I’ll start this review by saying – I don’t get anything for reading this book or reviewing it. I paid for the book. I get no commission.
Critics of this book say that essentially, Michael Hyatt re-purposed his blog content, and sell it in the form of a book.
He sure did. He even tells you he did. And I’m going to tell you WHY you should buy it, instead of just clipping articles from his blog into Evernote. If you buy the book, you’re committed. If you just find the articles for free and clip them, then they sit there unread in your Evernote. Buying his book forces you to put it into practice, because you spent money on it – you’re invested in it. To borrow his term, you’ve got “skin in the game.”
Before you buy the book, let me recommend you get a small ruler, and some colored pens for underlining. You’re going to need them. I’ll include his affiliate link, so that Michael gets his commission on the book.
The book is fifty or so chapters long, each chapter roughly around 600 words or so. Michael tells you this because again, these were originally blog entries on his web site. I made a mistake and threw the book cover away too soon, because I should have clipped my pens to the cover (I ripped the first 20 pages or so slightly by sticking the pens into the book for safekeeping – I should have just clipped them to the cover, THEN thrown it away when I was done.). Why did I throw away the cover? Preference. I think hardcover books look better without a dust jacket on them. If you don’t mind colorful book shelves, keep the cover on. His book looks great either way.
Read this book with an expectation you’re going to find a dozen nuggets in each chapter. It’s not the slowest book read I’ve ever had – that award goes to Karl Iglesias, because his book had so much sheer gold in it I thought I’d miss something if I read more than a paragraph a day! But it certainly took me about a chapter a day to get through it (some chapters I didn’t highlight anything, because I’d already saved them in Evernote and studied them). You don’t want to read this book any faster than that, or you’ll miss something.
When you see something important, highlight it. I have seven colored highlighters, and I was going through them twice in some chapters. Even in chapters I thought really didn’t apply to me, I was able to find at least 5 nuggets to highlight.
The book starts with developing a wow product or service. Don’t skip over that, thinking, “I’m a novelist – that doesn’t apply to me”. What’s your WOW product? You. Your writing. How can you build that? How can you improve that? A good idea is, after you finish the book, go back to that part and re-read it. Study it. You’re marketing YOU as a writer. Are you WOW yet?
The section on building your platform should be read slowly and studied. I’d recommend you coincide this book by taking the Hootsuite Academy classes after you finish his chapters on Twitter and Facebook. Michael doesn’t talk about LinkedIn much, but you definitely need a LinkedIn profile – it actually will drive more responses to your website than Twitter and Facebook put together (according to CoSchedule).
The takeaway from the “Platform – Get Noticed In A Noisy World” book is that this is Michael’s step by step, trial and error method of how to get successful. He tells you what worked, what didn’t, the mistakes he made. He even wraps it up in the end with a story about fear. If you’ve ever wished you could just talk with someone who got successful and tells you how to do it, this is the book. I’ve had other books by other people, such as Lee Iacocca’s book on “How to Sell” (I wish I still had that!). “Platform” outperforms them all, because Michael gives timeless principles.
I bought this book because I wanted it. I paid money for it. I get zero considerations for writing this review.
It’s $14, and you can’t afford NOT to buy it.
