I’ve compiled a list of the best books to help new or experienced Amazon and ecommerce business owners improve their businesses and themselves. These books are not just about selling on Amazon, but cover broader topics, such as how to think or make better decisions.
I’ve broken the list into 4 sections:
- Best Amazon FBA books
- Best books about Amazon
- Best business books
- Best books to improve your thinking and decision making
For the most part, these books aren’t step-by-step how-to manuals for selling on Amazon, because you can find that information online for free. Also, selling on Amazon changes so frequently that a book describing how to use Seller Central, for example, would be irrelevant within a few months.
Instead, these books are foundational, and provide good background information or expand your knowledge into areas that could help you in more than just selling things online.
I did include 1 how-to manual for selling with Amazon FBA, but its primary value, and reason for inclusion on this list, is to prevent you from buying an expensive training course. You should save your money for growing your FBA business rather than paying for overpriced gurus.
You’ll also notice this is a long list, especially the last section about thinking & decision making. That makes sense, however, because to grow yourself as a reader, business owner, and person, you should read in topics outside of your expertise. To put it another way, the book you’ll get the most value from will be the book you wouldn’t normally consider reading. Keep that in mind when reviewing this list.
Best Amazon FBA Books
Arbitrage: The authoritative guide on how it works, why it works, and how it can work for you
Book Description: Arbitrage is the practice of identifying price differences between two or more markets and profiting from that difference. This book describes the arbitrage business model and how to apply it to selling on Amazon. Buy on Amazon
Notes from FBA Journey: This is the first book I ever read about how to sell things online. It’s a beginner’s overview of not just arbitrage, but how Amazon FBA works, what sales rank and the buy box are, pricing, sourcing, etc. If you’re completely new to online selling, this is a good place to start.
Launch (Updated & Expanded Edition): How to Sell Almost Anything Online, Build a Business You Love, and Live the Life of Your Dreams
Book Description: This book’s goal is to help you build your business quickly. Whether you already sell online, or you want to start, this is your guide to building momentum and starting fast. Buy on Amazon
Notes from FBA Journey: A book all about launching a new online business, or launching a new product, service, feature, etc. for an existing business. It’s not Amazon-specific, but thinking about launching new products is definitely helpful for someone selling on Amazon, especially if you’re going to sell private label products.
How to Sell on Amazon in 2022: 7 FBA Secrets That Turn Beginners into Best Sellers
Book Description: This book describes the product research process, teaching you how to choose products to sell on Amazon. Then, you’ll learn how to source products by importing them from overseas. You’ll learn how to create a product listing to maximize sales. Buy on Amazon
Notes from FBA Journey: This is the how-to manual for selling with Amazon FBA I mentioned in my introduction. It provides a good overview of how to sell on Amazon using FBA, and since I spend lots of time evaluating how quickly products sell on Amazon, I can say this is the best-selling Amazon manual today.
Best Books About Amazon
The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon
Amazon started off as an online book store, but its founder, Jeff Bezos, wanted to be more than a bookseller. He wanted Amazon to become the “everything store”, offering the widest selection of products, as conveniently as possible, at the lowest prices possible. Buy on Amazon
Notes from FBA Journey: The original “tell all” about Amazon and the history of its rise to becoming the “everything store”. Both this book, and its sequel, “Unbound” (also by the same author) are on this list because these books go deep into the backstory of how Amazon went from an online bookseller to the global behemoth it is today.
Invent and Wander: The Collected Writings of Jeff Bezos, With an Introduction by Walter Isaacson
In this compilation of Jeff Bezos’s writings, including his annual shareholder letters, speeches, and interviews, this book paints a picture of how he and Amazon achieved success. Buy on Amazon
Notes from FBA Journey: The only book on this list written by Jeff Bezos. It includes all of his shareholder letters from 1997 to 2020, and highlights the consistency of Amazon’s focus on customer obsession, innovation, and hiring the right people.
Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire
In Amazon Unbound, Brad Stone relays the story of how an online book store became one of the most powerful businesses in the world. Stone also examines the evolution of Bezos himself, who started as a regular businessman committed to building Amazon, but who transformed into a billionaire with global ambitions; who ruled Amazon ruthlessly, even as he found his personal life became fodder for the tabloids. Buy on Amazon
Notes from FBA Journey: The follow-up book to “The Everything Store”, Brad Stone continues his chronicle of Amazon’s story of the roughly 10 years since the previous book was published. If you’re interested in how Alexa, the Fire phone, AWS, or Amazon Go stores came to be, you can find all that here.
Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon
In Working Backwards, two veteran Amazon executives reveal the ideals and processes that have propelled the success of one of the most effective, far-reaching companies in the world. With almost 3 decades of combined experience―much of it during the time the Kindle, Amazon Prime, Amazon Studios, and Amazon Web Services were created―Bryar and Carr offer insight into how and why Amazon does what it does. Buy on Amazon
Notes from FBA Journey: A book focusing on the culture and leadership systems that helped make Amazon successful, with examples like the now famous “2 pizza team”. This book is interesting because the principles shared here that made Amazon successful could be applied to any business aiming for similar success.
Best Business Books
Principles: Life and Work
Ray Dalio, one of the most successful investors and entrepreneurs today, shares the unique principles he’s developed over the past forty years to attain success in life and business. These principles can be applied by any person or organization to realize their goals. Dalio believes it’s because of these principles, and not anything special about himself or his organization, that are the reason for his success. Buy on Amazon
Notes from FBA Journey: If you’ve never heard of Ray Dalio or his business and life principles, you should definitely get this book. A lot of this information had been published previously (search for “Principles Ray Dalio pdf” to see what I mean), but digesting these ideas from a well-organized format like a book is better. You can also find a nice video series of Ray Dalio’s principles here.
Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike
After graduating from business school, Phil Knight started selling high-quality, low-cost running shoes from his car. His first year he grossed eight thousand dollars. Today, Nike’s annual sales exceed $30 billion, and its iconic swoosh logo is recognized all over the world. Buy on Amazon
Notes from FBA Journey: I’ve seen this book recommended in so many places, by so many people, and coupled with the 20,000+ reviews averaging 4.8 stars on Amazon, it’s been a meaningful read for a lot of people.
Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel
Self-made billionaire Sam Zell has always found deals where others don’t. From buying inexpensive real estate after a market crash, to investing in boring industries where others don’t see value, Zell ignores the crowd and acts boldly on supply and demand trends to make success happen. Buy on Amazon
Notes from FBA Journey: Sam Zell is the ultimate entrepreneur, finding business deals where others see nothing, and he has the drive to make deals happen no matter what it takes. If you want to read an interesting story of how someone who started from the bottom became a huge success through raw grit and determination, this is your book. This is on my short list of books I want to reread.
Blue Ocean Strategy, Expanded Edition: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant
Blue Ocean Strategy argues that in business, competition results in a red ocean of rivals fighting over a shrinking market. However, lasting success comes from creating “blue oceans”—using differentiation and low-cost to create new markets unhindered by competition. Buy on Amazon
Notes from FBA Journey: This is a business strategy book, describing existing markets as a “red ocean”, where companies try to outperform their competitors to grab a greater share of existing demand. The book recommends companies should instead pursue a “blue ocean” strategy by creating a new market or new space withing the existing market, where competition is irrelevant because the rules of the new market haven’t been set. It’s an interesting idea, and one you can implement immediately in the form of selling a never-before-seen product on Amazon.
Best Books to Improve Thinking and Decision Making
Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work
When it comes to making decisions, our brains don’t always work as you would think. Research in psychology reveals our decisions are colored by various biases and irrationalities: We’re overconfident. We look for information that supports what we already think is true, and minimize information that doesn’t. We get sidetracked by short-term emotions. Unfortunately, just being aware of these failings won’t fix the problem. We need to ask, “How do we do better?” Buy on Amazon
Notes from FBA Journey: This book focuses on 4 areas that hinder our decision-making. To improve the quality and confidence of our decision making, we should: 1. avoid narrowly framing a decision by widening your options, 2. Reality test your assumptions to avoid confirming preconceived ideas (called confirmation bias), 3. use an outside perspective of the situation to override our short-term emotions, and 4. Imagine how our decision could be wrong to avoid our overconfidence in our predictions of the future.
The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles
What prevents someone from pursuing what they truly want to do? How can we avoid the roadblocks of any major new undertaking, such as starting a new business or learning a new skill? This book helps you recognize the enemy we all encounter when starting such a journey, outlines a plan to manage your internal critic, and identifies how to achieve success. Buy on Amazon
Notes from FBA Journey: I don’t typically read motivational books, but I tried this one, and it was better than I expected it to be. The author identifies what holds people back from initiating major projects like writing a book or starting a business, calling it “resistance”. It’s an idea I’ve thought about before, given how much effort I had to put into starting my own business back in 2015. I think the author correctly identifies and describes what prevents people from making major positive changes in their lives. This is the quickest read on my list, and applies to many people in many areas of life, so it’s easy to recommend.
