Create Your Own “BuzzFeed” Booktalk
Jamie Layton has created her own speakers bureau. The manager at Duck’s Cottage in Duck, NC, and majority owner of Downtown Books in Manteo, NC, has combined a BuzzFeed-ish title with a book presentation she calls “Five Books You Should Be Reading Right Now.” With civic organizations in mind, Layton chose books that would be appropriate for any industry and can be put into instant practice. Here’s her current list:
- The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence: The Handbook For Becoming the “Nordstrom” of Your Industry by Robert Spector, Patrick D. McCarthy
- What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast: And Two Other Short Guides to Achieving More at Work and at Home by Laura Vanderkam
- Breakfast with Buddha by Roland Merullo
- Happier at Home: Kiss More, Jump More, Abandon a Project, Read Samuel Johnson, and My Other Experiments in the Practice of Everyday Life by Gretchen Rubin
- Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers by Anne Lamott
Layton says she allows 4 minutes per book which yields a 20 minute presentation, and she plans to appropriately adjust her list to fit the audience. Her first booking is for a Rotary presentation, and she suspects that presentations at the local Lions and Kiwanis organizations will soon follow. She also plans to announce the presentations through a press release to the local papers.
Why the BuzzFeed-like title? “Everybody likes it when people tell them what to do.”
