Professions Books

After personally speaking to Mr. Smith, I was convinced of his sincerity and committment to helping those applying for SSDI. I purchased this book, used the forms, and I got it on my first try.

His forms that I filled out(daily activities) and attached to all of my Doctor's forms were extraordinarily helpful and I believe essential in the decision making process for Social Security. It also proved helpful to the doctors who were making their reports. As long as your doctors know you, they still cannot be with you all day to know your moment to moment activities. These forms give them a birds eye view of what one deals with on a daily basis.

I recommend this book very highly.

When a neurological disorder forced me to resign after 32 years of working, I was overwhelmed, depressed and not sure what to do next. Fortunately, I had ordered this book 2 weeks before and had somewhere to turn. I completed the worksheets (LOTS of information that Social Security needs but does not request) and followed Mr. Smith's suggestion to have a personal interview with Social Security. The employee was visibly delighted with the detail provided in the worksheets and I just received approval of my application only 2 1/2 months after applying! (Locally, according to a story in today's paper, only 25% of applications are granted the first time around - and hearings take over 600 days.) I firmly believe that this book made a difference in my life.

You need this book. You need this workbook, even if you think your disability application will be successful, and even if you have an attorney. Most importantly, it keeps you organized while you are stressed from illness, financial insecurity, and uncertainty. It provides a framework to keep you organized, especially if you have many disabling conditions which must be considered in combination, and must be presented together to SSA.

After assembling your information in the format provided by this workbook, you can see if anything is missing, or needs updating, or is conflicting, and requires further explanation. You can also be confident that you are communicating your data completely and consistently to the many interviewers, on the multiple SSA forms and through the numerous levels of review, that you may encounter in your application process.

Another advantage of this book for yourself and for your application, is that it allows your individual medical specialists to get a complete picture of your overall health and of the conditions that disable you. For example, it might help your orthopedist decide whether you can walk on uneven surfaces, if he is aware that your field of vision is restricted. And once the workbook questionaires are filled out, they can serve as the beginning of a health diary, which will help you manage your health and deal with the periodic SSA reviews of your disability once you get it.

Finally, the biggest advantage you get from this workbook, is that it puts the SSA employees on your team by making it easier for them to do their jobs. You are providing them with the information they need on your case in an accessible format which is simple for them to process and evaluate.

Do yourself a favor. Get the Disability Workbook by Douglas M . Smith.

If you are applying for disability, this is the only book you need to guide you through everything. I've highly recommended it to thousands of people with chronic illness through HopeKeepers Magazine.

This workbook consolidates the information needed to prove disability claims and win benefits. It guides applicants through the application process with the goal of getting benefits promptly, without unnecessary appeals. The new edition discusses the "proofs" that the Social Security Administration processors look for, and it tells you how to keep your benefits through periodic disability reviews. The book is important because two-thirds of claims for Social Security disability benefit are denied initially.

Be sure to visit the author's web site too at http://www.disabilityfacts.com . It includes a variety of free articles for personal use, including: Prospects Improve for Winning Disability Quickly, Social Security Disability Outline (What to Expect), and Daily Activities Worksheet (very helpful when filling out the forms). Many frequently asked questions about applying for benefits are also addressed.

Resources available for a small purchase price include helpful items such as "Disability Evaluation in a Nutshell: A Three Minute Guide to Effective Medical Reports," to ensure that your doctor is keeping medical records and being an advocate for your health.

You will feel like you've got an inside scoop on how the system works. .

I wrote the above title and have been in touch with Doug. Little did I know there would be a time when I would need to apply for SSI for someone in my family. Doug's book is indespensible to the SSDI/SSI disability claimant. He lists the information you'll need and plenty of forms are included. He's also got some hints like "get a face-to-face" interview. It's your right. What more can I say, I wrote a book on the subject and for additional help I turned to Doug's book immediately and it comes through with the goods. I think my book "How to Get SSI and Social Security Disability" still has vital and helpful information to add, despite some self-styled "expert" who says my book is a lie. This same expert has the same opinion of Dr. Morton's book by Nolo. I am an expert and I give Doug's book a full 2 thumbs up.
Mike Davis

Weather you in the business or getting into it, this book is essential. Even if you have a lawyer. Good insight...

This book is so crammed with info and knowledge coupled with insight into practices of the industry and courts its like attending a credited law school.With basic torts and concideration of all parts and many elemental workings of the industry.It is a must have.

This is comprehensive & each chapter was written by another expert, so you're bound to like something!

