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Coaching Tips and Resources – Best Books for Coaching

admin — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 00:00:54 +0000

What are the best books for coaching?

I asked a number of coaches and they recommended a wide range of books – from those outlining coaching models and techniques, best practice in leadership and management , positive psychology, to books taking a spiritual approach to coaching and business.

They also recommended books drawing on theories of Neuro Linguistic Programming and personality types. There were also many texts suggested aimed at supporting clients in taking action and making change.

Which are the most popular?

Perhaps, as you would expect, the majority of books recommended were texts to support clients in taking action and making positive change. These books are also often as useful to coaches as their clients.

The next most recommended were books on business development – particularly on marketing and growing a coaching practice – particularly effective ways of attracting new clients.

In all 68 books were recommended – here are 6:

Co-Active Coaching: New Skills for Coaching People Toward Success in Work and Life, by L. Wentworth, P. Sandall, H. Kimsey-House. Publisher: Davies-Black Publishing; 2 Pap/Com edition (February 25, 2007)

This book outlines the Coaches Training Institute’s (CTI) model for coaching and discusses how to design a good coaching alliance. It then explores the nuances and skills of a coaching relationship, giving definitions and detailed examples of how each of these play a part in a successful coaching partnership. These skills include listening, intuition, curiosity, forwarding and deepening the learning, and self-management. The book also explores three distinct parts of coaching — fulfillment, balance and process.

The final section of the book is called the Coach’s Toolkit. It is filled with tools, forms and checklists to serve both individual and corporate clients. In addition, the book comes with a CD with more information, examples of coaching conversations and printable forms.

Coaching for Performance by John Whitmore – Nicholas Brealey Publishing; 3 edition (May 25, 2002)

In this highly influential book, Sir John Whitmore describes what he believes coaching is, how it can be used, and the skills required for coaching. Whitmore also outlines his GROW model which can be used both in a personal, corporate and team context. In the book Whitmore, explores what coaching is, looks at the skills of questioning and introduces his GROW model (Goals, Reality, Options and Will).

Whitmore also discusses a range of topics – including motivation, coaching the corporation, feedback and assessment and coaching teams, emotional intelligence and spirtual intelligence and their relation to coaching.

Four Steps to Building A Profitable Coaching Business/ A Complete Marketing Resource Guide for Coaches - Deborah Brown-Volkman – iUniverse (October 30, 2003)

This book will show you how to build and market a profitable coaching practice in four easy steps. It walks you through the process of deciding who to coach and how to create a program that potential clients will pay you lots of money for. You will understand the components of creating a winning marketing strategy and learn tips and techniques to implement your plan. You will also discover how to become masterful at both marketing and selling.

Get Clients Now! by C.J. Hayden – Amacom; 2 edition (1 Oct 2006)

“Get Clients Now” empowers readers with practical, proven strategies for choosing the right marketing tactics for their situation and personality, diagnosing exactly what’s missing in their marketing and fixing it, and replacing unproductive cold calling with the power of relationship marketing. Filled with hundreds of tool and techniques, as well as a powerful 28-day plan that enables readers to energise their marketing efforts and dramatically increase their client base, the second edition contains up-to-the-minute strategies for relationship-based marketing in the Internet age.

Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott – Piatkus Books (August 21, 2003)

Susan Scott maintains that a single conversation can change the trajectory of a career, marriage or life. Whether it’s conversations with yourself, partner, colleagues, customers, family or friends, Fierce Conversations shows you how to have conversations that count. Scott reveals how to overcome barriers to meaningful conversations and her book is packed with exercises and questionnaires to help you have the best conversations possible.

Wishcraft – How to get what you really want by Barbara Sher – Ballantine Books; 2 edition (Dec 2003)

In the first part of this book Barabar Sher takes you through a series of exercises designed to get you to dream your wildest dreams about your life and what it could be. Sher also encourages you to distinguish between ‘real’ dreams and fantasies . The second part of the book gives you great approaches to achieving them and is full of challenging and effective exercises.

This short list gives just a flavour of the resources available to you as a coach – and now all you have to do is get reading!

The Ten Best Romance eBooks of 2009

admin — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 00:00:31 +0000

Of all the GLBT romance and erotica e-books I read in 2009, these were my favorites. Please note that this list reflects my own, highly subjective opinion and is not an official list from any website or organization.

10. Nights in Pink Satin by Sharon Maria Bidwell. In another lifetime, Vincent was known as Count Dracula. In modern London, as he prepares for his annual vampire cotillion, Vincent becomes intrigued by a bolt of fuscia-pink satin, and obsessed with finding out who would want to line a coffin with such an extravagant fabric. The answer leads him to some surprising truths about himself in this offbeat paranormal romance.

