Gary Vaynerchuk’s “Crush It!: Why Now Is The Time To Cash In On Your Passion” was better than I expected.  A lot better than I expected.  I was really skeptical of the book because of it’s title.  Despite all the endorsements, I thought it was too cheesy. Definitely surpassed my expectations.

“Crush It!” is a great book for a few reasons.  First of all, it’s short (I read it in a couple of sittings). This showed me that Vaynerchuk is about getting down to business, which leads to the second reason I like the book: The advice is practical.  Gary Vee skips all the technical info on building blogs and diving into social networking and gives you the info you need to find out what you need to do to make money with your passion.  This book is all about building your personal brand. He focuses on creating great content and building relationships with your audience.  Platforms change all the time, but great content is timeless.  Vaynerchuk knows this and drives this point home from page 1 to the end of the book.

The most important reason I like “Crush It!” is because it’s authentic. Vaynerchuk uses his own success story as the basis for the book and, to my knowledge, never gives advice that he wouldn’t follow himself, such as being personal with fans.  I experienced this first hand when I tweeted that I would be doing a book review and included his Twitter name (@garyvee). He replied with a “thank you” within minutes.  Might seem like a small thing, but when you have thousands of followers and take the time to answer their emails and tweets, it goes a long way.

At the end of the day, “Crush It!” has indeed inspired me to go full speed ahead with my goals and has given some pretty useful advice on how to do it.  I recommend highly recommend it to anyone trying to build their personal brand.

Buy “Crush It!” here!

“…the human stuff is far more important than the software.” – Chris Brogan and Julien Smith in Trust Agents

There are a lot of books on the market about the “how-to” of social media/Web 2.0 and the psychology behind the marketing. Trust Agents addresses both elements in a context I haven’t seen done so far (at least not as well). Chris Brogan and Julien Smith teach readers to focus on the human side of the relationships built online, using social media/Web 2.0 tools as a relationship enhancer instead of a replacement for real connection.

I like this book so much because of the “human” focus. Brogan and Smith really emphasize the importance of getting to know your customers (or in a musician’s case, fans) and genuinely reaching out to them. Web tools are the powerful means to achieve the connection.  When you think about it, isn’t this kind of like music (a medium used by performers to convey their message to listeners)?

This insight couldn’t be more helpful to someone coming up with a digital music strategy.  Potential clients always tell me “I want more friends on MySpace/Facebook/etc…” but few realize what “more friends” really means.  With thousands of bands online,  musicians have to work extra hard to stand out online.  Trust Agents guides the process with actionable principles like becoming “One of Us” and being “Agent Zero” (the importance of having a digital home base).

The book also gets into using new social media/Web 2.0 to “create your own game”.  Acts like Radiohead and Mickey Factz came to mind as I read this chapter.  Essentially, Brogan and Smith stress that you have to know the game then use what you know to make your own rules and create your own advantage.

I strongly recommend Trust Agents to anyone serious about their digital music strategy or wanting a general understanding of how effective social media use.  It’s especially good for people who say “I’ve joined all the social networks and uploaded my music to all the distribution sites…now what?”  The answer is to get fans to trust you and everything else will fall into place. Trust Agents tells you how to get it done.

Click here to Buy “Trust Agents” from Amazon

Not sure what next Friday’s book review will be…anybody have suggestions? Leave a comment!

- AKB

“If I had to condense this entire book into a line or two, it would read something like ‘work hard, keep at it, live simply and quietly, remain humble, stay positive, create your own luck, be nice, be polite’”

-Hugh MacLeod, “Ignore Everybody: And 39 Other Keys to Creativity”

I just finished listening to Hugh MacLeod’s new book, “Ignore Everybody: And 39 Other Keys To Creativity” (read about it on Sety Godin’s blog). I got the audiobook because it was cheaper than the print version and, at a little over 2 hours long, only took two days to finish on my commute to/from work.

Short version of the review: Good advice, but not too impressed with the uniquness of the content or delivery.

MacLeod gives excellent advice on how to be creative and how to make a living doing it. The book gets authenticity points since he drew from his own experiences trying to make it as a young creative in NYC and other cities. My favorite piece of advice was the urgence to keep your day job while working on your creativity, as it a) provides a steady stream of income and b) takes some of the pressure off of being an “instant success” with your creative gig.

My biggest turnoffs to the book were the cynical tone and the language. The tone may have just been the narrator’s interpretation, so I’m not gonna hold that against MacLeod (at least not TOO much). The content was good, there just wasn’t a lot of stuff I hadn’t heard before. As for the language, it’s just a matter of taste. Being authentic is key to being creative, and MacLeod would have been wrong to censor himself just to get more readers. The language (and an off-color Christianity joke) does, however, prevent me from recommending the book to a lot of my peers. To each his own…

If you want to check it out for yourself, buy Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity here. It’s a good read for people looking to add structure to their crative method. Just beware, it’s not for the easily offended.

Next Friday, I’ll be reviewing “Trust Agents” by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith. Make sure to check it out!

To get notified when it’s published, subscribe to my feed or follow me on Twitter (@BeingAKB).