http://www.jillkonrath.com/sales-blog/
  
• Mike Weinberg - the New Sales Coach: http://newsalescoach.com/
  
  Books:
  
  
• The Challenger Sale: http://www.amazon.ca/The-Challenger-Sale-Customer-Conversation/dp/1591844355
  
• SPIN Selling: http://www.amazon.ca/SPIN-Selling-Neil-Rackham/dp/0070511136/ref=pd_sim_b_5/180-3515090-2352529
  
  There's lots more out there, but I think this is some of the best.

Other than the advice in my post, if you want a good intro into where marketing is headed, check out Growth Hacker Marketing.

Ryan Holiday came from a traditional marketing career (Director of Marketing at American Apparel) when he realized he had a lot to learn. A book ensued.

Quick tips:

1 - Read some marketing/growth hacking books

https://www.amazon.com/Hacking-Growth-Fastest-Growing-Companies-Breakout/dp/045149721X

https://www.amazon.com/Growth-Hacker-Marketing-Primer-Advertising/dp/1591847389

2 - Make your site more clear that you're selling earbuds. on the first impression, it looks like I can sponsor a Panda or similar.

3 - Work on your SEO more and create a favicon.

Great favicon generator for multiple platforms - https://realfavicongenerator.net/

4 - Since you're helping a charity contact local news, online blogs, charity outlets etc to get an article or a link...

5 - Create more site content. Really sell the reason why you're helping the Pandas and also why your earbuds are worth buying. Create a video to explain all this perhaps

///////////

1. How do you recommend marketing a new product and company?
   
   There are tons of blog posts, books on this. No one here will give you a better answer in a comment then reading a well thought out blog post or book.
   
   ​
   
   
2. What is the best way to do targeted ads?
   
   I am learning this myself better. So no comment
   
   ​
   
   
3. How much money should I expect to spend on ads before I start seeing any sales?
   
   Same as above
   
   ​
   
   At the end of the day, it's just to keep pushing and stay positive, 1% progress a day and you should be happy.
   
   ​
   
   Best of luck with your business and for the future.

I don't know if it's the link or the website, but I get a redirection...not the best for thrusting a website.

Wordpress (.org) is great just find a better theme and browse the plugins.
for example Louis vuitton is running on wordpress. There is a lot of multinationals using wordpress.
And do the updates !!! you're using wordpress 4.5.4, the last version is 4.7
You need a theme with a e-commerce integrated in it and a SSL certificate
in order to sell; I didn't get what you want to sell btw.

Also I hope you have a backup of your website!

Online Business query on youtube - Freemium is the trend you can find a lot of free tutorial to learn the basics of business on youtube.

Next I recommend some readings (not affiliate):
-The personnal MBA - Josh Kaufman
-Growth Hacker Marketing - Ryan Holiday

• This blog on growth hacking: https://www.hackisition.com/

This should give you some direction. http://www.amazon.com/Growth-Hacker-Marketing-Primer-Advertising/dp/1591847389

By the way if you want a "copywriting 101" book get this shit: http://www.amazon.com/CA-HVERTISING-Ad-Agency-Psychology-Anything/dp/1601630328

Cashvertising is a really good read - not per se to do with entrepreneurship but definitely useful with your communications (considering that most start-ups don't have the dosh to get an ad agency to do the work for them).

I am halfway through Ca$hvertising and loving it. Entertaining and not super long read; dense with ideas.

If you're tempted to give it a go, then go for it. I'd advise you to think ahead, though. If you just write one book, you can expect it to swim and then drift downwards. I did originally think standalone before I started. My research quickly put that notiob to rest. I had to start with a series. I wrote my first three before even marketing which worked really well. (If you see my OP you can look at my stuff)

I highly recommend you read two books right now.
One is this (essential): https://www.amazon.com/Publish-Repeat-No-Luck-Required-Self-Publishing-Success-ebook/dp/B00H26IFJS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484083927&sr=8-1&keywords=write+publish+repeat

And here's the other one - it's technically for screenwriting, but the tips in there apply to books (essential for helping you write and think about your stories): https://www.amazon.com/Story-Substance-Structure-Principles-Screenwriting/dp/0060391685/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484083965&sr=8-1&keywords=mckee+story

Hope this helps! Am happy to help you along the way, hit me up on FaceBook if you like.