9. Queer Hauntings by Ken Summers. In my hometown is the Truman’s Entertainment Complex, consisting of two linked GLBT bars, one a sports bar and one a dance club. Did you ever stop to consider there may be gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual spirits, as well as the heterosexual ghosts we typically hear about from the ghost hunters? That is the topic of the nonfiction book Queer Hauntings. If you love ghost stories at all, you’ll find it fascinating, from the famous ghosts (Liberace is said to haunt the restaurant he once owned, for example) to ordinary people and couples whose lives were cut tragically short.

8. The Dandelion Clock by Jay Mandel. The Dandelion Clock by Jay Mandal is a sweet romance novel. Its main characters just happen to be two men, David and Rob, English guys in the 1980s. In this very realistic character study, 20-something David pines for 19-year-old Rob, but will Rob ever even notice?

7. Agency of Extraordinary Mates: Finding Magic by Kate Douglas. I’ve enjoyed Kate Douglas’s spicy novels for years, and this book was no exception. It’s fun, and the reader will certainly find magic!

6. I Kissed a Girl, edited by Regina Perry. Inspired by Katy Perry’s pop tune, the twelve short stories in this anthology crackle with tension. In each tale, a woman kisses another woman for the first time. Sometimes, her boyfriend doesn’t mind it…others are purely Sapphic imaginings, with nary a Y-chromosome in sight. All are passion-inspiring; some are beautifully told stories in their own “write.”

5. Secretly Bound by Jade. Jade and her wife Jessica live in the Netherlands with their young son. Jessica desperately wants to have another child, but she’s having trouble getting pregnant again. Jessica’s increasing disappoint creates a rift between them, leading Jade down a dangerous path. She seeks to ease her loneliness by flirting with a woman she meets on an online social network. What follows is a tense blend of romance, sensuality, and action. Fans of Anais Nin will appreciate the way Jade (the author) weaves the story of Henry and June into her narrative.

4. Other Magical Creatures, edited by M. Rode. OMC is a collection of steamy, long short stories/short novellas with paranormal characters. There’s a weretiger, an artist who sells his soul to a demon, a couple of witches, a handful of werewolves, an ancient Greek god reincarnated as a bartender!

3. Samhain’s Embrace by Jesse Fox. If you have any interest in Celtic mythology, you will find it a fascinating little volume. It’s a contemporary story, set in modern times. Bran has lost the love of his life to a brutal murder…and only a shadowy figure from the world of ancient gods and goddesses can make him feel alive again.

2. Up For Grabs, edited by Lauren P. Burka. If your reading tastes are a bit quirky, if you’re an open-minded reader, and if you enjoy the premise of “What if?”…then Up For Grabs, edited by Lauren P. Burka (Circlet Press) is just the book for you. In these five delicious tales, gender is up for grabs, and science pushes the boundaries between male and female, natural and unnatural.

1. Sappho Sings by Peggy Ullman Bell. I rarely give a novel five stars, but I was tremendously impressed with the quality of storytelling in Sappho Sings, a fictionalized biography of the ancient Greek poet by Peggy Ullman Bell. Whether or not you are familiar with Sappho’s timeless verse, this book brings history to life, and is a rolicking good romance as well!

PDF Books – Making a Business From Selling E-books

admin — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 00:00:05 +0000

PDF books are exactly the same as e-book, in that they exist only as files for your PC rather than having a physical form like a regular book.

The term stands for Portable Document Format and is a file format created by Adobe to improve document exchange and distribution.

Creating your own electronic books is a popular way of:

a) making money
b) increasing your reach on the web
c) building your credibility on the internet.

It only takes time and a small amount of money – if any – to set yourself up, and it means you have your own product to sell rather than being reliant on affiliate schemes for your online income.

Creating PDF books

Use the free software provided by Openoffice.org which operates just like Microsoft Word and is compatible with Microsoft products.

Once your document is created , it’s simple to ‘Export as PDF’ and this creates the file that you need for your e-book.

Selling PDF books

Use Clickbank which must be the best-known and most widely used method of selling e-books.

You have to pay a one-time fee to sell your own products.

You can offer other people commissions to sell your products, so you end up with a viral way of getting your work on more websites.

You can set the rate of commission your affiliates receive and Clickbank also handles all of the payment process, allowing you to take Paypal and credit cards.

They also build in fraud protection, secure payments and a ready-made global audience.

Making covers for your PDF books

This is the part where you’ll probably have to pay, especially if you don’t want an e-book cover that looks cheap and tacky.

You can either pay somebody to do it for you – and it won’t cost a fortune – or you can do what I did and invest in a bit of kit that enables you to do it for yourself.

Usually, the software is delivered as a series of ‘actions’ for use with photo editing software.

Make sure that you go for a product which has good support as it takes a bit of getting used to at first.

I think I’d recommend buying some kit to do this as it only takes a couple of products before you’re saving money on paying somebody else to do it and they look far more professional.

Marketing your PDF books

You should create a marketing campaign for your e-book as well as just listing them on Clickbank.

Search out related keywords to use with Google or Facebook ads, promote via an EzineArticles.com feature, or use free press release services to let web users know about your new product.