Category Archives for "writing"

‘I couldn’t have written a better book’

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 […]

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If you think writing a good book is enough, watch this

I was speaking to someone yesterday who bemoaned the fact that ‘these days’ you need a platform, that it’s virtually impossible just to write a really good book and have its merit recognised by a waiting world.  I’m not sure that was EVER true, frankly, but in a world where attention is at a premium […]

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Writing is mining for ideas

I’ve just been putting together next Monday’s podcast episode, which is one very close to my heart: when I first had the idea for this podcast, Daniel Priestly was high on my wishlist because he illustrates so beautifully the marriage of book and business in his bestsellers such as Key Person of Influence and Oversubscribed. […]

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Trying on someone else’s writing

I’ve just learned a fascinating fact about Hunter S. Thompson while doing some research for my own book: according to his obituary in the New York Times (following his suicide in 2005), in his early journalistic days: ‘He used to type out pages from “The Great Gatsby,” just to get the feeling, he said, of […]

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55th time lucky…

In 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 […]

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Push the ball

I’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 […]

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‘God, Lear and Paddington Bear’

On my way back from London yesterday I caught the Reading train from Platform 1 at Paddington Station and, risking the wrath of the guard waiting to close the doors, I snapped a picture of its famous statue of Paddington Bear, raising his brass nose hopefully to seek someone who will take him home. It’s […]

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Commonplacing

We’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 […]

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Wonderful workbooks

Recognise 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, […]

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Sneaky peek of the Best Bits

Every tenth episode of The Extraordinary Business Book Club is a chance to look back at the previous 9 episodes and pick out not just the ‘best bits’, the stories or tips that partiuclarly struck me and/or listeners as funny or useful or inspirational, but to look at the big picture, the common themes and […]

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