Booking Form 2013 - Continuing Professional Development: Fill & Download for Free

I always liked studies and loved reading books. However, I hardly studied any books except the textbooks till my post graduation.For my civil services preparation, I had to study so many books that after I joined IRS in 1991, I stopped reading even newspapers for several years.However, I had to study the tax law books to know my job during my training and during my postings. Hence, my reading habit continued.However, after working in the government for almost 5–6 years, I felt an intellectual vacuum since the professional life was getting quite routine and boring.I soon started reading some books on life-skills and self-help around 1996. Gradually I was into reading Gita and similar spiritual books.Gradually I developed the interest of reading a variety of non-fiction books and I wanted to have more time to read books.In 2002, I took study leave to join PhD in IIITM Gwalior so that I can get much more time to study. During my PhD, I learned how to do research and get yourself published in prestigious Journals and Conferences.I then realized that I love writing too and soon wrote my first book in 2005, send to almost a dozen publishers and got rejection from all.However, my journey as a writer had already started and I kept publishing 2 articles in a week, which I used to write on the weekends. Thus I wrote over 500 articles in next couple of years before my first book on Spiritual Intelligence was accepted in 2012 and published in 2013. Thereafter, I got 4 more books published.Nowadays I read around 30–40 books in a year. These books have transformed me as a person. The list of books rated by me are available on Goodreads Awdhesh Singh’s 'read' books on Goodreads (351 books)My habit of reading have transformed in the following ways.I now have a much better understanding of the world and the people around me. I now find their behaviour quite predictable and bearable.I get angry very rarely. I am a much calmer person now as compared to my younger self.I don’t crave for people anymore. I am happy with my books because they are my best friends.The greatest joy of my life comes when I discover some good book that makes me think in a new direction and develop new thoughts.While reading books, I feel as if I am conversing with the greatest minds of the world who ever lived in our world and I feel like growing intellectually and spiritually with every good book.I don’t seek material things or power any more. I am happy with whatever I have.My family members and friends are much happy with me now since I understand them better and get along with them easily.I love writing to express my thoughts. I have developed friendships with thousands of people of all age all over the world on Quora and other forums.I have quit government service and I am now fully dedicated to follow my passion to read, teach and write.My life today is more fulfilled and richer.George R.R. Martin said so wisely, “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies . . . The man who never reads lives only one.”How beautiful it is to live a thousand lives in one life?

This is a super-post collating multiple existing answers of mine. It is broken down into:#1. Books#2. Online resources#3. Blogs and websites#4. Youtube Channels#5. Online Courses#6. Movies#1. BooksA. QuantQuantitative Aptitude for Competitive Examination - Abhijit GuhaHow to Prepare for Quantitative Aptitude for CAT - Arun SharmaB. VerbalWord Power Made Easy (The Complete Handbook for Building a Superior Vocabulary) - A wonderfully written book that makes learning new words fun.After (and only after) you are done with it, read All About Words (An Adult Approach to Vocabulary Building)."Competition Success Review" magazineThe editorial sections of major newspapersGood non-fiction books on diverse topics - law, finance, history, politics, philosophy, crime, religion etcVerbal ability for CAT: Arun SharmaHigh School English Grammar & Composition - by Wren and Martin (for grammar)A Communicative Grammar Of English (for grammar)BBC list of Top 100 Books.#2. Online resourcesApart from the basic forums - PagalGuy, TotalGadha, HandakaFunda etc, the below websites will help you prepare comprehensively for the written test as well as for the later parts of the process.A. VerbalA.1. VocabIFTTT - Send yourself a weekly vocabulary list of Wikipedia words of the day: Sit down every Sunday (or any other day you like) and learn 7 new words. All you need is a IFTTT and a Pocket account (both free).ESL Exercises: Test your vocabulary by taking a series of structured quizzes.Visual thesaurus: Understand what words mean, and why. Visualize the origin of words and their interconnectionsDictionary.com Flashcards: When you are on the go, use this flashcard app to learn new words.A.2. Reading SpeedSpritz: Boost your reading speed. Spritz is one of the rare speed-reading websites/app that actually helps.A.3. English languageBBC - Learning English: A great resource to know and understand the various nuances of the English language./r/WritingPrompts: Strangers give you a random (and mostly weird) topic, and you need to write an engaging story around it. Helps build your vocab, grammar and comprehension skills.B. General AwarenessThe best way to stay updated on the various developments is to follow specific sub-reddits./r/worldnews: Be updated on the current events in the world./r/technology/r/science/r/news: Mostly US centric newsC. Soft skillsTake up a few courses:Introduction to Time ManagementGetting started with essay writingReasoningGrammar and PunctuationIntroduction to Public SpeakingD. OthersTenADay: Solve 10 questions everyday from the CAT curriculum. Level up, slowly but steadily#3. Blogs and websitesA. FinanceProf. Jayanth R. Varma's Financial Markets Blog: Prof Jayant Verma is a Professor of Finance (mainly Financial markets) at IIMA. He is one of the most