Must-Buy Billiards Supplies for Starters

Not particularly related to pool or snooker but I read a number of business and marketing related books.They interest me, especially web marketing and the new ’social media’ phenomenon.The one I have just read is a great book by Seth Godin, I stumbled across Seth’s blog about three months ago and avidly read his daily blog posts that now come through directly to my inbox. You can find his blog here: Seth Godin.The writing style of the book I read is very much the style of his blog but with some case studies and slightly longer sections. The book in question is Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being RemarkableThe idea of the Purple Cow is a simple one, get your business noticed by providing a product or service that is remarkable. In this day and age it is important to stand out from the crowd. There are a lot of practical examples in the book and it is a must read for any business owner, whether your company operates on the web or the high street and whether it is large or small.Whilst I am on the subject, try this one as well: The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers DirectlyThe next one on my list is also by Seth Godin, Tribes.Click on the links and you can find the books directly at Amazon.Have you read a great book recently? Please let me know, I would say it is my number one pastime outside of my work.

This week is the start of our busiest period of the year so far.On Thursday we have the first two quarter finals and the first semi final of the TCC Snooker Pro-am. This week the feature match live on Cuesport TV will be Ryan Day v Matthew Stevens. This will be followed up by the semi final where the winner of the aforementioned match will play either Darren Morgan or defending champion Lee Walker.At the weekend (1st-2nd August) we have the eagerly awaited first tour stop of the 8-ball Super Tour (This was the Oracle Super Tour last year).The cream of the 8-ball crop come out to play in this £44,000 guaranteed World Rules series. Newly crowned WEPF World 8-ball Pool Champion, Phil Harrison, will be in action plus former champions Gareth Potts, Mick Hill and Carl Morris. In addition to the players of championship pedigree a myriad of tournament winners, like Simon Ward, Tom Cousins, Craig Marsh, Ben Davies, Ben Flack, Steve Munro and Lee Clough will also be in attendance.Both of these events and more are available as part of a Cuesport TV subscription which can be bought from £2.90.For further events throughout August visit the Live Event Schedule.

At the weekend (1st/2nd August) I travelled out to Keynsham Snooker Centre for the first event in this years 8-Ball Super Tour.This World Rules 8-Ball tour carries a huge £48,000 in prize money across the four events and as a result has pulled in all the best players in the land.It was also going to be a test for us at Cuesport TV.We had not had a full two-day weekend live event since we launched the subscriptions and were not sure what the response would be like, it turned out to be an excellent response. We have never ever believed that all of our 22,000 monthly viewers would pay, however, in order to drive the business forward in a tough climate it was better to take less viewers that appreciated the product enough to pay.This happened and so a big thanks to all of the viewers that did support us this weekend.On a side note Carl Morris beat Ronan McCarthy 8-6 to lift the title and £2700.00 first prize.