Nov 13, 2013

3 Best Books on Presentations

There are many books on presentations and you cannot read all of them. Here is a list of 3 awesome books which will give you a solid head start and improve you as a presenter and communicator.

#1 Made to Stick: For Content
This book is about communication in general. It talks about how we can make our messages more sticky. In this age of information overload, the biggest obstacle we face as presenters is the reduced attention span of our audience and their limited capacity to understand and retain what we have said. This book will give you the tools to make your message more sticky. Read by short book review here.

#2 Confessions of a Public Speaker: For Delivery
While most books on presentations focus on the preparation and slide design, this book focuses mostly on delivery; how to stand up and speak. It is a wonderful book which will help you overcome your fear of public speaking and also share many tips and tricks to improve as a speaker. Read the crux of this book here.

#3 The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: For Content, Delivery & Everything Else
This is a wonderful book where the author has analyzed Steve Job's presentations to discover what made him a great presenter. This book will help you improve each and every aspect of your presentation. It will help you create a story out of your content, it will share tips to make better slides (but not in too much detail) and it will also help you with the actual delivery. Read the crux of this book here.

If you can read only one book, choose which area you are weak in. If you lack delivery skills, go for book 2. If you want a good overall book, choose 3. If you want to focus on content creation mainly, choose book 1.

2 comments :

  1. Great post with great recommendations. I'd add:
    1. For Design: Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds
    2. For Storytelling: The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler

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  2. @Jeremey

    Thanks for the names. I haven't read 'The Writer's Journey' myself.

    Presentation Zen was in my initial list of Top 3 books but I knocked it off since it is a slight 'different' kind of a book. Perhaps the best book on this topic but takes time to sink in. I took a long time to really understand it and start implementing it.

    I also wrote a rather exhaustive post on the book.
    You can check it out here: http://www.allaboutpresentations.com/2012/11/master-your-presentation-in-25-steps.html

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