Josh Sanders

I've read a stupid amount of marketing books over the years.

9 of them have made it into how I actually think and work.

Each one hit at a different stage of building The Creator Accelerator.

For the first year of building TCA,
I rewrote our positioning weekly and hated every version.

One book on this list fixed it in a weekend.

Then I had a 6-month stretch where I was overthinking every piece of copy and what I was trying to say.

Another book on this list pulled me out of that for good.

Whether you're stuck on positioning, can't get your messaging to click, 
Or your content's not converting, there's a book on this list for it.

Here they are, split across the 3 areas of marketing that matter most:

💭 Thinking and Creativity

1️⃣ Alchemy, Rory Sutherland (met him irl and was so happy hahaha)

→ Irrational ideas almost always outperform logical ones.
→ This book changed how I think about what makes people act.

2️⃣ A Technique for Producing Ideas, James Webb Young

→ You can read this in a day. The way it changes how you think will stick around far longer.
→ This book taught me that good ideas are a process.

3️⃣ The Art of Creative Thinking, Rod Judkins

→ Everyone is using the same playbook; this book shows you how to think differently.
→ This book made me stop copying what everyone else was doing.

⚒️ Positioning and Messaging

4️⃣ This is Marketing, Seth Godin (one of the Goats)

→ You don't have to reach everyone; the smallest audience is the most powerful one.
→ This book made me more specific and intentional about everything.

5️⃣ Obviously Awesome, April Dunford

→ If your ICP doesn't immediately get what you do, your positioning is broken.
→ This book is the clearest breakdown of positioning I've ever read.

6️⃣ Building a StoryBrand, Donald Miller

→ Your customer is the hero, not you.
→ This book made me rewrite almost every piece of copy I had to get the message cleaner.

♟️ Marketing and Strategy

7️⃣ Contagious, Jonah Berger

→ There are 6 reasons things spread, and most people ignore all of them.
→ This book made me audit every post before I published it.

8️⃣ Influence, Robert Cialdini

→ People say yes for predictable psychological reasons.
→ This book changed how I think about selling and writing at the same time.

9️⃣ Ogilvy on Advertising, David Ogilvy (Ogs of marketing)

→ Old school and ruthlessly practical.
→ This book is still more useful than most modern marketing content combined.

You can collect tactics forever and still get nowhere.
The founders who actually win never stop learning the why behind them.

These 9 books are where I'd start.

Pick one, and apply the lesson before you move to the next.

Which one is going on your list first?

💾 Save this for your next reading list.
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