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Brandon Royal has commented on (2) products.

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell

Brandon Royal, December 27, 2010

The Tipping Point is a permanent fixture in my personal library. Not only is this book one of the best trade hardbacks I’ve ever read, but it’s also a book that I continue to look to it in order to make meaningful changes in my professional life.

As an author and independent publisher who aspires to turn my “little book” educational series into a global brand, I recently reread the Tipping Point in the hopes of gleaning from it clues on how I could create a tipping point in my own publishing business. First, I sought to better understand the people around me: who exactly are those mavens, salespersons, and connectors? Second, I started tinkering with the way information was worded on promotional materials. The goal was to make the message more “sticky.” I started by focusing on one of my education books titled The Little Blue Reasoning Book: 50 Powerful Principles for Clear and Effective Thinking. This book is one in a four-part series and sister to The Little Red Writing Book, The Little Gold Grammar Book, and The Little Green Math Book.

Upon publication, I noticed that initial sales of The Little Blue Reasoning Book were lagging behind the sales of my other three books. I found this somewhat surprising as I had expected the “blue book” to vie with The Little Red Writing Book for first place in the series. Although I recognize that reasoning skills do not address as clear a niche market as do writing, grammar, and math skills, I also believe that a book on reasoning skills represents a more unique educational offering. Reasoning skills are, after all, one of the most important yet seldom taught skills.

My original flap copy on the backside of the book contained standard descriptive sentences such as: “Reasoning skills help us make sense of the world, including how to make decisions, tackle opportunities, evaluate claims, and solve problems.”

For promotional purposes, I tinkered with the stickiness and came up with: “This book is based on a simple but powerful observation: Individuals who develop outstanding reasoning and thinking skills do so primarily by mastering a limited number of the most important reasoning principles and concepts, which they use over and over again. What are these recurring principles and concepts? The answer to this question is the basis of this book.”

The Tipping Point is based on three rules: the law of the few (mavens, salespersons, and connectors), content (stickiness), and context (environment and circumstances). As I started to think of ways to marry the concepts of stickiness and context, I came up with the following verbiage: “Never has there been a time when one idea can make a bigger difference. In the case of thinking and reasoning skills, one idea or concept — creative or analytical — can greatly influence the outcome of a personal or business decision. The more we fulfill our own potentials, the better we can contribute to our communities.”

The principles advocated by the Tipping Point continue to be an integral part of my book marketing efforts. The bet is that little, incremental things do make a big difference.

Brandon Royal, award-winning educational author, www.brandonroyal.com

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The ABC Field Guide to Faeries by Susanne Alexander-heaton

Brandon Royal, December 15, 2010

Susanne Alexander-Heaton's book is a wonderfully uplifting and brilliantly illustrated work of art. Each left-hand page adorns a description of a fairy and his or her message scripted as a poem. These are tips or lessons for how we can better understand ourselves, more fully bond with others, and live in closer harmony with mother nature. Each right-hand page contains an inspiring pictorial of the fairy.

The journey from A to Z celebrates a fairy whose name starts with that letter of the alphabet. Here are but two entries that speak to me (conspicuously absent are the nice script and lavish images that appear in the real book):

***
"H" is for Hillaria:

Hillaria is the happiest fairy you will ever meet,
As she laughs so much she barely has time to eat!
It shocked her that when some humans grow old,
Their laughter decreases over a full tenfold.

Hillaria lovingly says:

"Don't lose the ability to laugh and to play,
Learn to laugh like me more than ten times a day.
Have you taken the time to laugh at all today?
If not, please do and you'll feel better right away!"

"U" is for Uniqueuella

Uniqueuella is a fairy that is very rare to be found,
As he flies with the unicorns way above the ground.
Instead of seeing himself as different or strange,
He embraces who he is and refuses to change.

Uniqueuella's message:

"If people tell you that you just don't belong,
Just say thanks, and go on singing your own song.
You are magical, beautiful, mystical and bright,
So shine out strongly with your unending light."
***

Brandon Royal, award-winning educational author; author of The Little Red Writing Book

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