This giveaway is now over. The winner is Debra P. Congrats!

I remember back in the day (and I may be dating myself here) when almanacs were boring. You used them for school projects (when you needed to) and never looked at it again.  All I have to say is that my kids have it way better!  I have to admit I was excited to check out the National Geographic Kids 2010 Almanac.  The cover alone makes you want to look inside and find interesting facts.  What surprised me most was that my husband sat in his chair and read the almanac for himself one night.  I knew my kids would love it, but my husband got drawn in too!

My two year old likes the pictures.  We’ve been able to take the book and work it into his speech and get him to say a few more words.  My 6 year old also enjoyed the pictures.  However, she liked the facts too.  Both my kids loved the section on dinosaurs and loved finding pictures of snakes to show my husband (who is NOT a fan of snakes at all.  I love that we all found this book great!  This book is just full of knowledge (which will come in handy for my next game of Trivia Pursuit!).  National Geographic Kids 2010 Almanac is definitely a book that’s hard to put down once you open it no matter what your age.

Since I loved this book so much, I’ve arranged for one lucky reader to also win a copy of the National Geographic Kids 2010 Almanac.  Here’s what you need to do:

Check out the National Geographic site and tell me what you hope to learn about if you win this book.  Did you want to learn that in Scotland residents open their front doors before midnight on New Year’s Eve to let the old year out and the new year in?  Or did you want to know that in the 1870’s a swarm of locusts migrated over the Great Plains that stretched 300 miles long and 100 miles wide?

Each of these gives you one additional entry:
1. Twitter about this contest. Please leave me your username so I can verify. Or use something like this:

Win a copy of National Geographic Kids 2010 Almanac from @blm03 and @ngkids.  Enter here: http://lisareviews.com/2010/01/29/national-geographic-kids-2010/

2. Stumble this post and add this post to other social media sites like Digg, Kirtsy, Blogging Zoom, Reddit, Propeller, Etc. (1 entry for each social network).

3. Comment on any other post on this blog. (1 entry for each post). Let me know which posts you commented on.

Each of these gives you 5 additional entries:

1. Blog about this on your blog. Please give me the URL, so I can verify.

2. Add this to any forums you belong too. Please give me the URL, so I can verify.

3. Add @blm03 to any of your Twitter Lists.

4. Subscribe to this blog using either my email or RSS feed

5. Add my badge to your sidebar (each blog gets your 5 additional entries):

<a href="http://lisareviews.com"><img src="http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk258/blm03_photos/125ad-1.png" border="0" alt="Lisa Reviews" /></a>

If this isn’t working, please let me know. For some reason, Wordpress seems to be eating the code up when I post.

Each of these will give you 10 additional entries:

1. Sign up for my free newsletter!

This contest will end Feb. 13th at noon CST! Good Luck!

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/2

This book  is great how-to guide for kids and families to get off their butts and get outside.  Get Out! has 150 tips ranging from avoiding printing out everything you read online to how to build a compost pile.  This book is definitely written in kid friendly terms.  I love that not only does it tell you how to do something, but it explains the why too!  With kids spending 6.5 hours a day staring at electronic screens, there should be more books out there like this!

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/2

This giveaway is now closed. The winner is Marcy Strahan. Congrats!

Are you happy in your life? Are you in rut that you can’t seem to get out of? If so, Add More ~Ing To Your Life is a must read book for you.  This book starts off with the author telling you about her life and how unhappy she was.  She shares with us how she had everything you are suppose to have to be happy and yet wasn’t.  She also talks about the changes she made and how they impacted her life to get where she is today.  I find that a lot of self help books don’t have authors that get this personal.  It tends to be a do as I say, not as I do.  However, this book isn’t that at all.  I love that this a 30 day guide, and it ties in physical activity, positive affirmations, and creative visualization.  This book teaches you how to rethink and remove the negative thoughts you may have.  She also uses others stories to show you how other women have taken her advice and how they used it.  My favorite story has to be the one of her mentor Rha, and how she attracted her husband (it reminds me of my story.  My husband was the guy you’d never date because he’s such a good guy.).  I find this book to be written for a younger crowd (20’s and 30’s) though I think that every generation will walk away with some insight for their own personal life.

Since everyone wants to make a change in their lives, I’ve arranged for one of my lucky readers to get a copy of this book.  Here’s what you need to do:

Check out the Add More ~Ing To Your Life site and tell me what area in your life you’d like to improve.

Each of these gives you one additional entry:
1. Twitter about this contest. Please leave me your username so I can verify. Or use something like this:

Win a copy of Add More ~Ing To Your Life from @blm03. Enter here: http://lisareviews.com/2010/01/27/add-ing-life-review-giveaway/

2. Stumble this post and add this post to other social media sites like Digg, Kirtsy, Blogging Zoom, Reddit, Propeller, Etc. (1 entry for each social network).