impressive teachers I have ever met. He was one of the first members of SEBI and is on the board of multiple big companies including Infosys and Axis Bank. His blog, which has been up since 2005, is a brilliant resource on understanding the nuances of the financial markets.Dealbook (NYT): Dealbook is the news aggregator section of NYTimes to keep you updated on the current state of affairs of the Fin industry.Mergers & Inquisitions: Everything you need to know about every aspect of the Financial world - from big investment banks to boutique firms, from Private Equity to Hedge Funds and AM/WM firms.Investment Banking Blog: The holy mecca for preparation of i-Banking interviews, the IB Blog offers everything from bootcamps and interview prep courses (paid) to free resources like basic interview questions, overview of the industry etc.Wall Street Oasis: Similar to #2 above, but with more functionality to read the best articles of the month/week/day etc.FT Alphaville: Another news aggregator that will make sure you do not have any time left in your day (courtesy its exhaustive coverage of current affairs)B. EntrepreneurshipEntrepreneur: Your companion on the entrepreneurial journey. The site will keep you updated with the start-up world, help you work on various aspects of your professional self, and also provide the much needed pep-talk when you are feeling down/exhausted/defeated.AVC: The chronicles of Fred Wilson ( a Venture Capitalist for the past 30 years) with some incredible credentials to his name (including investments in Twitter, Tumble, Zynga, Foursuare etc). AVC is probably the most widely-read VC blog in the world.C. MarketingMad Over Marketing: MoM is a fun blog. They capture everything from brand wars on twitter, to collection of some of the best and most important marketing campaigns. The blog is a very easy read and will help you broaden your horizon when it comes to thinking of how you can ante up your marketing/advertising game.Duct Tape Marketing: Duct Tape Marketing focuses on small businesses and startups. They take into account that small businesses do not have the funds that large corporations do. So their marketing tactics need to be tailored to their financial capacity.aimClear: aimClear wants to be the single resource when it comes to your personal as well as company brand by using every possible tool in the marketer's kitty - from social media to SEO, from conclaves to data management using basic tools like Excel.Bufferapp social: Bufferapp is an exhaustive resource to help you manage, grow, and track your social media persona.HubSpot Blog: A collection of 3 secondary blogs - focusing on sales, marketing, and your agency. This trio will help you streamline your sales activity, boost your pre-sales capabilities, help you traverse the maze of sales-killer questions like, "This is too costly", and also help you manage your time and productivity in a better manner.Marketing Land: The Dealbook of marketing, ML is the one-stop solution for your marketing trends news requirement.Startup Marketing | Ryan Gum: Ryan Gum is a growth hacker who helps create marketing plans for startups and small businesses starting from creating your initial pitch, attracting your first customer, and an exhaustive list of Startup Marketing Resources.The SumAll Blog: The SumAll blog is like the child of Buzzfeed and Medium (and not in a negative sense). They post content which is useful and is also written in a fun manner. The articles are often crisp and under a 5-min read.D. EconomicsFreakonomics: The uthors of the best-selling economics-infused-with-pop-culture book have more to say and share than the 2 books. The blog is usually a collection of podcasts that aim to explore the "hidden side of economics" and highlight outliers, which although rare, are extremely critical.Why Nations Fail: On the same line as Freakonomics, the blog by Daren Acemoglu is a follow-up on his book of the same name and explores similar obscure events that shaped the rise and fall of nations and civilizations.Economixcomix: The companion blog for the graphic novel of the same name by Michael Goodwin, Economixcomix explains the basic tenets of Economics in a simple way, along with illustrations to make understanding easier.The Grumpy Economist: The perennial pessimist, the one who finds faults in everything, the dad who bores his kid during dinner with his constant rants and criticisms, John Cochrane provides an unabashed, and hard-hitting critique that exposes the not-so-sunny side of the world economy.Investing and Economics Blog: The Curios Cat blogs is for us. The laymen. The dabblers. It focuses heaving on personal finance, economics, financial literacy, tax planning, credit management et al; stuff that affects the majority of the populace on a regular basis.The Upshot: The NYT economics companion to its financial section, Dealbook, The Upshot is all you need to read to be perfectly updated of what is happening, why it is happening, what would be the consequences, and what could have been done better.Economist's View: A collection of self-posts and the hottest posts from other economics blogs.The Money Illusion: TMI focuses on the money and capital markets and provides wonderful commentary on financial crises, international economics, foreign reserve dynamics, monetary and fiscal policies, labor markets etc.E. LeadershipGuy Kawasaki: Guy is one of the most well known figures in Silicon Valley, and among the first "tech evangelist".All Things Workplace: As the name suggests, this is a blog for managers, bosses, and professionals and aims to cover all aspects of workplace management including effective communication, employee engagement, conflict management, incorporating cultural diversity and differences, various facets of leadership, boosting creativity, and so on.Seth's Blog: Seth is a funny guy. The funniest of all in this list. Although he calls his blog a marketing blog, it's more