RESOURCE CENTRE

Business Start ups

20/20 Hindsight - From Starting Up to Successful Entrepreneur, by Those Who've Been There

Rachelle Thackray's columns in the Independent are a fascinating exploration of what makes an entrepreneur - what drives them, what inspires and discourages them, the obstacles they've overcome and the mistakes they've made. 20/20 Hindsight is a compilation of her interviews with successful business starters, and is a source of tips, ideas to think over and hard-earned wisdom.

A Book About Innocent: Our Story and Some Things We've Learned, by Dan Germain and Richard Reed

Innocent's rise from festival start up to a firm that sells two million bottles of its produce every week is documented in this book about the company. It's packed with tips from its founders on what worked for them, what didn't, and what they learned from their mistakes.

A Good Hard Kick in the Ass: the Real Rules for Business, by Rob Adams

Written by an ex-marine, this book bills itself as an "entrepreneurial boot camp", providing practical advice and explanations that aim to contradict the various myths and misunderstandings about starting a business. Each chapter breaks down one such myth into a series of useful suggestions that anyone can implement, and the book covers topics such as deciding whether an idea is really viable, understanding your customers and the reasons why start ups fail.

Around the World in 80 Trades: Adventures in Economics, from Coffee to Camels and Back, by Conor Woodman

This book will help you to develop your idea, step by step, into a successful business. Jargon-free and packed with up-to-date advice, this 2nd (revised) edition contains an extended section on growing a business and has tips on dealing with a business once it has 20 or more employees.

Authentic Business: How to Create and Run Your Perfect Business, by Neil Crofts

This newly published book explores the reasons why people decide to set up their own businesses, looking at how to find a business idea that is profitable while also being meaningful. It provides case studies and examples of firms that have developed a particularly unusual culture or strong ethical values, and examines how to motivate staff to care about your business as well as just work for it.

Bear Hunt: Earning Your Living by Doing What You Love, by Malcolm McClean

Aiming to provide the inspiration, advice and support to encourage aspiring entrepreneurs to make the leap from employment to self-employment, this book focuses on changing your life and your work to do something that you really care about or have a personal interest in. The book offers a practical structure and suggestions for making these changes that are both tangible and achievable.

Business Research Methods, by Alan Bryman and Emma Bell

Aimed at business students, but useful for any aspiring start up who's getting to grips with researching a new market, this book explains both quantitative and qualitative research methods in practical detail, and is packed examples of how to apply research in a business context.

eBay Hacks: 100 Industrial Strength Tips and Tools, by David A Karp

This book is a great starting point for entrepreneurs considering trying their luck as eBay traders. With a section specifically for sellers that's packed full of tips for promoting your items, strategies for getting high bids and advice on what to sell, it's a great resource for anyone interested in getting a slice of eBay's $30 billion-a-year pie.

Founders At Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days, by Jessica Livingston

This book will provide inspiration and guidance to anyone who is thinking of starting a business or who has a business in its infancy. The businesses featured in this book include Apple, Flickr and PayPal and their owners disclose how they came up with their ideas and what makes them so successful.

Freesourcing: How to Start a Business With No Money, by Jonathan Yates

This book is ideal for anyone thinking of starting a business but doesn't have the capital or funding to do so. It features free start up resources and contains hints and tips on where to source business essentials such as office equipment and stationery, as well as signposts to free banking, advice and support.

From Acorns...How To Build Your Brilliant Business from Scratch, by Caspian Woods

This is a really inspirational read for budding entrepreneurs. A how-to guide for starting a business that steers clear of complex financial terminology and gloomy warnings about your tax commitments, the book covers how to tell if your business idea is really as good as you think it is and how to price your product or service.

Going Self-Employed: How To Start Out In Business On Your Own ... And Succeed, by Steve Gibson

This book tells the reader about the business basics of becoming self-employed. It features advice on business planning, researching your market, targeting customers, promotion and how to keep the taxman happy.

Guide to Bidding, by Jenny Middleton

One of the biggest challenges faced by start ups is navigating the complicated and often drawn out process of applying for funding - particularly when they're planning to bid for a highly competitive Government grant or funding from a charitable resource like the National Lottery. This book takes you through the bid writing process, setting out the steps in a straightforward and readable style and providing practical exercises to help you assess how fundable your business or project actually is.

High Tech Start Up: Creating Successful New High Tech Companies, by John L Nesheim

This book looks in detail at the practicalities and realities involved with setting up a high tech business. It includes more than two dozen case studies, identifies and explains the critical stages of the start up process, and offers practical strategies for getting things done that aim to boost chances of success.

How to Save Your Life: Sack Your Boss, Start Your Own Business, Find Your Passion, by Steve Carey and Susannah Bowen

This book is aimed at anyone who likes the idea of running their own business but doesn't know where to start. It provides tips on avoiding pitfalls of running a business, as well as tips on raising and managing finance.

How to Start Your Own Business for Entrepreneurs, by Robert Ashton

This practical book will appeal to anyone thinking of starting their own business in the recession. It's full of no-nonsense guidance on how to write a business plan, build a brand and get to grips with the admin side of running a business.

In For a Penny: A Business Adventure, by Peter Hargreaves

This book gives readers a candid overview of the process of starting up as an entrepreneur and investor. It's based on the successes of Peter Hargreaves, who set up his financial service business in his spare room with just one telephone and some borrowed office equipment.

Make Your First Million: Ditch the 9-5 and Start the Business of Your Dreams, by Martin Webb

This book for budding start ups is a practical guide to starting up in business, from your initial business plan through to growing your business and branching out. The book is written by Martin Webb, serial practitioner and presenter of TV programme Risking It All. Nobody, says Martin, grows rich lining the boss's pockets. Instead, he uses tips and insider secrets designed to help readers make the break and go it alone.

Maximum Diner, by Chris Nye

This laugh-out-loud account of the process of setting up a diner in a small market town provides practical information and hidden lessons for budding entrepreneurs about the perils and pitfalls of setting up a small business, from sourcing premises and equipment to dealing with the tax man and the local thugs. It's also great fun to read, with astute character observations and a fast pace that will keep you turning the pages.

Ready, Fire, Aim: Zero to $100 million in No Time Flat, by Michael Masterson

This book is designed to help readers get their business idea off the ground as soon as possible and remain focused on the business, not the obstacles. It helps the reader to figure out what they can do on their own without the help of a team, and looks at other business issues such as communication and selling.

Setting Up a Limited Company: Creating Your Own Business, Step by Step (You Need This Book First), by Mark Fairweather and Rosy Border

This book offers a plain English introduction and guide to setting up a limited company. It includes information and samples of the relevant paperwork, letters and documents you will need to become familiar with.

Spare Room Start Up: How to Start a Business from Home, by Emma Jones

This book covers the issues affecting home-based start ups and is from Emma Jones, creator of the Enterprise Nation website. Emma uses her own experiences and lessons learned to guide the reader through the basics of running a home-based business. The book is organised into three themes covering business, lifestyle, and technology and provides tips, case studies and illustrations.

Start and Run a Shop: How to Open a Successful Retail Business, by Deborah Penrith

This book is aimed at those who want to start their own shop-based retail business. It covers important topics such as location, sourcing finance, stock selection, and store display. It also includes insights, hints and tips from shop owners.

Start Your Business: Week by Week, by Steve Parks

Written in a refreshingly clear and friendly way, this book really manages to capture the excitement of the early stages of starting up a new business. It breaks the key processes down into weekly steps, providing a practical, checklist-style approach that is easy to follow and enjoyable to read. It covers the first six months in the life of a new venture, and is packed with useful glossaries, reading lists and case studies.

Start Your Own Home-based Business, by Nick Daws

If you're thinking about starting up a home-based business or are looking for some new ideas about the type of business you could run from home, this book is worth checking out. Reviewers consider this to be the best book of its type, as its specifically written for people based in the UK, and includes over 50 home-based business ideas.

Successful Franchising: Expert Advice on Buying, Selling and Creating Winning Franchises, by Bradley J. Sugars

This book is part of the practical 'Instant Success' series, and offers a no-nonsense, jargon-free guide to franchising, both in terms of franchising your venture and taking up a franchise. It's packed with useful tips and advice, and covers every aspect of the process, from sales and marketing to understanding franchise fees. All of this is written in refreshingly concise language, making the book easy to follow even for beginners to the franchise process.

The Art of the Start, by Guy Kawasaki

This free, downloadable booklet aims to address the fears and concerns of those of you who've suffered moments of doubt during your journeys into entrepreneurship. Listing the top 'frequently avoided questions' and aiming to give you the inspiration to identify and use your business mantra everyday, it tells you how to find meaning in your business idea even when everything seems to be going wrong.

The Bootstrapper's Bible, by Seth Godin

Looking at how to start up a business on a shoestring budget, this bestselling book is packed full of tips for finding customers, researching competitors, planning your cash flow and deciding on a business structure - all explained without jargon, and with an emphasis on need-to-know, practical information.

The Bright Idea Handbook (Which? Essential Guides), by Michael Gardner

If you think you've had a good idea and aren't sure what to do about it, this book from Which? will help you figure out how to exploit it through development and protection. It covers intellectual property basics such as copyright, trade marks, patents and designs, as well as more generic business issues such as marketing and advertising.

The Definitive Business Plan: The Fast-track to Intelligent Business Planning for Executives and Entrepreneurs, by Richard Stutely

Whether you need to write a business plan to raise finance for your venture or simply to explain your idea to yourself and your staff, this book offers practical, step-by-step advice on how to go about it. It explains how to tailor your plan for different readers and objectives, and is written in conversational, jargon-free language.

The Entrepreneur's Book of Checklists, by Robert Ashton

A guide for people who have just started up a business and for those still thinking about it, this book takes a checklist approach to help entrepreneurs get started up, grow their business and achieve their ambitions. Author Robert Ashton has asked real business owners to contribute to this book with their own tips and stories about setting up in business. It is designed to be picked up whenever a reader needs inspiration or information, as readers can use the index and chapter summaries to select a checklist that will help them.

The Good Small Business Guide, by Bloomsbury

This practical 500+ page manual is the ultimate resource for anyone thinking about starting or already running a small business. It includes a directory of essential information for small businesses, as well as step-by-step practical advice covering hundreds of small business topics.

The Internet Start-Up Bible, by Chace and Rowe Read, Calum Chace, Simon Rowe

For those of you trying to get to grips with the ins and outs of trading online, this book offers practical advice that separates the Internet hype from the reality.

The Small Business Start Up Workbook, by Cheryl D. Rickman

Practical and interactive, this book is packed full of checklists, tests, worksheets and exercises to help make your start up dream a reality. It covers everything from researching your idea to getting finance and managing staff, and is peppered with genuinely engaging case studies and comments about people who've set up successful businesses, including some well-known names.

The Start Up Survival Guide, by Chris Lilly

This practical manual is aimed at reducing the number of start ups that fail within the first three years - a figure which currently stands at 66%. It sets out the minimum basics that new business owners must address to ensure that they survive, covering how to avoid common pitfalls and analysing what usually trips new ventures up. Despite its serious subject matter, the book is written in an upbeat and pithy way, and addresses topics such as getting funding, managing money, developing quality products, pricing properly, dealing with customers and motivating staff.

Turn Your Talents Into Profits, by Darcie Sanders and Martha M. Bullen

This book, which is accompanied by a useful Q&A from the author on the Amazon site, is written by two people who have both run part-time home-based businesses. It explores the emerging trend of running a business in this way, providing inspiration, tips and advice on all aspects of getting your at-home venture up and running.

Entrepreneurship

Anyone Can Do It: Building Coffee Republic From Our Kitchen Table: 57 Real-life laws on entrepreneurship, by Sahar Hashemi and Bobby Hashemi

Aimed at aspiring entrepreneurs at the beginning of their quest to run their own venture, this book tells the story of how one of the world's most successful businesses, Coffee Republic, was developed from the homes of its founders. The authors provide a candid account of their problems, setbacks and frustrations, and provide checklist-style tips and hints for others facing similar hurdles

Awakening the Entrepreneur within: How Ordinary People Can Create Extraordinary Companies, by Michael E. Gerber

This book focuses on what the author calls four facets of entrepreneurial personality - The Dreamer, The Thinker, The Performer and The Leader, and is aimed at people who are thinking of setting up their own business but who are unsure of what to do next.

Bottled for Business: The Less Gassy Guide to Entrepreneurship, by Karan Bilimoria

This book, billed as part biography, part business guide, is written by Lord Karan Bilimoria, founder of Cobra Beer. Not only does it tell the story of how he built the Cobra Beer business from scratch, it also contains useful hints and tips on marketing and growing a business.

Business Genius: A More Inspired Approach to Business Growth, by Peter Fisk

This book combines the passion of start up businesses with that of larger enterprises to help entrepreneurs grow their own ventures. It presents the reader with insights from all kinds of businesses from around the world, and looks at strategies for innovation, change and leadership.

Business Nightmares: When Entrepreneurs Reach Crisis Point, by Rachel Elnaugh

This book by ex-dragon Rachel Elnaugh looks at the dark days experienced by entrepreneurs when their businesses take a bad turn. She interviews entrepreneurs and unveils her own experiences of when she lost her successful business, Red Letter Days. The book analyses high-profile business disasters, how the business owners involved handled the outcomes, and what they learned from their experiences.

