I’ve just interviewed Matt Watkinson, author of The Grid: The Decision-Making Tool for Every Business (Including Yours), for the Extraordinary Business Book Club podcast. He’s an extraordinarily nice bloke: today’s interview had to be rescheduled when my call recording tech failed last week (thankfully I realised before we’d got too far into the interview), and […]
Continue readingIn this week’s Extraordinary Business Book Club podcast episode I interview Orna Ross, head of ALLi, the Alliance of Independent Authors. But Orna didn’t start off as an indie author. She went the traditional route, posting off her proposal to publisher after publisher. Finally, on the 55th submission, she got lucky. I asked her how […]
Continue readingI’m not quite sure how I missed this (this would never have happened in the old days, pre-internet and pre-children, when Saturday morning meant a leisurely breakfast and all the many sections of the Guardian spread across the table amongst the coffee and the toast), but Rober McCrum has been running a series in the […]
Continue readingI’ve just been talking to one of my authors, who never fails to energise and delight me when we speak – she is so full of passion and energy for her subject, and it’s been wonderful to watch her step up and out over the last year or so as the book’s taken shape. It’s […]
Continue readingWe’ve been discussing the ‘best’ way to make notes in the This Book Means Business Bootcamp – in quotes as of course your best way may be very different to my best way, and frankly my best way one day might be different to my best day on another. One of the bootcampers brought up […]
Continue readingRecognise this thought process? ‘I want this to be more than just a book you read. I want people to engage with it, to be able to reflect and scribble down thoughts and answer questions as they go: I know, I’ll put space for them to write in the book!’ It’s a good thought process, […]
Continue readingHow magnificent is this? Artist Marta Minujín has created a replica of the Parthenon out of banned books. It’s part of the Documenta 14 contemporary art exhibition in Kessel, and students at the university there were involved in drawing up the list of 170 banned books, and then helping the artist source copies – 100,000 of them […]
Continue readingBibliopique, n. The feeling one experiences when gifted a large pile of good books and although wanting only to lie on a sofa and binge read one is obliged to work instead. For example, ‘I had a terrible case of Bibliopique the day after the Bookollective party.’
Continue readingOf all the live videos I do in the 10-day Business Book Proposal Challenge Facebookgroup, today’s is always the best attended. Because this is the day of the Big Reveal: when I announce the winner of the publishing deal from all the completed proposals submitted ahead of the deadline earlier this week. Having a prize […]
Continue readingI caught a snippet of Open Book on Radio 4 this afternoon while driving. Mariella Frostrup was complaining about books without chapters. ‘How are you supposed to know when to stop? How do you know when to turn off the bedside light?’ she raged. Good points, well made. Myself, I like short chapters. I like […]
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