So this is neat – the clever folk over at self-publishing platform Reedsy have launched Reedsy Learning, a series of free mini-courses from top publishing talent. I’ve contributed this one: How to Write a Business Book. 10 days, 10 emails, just enough to get you kickstarted. There are courses on marketing, self-publishing, overcoming procrastination, Amazon algorithms, […]
Continue readingHere’s the thing about competitions and challenges: they are super-motivating (to most people – I get that it’s not everyone’s bag) and someone will be utterly delighted at the end. But the thing about having a winner is that it means you have to have people who are NOT winners, and that – to borrow […]
Continue readingToday’s the day: particpants in the 10-day Business Book Proposal Challenge have until midnight tonight to upload their proposal into our Facebook group to be in with a chance of winning a publishing deal. There are seven so far, with another six or seven promised by the deadline. I can’t WAIT to read them – […]
Continue readingEvery month I write a ‘Digital Digest’ for the Independent Publishers Guild and this month there was a slew of statistics that, on the surface at least, are hard to swallow for a digital publishing enthusiast like myself. I had a bet with our production director back in 2010 that half our revenues would be […]
Continue readingA BookMachine blog on the three charges Seth Godin levelled at publishers in his interview with me for The Extraordinary Business Book Club podcast. https://bookmachine.org/2016/09/30/seth-godins-three-charges-publishers/
Continue readingYesterday in the 10-day book proposal challenge we were focusing on the marketing plan for the book, which is something of a Marmite task. One participant in particular approached it with a feeling of dread, but was pleasantly surprised. ‘When I saw today’s task my heart sank – so I’m surprised with what laying this out […]
Continue readingIt’s the end of Setptember and I’m back up at Oxford Brookes, teaching on the MA in Publishing Editorial module every Tuesday afternoon. One of the ice-breakers my colleague Beverley Tarquini does with the new cohort of students each year is to get them all talking about what they’re reading, what books they like in […]
Continue readingThe Extraordinary Business Book Club Facebook group just hit 500 members (in fact it’s at 503 as I write). So far there’s no sign of Mark Zuckerberg bringing me champagne and flowers, but I’m sure he’s on his way. I founded the group last year as World-Changing Writers, ahead of the online summit of the same […]
Continue readingAfter the excitement of the IPG Autumn Conference yesterday, a more sober but no less interesting IPG Board Meeting today at the offices of Harbottle & Lewis, sponsors of the forthcoming IPG Independent Publishing Report. We saw some of the top-line findings reported by Nielsen’s Jo Henry at the conference yesterday and today discussed the […]
Continue readingTomorrow my 10-day Business Book Proposal Challenge kicks off – over 10 days I’ll take a group of business people and would-be authors step by step through the proposal document, helping them to clarify their thinking about their book idea, target readership, competition and so on. I first ran this challenge in June ane while […]
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