5 Books I’ve Found Helpful as a Freelance Web Developer

I do what I consider a good amount of reading (especially since I got my Kindle) and while I do read some fiction, I read mostly non-fiction on business, web development, or politics. I love reading stories of how companies got started and how to deal with certain aspects of business. Several books I’ve read have given me great perspective and advice I can use as a freelancer, and I’d like to share 5 of those books today.

Getting Real by 37signals: I read this book a while back and it gave me a lot of great perspective on how to efficiently run a business, build great software, and most importantly, how to say, “no.” After reading this book I was able to put in to practice actions more efficient than having meetings (which I, much like they, loathe), and how to stay away from things like scope creep, a nasty beast in the world of web & software developer.

Rework by 37signals: The follow up book by the 37signals team talks a lot about the same principles as Getting Real with some new perspectives, less focus on software and more on business, and a lot of great quotes. I’m just about done with it on my Kindle and I have a mini-book from all of my notes and annotations. The major difference between this and their first book is to not accept the notion of what business is today. A lot of people follow a strict set of rules for what makes a business successful and doing it the right way. 37signals proves those rules wrong and they talk about why and how in the book. I saw this first hand with the company I started last year; I spoke to a lot of business owners in the area and they all had different advice for what you’re supposed to do. It may have worked for them (it clearly did), but some of it just won’t for me. Rework is all about that.

Handcrafted CSS by Dan Cederholm:  Dan Cederholm is a web design master. After reading his book Bulletproof Web Design (which I recommend to everyone), I knew this would be gold and I wasn’t disappointed. Dan talks in-depth about CSS3, proper and possible uses for it, and how it’s OK to start implementing CSS3 into your websites even though it’s not support everywhere (ahem, IE?). He also provides a nice simple CSS framework for you and dozens of techniques to make your code cleaner, updated, and of-course, bulletproof.

The Google Story by David A. Vise: I think it’s safe to say that 99% of people starting a business, especially a web based business, say  they want to be the next Google. While that might be (is) a monumental and likely unobtainable goal, Google does provide a great model for budding entrepreneurs. The Google Story is a great read and incredibly inspiring. It talks about the beginning, how Larry and Sergey met, and how  they built a billion dollar company from the ground up on their own terms. My single favorite piece of advice is something Sergey says; “Have a healthy disregard for the impossible.”

The 4 Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss: Admittedly, this book is kind of out there. I think a lot of Ferriss’ stories are far-fetched; maybe embellished for the sake of good writing. He provides a lot of advice on a lot and most of his claims seem to work out too perfectly to be true. But, he does offer a lot of great advice & perspective on how to stay productive and maximize profits while minimizing the amount of actual work you do. Some of it contradicts the boys at 37signals, and I think it’s worth reading just for that. It is important to hear both sides of the argument after all.

So there is my list. What are your must reads?