Paulo Coelho Rocks!

December 3, 2008

Paulo CoelhoPaulo Coelho is one of my favourite writers! I frequently inspire others by giving his books away to friends and clients. If you don’t know who Paulo Coelho is, you probably have no clue how he sold 100 million books in 1 year. Wow!

Why am I telling you this? Well, Paulo Coelho is sharing his books online for free! Paulo wants his readers to “try his books for free”, so you can download his ebooks freely! How cool is that?

Next to “the Alchemist”, “11 minutes” and “the Zahir”, all his books are free downloadable :-)

This is the best link to start downloading his books. Oh, by the way his books are available in English, Dutch, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Polish, Russian, Castellano and many more!

“The ultimate goal of a writer is to be read. Money comes later.”, according to Paulo. “Most people still prefer to read a real book however, (pirated) ebooks are more often used to preview.” so he states.

Sources : Pirate Coelho and TorrentFreak

A big thank you from a big fan! Paulo Coelho, you ROCK :-)

So, what are you waiting for? Start downloading now! And if you want to speed up the process, check out my lifehack on learning how to read at least 3 times faster in just 15 minutes!

Enjoy every day,

Bert Verdonck

Create, Connect & Contribute

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Lifehacking boek

June 20, 2008

Mijn Nederlandse vriend en berucht lifehacker Martijn Aslander heeft samen met een aantal lifehackers een schitterend boek uitgebracht! Lees het nu!

100 Lifehackingtips

“100 Lifehackingtips om prettiger en efficienter te werken” is de titel en je kan ‘m online bestellen bij Van Duuren Management voor slechts 19,90 €.

Voor wie is dit boek bedoeld? Voor iedereen die in zijn werk gebruikmaakt van een computer, maar geen idee heeft hoe je met een kleine inspanning een hoop dagelijkse taken veel makkelijker voor elkaar krijgt. Voor iedereen die veel op het web werkt, maar nog nooit van RSS heeft gehoord. En voor mensen die de schoonheid van een slimme vondst kunnen waarderen en er hun voordeel mee doen.

 En nu komt het : je kan het boek gratis downloaden! (save as …)

Verder is Martijn te gast bij Ecademy Antwerpen op 24 juni vanaf 19u in L’étage. Dus als je Martijn life aan het werk wil zien, moét je gewoon komen…

Enjoy every day,

Bert Verdonck
Lifehacker

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Who reads a book entirely?

February 12, 2008

Ok, I am one of those booklovers who reads a book from start to finish. Apparently, not like everyone…

Recently, I heard this (true) story about an author who wrote a book (ok, nothing out of the ordinary yet).

After selling a couple of thousands, on a given day he receives a message from one of his readers that in his copy page 147 was missing and if another copy could be send…So, he gets to his stock and takes the first book, looks at page 147 and yes, you guessed it already : the page is missing here too!

Next, he goes to his previous version (I don’t recall if this was the third or second reprint, but in fact it doesn’t matter!) and looks for page 147. Guess what : it’s NOT there!

Wow, he looks in his archive for a copy of his first version and of course : no page 147 ;-)

So, actually page 147 (sure, also page 148 ;-) ) never existed…Now, everyone makes mistakes, I am the first one to admin, but what strikes me is that nobody ever saw it (or took the effort to tell the author about it)!

I mean if you read a book and 2 pages are missing…duh!?!

This brings me to the conclusion that not everyone reads the whole book, right?

In fact, I tested this with some friends and most of them confessed, they only read the intro’s, the first chapter (maybe 2, max3) and the last one, jumping to conclusions.

Wow, I am impressed…

What about you? Do you read every book entirely?

Now, would it be a great idea to write a book with 12 chapters and publish it like any other book, but with just the first 2 chapters (first and last ones) actually printed??? How’s that for creative writing? Who’s willing to be my publisher? ;-)

Enjoy every day,
Bert Verdonck
Network Creator

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The Monk who sold his Ferrari…in the Benelux!