This can be a substitute to the book: "Everything You Need To Know About The Music Business" (Donald Passman)

This book was a required text in my Legal Problems of the Recording Industry class. I'm passionate about the music industry and can give a good debate, but am far from being a "legal mind." This text is great for those, like me, are not the best students in legal courses. This text breaks down real contracts/ agreements into easy to understand formats, section by section. If it wasn't for this text I wouldn't have made an A in the course. This book should be required reading for those in the music business as well as the musicians who will be facing these agreements. Plus, it's like my professor said 'remember, everything is negotiable - don't get screwed in your contract!'

People think music business is all about creation and keeping the fans happy. Well it mostly is but a young artist can become stuck in all that legal stuff. For somebody who is new that can be very difficult and people could take advantage of this and try to cheat you so this book is about all the legal involved aspects of the music business. This book will offer you a detailed explanation of everything that concerns the people in the music business. After you read it you will know what to avoid and understand the issues as they are explained in an easy and franc manner.

This is an excellent introduction on patent law basics. I found it extremely easy to read and understand the concepts of patent law. I will use it as a reference guide in my future analysis of patents. I would strongly recommend this book to those individuals not accustomed to reading patents.

I am Japanese. This book is the best for foreign students or professionals who begin to study US patent law. Plain English and clear points. Thank you!

By far the most useful and best written overview of patent law I have found. Very good as both an introduction for those new to the field and a review for those already involved. Good value for money.

As a non-Japanese person, I found this book to be very clear and concise. Serves as a great starting point for someone wanting to learn a great deal about the current state of US patent law.

I read this, along with many other books from amazon on patent law, in order to prepare for the patent bar exam as inexpensively as possible. Well, as they say, you get what you pay for. I ended up not passing. I used OmniPrep to prepare the second time around, and passed with no problem.

This book would have been really helpful early on in my career, but it's never too late to change mindsets about growing our businesses. Pomerantz has captured a unique style of conveying this extremely helpful business building advice - through teleclass format and conversation. I felt like I was in the room too, with questions waiting to be answered. What a great study. I highly recommend this as the text book for building business from the ground up. In other words, do it right the first time.
Lee Smith
Seattle, Washington
Co-Author of Legacy Leadership: The Leader's Guide to Lasting Greatness

This book has translated into a complete mindset shift for me!
As soon as I had finished it, I wondered who to call. I picked up the phone to call a lead I thought I had lost 6 months ago. Thirty minutes later I had a deal!!! I would never have thought of calling that person again prior to reading Suzi's book.

What worked very well for me?
It is specific to consultants and coaches (I am a coach).
I can very easily see myself in situation and therefore the format of a teleclass transcript worked very well for me. To give you an example, one morning when reading in the metro I caught myself answering to Jeremy (one of the participants of the teleclass in the book) that Suzi had given him the answer to his question two pages before....
The advices she is giving are very practical and hands on.
France could certainly use a french translation.
Thank you so much Suzi, you made a difference to my business.

This book is written specifically by a coach for life/business coaches and mental health therapists. It is so well written with details and techniques to support the actual sale when seeking new clients. As a coach, I see that Ms Pomerantz knows exactly what I need to have the courage and fortitude to make the calls I need to make to have the meetings I need to have in order to secure the clients I need for my business. I also appreciate the sample scripts and the worksheets provided to support me in designing my own scripts and process for 'sealing the deals'!!

Entrepreneurs looking for a way to differentiate themselves in an overcrowded marketplace have a new handbook, and it's needed by the many service professionals who soon realize that substantial industry expertise and impressive talent are simply not enough.

In Seal the Deal, Suzi Pomerantz takes talented entrepreneurs behind the business-building curtain and gives them a formula for six-figure success. By teaching the reader how to use marketing, sales and networking in strategic concert, and how to weave individual success strategies into a comprehensive, proven success formula, Seal the Deal empowers entrepreneurs with a logical and manageable system for substantial growth.

Jennifer Kalita The Home Office Parent: Raising Kids and Profits Under One Roof

Susi Pomerantz's Seal the DealSeal the Deal: The Essential Mindsets for Growing Your Professional Services Business is an excellent resource for any small businesss coach, consultant or trainer who needs to go out and win work from clients.

It's a combination of practical wisdom - a boatload of templates and processes for you to follow and/or adapt - combined with insight from transcripts of group coaching calls Pomerantz lead around this topic. You get a sense of real people expressing real issues - and then getting the practical, useful tools and resources you need to make progress.

