Improving your presentation skills will take time, but you can speed up the process through a bit of research. We’ve compiled five presentation books that can help you become the effective communicator you aspire to be. Make some room for these titles on your night stand!
Presentation books focused on content and delivery
1.) ‘Presenting to Win: The Art of Telling Your Story‘ by Jerry Weissman
Jerry Weissman’s book offers readers techniques in content creation and delivery. The title adheres to a strong sense of structure that mirrors the advice it gives. It’s underlying cause is to help readers create meaningful messages that will stay with the audience.
Thirty million presentations will be given today. Millions will fail. Millions more will be received with yawns. A rare few will establish the most profound connection, in which presenter and audience understand each other perfectly…discover common ground… and, together, decide to act.
In this fully updated edition, Jerry Weissman, the world’s #1 presentation consultant, shows how to connect with even the toughest, most high-level audiences…and move them to action! He teaches presenters of all kinds how to dump those PowerPoint templates once and for all and tell compelling stories that focus on what’s in it for the audience.
Weissman’s techniques have proven themselves with billions of dollars on the line. Thousands of his elite clients have already mastered them. Now it’s your turn!
2.) ‘The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience‘ by Carmine Gallo
The presentations Steve Jobs gave for Apple have become benchmarks for great delivery. Carmine Gallo delves into what makes Steve Jobs an effective speaker, and lends practical advice to his readers. In his book, Gallo emphasizes the importance of a good story that connects with the audience.
Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs’s wildly popular presentations have set a new global gold standard—and now this step-by-step guide shows you exactly how to use his crowd-pleasing techniques in your own presentations.
The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs is as close as you’ll ever get to having the master presenter himself speak directly in your ear. Communications expert Carmine Gallo has studied and analyzed the very best of Jobs’s performances, offering point-by-point examples, tried-and-true techniques, and proven presentation secrets….
With this revolutionary approach, you’ll be surprised at how easy it is to sell your ideas, share your enthusiasm, and wow your audience the Steve Jobs way.
Presentation books focused on design
3.) ‘slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations’ by Nancy Duarte
Nancy Duarte’s book is a feast for the eyes, which proves that it’s an excellent reference for presentation design. The comprehensive guide is a product of the author’s experience as an industry leader, working with high profile clients like Al Gore.
No matter where you are on the organizational ladder, the odds are high that you’ve delivered a high-stakes presentation to your peers, your boss, your customers, or the general public. Presentation software is one of the few tools that requires professionals to think visually on an almost daily basis. But unlike verbal skills, effective visual expression is not easy, natural, or actively taught in schools or business training programs. slide:ology fills that void.
Written by Nancy Duarte, President and CEO of Duarte Design, the firm that created the presentation for Al Gore’s Oscar-winning film, An Inconvenient Truth, this book is full of practical approaches to visual story development that can be applied by anyone. The book combines conceptual thinking and inspirational design, with insightful case studies from the world’s leading brands…..
Millions of presentations and billions of slides have been produced — and most of them miss the mark. slide:ology will challenge your traditional approach to creating slides by teaching you how to be a visual thinker. And it will help your career by creating momentum for your cause.
4.) ‘Speaking PowerPoint’ by Bruce Gabrielle
Bruce Gabrielle’s book offers a fresh take on using PowerPoint for business presentations. While it might not be as ‘glitzy’ as Duarte’s book, it offers concrete tips that are useful for the more corporate-oriented reader.
You use PowerPoint at work to create strategic plans, executive briefings, research reports and other boardroom-style slides. But could your slides be clearer, more convincing and built in half the time? You bet!
Learn a new method for business managers who want to use PowerPoint at work to drive strategy. The Mindworks Presentation Method is based on 40 years of research in brain science, instructional design and information design and will help you toEliminate time wasters and complete PowerPoint decks three times faster
Enhance your credibility by creating visually pleasing slides using simple graphic design rules
Make complex slides easier to understand and avoid “Death by PowerPoint” forever
Make audiences more likely to agree with you by applying the proven principles of master persuaders
A mix of both worlds
5.) ‘Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery’ by Garr Reynolds
In this title, Garr Reynolds effectively guides his readers through three aspects of presentation: preparation, design, and delivery. The title refers to his “Zen” presentation philosophy, which advocates a simple and minimalist plan of action.
Presentation designer and internationally acclaimed communications expert Garr Reynolds, creator of the most popular Web site on presentation design and delivery on the net — presentationzen.com — shares his experience in a provocative mix of illumination, inspiration, education, and guidance that will change the way you think about making presentations with PowerPoint or Keynote. Presentation Zen challenges the conventional wisdom of making “slide presentations” in today’s world and encourages you to think differently and more creatively about the preparation, design, and delivery of your presentations. Garr shares lessons and perspectives that draw upon practical advice from the fields of communication and business. Combining solid principles of design with the tenets of Zen simplicity, this book will help you along the path to simpler, more effective presentations.
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