October is National Women’s Small Business Month! Women business owners and entrepreneurs are invaluable to our economy and necessary for it to flourish and thrive. This month, and all months, we celebrate the women who strengthen our communities by providing the goods and services on which we rely.
Want to learn more from women professionals? Consider checking out some of these books that recognize the accomplishments, experiences, and expertise of women in the field of entrepreneurship, marketing, and management.
Business Boutique: A Woman's Guide for Making Money Doing What She Loves (2017) by Christy Wright
This handbook will help you take the ideas in your head, and the dream in your heart, and turn them into actions. Learn how to create a customized step-by-step business plan, manage your time so you can have a business and life that you love, and more.
Level Up: Rise Above The Hidden Forces Holding Your Business Back (2022) by Stacey Abrams
Renowned business owner, activist, and politician Stacey Abrams is joined by her business partner, Lara Hodgson, to share their inspiring and relatable personal stories of entrepreneurship. They share lessons learned the hard way to show how every business owner can confront the forces that conspire to keep small businesses small.
She Builds: The Anti-Hustle Guide To Grow Your Business and Nourish Your Life (2022) by Jadah Sellner
Jadah Sellner shares a new entrepreneurial model for women, centered on sustainable leadership — a practical framework they can use to create a business on their own terms, prioritize their well-being, and break free from the toxic culture that leads to burnout. Filled with inspiring personal stories, case studies, interactive exercises, and real-world advice, She Builds will help you grow your business and have time to enjoy your life, too.
Build The Damn Thing: How To Start A Successful Business If You're Not A Rich White Guy (2022) by Kathryn Finney
Build the Damn Thing is a hard-won, battle-tested guide for every entrepreneur who the establishment has left out. Finney empowers entrepreneurs to take advantage of their unique networks and resources; arms readers with responses to investors who say, "Great pitch, but I just don't do Black women;" and inspires them to overcome naysayers while remaining "100% That B*tch."
Turn Your Fandom Into Cash: A Geeky Guide To Turn Your Passion Into A Business (2022) by Carol Pinchefsky
This geeky guide (by an avowed geek) shows you the ins and outs of making money involved in the worlds you love to immerse yourself in or one you want to create.
Mom, Inc: The Essential Guide to Running A Successful Business From Home (2012) by Meg Mateo Ilasco
Two entrepreneurial moms share the secrets to having a happy home life while running a successful business.
How To Work For Yourself: Everything You Need To Know About Being Your Own Boss (2020) by Rachel Bridge
This book is a step-by-step guide, showing you how to do it in an effective, fulfilling, and rewarding way. Drawing on Rachel Bridge's extensive experience and those of many others who already work for themselves, it contains practical advice and information, real-life examples, and essential top tips to help you make a successful transition to working for yourself.
Boss Up! This Ain't Your Mama's Business Book (2019) by Lindsay Teague Moreno
Moreno shows women how to tap into their ambition and achieve the success they've been holding back. As she details her journey from stay-at-home mom to multimillion-dollar-producing business owner, she shares the lessons she's learned.
Work Wife: The Power of Female Friendship to Drive Successful Businesses (2019) by Erica Cerulo
Cerulo and Mazur bring to light the unique power of female friendship to fuel successful businesses. Drawing on their own experiences, as well as the stories of other thriving "work wives," they highlight the ways in which vulnerability, openness, and compassion — qualities central to so many women's relationships — lend themselves to professional accomplishment and innovation.
Joy At Work: Organizing Your Professional Life (2020) by Marie Kondo
In Joy at Work, bestselling author and Netflix star Marie Kondo and Rice University business professor Scott Sonenshein offer stories, studies, and strategies to help you eliminate clutter and make space for work that really matters.
Your Business, Your Family, Their Future: How To Ensure Your Family Enterprise Thrives for Generations (2018) by Emily Griffiths-Harrison
Family enterprise expert Emily Griffiths-Hamilton shares the secrets of successful multigenerational family enterprises. Through extensive research and personal and professional experience as a member of and advisor to family enterprises, Griffiths-Hamilton has developed an unconventional approach that looks beyond narrow business considerations to focus on the critical aspect of every family enterprise.
