Friday, July 10, 2009

Check Out These Productivity eBooks

Leo Babauta's ZTD eBook

The growing ebook market has given rise to a host of new authors writing on the subject of productivity.  These authors are oftentimes bloggers who have been writing snippets on the topic for a while now and decided to compile their writings into an ebook.  For many, these writers are buried due to the stacks of published books waiting to be reviewed.  Viral marketing of their work (such as this writing) is the way most all of their readers have heard of them.  So today, I wanted to share with you three quality ebooks you can purchase and enjoy immediately without breaking your budget.  One note, I’m not paid by ANY of these authors and profit nothing by promoting their work other than to spread information I hope you find useful.

1. Zen To Done (Leo Babauta). ZTD is the first ebook I purchased.  Even before I purchased formatted books for my Sony Reader, I decided to take the plunge into the ebook market with Leo’s first work.  ZTD is the culmination of ideas gathered on Leo’s popular Zen Habits blog.  I’ve reviewed this elsewhere but will post a full review soon.  In short, Leo distills the popular points of David Allen’s GTD and Steve Covey’s 7 habits and add in some other ideas and innovations to create ZTD.  The book is a quck read, effective, and worth the $9.50 purchase price.  You can buy a copy here.

2. Todoodlist (Nick Cernis). Nick is a British author who writes for his Put Things Off blog.  Todoodlist is a collection of funny stories and some productivity ideas built around Cernis’ “Todoodlist” sytem.  You can read my review of his ebook here.  Todoodlist is available as a download for $14 at this site. I purchased this as well and my only advice would be for Cernis to drop the price to under $10.  With Amazon and Sony offering many formatted ebooks for this price and most ebooks on the market today being budget minded, I think dropping the price would trigger increased sales.  There’s something psychological about saying the ebook is “under ten dollars”.

3. The Little Book of Productivity (Scott H. Young). This is the only ebook of these three I do not own at present.  I’ve read the first chapter which Young allows you to download for free.  Young’s blog, much like Leo Babauta’s, is a collection of ideas on productivity and this book is the culmination of that work.  The book is a collection of 99 ideas divided into seven chapters.  Several independent reviewers give the total work high marks.  I might pick this up at some point when I’m caught up with my other reading but wanted to give you a tip for now so you could check it out if you wish.  The ebook is $9.95 and is available for download here. You can also download the sample chapter at that site as well.

As you seach the blogosphere for ebooks, you will find many good free ones as well.  That’s another blog post altogether.  The growth of this medium has spurred me into working on an ebook I hope to release in the next year or so (Lord willing) but I have to work on it as time allows.  For now, enjoy these and others you find that address topics you enjoy.  It’s only going to get better for this market in the years ahead.

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