I've looked at, bought, and borrowed several other books like this one, but none offered anywhere near the detail on income and self-employment tax that this book does. There are actually several chapters (5) dedicated just to taxation, including rates, audit trends, pros and cons of doing things one way over another, even information on paying estimated taxes that was written in a way that I finally understood it. I went through it all extensively with a highlighter, and came out understanding much more than when I'd asked my retired CPA uncle. As a newcomer to the self-employed workforce, I was grateful for the information I found here.

Oh, and the rest of the book is great too! The suggestions for record-keeping, documenting expenses, samples of contracts and legal forms, copyright and trademark advice -- it's all exactly what I needed. I wish I had found this book first, it would have saved me a lot of time and money. Highly recommended as the all-in-one resource it claims to be.

I recently a started an S corp for my software contracting. The book is helpful and worth the price. It won't answer EVERY question you will have, but you probably should talk to a CPA for those anyway.

I purchased the book since my employer explained that I will become an independent contractor for 2007. The book explained everything about being a contractor and how to stay in line with paying the taxes, how to protect my self employed status, what deductions I can take, and what forms and agreements I should use. I found it very informative and would recommend it to anyone who wants to understand the world of self employment.

My husband is an independent photographer, so the Nolo Press books are great for him, geared as they are to all those wishing to handle all the paperwork for themselves, instead of the usual array of lawyers, accountants, etc. He keeps it as a reference book and can easily turn to whatever subject he needs more information on. Well-written and easy to understand, as are all Nolo books, these books are wonderful to review periodically.

Plenty of books impart the basics of how to work independently - but too few include all the legal tips, tricks and traps involved. WORKING FOR YOURSELF: LAW & TAXES FOR INDEPENDENT CONTRACTORS, FREELANCERS & CONSULTANTS covers everything from setting appropriate fees and understanding how and when taxes are paid to limiting liability and getting paid. Record-keeping processes are simplified with sample logs and entry advice, chapters on how the IRS defines an independent contractor versus a paid employee are essential keys to keeping independent status, and advice on pricing and insurance offer key strategy-oriented tips and approaches. A 'must' for any who would work independently.

Back in 1999, I decided to do some estate planning. I decided to buy about 5 books to first learn the basics of estate planning......then see an estate planning attorney to set up my estate plan.

Of the five books that I read on estate planning, Kraemer's book was by far the best book. The main reason I liked Kraemer's book was his use of example flow charts, which show what happens to the money as each spouse dies. These flow charts also allow you to easily calculate the estate tax due at each step of the process.

The other books were very dry and boring.......and without the flow chart approach...it was not clear to me how bypass trusts work.

I highly recommend Kraemer's book as the best book on estate planning.......primarily due to the flow charts.

Kraemer also explains that the use of disclaimers can be a good thing.......and a good way to deal with the changing estate tax laws.

Kraemer's book allowed me to understand the basics of estate planning and bypass trusts. I was able to save time and money then working with an estate planning attorney to set up our bypass trusts.

Other good books on investing which may help you build a large enough estate so you get to worry about the problem of estate planning are shown below:

Index Mutual Funds: How to Simplify Your Financial Life and Beat the Pro's
The Richest Man in Babylon
Bogle on Mutual Funds: New Perspectives for the Intelligent Investor
The Millionaire Next Door
The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio
A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing, Ninth Edition
The Coffeehouse Investor: How to Build Wealth, Ignore Wall Street, and Get On With Your Life
The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing

Required reading for those wishing to estate plan with a systematic and informed approach. Excellent step by step directions help the reader learn information needed to work efficiently with an estate planner or other professionals and achieve desired results. Unique, innovative charts, flow diagrams and planning documents clarify concepts difficult to grasp through words alone. If you have an estate plan in place this excellent volume will confirm its appropriateness and provide helpful fine-tuning tips. This book contains all the various scenarios of estate planning allowing the reader to choose the relevant ones. It is interesting, well written and a valuable reference resource.

This book, like it's earlier volumns is a must read for anyone facing the challenges of estate planning either for themselves or their loved ones.

The "60-Minute Estate planner" does the best job I've seen of being comprehensive, and yet easy to read at the same time. The graphic flow charts with their accompanying tables are a great aid to understanding. Even if you're not planning your estate this book is important to read. The book deepens your appreciation of how important it is for the Congress to repeal federal death taxes.

