Sometimes you're not just writing a book, you're starting a movement. That's what Malcolm Durham's aiming for with Wealthbeing, a new way of achieving and measuring success for a more balanced life. The book is the centre, but there's a whole raft of online and offline services around it. In the process, he also created a word that he'll be submitting for inclusion in the Oxford English Dictionary...
In this episode I speak to Brant Cooper, author of The Lean Entrepreneur - which was a crowd-funded book - and founder of Moves the Needle, about treating your book as a startup. Brant has some awesome practical examples and advice for business writers on identifying market segments and needs, building a community and testing out content and so much more. We also talk about how illustrations and format choices impact how we approach a book, and how authors can use other channels such as video to grow their readership.
When I first put out the call for recommendations for extraordinary business books, Gay Hendricks's The Big Leap was one of the titles that just kept coming up. When I read it I understood what all the fuss was about. The two central concepts - the 'Zone of Genius' and 'upper-limiting problems' - are immediately recognizable to any entrepreneur or business leader, and taken together they become a blueprint for understanding ourselves better and putting an end to self-sabotage.
In this interview - recorded in September 2015 - Gay Hendricks reveals how the book came into being, his writing habits, and his unorthodox approach to structure.
Melissa Hood is one half of The Parent Practice - with partner Elaine Halligan she has just been named one of the top parenting gurus in the UK by The Daily Mail. Her book Real Parenting for Real Kids, published by Practical Inspiration Publishing in April 2016, was described by Carl Honoré as 'a blueprint for building families that allow both parents and children to become their best selves. A wonderful book.'
But it nearly didn't happen. Melissa had been writing this book for more than six years when she started working with me on The Expert Author programme last year: in this interview we discuss how she overcame all the fears and doubts that had been holding her back, and how she assembled a team to support her through the writing and publication of the book that meant so much to her.