Soundview Executive Book Summaries: Are They Worth It?

Speed Readers Vs. Mere Mortals

Have you ever really thought how long it takes you to read a best-selling business book from cover to cover? If you are a speed reader, probably you can finish a book within a few hours and still digest the contents of the book like a dry sponge sucks up water. For mere mortals like me, reading a book can take hours if I were to read it in ideal conditions. Ideal being no interruptions at all but, how often does this happen? Rarely.

 EXTRA BONUS!!!

Subscribe to Soundview Executive Book Summaries Now and receive 5 of the most popular summaries FREE! ($45 value!)

To tell you frankly, I used to struggle just to finish reading a book. Most of the time, it would take me weeks or even months to finish a book because more often than not, I found this going down the list of my priorities. Given my tight work schedule, family life, and other social responsibilities, there was no chance that I could ever get to finish a book within my optimistic target time.

Is Soundview Any Different From Other Services?

I have always been on the lookout for business tools that will help take my learning to the next level. The problem was that the information from books were always there but it always took me forever to pull the information that I really needed.

Executive book summaries present business books in a compact and simplified way so that you will be able to get the most out of your time and still gain knowledge from today's hottest business authors and leaders. If you want to be up to date with the latest best-selling business books, executive book summaries are the way to go.

There are various executive book summaries services in the market today. I have tried a couple of them and they just did not hit my sweet spot. Someone had mentioned about Soundview so I decided to dig further into this. I once came across a review of Soundview somewhere and the reviewer was not positive citing that Soundview's summaries were made "too short and too simple to understand." What? Who in the world would not want something short and simple. I would ... so I decided to look into Soundview further.

I downloaded Soundview's sample and ended up subscribing because based on what I have seen, Soundview provides the best quality among these services. The summaries are crisp, well-written, and presented better. I found Soundview's information architecture more interesting and easier to understand as opposed to other services that I have seen in the market.

Let me cut through the chase and present you a sample of one of the executive book summaries that Soundview provides. In the event that you would like to get hold of a sample downloadable summary, just click on this link: Get Free Executive Book Summaries Sample

Soundview executive book summaries sample (page 1)

For this sample above, the book "Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done" by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan is being featured. This 288-page book was condensed into an 8 page summary. Let's try to put this into perspective.

This summary is only 1/36th as long as the original book. Given that it will take you a minimum of around 15 minutes to read and absorb this summary, you will save yourself about 8.75 hours of reading time.

Here's how I calculated that:

15 minutes to read 8 pages x 36 = 540 minutes or 9.0 hrs. to read entire book.

540 minutes - 15 minutes = 525 minutes or 8.75 hrs. saved or 1 working day

Now If it takes you 30 minutes (that's about my average because I am a mere mortal) to read and absorb 8 pages, you will be saving yourself 17.5 hours or a little over two working days! Think about it. Is the time saved worth it? Could you use the time saved to do something else worth your while? You betcha.

Page 2 of the Execution summary is shown below:

Soundview executive book summaries sample (page 2)

As you can see in the above sample, Soundview summarizes the main points emphasized in the book through bullets. This makes it easier for you to remember the key points, a fact confirmed by a Carnegie-Mellon study which found that readers retain more of the content of a well-written summary compared to when they read a book.

If there are case studies presented in the book, these are also featured as examples such as the "Compaq vs. Dell" case provided in the book to explain the concept of how strategic execution made a difference in making a company a stellar performer in the market.

Just to give you an idea on how the rest of the 8-page summary looks like, page 3 is shown below. The rest of the document is presented very similarly in this format.

Soundview executive book summaries sample (page 3). Pages 4 through 8 would look similar to this.

100% Refund Guarantee

I decided to give Soundview a try especially since Soundview offered a 100% money back guarantee within 30 days of your subscription purchase. In fact, I called them to confirm this (yes, there is a live person you can speak to who can answer all your questions about the service). They said that if I decide to cancel my subscription for any reason during the guarantee period, I will receive a 100% refund of every cent I paid and keep everything that I have received. I read through the fine print to make sure there was no catch. I did not find any. I thought it was a fair and risk-free deal.

What Should You Expect With Your Subscription?

