Charles Lau

This recommendation post has no affiliation with all the books I have just purchased myself.

This recently my favorite blogger, Problogger, (his actual name is Darren Rowse) has launched an interesting ebook which I think will be beneficial to all  of you who are starting out on your blog adventure.  This book is called “31 Days to Build a Better Blog Workbook“.  In fact, this ebook came along with some of the books I have just bought through SitePoint today!  If you are also interested to get the bundled price like I do, it’s at this link https://sitepoint.com/bookstore/go/159/423e21/

In fact, Darren has previously launched a published book called “Problogger Book” and it was my favorite reference to build a better blog.   But I have yet to implement a lot of his ideas because of my other dedications taking up most of my time.

Actually, just by the look of what Darren has done to his Problogger  blog, you will know he is no ordinary blogger who teaches us about blogging.   In fact, I have  subscribed to his other blog (it’s a photography blog) which provides really cool tips and tricks to keep me entertained.

This new ebook launched by Problogger is a day-by-day demonstration of what you should do to improve your blog.

I have not started reading this book yet but just by a glance at the ebook, I can see how much things I will be absorbing from my Problogger in the days to come.  Darren can write really good contents and with SitePoint’s expertise to arrange the book, it makes the whole ebook reading really easy!  I can simply go Full Screen with this PDF f ile and it is showing me in the landscape format instead of the usual portrait format.

Hope you guys like this ebook, and do let me know if you have purchased it yourself too.

By the way, I am really excited with the two SitePoint books I have bought as well…  The first book is the recently launched “Online Marketing Inside Out” which talks about PR, page views, SEO, Social Media, Email marketing and Affiliate Marketing.  And the second book is something technical which I have been wanting to lay my hands on.   It’s “Ruby on Rails” which I heard rumors that Twitter is built with this language.  Something really excites me to try it out other than just PHP.

So here are the two links you may like:

Problogger’s 30 Day workbook at $19.95

Online Marketing Inside Out book as well as Problogger’s workbook at $29.95

Recently, I have been looking for  magazines which are relevant to my industry.  In the end, I found Web Designer magazine.  They are very pro towards WordPress, and they adapt to use WordPress in their official website.

I got to know this magazine in a magazine stall.  They have a good range of magazines that I don’t really get to see them in most of the bookstores in Singapore.  Most of the magazines that I have seen are either Photoshop, Cameras, PC, Cars, Women, Sports, Fashion, and so on.  Very seldom will I see any Internet or website related magazines out there.

When I see this magazine, I was so happy that I bought it even though it cost me $23.90.

Here’s a photo of myself with the magazines.  I will have lots of great time reading through this one magazine.  They talk about the web design firms doing their projects, tutorials, and others.

Then, I went ahead to go to their website to find out how to order a few backdated magazines.  Found Microblogging, and a digital archive of many past issues.  I got all of them and even subscribe for their 1 year issue.

When the magazines arrive at my house, I was really excited to see an overloading information coming to me once again!  Now, I have to clear them one by one.  Nothing can really replace the wealth of knowledge to be learnt from them!

Let me read through some of them and I see if I have the time to review one of them in my blog posts!

Here’s a video of myself when I first open up the magazine!

This is an affiliated product which I have bought myself, and would like to recommend to my readers to go for it!

My favorite author – Brian Tracy – is going to give a live teleseminar this coming Wednesday 27 May 2009, at 10AM Pacific.

What is this teleseminar about?

This teleseminar is called “How to Become a Published Author — Teleseminar“.  He’s going to teach you how you can get your book to best-seller status using his tools, tips and  techniques.  Previously, hundreds have tuned in to hear his seminar on “how to write a book”.  And I have bought that as well, and find it really useful for my upcoming book that I am still writing right now.

About Brian Tracy

Brian Tracy has published 70 books in 36 languages in 52 countries with more than 50 publishers.  He is going to spill his secrets in this teleseminar!

And I am proud to tell you that I have bought many of his books.  They are pretty easy to read, and I may sometimes reference them again and again just to make sure I am right on track.  He focuses his book writings a lot on sales, motivation and business.  It’s like an instant guide for me to check whenever I need to.

What and how you will learn?

This is an one hour teleseminar over the phone, where you will learn how to:

1. select a title that grabs attention
2. write a book that publishers want
3. find a literary agent to represent you
4. create a book proposal that elicits offers
5. get the highest advance payment possible
6. and much more!

How much does it cost?