Common Sense Rules: What You Really Need to Know About Business, by Deborah Meaden

In this book by successful entrepreneur and BBC Dragon Deborah Meaden, she recounts her rise to business success, offering readers candid and straightforward business advice along the way. She also comments on the business successes and failures of other entrepreneurs.

Developing New Business Ideas: A Step-by-step Guide to Creating New Business Ideas Worth Backing, by Mary and Andrew Bragg

Billed as 'essential reading for all would-be entrepreneurs', this book addresses the difficult subject of finding and developing a viable business idea that, as well as being unusual and interesting to the entrepreneur, is also likely to convince financial backers. The step-by-step approach makes the book easy to follow and digest, and the use of case studies provides a practical and realistic flavour.

Do It Tomorrow and Other Secrets of Time Management, by Mark Forster

This book's author claims to be one of the top ten life coaches in the UK, and the practical ideas put forward in this manual reflect his refreshing and enthusiastic style. Packed with easy to achieve ideas for improving your personal efficiency and productivity, including some unusual suggestions, the book claims to provide a complete system that will enable anyone to complete "one day's work in one day".

Dragons or Angels?, by Modwenna Rees-Mogg

This book reveals what happens when a venture capitalist invests in a business and offers advice from some of the investors from the BBC's Dragon's Den. It includes case studies of businesses that won investment from the Dragons and stories from those that were turned down..

Drop Dead Brilliant - Dazzle in the Workplace with Confidence and Panache, by Lesley Everett

This book promises to help you get ahead by creating your own personal brand to help you stand out from the crowd, with 'drop-dead brilliant' advice on those all-important first impressions, appearances and everything else you need to create the right image. Author Lesley Everett has put together a seven-point plan for creating your personal brand, ranging from deciding on who you really are, to your body language and voice.

Entrepreneurship and Small Firms, by David Deakins

This book explores entrepreneurial personalities and the factors that make up small business decision making. It also looks at support and initiatives for small businesses, as well as the characteristics of small firms in the UK.

Gripes of Wrath: This Book is Guaranteed to Make Your Blood Boil!, by Simon Carr

A great, light-hearted Christmas read for any entrepreneur who is frustrated and baffled by the volume of red tape present in today's UK. The book takes a humorous approach to describing the boggling array of absurd legal rules, claims and red tape, from unusual health and safety claims to strange compensation cases. It's based on local newspaper stores and parliamentary reports, and makes for an amusing - if disturbing - festive read.

How I Made It: 40 Successful Entrepreneurs Reveal All, by Rachel Bridge

Taking a fascinating look into what makes the difference between new businesses that fail and those that succeed, this book offers an inspirational chronicle of success stories where dreams have been turned into profitable business reality. The entrepreneurs interviewed in the book speak candidly about issues such as how they decided on their business idea and how they got funding, as well as revealing their doubts, frustrations and mistakes.

How She Does It: How Women Entrepreneurs Are Changing the Rules of Business Success, by Margaret Heffernan

Although written for the US market, there are plenty of tips in here for female business owners in the UK. Author Margaret Heffernan interviewed hundreds of women business owners, and found many had gone it alone after working for firms that didn't listen to them or respect their views. She discovered the key qualities successful female business start ups tend to share and why they consider running their own business to be about more than simply making profits.

How to Be a Complete and Utter Failure in Life, Work and Everything: 39 Steps to Lasting Underachievement, by Steve McDermott

If you are sick and tired of self-improvement or motivational books, courses and advice from people that you've never met or are dead, then you'll love this book. It turns the whole subject area on its head, and is written in an intelligent, humorous style as a 'how not to' guide to personal and business success.

How To Be An Entrepreneur: The Six Secrets of Self-Made Success, by Steve Parks

This book identifies the six traits that successful entrepreneurs have in abundance - attitude, opportunity, focus, talent, planning and communication. What's more it reveals how to be successful at starting up and running a business.

How To Get Rich, by Felix Dennis

Self-made publishing tycoon Felix Dennis, whose publishing empire includes Auto Express and Maxim magazines, says making money is a knack that anyone can acquire - as long as they are properly motivated and prepared to put the work in. His book gives step-by-step instructions to "collecting money which already has your name on it", and looks closely at start ups and why so many don't get off the ground.

How to Make Millions With Your Ideas: an Entrepreneur's Guide, by Dan Kennedy

If you're just starting out, this book is packed with unique and unusual ideas to inspire you to develop your business. And if you've been running your business for a while, the examples of how other entrepreneurs reinvented their businesses or approached challenges might be just the motivation you need to tackle your own problems from a new perspective.

How They Started: How 30 Good Ideas Became Great Businesses, by David Lester

This book describes the entrepreneurial journeys of 30 people, who each turned their ideas into successful businesses. Questions such as 'what happened first?' and 'where did you find your suppliers?' are put to the entrepreneurs. Their answers could inspire you to turn your idea into a reality.

It's a Long Way from Penny Apples, by Bill Cullen

Reading more like an amusing novel than a business manual, this book tells the story of how Irishman Bill Cullen went from market stall trader to millionaire. The tone is down to earth and practical, with plenty of insights and analogies that anyone can understand. There's plenty of detail but the book is so easy to read that you'll absorb it in no time - a great choice for summer.

Lucky or Smart? Secrets of an Entrepreneurial Life, by Bo Peabody

This is the first book by Internet billionaire Bo Peabody, who left college at 23 and set up his first business, Tripod, after attracting $3 million in investment, using his DIY business plan. He sold the company, which helped people create their own homepages, to Lycos for $58 million, getting his money just before the Internet bubble burst. Since his initial success, Peabody has started a number of other businesses. This book is a first-person account of his life as an entrepreneur, written in a fast-paced, spirited style. Peabody's philosophy is "I'm not going to get bogged down in the details".

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Take Hold and Others Come Unstuck, by Dan Heath and Chip Heath

This book will help small businesses and entrepreneurs get their messages across more effectively to their audience. It discusses why certain newspaper story headlines make people want to read on and includes anecdotes about why some communication messages are 'stickier' than others.

Millionaire MBA Ltd provides audio mentoring materials for aspiring entrepreneurs. It has launched a free e-book entitled '37 Winning Tips and Strategies of Self-Made Millionaire Entrepreneurs'. Based on the advice of renowned UK businesspeople, the e-book aims to provide both inspiration and practical tips to small business owners keen to grow their enterprises - without forking out a penny.

Millionaire Upgrade: Lessons in Success from Those Who Travel at the Sharp End of the Plane, by Richard Parkes Cordock

This book claims to blow out of the water the Dragons' Den nonsense about entrepreneurs being a special or magical breed of being. It combines the wisdom and advice of 50 successful entrepreneurs, and bases its 'plot' around a frustrated employee who is upgraded on a long-haul flight and learns the secrets of business success while sitting in first class. The unusual concept provides an engaging read, and the book is jam-packed with practical tips.

My Big Idea: 30 Successful Entrepreneurs Reveal How They Found Inspiration, by Rachel Bridge

This book aims to tell the stories of how 30 inspirational entrepreneurs got their eureka moment. It covers ideas that became reality against all the odds, as well as those that seemed buzzworthy at the time but lacked staying power. Each entrepreneur is profiled in-depth, and you can even benefit from reading some of their personal philosophies. Even Sir Richard Branson reckons this book is "essential reading for every budding entrepreneur".

No Cash, No Fear: Entrepreneurial Secrets to Starting Any Business with No Money, by Terry F Allen

There are literally hundreds of books on the market offering advice and tips about starting a business, most telling you more or less the same thing. But this one offers a totally compelling and practical account by an entrepreneur author who has started up over 20 businesses with little or no capital.

Screw it, Let's do it: Lessons in Life, by Richard Branson

In this short read, Richard Branson brings together some of the lessons he's learnt in his business and personal life. With advice including love what you do and keep trying until you achieve your goal, this is an inspiring read for any 'entrepreneur', however that might be defined.

Small Business Ideas: 400 Latest and Greatest Small Business Ideas, by Terry J. Kyle

This book helps those thinking of becoming their own boss to get inspired and think creatively about the type of business they could run. It covers a range of niche business ideas and fads from around the globe and includes advice and information on how to make your own small business succeed.

Start Up! How to start a successful business from absolutely nothing - what to do and how it feels, by Liz Jackson and Michael Spain

This book follows Liz Jackson's real life experience of starting her enterprise from deciding to leave her job, to where she is now - owning a £2 million business with 100 employees. Start Up! is full of practical hints and tips and aims to inspire wannabe entrepreneurs to follow their dreams.

Sun Tzu: The Art of War for Managers - 50 Strategic Rules, by Gerald A. Michaelson

This easy to read manual explains the complex subject of strategic thinking in simple, jargon free language. It's aimed at business directors and managers responsible for steering the direction of an enterprise, and looks at issues such as developing a marketing strategy, improving and streamlining business processes, providing practical examples that any business owner can understand.

The Age of Speed: Learning to Thrive in a More-Faster-Now World, by Vince Poscente

This book aims to persuade businesses that the current speed of contemporary life is a good thing - and why they should grasp the opportunities it offers. Written by a former competitive skier, the book will be a useful addition to the libraries of entrepreneurs seeking to understand new and emerging social tends.

The Beermat Entrepreneur: Turn Your Good Idea into a Great Business, by Mike Southon and Chris West

This book will help you to develop your idea, step by step, into a successful business. Jargon-free and packed with up-to-date advice, this 2nd (revised) edition contains an extended section on growing a business and has tips on dealing with a business once it has 20 or more employees.

The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, by Ken Robinson and Lou Aronica

This book explores how the reader can fulfil their creative potential and discover their talents. It showcases stories from a range of people who have recognised their unique gifts and have made a successful living out of them.

The Entrepreneur's Book of Checklists: 1,000 Tips to Help you Start and Grow your Business, by Robert Ashton

Taking as its aim the concept of reducing the fear factor involved in starting up a business by breaking all the different aspects down into manageable chunks, this book is perfect for aspiring entrepreneurs who are keen to start their own ventures but unsure where to begin. It's packed with endless lists and tables to help you plan your enterprise, as well as using practical examples to explain the more complicated issues.

The Growing Business Handbook: Inspiration and Advice From Successful Entrepreneurs and Fast Growing UK Companies, by Adam Jolly

This book, featuring advice and guidance from business consultants and successful firms, will help aspiring entrepreneurs build and develop their own businesses. It includes tips on everything from hiring staff and increasing market share to updating computer systems.

The Little Black Book of Entrepreneurship: A Contrarian's Guide to Succeeding Where Others Have Failed, by Fernando Trías de Bes

By focusing on failures and the reasons behind them, this book aims to inspire readers to succeed where others have failed. The author identifies what he calls 14 Key Failure Factors to help entrepreneurs avoid failure pitfalls.

The New Alchemists, by Charles and Elizabeth Handy

Consisting of a series of illuminating interviews with successful entrepreneurs, from well-known millionaires like Richard Branson and Terence Conran to lesser-known but no less inspirational small business owners, this book asks each candidate to define the key 'make or break' moments they encountered on their route into business. It also contains insightful summary chapters which discuss success, management and motivation in more general terms.

The New Business Road Test: What Entrepreneurs and Executives Should Do Before Writing a Business Plan, by John Mullins

This book is a practical guide to testing whether your idea will work in the real world before you sit down to write a business plan. Author John Mullins looks at how successful entrepreneurs and investors operate, and has put the lessons he has learned together in this book. He has identified seven areas you should look at to see if your idea has a realistic chance of succeeding. This, he says, will help you to invest your time wisely and have the confidence to pitch your ideas to potential investors.

The One Minute Entrepreneur: The Secret to Creating and Sustaining a Successful Business, by Ken Blanchard, Don Hutson and Ethan Willis

This book provides would-be entrepreneurs and small business owners with essential advice on how to start and sustain a successful business. The book - part of the One Minute Manager series - focuses on three areas of business: Finance and how to manage your money effectively; people and the importance of empowerment; and customers and how to take care of them.

The Seven-Day Weekend : A Better Way to Work in the 21st Century, by Ricardo Semler

This is a case study of how a Brazilian entrepreneur turned his small family business into a profitable, fast-growing, high-tech company. It explores the author's revolutionary management style, and encourages readers to use the case study to ask questions about the performance of their own enterprises. Most importantly, it's crammed with practical, easy to implement examples of how doing things differently can help you to grow your business.

The Social Entrepreneur: Making Communities Work, by Andrew Mawson

This book will help social entrepreneurs who want to use social enterprise to improve their communities. It discusses how one social entrepreneur was able to transform his community, in the east end of London, by unlocking its untapped potential.

The Social Entrepreneur Revolution: Doing Good by Making Money, Making Money by Doing Good, by Martin Clark

This book outlines the benefits of combining business with social good. Written by social entrepreneur Martin Clarke, it features hints, tips and tools to help you set up and run a successful social enterprise.

They Made America : From the Steam Engine to the Search Engine, by Harold Evans

This fascinating insight into entrepreneurship is packed with interesting illustrated portraits of groundbreaking US entrepreneurs and innovators like Thomas Edison, George Doriot (a venture capital pioneer), and the inventors of the bra, the computer operating system and modern banking.