generic in nature and oft has funny quips and clever observations interspersed with longform articles.Lean In: Everyone knows the book by Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook. The blog aims to continue the story and encourage and empower women to face challenges, voice their opinions, and grow themselves in the workplace.Switch & Shift: S&S aims at helping business transition from the traditional workplace model to the current, more information driven, globally-diverse-yet-connected workplace.Hot Momma's Project: Don't go by the sexist-sounding name, HMP is sort of a companion to LeanIn and strives to help women claim their rightful place in the corporate world.Culture University: In a globally inter-connected world, understanding, accepting, and imbibing cultural diversity is an important trait for organizations to sustain themselves and grow.Big Think: Having Bill Nye, TheScienceGuy, on board is a big achievement for Big Think which aims to be an idea hub, an "Youtube for ideas" as its founders put it.F. OthersBob Sutton: Bob, a Professor of Management Science at Stanford, writes on everything including, but not limited to, workplace culture, book reviews, team management, employee management etc.Harvard Business Review: HBR is the most popular published management magazine that covers almost everything relevant to an MBA degree. If there has to be a starting point for an MBA student/aspirant, this is it.#4. Youtube ChannelsTakshzila shikshak: A very well structure and exhaustive resource that replicates the offline classroom model. They cover the entire range of topics for CAT and other MBA entrance exams in India - quantitative ability, vocabulary, logic, reasoning, reading comprehension, grammar, data sufficiency and data interpretation.Other similar resources include:handakafundaCareer Launcher2IIM CAT PreparationByju'sEndeavor Careers Pvt. Ltd.Harvard Business Review: Touching on the nuances of business - strategy formulation and execution, role of a CEO, disruption, stress management, and overall professional development as a manager or an entrepreneur.MBAbullshitDotCom: Topic-wise video lectures on the various basics of Finance - stock and bond markets, valuations, Corporate Finance, Accounting et al.Minute MBA by OnlineMBA.com: Illustrated lessons primarily on entrepreneurship, people management, and innovation.ehowfinance: Another great resource, but focuses more on personal finance, budgeting, accounting, insurance, taxation etc.#1. You also can watch the Economics playlists on CrashCourse. It is one of the best channels on Youtube for learning any subject starting from a blank slate.#2. Marketing Management#3. Corporate Finance#4. Understanding Financial Markets (Yale classes by the Nobel Laureate in Economics, Professor Roberyt Schiller)#5. Augment your vocabulary (primarily meant for GRE aspirants, however is applicable for most MBA entrance exams)#6. Data InterpretationA few other videos you might find useful.#1. Understanding how the Stock Exchange works#2: Money and credit#5. Online CoursesA. Business and management (mostly beginner courses)Basics of supply chain management (SCM)Basics of MarketingBasics of OperationsBasics of digital marketingB. Economics and financeFinancial markets: A must take. The course is being taught by the renowned Nobel-laureate and Yale Prof Robert Shiller and will cover a lot of concepts of Financial markets and their machinations. Apart from the basics, it will also cover certain aspects of behavioral finance and financial crises and the role of regulations.Microeconomics: Will cover the basics of Microeconomics from supply-demand, market efficiency, types of competitions, market power and public goods and externalities.Introduction to finance: Basics - time value of money and valuationsC. Statistics and data analysisRegression models: The course looks at the various regression models and special cases like ANOVA. All of which is taught in the 1st year.Data analysis and statistical inference: Estimation, confidence intervals, decision making based on data analysis etc.Data visualization: Will be helpful both during and after the MBA. How to present the data in the most impactful manner, use software to make complex designs etc.Other useful courses:Social EntrepreneurshipIntroduction to Probability#6. Movies12 Angry Men (1957): A wonderful movie that was part of my MBA curriculum, 12 Angry Men is probably the best thing you can watch on the art of negotiation and persuasion.To Kill a Mockingbird (1962): I love the book and I make no effort to hide it. The 1962 adaptation by Robert Mulligan does complete justice to the book. It's a life lesson everyone should learn. It teaches you kindness, courage, and unflinching devotion to the pursuit of justice even in the face of overwhelming odds.More about the book and what makes it great: Deepak Mehta (दीपक मेहता)'s answer to Why do you like the book 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' and why should I read it?Up in the Air (2009): As a manager (post your MBA), one of the hardest aspects of your job would be to fire people. In this movie, George Clooney will teach you how to do it.The Pursuit of Happyness (2006): On why persistence is important.Wall Street (1987): A lesson, and a warning, on the lengths to which brokers and financial analysts went to in order to achieve success and fame.The Social Network (2010): For the rabble-rousers. The ones who don't respond well to authority. The dreamers. The entrepreneurs.Too Big To Fail (2011): A documentary on the Financial Crisis of 2008.Margin Call (2011): Chronicles the initial stages of the 2008 crisis. And how corporate greed condemned the world to a period of financial upheaval and meltdown.Inside Job (2010): The final movie on the 2008 crisis. And the best.The Wolf Of Wall Street (2013): Based on the life of Jordan Belfort, a broker/trader, and another victim of the Wall Street Lust.