Sorry to say that this is not free.  But you will get over $497 worth of programs:

• One-hour live call and Q&A with Brian Tracy – $99 Value
• Rick Frishman’s Author 101 University (14-CD set)  - $299 Value
• The Unbreakable Laws of Self-Confidence (DVD set) – $90 Value
• How to Write a Book (74 min MP3) – $19.95 Value
• How to Write a Book Notes (8 page PDF) – $19.95 Value
• Negotiate the Best Deal (73 min MP3) – $19.95 Value
• How to become a Published Author (MP3 and notes) – $40 Value

I have purchased this package myself too, and I think you should as well!  I may not be able to attend his teleseminar though because of the time difference.  To listen to his teleseminar, I have to stay late at 1am, just to listen  to it.  He does provide an MP3 version of it which I may just wait for it.

• You can either take up  the live call with the programs at $149. (Saving 70%).
• Or, you can just go for the phone-only teleseminar at $49 (Saving 51%).

Brian Tracy is always so confident that he is offering 100% money-back guarantee with no question asked.

Register now and Learn How to Get Your Book Published Today!

Last week on a Sunday, I blogged about Me 2.0.   Dan Schawbel was kind enough to let me read the book in advance.  I read through pages after pages of quality contents, my eyes are so strained!  Thank god that this book was on its way to Singapore as well.  Nevertheless, as his book launch was last Tuesday, I decided to promote him because he is a great personal branding expert I have known since 2007!

About Dan Schawbel

Dan Schawbel is the leading personal branding expert for Gen-Y.  BusinessWeek considers Dan to be “a leading voice in the area of personal branding” and Fast Company calls Dan a “personal branding force of nature”.  He basically has introduced a whole new generation to personal branding, as he opens up new opportunities and strives to elevate the practice.  His personal branding blog is consistently ranked in the top 100 marketing blogs in the world by AdAge, and has achieved syndication from Forbes, Reuters, Hoovers and the Chicago Sun-Times.

He also publishes personal branding magazine which I had been one of the contributing authors.  He is also the head judge for the Personal Brand Awards and directs Personal Branding TV.

I have gotten my Me 2.0 book!

When I got home today, I found this book delivered to me directly from him!  Thanks Dan!  I finally can read the book and digest everything again.

I have not changed my clothes yet.  And I asked my wife to take a photo of me with the book immediately!

There it is.  The photo of the book about Me 2.0 with Charles Lau!

Right from the front few pages, you will see a lot of advanced praises!  I was wondering why my name is not inside!! hahaa I’m just joking!

The last page shown inside the book is 236 pages.  A quick flip through the book shows some diagrams and words about how you can promote yourself as a powerful brand to achieve career success!

Just let me read through this book first

I will write a full review of this book again once I have a good read of this book.  Once again, thanks Dan!  I heard that his book launch has been really successful!  I hope he had a lot of fun for his book signing and ABC News TV!

In the meanwhile, if you are interested to buy one yourself, you can  get Personal Branding Book from Amazon.  By the way, his personal branding book has become a bestseller on Amazon!

Find out more about Personal Branding Book from its official website here!

I got to know Dan Schawbel, a personal branding expert, back in 2007 when I was starting  to work out on my blog here.  I felt really privileged to be able to write articles for his personal branding magazine quite some time ago.

I wish to inform all of you that in just two days’ time, he is going to launch his first book called “Me 2.0″.  I have the chance to read the book in advance, and to write a review of it.

Me 2.0 book

This book is suitable for people who are starting their careers, especially for college students.   It shows you why you should build a brand of yourself, and how you can do it.

Especially in today’s readily available internet tools such as Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and others, all of us can build a brand of ourselves.  And nobody except for yourself will be able to sell your own brand.

It is suitable for both job-takers and entrepreneurs, who are looking forward into building a personal brand of themselves.

Start building credibility of yourself from where you are

A lot of people tend to stop what they are good at after they have quitted from a job.  It is such a waste because you have already spent years working on it, and you have to stop what you have learnt, and start learning something new on another job.

Personal branding allows you to continue to add your credits continuously.

This Me 2.0 book is exactly the one which teaches you how you can build your credibility.  With the advancement of technology, you can leverage on the power of the technology to build a brand of YOU.

Dan’s enthusiasm and passion can be felt in the book

Although I have access to him online, I have not talked to him personally.  It’s until I read his book that I start to learn about how he got into his dream college and then into his dream jobs.  It’s all through his own brand that he is selling to the college and employers.

He wanted to get into that dream college so much, but was rejected eventually.  After given that one-chance interview, he put his very best to sell himself as the most ideal student that the college should not reject.  And yes, he got it in!

