Guyer

I listen to most of my audio books while driving to and from work. I find that my attention to the audio is a great gauge for the interaction provided from the narrator. Unforunately, Ms. Handley is a dreadful narrator. I found myself tuning her out numerous times regardless of the value of what she was saying, which is unfortunate. Ms. Handley really needs some coaching to perfect her narration, otherwise the next book is going to suffer equally. I felt as if she was reading from a book in a 12th grade English class. Very few inflections, and when they were present, they were very obviously over the top as if the text on the page read (read with intent here.) Mr. Chapman was average in terms of holding my attention, but he did manage to bring some life to the recording. His speech was a bit more conversational, which helps to keep the listener interested and engaged.

In terms of information, I have to say this was one of the more desireable aspects of the book. They covered a diverse number of topics and gave great detail as to how one might endeavor to put these plans into action. Unfrotunately, once again I need to focus on Ms. Handley, as her portion of the book had some rather inane concepts. For example, there was an entire section devoted to word substitutions. At the risk of sounding arrogant, who are YOU to tell me what words my audience will appreciate? Several buzz words that you suggested were just as aggregious, if not more offensive than the originals. It seems to me that this was wasted filler material that is highly subjective and serves no benefit but to prop up the authors as some sort of authorities on what will or will not fly. Let's be clear, this book is just another in a series of social marketing tools, and the fact that it exists only goes to show that you're trying. Let's not take ourselves too seriously and assume that we know for a fact what will and will not work. This is a dangerous precedent to set.

All in all, it's not a bad book. There were some good nuggets of information, some filler and minor repetition. And by the way, I think I'm noticing a trend here. Much like websites work to get backlinks from other sites, it appears that books (or audio books) function much the same way, with authors often mentioning other authors in their readings....and those other authors just happen to have books for sale during the same period of time. Coincidence? I'll leave you to figure it out.

Amatuer