When you subscribe to Soundview, you have three options for the types of media you would like to get summaries. I opted for the online subscription so that I can download pdf versions of summaries (which I showed you above) since I like reading, reviewing, and filing these summaries in binders for easy, future reference. Each month, I receive about 2 or 3 eight-page summaries of the hottest business books. This totals around 30 summaries a year, which I think is a great value.

The online subscription is great if you find yourself on the road a lot. Soundview will e-mail you once a month when the current issue is published. They will provide you with a download link to the site. Your latest summaries will be accessible in your own Online Library.

The summaries are available in various online text formats: pdf (that you can read using Adobe reader or any other pdf reader), html, Kindle (for Kindle Readers), Microsoft eBook (LIT), Blackberry, and Palm Doc (PDB). You also will be getting an MP3 file of the summary.

You have various options to read these. You can read these on your desktop PC or laptop, print the summaries, save them to your PC, download them to your PDA or Kindle, or listen to them in MP3 format. Soundview will maintain your library, so you have access to all of your summaries anytime, from anywhere with access to the Internet.

If you prefer the audio versions, you can opt for either the CDs or MP3s, which you can download directly to your MP3 player.

More recently (in December 2010), Soundview added new engaging and interactive capabilities which you can view on any device including your tablet or smartphone. I like the mobile friendly access since this gives me more flexibility to read or listen to my summaries and other Soundview articles on my smartphone. I am sure that people who are always "on-the-go" will love this too.

The new mobile format is great for people who are always "on-the-go".

Subscribers to Soundview can also enjoy additional benefits such as purchase back issues, books and collections at substantial savings; access additional information on current or past summaries; and get a sneak preview of upcoming selections.

Another benefit that you might also find very interesting with Soundview is that you have a chance to listen-in and interact with a featured author every month via webinar. During the webinar, you can ask the author questions that you might have on his book. These monthly webinars are free to all Soundview subscribers.

Limited Time Bonus With Your Subscription

Soundview currently has an ongoing limited time offer wherein you will get for free 5 of the most popular book summaries that they have. So all in all, you will be getting about 36 summaries for your subscription. 

Cost For Subscription

The cost of my Soundview online subscription was just $119. This comes down to only $9.91 a month — the price of a meal at the nearest fast food joint. For the time savings and competitive edge this service gives me, I sure get a lot of value for my money.

If I were to buy all the books that Soundview summarizes in a year, these may cost me around $800. Soundview also reviews another 60 books in its review publication, which may cost me another $1,500, if I bought all these in book form. All in all, it could cost me about $2,300 if I bought all these books that Soundview summarizes. Even if I can afford to buy all these books, the next obvious question is whether I really have the time to read all these ... and chances are that I don't.

My Issue With Soundview Summaries

I am not really sure that this can be called an issue but I guess I had some sort of a "system shock" when I first started using Soundview. An initial issue that I had with Soundview was dealing with the simplicity of these summaries. When you get so used to reading hundreds of pages just to finish a book and all of a sudden you are presented with less than a dozen pages to read, it took me a while to adjust to this change. It initially got me feeling that I had sort of "cheated" to finish a book but it felt really great though knowing that I absorbed more information (that I can apply right away) at just a fraction of what it usually took me to read a whole book. It took some time to get used to this but I simply can't complain about this pleasant change.

Get The Edge And Stay Ahead Of The Competition

So is Soundview worth it? There is no doubt that Soundview offers great value for your money and for the time savings that it offers you. The amount of

knowledge that you will be gaining from reading these quick summaries from best-selling business authors and great business leaders is something that is undeniably valuable. Especially at a time when businesses and professional careers are facing a lot of headwinds in a challenging economic environment, Soundview executive book summaries is a great service to have in your arsenal of tools to advance your career or business and to stay ahead of the competition.

— Steve S., business professional

Disclosure: Compensated Affiliate

PS. If you are still not sure whether Soundview is right for you, test drive a FREE Soundview Executive Book Summaries sample and find out for yourself.

PS2. Other Soundview summary readers also found this audiobook service worth their investment. This service offers a selection of 4,500 best selling business books that you can download directly to your iPod, iPhone, Blackberry, and other MP3 player. I highly suggest that you check it out yourself: Special Offer on Business Audiobooks

 EXTRA BONUS!!!

Subscribe to Soundview Executive Book Summaries Now and receive 5 of the most popular summaries FREE! ($45 value!)