Tikka Look At Me Now, by Charan Gill

This book is the rags to riches story of 'Curry King' Charan Gill, who arrived in Glasgow from India when he was nine, unable to speak English. He's now a multi-millionaire after earning £8 million from the sale of his Harlequin Restaurant Group. The group sprang from just one restaurant, which was the foundation of the biggest chain of Indian restaurants in Europe. With his humorous touch, Charan explains how he rose from humble beginnings, why it's OK to leave school without qualifications, and what the future may hold.

Upstart Start-Ups! : How 34 Young Entrepreneurs Overcame Youth, Inexperience and Lack of Money to Create Thriving Businesses, by Ron Lieber

If you are looking for inspiring and confidence-building ideas with examples of real-life start up success stories from new and existing entrepreneurs, then this book is definitely work checking out. It offers a jargon-free guide to what it takes to start a business.

What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School, by Mark H McCormack

The title speaks for itself in this brilliant business book. The author tells you that 'What they don't teach you at Harvard Business School', or on any other MBA programme for that matter, is that business schools CAN'T teach you what you really need to know to run a business. You should definitely check this one out.

Where's Your Wow? 16 Ways to Make Your Competitors Wish They Were You! by Robyn Freedman-Spizman and Rick Frishman

This book aims to help entrepreneurs discover their own 'wow factor'. It has 16 short chapters, so the information is delivered in bitesize chunks, and is divided into three parts. Part one helps you to identify a personal brand; part two helps you follow a plan, and part three helps you to stay hungry for success.

Why You're Dumb, Sick, and Broke and How to Get Smart, Well, and Rich! by Randy Gage

This straight-talking manual tells you exactly how to overcome your negative beliefs in order to achieve success, both at work and at home. It's packed with no-nonsense, practical tips on how to get ahead in a competitive world, explaining how to develop a powerful personal action plan that'll get you smart, healthy and rich. It's not a book for the fainthearted, as the author takes a no-holds-barred approach to the subject matter he covers, but for a motivational - and entertaining - kick in the teeth, you could do a lot worse.

Will Work For Fun: Three Simple Steps for Turning Any Hobby or Interest into Cash, by Alan R. Bechtold

This book gives the reader pointers on how to turn their hobbies or interests into a source of extra income that also enables them to do what they love doing most.

Winning: the Ultimate Business How-To Book, by Jack and Suzy Welch

Billed as a book for entrepreneurs who "sweat, get their nails dirty, hire, fire, make hard decisions, and pay the price when those decisions are wrong", this handbook is written by the former chief executive of General Electric. It focuses on three key areas: working in a team, dealing with competitors and balancing work and life.

Your Idea Can Make You Rich, by Evan Davies and the Dragons' Den crew

It was inevitable that the people behind Dragons' Den would shortly publish a book, but this offering is actually better than we expected. Its foreword by the eminently sensible and likeable presenter Evan Davies summarises what the book is about: essentially, it aims to give aspiring entrepreneurs the confidence, along with some practical tips, to turn their ideas into reality. The candid summaries of why some entrepreneurs failed on the show provide useful reading, and the case studies about previous applicants to the show are helpful, too.

Finance

30 Minutes to Understand the Financial Pages, by Donald Waters

This book offers an at-a-glance guide to the jargon in the financial sections of the daily papers, allowing you to make a better-informed judgement about your industry, your market and your customers. Like the rest of the '30 minutes' series, this is very much a guide for busy people, but it claims it will give you just enough information to gain confidence in interpreting financial information.

Book-Keeping and Accounting for the Small Business, by Peter Taylor

This practical manual covers all you need to know about balancing your books, from VAT to payroll.

Driving Down Cost: How to Manage and Cut Costs - Intelligently, by Andrew Wileman

This book provides the reader with practical advice on cutting costs. The subject matter covers customers, suppliers and staff and will be particularly useful for owners and managers of small businesses looking for ways to save money.

EBoys: The First Inside Account of Venture Capitalists at Work, by Randall E Stross

This is an insightful and often amusing look at how the venture capital process actually works, aiming to debunk some of the myths that can confuse budding entrepreneurs looking for this type of funding. It also offers a series of ideas and tips on what to look for in a venture capitalist.

Financial Troubleshooting: An Action Plan for Money Management in the Small Business, by David H Bangs

Looking at how to identify and tackle financial problems before they become crises, this book explains the financial processes involved in running a small firm, such as cash flow forecasting, budgeting and investing.

Good Finance Guide for Small Businesses: How to Raise, Manage and Grow Your Company's Cash, by A & C Black

This book is an up-to-date and practical one-stop guide for people thinking about raising finance to start or grow a business, or manage the finances of a business they already run. It covers fives sections - getting off the ground, growing the business, coping in a crisis, pricing, and good cash management.

How to Fund your Business: The essential guide to raising finance to start and grow your business, by Steve Parks

This book promises to remove the pain from finding the finance for your new enterprise. It examines the pros and cons of various types of funding, from the well known to less publicised techniques, then helps you decide how much money you need and the best way to find it. The book also looks at the worst case scenario - what to do if it all goes wrong and where you stand financially.

Raising Finance for your Business, by Mark Blayney

This plain English manual aims to demystify finance and financial jargon for small business owners. It covers how to work out how much money your venture needs, identifying options for raising cash, and choosing the best method of financing your business. It also includes detailed briefings covering how to finance a particular type of start up.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That The Poor And Middle Class Do Not, by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon L Lechter

This book provides a genuine insight into the principles, attitude and understanding needed to attain financial literacy, control and success.

Taxation: Simple and Practical Business Skills, by Keith Kirkland and Stuart Howard

Written in refreshingly non-technical language, this book covers the basics of taxation, including income tax, employees' PAYE contributions, and National Insurance.

The Best Small Business Accounts Book, by Peter Hingston

This simple and accessible how-to guide takes small businesses that aren't registered for VAT through the complexities of bookkeeping and accounting. It's ideal for micro, 'cash' enterprises, from gardeners to taxi drivers, and focuses on the key requirements of these businesses, omitting the jargon and complex accounting requirements associated with larger ventures.

The Crunch: The Scandal of Northern Rock and the Escalating Credit Crisis, by Alex Brummer

Not a day goes by without more stories spilling out from media machines about the credit crunch. This book by journalist Alex Brummer traces the origins of the credit crunch back to its sub-prime roots and fills in the gaps that non-financiers and journalists may have.

The Money Secret, by Rob Parsons

Useful for everyone from small businesses to students, this book focuses on effective money management and provides real examples and practical tips on handling your finances and dealing with debt. It's packed full of useful contacts and gives its advice in the form of a series of tips which can immediately be put into practice.

The Richest Man In Babylon, by George S Clason

This book about personal finance is a series of tales set in ancient Babylon, where people who are extremely rich and extremely poor live side by side. You read it as a 'fly on the wall' story, as those who seek wealth ask for advice and are taught valuable lessons from those who have already made it.

The Rules of Wealth: A Personal Code for Prosperity, by Richard Templar

If you're looking to make real money, author Richard Templar claims to have the rules to teach you how to do so. The 100 rules are split into five sections - thinking wealthy, getting wealthy, get even wealthier, staying wealthy and sharing your wealth.

The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing: A Guide to Growing More Profitably, by Thomas Nagle

Practical, tip-based and written in a lively tone, this manual provides a comprehensive, step-by-step guide to pricing analysis and strategy development. As well as tackling the theory, the book also covers the psychological aspects of price sensitivity.

Venture Capital Handbook: an Entrepreneur's Guide, Gladstone

If you are hoping to raise venture capital and would like practical information to help you understand how to prepare a proposal, answer investment and due diligence questions, handle exit negotiations etc then this book is worth a look.

General Small Business

100 Great Business Ideas: From leading companies around the world, by Jeremy Kourdi

This book contains 100 ideas to help business owners get more out of their business and staff. It covers everything from customer loyalty and marketing to people management and intellectual property development.

201 Great Ideas for Your Small Business, by Jane Applegate

Relevant whether you have an established business, have just started up or are simply thinking about running your own business, this practical manual is jam-packed with hundreds of sensible, easy to implement ideas for making your venture a success. Topics covered include money management, marketing, using technology and excelling at customer service. The book also contains step-by-step guidance on putting the ideas into practice, as well as inspiring real-life case studies about existing entrepreneurs.

30 Minutes to Improve Your Networking Skills, by Hilton Catt & Patricia Scudamore

Part of a useful series of short, snapshot books looking at how you can address key business problems in 30 minutes or less, this book focuses on improving your networking skills, and looks at issues such as boosting your confidence and attracting new business.

50 Management Ideas You Really Need to Know, by Edward Russell-Walling

This book gives the reader an overview of management concepts, handily delivered in 50 bite-sized topics. It summarises key topics such as branding, outsourcing, the long tail, supply and demand and includes quotes from key businesspeople.

A number of useful booklets have been produced since the July bombings in London which explain what business continuity means in practical terms. The Business Continuity Institute's booklet, 'Expecting the unexpected: Business continuity in an uncertain world', looks at how to assess and analyse the risks to your business.

And AXA Insurance publishes a practical business continuity guide for small firms, covering how to analyse risks, case studies to highlight key issues, and a sample continuity plan.

A Dream with a Deadline: Turning Strategy into Action, by Jacques Horovitz and Anne-Valerie Ohlsson-Corboz

This book is all about vision and your ability to turn it into a reality. The author takes the example "Let's put a man on the moon in ten years" and uses it as a platform to help business owners formulate their visions and make them actionable. The author claims that by the time you've read the book, you'll have a three-page written summary about where your business is headed.

Alpha Male Syndrome, by Kate Ludeman

Alpha males - charged with testosterone and a desire to over-achieve - make up three-quarters of the world's top business executives, according to this new book. It identifies four types of alpha males: commanders, executors, strategists and visionaries. There is guidance on how to behave like successful alpha males such as Michael Dell of computer fame, and how to avoid the 'rogue' elements of the species, who often bring their businesses down with them when they fail.

A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder, by Eric Abrahamson and David H Freedman

This book, which is written by an academic and a journalist, subverts the theory that having a clear, tidy desk is the only way to be effective in business. Rather than being totally tidy or totally messy, the book argues that most people are most productive somewhere between the two extremes. Full of anecdotes and case studies, the book looks at examples of how a little bit of mess proved successful in the world of business, parenting, cooking, the war on terror...and even the career of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Awesomely Simple: Essential Business Strategies for Turning Ideas into Action, by John Spence

This book presents six strategies to help you run your business more efficiently and successfully. It includes case studies, examples and easy-to-follow guidelines to help you implement the strategies in your business.

Bag the Elephant: How to Win and Keep BIG Customers, by Steve Kaplan

This newly published book covers the holy grail for every small business owner: how to win a big client. Written in a practical and detailed how-to style, the book explains that securing the business of a major customer is not beyond the grasp of small firms, despite what they may think. Packed with valuable advice and useful case studies, you can find out more about the author's other work at his website, www.differencemaker.com. The site includes a newsletter and free toolbox covering the same subject considered in the book.

Bids, Tenders and Proposals: Winning Bids Through Best Practice, by Harold Lewis

This book contains practical explanations, hints and tips on how to succeed when bidding for contracts and funding. It covers lottery grants, bidding for London 2012 contracts and how to structure a proposal, tender or bid.

Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell

This book explores the subject of how some people can make important decisions in the blink of an eye, while others find the process much more difficult. It offers practical tips on honing your natural instinct and intuition in order to improve your ability to think on your feet, solve problems and make confident decisions.

BOOM! 7 Disciplines to control, grow and add impact to your business, by Emma Wimhurst

This book is aimed at small business owners and entrepreneurs who are striving to make their businesses the best in their field. It discusses seven disciplines that can help you control and develop your business - strategy, planning, marketing management, finance, team building, customer commitment and personal development.

Brilliant presentations: What the Best Presenters Know, Say and Do, by Richard Hall

No doubt some of you reading this bulletin will have baulked at the thought of having to deliver an effective presentation - perhaps to your investors or to prospective buyers. This book, through its five-point check list, helps you to hone your presentation skills and present with confidence.

Consumer Behaviour, by Michael Solomon, Gary Bamossy and Soren Askegaard

Billing itself as the most comprehensive guide to consumer behaviour, attitudes and habits, this book explores European consumer values, popular culture, lifestyles and consumption trends. It also explains how to relate this information to your market research and customer profiling. A section on marketing opportunities and pitfalls illustrate examples of where consumer behaviour issues have been applied to business marketing strategies, and the book also contains information about e-marketing and e-business.

Dealing with Difficult People, by Roberta Cava

Covering how to tackle awkward situations involving complaining customers, rebellious employees or difficult partners, this practical manual offers step-by-step guidance on tackling tricky or sensitive problems in your business. Together with Lifescripts, which we featured last week and which includes actual scripted conversations to try in these situations, it offers a useful combination for beating just about any problem.

Dealing with the Customer From Hell: A Survival Guide, by Shaun Belding

This book intends to help the reader deal with difficult customers and achieve an outcome that works for everyone. It provides strategies to help you listen and sympathise with the 'customer from hell', then come up with a win-win solution. The guidance relates to problems encountered on the telephone, face-to-face, in the office and on the sales floor.