What will you benefit from this book?

You will learn how to discover your own branding, and then create this branding of you, communicate it out to the world, and to maintain it.   In other words, you will learn how to use personal branding as a corporate strategy!

With the accessibility of the Internet, you will also learn how to leverage  on the social media and search engines to your  advantage when building your personal brand online.  You will also think which position you should take when building your online presence, such as programming your own website or to outsource.  And when you are building your contents on the web, this book will prompt you to consider the different items such as Bio, photographs, blogs, etc.

What do Charles think about this?

I think that this book is crucial to a person who is starting their career working for someone else or even for themselves.  In other words, this book is able to help you in your career advancement.  Your knowledge and experience which you have gained along the years will be accumulated to make you an expert in your industry.  It will not be wasted when you are moving on  to another job because the employers are employing you because of the brand called YOU.

Start building your personal branding and see your favorite companies hunting you!

Do you know who Chris Brogan is?  I believe many of you might have know him.  But I don’t actually.  I happen to stumble upon his blog, and find his blog really cool with lots of interesting articles.  He has his own new media marketing agency, which works with medium and large companies.  I find him having a really cool lfiestyle, to teach the world about social media and the new media on the Internet!

This recently, I heard that he is launching a new book of his own.  The book is titled Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust. I feel like buying this book.  I know I will buy this book sooner or later.  Just let me adjust my daily expenses accordingly before I get this book.  Anyway, this is a pre-launch, and is slated to be released on Amazon on August 24, 2009.

Judging from the quality of his blog, I know I will stand to learn something from his book.  Looking at the title that we can use the web to build influences, improve reputation and earn trust.  This is very important because it will set yourself permanently online for the rest of the world to see.

To me, creating a reputation online is a totally different ball game from creating a reputation in the real world.  It seems to me that a person who has great reputation outside the world, has difficulty in having a great reputation online.

I wouldn’t know how far this book can go, but judging from its pricing point of slightly over $20, it should be giving me an idea of how valuable the book can go.  And Chris Brogan has a great influence in my thoughts, I think this might be a good buy in the end!  Well, I don’t know but I will want to give this a shot pretty soon!

Pre-order Chris Brogan’s new book on “Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust” today!

Bloggers are becoming more and more dominant on the Internet as they are the online version of the offline magazines.  Sometimes, the articles written by the bloggers are so much interesting than the magazines.  Sometimes, the magazines might start to wonder why a blogger (self-employed) can make as much money as the magazine with so a few staff.

Previously, I reviewed Blog Blazers in my previous post.  It is quite an interesting book which introduces bloggers.

Then, I remember I have another similar book in my library of books.  So I took out this book titled “Blogging Heroes“.

Looking at these two books, they look quite similar.   Let’s do some comparison here:

1. Blog Blazers book looks like it is about 60% of the number of pages of Blogging Heroes.
2. Blog Blazers talk about 40 bloggers while Blogging Heroes talk about 30 bloggers.
3. Blog Blazers seem to focus more towards marketing bloggers while Blogging Heroes focus more on technological bloggers.
4. The cover of Blogging Heroes is a brand by itself which follows with a few other series, while Blog Blazers has only one type of brand.
5. Blog Blazers has a fixed set of questions, while Blogging Heroes is more personalized questions geared for the bloggers.

If you were to ask me which book I will choose, I guess if you want to learn more about making money online, Blog Blazers will be the one for you.  Blogging heroes book is also about making money online and is geared more towards for understanding some of the top technological bloggers online.

Sometime last year, a book went all the way across the countries to receive a review from Charles (me!).  The title of this book is “Blog Blazers – 40 Top Bloggers Share Their Secrets“.  It has been dangling there for quite a while before I have the time to review this book.  That’s because I was busy preparing for my wedding and had to reject some of the reviews which came along the way.

This book is written by Stephane Grenier from FollowSteph.com.  He had interviewed 40 well-known bloggers inside with a set of standard questions.  But before they answered his questions, they were giving the readers a background of who they are (just in case they may not know them).  Hence, you will see a total of 40 chapters altogether, and each chapter is about 8 pages of discussion as well as bloggers’ background.

Some of the bloggers interviewed that I heard of are:

• Aaron Wall (SEO book)
• Seth Godin (Marketing Guru)
• Yaro Starak (Entrepreneur’s Journey)
• Dan Lyons (Fake Steve Jobs)
• J.D Roth (Get Rich Slowly)

First Impression

When I receive this book, I have the impression that this seems to be a question and answer book.  Every chapter contains one blogger, telling his or her story, and then answering Stephane’s standard set of questions.  I got quite tired after reading the same questions, and having answers which are answered similarly in one way or another.  But after reading a few more bloggers a while, you will start to get a rhythm.  It’s a kind of momentum which you start to understand how a successful blogger thinks in a bigger picture.  You will yearn to look for more varieties.

