The FT/McKinsey Business Book of the Year longlist has been announced: https://ig.ft.com/sites/business-book-award/books/2017. It’s heavy on finance and economics, with a side dose of technology. Only 4 of the 17 books on the list are by women, but that’s a fair or even a better-than-fair reflection of the numbers of business books written by women in […]
Continue readingWe’ve known for some time that the way we communicate on the internet is changing. For decades the dominant communication medium has been text: emails, web pages, chat. Gradually images, video and audio have been gaining ground, and the recent explosion of voice-controlled assistants mean that the primary way many people now interact with online […]
Continue readingToday’s blog is a guest post over at BookMachine, inspired by Matt Watkinson’s view on how to design a book as a reader-centric experience. https://bookmachine.org/2017/08/16/editor-reader-experience-champion/
Continue readingI do very much love running the 10-day Business Book Proposal Challenge. So it’s happening again. 10 days to nail your business book concept and a chance to win a publishing deal, starting 18 September. Are you in? https://alisonjones.leadpages.co/proposal-challenge/
Continue readingA real accolade for this week’s podcast episode: my Mum, who’s listened to pretty much all of them, reckons this one is the best yet. Matt Watkinson began his career as a designer, and his background is in customer and user experience. Which explains why his books are so beautifully designed for the reader. ‘If […]
Continue readingThere’s lots of reasons to write a book, but one I hear again and again is ‘to get speaking gigs’. There’s no doubt that a book makes you more interesting to anyone who needs to book a speaker: it’s proof that you’ve developed your thinking and have something to say. Even the fact that you’re […]
Continue readingDelighted to see that two of my favourite organisations – the National Trust and Falmouth University, where I occasionally speak as a guest lecturer – have come together in a pioneering new venture. Writer-in-residence there Wyl Menmuir (a Booker Prize longlister who used another favourite of mine, Prolifiko, to write his novel), has written a […]
Continue readingThis was me yesterday morning, as the sun rose… ….and this was me yesterday evening, as the sun set. I know you’re probably struggling to spot the difference, so I’ll help you out: in the top picture I’ve not yet FINISHED MY BOOK!!!!!!!! (With thanks to Bec Evans for the pictures, and for inviting me […]
Continue readingWhen you complete a book proposal form for a publisher, one of the key fields you must complete is ‘extent’: how long will your book be, in thousands of words? Publishers need this information so they can create a p&l, a profit and loss spreadsheet for your book, to see if they can make a […]
Continue readingI am having a glorious few days holed up Devon with my friend Bec who’s house/dog/kitten-sitting for a friend. The house is incredibly beautiful, the location is peaceful, and we’re both of us focused entirely on our separate projects. My aim is to completely (FINALLY!) finish the full first draft of This Book Means Business […]
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