Fans pick 100 books like Artpreneur

By Miriam Schulman,

Here are 100 books that Artpreneur fans have personally recommended if you like Artpreneur. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of How Creativity Rules the World: The Art and Business of Turning Your Ideas into Gold

Stephanie Blanchard

From my list on running a creative small business.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a writer who is drawn to entrepreneurs, especially those with creative businesses; they inspire me. I launched a freelance writing business in 2014, but I’ve always wanted to work for a magazine. One day, it finally occurred to me to combine my interests and start a magazine about creative entrepreneurs! I have interviewed over 100 creative entrepreneurs for my magazine. I created this list because I think it can help others interested in starting a creative business.

Stephanie's book list on running a creative small business

Stephanie Blanchard Why did Stephanie love this book?

This book demonstrates that anyone can be creative, regardless of their background, profession, or society’s definition of a creative person.

Even though the examples in the book are largely artists’ stories, Brito presents them in a way that I can apply to my career. The book inspires me to explore new ways of thinking and problem-solving. What resonated with me the most were the examples of artists who faced setbacks but transformed their approaches, ultimately achieving success.

The book also delves into the stories of well-known entrepreneurs who pivoted, providing me with inspiration for sticking with an entrepreneurial project when it gets challenging.

By Maria Brito,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked How Creativity Rules the World as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Axiom Business Book Award Winner in Entrepreneurship Category

Learn to make creativity work for your career.

Anyone, regardless of who you are or what you do, can cultivate the habits, actions, and attitudes that inspire creativity and innovation.

There has never been a more crucial time than now to develop your creativity and your ability to innovate. Coming up with original ideas of value is today's most precious skill.

How Creativity Rules the World shows that, despite contrary beliefs, creativity can be taught and learned by anyone. Creativity is an inexhaustible resource that is the key to thriving in the…


Book cover of The Right-brain Business Plan: A Creative, Visual Map for Success

Stephanie Blanchard

From my list on running a creative small business.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a writer who is drawn to entrepreneurs, especially those with creative businesses; they inspire me. I launched a freelance writing business in 2014, but I’ve always wanted to work for a magazine. One day, it finally occurred to me to combine my interests and start a magazine about creative entrepreneurs! I have interviewed over 100 creative entrepreneurs for my magazine. I created this list because I think it can help others interested in starting a creative business.

Stephanie's book list on running a creative small business

Stephanie Blanchard Why did Stephanie love this book?

Writing a business plan is a daunting task, no matter if you’re left or right-brain dominant. I needed a tool to kickstart the process.

Since I’m in a creative field, I decided to check out this book. I liked how the exercises in this book made writing a business plan more interesting and, dare I say, fun. The book helped me uncover my unique strengths, and I drew from them to write my business plan.

By Jennifer Lee, Kate Prentiss (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Right-brain Business Plan as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Turn Passionate Ideas into Profitable Enterprises

Do you dream of making a living doing what you love but find the process of creating a viable business plan like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole? Jennifer Lee knows what it’s like to make the entrepreneurial leap — and how to do it successfully. The key is using, rather than stifling, imagination and intuition. Lee’s illustrated, colorful worksheets and step-by-step instructions are playful yet practical, transforming drudgery into joy. They’ll enable you to define your vision and nail down plans for funding, marketing, networking, and long-term strategy.

Discover…


Book cover of Launch: How to Sell Almost Anything Online, Build a Business You Love, and Live the Life of Your Dreams

Ray Edwards Author Of How to Write Copy That Sells: The Step-By-Step System for More Sales, to More Customers, More Often

From my list on marketing your business or brand.

Why am I passionate about this?

I know it's kind of weird, but I have been fascinated by the world of direct-response marketing ever since I first saw the full-page ads in the "newspapers" my grandmother loved to read (The National Inquirer and the Weekly World News). Those ads fascinated me because, at first, I thought they were stories in the newspaper. That was my first exposure to the work of the brilliant Eugene Schwartz. I used to check our mail so I could grab all the "junk mail" that everyone else threw away because that's the only mail I wanted to read. That's why I became a direct-response copywriter.

Ray's book list on marketing your business or brand

Ray Edwards Why did Ray love this book?

I have read this book five times, and every time, I feel as if I picked up a new epiphany or distinction about how to launch (or relaunch) a business online. Over the years, I have paid the author, Jeff Walker, tens of thousands of dollars to attend his in-person training and seminars.

