We all need good books to enhance our skills and to give us a secret recipe to expand our business. To save you from trial and error in finding the perfect book to read, this list is created. It contains 10 recommendations with a brief description of each. You can use this description to judge whether it is right for you. Though the list contains diverse topics to help you build holistic knowledge.
The Freelancer’s Bible
It might be challenging to determine exactly where to start or scale up as a freelancer, whether you’re considering it or are already doing it. The Freelancer’s Bible by Toni Sciarra Poynter and Sara Horowitz fills this need.
The Freelancer’s Bible is helpful for beginners because it walks you through steps like deciding what your business will be, setting pricing, determining where and how you’ll work, getting clients, networking, and growing your business.
It also covers minor particulars like selecting a computer display and deciding who to call in the event that your computer hardware breaks.
Long-time freelancers can get some new advice on topics they may have forgotten and strategies to address persistent issues, such as juggling work and life and dealing with relatives and friends who place demands on your working hours.
The 100-Dollar Start-up
The advice Chris Guillebeau gathered from 1,500 small firms is detailed in his book, The $100 Startup. By his mid-30s, Chris had visited every nation on the planet.
He encountered a number of people on his excursions who had grown tiny investments (often $100 or less) into businesses that brought in $50,000 or more per year.
One striking similarity among all the successful people is that they were all enthusiastic about what they did. They also understood how to monetize their interests. Most business owners started out without any abilities at all but eventually acquired them. What Guillebeau discovered from chatting with these prosperous business people is collected in The $100 Startup.
The end product is a manual on how to launch a small business and grow it to a size that works for you.
From a freelancing perspective your work is also like a solo- startup of yours and to scale it up you can use actionable and insightful tips from this book.
Linchpin- Are You Indispensable?
Seth Godin, the author of this book, is a graduate of Stanford University. He is one of the most well-known figures in marketing, and is also the writer of 19 best-sellers, which include “Tribes,” “The Icarus Deception,” and “That’s Marketing.”
This book is a must-read for any businessman, freelancer, artist, employee, or anyone who wishes to stand out from the crowd and make a unique impact through their work. The general idea of the book is that everyone is replaceable but you can be an asset that is difficult to replace.
The title of the book Linchpin means someone who is important to an organization and to become that person you have to first make a choice to be indispensable, second is to resist the urge to stay in your comfort zone and produce mediocre work, and third is to deliver creative solutions, develop a solution to problems and become a unique talent that is difficult to replace.
Basically adding something of value to your service. This book will urge you to break that mediocre result pattern and be indispensable in your job.
Steal Like An Artist
If your work requires even a tinge of creativity then this book is for you. The author points out that there is a difference between plagiarism and stealing. Plagiarism is simple you using other people’s work and naming it as yours while on the other hand stealing is taking inspiration from your favorite artists and trying to imitate them.
This imitation phase will not last long- because soon you will discover that you can re-engineer the base idea and add something more valuable to your work. This is where you will discover your niche and contribute unique ideas.
In sum and substance, this book will help you discover unique, original, and creative ideas.
The Psychology Of Money
This is my personal favorite book on personal finance. As a freelancer, you might face the problem of an irregular flow of income, this book examines how money is distributed in an economy, how emotional factors and personal biases affect our financial decisions, and how to think more logically and make better financial judgments.
The book with loaded with practical examples and easy-to-understand language.
Outliers
It’s worthwhile to read Outliers. It entertains you, questions the power structure, and provokes thought. It helps you become more aware of your surroundings and the effects that culture and the environment have on your ability to succeed.
Gladwell’s singular viewpoint encourages readers to reconsider what intelligence, popularity, and success really mean. Outliers is a smart, enjoyable book that challenges readers’ assumptions and broadens their viewpoints.
The Content Code
In the age of social media, we are flooded with content and there is no way a person can consume all of it. The writer Mark Schaefer in this book gives 6 strategies acronymed BADASS to create content quality content and more importantly strategies to make that quality content available to your target audience.
The Content Code gives the launch recipe for next-level success and picks up where your existing marketing strategy leaves off. The book delves extensively into social media marketing’s genuine worth and the procedures businesses must take to get verifiable results.
It is a groundbreaking book that examines the psychology of sharing and is also incredibly useful, providing bundles of ideas that can be applied by businesses of any size and with any amount of money.
How To Win Friends And Influence People
Humans are social animals and to survive in any new environment we have to socialize. But, in business just socializing is not enough you need to establish a relationship with your client. Building such personal relationships is extremely tough as there are limited in-person interactions with the clients.
This book teaches you endless lessons on how to be likable, manage your connections well, win people over, and influence others without being intrusive.
Rework
The author Jason Fired has used the principles in his business so the book has realistic and tried and tested advice from an author who has successfully grown his company into a million-dollar software product.
This book serves as a field guide for more effective, efficient, and successful working and business practices. Rework proposes notions like it’s better to disregard the competition, work normal hours, and that you require fewer resources to get forward. This goes against standard corporate strategy. Rework is for freelancers, entrepreneurs, small business owners, or anybody searching for a basic approach to generating results. It is easy to read, inspirational, and useful.
Everything I Know
The book highlights the idea that we all have something unique in ourselves and we should align these goals with values to make it more meaningful. The book also elaborates on the idea that everyone can achieve great things but that’s only possible if you overcome your fears and push your boundaries.
We are all unique, despite the fact that it is an ancient cliché. We all have different values and perspectives on the world. We frequently try to hide our originality in order to blend in more, but we should actually embrace it.
Many books make the claim to offer universally applicable advice for success, however, they frequently fall short of fulfilling this claim. Unlike others, this book description offers a versatile framework that you can customize and use for your own unique adventure of coming up with fantastic new ideas.
In this book synopsis, you’ll learn why, in your drive to produce excellent work, you should allow your values to take the lead rather than your aims. You’ll also discover reasons to stop watching TV and start making your own entertainment.
Finally, you’ll comprehend why it’s acceptable to use pre-existing work as the basis for a concept that you later modify to reflect your own ideals.