Did You Spot the Gorilla? How to Recognise the Hidden Opportunities in Your Life, by Richard Wiseman

Based on a recent series of psychological experiments, this book explores how to spot, and then make the most of, business opportunities that crop up in everyday life. It explains the scientific evidence behind the experiments in layman's terms, and goes on to offer practical advice on how to exploit opportunities that you find. All in all, an entertaining and unusual read that will boost your creative thinking powers.

Director's Handbook, by Institute of Directors

The Institute of Directors (IoD) has published what it reckons is an 'essential toolkit' for modern company directors. The 'Director's Handbook', produced in association with law firm Pinsent Masons, takes the form of a practical manual and reference tool that aims to act as a one-stop shop for all sorts of different issues, duties, responsibilities and liabilities associated with being a director. The handbook costs £25.

Do You Matter? How Great Design Will Make People Love Your Company, by Robert Brunner and Stewart Emery

This book tells the reader how to build up a design-driven business which in turn could help to create more products and services that customers want or need. The authors discuss how to use design research and how to incorporate design values into a business.

Dreams with a Deadline: How to Turn a Strategy for Tomorrow into a Plan for Today, by Jacques Horovitz and Anne-Valerie Ohlsson-Corboz

This book explains how to transform an idea, dream or vision into reality, action or results. It aims to equip you with the practical tools to develop a one-page representation of how your vision will be achieved, together with a three-page summary of your strategy. There are exercises to help you determine where to focus time and resources, and guidance on meeting deadlines, staying focused and tracking progress.

Eat That Frog!: Get More of the Important Things Done, Today!, by Brian Tracy

This book uses the principle that you should eat a frog first thing in the morning, so you get the hardest part of the day over and done with. It aims to help you stop procrastinating over whatever you need to do and motivates you to take action. The book helps you to focus on important tasks and apply the rules of decision, discipline and determination in order to achieve your goals.

Edison on Innovation: 102 Lessons in Creativity for Business and Beyond, by Alan Axelrod

This book explores how you can develop habits for generating new ideas and facilitate creative thinking. The author reveals the thought processes that Thomas Edison used to come up with his ideas, and writes about principles that can help even the most seemingly uncreative people become more creative.

E-writing: 21st-century Tools for Effective Communication, by Dianna Booher

Business communication in a digital age is covered in this book, from writing effective e-mails to recording to-the-point voicemails. It's full of straightforward advice on how to sound authoritative, improve your clarity and avoid common grammatical errors and style mishaps.

Family Wars: Classic conflicts in family business and how to deal with them, by Grant Gordon and Nigel Nicholson

This book will provide an insight into the world of family-run businesses and will be a useful read for anyone involved in one. It covers the ups and downs of running a family business and how to avoid family feuds.

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

This book looks at the motivation behind everyday events, from eating to cheating, sitting in traffic jams and feeling afraid. The authors see economics as the root of everything we do, and try to dig deeper to find out our motivations. The book also explores the role of the Internet, which - because it makes so much information available to everyone - lessens the gap between 'experts' and the general public.

Free Lunch, by David Smith

Free Lunch manages to take the 'dismal science' of economics and make it interesting and understandable. It's full of examples from recent British business events and politics, and will leave you with a good picture of how and why large and small firms behave the way they do. And according to the reviews even Gordon Brown thinks it's a good book.

Free - The Future of a Radical Price: Why the Economics of Abundance and Zero Pricing is Changing the Face of Business, by Chris Anderson

In his latest book, Chris Anderson (author of 'The Long Tail') turns his attention to the world of the ever-expanding world of the consumer freebie. No longer limited to free samples or even free newspapers, consumers can access free flights, free laptops and more. The book explores why companies offer deals for free and what they stand to gain from them.

Funky Business Forever: How to Enjoy Capitalism, by Kjell Nordstrom and Jonas Ridderstrale

Rather than doing 'business as usual' this book teaches the reader about 'funky business' - using new thinking and new developments to approach business differently. It includes chapters with titles like Funky Times, the Forces of Funk and Feeling Funky.

Futuretainment: Yesterday the World Changed, Now It's Your Turn, by Mike Walsh

This book looks at the business opportunities and changes presented by new media and social networking, and discusses how consumers have shaped entertainment and broadcasting.

Getting Things Done: the Art of Stress-Free Productivity, by David Allen

If you spend more time writing and worrying about a to-do list than actually doing the things on the list, this book could help you. It provides practical tips, techniques and solutions to productivity problems, exploring how to make better use of time, keep cool under pressure and handle unexpected demands. Advice is given on when and how to delegate and the book is packed with tips on improving efficiency across your business.

Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance, by Marcus Buckingham

This is the latest personal performance-improving manual from the author of the bestselling First, Break All the Rules. The new title focuses on how to put your core strengths to practical use in six key steps that will aim to help you build your confidence and improve your performance both professionally and personally.

Guerrilla Marketing on the Internet: The Definitive Guide from the Father of Guerrilla Marketing, by Jay Conrad Levinson, Mitch Mayerson and Mary Eule Scarborough

This book, from guerrilla marketing specialist Jay Conrad Levinson, offers pre-starts and start ups invaluable advice on how to use guerrilla marketing techniques online, to their advantage, and not spend a fortune on doing so.

Health & Safety Guide 2007, by the FPB

This annually updated book is produced by the Forum of Private Business (FPB) to guide firms through the maze of health and safety legislation. It explains businesses' responsibilities and is split into easy to follow sections with sector-specific guidance. It's pricey (£90 for FSB members, £190 for non-members) but has been fully updated to include the smoke-free regulations.

Health and Safety for Small Businesses, by Tom O'Reilly

This book offers comprehensive guidance for small business owners and contains information on the exemptions and provisions made to small firms. The book also offers short cuts and practical solutions to help you stay within the laws of health and safety.

Health and Safety in Brief, by John Ridley

This book reviews health and safety legislation in jargon-free language and explains how to comply with it in practical terms. It takes a clear and plain-English approach, featuring bulleted summaries of business owners' duties under the law.

How People Tick: A Guide to Difficult People and How to Handle Them, by Mike Leibling

Everyone in business comes across a sticky customer or colleague now and then. This practical guide aims to help you deal with every type of awkward person, with insights and solutions that can be applied to all sorts of difficult situations. The book aims to teach you how to address disruptive behaviour patterns at the root, so you don't have to revisit the same problem again and again.

How to Be Brilliant, by Michael Heppell

This book starts off by providing a series of practical assessment tools to help you gauge how brilliant you already are. It then uses realistic examples and clear strategies to explain how you can get to where you want to be. It covers topics such as improving communication, getting motivated to succeed and prioritising your goals.

How to Get More Done: Seven Days to Achieving More, by Fergus O'Connell

This book helps you to learn a new set of skills that will help you achieve more, establish your working patterns and help you create extra time. It is based on a seven-day week and you will learn one principle per day.

How to Lead: What You Actually Need to Do to Manage, Lead and Succeed, by Jo Owen

This practical book bills itself as an essential guide to the theory and practice of leadership and management. It provides useful tips and guidance on effective management skills, but retains an entertaining approach throughout, covering how to avoid foul-ups, and summarising the types of effective behaviour demonstrated by good managers.

How to Manage: The Art of Making Things Happen, by Jo Owen

This book is full of insightful tips on how to manage effectively, successfully and productively. It covers hard and soft skills in an easy-to-read format.

How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie

Despite first being published in 1937, this book is still in the top 100 business bestsellers lists, having sold 16 million copies along the way. In it, the grandfather of people skills shows that financial success is more down to ideas, leadership and creating enthusiasm than technical or professional knowledge.

If You Want to Write: Releasing the Creative Spirit, by Brenda Ueland

This motivational coaching manifesto is aimed primarily at writers and those in the creative industries, but any aspiring entrepreneur could benefit from its approachable style and inspirational tips and strategies for turning dreams into reality.

Inevitable Surprises: Thinking Ahead in a Time of Turbulence, by Peter Schwartz

This book coaches business owners in how to be prepared for changing circumstances, disturbances and disruptions. It looks at trends that could eventually have dramatic consequences for businesses, such as climate change, and explores how to be prepared today for what might happen tomorrow by placing these events into a practical, easy to follow, everyday context.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, by Robert Cialdini

This book helps you to understand the science behind persuasion and why people say yes. By reading it you will learn six principles to help you persuade people more effectively in all sorts of situations and how to protect yourself against being drawn in by others who are skilled in persuading.

Instant Creativity: Simple Techniques to Ignite Innovation and Problem Solving, by Brian Clegg and Paul Birch

This newly published manual is a collection of tried and tested techniques to encourage you to make the most of your creativity. It's packed with over 70 quick and easy exercises to help you tackle problems in new ways, guiding you through the process of brainstorming fresh ideas for a new project as well as breaking down stubborn issues into manageable chunks. The book claims to be particularly relevant for people engaged in creative disciplines like marketing, advertising and product design.

Kiss, Bow or Shake Hands: Europe - How to do Business in 25 European Countries, by Terri Morrison and Wayne A Conaway

This book contains invaluable information if you're travelling to Europe on business. It includes information to help you through business meetings across Europe, with hints and tips, cultural IQ tests, a 'know before you go' section, and alerts on international security issues.

Know-How: The 8 Skills That Separate People Who Perform from Those Who Don't, by Ram Charan

This book focuses on eight practical skills that will help you bring success to your business if you master them. The skills reviewed are: positioning, detecting patterns, managing the social system, selecting people, management leadership, setting goals, setting priorities, and dealing with external parties.

Last Shop Standing: Whatever Happened to Record Shops? by Graham Jones

This book charts the downfall of hundreds of local record shops at the hands of conglomerates like supermarkets and the shift to downloading music. The author explains how these and other new trends are causing record shops to disappear rapidly.

Lead well and prosper: 15 successful strategies for becoming a good manager, by Nick McCormick

Author Nick McCormick wrote this book out of "frustration", after seeing the negative effects poor management had on the places where he had worked in IT. Each of the 15 chapters covers a tip for success from a commonsense approach, including treating staff like human beings, and doing what you say you'll do when you say you'll do it. It also includes a list of dos and don'ts, plus a quiz to see whether you would make the 'right' decisions in given situations.

Letting Go of Your Bananas, How to Become More Successful by Getting Rid of Everything Rotten in Your Life, by Daniel T Drubin

This book takes its title from the fable of the monkey who couldn't get his hand out of a jar because he was holding too many bananas. The author says that people often grab too many 'bananas' and don't realise they're being held back by them. He's put together a 12-point plan on how you can drop your expendable bananas, to benefit both your business and personal life.

Life's a Game So Fix the Odds: How to Be More Persuasive and Influential in Your Personal and Business Life, by Philip Hesketh

This book bills itself as the definitive guide to being more persuasive and influential, in both your personal and business life. It explores the most powerful influencing and persuading techniques in a readable and entertaining way, and aims to help readers improve their ability to deal with a vast array of daily challenges, from negotiating a business deal to getting a table at a busy restaurant.

Life's a Pitch: How to be business-like with your emotional life and emotional with your business life, by Stephen Bayley and Roger Mavity

Described as the 'ultimate how-to book', the authors use this guide to show how the skills of pitching business ideas can be applied to life at all levels when handling 'human transactions'. It brings together market research, mentoring and anthropology in an attempt to change the way the reader thinks about the art of persuasion. The authors say the pitch is a drama, rather than a meeting - with money and power the ultimate prize for all successful pitches.

Lifescripts: What to Say to Get What You Want in Life's Toughest Situations, by Stephen M. Pollan and Mark Levine

Packed with role-plays and scenarios for what to say in hundreds of difficult situations, this book is a useful tool for business owners who are inexperienced at managing staff or dealing with customers. From how to handle a disciplinary problem at work to tackling a customer complaint and making a cold call, the book documents how to get through all these problems, using practical scripts and flow charts to highlight the points it makes.

Little Green Book of Getting Your Way: How to Speak, Write, Present, Persuade, Influence, and Sell your Point of View to Others, by Jeffrey Gitomer

This book aims to help the reader become more persuasive in all sorts of situations but places a special emphasis on business occasions. The ability to sell and write in a persuasive manner is covered and the importance of preparation before presentations is brought to the fore, to encourage readers to perform better.

Living Leadership: A Practical guide for Ordinary Heroes, by Colin Williams, Gerhard Wilke and George Binney

If you've ever questioned your leadership qualities, this book is just the inspirational pep talk you need. It's based on a four-year experiment which tracked the leaders of leading European companies in order to discover the challenges they faced, their daily routines, their behaviour, strategy and vision and how they dealt with problems. The results are presented in the form of a list of proven principles and practical advice for business owners.

Amazon is currently offering a free four-week subscription to the Financial Times for customers who buy this book.

Living Toad Free, by Dan Bobinski and Dennis Rader

This book aims to help you meet your potential by beating the 'toads' - the obstacles that are holding you back. It contains more than a dozen tried and tested techniques to get rid of these self-defeating behaviours that stop you reaching your full potential. The book also gives you guidance on preventing other people from standing in your way.