I can hardly believe how many of his "secrets" he reveals so openly inside a $27 book. It really does teach how to sell almost anything online, how to create huge “profit events”, and how to do it with excellence and integrity.

By Jeff Walker,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Launch as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The only guide you'll ever need to achieve online marketing success. With new chapters offering fresh information, you'll find all the insider tips in one place.

The revised and updated edition of the #1 New York Times bestseller Launch will build your business - fast. Whether you've already got an online business or you're itching to start one, this is a recipe for getting more traction and a fast start.

Think about it: What if you could launch like Apple or the big Hollywood studios? What if your prospects eagerly counted down the days until they could buy your product?…


Book cover of A Short Guide to a Happy Life

Stephanie Blanchard

From my list on running a creative small business.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a writer who is drawn to entrepreneurs, especially those with creative businesses; they inspire me. I launched a freelance writing business in 2014, but I’ve always wanted to work for a magazine. One day, it finally occurred to me to combine my interests and start a magazine about creative entrepreneurs! I have interviewed over 100 creative entrepreneurs for my magazine. I created this list because I think it can help others interested in starting a creative business.

Stephanie's book list on running a creative small business

Stephanie Blanchard Why did Stephanie love this book?

A dear friend gave me this book many years ago. I am recommending this book because choosing to be a creative entrepreneur is an unconventional career path. I chose entrepreneurship because it felt true to who I am, not because it’s going to make me rich and that’s off the beaten path.

This book resonates with me because it reminds me to prioritize love, gratitude, and the pursuit of my passions in work and life.

By Anna Quindlen,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Short Guide to a Happy Life as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

#1 New York Times bestselling author Anna Quindlen’s classic reflection on a meaningful life makes a perfect gift for any occasion.

“Life is made of moments, small pieces of silver amidst long stretches of tedium. It would be wonderful if they came to us unsummoned, but particularly in lives as busy as the ones most of us lead now, that won’t happen. We have to teach ourselves now to live, really live . . . to love the journey, not the destination.”

In this treasure of a book, Anna Quindlen, the bestselling novelist and columnist, reflects on what it takes…


Book cover of Basic Economics

Michael Muthukrishna Author Of A Theory of Everyone: The New Science of Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We're Going

From my list on changing how you see the world.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a professor of economic psychology at the London School of Economics with affiliations in developmental economics and data science. Before that, I was at Harvard in Human Evolutionary Biology. During my PhD, I took graduate courses in psychology, economics, evolutionary biology, and statistics. I have undergraduate degrees in engineering and in psychology and took courses in everything from economics and biology to philosophy and political science. As a child, I witnessed the civil war in Sri Lanka; a violent coup in Papua New Guinea; the end of apartheid in South Africa, living in neighboring Botswana; and London’s 7/7 bomb attacks. I’ve also lived in Australia, Canada, USA, and UK.

Michael's book list on changing how you see the world

Michael Muthukrishna Why did Michael love this book?

This is probably the best lay introduction to economics that I've read. If you have opinions about the vices or virtues of capitalism, liberalism, socialism, or inequality, it offers a rigorous discussion of the underlying considerations.

Sowell is probably best known for his discussions on race, but in Basic Economics, his ability to explain, well, basic economic intuitions and thinking, really shines. Anyone opining on policy should read it.

By Thomas Sowell,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Basic Economics as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this fifth edition of Basic Economics , Thomas Sowell revises and updates his popular book on common sense economics, bringing the world into clearer focus through a basic understanding of the fundamental economic principles and how they explain our lives. Drawing on lively examples from around the world and from centuries of history, Sowell explains basic economic principles for the general public in plain English. Basic Economics , which has now been translated into six languages and has additional material online, remains true to its core principle: that the fundamental facts and principles of economics do not require jargon,…


Book cover of Slavery and American Economic Development

Joshua L. Rosenbloom Author Of Quantitative Economic History: The Good of Counting

From my list on understanding the modern capitalist economy.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been studying, writing, and teaching economic history for nearly four decades. I was drawn to the field because it let me combine my passion for understanding how the past and present are connected with my fascination with the insights derived from the natural sciences. When I started studying economic history, the discipline was still relatively new, having grown out of pioneering research in the 1950s and 1960s by a small band of innovative scholars. During my career, I have met many of these intellectual giants personally, and I have watched the discipline of economic history mature and grow in both its methods and intellectual scope.

