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C’mon, admit it — you made a resolution this January 1st to start an online business, didn’t you?

You see, I am NUTS when it comes to small business books. I love to read anything about entrepreneurship I can get my hands on, and if something promises to be of at least some value, I’m heading to the checkout counter to buy it (I’ll take a picture of my entrepreneurship book collection as soon as I clean up around the room if anyone wants to see it).

But every time I head to the business section of my favorite bookstore (Chapters, here in Canada) most of the books I skim are either:

1.) About stuff I can easily get for free on the Internet,
2.) The same old rehashed information from other books, or
3.) Written for business executives working in corporations.

No, you don’t need to buy a book that shows you how to register your business. Neither do you need a book that teaches you the technical stuff about registering a domain name. Those are the easy, mindless things that you can spend 30 minutes learning about from Google.

So I cherry picked the best of the best in my collection of small business books to read for aspiring online entrepreneurs who want to try their shot at a one-man business to put a little extra money in their pockets this 2009. These are books that give you more than enough of the fundamentals that you need to learn, and should be more than enough to get you started.

11 books, 11 months left in 2009 (not counting January anymore because you have to give time for Amazon to ship these books, right?). Read the books here and learn about the intricacies of online entrepreneurship. Get inspired by the stories of others, and get to action and start your online business.

Note: I actually hesitated to put a few of these books up on the list because they were best-sellers, and there’s a huge chance that you’ve probably already read them if you read business books at all. However, I realize that plenty of my readers are people just planning or dreaming about starting an online business, and likely to be beginners in their own right.

February: “Getting Real” by 37Signals

Easily one of the better books to start off the year with. 37Signals is the genius company behind web applications such as Basecamp and Backpack. The “Getting Real” method revolves around the concept of less is more in business, and really inspires you to get something out there as soon as possible. Did you know you can read the book for free? Not a bad start to a top 12 list.

March: “Ready, Fire, Aim” by Michael Masterson

This is a book by the man behind Early To Rise, one of the newsletters published by the multi-million dollar publishing company Agora Inc. The beautiful thing about this book is that it is so much more than empty rhetoric but thin on actionable items — not this one. It’s full of useful tactics and strategies, and actually breaks down what it takes to create a multimillion dollar publishing business from scratch.

April: “The Long Tail” by Chris Anderson

The long tail is such an important economic trend that this book is worth reading again. A takeaway from this book is that the best strategy to online business success isn’t to sell a lot of a few, but to sell a few of a lot. I’ve read this book twice now and I’m able to pick up nuggets everytime I’ve read it.

May: “Blue Ocean Strategy” by W. Chan Kim

How would you like to start an online business in a market that seems too crowded, but still manage to blow your competitors out of the water by finding untapped market spaces? “Blue Ocean Strategy” is THE book for innovation and differentiation. Caveat: As amazing as this book is, sometimes it reads a little too scholarly. But don’t worry, you’ll be learning way too much to even think about falling asleep while reading it.

June: “AdWords For Dummies” by Howie Jacobson

I normally don’t buy print books with anything related to the Internet simply because the medium changes so much and so often that you never know when the book you bought was out of date. However, “AdWords For Dummies” is so excellently written and tops most of the pay-per-click courses you see online (which are usually full of hype and rehash) that I didn’t hesitate to pick it up. Get this and learn the ins and outs of advertising your website online.

July: “Get to the Top On Google” by David Viney

If I generally don’t buy books on pay-per-click advertising, then I’m more hesitant to getting print books on search engine optimization. This book tells you everything you need to know about how search engine optimization works and how you can get your website to rank highly in Google. It’s a great resource, and it reads very easily — a no-brainer if you absolutely MUST get a print book on SEO.

August: “Made To Stick” by Chip and Dan Heath

Think about the number of advertisements you’ve seen today — how many can you name off the top of your head? “Made To Stick” breaks down the SUCCES formula (no, that’s not a misspelling) on what makes people remember one idea, and forget everything else. This is useful not only for creating advertising, but also for analyzing your business ideas in the first place.

September: “The E-Myth Revisited” by Michael Gerber

An entrepreneurship classic. This is one of the first entrepreneurship books I’ve ever read, and I’ve come back to it many times since then. Here you will differentiate between a business and a job, discover the importance of creating systems that you can scale, and learn the true meaning of “working on your business, not in it.”

October: “Adweek Copywriting Handbook” by Joseph Sugarman

One of the better guides on copywriting I’ve seen. Direct response advertising is an absolute MUST if you want to start an online business. Joe’s salesletter style is smooth, brilliant and engaging at the same time — making the book AND his ads really easy to read. I cannot say enough about the effectiveness of this book — it’s the perfect introduction on how to start creating your own copy.

November: “Influence” by Robert Cialdini

This book is a must read and will supplement the copywriting knowledge you have learned from Joe Sugarman. Persuasion is a science and has 6 ingredients: reciprocity, commitment/consistency, social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity. By using these six principles in your business, you will never have a difficult time getting sales for your products (note that “Influence” is one of the most recommended books for business professionals and entrepreneurs alike).

December: Anything and everything by Seth Godin (All Throughout The Year)

You can’t spell Godin without the letters G, O and D. Honestly, I could have an entire blog post about Seth and that would nowhere be enough. Possibly the most influencial marketing non-guru ever — and you gotta love how he actually puts what he talks about into practice. The essentials? “Purple Cow”, “Meatball Sundae”, and “All Marketers Are Liars”.

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How’d you like the list above? Let me know in the comments below!

PS. I’m thinking about doing a similar list for business blogs… If that’s something you want to see, let me know.