Managing Business Risk: A Practical Guide to Protecting Your Business, by Jonathan Reuvid

The fully-updated fourth edition of this guide looks at change and continuity, governance and control, as well as financial risk, catastrophe and loss. It considers how you can structure your enterprise to manage risk effectively in the modern world, with advice drawn from a range of experts, including lawyers, regulators and risk management specialists.

Mastering Communication at Work: How to Lead, Manage and Influence, by Ethan F. Becker

This book contains case studies that can be used to help business owners become better leaders through effective communication. It provides insight into how to deliver better presentations, satisfy clients, empower people and forge trust.

Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation, by James M Utterback

Subtitled 'How companies can seize opportunities in the face of technological change', this book explores technological innovation and transformation through history, and looks at the lessons to be learned and the opportunities to be exploited by each development.

Masters of Networking, Building Relationships for your Pocketbook and Soul, by Ivan R. Misner and Don Morgan

There are quite a few books on the market about how to build your business network, but this one details success stories from people that have actually done it.

Mine's bigger than yours, by Susan Debnam

This book looks at egos at work and the harm they can do if left unchecked. It challenges the reader to look at the egos working around them, and reveals how businesses can work better when they exercise self-awareness and self-esteem. The book is also packed with exercises and real-life case studies.

Music Distribution and the Internet - A Legal Guide for the Music Industry, by Andrew Sparrow

Negotiating the law surrounding online music and mobile phone music downloads can be something of a minefield for small businesses. Part of the problem is the sheer number of people who have to be kept happy - from the artists to the music publishers and record companies. Birmingham lawyer Andrew Sparrow has produced this book to help businesses find their way through the legal maze. He says there are real opportunities for new ventures connected with music distribution - but you need to be aware of copyright issues.

Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell

This book focuses on why people are successful, looking at the backgrounds of successful individuals, as opposed to their characteristics and what they are like. It also explores all the factors and circumstances which have contributed to their success.

Persuasion: The Art of Influencing People, by James Borg

This book will help you to have better and more productive face-to-face relationships. Written from a communications skills and interpersonal relationships perspective, it is useful for business owners and entrepreneurs who need to deliver presentations or who interact with customers regularly.

Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging and Outmarketing Your Competition, by Guy Kawasaki

This book guides the reader through applying common sense to practices in all aspects of business, including competition, marketing and customer service. It advises on how to create a community and also includes a top ten list of the lies told by entrepreneurs.

Results: Keep What's Good, Fix What's Wrong and Unlock Great Performance, by Gary Neilson and Bruce Pasternack

This newly published book features a practical 'personality test' for your business, enabling you to assess the traits and attributes specific to your venture that may be helping or hindering its progress. The book features solid, achievable and practical suggestions for making your business more resilient, as well as straight-talking tips for tackling flaws and 'personality problems' in your enterprise.

Slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations, by Nancy Duarte

This book contains practical hints and tips for anyone who needs to develop and deliver presentations. It will help the reader create better slides, connect with their audience, and deliver presentations well.

Small is the New Big: And 183 Other Riffs, Rants and Remarkable Business Ideas, by Seth Godin

This book from marketing guru Seth Godin packages the best bits from his blog, his magazine columns and some of his e-books. As with many of Godin's books, it's packed with inspiring ideas and tips that could help you overcome any blips in your business.

So What? The Definitive Guide to the Only Business Questions That Matter, by Kevin Duncan

This book will help you to be more inquisitive about your business and enable you to think and speak more directly about issues that affect it. It describes how to apply the questions 'So what?' 'Why?' and 'How?' to different contexts to help you cut to the chase.

Strategies of the Serengeti, by Stephen Berry

Strategies of the Serengeti is an interactive website, with a quiz to find out which animal you or your enterprise is most like. When you've found out which creature you are, you can view that animal's pros and cons when it comes to survival. For example, if you're like the rhinoceros, you are "persistent and consistent", and keep ploughing ahead in the face of adversity.

The website offers a taster of the book of the same name, which contains assessments of each of the animals of the Serengeti and how they apply in the business world.

Strategy and the Fat Smoker: Doing What's Obvious But Not Easy, by David H. Maister

In this book the author tells you how to become more efficient at strategies that everyone knows they should do or follow, but for one reason or another don't. The author explains in 18 chapters what managers and businesses can do to implement the strategies they know they should be following.

Taming the Lion, 100 Secret Strategies for Investing, by Richard Farleigh

Written by one of the most successful private equity investors in high technology start ups, this book reveals the underlying principles governing business investment. It's written in refreshingly easy to understand language, steering clear of the financial jargon present in many other books on this subject. It's useful for investors, but it's also an important read for any small business thinking of seeking this type of funding.

The 33 Strategies of War, by Robert Greene

Far from the sweetness and light of many books on decision-making, this somewhat controversial guide takes a hyper-practical approach, portraying the course of your business and life as a "war". Like Machiavelli before him Robert Greene recommends how to win by learning from the past, and not caring too much about who loses. A strategy book with a difference.

The 100: Insights and Lessons from 100 of the Greatest Speakers and Speeches Ever Delivered, by Simon Maier and Jeremy Kourdi

This book will help you polish your speechwriting and delivery skills for speeches or presentations. It contains excerpts of famous speeches from the likes of Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela, Steve Jobs and Barack Obama.

The Art of Speedreading People: How to Size People Up and Speak Their Language, by Rob Yeung

The Myers-Briggs system for working out the personality type of different people, and adjusting the way you deal with them accordingly, is fairly well-known in terms of both selling to people and employing them. This book explores the principles behind sizing up people's personality traits in more depth. Its aim is to help you improve how you communicate, and help you tackle difficult situations in the workplace - whether involving customers, staff or colleagues.

The Best Book on the Market: How to Stop Worrying and Love the Free Economy, by Eamonn Butler

Author Eamonn Butler looks at the concept of the 'free' market and argues against Government attempts to regulate and control existing markets. The book also touches on the subjects of competition, cartels and monopolies.

The Charisma Effect: How to Make A Powerful and Lasting Impression, by Andrew Leigh

This book uses aspects of a personal development programme to help people develop confidence, presence and make an impression on people.

The Confidence Plan, by Sarah Litvinoff

Entrepreneurs and business owners need to project a confident image at all times. This book aims to help readers understand confidence and how they can improve their own confidence levels. It's set out in ten steps so readers can follow the book easily and identify where they want their confidence levels to be.

The Copywriter's Handbook, by Robert Bly

This book is about how to write sales copy precisely and persuasively, get your USP across, and understand that good copywriting is about selling. Its written by one of the true masters of the craft.

The Dip: The Extraordinary Benefits of Knowing When to Quit (and When to Stick), by Seth Godin

This book is packed with information on how to stay motivated when you hit a low point in your business. According to author Seth Godin, you can either hit a dip or a cul-de-sac during difficult times in your business. Dips can be overcome, cul-de-sacs are hard to get out of. Seth's book aims to educate you on when to give up on something and when to focus on improving during the dips you encounter.

The Fine Art of Confident Conversation: How to Improve Your Communication Skills and Build Stronger Relationships, by Debra Fine

This book will help you to refine your conversation and speaking techniques, develop meaningful conversations and keep conversations on track, thereby helping you achieve goals in meetings and presentations.

The Go Point, by Michael Useem

This book is all about learning to be decisive, with the author placing you into a situation where you have to make a decision, and where your decision will have consequences for others. The book examines the repercussions of those decisions and helps you learn how to make the right calls in real-life situations.

The Impossible Advantage: Winning the Competitive Game by Changing the Rules, by Wolfram Wördemann, Andreas Buchholz and Ned Wiley

This book goes against conventional business theories about gaining a competitive advantage. Instead it explains the importance of making, changing and re-inventing the rules to gain the advantage over even large competitors.

The Jelly Effect: How to Make Your Communication Stick, by Andy Bounds

This book focuses on effective business communication. It argues that most forms of communication - from meetings, pitches, presentations and networking sessions to flyers, brochures and sales letters - contain too much detail and not enough relevance. This, says the author, is like "filling a bucket with jelly, flinging it at your audience, and hoping some of it sticks". The book covers simple, memorable and free techniques for improving your communication. It's packed with practical exercises, quizzes, tips and case studies.

The Licensee's Guide to the Licensing Act 2003, by Ian Webster

This book offers a summary of the implications of the Licensing Act 2003, and is specifically aimed at making it understandable for licensees. It provides practical hints and tips on how to manage the changes.

The Little Book of Management Bollocks, by Alistair Beaton

Sick of management gurus, inspirational jargon and performance enhancing double speak? This little book provides a hilarious parody of the higher management bollocks we've all been bombarded with over the past few years.

The Long Tail: How Endless Choice Is Creating Unlimited Demand, by Chris Anderson

This excellent, insightful book offers an explanation of the 'long tail' business model - the combined value offered by millions of items that sell in only small quantities, as opposed to the value of a handful of bestsellers. The term 'the long tail' was coined in an article in Wired magazine, and has since become a widely used business term.

The Myth of Work-Life Balance: The Challenge of Our Time for Men, Women and Societies, by Richenda Gambles, Suzan Lewis and Rhona Rapoport

This book challenges many commonly held perceptions about the different ways to balance your work and personal life, and looks at innovative, practical and unusual strategies for achieving this in a number of contexts - from the smallest home business to a limited company employing a number of staff.

The Next Big Thing: Spotting and Forecasting Consumer Trends for Profit, by William Higham

This book is ideal for anyone who wants to make more use of consumer trends in their business. It reveals how to spot trends, how they work, and how they can be used to keep your business ahead of its competitors.

The Psychology of Everyday Things, by Donald A Norman

This fascinating book provides a startling insight into how many designers and manufacturers ignore the needs and wants of their potential customers when creating new products. It looks into the psychology of how we use everyday items from computers to kettles, and outlines the basic rules of clear, effective design to help designers make their inventions easier to use and understand.

The Riddle: Where Ideas Come From and How to Have Better Ones, by Andrew Razeghi

This book explores the possibility of creating conditions which favour creative thinking. It is aimed at managers and business leaders to help them boost creativity in the workplace or office and come up with the next big idea. It combines research and science with interviews from innovative and creative people and offers a practical solution for individuals looking to stay ahead of their competition.

The Seven Rules of Success, by Fiona Harrold

Written by a renowned life coach, this book aims to uncover some of the characteristics and traits shared by successful businesspeople and effective leaders. These traits are clearly set out into rules, while practical suggestions and examples help the reader to relate these to their own business, career or aspirations. An inspiring read.

The Small Business Owner's Guide to a Good Night's Sleep: Preventing and Solving Chronic and Costly Problems, by Debra Koontz Traverso

Focusing on the surprises, shocks and pitfalls most commonly faced by small business owners, this book takes you step-by-step through the difficult situations you are likely to encounter and provides practical guidance on solving these problems. Issues covered include the resignation of a valued employee, accidents in the workplace, customer complaints, invoicing errors and failed inspections.

The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools and Strategies for Business Success, by Lon Safko and David Brake

This book summarises what social media is and how it can be beneficial for business. Aimed at small and large businesses alike, it contains hints and tips on designing a social media strategy, covering basics like improving profitability and competitiveness.

The Survivor’s Guide to Business Travel, by Roger Collis

Based on a highly popular column in the New York Times, this book offers a comprehensive and entertaining guide to business travel. It provides security tips, advice on booking travel and buying tickets online, guidance on beating jetlag and even suggestions on how to save money and ensure your trips are enjoyable as well as successful.

The Upside of the Downturn: 10 Management Strategies to Prevail in the Recession and Thrive in the Aftermath, by Geoff Colvin

This book tells you how you can emerge from the economic downturn in a stronger position than before, by applying strategies that can help increase your business' competitiveness and long-term value.

The Writer's Digest Dictionary of Concise Writing, by Robert Hartwell Fiske

If you've taken on board our suggestions that any business copy you write should be as succinct as possible, you might want to check out this practical guide to writing concisely. Packed with alternatives to lengthy words and phrases, it's especially aimed at people who need to write for the purpose of business communication.

Think!, by Tina Catling and Mark Davies

To help you look outside the box, and unlock ideas and your creative thinking, this book takes a no-nonsense approach to tackling a problem or trying to come up with inspiration, staying well clear of typical self-help jargon.

Think Better: An Innovator's Guide to Productive Thinking, by Tim Hurson

This book aims to help people to think more productively and how to apply productive thinking in business, work and at home. The book follows six steps to help you separate your creative thinking from your critical thinking and includes many of the author's own brainstorming tools and techniques to help you generate and process your ideas.

Thrifty Ways For Modern Days, by Martin Lewis

This book has consistently been among the top-sellers on Amazon for the past few weeks, and it's easy to see why. Based on the collective wisdom of contributors to the excellent MoneySavingExpert.com site, it's packed with tips on saving money, living life and doing business in a healthy, ethical and above all thrifty way. Topics covered include how to budget effectively, money-making ideas, and how to shop sensibly.

Trolley Wars, by Judi Bevan

This newly published book provides a fascinating insight into the battle between the UK's leading supermarkets, chronicling the social trends and changes that have influenced and accompanied the ongoing contest. It also looks at how the relationship between supermarkets and their suppliers really works.