Joshua's book list on understanding the modern capitalist economy

Joshua L. Rosenbloom Why did Joshua love this book?

If you read one book about the history of slavery, this should be it. This brief volume sums up decades of Wright’s scholarship about how the institution of slavery shaped virtually every aspect of American economic development and left a lasting imprint long after Emancipation. It is concise, eye-opening, and insightful. It also offers a broader lesson in the ways in which economic institutions affect aspects of behavior in unanticipated ways.

By Gavin Wright,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Slavery and American Economic Development as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Through an analysis of slavery as an economic institution, Gavin Wright presents an innovative look at the economic divergence between North and South in the antebellum era. He draws a distinction between slavery as a form of work organisation, the aspect that has dominated historical debates, and slavery as a set of property rights. Slave-based commerce remained central to the eighteenth-century rise of the Atlantic economy, not because slave plantations were superior as a method of organizing production, but because slaves could be put to work on sugar plantations that could not have attracted free labor on economically viable terms.


Book cover of Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era

Malcolm Rutherford Author Of The Institutionalist Movement in American Economics, 1918-1947: Science and Social Control

From my list on the economic mind in America from 1880 to 1960.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I was contemplating a topic for my PhD thesis, it struck me powerfully that American economics was severely under-studied, and that this applied even more so to those associated with “American institutional economics.” My research soon indicated to me that the literature that did exist was lacking in coverage and badly misleading. During my research in archives, I uncovered some real gems—just one example was the archives of the Robert Bookings Graduate School, an institution largely forgotten, but famous at the time. This was exciting and inspired me to continue on to provide a major re-evaluation of American economics in the interwar period.    

Malcolm's book list on the economic mind in America from 1880 to 1960

Malcolm Rutherford Why did Malcolm love this book?

Mary Furner’s book presents what is the common view of progressives as liberal reformers, but there is another side to progressive social science that is less liberal. 

The progressive era social science literature is replete with racism and with arguments about racial and other forms of inferiority derived from eugenics.

The vast amount of immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe gave rise to concerns about the undermining of American standards, both biological and economic, including theories of “race suicide.” 

Leonard’s book has generated a great deal of discussion, and while there is no doubt that many progressives displayed eugenic and racist ideas, it needs to be stressed that such views were not limited to progressives, but included many of those with conservative and even free-market views in other areas.     

By Thomas C. Leonard,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Illiberal Reformers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In Illiberal Reformers, Thomas Leonard reexamines the economic progressives whose ideas and reform agenda underwrote the Progressive Era dismantling of laissez-faire and the creation of the regulatory welfare state, which, they believed, would humanize and rationalize industrial capitalism. But not for all. Academic social scientists such as Richard T. Ely, John R. Commons, and Edward A. Ross, together with their reform allies in social work, charity, journalism, and law, played a pivotal role in establishing minimum-wage and maximum-hours laws, workmen's compensation, antitrust regulation, and other hallmarks of the regulatory welfare state. But even as they offered uplift to some, economic…


Book cover of The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War

Larry Allen Author Of The ABC-Clio World History Companion to Capitalism

From my list on seeing world history thru the lens of economics.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up listening to my grandfathers tell stories about the Great Depression (1930s). My cousins would want me to go out and play, but I wanted to stay indoors and listen to the stories. The Depression proved my grandfathers were not the best cotton farmers, but they were good storytellers, and I ended up an economics professor. Along the way, I ran across a thought from renowned British philosopher Francis Bacon: “Histories make men wise, poets, witty, mathematics, subtle;” Modern economics has gone in for subtlety, and maybe is a little too careless of wisdom. This thought sent me delving deeper into economic history, and I ended up writing five books in economics history. 

Larry's book list on seeing world history thru the lens of economics

Larry Allen Why did Larry love this book?

Here is a stimulating and suggestive book, in 18 close-packed chapters, rich in fresh and illuminating insights. The scope, depth, and harmony of this book, strengthened with minute elaboration and carefulness, make it a work of permanent value. Missed here is the dogmatic readiness to force many intricate and diverse things to accommodate themselves to a few simple formulas. The book’s very descriptive title reveals its subject, which is presented with the utmost clearness, thoughtful intelligence, and adequacy of analysis, It is a welcomed reminder that time is the greatest innovator, spawning economic developments missed by the blind mechanisms of theoretical formulas. There is the accuracy of knowledge throughout, thoroughness in setting it forth, and admirable clearness. 