So what kind of questions did he actually ask?

He asked a lot of burning questions consistently to every blogger which we really hope to hear from those high-profile bloggers!  Questions such as

• what makes a blog successful, 
• when did they decide they have succeed, 
• how long it takes to be successful, 
• what’s their biggest tip to write a successful post, 
• did they spend any money on advertising, 
• and so on…  (You have to read for yourself!)

So do you think those are really important questions?  Yes, I think so myself!

So, who is this book for?

After reading this book, I find that it is giving me a glimpse of the the different bloggers’ mindset.  It is not so much about teaching you how to blog, but it gives you the “why” element.  It is more recommended for beginner bloggers who had started their blogs for a couple of months.  That’s the time where the blogger will start to think whether blogging is for them or not (irregardless of their success rate).  This book gives them an idea of how the veteran bloggers had gone through their initial stage of blogging.  It is also suitable for the more advanced bloggers who will find this book more like a catching up of any lesson that they had missed previously.

Conclusion

Go and get this book, if you have just started blogging for 3 months, or if you have already been blogging for a few years.  It’s a good refresher, and you might have the chance to network with these people now that you are exposed to their existence.  They are basically sharing their secrets in creating a high profile, high traffic as well as a high profit blog.

Check out the blog blazers book at amazon now!

Chris Anderson has revised his book about The Long Tail. It is now available for order at Amazon. I have bought mine and it is scheduled to be delivered on around 15th August 2008.

This time round, it is a longer and cheaper tail from Chris Anderson. According to Chris it is a new cover, lower price and the usual corrections and updates, it’s longer so there’s an epilogue on the response to the book (pro and con) and a whole new chapter on Long Tail Marketing.

I have come to know about Chris ever since I have read Seth Godin’s Meatball Sundae. A lot of interesting ideas going around The Long Tail that we can all learn about.

I always seem to miss my chance of buying this Long Tail book ever since I have read Meatball Sundae. It is either I saw it in my local bookstore and I was browsing through, telling myself that I will get one from the Amazon, or I felt inside me that I should wait for a while.

Never did I expect to see the new Longer Tail book that I have incidentally waited for. Without much hesitation, I bought this book along with two other books from Amazon. One is talking about the New Media, and the other is talking about Online Advertising.

And by the way, I still have a backlog of books waiting for me to catch on… The information just keeps on flowing in…

I am currently reading Permission Marketing book, authored by Seth Godin, whenever I am outside. I got interested reading about the highest form of permission marketing. And that is when your customer is very willing to pay you whenever it is necessary. Times when you are on subscription basis for your daily newspaper, signing the consent form for the doctor to inject anything into your body while you are not conscious, etc.

This is the time when you have complete trust from your customers who are willing to pay you at an agreed price whenever necessary. But this is also the time when you cannot fulfill in one way or another, that your trust is almost as good as going off permanently. And currently, I just had such an experience with a customer. Though there is a misunderstanding, it is very hard to explain when your customer is angry. All I can say is still sorry about it.

There is also a slightly lower form of permission where some companies actually took advantage of this trust and bill on the smooth transaction of using credit cards online for recurring payments. Sometimes, the bill is so small that it becomes insignificant while the customer is paying the money for no service rendered. According to Seth, these people actually pay through the decades!

Another type of companies took advantage of billing significantly high price to their customers on a monthly basis, and their customers are “happily” paying for it and yet the service is probably rendered only 20% most of the time. One very good example is the fitness centers. The gym goers tend to pay high dollars to them for going a few times initially. After that, these gym goers are either too busy to go, or too lazy to go. And yet they are paying high dollars continuously because they want to avoid paying at an even higher price later when they wish to go gym again.

One way of going this way is to change the model of your product-selling business into a subscription business. Product selling has been a norm to most people out there. Gateway has decided to be different by asking the customer to pay $49 every month to use a computer. And when the user has paid through 24 months, they will get a new computer to use. So it’s a total win-win situation for the customers to always get latest model while the computer company can make profits continously. The old computers can still be sold cheaply to companies or even consumers in the second-hand industries! There is a potential huge subscription business for most of the products out there… Things such as cars, computers, books, television, radio, refrigerator or just any product out there which is paid once and can be used for a long time.

Just some food for thoughts today.