I encourage you to read Write, Publish, Repeat

It's not the holy grail of self publishing, but it has a lot of useful stuff about self publishing and some good tips.

Like anything, you get out of it what you put into it. I only started doing scifi adventure to earn a little side income and I already earn a few hundred a month extra for putting my hobby out there for people to read.

> I used to write horror erotica just to stretch my imagination, so eh, I will think about it.

Swing by /r/eroticauthors and start talking to the people there.

Yep.

This is how HM Ward (sold over 4 million books in 2013) does it: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,152565.0.html

The problem with that, though, is that she's already built her mailing list and social media. If you're just getting started "Write, Publish, Repeat" is a really good guide. http://www.amazon.com/Publish-Repeat-No-Luck-Required-Self-Publishing-Success-ebook/dp/B00H26IFJS

Colleen Hoover did a great job with advocate-marketing--basically, her loyal and extroverted sisters sold their friends on it, pushed it to book groups, did lots of social media connecting on her behalf. When an author says, "Buy my book," it's not nearly as effective as when a reader (even if it's her sister!), says "buy this great book, I loved it and you will, too." Unfortunately, it can be hard to find the people willing to do that for you.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch (http://kriswrites.com/) has an extensive series going on right now about marketing & discoverability. Worth reading.

Be sure to check out the this forum: https://www.kboards.com/index.php/board,60.0.html

I haven't published yet but I've done lots of research on self publishing and it seems like the most common advice is start working on your next book. Most successful self-published authors only got there after having multiple books released.

You might also check out the book Write. Publish. Repeat.

And this series of books on self publishing by Chris Fox

I'd recommend reading Write.Publish.Repeat. and checking out /u/sapoia's posts.

Like /u/TildenJack said, write more books. Most of the time, you're better off writing than using social media or figuring out promos. Having that third book under your belt (kudos on the third!) seems to be the tipping point for many authors, and the more books you have out, the more likely it is your sales will grow.

You need to.

$10.29 with Amazon Prime, should take you a day, tops.

No reason you can't cross that off your list in one week, to be honest.

They are all wannabes riding on the coattails of pizzagate helping each other out.

Becki wants to be famous.
Seaman wrote the book Dirty Little Secrets of Buzz: How to Attract Massive Attention for Your Business, Your Product, or Yourself and is now implementing it.

That fucker could have done something useful without playing a victim and people wouldn't have minded as much.

http://www.amazon.com/Growth-Hacker-Marketing-Primer-Advertising/dp/1591847389 - this book is a quick and easy summary of some of the practices/tactics

He even named his book after it.

Read 'Jab Jab Jab Right Hook'. That book basically is what enabled me to start my own advertising agency.

FILTER BUBBLE people...

Unless that browser was logged out of Google AND all the cache and ALL the history was cleared this is not necessarily happening to everyone. I just did the search and got all candidates and I am a Trump supporter.


Filter bubble is simple to understand. If a huge baseball fan googles "red socks" what he will get is results for the baseball team.

If Santa Clause googled "Red Socks" he is going to get results for red socks for his feet.


Google does this intentionally in order to be able to sell better targeted advertizing.

This is a problem because diversity is very important for progress. Without being exposed to new or information that you may not like you are given less chance to expand your knowledge.

Great book on this topic is

The Filter Bubble: How the New Personalized Web Is Changing What We Read and How We Think

The Long Tail or The Tipping Point

Getting all blubbery about it isn't going to stop them. These vegans are out there fighting a battle with actual conviction. Society and policy isn't shaped by what's objectively "right" or "wrong", it's shaped by who fights the hardest and without fail. If we cave to their demands, they win. If we close down our shops and farms because they harassed us or stole from us or beat us up, they win. Every foot you yield is a foot they gain, and they won't give it back easily.

You can sit around crying on your safe space anti-vegan reddit forums about how people are mean and bad or whatever, but the simple reality is that if vegans continue to do this kind of thing unchecked, complacent society will eventually cave to their demands. It's all outlined in The Tipping Point.

