Women Mean Business: a review ... sort of

In September we’re publishing Women Mean Business by Rosemary Delaney.

Now I’m being completely honest here so no judgement please – I don’t read every book we publish cover to cover. I’m not an editor so it’s not part of my job description. The work day is pretty full  as it is and some of our books are a little dry for taking home and reading before going to bed. That being said I do read a good portion of  the content (especially if they’re small) and some like The Career Book or Know Your Rights I take home when they come in from the printer as I find the contents very useful for a dip in every now and then. I even gave Megan and the Money Tree to my niece as a present. As the person marketing the book I need to have a strong enough grasp of the content to be able to actually sell it to people but I also have to balance that against how much time I can put aside to read the books.

Every now and then a book will pass my desk and I’ll start reading it – the next thing I know I’ve got half of it read and have to force my self to pull away to do other things my job requires like, you know, sell books.

This is what happened with Women Mean Business, I wasn’t even reading the final copyedited text and I still couldn’t pull myself away. It probably helps that I’m the target market – young, ambitious, woman and looking to take an industry by storm by developing some much needed service/product/[fill in as appropriate].

In the book Rosemary maps out her path to becoming an entrepreneur and shares all of the little lessons she learned along the way. I haven’t finished it yet but already I’ve taken away a few nuggets. For example – Rosemary and I agree quite heavily on the massive importance of note books. At any given time I have at least four notebooks in rotation. They were mostly kept around for writing purposes or even just jotting down shopping lists or reminders. Rosemary suggested putting down ideas … any and every idea – which I feel a bit silly not having realised my self. Every business idea she has goes down into her notebook regardless of how batty it seems.

I plan to follow her lead. Why only recently while reading Mike Shatzkin’s post reflecting on the future merits and pitfalls of agency pricing an idea popped into my head. I pulled out my notebook, jotted down a few sentences and maybe in a few years time I will be making millions … maybe not.

Gems like this are scattered throughout the pages of Rosemary’s life. Her style is light and accessible and her story is intriguing, I’ve met the woman and I can tell you her voice carries through the pages in all its energetic enthusiasm.

P.s. I’m sorry if it’s a bit crass to be reviewing a book we’ll be publishing soon but the book aint available yet so I don't think this will generate sales. It was just something I wanted to share really.