Free booklet 'How to Make Effective Presentations' with today's Independent

This year has seen some excellent newspaper give-aways which have been very useful for anyone interested in public speaking. In April/May, the Guardian gave away 14 booklets and a CD of Great Speeches of the Twentieth Century. These were very nicely produced and contained overviews from historians as well as the content of speeches from JFK, Churchill, Mandela, MacMillan, FDR, Khrushchev, Emmeline Pankhurst, Martin Luther King, de Gaulle, Thatcher, Nehru, Aneurin Bevan, Virginia Woolf and Earl Spencer. With a line-up like that, I can even forgive them for never sending the free storage box that I saved up all those tokens for!

Throughout July, the Daily Mail gave away DVDs of the superb documentary series The World at War. Not only did this give me the opportunity to see a brilliant work that I never appreciated as a child in the 1970s but it also contains footage of historic speeches and relaxed, fluent interview clips from 30 years later.

The Independent is currently giving away free pamphlets each day containing extracts from business titles (the same sort of idea as the condensed books that come with the Anthony Robbins Power Talk recordings).They're part of a series called Success at Work and today's is How to Make Effective Presentations. Discounting adverts and title pages, this comprises 15 pages of extracts from Brilliant Presentations by Richard Hall and Effective Presentation by Ros and Antony ('Yes Minister') Jay.

Hall fills most of his 6 pages with tips about conquering nerves, backed up with some fascinating facts about panic attacks.The Jays give a highly detailed analysis of the structure of a sales presentation.

These extracts make both books look very appealing but this pamphlet alone contains a remarkable amount of concise, indispensable information and all it will cost is 80p for today's Independent! Now what could be better value than that (well, apart from a blog which gives ongoing presentations tips for free?)

Public Speaking Tip #48: Watch out for newspaper give-aways, such as booklets, DVDs or CDs, which may be of use for your presentations.