The Formula: The Universal Laws of Success
We’ve all seen when accomplishment doesn’t lead to success. We worked hard but weren’t promoted, or we had the great idea but didn’t get the credit. We think talent and a strong work ethic will get us ahead, but also know that combination doesn’t always work, without knowing why. Recognizing this disconnect, the author, along with a team of researchers, uncover why great performance doesn’t always translate to success. Buy on Amazon
Notes from FBA Journey: This book discusses 5 “laws of success”, giving examples of how each apply to the real world. I particularly liked the chapter “Performance is Bounded, But Success is Unbounded”, which highlighted the difference between performance and success. I think some people mistakenly think these concepts are equivalent, and the author shows how different they really are.
How to Win Friends & Influence People
Dale Carnegie’s time-tested advice has helped millions of people improve their interactions with others, both in business and their own lives. This book shows you how to get people to like you, how to get people to agree with way of thinking, how to change people without making them resentful, and more. Buy on Amazon
Notes from FBA Journey: First published in 1936, this bookis all about common-sense ways to get people to like you and see your way of thinking. It’s one of the most “classic” business books there is; it’s even on Time’s list of the top 100 best non-fiction books of all-time. This is likely the most-read book on my list in terms of number of people who have read it, and for good reason.
Thinking, Fast and Slow
In this book, psychologist Daniel Kahneman describes the two systems that determine how we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional. System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. The impact of overconfidence, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, and the effect of cognitive biases are all examined through the lens of the two systems that shape our judgments and decisions. Buy on Amazon
Notes from FBA Journey: Written by a psychologist who won a Nobel prize in Economics, this book discusses 2 thinking systems in the brain: System 1, which is fast, emotional, and relies on biases and heuristics, and System 2, which is logical and deliberate and requires much more effort to use. The book highlights many biases and heuristics (mental shortcuts) System 1 uses that negatively affect our memories, judgement, and decisions, and how to engage System 2 to improve our thinking and decision making.
30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans
During his work with the elderly, gerontologist Karl Pillemer began to wonder what older people know about life that the rest of us don’t. He interviewed over one thousand Americans over the age of sixty-five to seek their advice on major life topics, such as relationships, children, money, and health. Through these interviews, he discovered thirty lessons for living. In this book, he distills their experiences into a set of advice these older Americans wish they had received when they were young. Buy on Amazon
Notes from FBA Journey: A book on how to better live your life based on interviews of people who have already lived full lives. I found some of the lessons enlightening, like why you should take care of your health in your youth: not to live a long time, but to avoid pain and diminished abilities when you’re older. The strongest lesson I took away from this book was about regrets: when looking back on their lives, older people don’t regret what they tried and failed at, they regretted the things they never tried at all.
Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
A book that will change the way you think about luck and skill, it deals with how we perceive and deal with chance in life and business. Fooled by Randomness provides insight into one of the least understood factors in all our lives: randomness. Buy on Amazon
Notes from FBA Journey: I read this book because I find the examination of chance, luck, and randomness in our lives fascinating. This book also covers human biases, such as hindsight bias and survivorship bias, and also how poor people are at determining and applying probabilities in various aspects of life. Supplement this with “The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives”.
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
Part memoir, part writing guidebook by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this volume is a practical view of how one man writes. Stephen King’s takes us through some of his youngest experiences through his emergence as a writer, from his difficult early career, to his all but-fatal accident in 1999. On Writing is witty and insightful, and plainly describes the writing process from a very successful writer’s perspective. Buy on Amazon
Notes from FBA Journey: I like books about the processes used by super-productive people, and I was curious how Stephen King could write as many successful books as he has. It wasn’t surprising to find out he’s made writing a daily habit and writes every single day, no matter what. Being part memoir, the book also has interesting autobiographical bits as well, so it’s an interesting read.
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
Why did Eurasians conquer and destroy Native American, Australian, and African societies, instead of the other way around? In this book, evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond reveals how pre-existing ecological conditions are responsible for history’s broadest patterns. Buy on Amazon
Notes from FBA Journey: The primary lesson of this book is how the fates of societies today can be traced back to randomly distributed advantages that compounded over time. This is an important idea I don’t hear talked about very often, but this principle is applicable to many areas of business and life. In the introduction to this post, where I talked about getting value out of books you may not normally read, this is exactly the kind of book I was talking about.
Further Reading
Want to find more books worth reading? Here are a few other lists to browse.
Want to read the story of how my Amazon business has evolved since I started selling in 2015? See this post here.