By Robert J. Gordon,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Rise and Fall of American Growth as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the century after the Civil War, an economic revolution improved the American standard of living in ways previously unimaginable. Electric lighting, indoor plumbing, motor vehicles, air travel, and television transformed households and workplaces. But has that era of unprecedented growth come to an end? Weaving together a vivid narrative, historical anecdotes, and economic analysis, The Rise and Fall of American Growth challenges the view that economic growth will continue unabated, and demonstrates that the life-altering scale of innovations between 1870 and 1970 cannot be repeated. Gordon contends that the nation's productivity growth will be further held back by the…


Book cover of A Most Enterprising Country: North Korea in the Global Economy

Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland Author Of Witness to Transformation: Refugee Insights Into North Korea

From my list on the North Korean economy.

Why are we passionate about this?

We teamed up about fifteen years ago around a common interest in the political economy of North Korea; Haggard is a political scientist, Noland an economist. Both of us had spent our careers focused on Asia but looking largely at the capitalist successes: Japan and the newly industrializing countries of Korea, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. But what about the anomalous cases in the region that did not get on the growth train? The “Asian miracle” was hardly ubiquitous…what had gone wrong? North Korea was clearly the biggest puzzle, and we ended up researching and writing on the famine, refugees, and the complexities of international sanctions. 

Stephan and Marcus' book list on the North Korean economy

Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland Why did Stephan and Marcus love this book?

The title of this book is doubly surprising. Is North Korea enterprising? And North Korea “in the world economy”? Isn’t it the hermit kingdom? Hastings picks up a theme that was central to our work on the famine: that the socialist sector in North Korea has undergone a secular decline while households and entrepreneurs have constructed a complex market economy that is partially above ground, partly below it. But Hastings goes further, showing how that market economy is integrally tied to China. And the book has the added attraction of focusing attention on lucrative black markets that range from amphetamine to counterfeited one hundred dollar bills. 

By Justin V. Hastings,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Most Enterprising Country as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

North Korea has survived the end of the Cold War, massive famine, numerous regional crises, punishing sanctions, and international stigma. In A Most Enterprising Country, Justin V. Hastings explores the puzzle of how the most politically isolated state in the world nonetheless sustains itself in large part by international trade and integration into the global economy. The world's last Stalinist state is also one of the most enterprising, as Hastings shows through in-depth examinations of North Korea's import and export efforts, with a particular focus on restaurants, the weapons trade, and drug trafficking. Tracing the development of trade networks inside…


Book cover of The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World

Selwyn Parker Author Of The Great Crash: How the Stock Market Crash of 1929 Plunged the World into Depression

From my list on economics and investment.

Why am I passionate about this?

Selwyn Parker is an award-winning journalist, author, speaker and pianist. In journalism he focuses on transformational contemporary issues like the new era in energy, the upheaval in banking, the revolution in transportation and the fast-moving world of investment. However most of his dozen books – novels and non-fiction -- are rooted in landmark historical events whose effects still register today.

Selwyn's book list on economics and investment

Selwyn Parker Why did Selwyn love this book?

Apart from revealing and sometimes dismaying insights into the workings of the White House, this legendary chairman of the US Federal Reserve presents a tour d’horizon of the economic thought that underpins the creation of wealth. As such, it should be obligatory reading for anybody interested in how nations prosper (or don’t), how governments routinely make disastrous interventions even if they aim to act for the right reasons, why Adam Smith continues to influence our lives (even though we don’t know it), and why capitalism is so foolishly demonised by banner-waving grandstanders.

By Alan Greenspan,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Age of Turbulence as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Alan Greenspan's The Age of Turbulence is the essential guide to what is happening in the world, and where we're heading, from the ultimate expert.

Alan Greenspan wielded more power than the presidents he worked for, from Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton to George Bush and his son. He was in the command room of the world economy for longer than any other single figure. One word from him could send markets into freefall.

Now Alan Greenspan, the legendary former chairman of the Federal Reserve, gives us a unique insider's view of the world over his lifetime, from stock market…


Book cover of How Creativity Rules the World: The Art and Business of Turning Your Ideas into Gold
Book cover of The Right-brain Business Plan: A Creative, Visual Map for Success
Book cover of Launch: How to Sell Almost Anything Online, Build a Business You Love, and Live the Life of Your Dreams

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