Barry Carter Poker: Crush It

I enjoyed Thank You Economy by Gary Vaynerchuk so much I snap bought his first (none wine) offering, Crush It. If time taken to buy-then-read is anything to go by, clearly I loved it, as I managed to blitz through it in a matter of days.

And love it, I did. Crush It is all about how we live in an age where anyone can turn a hobby or passion into a career. The message is simple enough, find something you love and monetise it. If you are passionate enough about a subject you will be able to find a niche way of blogging/wrtiting/video blogging/podcasting/creating content about that subject, which you can build into something people will pay for.

Step forward social media, which is how you find your audience. Just like in the Thank You Economy, Gary reminds us that social media is really the greatest listening tool in the world – not an opportunity for spammers and old school marketeers to dump links.

It all sounds so simple. Find your passion, produce the best blog site in the world, create a community of followers, wait for the money to roll in. Of course it isn't as simple as that, it requires lots and lots of hard work, which Gary is all too eager to point out again and again. However, he is so passionate and persuasaive that he does fill you with confidence that we all have the power to do it.

This book spoke to me as much, if not perhaps a bit more, than Thank You Economy. I think this is because for the past five years I have turned a passion into a career. I haven't done all the things suggested in Crush It, nor have I necessarily done those things I have done to the best of my ability, but I have seen first hand how liberating having a job you would do for free is. With my first book now available to buy, I think this was a very fortuatous time for me to have discovered Crush It.

It's a brilliant book, and a rare one I may read a second time. I think Thank You Economy is the better book, and one that everyone should read. But Crush It is perhaps my personal favourite of the two, because it really speaks to me as a self employed journalist.

Once again, as good a book as it is, think seeing the man in action does much more than my review ever could.