I read an enormous amount on mixing/mastering and was still rubbish. It's hard to write about perception of sound. I would recommend instead finding a well rep

I read an enormous amount on mixing/mastering and was still rubbish. It's hard to write about perception of sound. I would recommend instead finding a well reputed mixing/mastering engineer who offers lessons and pay for some. Bring them your best mix (in the DAW on your laptop) ask them where it is wrong and how to improve it. Shouldn't take more than a couple of hours. In my case this cost around £100 (http://oood.net/mastering/about-stooodio-mastering http://oood.net/mastering/about-stooodio-mastering) and helped enormously. My friends now think I'm great at "mastering" by which they mean mixing, I have nothing even approaching mastering engineer ears & I suspect Colin still wouldn't think much of my mixes either but that's why I'll happily pay him to master them if I ever have time for music again :) I know there are online practical courses these days, in theory these could be better than a book as they would have audio/interactive examples. No idea if they actually are any good though.