Richard C. Harris, Certified World Class Speaking Coach "An insightful read" ~Dennis Waller, Top 500 Reviewer "Superb communication advice" ~ Larry Nocella MASTER THE ONE THING ALL GREAT TED TALKS HAVE IN COMMON What is the secret to delivering a great TED talk? What is the magic ingredient that makes a TED talk captivating? And more importantly, how can you use those secrets to make your presentations more powerful, dynamic and engaging? To try to answer these questions, I studied over 200 of the best TED talks. I broke each TED talk down in terms of structure, message and delivery. Here’s what I discovered. After studying over 200 TED talks, the one commonality among all the great TED talks is that they contain stories. UTILIZE ADVANCED STORYTELLING TECHNIQUES TO INJECT LIFE INTO YOUR PRESENTATIONS Essentially, the best speakers on the TED stage were the ones who had mastered the art of storytelling. They had mastered how to craft and present their stories in a way that allowed them to share their message with the world without seeming like they were lecturing their audience. DISCOVER THE 23 STORYTELLING SECRETS OF THE BEST TED TALKS In this short but powerful guide, you’re going to learn how to use stories to make your presentations engaging and entertaining. Using case studies drawn from TED talks by Sir Ken Robinson, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, Susan Cain, Leslie Morgan Steiner, Mike Rowe and Malcolm Gladwell, you’ll learn how to craft stories that keep your audience mesmerized. By the time you’ve finished reading this storytelling manifesto, you will have picked up twenty-three principles on how to create stories that keep your audiences mesmerized. Whether you are giving a TED talk or a corporate presentation, you will be able to apply the principles you pick up in this guide to make your next talk a roaring success! RAVE REVIEWS FROM READERS "No more boring speeches and presentations" ~ Douglas L. Coppock "A crisp and no fluff book" ~ Kam Syed "A great book on storytelling" ~ David Bishop "Excellent book for any speaker" ~ Dean Krosecz Ready? Then let’s get started...

    [It] was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said. 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.'"With this basic instruction always in mind, Anne Lamott returns to offer us a new gift: a step-by-step guide on how to write and on how to manage the writer's life. From "Getting Started,' with "Short Assignments," through "Shitty First Drafts," "Character," "Plot," "Dialogue." all the way from "False Starts" to "How Do You Know When You're Done?" Lamott encourages, instructs, and inspires. She discusses "Writers Block," "Writing Groups," and "Publication." Bracingly honest, she is also one of the funniest people alive.If you have ever wondered what it takes to be a writer, what it means to be a writer, what the contents of your school lunches said about what your parents were really like, this book is for you. From faith, love, and grace to pain, jealousy, and fear, Lamott insists that you keep your eyes open, and then shows you how to survive. And always, from the life of the artist she turns to the art of life.

    Grammar Girl, is determined to wipe out bad grammar—but she's also determined to make the process as painless as possible. A couple of years ago, she created a weekly podcast to tackle some of the most common mistakes people make while communicating. The podcasts have now been downloaded more than twenty million times, and Mignon has dispensed grammar tips on Oprah and appeared on the pages of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today.Written with the wit, warmth, and accessibility that the podcasts are known for, Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing covers the grammar rules and word-choice guidelines that can confound even the best writers. From "between vs. among" and "although vs. while" to comma splices and misplaced modifiers, Mignon offers memory tricks and clear explanations that will help readers recall and apply those troublesome grammar rules. Chock-full of tips on style, business writing, and effective e-mailing, Grammar Girl's print debut deserves a spot on every communicator's desk.

    It takes several years for that—more than a book and a couple of days of reading can promise.  But this gives you a plan for success before you even start. Think of it as a road map for your first 90 days!Now, you can start a solid blog with the potential to make money WITHOUT a $1,000+ blogging education! Here’s a snapshot of what’s packed into this how-to guide: Popular guru promises exposed! I expose the truth about popular revenue streams and why NOT ALL monetization options are right for you despite guru promises! The 2M (+1) strategy to help you hit your first $1K blogging. How to find YOUR unique angle, so you can stand out from the pack and attract the right kind of readers. The smartest ways to make critical website pages sticky—Make these pages shout out “YES, you’re in the right place!” and understand what you need and don’t need to include. Why some bloggers make the leap and others don’t. (It has everything to do with what they don’t do!) 3 MUST-ANSWER questions that will shape your blog’s journey. How to create a strategic blog launch plan and my answer to the question “How many posts do you need before launching?” (No more confusion or stress. Just an actionable plan for results.) AND MORE! Imagine knowing exactly what you need to focus on despite all the distractions pulling you in a million directions.Imagine if in a mere year you accomplish more than you ever thought possible, feel a sense of satisfaction, and actually make progress toward this larger vision of what you want your blog and business to do for you.You don't flinch, get panicky, or try different tactics hoping one sticks. You have a plan of action and every decision you make for your blog is calculated and intentional. That’s the power of the process and the promise behind The Blog Startup!Intrigued yet? Then scroll to the top and click or tap “Buy Now.”

