Book review: Market Yourself by Tara Swiger

Market Yourself by Tara Swiger (A Marketing System for Smart and Creative Business Owners) – this is a book review by me, iHanna. Enjoy!

Tara Swiger is a blogger and yarn maker that has now dived into writing a whole book, and she does it well with a knowledge of marketing for personal and small business. Market yourself is almost brand new (I got it a while back) and I’ve read parts of it several times already. I enjoy it but have a hard time concentrating on the words because I just want to spring into action when I read the how-to of this book. The business woman in me roars with delight and can’t stay put!

If you have any kind of dream about selling what you do, weather or not it’s starting a business or just listing a few items on Etsy every now or then, this book is for you. It has tons of great information on how to define who you are, what you do, who would be interested in buying what you do and how you should go about finding these “Right People” in your local town and online. In core it’s almost a self-help book, but then again maybe having a business is a lot about that. Finding what makes you happy is essential to many of those who start small businesses, right?

As I read this book I had the same feeling I got when I read Alyson Stanfield’s book I’d rather be in the studio a few years back. I wanted to stop reading, jump up and get into action mode with making stuff, writing blog posts and newsletters and… Just marketing what I do to The Right People (defined as those of you who like what I do AND also will buy from me). I think that feeling of wanting to follow the advice right away is a good review in of itself. It should tell you that Tara has a way with words, has advice that feels right and a tone that really inspires.

It’s set up as a work book with lots of space to write, answer questions and draw mind maps. And you should really take the time to do the exercises as they will help you think better (at least for me writing is the best tool to help me focus).

Tara’s book is focused a lot on building a business online, using online tools, social media and defining your message. To me that’s the “right road” and I love exercises like how to write a douche-free bio and defining the amazingness of you!

If you would like to win a copy of this book…

To win all you have to dois share the link to this blog post in some nice way – and let me know below (do this before next Sunday 16th of December when comments will close and I will pick a random winner). You can tweet it, share it in an appropriate place on facebook, link to it from your blog or mention it in your newsletter etc.

Please also feel free to share your own business secrets/advice with us! How do you do it? I’m a novice in concentrating on business (though not on blogging), so I’d love to know if you have any ideas to share!

The thought behind “mention this post” giveaway is of course always to market your own blog in some way… I usually don’t do this, but as this book is about marketing I’m hoping new people who come here will stick around for more than a second to enter the giveaway (I’ve got two books but I’m keeping mine!). If this is your first visit here I strongly recommend you to check out the extensive blog archive or any of the categories in the sidebar that you fancy. If you’re like me, into books, check out previous book reviews for some more recommendations both on marketing and creativity!

And, matter of fact is, I do have an Etsy Shop of my own – where I try to SELL stuff (and not just any stuff, but awesome handmade journals, original collages and cute kitties)! Feel to browse through at your leisure.

Thanks for visiting!

Further exploring:

* Market Yourself – buy the book
* Tara Swiger – author blog and site
* Video discussion about the book with Tara and Sister Diane