3. Comment on any other post on this blog. (1 entry for each post). Let me know which posts you commented on.

Each of these gives you 5 additional entries:

1. Blog about this on your blog. Please give me the URL, so I can verify.

2. Add this to any forums you belong too. Please give me the URL, so I can verify.

3. Add @blm03 to any of your Twitter Lists.

4. Subscribe to this blog using either my email or RSS feed

5. Add my badge to your sidebar (each blog gets your 5 additional entries):

<a href="http://lisareviews.com"><img src="http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk258/blm03_photos/125ad-1.png" border="0" alt="Lisa Reviews" /></a>

If this isn’t working, please let me know. For some reason, Wordpress seems to be eating the code up when I post.

Each of these will give you 10 additional entries:

1. Sign up for my free newsletter!

This contest will end Feb. 11th at noon CST and both US and Canadian residents are eligible to win! Good Luck!

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/2

Most people are terrified of public speaking. I personally can do it, but I tend to talk to fast and use way to many “ummms”. There aren’t a lot of good books out there to teach you better public speaking, but Confessions of a Public Speaker is a book you should definitely read if you have any public speaking in your future.

The author of Confessions of a Public Speaker is Scott Berkun.  He is a former Microsoft executive who now is a writer and professional speaker.  I love that this book is written at a level that anyone can understand.  I also like that the advice he gives can be used for any sort of presentation you will have to do.  There are plenty of real world examples, and lot of usable do’s and don’ts.  Berkun suggests that presenters first consider the needs of the audience — Who are they? What are they interested in? What do they want to learn? How are you going to keep them entertained?  You would be amazed at how many presenters don’t take any of these questions into consideration and their presentations will show that.  One of the most important tips that he teaches is to keep your audience entertained and they’ll forgive all kinds of other mistakes.  I also have to agree that you need to keep your speech in ten minute chunks due to attention spans.  I also recommend that you read the entire book including the very last page and the back of that page.  Trust me on that.

Confessions of a Public Speaker  is a must read for all public speakers.  It’s also a great read even if you aren’t.  It’s a quick funny read, and you’ll walk away with a lot of really great knowledge.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/2

New to the social media world? Want to understand why Twitter, Facebook et al. is good for business?  Want to fine tune what you are already doing online and enhance your marketing?  Then, Friends With Benefits is for you.  I have to admit this is a book for more of the beginner crowd.  That being said, it is extremely well written, and at a level that almost anyone can understand (as long as you already know how to get online).

Friends With Benefits isn’t a book just on Twitter and Facebook (however big they are, there is more to social media than just those two companies).  This book covers everything from RSS (what it is, why you care, etc), corporate blogging, and social media new releases.  It even goes into how to approach bloggers.

This is where my first criticism comes in.  You can’t paint bloggers with one stroke.  The theme over and over in this book is that bloggers shouldn’t be paid for their work.  And yes, it is work.  The time I spend reviewing your product is time away from my family and other things I could be doing.  As someone who sometimes does get paid for reviewing prodcuts, I take offense to a book telling people not to pay bloggers.  Something else they left out is that if you send a blogger a product to review, don’t expect them to send it back.  Most bloggers have a policy on their site explaining how they do reviews.  Take care to read it, so you both know what to expect.  A personal request of my own is that if you send me a product make sure you put some marketing materials in with the product.  Sometimes bloggers get so many products that we often don’t know who they came from.  Make it easy for the blogger to contact you back with a review or questions.

The section on spammers is great.  I think marketers often forget that they are talking to real people and we don’t appreciate being addressed as “Dear Webmaster”.  The list they provide definitely makes you do a double take on your own behavior.  There is also a chapter about defin­ing suc­cess and return on invest­ment (ROI) which are the holy grails of social media mar­ket­ing.  They ask the question of how you define suc­cess.  If you don’t know your end goal, how do you know if your campaign was successful?  Are you inter­ested in brand-building? Grow­ing traf­fic? Con­ver­sion to sales? Social media men­tions? Increased buzz? How are you going to do this? Mon­i­tor­ing? Lis­ten­ing?  I love how they go into how to respond when you find bloggers talking about you or your product.  However, I wish they would have went one step further with it.  When working with clients, if I find a blog post about them that we like, I often send it to social media sites like Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, etc.  Not only does it give the blogger more visitors, it gets more eyeballs on my clients product.

If you are looking to dabble in social media, Friends with Benefits is a must read for you.  It is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time on the social media field.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/2