This past week, I purchased a new book called Digging into WordPress. This book really takes you from the basics to extensive customization of WordPress – all in a very easy-to-understand format. There are two purchase options – (1) PDF only, or (2) Print and PDF.  I purchased the second option. The print book has one feature that really sold me and that is the spiral binding. It allows you to open the book to the page you want and it won’t flop back closed.

While I am waiting for the printed version to arrive,  I was able to immediately get my hands on the content with the PDF download.  Once the download was completed, I took some time to page through the PDF, reading segments as I went along.  I have a lot of WordPress sites and I can’t wait to start applying the information in this book. I found the book’s presentation to be easy and entertaining to follow.  This is not a boring technical manual.  It is organized so you can go to a specific subject and use it right away.  While you will benefit by reading it from cover to cover, this is not required if you already have a basic understanding of how WordPress works.

The authors give you lifetime access to updates of the PDF ebook.  They also have an active blog with even more useful information. Both the beginner or experienced WordPress user will find this book a fantastic resource.

Disclaimer: This blog post contains affiliate links that will provide compensation to our company if a purchase is made.

One of my goals for working from home is to have more time with my family. Because of my decision to buy a farm in 2007, I have an 80-mile commute. My employer helped me out by allowing me to work remotely, one day a week. (I must say that they have been very open-minded and supportive!) Recently, I was able to expand that to two days a week. This is a real blessing to me as it eliminates almost 8 hours of drive time each week.

I have always been interested in managing virtual teams, since I went to a ProjectWorld conference in the late ’90s. At that conference I went to a workshop on managing distributed teams. My reason for attending was that I was beginning to manage a team of programmers in India to help with system maintenance and Y2K work. Now, I am the one who is a virtual/distributed (40% of the time) team member!

Two books I read, this past year, gave me encouragement to step out in this way: The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss and Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It: No Schedules, No Meetings, No Joke–the Simple Change That Can Make Your Job Terrific by Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson. The 4-Hour Workweek gave me some strategies for changing my work schedule to allow me to work remotely. Why Work Sucks gave me solid strategies for focusing the evaluation of my work on results (ROWE) and for dealing with negative comments that the authors termed “sludge.”

If you are looking to have more freedom in your work life – the freedom to get results, then I recommend that you read both books. My life now has better margin and control. It is intensely liberating, less stressful, and now has some margin. Most of all, it is already having a positive impact on my family life.

The 4-Hour Workweek

Timothy Ferriss. Crown Archetype 2007, Hardcover, 320 pages, $1.50

Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It

Cali Ressler. Portfolio Hardcover 2008, Hardcover, 224 pages, $2.63

As you know, if you read this blog, Joel Comm is one of the internet marketing experts I listen to. Apparently he can’t keep a secret.

For some reason, he took it upon himself to tell the stories of ordinary people who have made some very extraordinary achievements.

You may know Joel as the guy who figured out how to make Google’s Adsense a money-pumping oil well and then turned around and wrote a New York Times best-selling book about it (The Adsense Code)…

…pulling back the curtain so the rest of us can do what he has done.

Many who implemented his recommendations generated significant passive income which continues to this day.

This time, instead of reverse engineering a specific method of making money online, he instead has many of the top internet entrepreneurs in his sights.

• Why did they decide to start selling online?
• What were they doing before they startedselling online?
• Were there any specific, duplicatable qualities that made them successful?

If you’ve ever wished you could have a personal conversation with one of the top internet marketers and ask how they made the transition from “normal” life to Internet Marketing rock star, Joel has gone out and done it, and more.

He cornered over forty internet marketers and forced them to document how they began, what makes them tick…

And not only that, he dug deep and provided us with the rich background of the trailblazers who “laid the tracks” so the Internet, the Web, hypertext, and the browser –which we all take for granted now– could be developed, enjoyed and used in our businesses every day.

He’s given us the inside scoop on:

• The guy who predicted hypertext… in 1945?
• The first spam message, unleashed in 1982.
• The inventor of the modern browser, the “key” that makes internet marketing what it is today.

Joel takes us back to the “glory days” of dialup connections with 300 baud modems and leads us in a revealing romp to the present…

Providing keen insight into the mindset of those early pioneers … many of whom are still active in the marketplace today.

You can get your very own copy of this piece of Internet Marketing history on August 1: Joel’s new book, Click Here to Order.

With all the fervor of a tent-revival evangelist, Joel retells stories such as:

• How the Army helped Mark Joyner become a millionaire (read page 129 and see how he could have
• learned the lesson without the Army).
• Why Declan Dunn became known as “the online guy” (page 64).
• The event where the “Unknown Copywriter” was christened (were you there? And who is this mysterious
• person? Read page 79 to find out).
• The fourteen year old girl who started a simple website that will pay her way through college (page 86).
• One of today’s top marketers who walked out of a job interview at IBM because the interviewer didn’t
• like his tie (no joke…read about it on page 181).

If you’re one of the “gang”, get in line to get your copy. If you want to figure out how these “average Joes” learned how to turn their computers into ATMs, then you will definitely want to claim your copy of this book.

Click Here To Order is a front row seat to one of the year’s can’t miss shows.

You will want to grab your own personal copy as soon as it becomes available.

To get on the priority notification list, go to this website right now!

P.S. What are you waiting for? To get Joel Comm’s new book, where he blows the cover off of the Internet Marketers’ vault of secrets, click here.