4 Must-Read Books For Inventors At Any Level...#4 Is Your Game-Changer!

The Best Books For Inventors & Entrepreneurs

As an inventor, be it seasoned or just getting started, staying informed and gaining new knowledge is one of the keys to success.

Below is a list of books, written mostly by entrepreneurs or inventors themselves, that will inspire you and help you ameliorate your skills and appetite to produce new inventions. 

Being or becoming an inventor is solely based on coming up with a great idea, getting a patent, prototyping, licensing and getting to market. ​

However, there is also a business aspect to being an inventor.

You must understand valuation, ethics, and uncountable driving forces in the market that can impact the overall success of an invention.

You must master negotiation.

You have to become an amazing salesperson.

You have to be willing and able to outwork competitors, to go above and beyond for every dollar.

You must understand and master when to say “no”, “yes”, or “I don’t know."

You have to blend assertiveness with passive behaviors and be able to use each on the fly, without thinking.

In short, inventors need to become intuitive business strategists.

​The list of books below are a great start for inventors to pick up the skills they need to master the art of seeing financial upside from your inventions (we all want to make cash from our inventions, right?).
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4 Books Inventors (Who Want To Make Money) Should Check Out 
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#1: Elon Musk: Inventing The Future

How Elon Musk's Book, "Inventing The Future" Helps Inventors

"Inventing The Future" is a direct line of sight into the mind of a modern super genius - one who specializes in the art of taking ideas and making them reality while turning significant financial gains.

Elon is depicted as insanely focused on solving problems and challenges.

In his case they are generally global - think energy problems, etc.  However, Elon's mindset is what inventors need to take into account when they are serious about productizing an invention.

The book also sheds light to the  side of inventing not everyone thinks about - the investment and sacrifices it takes to climb the ladder to success.

If you're not incredibly familiar with Elon Musk, he's all over YouTube. Here's a little insight in this video...
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Summary of "Elon Musk: Inventing The Future"

​South African born Elon Musk is the renowned entrepreneur and innovator behind PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity. Musk wants to save our planet; he wants to send citizens into space, to form a colony on Mars; he wants to make money while doing these things; and he wants us all to know about it. He is the real-life inspiration for the Iron Man series of films starring Robert Downey Junior. The personal tale of Musk's life comes with all the trappings one associates with a great, drama-filled story. He was a freakishly bright kid who was bullied brutally at school, and abused by his father. In the midst of these rough conditions, and the violence of apartheid South Africa, Musk still thrived academically and attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he paid his own way through school by turning his house into a club and throwing massive parties. He started a pair of huge dot-com successes, including PayPal, which eBay acquired for $1.5 billion in 2002. Musk was forced out as CEO and so began his lost years in which he decided to go it alone and baffled friends by investing his fortune in rockets and electric cars. Meanwhile Musk's marriage disintegrated as his technological obsessions took over his life...Elon Musk is the Steve Jobs of the present and the future, and for the past twelve months, he has been shadowed by tech reporter, Ashlee Vance. Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of Spacex and Tesla is Shaping our Future is an important, exciting and intelligent account of the real-life Iron Man.
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#2: "The Wright Brothers" by David McCullough

Why The Wright Brothers book is so essential for inventors

You probably know them as the brothers who took then modern man to the skies; you might know them as 'the inventors of the airplane'... whatever you think you know, there is most likely much more to the story.

Sure, Wilbur and Orville taught the world how to fly - but this isn't the fluffy children's story so many of us are familiar with.

It actually took a hockey stick leaving incapacitating injuries to the face for young 18 year old Wilbur Wright for him to drop his childhood, pick up some books, and drive himself toward something he and his brother hadn't previously conceived.

As the facts build and progress, you'll see parallels from your own life and relate them to how the Wrights catapulted each large event to something else that, unknowingly, lurked in the shadows of the inevitable flying machine.

From fights to bikes to brains to trains and ultimately airplanes, this book promises to impart a side of inventing that most inventors never see.

If you feel like you've got an invention idea and can't quite grasp what you're missing, take some time out to read this book and see if you don't come up with that aha moment!

