It’s a terrible irony of nonfiction publishing that the people with the most interesting things to say are often too busy actually doing their thing to sit down and write a book about it. Business leaders are not natural writers, at least not usually. They’re often great communicators, especially on a conference stage or in […]
Continue reading…I’m naturally a publisher, not a writer: I’m an extrovert, I get my energy from connecting and engaging with others, not sitting alone with a keyboard. The interesting thing is that this holds true for many people, particularly entrepreneurs, many of whom have fascinating books inside them that will probably never get out if they […]
Continue readingA Blank Page is a Gift You know how when four different people tell you how great something is in the space of a week? That was the point at which I felt compelled to investigate Morning Pages – a practice recommended by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way. You write three sides of letter paper (translation: A4) in […]
Continue readingUsing Your Whole Brain to Find Your Book The idea of the left brain and the right brain as effectively two warring personality types – ‘I’m right brain dominant, I am creative, artisitic, intuitive, I cannot be expected to do sums…’ – has been discredited, but it’s certainly true that we have different modes of thinking, even if both […]
Continue readingA review of Gay Hendricks’ classic book The Big Leap with author interview
Continue readingReview of Guy Kawasaki’s seminal book for entrepreneurs with author interview
Continue readingYour book matters. Present it like it matters. Look again at the non-fiction books that have made an impact on you. The books that leapt of the shelf (real or virtual) at you, kept you turning the pages, the ones you keep dipping back in to, that you recommend to others. As a reader you […]
Continue readingOlympia, that gracious old building, bristling with technology and drenched in sunlight, was a fitting metaphor for the industry this year, as well as its showcase. This year’s London Book Fair – a key public event in the industry year – was also a significant personal milestone for me. The first day of LBF 2014 […]
Continue readingAren’t we lucky? There are millions of people doing things not a tenth as interesting as publishing. It’s a privilege. Thoughts from the IPG Spring Conference Last week I attended my first Independent Publishers’ Guild spring conference. I’d heard that IPG was ‘the best club in British publishing’ and so it proved: what a collaborative, […]
Continue readingThe sweet spot for your book: the intersection of what you’ve got, what they want, and where things are heading. What does ‘strategy’ mean to you? If I asked you what your strategy was for your small business, how would you answer? It’s a loaded word which means different things to different people, but for […]
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