Understand and Negotiate Business Contracts: Master the Small Print and Get a Better Deal, by Jonathan Rush

This introductory guide is an ideal first read for anyone needing to understand and prepare their own business contracts.

Viral Loop: The Power of Pass-It-On, by Adam L. Penenberg

This book explains the power of word-of-mouth and pass-it-on concepts, and highlights the businesses that make money from using them. It looks at viral businesses, viral marketing and viral networks.

Wake Up!: Survive and Prosper in the Coming Economic Turmoil, by Jim Mellon and Al Chalabi

A fascinating - if disturbing - guide for business owners about how to ensure your venture survives and prospers in the face of impending economic turmoil, this book takes as its starting point the concept that the Western world is an economic timebomb. However, instead of scaremongering, it provides practical advice, tips and checklists for preserving the competitive advantage of your business, managing change, analysing your circumstances and taking steps to protect your enterprise.

Whatever You Think, Think The Opposite, by Paul Arden

The idea behind this pictorial business book is that to do something different, you have to fundamentally change the way you think. It considers looking at life the 'wrong' way, so you can see the benefits sometimes associated with making 'wrong' decisions. Readers say the book has helped lift them out of a rut and start to take more novel approaches to problems.

What's the Secret...To Providing World-Class Customer Service? by John R DiJulius

This book helps even the smallest business to deliver the best possible customer service. Written by John DiJulius, who is somewhat of an authority on the matter, it shares best practice tips and know-how.

What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis

This book explains that business owners should be thinking like business giant Google in order to survive and prosper in the 'Internet age'. The author applies a number of Google principles to various industries to show the reader what they would be like if run by Google.

Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way To Deal With Change In Your Work and Your Life, by Spencer Johnson

From the author of The One Minute Manager, this very short book tells the story of life in a maze occupied by two mice, two mouse-sized humans, and some cheese. The book sums up the fact that change happens, always has done, and always will do, and points out the consequences of pretending that it won't, like the cheese running out.

Why Entrepreneurs Should Eat Bananas: 101 Timeless and Inspirational Ideas for Growing Your Business and Yourself, by Simon Tupman

This book works on the premise that people should eat bananas because they're simple, provide an energy burst and are good for you. Packed with simple tips and ideas, it could help people who already own a business and those who are just starting out. The ideas include tips on winning new customers and improving your relationship with existing ones.

Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear, by Frank Luntz

Written by a well-known expert on communications, this book explores how the words you use can be influential in business, politics and everyday life. It examines the tactical use of words and phrases to affect what people buy, who they vote for and what they believe, taking a practical approach and providing plenty of rules and checklists that you can follow in your business and personal life.

You Selling You, by Steve Miller

This book promises to teach you techniques to sell yourself in different situations - from interviews and sales pitches to meeting and networking with new people. It explains self-coaching techniques to boost your confidence, many of which can be applied immediately. Relaxation, visualisation and affirmation that you're the best are among the book's key lessons.

IT & Internet

A Survival Guide to Social Media and Web 2.0 Optimisation: Strategies, Tactics and Tools for Succeeding in the Social Web, by Deltina Hay

This book is aimed at businesses with an online presence. It describes how to get the best from the Internet through search engine optimisation and social media. It covers blogs, micro-blogging, social networking, vodcasting and podcasting.

Call to Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results, by Bryan Eisenberg, Jeffrey Eisenberg and Lisa T. Davis

This book, new for 2007, provides a comprehensive overview of the issues surrounding how to improve the conversion rate on your business website. It's written in a practical, how-to, jargon-free style, and is packed with illustrative screen shots and examples. Although its main focus is on e-commerce and getting people to buy from your website, the techniques are valid for any business with an online presence, even if your call to action doesn't relate primarily to sales.

Create Your Own Website, by Scott Mitchell

This book explains in simple terms the basics of building your own website. The CD included in the book contains professional website templates to help you complete up to eight website projects.

Crush It! Why Now is the Time to Cash in on Your Passion, by Gary Vaynerchuck

This book is written by wine business owner Gary Vaynerchuck, who used social media to promote his video blog about wine. He gained 80,000 viewers a day and the business increased its takings. Here he tells business owners how to use the Internet to boost their own businesses.

Doing Business on the Internet, by Simon Colin

This book provides an easy to follow introduction to Internet technology aimed at beginners. It explains how businesses can use the web to their advantage in practical terms, looking at marketing opportunities, e-commerce and using the Internet for research. It also provides tips and techniques for creating your own website, using e-mail effectively, and keeping your online operations secure.

Don't Make Me Think - A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, by Steve Krug

This handbook provides a range of tips, techniques and examples for making sure your website is user-friendly. It holds even non-techies' attention by illustrating its points with a range of brightly coloured cartoons and diagrams, and using clear, conversational language that steers clear of jargon.

Dot.con, by John Cassidy

This e-book offers a candid look at the dot.com mania of the late 1990s. Reasons for the boom are explained, and the book's narrative captures the frenzy that accompanied dot.com fever while also giving a nod to the lessons that should be learned. A fascinating read whether your business is online or not, the book also offers a useful introduction to the workings of the stock market.

E-myth Revisited, by Michael E Gerber

A groundbreaking bestseller first published in 1986, this book has now been totally revised and is riding high in the top sellers list again. Its a refreshing guide to common reasons for small business failure, and provides tips and advice on avoiding the common pitfalls.

Excel 2007 Miracles Made Easy, by Bill Jelen

Written by an expert in Excel programs and all they can offer, this book is for anyone who wants to know more about Excel 2007. It includes hints and tips on how to get faster results from the popular spreadsheet program and how to get to grips with the new 'Ribbon' interface.

Get Into Bed With Google: Top Ranking Search Optimisation Techniques, by Jon Smith

This book works on the premise of having a website that works, as opposed to having one with lots of bells and whistles but which your audience has trouble finding. The book lets you in on the secrets of how to make your website 'Google friendly' and how to employ the right search engine optimisation techniques.

Google: the Missing Manual, by Sarah Milstein and Rael Dornfest

Google is the world's most popular search engine, and now you can read a whole book on the subject. Covering special search techniques, secret tools and little-known corners of Google that can save you hours of search time, this is the Google manual that we've all been waiting for.

Hacked, Attacked and Abused: Digital Crime Exposed, by Peter Lilley

This fascinating book provides an eye-opening chronicle of the realities of crime on the Internet, looking at worms and viruses that have caused major upheavals, cases of Internet fraud and identity theft, and interesting statistics about malicious activity online. It makes for a disturbing read, but provides practical tips and advice about what businesses can do to combat the risks posed by e-crime.

Homepage Usability, by Jakob Nielsen and Marie Tahir

This book is full of indispensable advice for any small business thinking of developing or improving its website. It focuses on the importance of your homepage design, and contains practical guidelines and checklists of features and usability functions that you must include, as well as a systematic critique of the 50 most popular homepages on the web.

How to Start and Run an Internet Business, by Carol Anne Strange

This book provides you with the information and guidance needed to start making money online. It contains useful checklists and sources of further research, and is presented in an easy-to-read format.

Identity Theft: Prevention and Victim Assistance, published by the Credit Reporting Agency

The newest edition of this book has been written specifically for UK consumers, but as a business owner you can also benefit from its practical, plain English style. It focuses on avoiding identity theft, providing tips for spotting the warning signs and a victim assistance guide with details of who you need to tell if you do fall prey to a scam.

Make Money on eBay UK: The Inside Guide To Getting Started, Buying and Selling Successfully and Securely on eBay.Co.Uk, by Dan Wilson

Freshly updated for 2006-7, this bestselling practical manual explains everything you need to know about trading on eBay, covering how to buy, how to sell and how to make money out of the site. The book is equally useful for novices and eBay experts, and is written by eBay UK's Community Manager, and tutor at the eBay University, Dan Wilson.

Martin Lukes: Who Moved my BlackBerry, by Lucy Kellaway

Published a fortnight ago, this highly amusing book pokes fun at other, less practical business help books, as well as highlighting the ridiculousness of the corporate culture of some large organisations. Written from a fly-on-the-wall perspective via a stream of e-mails, it chronicles the fortunes, scandals and daily grind of a spoof organisation, covering everything from unceremonious sackings to inane corporate jargon. A great light read for the summer.

Netlingo: The Internet Dictionary, by Erin Jansen

This is a useful reference tool for anyone who regularly uses the Internet but is less than confident about their grasp of techie jargon. It defines and explains common terms used in basic business and personal computing, covering common shorthand, typical office phrases, emoticons (smiley faces and other 'emotional' icons) and explanations of future technologies. It also explains file suffixes (such as .doc and .xls) and country codes for domain name suffixes.

Starting a Business on eBay.co.uk For Dummies, by Dan Matthews and Marsha Collier

Finding new ways to make money on eBay remains as appealing as ever, and this book, from the popular 'For Dummies' series, provides a step-by-step account of setting up an eBay business. It takes a jargon-free, straight-talking approach, and covers every aspect of eBay entrepreneurship, from running a successful auction to delivering goods. Best of all, unlike many books about eBay, this one is written exclusively for a UK audience.

The Beginner's Guide to Broadband and Wireless Internet, by Peter Burns

This practical, plain-English handbook includes basic information about using a broadband Internet connection, and features step-by-step guidance on everything from choosing antivirus software to setting up a wireless network. Other topics covered include instant messaging, downloading music, making phone calls from a computer and finding the best broadband websites.

The Complete E-commerce Book: Design, Build and Maintain a Successful Web-based Business, by Janice Reynolds and Roya Mofazali

This highly practical book explains how to build a successful e-commerce store in step-by-step detail, covering issues such as usability, design, programming, marketing, customer service, order processing, warehousing and shipping.

The Computer Manual: The Step-by-Step Guide to Upgrading and Repairing a PC, by Kyle MacRae

This excellent, jargon-free manual is aimed at anyone opening up the back of their PC for the first time. Its designed for absolute beginners and will help you with common troubleshooting as well as upgrades to your PC.

The eBay Business Handbook: How Anyone Can Build A Business and Make Money on eBay.co.uk, by Robert Pugh

If you want to learn how to make money from Internet auction giant eBay, you should read this book. Based on the personal experiences of a 'Powerseller' or super-seller, it's useful for eBay novices and seasoned pros alike and features tips on how to source your stock, how to accept payment for winning bids and how to pack and send items.

The eBay Millionaire: Titanium PowerSeller secrets for Building a Big Online Business, by Amy Joyner

This fascinating book profiles 25 of eBay's so-called 'Titanium PowerSellers' - that is, people who sell more than $150,000 worth of goods on the site each month. It's an inspiring read for the growing number of eBay entrepreneurs, and also provides 50 top practical tips for selling profitably on eBay, covering how to choose your merchandise, dispatch goods to buyers and keep your customers happy.

The Entrepreneur's Guide to Managing Information Technology, by C. J. Rhoads

This book helps aspiring business owners and entrepreneurs get to grips with the IT they need to help grow their business. It explains the types of technology that could be useful and how to avoid sales traps and over-spending.

The Rough Guide to the Internet 2004, by Peter Buckley and Duncan Clark

If you want to learn more about how to avoid viruses, getting scammed and spammed, and unwittingly installing software that keeps crashing your PC, and would like to keep pace with wi-fi, pick up your e-mail from anywhere, and find useful websites you've never heard of, then this book is certainly worth checking out.

The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture, by John Battelle

A fascinating read for anyone who uses search engines to find information online, this book charts the rise of Google and comments on the future of the search industry, providing a detailed insight into issues such as privacy, technology and the information economy.

The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog, by Rebecca Blood

According to Bill Gates, blogging is the future of online communication. It provides a way for you to communicate with your customers without having to worry about sending illicit spam or being pipped at the post by an e-mail filter, and there are plenty of resources out there that can help you set up your own weblog for free or for a minimal fee. This book provides an introduction to the topic of blogging, and is jam-packed with practical advice for creating and updating your blog.

Web Search Garage, by Tara Calishain

Research tips and tricks galore are on offer in this book, which provides a practical introduction for anyone who uses the web for researching. From how and where to look for information, to time-saving strategies and junk-busting, the book can help you find anything and everything online.

Winners and Losers: Creators and Casualties of the Age of the Internet, by Kieran Levis

The rise and demise of firms that made their name on the Internet is discussed in this book. It charts the success of the likes of Google and the threat of failure faced by IBM and Kodak, and the qualities that distinguish the good from the not so good.

Winning Results with Google AdWords, by Andrew E. Goodman

A highly practical whistlestop tour through the essentials of search engine advertising, this book explains the basics of how Google's AdWords programme works, how to bid for and win relevant keywords, and how to monitor and understand the results of your advertising campaign. It's aimed at businesses of all sizes that are thinking of pay-per-click advertising, and is jam-packed with useful tips on issues like how to make the most of your advertising budget.

Writing for the Web, by Crawford Kilian

A great resource for any entrepreneur thinking of setting up a business website, this book explains the key dos and don'ts for writing copy for the web. It's full of practical tips covering topics like first impressions and good words to use online, as well as advice on avoiding common pitfalls like producing too much content or slipping up with spelling and grammar.