The 60-Minute Estate Planner has been an invaluable resource. I have all three editions and continue to find this book very useful. It provides quick and accurate answers to a variety of questions. This is the best book I've seen on estate planning.

H. Thuesen

This fabulous book is akin to my own book "The Expert's Edge" in terms of the advice it gives. It lays out what consultants need to do to get ahead of their competitors and to attain a "go-to" visibility: publish their ideas, speak to groups, pay attention to marketing, and so on. It is accurate and smart. Buy and devour this book.

If you're a consultant/business owner, you need this book. Real life examples of how to market your company,make it more professional, and to make yourself feel more established in your field. Along with "Guerrilla Marketing: Secrets for Making Big Profits...", written in 1998, you will get into the proper mindset for self-promotion. Be brutally honest, put in some brainstorming hours and commit yourself to succeed. I will refer to both these books yearly to refresh my marketing campaign. (Written in 2005, the Internet and email marketing methods here are more contemporary than in the 1998 Guerrilla book).
I also bought a couple of proposal-writing books when I purchased this book, and wish I hadn't. The proposal-writing axioms in this book were more inline with the attitude of guerrilla marketing; after all, proposals are another way to solidify your company's identity. The other books' proposals were very stuffy.

This is a great book for professionals of all kinds. I highly recommend it. Goes well with Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days.

Consulting is considered one of the most profitable professions, and is one of the last to remain unregulated. As a result, it attracts a variety of firms and people who often exaggerate their capabilities in an effort to gain attention and attract business. Authors Jay Conrad Levinson and Michael W. McLaughlin succumb to the same problem as consultants who promise their clients too much. The "breakthrough tactics" they advertise on the book's front cover never quite materialize and the promise deflates the sound advice they do provide. The first two-thirds of the book addresses "guerrilla marketing," a term used to sell other books, but not particularly apt for the familiar tactics here. However, the authors provide a good rundown on some solid, well-accepted components of marketing, such as public relations, advertising, surveys, books, speeches, Web sites and 'pro bono' work. They teach good management, which can transform and re-energize these tactics. Things pick up a little in the final third of the book as the authors discuss sales techniques, including pricing, dealing with competition and preparing a proposal. We suggest this useful (if not warrior-like) book to beginning marketers and consultants, and to the owners of small consulting firms.

Guidelines for consultants and professional service providers. The book offers marketing strategy and tactics for getting clients as well as for selling your services and creating profitable relationships once you've been hired. Chapters cover: thirteen guerrilla marketing secrets; a marketing plan and road map; creating a client-centered web presence; free publicity; when it pays to advertise; five steps to a winning speech; publishing articles and books; proposal writing; project pricing; after-sales marketing. Provides lots of highlights and checklists. Gobs of great advice. Consultants will find a lot of nuggests in this book. Highly recommended.

I work at a Production company and a lot of contracts we hand to outside lawyers, but this is a good tool for me because it goes into details and discusses each point in a contract. This is something I'd love to have had many years ago, when I just got started in the business, and now that I have it, I am learning a lot of new things. There isn't any other book out there- quite like this.

Best book I ever bought dealing with the industry, bar none! I can't believe it's under $20!

Good but I liked the lingo section in the book Twelve Step Plan To Becoming an actor in LA but it was definetly helpfulGood Read

Josh Simon CAlifornia

This is a great resource for dealmaking, but most actors and writers that I know aren't negotiating their own deals. The trick is to get your agent to work harder at creating opportunities, so that they actually have deals to make. Yes, your agent should read this book ... but for myself, as an actor/writer the book HOW TO AGENT YOUR AGENT...is my bible. It helps me kick my agents in the butt ( without them knowing)and I get results...they're working harder and I'm getting work. Also I liked that book with all the casting directors pictures...just in case you see them in Starbucks and want to say hello.

THIS IS THE MOST USEFUL BOOK I HAVE SEEN ON THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY. BEST DEAL-MAKING BOOK ON THE MARKET. 5 STARS!

How to Protect Your Family's Assets from Devastating Nursing Home Costs by Gabriel Heiser is a terrific book. It clarified for me the issues surrounding Medicaid and asset preservation in a straight forward and easy to understand way. It provided me insights into complexities that are necessary for anyone who might be venturing down this path to be aware of and understand. It put into perspective the options that are available and perhaps most important of all, provided me with the background I needed to have a productive meeting with an elder attorney and to ask them the appropriate questions.

