This document provides a summary of 8 books related to presentations. It summarizes each book in 1-3 sentences, highlighting their key topics and lessons for improving presentations. The books cover topics like grabbing audience attention, telling compelling stories, using visuals effectively, and learning from great presenters like Steve Jobs. The document concludes by advertising additional presentation resources from the company that authored the summary.

1. Presentation books
you shouldn’t miss

2. Here’s a list of great
reads, any of which can
have a garanteed
impact on your next
presentation effort.
These are the
presentation books you
shouldn’t miss!

3. BETTER BEGINNINGS: HOW TO CAPTURE
YOUR AUDIENCE IN 30 SECONDS, BY
CARMEN TARAN
The first few seconds of a presentation are absolutely key to grabbing an
audience’s attention. So the introduction must have visual appeal, and the
speaker must be good and competent.
In the words of the author, “A good speaker with bad beginnings is like a
fitness trainer who smokes.”
So whether you have to talk to one person or 1,000 people, in person or
virtually, Carmen Taran’s Better Beginnings is the book to help you master
the art of presenting successfully from the first moment.
3

4. PRESENTING TO WIN: THE ART OF
TELLING YOUR STORY, BY JERRY
WEISSMAN
Every day, all over the world, thousands upon thousands of presentations
take place. Unfortunately, though, in many of these the presenters fail to
persuade, move, or connect with their audiences.
With this in mind, Jerry Weissman – a corporate presentations consultant –
has written a book that can help to prevent such troubling situations.
Among many other tips and techniques that may prove useful to you, the
best added value of Weissman’s Presenting to Win is that it teaches us to
focus on our audiences. He knows that to establish long-lasting
relationships we have to ask ourselves: how can I give my audiences what
they want using the resources at my disposal: my product, idea or service?
4

5. RESONATE AND SLIDE:OLOGY, BY NANCY
DUARTE
Nancy Duarte, the author of resonate and slide:ology received for the
presentation she created for Al Gore – An Inconvenient Truth – something
that few can boast about: she got an Oscar. That’s how great an argument
she presented! So we should all read her books and try to absorb what she
has to say.
While slide:ology seeks to teach us to think visually, focusing more on
building the slide itself; resonate deals more with the presenter and story
itself, to enable a presenter to acquire the ability to tell visual stories that
have the potential to transform audiences.
The goal here? To learn how to transform abstract information into
appealing and exciting stories. Easy? Maybe not. But as the author tells us:
“If great presentations were easy to build and deliver, they wouldn’t be
such an extraordinary form of communication.”
5

6. THE PRESENTATION SECRETS OF STEVE
JOBS: HOW TO BE INSANELY GREAT IN
FRONT OF ANY AUDIENCE, BY CARMINE
GALLO
It’s inevitable. When it comes to books about presentations, anything on
the Steve Jobs approach is one that must be looked at.
Carmine Gallo – a communications expert – has spent years studying and
analyzing the best of Jobs’ performances and has compiled here examples,
tested techniques, and most of Jobs’s presentation secrets.
Gallo’s point is that, contrary to what most people may believe, getting the
same kind of results and equaling even the performance of somebody like
Jobs, isn’t something that’s only possible for people born with that kind of
talent and whose personalities lends itself to this. In fact, Gallo says it’s
nothing of the sort. What is needed, he says, is just plain training. Steve
Jobs practiced for hours and hours before launching into a presentation. In
fact, for days on end. So absorb the content of this book, and don’t give
up. And, as Jobs said: “Stay hungry, stay foolish.”
6

7. PRESENTATIONZEN SIMPLE IDEAS ON
PRESENTATION DESIGN AND DELIVERY, BY
GARR REYNOLDS
Science tells us that when we transmit information orally, 72 hours later
people will remember only about 10% of what we said. But if we talk and
use a related visual cue, an image, the percentage increases to 65%.
Apparently, the brain interprets each letter we’re reading as if it were an
image. If this is the case, imagine what happens to the brain when it’s
faced with slides filled with text, text and more text: it literally suffocates!
Enter Garr Reynolds with presentationzen. Reynolds’ mission is to help cut
the umbilical cord that holds the presenter hostage to the slides. So this
book provides simple rules for creating slides that support the presenter,
teaching us how to take advantage of the slides as a visual way to support
the spoken content. The aim here is to connect the speaker with his
audience and to stop the oral repetition of what is already on a slide, and
vice-versa. After all, the audience can read. What it can’t do is listen and
read at the same time!
7

8. STORY: SUBSTANCE, STRUCTURE, STYLE
AND THE PRINCIPLES OF SCREENWRITING,
BY ROBERT MCKEE
If you aren’t familiar with Robert McKee, you should know that directly or
indirectly he may well be responsible for several of your favorite series or
movies. McKee is a celebrated teacher of creative writing whose success
can be measured by the long list of film and television projects his students
have written, directed or produced. All told, to date these writers have
been awarded 49 Oscars and over 170 Emmys.
Although story is a book known as the “Bible” of screenwriters and doesn’t
have specifically to do with presentations, this doesn’t mean it won’t be
useful in the construction of your presentations. Because you don’t have to
be a screenwriter to benefit from this book. In fact, it’s recommended for
anybody interested in writing and in storytelling. Because this is a book for
storytellers.
8

9. STORY: SUBSTANCE, STRUCTURE, STYLE
AND THE PRINCIPLES OF SCREENWRITING,
BY ROBERT MCKEE
This is a book written and produced by the founders of SOAP, illustrated
with the same methodology for visual language that SOAP uses with its
customers. And it focuses on the same objectives as those of a
presentation: to create interest, to generate understanding, to entertain,
and to engage an audience.
Here you’ll find tips on structuring content – with guidelines for creating
scripts that are coherent and well-structured; tips for creating different
layouts or assemblies of fast and memorable presentations; advices on how
to encourage an audience to pay attention; and suggestions on how to
train presenters – among other invaluable information. Basically, you can
learn here how a great presentation can benefit your ideas, proposals and
products.
We expect to introduce an English version of this book in the next few months. 9

10. DO YOU NEED A STATE
OF THE ART
PRESENTATION?
Send us an e-mail with
your project to:
contact@soappresentations.com
10