    In over 30 essays, written over 20 years, one of the world's great story-tellers meditates on story-telling. Warm, funny, generous, entertaining, and above all, deeply considered, they offer thoughts on a wide variety of topic, including the origin and composition of Philip's own stories, the craft of writing and the story-tellers who have meant the most to him. The art of story-telling is everywhere present in the essays themselves, in the instantly engaging tone, the vivid imagery and the striking phrases, the resonant anecdotes, the humour and learnedness. Together, they are greater than the sum of their parts.

    More than 100 master tips from an expert editor, fiction ghostwriter and writing coach whose sales exceed 4 million copies. 'Nail Your Novel is like a personal session with a writing mentor.' What makes a reader fall in love with your book? Whether you write a story-based genre or literary fiction, it’s the characters. So how do you create fictional people who’ll keep readers hooked? How do you make them plausible, chilling, imperfect, lovable, intriguing, tormented or misunderstood? What if their lives are totally unlike your own? How do you write the opposite sex, historical characters, enigmatic characters who give little away? Villains? This book is a super-zipped digest of tips for creating irresistible characters, extracted from the tutorials in Writing Characters to Keep Readers Captivated (Nail Your Novel 2). Use them as a handy checklist to create and deepen your fictional people, a guide for self-editing, or a prompt for discussion in your writing group.

    We spin fantasies. We devour novels, films, and plays. Even sporting events and criminal trials unfold as narratives. Yet the world of story has long remained an undiscovered and unmapped country. It’s easy to say that humans are “wired” for story, but why?In this delightful and original book, Jonathan Gottschall offers the first unified theory of storytelling. He argues that stories help us navigate life’s complex social problems—just as flight simulators prepare pilots for difficult situations. Storytelling has evolved, like other behaviors, to ensure our survival.Drawing on the latest research in neuroscience, psychology, and evolutionary biology, Gottschall tells us what it means to be a storytelling animal. Did you know that the more absorbed you are in a story, the more it changes your behavior? That all children act out the same kinds of stories, whether they grow up in a slum or a suburb? That people who read more fiction are more empathetic?Of course, our story instinct has a darker side. It makes us vulnerable to conspiracy theories, advertisements, and narratives about ourselves that are more “truthy” than true. National myths can also be terribly dangerous: Hitler’s ambitions were partly fueled by a story.But as Gottschall shows in this remarkable book, stories can also change the world for the better. Most successful stories are moral—they teach us how to live, whether explicitly or implicitly, and bind us together around common values. We know we are master shapers of story. The Storytelling Animal finally reveals how stories shape us.

    The whole process seems overwhelming. This conversational and action oriented book is for people who want to write a book (or are thinking about it), but for their whole life, have never been good at writing. Writing has always been difficult for you, and you think you could never enjoy it, much less write an entire book. Every time you start to write anything it’s like all of your ideas disappear. You know the drill. You get ready to do some writing. You’re pumped and think this will be the day all of your great ideas flood the page. Then ... You find yourself staring at a blank screen. You have no idea what you want to write about. After some time, you want to bang your head against the keyboard. You want to write a book. In fact, you know you have a book inside you but, you keep telling yourself: “I’m not a writer. I can’t write a book. I don’t have enough time anyway.” There are TONS of myths, misconceptions, and flat-out lies out there about how difficult it is to write your first book. How to Not SUCK at Writing Your First Book busts those myths and challenges everything you’ve been told about writing. This book is filled with proven solutions, options, and problem-solving methods that every first-time author needs to know—no matter what writing challenges you face. How to Not SUCK at Writing Your First Bookgives you the foundation for your first book through: 4 tried and true writing methods that make the writing process simple, easy & fast A writing method that involves 0 actual writing (your book can be done in as little as 7 hours) Simple strategies for preventing & defeating writer’s block Uncovering the #1 way to actually finish and publish your book (hint: is has nothing to do with writing) Shows you how simple and fast writing a book can actually be (by holding your hand every step of the way). Follow the advice given in this book and by the end, after putting what I have to say into action, you will have easily written a high-quality book. Best of all, the rest of your life doesn’t have to be put on hold to do it either! This book shows you how you can continue to spend most of your time doing what you love instead of struggling through something you hate. Before your buy the book, I have one question for you: What’s stopping you from turning your daily conversations and knowledge into a high-quality book faster than you ever thought possible? Scroll to the top and click the “buy now” button and you will write your first book-- and not suck at it.

