
Ask HN: What books have helped you make money? - bordercases
Business books are prone to hype. Supposedly we are reading them for business. What books gave you what you needed to make more money?
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DyslexicAtheist
The Secrets of Consulting by Gerald M. Weinberg. It showed me how to deal
with, and get true value out of consultants. It also helped me become a better
consultant myself and scale my service to bigger projects & customers. Also
the book has great advise on how to sell your service. It's not only _what_
you sell that sets the price but _how you "package"_ your service. In a
nutshell it's a book that can help leap from external contractor, who works
only via agents to become a "true consultant" where you pick your own clients
without a middle-man, create a pitch, draft the offer, and also carry the full
commercial risk.

[https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Consulting-Giving-Getting-
Suc...](https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Consulting-Giving-Getting-
Successfully/dp/0932633013)

There was another HN thread some years back linking to a fascinating blog post
of somebody who pointed out not to charge hourly rates and invoice per week.
It was giving really solid advise on pricing strategy for individual
consultants to increase the rate from 100/hr to 6-8K/week. It argued to never
compromise on the price but see what parts of the project could be left out,
etc ... If somebody here remembers this site/article it would be fantastic (I
can no longer remember where to find it unfortunately).

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DyslexicAtheist
@putnam thanks for reviving that:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15994410](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15994410)

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montrose
I've found the most useful books are not business books per se, but
biographies of and interviews with successful founders. I learned a lot of
useful stuff from the interviews in _Founders at Work_ for example.

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twobyfour
Business books only? The books that have done the most to increase my income
were the technical books that permitted me to learn entirely new skills.

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daleholborow
Value.able by Roger Montgomery