Your Internet Cash Machine: The Insiders Guide to Making Big Money, Fast! by Joe Vitale and Jillian Coleman Wheeler

This book helps the reader start and grow a profitable Internet business. The author, who is head of a marketing consulting firm, provides the reader with expert advice on selecting a niche, building a site and managing a business. It draws on the experiences of others in the field and includes website resources.

Marketing

7-Second Marketing: How to Use Memory Hooks to Make You Instantly Stand Out in a Crowd, by Ivan R Misner

Most successful entrepreneurs invariably manage to make themselves and their businesses stand out from the crowd. By reading this book you'll learn how to make sure your name and business get remembered by everyone you meet.

33 Million People in the Room: How to Create, Influence and Run a Successful Business with Social Networking, by Juliette Powell

This book explains how businesses can use social networking to boost their business profiles with their customers. It features practical tools and best practices for social networking and is jargon-free for those who have yet to get to grips with the concept.

101 Ways to Market Your Business, by Andrew Griffiths

Whether your new venture will be a success or not will, in most situations, be determined by the effectiveness of your marketing ideas. This book provides a jargon-free guide to loads of simple, practical and low-cost marketing ideas for smaller businesses.

All You Need is a Good Idea! How to Create Marketing Messages That Actually Get Results, by Jay H. Heyman

This book helps businesses of all sizes to turn their marketing ideas into reality, from first concepts to final ideas. It will help the reader to gain an understanding of how to stand out from competitors and increase sales without having to find new distribution channels or invent new products.

Branded Male: Marketing to Men, by Mark Tungate

This book will appeal to anyone trying to market products and services geared towards men. The book uses the modern male's weekday as a template to help you understand how to brand products and services that will appeal to men.

Branding Only Works On Cattle: The New Way to Get Known (and Drive Your Competitors Crazy), by Jonathan Salem Baskin

This book explores the theory that branding has little effect on modern consumers because they are difficult to convince and make their decisions based on experience.

Brilliant Marketing: What the Best Marketers Know, Do and Say, by Richard Hall

This book will help you understand how to use all the elements of the marketing mix to great effect. It provides answers to questions on brands and marketing, and will help you develop a toolkit that can be used in marketing plans and strategies.

Buyology - How Everything We Believe About Why We Buy Is Wrong, by Martin Lindstrom

This book explores the marketing messages behind advertisements and how they influence consumers' buying decisions.

Commonsense Direct Marketing, by Drayton Bird

First published in 1982, and reissued in 2000, this direct marketing book has remained a top seller in its field. Many reviewers have claimed it is the only book you need to read on the subject.

Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Technology Products to Mainstream Customers, by Geoffrey A Moore

Based on the principle that high-tech products need different promotional strategies than those from other sectors, this book offers practical solutions to the difficulties many businesses encounter when trying to sell such products to mainstream customers. It's packed with tips and strategies for developing a customer profile, beating your competitors and finding the best ways to penetrate your target market.

Dear Valued Customer, You Are a Loser, by Rick Broadhead

This is a hilarious compilation of more than 100 true stories chronicling just some of the problems, misfortunes and downright catastrophes that run-ins between humans and technology can create. While it's a highly entertaining read for anyone who's ever been exasperated by maddening computer messages like 'Error! File not found', the book also serves to remind us that we really don't know it all when it comes to technology, no matter how confident we might feel!

Do Your Own Market Research, by Paul Hague and Peter Jackson

Before starting up in business, its essential to research your market. This book, written to help you understand how to conduct market research, and aimed at small business owners or anyone new to the subject, is well worth checking out.

E-Marketing Excellence, by Dave Chaffey and P.R. Smith

Providing an in-depth, step-by-step guide to successful e-marketing, this book is crammed with practical examples and strategies that can be applied in any business. Published in May, the content is bang up-to-date, and each chapter includes a series of useful web links to supplement the information provided.

Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, by Lynne Truss

A crucial aspect of a successful press release is good grammar and spelling, as nothing winds up busy editors more than bad English. This book gives readers from all backgrounds an overview of the basics of correct punctuation, and clears up a few common errors.

Email Marketing, by Jim Sterne

This excellent, no-nonsense best practice guide explains how to use e-mail as a legitimate marketing tool, covering how to avoid being accused of spam, tips for constructing effective e-mails, and how to build a mailing list.

Essentials of Marketing Research, by Tony Proctor

Aimed at anyone seeking to develop a basic understanding of the concept of market research, this concise and straightforward book provides practical information about finding market data. It also has a section on using the Internet for market information.

Everything You Need To Know About Permission Based E-Mail Marketing That Works, by Kim MacPherson

This book is packed full of 'how-to' tips and advice for anyone just starting off down the permission e-mail marketing path, with loads of practical insights, strategies, case studies, checklists, screen shots, sample forms, dos and don'ts.

Free Prize Inside: the Next Big Marketing Idea, by Seth Godin

This is a follow up to Purple Cow, which offers inspirational guidance on how businesses can create, and successfully sell, unusual and remarkable products and services. This follow-up gives you a practical insight in how to think up new marketing ideas, and illustrates this with examples of well-known market-changing innovations and blockbusting promotional ideas.

Getting Business to Come to You, by Douglas Edwards

Full of marketing tips and tricks, including how to get press coverage, this book will train you to think like a customer.

Guerrilla Marketing Excellence: The Fifty Golden Rules for Small Business Success, by Jay Conrad Levinson

Packed with practical marketing ideas designed for start ups on a shoestring budget, this book explores how to identify and exploit a niche, how to network effectively, and how to build a good relationship with your customers, among dozens of other things.

Guerrilla Marketing for the Home-Based Business, by Seth Godin, FX Nine and Jay Conrad Levinson

This practical manual has now been rewritten specifically for entrepreneurs running businesses from home, and covers how to effectively promote and publicise your business using creative, low-cost tactics that are proven to work.

Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This! A Guide To Creating Great Ads, by Luke Sullivan

Although primarily aimed at people who want to write adverts for a living, this book provides an excellent and practical introduction for beginners to advertising. Small business owners can learn how to write powerful, original ads, as well as getting an insight into the creative process that makes advertising work. The added bonus is that the book is jargon-free and written in a simple, step-by-step style.

Integration Marketing: How Small Businesses Become Big Businesses and Big Businesses Become Empires, by Mark Joyner

This book looks at small businesses that made it big and analyses commonalities between them. It is presented in the form of 'integration marketing' to help you apply the techniques that made successes out of the likes of Microsoft and McDonalds.

Internet Marketing: How to Get a Website that Works for Your Business, by Nigel T. Packer

This book helps business owners get the most out of their websites and effectively promote their business online. Written by Internet consultant Nigel T.Packer, it is full of insights, observations, techniques and strategies to help you maximise the sales potential of your business.

Marketing Communications: Interactivity, Communities and Content, by Chris Fill

This book is an ideal starting point for anyone who wants to learn more about the theory behind marketing. It's aimed at students but covers basics like how marketing communications works, how to manage it and how it relates with the media.

Marketing Judo: Building your Business Using Brains Not Budget, by John Barnes and Richard Richardson

Aimed at businesses with a shoestring marketing budget, this book is a collection of real stories and events from the authors' experiences of developing the Harry Ramsden's fish and chip restaurant chain. It looks at combating the threat posed by large competitors, how to develop a marketing strategy and how to find a competitive advantage.

Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business, by Larry Weber

This book discusses how a business can use a social media campaign to reach new markets within social media such as Facebook, blogs and Twitter. It also outlines new tools and platforms and describes how they can be used to best effect.

Meatball Sundae: How New Marketing is Transforming the Business World, by Seth Godin

This book from marketing guru Seth Godin focuses on the concept of 'new marketing' such as social networks and web marketing. Seth says that businesses should be asking 'How can we alter our business to become an organisation that thrives on new marketing?' and be prepared to adapt their business to the shifts taking place in the marketing and business worlds.

No BS Direct Marketing, by Dan Kennedy

We've recommended books by this author before, as we like his straight-talking, jargon-free approach. This latest offering, published earlier this month, is no different. It focuses on direct marketing, and is aimed at businesses that don't know much about the process. The subtitle of the book is descriptive enough: 'The ultimate, no holds barred, kick butt, take no prisoners direct marketing for non-direct marketing businesses'.

Online Marketing Heroes: Interviews with 25 Successful Online Marketing Gurus, by Michael Miller

This book provides information and advice on marketing trends through 25 interviews with top-level online marketers. They provide hints and tips on all aspects of online marketing, including blogs, online retailing, e-mail marketing and affiliate marketing.

Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers, by Seth Godin

Seth Godin is one of EnterQuest's most regularly recommended business gurus and authors due to his practical, no-nonsense style. This best-seller, about to be republished for 2007, covers how to convince potential customers to voluntarily accept your advertising rather than simply being bombarded (and irritated) by it. The focus is on only marketing to people who have expressed an interest in your product or service, and Godin takes you step-by-step through the practical issues involved.

Phrases that Sell: The Ultimate Phrase Finder to Help You Promote Your Products, Services and Ideas, by Edward Werz and Sally Germain

Here's a book that will provide you with instant access to proven phrases, slogans and attention-grabbing headlines that are designed to sell more, with plenty of practical advice on how to write good sales copy.

Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable, by Seth Godin

For a thought-provoking read that turns traditional marketing thinking on its head, this book by the ex-marketing head of Yahoo! explains that if your product or service isn't remarkable, then you'll find it hard to get your customers to notice it, never mind buy it. And it's full of loads of radical marketing ideas.

Raving Fans: Revolutionary Approach to Customer Service, by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles

This excellent book focuses on how to create truly top-notch customer service. Written in the style of 'The One Minute Manager', it includes tips and techniques to help you turn your customers into raving, spending fans.

Tested Advertising Methods, edited by John Caples and Fred E Hahn

The fifth edition of this manual on how to create successful advertising features new coverage for small businesses with limited advertising budgets; advertising tips for non-profit organisations; and practical techniques for writing headlines, devising illustrations and creating advertising layouts.

The Brand Gym: A Practical Workout for Boosting Brand and Business, by David Taylor

This book takes a down-to-earth approach to the subject of developing your brand identity. It's aimed at entrepreneurs and those directly responsible for marketing their business, and abandons the theory and jargon usually associated with books on branding in favour of exploring the practical tactics and pitfalls that relate to developing your own unique brand. A range of case studies provide the insight to translate the examples given into reality.

The Copywriter's Handbook, by Robert W. Bly

This bestselling copywriting guide has been newly revised and updated for 2007. It's aimed at anyone who writes or approves sales copy, from business owners to freelance writers, and covers dozens of proven copywriting techniques for ads, mailshots and brochures, as well as writing for the web. Topics covered include 'magic' headlines and how to use them, ways to open your sales letters, and how to make sales copy as readable as possible.

The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly, by David Meerman Scott

This book will help businesses get up to speed with new ways of communicating with their customers. Internet-based communication has massive potential for small business owners if they harness it and use it wisely, and this book tells you how to get the attention of customers without spending a fortune.

The UK Small Business Marketing Bible, by David Frey

This practical 250+ page manual has been specially edited for a UK audience. It contains hundreds of tips, techniques and tactics that can help any small business in any sector find new customers and increase sales.

Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time, by Anthony Robbins

This book tells you how you can use Twitter in your marketing strategies and tap into the Twitter network to gain loyal customers. It contains case studies of businesses that have used Twitter in their own marketing techniques.

Understanding Viral Marketing in a Week, by Richard Perry and Andrew Whittaker

Viral marketing is when consumers spread the word to each other about products, ideas, articles, websites and so on. This book looks at Internet viral marketing, otherwise known as word of mouse, exploring how you can spread your business idea creatively, and without being accused of spam.

Unleashing the Ideavirus, by Seth Godin

As well as the Purple Cow, here's another excellent offering from marketing guru Seth Godin. He looks at ways in which businesses can create a 'viral' marketing buzz about their new products and services, examining how organisations like Napster and Hotmail have achieved this. Godin explains how the Internet offers a great opportunity to spread ideas in this way, and provides practical tips on how business owners can succeed with viral marketing.

Winning Results with Google AdWords, by Andrew E. Goodman

A highly practical whistlestop tour through the essentials of search engine advertising, this book explains the basics of how Google's AdWords programme works, how to bid for and win relevant keywords, and how to monitor and understand the results of your advertising campaign. It's aimed at businesses of all sizes that are thinking of pay-per-click advertising, and is jam-packed with useful tips on issues like how to make the most of your advertising budget.

Selling

7 Habits of Successful Ecommerce Companies: Give Yourself a Real Competitive Advantage, by Ravi Damani, Chetan Damani, Neil Sait

Aiming to provide a 'map to success' for e-commerce businesses, this book focuses on the key habits and techniques that must be adopted for an online store to run smoothly. The habits include measuring traffic and optimising your site for the search engines, converting visitors to customers, and improving your use of technology.

Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even If You Hate Marketing and Selling, by Tim Sanders

This book is aimed at start ups selling services, not products. It aims to give the reader a reliable system with which to book clients and claims to be the "fastest, easiest and most reliable system for getting more clients than you can handle even if you hate marketing and selling".

Building Great Customer Experiences, by Colin Shaw and John Ivens

This book takes a refreshingly down-to-earth approach to the basics of good customer service, with loads of simple ideas for how to improve your customer relationships.

