A hard night’s trick-or-treating with some very overexcited children – I mean, witches and zombies – last night, and then straight back home, throw them into bed, and sit down to interview the wonderful Robbie Kellman Baxter, author of The Membership Economy. The podcast episode will be broadcast on 21 November, but one thing that […]
Continue readingA short, late blog today, and a bit of a cheat too (OK, I admit it, I got sidetracked with Hallowe’en Strictly Comer Dancing – so sue me). So it’s a trick, but also a treat (see what I did there?) – here’s a sneaky preview of the bit in my interview with Andy Cope, […]
Continue readingThis week in the This Book Means Business Bootcamp one of the things we’re focusing on is using the process of writing your book to build your network (both upwards and outwards), and one of the questions that came up was about how to contact people when their email addresses aren’t easily available. It’s worth […]
Continue readingThe story goes that when the ship carrying the last instalment of The Old Curiosity Shop arrived in New York in 1841, it was met by hordes of fans on the dockside, all desperate to know, ‘Is Little Nell dead?’ Charles Dickens was a master of the serialised novel, each instalment ending with a cliffhanger […]
Continue readingForget GSOH, the book you’re writing is a much more appealing quality when it comes to attracting a potential partner. And by partner here I don’t mean life partner (although, who knows…), I mean the key influencers in your field, those you’d like to get to know better. Your business sits in a complex network […]
Continue readingIf you want your kids to get some exercise today would you a) stick them on a treadmill for 20 minutes or b) take them out for a game of football? Both effective, but b) is way more likely to get an enthusiastic response. If you want your reader to understand an important point, would […]
Continue readingPatrick Vlaskovits, co-author of Hustle and The Lean Entrepreneur, used a great phrase in this week’s Extraordinary Business Book Club episode which was a new one on me, although I knew just what he meant. (Patrick specializes in this, to be honest – providing just the right phrase for concepts without a name. We talked […]
Continue readingWhile you’re thinking about the content of your book and its structure, scope, tone and so on, don’t forget the prelims and endmatter, and particularly the foreword (NB NOT ‘forward’, it’s the ‘word’ to the reader that goes be’fore’ the main text). Why bother with a foreword? Here are just a few reasons: Credibility. […]
Continue readingYou might think that SWOT analysis is a management consultancy cliché, but with a little bit of a twist it can be a surprisingly useful tool for business book writers… Read today’s Birds on the Blog post to find out more: http://birdsontheblog.co.uk/so-what-a-twist-on-swot-for-business-book-writers/
Continue readingOne of my favourite tools for business thinking isn’t one of the models I learned on my MBA course, it’s a poem from Rudyard Kipling: I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who. And it all starts with […]
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