The 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 readingIt’s Day 5 of my 10-day business book proposal challenge, SO much great work going on in the group and some amazing titles taking shape. Today’s task was all about your author biography, and people are finding that this has benefits way beyond simply putting their proposal together. Here’s what one participant said: ‘Making this […]
Continue readingIn my day now is a 15-minute slot at around 6.25am after I’ve run to warm up, done an online bootcamp, stretched, and then sit in the garden cooling off and writing. It won’t last forever of course: pretty soon the mornings will be too chilly, dark and often too wet and I’ll be forced […]
Continue readingThis week’s Extraordinary Business Book Club podcast episode features Giles Colborne, one of the world’s leading experts in user experience. His book Simple and Usable is, as you might expect, utterly beautiful from a design perspective. I asked him about the parallels between user experience design and writing: AJ: It made me laugh when you […]
Continue reading(With apologies to Haruki Murakami.) Someone who read my blog about streaking pointed out that I often seem to talk about running and writing in the same breath. Maybe it’s because I’m a former blogging runner turned running writer. But I think fundamentally it’s because learning to run changed everything about me. I wasn’t a […]
Continue readingYesterday I accidentally committed to run every day and to blog every day. Here’s how it happened…. On Tuesday I emailed Seth Godin inviting him to be a guest on my podcast. If you’d asked me to rate the chances of him answering, let alone saying yes, I’d have estimated around 1 in 10. He […]
Continue readingThis is Day 1 of a who-knows-how-long-streak. Here’s the blog post that kicked it all off: the decision to commit to run and blog every day emerged in the process of writing this article… http://birdsontheblog.co.uk/what-seth-and-ron-taught-me-about-streaking/ And it’s all Seth Godin’s fault.
Continue readingFor publishers, the proposal is the business case for the book and for you as its author. It tells them whether you’re both worth taking a risk on: does the book have a strong concept and a clear market? Have you really thought it through? In this LinkedIn post I invite you to take part in […]
Continue readingRachel Bridge, author of Ambition: Why it’s good to want more and how to get it, is an extraordinary woman. I interviewed her on the Extraordinary Book Club Podcast recently, and her energetic, creative approach to writing made me reflect on how things are changing across the board. Rachel and I hooked up in the […]
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 […]
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