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David Meerman Scott – The New Rules of Marketing & PR | Review

Title: The New Rules of Marketing & PR

Author: David Meerman Scott

Type: Non-Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 368

Rating: 8/10

David Meerman Scott – The New Rules of Marketing & PR

If you’re working in contemporary marketing then you need to read this book – it’s as simple as that. True, not all of it was necessarily directly related to what I do in my day job, but the concepts that are covered here are important across the board, whether you’re a marketeer or whether you’re a specialist, such as a web developer, within a marketing team. Let me tell you why.

The way that people communicate has changed, and brands are struggling to keep up. In The New Rules of Marketing & PR, Scott starts out with a basis in traditional marketing theory, and then expands upon it to cover the competitive landscape in the modern age. Essentially, this is your bible, and it’ll explain to you how all of the different channels that are now available, due to the rise of the internet, the web and social media, can be worked to their maximum potential to generate revenue and profit for your business.

Sure, it’s been a few years since the book came out, but Scott keeps it regularly updated, and so make sure you snag the latest edition. The reason that it has to be regularly updated is that it was one of the first serious books to hit the market when this new phase of marketing emerged, and Scott has continued to write on the subject at length since its publication. He’s one of the de facto thought leaders in modern marketing, which is what makes this book so remarkable.

Incidentally, if you’re wondering why he publishes with his middle name, it’s because there was an astronaut called David Scott. Being known as David Meerman Scott helps people to find him on search engines. Isn’t that an awesome way of practicing what you preach? Oh, and one other thing to note – this book is praised by Brian Halligan, co-founder of HubSpot, who also penned a book with him called Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead. I recommend that book, too – combined, they make a force to be reckoned with.

David Meerman Scott

Click here to buy The New Rules of Marketing & PR.

Jesse James Freeman – Billy Purgatory and the Curse of the Satanic Five | Review

Title: Billy Purgatory and the Curse of the Satanic Five

Author: Jesse James Freeman

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 390

Rating: 8/10

Jesse James Freeman – Billy Purgatory and the Curse of the Satanic Five

Disclaimer: Whilst I bought this book out of my own money, Jesse is published and represented by Booktrope, the same publisher which is releasing my debut novella, No Rest for the Wicked.

If you’ve read Billy Purgatory: I am the Devil Bird then this is basically that book, but on acid, and I’m pretty sure the first book was stoned to begin with. Oh man, where do I start?

Basically, Billy Purgatory is a skateboard-wielding badass, who by the end of this book is pretty much whatever age you want him to be. In fact, by the time that you’ve ended up with multiple versions of him in the same room, and they’re talking about alternate realities, your brain is pretty much fried. For that sole reason, I had to give this an eight when I gave the first book a nine – it took me longer to get into it, but once I was there, I was hooked.

And because of the complexities of the story line in the second book, I honestly can’t figure out whether it matters if you read the books in order or not – I usually have pretty strong opinions on this, when I read a book that’s part of a series, but for the first time since I launched SocialBookshelves.com, I just can’t figure it out!

Jesse James Freeman

Still, I was super happy to learn Billy’s middle name and to watch his relationship with Anastacia develop. And then there’s the other big positive to reading something that Jesse has written, which is the fact that you get to read something that he’s written. He writes with colloquialisms, but not so many that they get annoying, and his dialogue is razor sharp – I’m not saying that he isn’t good at writing descriptively, but dialogue is definitely his strength.

Overall, if you read and enjoyed the first Billy Purgatory book, then you should definitely think about reading this one too. If you haven’t read the first book, go and read that, see what you think, and follow it up with this one if you get hooked into the series, like I did. Now that’s badass.