If you are interested in making a living from your music, you will want to approach it in a way that is professional and efficient. The books listed below will be an excellent guide to getting the most possible out of yor business.
 

What They Don't Teach You At Harvard Business School
Mark.H.McCormack
ISBN:0553345834
This book is a really good introduction to basic business, it covers a lot of the things you want to get right to be successful. It is full of really pragmatic ideas of everything from setting your objectives, to organising yourself to, selling and tying up contracts. There is also a section in it on interacting with other people which is very good.
Click here for more info on this book.
 

NLP For Managers; How to achieve excellence at work
Dr Harry Alder
ISBN:0749916435
NLP stands for neuro linguistic programming. This is really a book about psychology which helps you dealing with other people. There is all sorts of really useful stuff in here for helping you when you're selling yourself to other people. The ideas are also really good for helping you interact with other people and organise things, you don't have to be very successful before you find all the different personalities you're dealing with need to be catered for and managed if you're going to stick together and continue.
Click here for more info on this book.
 

Visions
Ty Boyd
ISBN:0937539163
This is a good book to stop your thinking being too small. If you want to be really successful you've got to think big. This book helps you do that. The author of this book is a trainer, this comes across in the way that it is written. Its easy to understand and it gets you thinking.
Click here for more info on this book.
 

How To Write A Business Plan
Donald Vogelaar
ISBN:186350009X
If you are going to run a successful business of any kind, you need to have a plan that you're working to. This book tells you how to write a basic plan. It is not too complicated, about 140 pages, and it gives examples of the plans as it shows you how to develop them. Your plan becomes an essential thing for communication between the people involved in your business and other people who you need to get support from.
Click here for more info on this book.
 

The E Myth Revisited
Michael Gerber
ISBN:0887307280
This has got to be one of the best books on business ever written. Originally written as The E Myth and then rewritten as The E Myth Revisited. Gerber is a saxophone player who got involved in looking at how businesses work at the age of 40, and became a major international consultant. He has a lot of really got ideas about how to turn what you are doing into a sound business and make it work. This is an absolute must if you are serious about any business proposal.
Click here for more info on this book.
 

Clicking
Faith Popcorn
ISBN:0887308570
Faith Popcorn predicts the future. About 10 years ago she wrote a book called The Popcorn Report predicting a lot of trends in society. A lot of things she predicted came true proving her credibility. Her latest book, Clicking, identifies a lot of trends that are happening in society and when you are thinking about how your ideas will work, it is interesting comparing them to the trends that she talks about. The book really gets you to stand back from society and look at what's going on over the long term. This is really useful if you want to get long term success out of any idea. The objective of the book is to help you set off on trends that are happening in society and ride with them.
Click here for more info on this book.
 

Marketing Warfare
Al Ries and Jack Trout
ISBN:0070527261
This is a really easy read, a couple of hundred pages on basic marketing. Marketing Warfare is based on a book about how to win wars by German military strategist Karl vonClausewitz. Marketing Warfare parallels a lot of vonClausewitz's ideas on strategy and tactics and applies them to the marketplace.
Click here for more info on this book.
 

Time To Manage Time
Reg Garters
ISBN:047300965X
This is a book written by a New Zealander, it is really easy to read. The book is about how to organise yourself and use your time efficiently. It also goes into using other peoples time efficiently and making sure they don't waste yours. It has lots of sample forms you can use for organising yourself and a lot of neat ideas. You will save a lot more than the amount of time it takes to read it, if you use his ideas.
See your local retailer for more info on this book.
 

How To Get New Business In 90 Days And Keep It Forever
Wendy Evans
ISBN:1864291060
This is a really practical book by a woman out of an advertising agency on how to keep track of the people you want to get work from, how to communicate with them and how to get the work you want. Evans gives you lots of forms and practical ways of doing things. If you actually read this and do what she says, you are almost guaranteed of getting the work you want.
See your local retailer for more info on this book.
 

The Great Marketing Turnaround
Stan Rapp and Tom Collins
ISBN:0133655601
This is a really good book on direct marketing. Not only is it full of great ideas on how to get the business you want, but it has lots of examples of how this works in practise.
Click here for more info on this book.
 

Going For It
Victor Kiam
ISBN:0688060609
This is a book by a very successful American Businessman. He talks about how he made it and basics of selling and negotiating through to how to start your own business. Going For It is a good general motivational read.
Click here for more info on this book.
 

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
Stephen Covey
ISBN:0671708635
This book is a best-seller, probably one of the best of Covey's books. About 300 pages long, this book systematically works through giving you a strategy on how to achieve your goals. It is as applicable to making a band successful as it is to any other business venture.
Click here for more info on this book.
 

Marketing In New Zealand
Alyse Boaz
ISBN:058287808
This book was written to be used as a textbook in NZ on marketing. It is about 170 pages long and covers a lot of basic, helpful information on marketing your product. It has a lot of examples drawn from the NZ marketplace and contains many relevant statistics. A very useful book to anyone selling in the New Zealand market.
See your local retailer for more info on this book.
 

Losing My Virginity
Richard Branson
ISBN:0812931017
This is a really good autobiography by the guy who set up Virgin Records. It tells you a lot about the early days of the British music industry, and how the Virgin Record Company started. It also has lots of ideas from a very successful guy on how to float any business. Bransons latest project is a Hotel in space which he hopes to have up and running within 5 years. Bransons autobiography is guaranteed to get you thinking BIG, and has lots of interesting ideas on the music industry.
Click here for more info on this book.
 

Why We Buy
Paco Underhill
ISBN:0684849135
Why We Buy is a witty and surprising report on our evolving shopping culture. Paco Underhill and his detail-oriented band of retail researchers camped out in stores over the course of 20 years, dedicating their lives to the "science of shopping". You'll be amazed at what they discovered.
Click here for more info on this book.
 

Up The Loyalty Ladder
Neil Raphel el, Murray Raphel
ISBN:0887307256
This is a book about how to turn potential customers into loyal customers who will help you sell your product. It is just a relevant to building up a loyal fan base as any other type of customer.
Click here for more info on this book.
 

Think And Grow Rich
Napoleon Hill
ISBN:0449911462
This is quite an old book, originally written in 1937. It is a study of how to be successful and how to make your dreams turn into reality. It is a very successful book with over 7 million copies sold, one of the classics on personal development, well worth the read even if a few of the ideas are a little old fashioned. Most personal development courses available today are based on Hill's thinking.
Click here for more info on this book.
 

Unlimited Success
Napoleon Hill
ISBN:0749913231
How successful you are at anything is totally dependant on how you think. This book is to help you keep your thoughts open and wide, and achieve big things. It is written in 52 chapters with the idea of reading a chapter a week throughout a year. Each chapter consists of 3 or 4 pages of inspirational reading.
See your local retailer for more info on this book.
 

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