By Holly Reisem Hanna

Recently I was approached to review Ellen Lubin-Sherman’s book, The Essentials of Fabulous. While I don’t take on too many reviews now days, I decided to take this one on, because after all who doesn’t want to be fabulous?!

When I received the book, I didn’t know who Ellen Lubin-Sherman was. As it turns out, Ellen got her start in business delivering gossip news to Liz Smith, a popular gossip columnist. Later in her career, Ellen worked as a consultant for top communication firms advising brands like Gap, Martha Stewart and Perrier Water. Today Ellen continues to coach, consult, and speak to companies and businesses on how to be fabulous. (more…)

By Holly Reisem Hanna

One of the first people I met on Twitter is Shara Lawrence-Weiss of Mommy Perks. Since our first encounter on Twitter, we’ve gotten to know each other fairly well and during this time we’ve been able to assist each other with cross promotions, referrals and recommendations.

In fact, Shara is probably one of the most helpful and caring individuals that I know online. She’s always willing to share her knowledge, expertise and she’s been a huge cheerleader for me, as well many other small business owners.

So when Shara asked me if I’d be interested in reviewing her e-book, TIPS for Small Business and Marketing it was a no brainer. (more…)

By Holly Reisem Hanna

As you know, I’m a big advocate for furthering your self-development through reading. In fact, reading is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to stimulate new ideas, garner inspiration, further your education and grow your business.

I have several books that I reference over and over again, and a new one that I just added to this pile is Carrie Wilkerson’s book, The Barefoot Executive: The Ultimate Guide for Being Your Own Boss and Achieving Financial Freedom.

I’ve been following Carrie on Twitter @barefoot_exec for the past couple of years, and I’ve always admired her work and have been impressed by her success, so I was excited to read her new book and see how she accomplishes it all.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Carrie and her story, she is one of the pioneers for women working at home.  Employed as a teacher back in the 90’s, Carrie loved her job, but when she became an overnight mom to two new adopted children, her priorities changed. Carrie decided to leave her full-time job as a (more…)

By Holly Reisem Hanna

I’ve been following Wendy Piersall for quite some time now, as she is a pioneer in the blogging realm. Because I follow her on Twitter, I knew that she was writing this book, and in all honesty, I was a little worried to hear this news.

You see, for the past 8 months I have researched, written, created a book proposal and participated in a mastermind group for writers, so that I could write an informational blogging book for women.  So when I heard Wendy was writing this book, I assumed that all of the time I had spent on my book had been wasted.

However, that is not the case at all – Wendy’s book is totally different from mine and is a wonderful resource!

First don’t let the title scare you off, this book is applicable to all bloggers, no need to be a mom to take advantage of its benefits and information. In fact, I’d say it is a must have tool for aspiring bloggers and seasoned bloggers alike.

Broken into 5 main parts, Mom Blogging for Dummies covers everything from the technical issues of setting your blog up, to choosing a business model and many blogging basics. Using her own real life experiences, and stories of other successful bloggers, Piersall shares tips, strategies and pitfalls to watch out for. (more…)

I met Hollee about a year ago on Twitter. Since then I’ve had the pleasure of seeing her speak and meeting her face-to-face at the Blissdom Blogging Conference. I just started reading Hollee and Becky’s new book, Good Enough Is the New Perfect: Finding Happiness and Success in Modern Motherhood - and here’s the two of them talking about it.

1. Are you telling moms that it’s OK to slack off?

HOLLEE: Absolutely not. The first line of the book makes that clear: This is not a book about settling. But it is a book about the challenges that this generation of women is facing, and how they can find a way to Have It All if they’re strategic in their choices. Good enough sometimes has to be good enough.

BECKY: Perfectionism can be a huge liability. In fact, in our data, that “constant need to be the best at everything” emerged as the single greatest obstacle to juggling work and family. It outweighed financial pressures, inflexible bosses, husbands who don’t contribute enough at home and more. Many of the most impressive and successful women we interviewed found their greatest success when they learned to let go of perfect. They weren’t (more…)