5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Don't waste your money, 15 Jun 2009
By James Beswick - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: 42 Rules for Driving Success With Books: Success Stories of Corporate and Author Thought Leadership (Paperback)
This book is reminiscent of junk mail that entices a reader to buy more based upon repetitive success stories and promises to show the secrets that 'they' don't want you to know. Each spurious rule (eg. 'brand yourself', 'build your confidence') is represented by a different author who writes around 300-400 words illustrating in the most indirect way possible the result of what happened when they followed the extraordinarily-vague rule, while also plugging their website or product.
I think my favorite is rule #19 - "Get a Ph.D." - which, apart from being irrelevant to driving success with books, fails to mention a Ph.D. at all in the subsequent explanation. "Books, if they're useful, informative, and well written, encourage people to send work to you," enthuses Shel Horowitz in a blinding example of the obvious. "When you have a book, you pretty much have automatic access to (and exposure on) high-traffic websites such as Amazon.com and Google.com," he continues, failing to mention that this has no bearing on your own website unless the book is popular, and has nothing to do with how SEO actually works.
As a 140 page book, 40 pages are dedicated to the photographs and bios of each author, together with an invitation to write your own 42 rules book, and the catalog of other books available. Take away the introduction and table of contents, and this is a very, very thin read which offers absolutely no substantive information to prospective authors. I agree with the other review entitled "No Value" - I haven't quite figured out if this is a pyramid scheme or some other type of marketing game, but I'd strongly advise against wasting $20 on this. There are many other reputable books written about how to write and get published which aren't assisted by questionable 5-star reviews.
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
No Value, 18 May 2009
By Marketing Professional - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: 42 Rules for Driving Success With Books: Success Stories of Corporate and Author Thought Leadership (Paperback)
We purchased this book in the hope that it would provide some information on *how* to drive success with books. Unfortunately, it does not. The entire book is a case study for why you should write a book and publish with this company, which will make you rich and famous.
I was surprised to see how many 5 star reviews it has, until I looked on Google and found that these reviews are by 42 Rules authors or Happy About employees.
5.0 out of 5 stars
MENTORING YOURSELF TO SUCCESS, 5 April 2009
By Judith E. Glaser "Organizational Anthropologist" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: 42 Rules for Driving Success With Books: Success Stories of Corporate and Author Thought Leadership (Paperback)
Everyone I talk with today wants to be able to write their own book! Being self-expressed, having opinions and being able to share them with everyone they can is so important. More than an ego booster, self-expression is built into our DNA. Reading the incredible success stories of the 42 Rules for Driving Success with Books is like working with a book mentor and coach. The stories are inspiring, and informative and I know they will give everyone who reads them new ideas for how to move forward on their amazing writing journey. Many people start to write a good and then they either get writers block, or feel they don't have enough to say to fill a few hundred pages. Reading 42 Rules will unblock the blocks and inspire each and every soon to be author! I know from experience....