Read The Mindbody Prescription: Healing the Body, Healing the Pain:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446675156/102-2317159-6574542?v=glance&n=283155

Just reading the first few chapters of the book worked wonders for me.

https://www.amazon.com/Marketing-Lessons-Grateful-Dead-Business/dp/0470900520

So it isnt propaganda if you're right? That is the same as saying anyone I disagree with is a manipulative propagandist. Propaganda is the disemination of information. Nothing more. It is journalism and public relations. Here, read: https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Edward-Bernays/dp/0970312598/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1483902453&sr=8-1&keywords=propaganda

>the state does not control the media

I suggest you do a little basic reading in media studies. Your belief that the US media system is not controlled is quite naive. In fact the US invented the industry of media manipulation. Edward Bernays is a famous name -- the guy that was hired by tobacco companies to convince women that smoking was the same as women's lib, was also hired to sell the public on entering into WWI. etc etc

https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Edward-Bernays/dp/0970312598/


the state and the ever-fewer corporations that own the media (and are also defense contractors) are hand-in-glove. The myth of the heroic journalist and media organization diligently digging out the truth etc is exactly that -- a legitimizing myth. Do you think it was an accident that the WaPo and NYT were pushing the WMDs in Iraq lie? No, they're part of the state.

http://billmoyers.com/story/twenty-years-of-media-consolidation-has-not-been-good-for-our-democracy/

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/democracyondeadline/mediaownership.html

Our entire media system is owned by 5 or 6 corporations. Radios, newspapers, TV stations ... all of it. They set the framing, what is going to be covered and what is not. No need to resort to throwing people in jail in those circumstances. The media is happy to go along with the state.

>I find it hard to take your (Corbynites') qualms with the media seriously.

2 studies have shown that we have been overwhelmingly misrepresented in the media. The media legitimately hates and misrepresents the left

http://i.imgur.com/UZlDEuP.jpg

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jeremy-corbyn-media-bias-labour-mainstream-press-lse-study-misrepresentation-we-cant-ignore-bias-a7144381.html

https://theconversation.com/media-bias-against-jeremy-corbyn-shows-how-politicised-reporting-has-become-71593

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/07/jeremy-corbyn-media-coup-bbc-labour/

>I don't suppose you caught any of Steve Bannon (Trump aide and ex-Breitbart chair) ranting about the media at the CPAC (conservative conference) in the USA this week?

No. But actually the Trump administration is basically saying the truth when it says the Mainstream media is full of complete and utter shit and has been lying and manipulating the general public for years. It has. A broken clock is right twice a day.

Personally I you know whats more depressing that watching Trump stumble his way through his coke fuelled press conferences? The terrible reaction from the media, instead of questioning him on the Libya raid, instead of questioning him on all this horrific shit he's said and done, they just try live fact check him and defend their media insitutions like whining children. It shows how completely out of touch with actual Journalism the MSM has become. It's like, they are legitimately shocked to be stuck in an advisoral role with a Politician when normally Politicians will sell their soul for media access.

>You guys sound a lot like that, i.e. nuts.

If you legitimately believe the mainstream media is an unbiased source of information and not just a mouthpiece of the establishment that gives a shit about access above all else. I don't know really what to tell you.

https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Edward-Bernays/dp/0970312598

https://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/0375714499

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outfoxed

Maybe there's nothing actually wrong and your brain is tricking you into feeling pain to distract you from repressed emotional issues? (Serious)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0446675156?pc_redir=1405392490&robot_redir=1

Sounds crazy I know.

"Musculoskeletal pain disorders have reached epidemic proportions in the United States, with most doctors failing to recognize their underlying cause. In this acclaimed volume, Dr. Sarno reveals how many painful conditions-including most neck and back pain, migraine, repetitive stress injuries, whiplash, and tendonitises-are rooted in repressed emotions...and shows how they can be successfully treated without drugs, physical measures, or surgery."

Read Challenger Sale. Seriously - it deals with this exact issue. Good book, all around.

> First, your standarts are way to high.

Your standards are way too low.

> getting an extra fan would have more impact than getting a better PSU.

I agree in the sense that it would have more negative impact. An extra fan = more power consumption and more noise. If you don't care about noise, that's fine.

> Effect on the grid ? For a few % just for the PC ? Have you looked how much power a fridge or an oven needs ? Lightbulbs ? The effect on the grid is negilible.

I'm going to suggest you read this book.

Warning: I may sound like a crazy person trying to sell something but
YOU DON'T NEED DISK SURGERY, BUY THIS BOOK IT, IT LITERALLY CHANGED MY DAD'S LIFE. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446675156/ref=s9_psimh_gw_p14_d0_i2?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=0339YWWDVJP9RJSDN98W&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1389517282&pf_rd_i=507846