Influence — Robert Cialdini
Cialdini's six principles of persuasion, documented across decades of research and field work. Reciprocity, commitment, social proof, authority, liking, scarcity — read it for the immune system, not the toolkit.
Scientific Advertising — Claude C. Hopkins
The 1923 manual on what works in advertising, written by a man who tested everything and kept count. Most of modern direct-response marketing is footnotes on Hopkins. Free online, ninety pages, more useful than any MBA course on demand.
Confessions of an Advertising Man — David Ogilvy
Ogilvy's memoir is the rare book about commerce that is also about taste. How to run an agency, how to write copy that respects the reader, how to refuse work that should not be done. The model for principled selling.
Building a StoryBrand — Donald Miller
Miller's seven-part framework for telling a customer that the product is a tool inside their story, not the other way around. The clearest modern playbook for honest positioning.
This Is Marketing — Seth Godin
Godin's case that marketing is a service done for the people you want to change. The smallest viable audience. Permission. Trust. The book that turns selling from extraction into invitation.
Marketplaces
Two-sided markets where producers meet buyers. Etsy, Substack, Echo, S…
→Psychology
The science of mind and behaviour — how humans perceive, think, feel, …
→Affiliates
Referral economics done with integrity. Recommending what you actually…
→Membership
The recurring relationship — between a network and the people it serve…
→Referrals
Word of mouth, structured. The mechanism FRQNCY uses to grow without p…
→Donations & Tipping
The voluntary half of commerce. Tipping creators, funding free work, s…
→