In particular, the book was written in a way that could be understood by a layman. It was presented in a very organized fashion and clearly went through the Medicaid process, a necessary pre-requisite for the subsequent chapters. The appendix was particularly useful in that it provided ways to find a qualified elder lawyer and other related resources as well as information on state Medicaid offices. But perhaps most interesting and helpful of all were the case studies. They provided a multitude of practical strategies, comparing and contrasting them throughout the book.

After reading this book, the bits and pieces of information I was able to discern from other books and from several lawyers I previously met with came together to form a clear picture like pieces of a puzzle. Armed with information and the possibilities presented and with an understanding of the implications of our decisions, we are now ready to move forward with plans for our parents with the confidence that we are prepared now to go down this very difficult road.

Thanks Mr. Heiser for all of your help!

I work in an industry where we have a need for such timely, topical and extensive information in the special needs planning area. I found Gabriel Heiser's book to be well written, easy to read, and very comprehensive. I have used it as a resource many times when I am questioned by one of our financial planners or attorneys in our network throughout the country. I have recommended his book to many who are struggling with the complexity of the medicaid system and how best to provide for a disabled individual. I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants a complete understanding of the rules and regulations pertaining to the special needs or elder law planning arenas.

Geri N. McHam
The Estate Plan

The System makes it hard to get accurate information about Medicaid coverage of long-term care--even for a former reference librarian like me. I'm recommending this book to Amazon customers and to my local library.

Attorney Heiser's book on protecting assets from nursing home costs is an invaluable and terrific read. For those of us unaware of the financial devastation a nursing home stay can do to a family it is a must read. It gives the reader a chance to ask important questions of attorneys and financial planners to get the most out of their advice and to get through the many different state and federal laws that vary from state to state. Don't see an attorney without reading this first.

This book provides valuable information on a complex subject. Although it may not answer your specific questions, the information given allows you to make informed decision when consulting an estate planner or attorney. Informative easy to read book on a complex subject.

I picked up this book to study for the patent bar exam. I've yet to take the exam so I can't say if this book is appropriate study material, but I can say that it is very well written, concise and easy to understand. It gives a detailed introduction into patent law without becoming too convoluted. Although it looks like a law textbook, it's actually quite enjoyable to read. The author provides excellent examples, from actual court cases, to all points of patent law and the patent process. The glossary at the end is very useful for someone without a background in law, like me. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about patent law.

Although intended for law school students, this title can be very useful for scientific professionals who frequently encounter patent-related issues in today's industrial R&D world. Particularly I find its great value for researchers in the fields of chemistry, biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry.

The best feature of the book is that the author successfully breaks down the often abstract and difficult statutes, laws and prosecution into easily understandable texts. She is so good at using specific cases and examples to explain important points that a chemist/biochemist like me can read the book without much difficulty or inconvenience. It has a list of discussed cases where you can find familiar names such as: Amgen, Baker Hughes, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Genentech, Dow, Eli Lilly, Gen-Probe, Merck, Perkin-Elmer, Pharmacia, etc.

As a textbook in law school, it covers some patent (law) history and its societal impacts which may not be interesting for some practical purposes. It is certainly not a patent examiner's handbook or MPEP, nor is it a preparation book for patent bar exam.

If a chemist wants to quickly grasp some background without reading this 400-page book, I recommend the excellent materials provided by American Chemical Society to its members through its website.

This book is great for preparing for the patent bar. As a scientist (physics background) wanting to take the patent bar, I found this book clear, logical, and easy to read. I was hesitant on buying it for studying for the patent bar after reading some of the reviews. However, I passed the patent bar on my first attempt using only this book and the bullseye prep review notes.

This is a very good intro to patent law. It covers the essentials of 35 USC 101, 102, 103, 112 with clear language and essential case histories. It's not enough to pass the patent bar, but it's an excellent place to get an overview and foundation before going on to more detailed patent bar study materials. It's also good for reviewing concepts for practicing patent professionals. It is focussed mainly on the law, meaning it does not cover many of the administrative issues related to prosecuting patents, but it covers the law well and clearly.
Spying On The College Of Your Choice

Although the purpose of the book is not to prepare readers for the patent bar it does so anyways, especially Chapters 600 and 700 of the MPEP which are the most challenging and analytical and also the most heavily tested. It also goes into the basics of reissue and reixamination as well as international agreements governing patent prosecution.

If you are reading the book solely to prepare for the Patent Bar skip the three chapters at the end on infringement since this involves litigation and is not tested on the exam. I loved the multitude of examples and the history of how the laws were developed. Makes studying for the test a lot more enjoyable.