No. As a major component of fairness, I would say that Amazon is intentionally misleading its audience and being dishonest as a result. The mere fact that most people here cite Amazon’s misleading 70% royalty points to this fact. Let’s take a look at the data:On her blog, Kameron Hurley has a great explanation of how the average publisher-supported book sells 3,000 copies while the average self-published book sells a mere 250 copies.What she doesn't explain exactly is why: Publisher-supported books with full-service distribution sell twelve times as many copies partially because they have professional development and industry experience making educated decisions but mostly because books are still marketed and discovered on shelves in stores (even if the reader buys the book on Amazon or elsewhere, it's because they had the repetition of seeing the book and touching it in a retail environment.) This is why industry lead times and sell-in to wholesalers remain so vital: the long-lead formula is what creates an effective sales strategy and a long tail on a book. Amazon does not offer any of these services and often publishing through them is the death knell of publishing a book that would otherwise be successful with professional development while simultaneously convincing the author that simply by comparing their 8% publisher royalty to their 70% Amazon royalty to be a no-brainer. This intentionally manipulates and takes advantage of the author, because, as you can see above, the author earns ten times more with a publisher.Banking your expectations and success based on the experiences of Hugh Howey is like modeling yourself on Stephen King or John Grisham and expecting the same results. The reality is that you will likely land nearer the average sales. If your results are greater than that, having lower expectations than your reality will improve your self-esteem.Because they have invested heavily in electronic formats, Amazon spends more money than I can fathom to convince authors that this is not true, that publishers are antiquated, and that you make more money as a self-publisher. Amazon makes a compelling argument with their 70% royalties line since everyone knows that 70% is greater than the average publisher's 8% royalty. But since the book sells twelve times as many copies with publisher support, for Amazon's line to be true you would have to receive 180% of the profits and have no expenses. The further reality of self-publishing is that you bear the burden of all expenses without the benefits of shelf space.As many authors know, Kindle relies heavily on discounting your book to somewhere between free and $2.99 while sales of eBooks are declining market-wide while unit sales of paper books continue to increase. Worse, an author’s royalty is reduced when they deep discount, despite Amazon’s sales algorithm practically demanding that they do so.2016 is the first calendar year where independent publishers eclipsed the four major houses (Harper Collins, Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, MacMillan). Independents seized 56% of market share for the first time in history since the major houses existed. There is even reason to believe that this trend will intensify and continue and while the major houses will not cease to exist any time soon, if ever, their role is certainly changing. Their sales and success will be more based on classics and contracts that they hold than based on acquiring new talent.I wrote the following articles to further explain specific aspects of publishing:Title Development / How to Pitch Your Book /Formatting for Print / The Economic Case for Traditional Format Offset Printing / Distribution Question (with infographic)/ Working with The Printer / Organizing a book tour / Social Media for Authors /Self-Promotion for Authors / What a Publisher Does / Paralleling the Dinosaurs /An overviewAnother thing that I would highly recommend is creating a profit & loss statement to predict your sales, expenses, budget, and revenue. This will show you a good idea of what you are putting in and what you should expect to get out of it.All that said, it’s quite possible to carve out a successful niche as an author. You simply have to define and adhere to that niche. My publishing company, Microcosm Publishing, is in its 21st year with a staff of eleven, 350 titles in our backlist, and 2013, 2014, and 2015 were each our record sales years in succession. We are financially solvent and growing at a time when most of the industry was struggling to find their relevance and place within the industry. Finding your areas of interest that aren’t already overrun will create a fun and enjoyable niche to occupy and thrive in. Do your homework before you begin. But most importantly, do not pay anyone to bring your book to market.