Day 3 is probably the hardest day of the entire 10-day Business Book Proposal Challenge. I ask challengers to distil their complex, nuanced book idea down into a single sentence or two, the summary. I’m not a monster, I give them a process to help them do it, but process or no process it’s a […]
Continue readingDay 2 of the 10-day business book proposal challenge is all about the target market. It’s a tough task, probably one of the toughest (along with tomorrow’s, but shhhh, I don’t have the heart to tell them that right now), but definitely one of the most valuable. It’s all about getting really clear on who […]
Continue readingCommunity, that is. It’s Day 1 of the 10-day Business Book Proposal Challenge and one of the first tasks – an ease-you-in-gently sort of a task – is to introduce yourself, your business and your book idea in the group. I’ve spent much of the day responding to each one, but then after a few […]
Continue readingToday’s blog is a guest post over at Birds on the Blog: http://birdsontheblog.co.uk/writing-book-first-build-platform/. ‘…a book is part of your bigger platform, not a standalone. To get readers, let alone publishers, interested in your book to the point where they’re willing to spend time and money on it, you have to secure their attention and trust. And […]
Continue readingThe 10-day Business Book Proposal Challenge starts on Monday, and the Facebook group is already pretty busy. One of the tasks the challengers will be working on next week is creating a synopsis of their book, which is fearsome hard, so I decided to get them limbering up today by asking: ‘How are you feeling […]
Continue readingIt was inevitable: after a hard day with your adult colouring books, all you want is to cuddle down and listen to an adult bedtime story. App developer Calm has learned the lessons from the recent colouring-book craze and repackaged bedtime stories as tools for mindfulness and better sleep: https://www.thememo.com/2016/12/08/calm-app-sleep-stories-mindfulness-app-meditation-app-bedtime-story/. Don’t they know Radio […]
Continue readingIt’s not often that I am really, tragically bad at something these days. Sadly, that’s not because I’m universally gifted. It’s because I’ve organised my life so that I don’t have to do the things I know I’m really, tragically bad at. I outsource my bookkeeping, for instance, and I gave up on trying to […]
Continue readingIf you love books and you have a competitive streak, then a) we should probably meet up because we’d get on really well, and b) you might like the idea of the GoodReads 2017 Reading Challenge. Simply decide how many books you want to tick off the to-read list in 2017 and make your intention […]
Continue readingAre you still waiting for the secret of success, productivity, happiness? A significant – and significantly profitable – section of the publishing industry is given over to books promising to make us better versions of ourselves. I’ve now interviewed several of the authors in The Extraordinary Business Book Club. And what’s astonished me is how […]
Continue readingThere’s a particularly extraordinary interview on this week’s Extraordinary Business Book Club, as you’d expect for the first week of a new year. David Taylor, The Naked Leader, is one of the world’s top leadership coaches and management thinkers. What’s extraordinary about that? Well, it’s just that he doesn’t act or write like a high-flying […]
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