Books for Special Topics
What’s Wrong With Business Writing: One skill has the potential to transform businesses in all industries. That skill is writing. Better writing could improve efficiency, creativity, and teamwork at all levels. So why is business writing so bad? To write well requires three things, usually lacking in the professions: (1) A complete system for writing, with simple, intuitive skills based on how the brain works; (2) A process for using that system at all levels of the organization; and (3) a culture of writing, which informs people’s work on a wide range of projects. (Buy What’s Wrong With Business Writing … And How To Fix It now.)
How to Write a High Impact Book: Everyone seems to be writing a book these days. With the rise of Kindle, iPad, and other electronic readers — not to mention the growth of do-it-yourself publishing — we are experiencing a great Writing Revolution. Most people with brains and diligence can write a book. But too many first-time authors waste hundreds of hours of time. Following a number of simple tricks can help to flatten the learning curve for books and other major writing projects. Plus get this bonus: This NaNoWriMo edition contains a day-by-day strategy for you to complete a complete draft of a novel — or other narrative work — in just 30 days. (Buy How to Write a Book now.)
Keep It Short: “Words, words, words,” Hamlet said when Polonius asked what he was reading. These days, Hamlet would say, “Words, words, words, words, words…” This brief guide shows you how to write sharp, engaging prose. Bernard Holland, the longtime music critic of The New York Times, raves: “I wrote short for 30 years because I was a journalist and critic for a newspaper, notoriously stingy with column inches. Keep It Short would have been really helpful. Instead, I learned it all on the job. Take it from me, reading this before you start is easier.” (Buy Keep It Short now.)
In Cold Type: When Truman Capote published In Cold Blood in 1965, he created the most powerful true-crime story of our times and helped to invent the new genre of the “nonfiction novel.” This tale of the grisly murders of a Kansas farm family rises to the level of literature because of Capote’s mastery of technique. Charles Euchner’s In Cold Type shows how Capote deployed these techniques–and how you can too. (Buy In Cold Type now.)
Mad Men’s Guide to Persuasion: Television’s most intelligent series not only offers a powerful drama, but also insights into the art and science of persuasion. This book uses 60 scenes from the Emmy Award-winning program to break down all the essential strategies of persuasion. By using cutting-edge research on the brain, behavioral economics, linguistics, Mad Men’s Guide to Persuasion shows you how to “read” the rhetoric of all media–and how to devise your own strategy of persuasion. (Buy Mad Men’s Guide to Persuasion now.)
The One-Minute Writer: In this short parable, a business consultant named Sofia seeks help from her former college professors as she seeks to analyze a power struggle inside her firm. Each skill takes about 60 seconds to understand–hence, the “one-minute writer.” Sofia uses her skills as a writer to break down the issues at the firm. Writing, she discovers, is not only a skill of communications but of understanding and analysis as well. (Coming soon.)