The video below is an interview with David McCullough about his book, "The Wright Brothers"
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Summary of "The Wright Brothers"

Two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize David McCullough tells the dramatic story-behind-the-story about the courageous brothers who taught the world how to fly: Wilbur and Orville Wright.

On a winter day in 1903, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, two unknown brothers from Ohio changed history. But it would take the world some time to believe what had happened: the age of flight had begun, with the first heavier-than-air, powered machine carrying a pilot.

Who were these men and how was it that they achieved what they did?

Far more than a couple of unschooled Dayton bicycle mechanics who happened to hit on success, they were men of exceptional courage and determination, and of far-ranging intellectual interests and ceaseless curiosity, much of which they attributed to their upbringing. The house they lived in had no electricity or indoor plumbing, but there were books aplenty, supplied mainly by their preacher father, and they never stopped reading.

When they worked together, no problem seemed to be insurmountable. Wilbur was unquestionably a genius. Orville had such mechanical ingenuity as few had ever seen. That they had no more than a public high school education, little money and no contacts in high places, never stopped them in their "mission" to take to the air. Nothing did, not even the self-evident reality that every time they took off in one of their contrivances, they risked being killed.

In this thrilling book, master historian David McCullough draws on the immense riches of the Wright Papers, including private diaries, notebooks, scrapbooks, and more than a thousand letters from private family correspondence to tell the human side of the Wright Brothers' story, including the little-known contributions of their sister, Katharine, without whom things might well have gone differently for them.
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#3: "Lightning In A Bottle: The Proven System to Create New Ideas and Products That Work" by David Minter and Michael Reid

Why Lightning In A Bottle is critical for inventors

The book itself is actually a methodical and systematic approach - a 7 step guide - to new product ideation and improving the success rate of new products.

In other words, the book teaches you how to go from good to great, from maybe to almost definitely, when it comes to your invention idea.

Engineering ideas is actually the combination of science and art.

Stir that in with patience and understanding of the idea-to-invention process, and you just might find that this book not only changes, but expedites how you go about taking your invention idea to new heights.

The book itself isn't long - under 200 pages in hardcover.

It's richly lined with actual case studies so you're not ambiguously reading a hypothetical situation or idea, but a tangible experiment and case with actual results.

My recommendation when reading "Lightning In A Bottle" is to take your time and compare and contrast each section with where you are in the invention process. This should shed some light on how you can tweak your thoughts or process to improve your success rate as an inventor. 

#4: Prototype to Product: A Practical Guide for Getting to Market

Why "Prototype to Product: A Practical Guide for Getting to Market" is a must-read for inventors

Taking an idea through the patent process and being able to call it an invention is an intoxicating, vigorous and rewarding process. 

Once you've achieved the patent, though, it's almost as if the road is just beginning again - you need to take the prototype you worked so hard to bring to life, and turn it into an actual product.

This book reveals secrets, hints, tips and tricks you can leverage right now to help bring your idea to a product on the market and achieve "successful inventor" status.
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Summary of "Prototype to Product: A Practical Guide for Getting to Market"

​Product development is the magic that turns circuitry, software, and materials into a product, but moving efficiently from concept to manufactured product is a complex process with many potential pitfalls. This practical guide pulls back the curtain to reveal what happens—or should happen—when you take a product from prototype to production.

For makers looking to go pro or product development team members keen to understand the process, author Alan Cohen tracks the development of an intelligent electronic device to explain the strategies and tactics necessary to transform an abstract idea into a successful product that people want to use.

• Learn 11 deadly sins that kill product development projects
• Get an overview of how electronic products are manufactured
• Determine whether your idea has a good chance of being profitable
• Narrow down the product’s functionality and associated costs
• Generate requirements that describe the final product’s details
• Select your processor, operating system, and power sources
• Learn how to comply with safety regulations and standards
• Dive into development—from rapid prototyping to manufacturing

​Alan Cohen, a veteran systems and software engineering manager and lifelong technophile, specializes in leading the development of medical devices and other high-reliability products. His passion is to work with engineers and other stakeholders to forge innovative technologies into successful products.

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