February 10, 2008

Robin SharmaRobin Sharma, a great author with outstanding books, gifted presentations and other tools for personal (or business) achievement, is also considered as one the world’s top experts on personal growth and leadership styles. He is coming to the Netherlands! Next saturday, 16th of Februari, Robin will be in Amsterdam and I am going too ;-)

He’s sharing his insights on “the Monk who sold his Ferrari” during a two hour lecture! Just download this Robin Sharma Flyer and subscribe!

For business people there is a workshop too on friday the 15th!

Next to “the Monk who sold his Ferrari”, I also love “The Saint, the Surfer and the CEO”!

Did you read any of his books? Which one do you prefer?

Enjoy every day,

Bert Verdonck

Network Creator

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Dale Carnegie’s Golden Book?

February 8, 2008

Most people know Dale Carnegie by his books like How to Win Friends and Influence People, first published in 1936, a massive bestseller that remains popular today!

So, in order to share with you several of his insights, here is his Golden Book for free!

Enjoy every day,

Bert Verdonck

Network Creator

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#1 Belgian author on Amazon?

October 16, 2007

Let’s Connect

My friend Jan Vermeiren, the Networking Coach just launched his book Let’s Connect in the US market through a massive sales action on Amazon. On the 9th of October the long-awaited day finally arrived. His goal was to become the first Belgian author to appear in the top selling list at Amazon!

He informed everyone on his mailinglist, his mastermindgroup, his friends, family and a lot extra people through his indirect network.

So, what happened?

Here is a short overview of how I experienced it:

  • Jan mailed everyone on time. I received even a reminder that the launch-day was coming…excellent!
  • I also informed several friends and posted an article on Ecademy.
  • His book was still on pre-order on the 9th! This way people could not publish their testimonials/reviews and create more traffic to his book. I can imagine that several people thought they even could not buy the book yet…
  • On top of that, there is no index, free chapter or any other goodies available in the pre-order phase.
  • I ordered a couple of books from different accounts. Why? Well, it seems more logical to order 3 times 1 book then ordering 3 books at once (1 order vs. 3 orders), although the total stays the same!
  • I watched every couple of hours at the ranking of Let’s Connect on Amazon. I saw it moving up in several categories. So, it really works!
  • Some people ordered at Amazon in the UK or Germany, instead of in the US! Efforts were split, resulting in a sub-optimal rankings.

These are the best results Jan got with Let’s Connect:

  • Number 2 Marketing book (Amazon.com)
  • Number 9 Management book (Amazon.com)
  • Number 16 Business Management book (Amazon.com)
  • Overall Amazon.com: 176
  • Overall Amazon.co.uk: 3715
  • English books on Amazon.de: 746

I congratulate Jan, because despite the several challenges, he made it into the top 10 twice and into the top 200 overall, just in 1 day! How did Jan make this happen? Just read his blog ;-)

Did you ever launched a book on Amazon? Or do you know anyone who did? What are your (their) experiences? 

Enjoy every day,
Bert Verdonck

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Whale Done!

August 11, 2007

This time I have written a personal book review on Ken Blanchard’s Whale Done!

The book is about the power of positive relationships. Most people are focusing on catching people doing thins wrong (GOTcha) instead of catching people doing things right (Whale Done!)

I hope you enjoy my review and buy the book to read the whole story ;-)

Enjoy every day,

Bert

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Going from Good 2 Great

March 23, 2007

Everyone is reading lots of books. Me too! So, in order to fasten things up for you, I have written a personal book review on Jim Collins’ Good To Great, already a classic.

So, you download my book review here (in Dutch!). If you really like it, buy the book and read the whole story! If you have read the book and just want a (kind of an adapted) summary, no problem.

Let me know what you learned from it, ok ?

Enjoy the weekend,

Bert Verdonck

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