An excellent guide for anyone wishing to achieve better brand recognition.
Professional ghostwriter Lisec presents a systemic approach to success in this marketing guide.
In the modern marketplace, it’s not always enough to do good work for one’s clients. Instead, the author—who’s written more than 80 books for CEOs, celebrities, and other clients—asserts that talent must have a voice that can be heard over the noise of social media. A strong strategy, he says, can help one transition from being a silent expert in one’s field to being an undisputed authority with a reputation for consistent results. The key to his strategy is deceptively simple: systemization. Lisec asserts that most people are simply unaware of the full scope of their skills or the specific steps they need to take to achieve success. Without this knowledge, professionals can’t communicate their full value to others or reliably instruct others about their techniques when necessary. To address this, Lisec presents a straightforward approach to breaking down achievements into replicable frameworks. He points out that bold outcomes and great success may attract skeptics; however, he argues, criticism can be as effective as praise for increasing notoriety. Overall, Lisec offers an approach to professional advancement that’s valuable and logical. At one point, for instance, he simply notes that those who can’t deliver results will lose opportunities to those with less talent and better marketing. Still, he says, those who can deliver consistent, transformative outcomes will ultimately triumph. Although Lisec’s use of the word genius to describe this aptitude may feel intimidating, he suggests that many people possess a capacity for excellence already. Nonetheless, this guide doesn’t contain quick fixes or hacks to achieving fame in one’s field. Instead, he stresses hard work, using a “System Design Table,” recommended research, and exercises to clarify his points. Lisec also offers advice on topics ranging from writing and developing a book to fee negotiation. His actionable advice and real-world examples offer tangible benefits from the first chapter.
An excellent guide for anyone wishing to achieve better brand recognition.Pub Date: June 15, 2023
ISBN: 9798988347422
Page Count: 170
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
A cheeky, gossipy dual biography.
A study of two writers uncomfortably entwined.
After Eve Babitz (1943-2021) died, her biographer Anolik came upon a letter from Babitz to Joan Didion (1934-2021) that startled her. Filled with “rage, despair, impatience, contempt,” it read like a “lovers’ quarrel.” “Eve was talking to Joan the way you talk to someone who’s burrowed deep under your skin, whose skin you’re trying to burrow deep under.” That surprise discovery suggested a “complicated alliance” between the two. In sometimes breathless prose, with sly asides to the “Reader,” Anolik draws on more than 100 interviews with Babitz and many other sources to follow both women’s lives, tumultuous loves, and aspirations before and after they met in Los Angeles in 1967, sometimes straining to prove their significance to one another. “Joan and Eve weren’t each other’s opposite selves so much as each other’s shadow selves,” she asserts. “Eve was what Joan both feared becoming and longed to become: an inspired amateur.” At the same time, “Joan was what Eve feared becoming and desired to become: a fierce professional.” Didion had just won acclaim for Slouching Towards Bethlehem when Babitz, newly arrived from New York, began socializing with her and her husband, John Gregory Dunne. The reticent Didion and the sensual, energetic Babitz could not have been more different, and Anolik clearly prefers Babitz. “I’m crazy for Eve,” she admits, “love her with a fan’s unreasoning abandon. Besides, Joan is somebody I naturally root against: I respect her work rather than like it; find her persona—part princess, part wet blanket—tough going.” Their relationship—hardly a friendship—fell apart in 1974 when Didion and Dunne were assigned to edit Babitz’s autobiographical novel, Eve’s Hollywood. Babitz, resentful of Didion’s attitude and intrusion, “fired” her, pursuing her writing career on her own. Didion soared to literary fame; not, alas, Babitz.
A cheeky, gossipy dual biography.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781668065488
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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