I need a new book

[jesse-landry]

I need some sort of awesome marketing related book.

It could be SEO/SEM related, it'd be nice if it focused on content creation, or it could just be broad and business-y.

Wil Reynolds got me thinking I'm not reading enough, and I wasn't lucky enough to grab one of his books off him at MozCon.

So now I need some suggestions. It's just too overwhelming searching through these broad keywords for the right book. So if anyone knows of any that might fit, let me know!

Thanks Moz Community. You guys rock.

[S_Curtis]

Sorry to revive a long dead post but a good book never goes away. I suggest reading something outside of the marketing community that will help with understand people more and so get the creative juices flowing for new marketing ideas.  Try David McRaney "You are not so smart" or anything by Robert B. Cialdini.

[jesse-landry]

Awesome! So much to read, so little time.

Thanks again everybody --

[danatanseo]

Hi Jesse,

I just recommended this book to one of my colleagues here are work. It's Ginny Redish's book Letting Go of the Words

Happy Reading

Dana

P.S. Thanks for tuning me in to Daniel Pink.

[Charlessipe]

Yeah Dan Pink is awesome. He also has a great TED talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html

[jesse-landry]

This is a great suggestion, EGOL. Believe it or not I have done this and without getting into too much detail I am having complications with content-creation for my current company I'm doing in-house for. They seem to want nothing but general fluff pieces... This does not fit my concept of creating good original content.

Anyway I digress. This is still fantastic advice. I'm honestly trying to read for the future though.. (beyond my current employer.)

[jesse-landry]

Awesome Charles thanks for the recommendation. I literally was standing in a Barnes & Noble over the weekend with "To Sell is Human" in my hand and darn-near purchased it. Only thing keeping me from it was I knew nothing about the man and had never heard of it.

Glad to hear you enjoyed it. I'll head back to the bookstore and swoop it up. Thanks again --

[Charlessipe]

I recently finished To Sell is Human by Dan Pink which is one of my favorite business books of the past year. Everyone is constantly selling whether it be selling your idea to your boss or client or convincing your spouse to do something so it is an essential business and life skill. This book provides tactics for effective selling based on scientific studies and it is an entertaining read.

I just started Contagious by Jonah Berger which is about how certain things go viral and I've heard good things about it.

[EGOL]

Buy a basic textbook or how-to-do-it guide for the topic that you are working.

Don't read it.  Study it.

Look for topics that most people don't know ... but they should know...  topics that have high search volume.... topics that have huge longtail ...  topics that are interesting... look for opportunities for great images and photos.. video... data sharing.

[Nick_Sayers]

+1 to Matterhorn. It was an amazing book and brought me to tears at time.

[jesse-landry]

HA! Mike you are awesome. I just wrote a long response to this and then accidentally hit Cancel and it's so frustrating.. Dammit.

Basically I was agreeing with you in regards to SEO/SEM books. I met Danny Dover at MozCon as he coincidentally sat down at my lunch table with Evan Fishkin and I immediately said "oh yeah, I have your book it is what got me started in SEO." What I didn't follow that up with was "now your book is sitting underneath my mousepad elevating it so that my wrist doesn't hurt as bad." Still it was implied by him that he knew such a thing would be the case as he made a comment somewhere along the lines of "oh and I bet it's making a wonderful paperweight these days." Point is, SEO books are so incredibly quickly outdated and you're absolutely right.

Still I'm looking for something along the lines of general marketing strategies. Sales, retention, ROI, content management, branding, etc. Something that I can take and apply towards my own online marketing efforts. Ideas for business building and marketing management that are timeless and general... And so on.

Nonetheless I absolutely loved your suggestions and am going to look into all of them. I've been on a fiction kick lately, specifically sci-fi. Last three books I read were Ubik by Philip K Dick, Ender's Game, and Dune. ALL awesome. Ubik was my favorite.

Anyway thanks for the response!

[Mike_Davis]

I really dislike Online Marketing books.  If you think about it, by the time a book on SEO (or a similar topic) has been written, edited, published, and distributed, it is generally outdated.  Stick to reading moz.com, searchengineland.com, etc.  That being said, I have some great books for you to check out to help you decompress and clear you mind from all stuff business/marketing.  BTW I am a complete nerd.

Mistborn Series by Brandon Sanderson - Pretty much anything by Brandon Sanderson will blow your mind.  He is hands down the best Fantasy writer alive.

Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes - Though this is a novel about Vietnam, there are some unbelievable similarities between the authors Silver Star write-up and the story.  Being a veteran I generally do not like books or movies about war, but this one floored me.  Amazing.

The First Law Series by Joe Abercrombie - If you like A Game of Thrones, you will all but crap yourself over this series.  It is some of the grittiest/nastiest/most violent fantasy out there, but it has the added benefit of being an absolutely wonderful read.

I think this is a good start.  Enjoy!