    Whether you have a company mission to share, an audience to entertain or a product to sell, we're more likely to engage and connect if you deliver a well-crafted story with an emotional core. Bobette Buster is a story consultant working with major studios such as Disney and Pixar, an adjunct professor and a lecturer in top film programs all over the world. In this, her first book, she shares her 10 key principles of storytelling -- as used by some of the world’s best storytellers -- and helps you apply them to your own. Find out: How to source, structure and shape your story; Ways to discover its essence; Why forming an emotional bond with your audience can take a story from good to great. So, whats your story?

    This revolutionary method for connecting with customers provides readers with the ultimate competitive advantage, revealing the secret for helping their customers understand the compelling benefits of using their products, ideas, or services. Building a StoryBrand does this by teaching readers the seven universal story points all humans respond to; the real reason customers make purchases; how to simplify a brand message so people understand it; and how to create the most effective messaging for websites, brochures, and social media. Whether you are the marketing director of a multibillion dollar company, the owner of a small business, a politician running for office, or the lead singer of a rock band, Building a StoryBrand will forever transform the way you talk about who you are, what you do, and the unique value you bring to your customers.

    But as any writer can tell you, the blank page can be daunting. It's tough to know where to get started, what details to include in each scene, and how to move from the kernel of an idea to a completed manuscript. Writing great fiction isn't a gift reserved for the talented few. There is a craft to storytelling that can be learned, and studying writing techniques can be incredibly rewarding - both personally and professionally. Even if you don’t have ambitions of penning the next Moby-Dick, you'll find value in exploring all the elements of fiction. From evoking a scene to charting a plot to revising your drafts, Writing Great Fiction: Storytelling Tips and Techniques offers a master class in storytelling. Taught by award-winning novelist James Hynes, a former visiting professor at the famed Iowa Writers' Workshop, these 24 insightful lectures show you the ins and outs of the fiction writer's craft. Get tips for developing believable and memorable characters, explore how to craft plausible dialogue that serves the purposes of your narrative, compare the advantages of different points of view, and more. A wealth of exercises will inspire you to practice the many techniques you learn. Professor Hynes is an able guide, showing you what has worked for him and other novelists, and pointing out pitfalls to avoid. Writing Great Fiction is truly an exceptional course for anyone interested in storytelling.©2014 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2014 The Great Courses

    I learned about myself and learned lessons I will carry with me and reflect on for the rest of my life.”—John W. Fanning, Founding Chairman and CEO napster Inc.“An unusually nuanced view of high-performance cultures.” —Inc.Within each corporation are anywhere from a few to hundreds of separate tribes. In Tribal Leadership, Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright demonstrate how these tribes develop—and show you how to assess them and lead them to maximize productivity and growth. A business management book like no other, Tribal Leadership is an essential tool to help managers and business leaders take better control of their organizations by utilizing the unique characteristics of the tribes that exist within.

    As a result, writers will dig deep within and explore their own values and worldviews in order to create an effective story. Writers will come away with an extremely precise set of tools to work with--specific, useful techniques to make the audience care about their characters, and that make their characters grow in meaningful ways. They will construct a surprising plot that is unique to their particular concept, and they will learn how to express a moral vision that can genuinely move an audience.The foundations of story that Truby lays out are so fundamental they are applicable--and essential--to all writers, from novelists and short-story writers to journalists, memoirists, and writers of narrative non-fiction.

    It is a book for everybody who wants to learn how to write or who needs to do some writing to get through the day, as almost everybody does in the age of e-mail and the Internet. Whether you want to write about people or places, science and technology, business, sports, the arts or about yourself in the increasingly popular memoir genre, On Writing Well offers you fundamental priciples as well as the insights of a distinguished writer and teacher. With more than a million copies sold, this volume has stood the test of time and remains a valuable resource for writers and would-be writers.

    As the always clear and direct Stein explains here, This is not a book of theory. It is a book of usable solutions--how to fix writing that is flawed, how to improve writing that is good, how to create interesting writing in the first place. With examples from bestsellers as well as from students' drafts, Stein offers detailed sections on characterization, dialogue, pacing, flashbacks, trimming away flabby wording, the so-called triage method of revision, using the techniques of fiction to enliven nonfiction, and more.