Packaging Your Crafts: Creative Ideas for Crafters, Artists, Bakers, and More (2014) by Viola E. Sutanto
Whether you're selling on Etsy, in retail, or at a fair, your crafts deserve a package that's as appealing as they are. This inspirational guide shows crafters how to get that professional edge — and turn one-time buyers into loyal customers.
Creating Superfans: How To Turn Your Customers Into Lifelong Advocates (2023) by Brittany Hodak
In Creating Superfans, award-winning entrepreneur and keynote speaker Brittany Hodak shares a powerful framework for transforming your business from a commodity into a category of one.
Obsessed: Building A Brand People Love From Day One (2020) by Emily Heyward
Emily Heyward outlines the new principles of what it takes to build and launch a brand that has people queuing up to buy it on opening day. Whether you're starting a new business, launching a new product line, or looking to refresh a brand for a new generation of customers, Obsessed shows you why the old rules of brand-building no longer apply, and what really works for today's customers.
What To Ask: How To Learn What Customers Need But Don't Tell You (2022) by Andrea Belk Olson
Andrea Belk Olson, CEO of applied behavioral science consulting firm Pragmadik, and head of the University of Iowa JPEC startup incubator, delivers a unique, cognitive method for discovering hidden customer needs, converting them quickly into differentiators, and avoiding the pitfalls of traditional research.
Clever Girl Finance: The Side Hustle Guide - Build A Successful Side Hustle And Increase Your Income (2021) by Bola Sokunbi
This book targets women, specifically women of color, who are interested in leveraging a side hustle business to increase their income in order to build wealth.
The Gig Economy: The Complete Guide to Getting Better Work, Taking More Time Off, and Financing The Life You Want (2017) by Diane Mulcahy
Diane Mulcahy presents your guide to this uncertain but ultimately rewarding world, supplying strategies to help you construct a life based on your priorities and vision of success. It's time to take charge of your own career and lead the life you actually want.
The Creative's Guide To Starting A Business (2018) by Harriet Kelsall
This inspirational guide offers easy-to-follow advice from talented and creative industry experts. There are practical exercises that will help you sell your creations, choose the right time to start your business, and guide you through as you do so.
All In Startup: Launching A New Idea When Everything is On the Line (2014) by Diana Kander
This a book for anyone who has started a business, thought about starting a business, or been close to someone who has. All In Startup introduces the reader to the latest advances in entrepreneurship, including a new understanding of how to launch a company in a way that dramatically improves its chances of success.
Artpreneur: The Step-By-Step Guide to Making A Sustainable Living From Your Creativity (2023) by Miriam Schulman
Whether you're a musician, photographer, painter, writer, dancer, singer, or any other creative with aspirations of making a living from your art, this is the perfect time to turn your creative ideas into a sustainable business. With gatekeepers no longer controlling the market, anyone with a laptop and a dream can make a thriving living from their creativity.
Buoyant: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Becoming Wildly Successful, Creative, and Free (2022) by Susie DeVille
In this transformational guide, deVille shares life-changing insights and exercises, along with her personal journey and those of clients, to take you on a Creative Rebel's Voyage.
Permission To Screw Up: How I Learned To Lead By Doing (Almost) Everything Wrong (2017) by Kristen Hadeed
Permission to Screw Up dismisses the idea that leaders and organizations should try to be perfect. Through a brutally honest and often hilarious account of her own struggles, Kristen Hadeed encourages us to embrace our failures and proves that we’ll be better leaders when we do.
Female Firebrands: Stories and Techniques to Ignite Change, Take Control, and Succeed in the Workplace (2020) by Mikaela Kiner
Full of practical examples and valuable insights and techniques, Female Firebrands is an honest, modern, and solutions-oriented guide for dealing with situations working women know all too well: sexual harassment, not being taken seriously, and being talked over, passed over, underpaid, and underappreciated.
Disrupters: Sucess Strategies From Women Who Break the Mold (2018) by Patti Fletcher
The business world is stacked against women who have been trained to follow the deeply ingrained, unspoken rules of business culture created long before they entered the workforce. Dr. Patti Fletcher helps readers recognize and smash old rules and introduces you to the women who have found success by breaking them.
Have a question for Free Library staff? Please submit it to our Ask a Librarian page and receive a response within two business days.