Cycles, Trends, and Turning Points: Practical Marketing and Sales Forecasting Techniques, by John V. Crosby

This book takes a practical and well-illustrated approach to forecasting the effectiveness of sales and marketing activities. It is aimed at readers who already have some knowledge of the processes involved, but provides step-by-step instructions for sales forecasting, with a good level of detail.

Getting to Yes, by Roger Fisher, William Ury and Bruce Patton

Thorough and jargon-free, this book helps you to develop effective negotiating skills to guide you to success at work and at home.

How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling, by Frank Bettger

One of the highest paid salespeople in America lets you into his trade secrets in this book, which is a great inspiration for anyone who's nervous or unsure of their sales techniques. It provides step-by-step guidelines on how to develop and hone your sales style, spirit and technique, and has chapters covering how to conquer fear and the golden rules for closing a sale.

How to Buy and Sell Just About Everything, published by Collins

Including over 550 strategies for researching, finding, choosing, buying and selling virtually anything, from buying insurance policies to selling your screenplay, this book is a great, practical starting point for anyone considering eBay trading, buying a franchise, finding new suppliers or selling something new. It adopts a how-to approach and takes readers step-by-step through the processes involved, and is packed with tips on making difficult decisions.

How To Sell Anything On eBay And Make A Fortune, by Dennis L Prince.

If you're thinking of setting up as an eBay auction trader, then this book takes budding online entrepreneurs step-by-step through every stage of the process, and suggests strategies to help make it a success.

Hypnotic Writing: How to Seduce and Persuade Customers With Only Your Words, by Joe Vitale

This book helps the reader to write better copy. The reader can gain insight into incorporating hypnotic words into their sales copy to motivate prospects to act on what they are reading. It contains strategies, before and after case studies and further examples of how to write hypnotic copy.

It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want To Be, by Paul Arden

This practical handbook aims to coach entrepreneurs, and talented individuals with good ideas, in how to make their dreams reality. Written by a renowned advertising guru, the book is packed full of tips, quotes, pictures and facts which provide advice and inspiration for solving problems, motivating yourself and recovering from a mistake.

Jeffrey Gitomer's Little Teal Book of Trust: How to Earn It, Grow It and Keep It to Become a Trusted Adviser in Sales, Business and Life, by Jeffrey Gitomer

The latest offering from Jeffrey Gitomer contains advice and guidance on how you can gain and maintain the trust of your customers. It also provides a step-by-step plan on how to achieve the trust of people.

Just Sell It! : Selling Skills for Small Business Owners, by Ted Tate

For practical ideas, skills and techniques to find prospects, get appointments, deliver presentations and close deals, this book has been specifically written for owners of small businesses.

Little Red Book of Sales Answers, 99.5 Real World Answers That Make Sense, Make Sales, and Make Money, by Jeffrey Gitomer

This book is written by sales presenter and author Jeffrey Gitomer, the man behind the best-selling Little Red Book of Selling. It brings together the answers to questions such as how do you start presentations, follow up, make cold calls and get re-orders. It's a practical guide that's divided into six parts and runs to 197 pages.

Powerlines: Words That Sell Brands, Grip Fans and Sometimes Change History, by Steve Cone

This book uses examples of slogans to show the reader the difference between a successful slogan and one that fails. It includes memorable slogans and identifies the factors that make a slogan a success.

Presentation and Public Speaking & Presentations for Dummies, by Rob Yeung

Part of the highly readable and jargon-free For Dummies series, this book is available from the 3rd of November and provides practical tips on overcoming some of the most common pitfalls faced by people who aren't confident public speakers. It covers getting your initial research right when making a speech or pitch, dealing with nerves on the day, handling questions and using humour successfully. It's also part of a current Amazon offer to get 40% off the entire For Dummies series.

Price the Job, by Sarah Beeny

Better known for her advice on property development, Sarah Beeny has now published this manual to help consumers select reputable tradespeople to carry out home maintenance jobs for a fair price. But it's also a fantastic resource for small business owners working in the skilled trades, as it provides a summary of average pricing for a huge range of domestic jobs, as well as tips on finding suppliers and actually doing the work.

Return on Customer: Creating and Maximising Value from Your Scarcest Resource, by Don Peppers and Martha Rogers

Written by two experts on one-to-one marketing and customer-focused activities, this book takes as its theme the concept that a small business' 'return on customer' is a combination of both current cash flow and the 'long-term equity' of its array of customers. This relates to how long you keep your customers, how much they buy from you, how often, and how much you have to spend to win and continue to impress them.

Sales Therapy: Effective Selling for the Small Business Owner, by Grant Leboff

This book focuses on the message that 'the customer is king' and aims to help you build relationships between yourself and your customers so you can sell better in today's modern climate. It confines 'traditional' closing sales techniques to the bin and approaches selling with a new technique based on behavioural psychology principles.

Selling For Entrepreneurs, by Kathryn Lennon

This book will help you to think more like your customers in order to boost your sales. It takes you through several selling processes, from presentation pitch to closing the deal.

Shopped: The Shocking Power of British Supermarkets, by Joanna Blythman

A fascinating read for anyone involved in retail, this book exposes the power of the supermarkets over the retail industry, its suppliers and customers. It explores how supermarkets exert such influence over consumers, looking at the marketing tactics used, and provides illuminating analysis of the process involved in shopping for food.

Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big, by Bo Burlingham

This book outlines 14 small companies that avoided growing purely to go public and instead focused on other unique selling propositions, such as high quality or passion for their sector, achieving high profitability as a result. The book delves into great depth about the experiences, skills and personalities of these businesses' leaders, giving readers a fascinating insight into their inspirational stories.

Smarter Selling: Next Generation Sales Strategies to Meet Your Buyer's Needs - Every Time, by David Lambert and Keith Dugdale

This book aims to educate the reader in a range of selling techniques that work as opposed to using the old-fashioned hard sell. It helps the reader to understand buyers' personalities as well as their own, and builds upon the concept that today's customers want to buy and not be sold to.

The 25 Sales Habits of Highly Successful Salespeople, by Stephan Schiffman

We've featured bestselling manual on personal effectiveness, The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, in EnterQuest before. This accompanying publication focuses specifically on selling skills, and is crammed with practical tips for honing your selling technique. It's written by a renowned sales trainer and cold calling expert, and acts as a good refresher even for accomplished salespeople.

The eBay Book: Essential Tips for Buying and Selling on eBay.co.uk, by David Belbin

This manual is written by a veteran eBay trader, and takes the reader step-by-step through the site's features, the buying and selling process, key tactics to use and how the payment system works. It's a great primer for beginners, and also an excellent source of advanced tips and inspiration for the more experienced eBay trader.

The Secrets of Success in Selling: 12 Ways to Achieve Exceptional Results, by Nicola Cook

This book presents business owners with new strategies and sales secrets for closing sales deals, talking to customers and improving their sales processes and customer relationships.

The Ultimate Sales Letter, by Daniel Kennedy

If you need some help writing sales letters or improving copywriting skills generally, then check out this latest edition of one of the top selling books in this field. Its written by one of the world's leading sales copywriters, and explores the nuts and bolts of writing effective and compelling sales letters.

What the Customer Wants You to Know: How Everybody Needs to Think Diffferently About Sales, by Ram Charan

This book focuses on the need to think differently about your sales approaches. The author says that, by focusing on what the customer wants rather than your own product or service, you will be able to offer them cost-effective and workable solutions.

Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping, by Paco Underhill

For a thorough understanding of the psychology of shopping and shoppers, and an enlightening insight into how, why and when we buy when we enter a shop, then this book is highly recommended for anyone who buys or sells.

Words That Sell, by Richard Bayan

If you find it difficult to write sales messages on your website or in mailshots that sound convincing, then this book might be able to help. It provides a thesaurus of snappy words, phrases and slogans that have been proven to make a difference in successful selling. The category-by-category layout makes it the perfect reference tool, and the 62 different ways it lists to say 'exciting' are worth a look on their own.

Yes! 50 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion, by N Goldstein, S Martin and R Cialdini

This book helps you to increase your persuasiveness over others by 50%. It presents problems, experiments and solutions that can be used to help you persuade potential customers to commit to the deal you're offering.

Staff & Recruitment

1001 Ways to Reward Employees, by B Nelson

Focusing on the subject of managing people for the first time, this book explores some practical and innovative ideas about rewarding and motivating your staff.

Employment Law Made Easy, by Melanie Slocombe

This is a comprehensive resource explaining employment law in laymen's terms, and intended is for use in England, Wales and Scotland. Topics covered include recruiting staff, wages, terms of employment, maternity and parental rights, discrimination and dismissal. The book includes practical templates, sample forms, contracts, letters and notices, and process flowcharts to help first-time employers.

Essentials of Employment Law, by David Lewis and Malcolm Sargeant

This book provides a concise summary of UK employment law, covering everything from contract terms and redundancy to recruitment and unfair dismissal. It serves as both a textbook for business and human resources students, and a reference manual for business owners who employ staff. Chapters are clearly laid out, with each ending with a summary and overview, making this an easy to use tool for dealing with a number of employee issues.

First, Break All the Rules, by by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman

Too many books about managing people are dry, theory-based tomes with little practical relevance to running a business. This book is different - not only does it act as an interactive manual for all your questions about management, but it also challenges many of those dry theories en route. It's full of easy to follow questions and checklists, and highlights key points emphatically by focusing on plain English and avoiding jargon.

First Things First, by Stephen Covey and A Roger Merrill

This book focuses on the value of managing and organising your time effectively, prioritising what is really important and not letting the small stuff dominate your time, and builds on the skills outlined in another best selling business book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

Fish! A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results, by Stephen C Lundin, Harry Paul and John Christensen

This book provides a fictional set-up to provide practical how-to lessons and advice on managing people. Its easy and quick to read, and avoids human resources jargon, focusing instead on the realities and practicalities of working with others.

I Can't Believe I Get Paid To Do This, by Stacey Mayo

If you're having trouble getting motivated, whether it's to launch your business, break into a new market, create a website or even get on with your paperwork, this book offers ideas and inspirational stories from people who have overcome obstacles to achieve great things. From the first US woman to climb Everest to an online millionaire who survived the dot.com bust, the book provides a fascinating insight into the practicalities of making your dreams come true, and even lists 26 strategies that you can use to get your latest idea or project off the ground.

Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? How to Drive Your Career and Create a Remarkable Future, by Seth Godin

Seth Godin's latest offering explores the concept of becoming indispensable through leadership. It looks at why some people's roles can easily be outsourced and why others are not.

Personnel Practice, by Malcolm Martin and Trisha Jackson

This book is used to accompany the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development's (CIPD) Certificate in Personnel Practice course, but whether you're interested in this training or not, it's a great tool for first-time employers. It covers the basics of recruiting and managing people, looking at employment legislation and the main issues involved in employing staff. Because it's meant as a study tool, it's packed with useful checklists, summaries and revision aids - all of which makes it easy for business owners to follow and refer back to.

Small Business Employment Law for Dummies, by Liz Barclay

Written by employment law expert and Radio 4 presenter Liz Barclay, this practical manual focuses on helping small firms to understand and comply with their legal obligations towards employees. Covering topics such as avoiding common problems in the workplace, recruitment, disciplinary procedures, tackling discrimination, and setting job descriptions and staff duties, the book is written in jargon-free, accessible language.

The Mind Gym: Wake Your Mind Up, by Time Warner Paperbacks

This coaching book is packed with practical examples of how you can break bad habits (such as putting things off) and develop positive new ones (such as giving constructive criticism). It explores areas such as making decisions, being influential, staying motivated, thinking creatively and reducing stress.

The One Minute Manager, by Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson

If you haven't already got this in your personal business library then its time that you did. The 'one-minute' principle of managing and getting the best out of people will completely change the way you think about and deal with your staff.

The One Thing You Need To Know:... About Great Managing, Great Leading and Sustained Individual Success, by Marcus Buckingham

Based on interviews, case studies and practical examples, this book explores the key issues at the heart of effective management and leadership for business owners with little experience. The style is easy to follow and takes care to focus on a few core topics, rather than getting lost in the jargon and management theory of some other books on this subject.

The Perfect Presentation, by Andrew Leigh and Michael Maynard

Find out everything you need to know about delivering the perfect presentation to clients and colleagues in this friendly and thorough book. It explains everything you need to know about delivering the perfect presentation to clients and colleagues, looking at the five Ps of presentations (preparation, purpose, presence, passion and personality) and also explores how to give an effective team presentation.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by Steven R Covey

This book has been a bestseller since 1990, and argues that real success is down to the right balance between personal and professional effectiveness. It has been written as a manual for performing better at both, with anecdotes from family as well as business situations.

Tribes: We need you to lead us, by Seth Godin

This latest book from marketing guru Seth Godin aims to inspire people to lead others and assess if they are ignoring opportunities to lead others at the expense of personal development or business needs.

Unstuck, by Keith Yamashita and Sandra Spataro

An interactive website (www.unstuck.com) has been launched to accompany the publication of this book, which focuses on the topic of making sure you're a good and competent leader of your business even when the going gets tough. It claims to be far more practical and hands-on in its approach than other, more theory-based books on leadership and management, and the website also provides a great resource where you can get and share advice and download excerpts from the book.