Day 2 of the 10-day Business Book Proposal Challenge, and today we’re focusing on target reader. This is perhaps the most fundamental of all the bits of thinking the challengers will be doing over the course of the challenge – the synopsis, selling points, contents, marketing plans, EVERYTHING falls out of that understanding. I was […]
Continue readingOne of my most brilliant publishing buddies is Bec Evans, head of innovation at Emerald Group and co-founder of writing app startup Prolifiko (and also a graduate of my 10-day Business Book Proposal Challenge with an offer from an agent on the table, but that’s besides the point). Today she shared this superb piece in […]
Continue readingI talk a lot about identifying your target reader and getting really clear on where they’re at, what questions they’re asking, what language resonates with them, what they’re trying to achieve. You need to know and understand the person you’re writing for from extensive first-hand experience, there’s no substitute for that. But there ARE tools […]
Continue readingThis week’s episode of The Extraordinary Business Book Club was the 52nd – a whole year’s worth of listening! If you haven’t heard it yet, I really recommend it: Lucy McCarraher is the Publish mentor for Daniel Priestly’s Key Person of Influence programme and the author of How to Write Your Book Without the Fuss […]
Continue readingThis morning I went for a run in glorious spring sunshine. ‘I must start promoting the next 10-day Business Book Proposal Challenge a bit more strenuously,’ I thought to myself as I trundled along. ‘I know, it’s such a lovely day, I’ll record a quick video outside to tell people what it’s all about. People […]
Continue readingIn this week’s Extraordinary Business Book Club episode I talk to Alan Weiss, the author of Million Dollar Consulting and more than 60 books in total. He also blogs and vlogs regularly. That’s a significant amount of content generation for someone who’s running a multi-million dollar consulting firm as the day job. It turns out […]
Continue readingI’m just putting together the show notes for Monday’s Extraordinary Business Book Club podcast episode, featuring an interview with the author of Million Dollar Consulting, Alan Weiss. It was an eye-opening conversation for me, one of the most challenging I’ve ever done (in a good way!), and I just wanted to share this extract to […]
Continue readingIf you’re writing a business book, I’m willing to bet at some point you’ve had this thought: ‘I need to provide a reference for this.’ Alternatively, you might have thought: ‘I wonder what the latest thinking is on this subject?’ Peer-reviewed scholarly research is the gold standard of referencing, but until recently it was impossible […]
Continue readingToday’s blog post is over at Birds on the Blog: http://birdsontheblog.co.uk/thank-terrifying-things/ I’ve come to welcome that flutter of anxiety, the sensation of shrinking inside and vertigo that is how I experience fear. Now I try to breathe into it, to welcome it as an infallible sign that I’m on the brink of a marvellous new adventure. […]
Continue readingOne of my bootcampers impressed me this week with a quite brilliant idea: she’s carving out one day a week to focus on her book, and on that day she puts an out-of-office autoresponse on her email. But instead of a generic ‘I’ll get back to you tomorrow’ message, she took the opportunity to explain […]
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