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The Extraordinary Business Book Club

Alison Jones, publisher and book coach, explores business books from both a writer's and a reader's perspective. Interviews with authors, publishers, business leaders, entrepreneurs, tech wizards, social media strategists, PR and marketing experts and others involved in helping businesses tell their story effectively.
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The Extraordinary Business Book Club
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Now displaying: March, 2017
Mar 27, 2017

'Noble embodies what we're trying to do here because it is about being in the service of others but in this case in business... Noble Purpose is about the impact you have on customers.' Or, in this case, readers.

Lisa Earle McLeod writes from two key drivers: frustration and passion. Her book Selling with Noble Purpose embodied everything she'd learned and passionately believed in her career as a sales consultant, that selling is for the benefit and the maximum impact for the customer, not just giving them what they think they want. 'It gives you more courage with your customers,' she explains. And there's a very clear parallel with writing for your readers, too. 

There are some great examples too of how the book works with the business, with a useful taxonomy of ways in which she as the author can work with clients who've read the book and want more. 

And if you're bored of me banging on about structure, you'll love Lisa's top tip for would-be business book authors:

'Think about what you're excited about and think about what you're angry about and just start writing. Everyone thinks they have to have this big outline for a book, you don't. Just sit at the keyboard, bang it out. Don't start at the beginning. If you've got something for the end in mind, start there. If you've got the middle in mind, start there. Just start.'

Mar 20, 2017

'There's an awful lot of talk about platform in the media business these days,' admits Adrian Zackheim, the founder of Portfolio, Penguin's prestigious business book list. 'It's an obvious strategy for publishers to seek out people with pre-existing platforms and attempt to extend them, [but] one of the attractions of this work, for me at least, is that there is this calculation that one has to make about where is that platform? How significant, how important is the platform, and how good is this person as a communicator? Then how significant are the ideas that are being developed here? You have to triangulate those three considerations in order to determine the prospects for an author.'

This is a fascinating insight into how one of the world's most famous publishers of business books makes his acquisition decisions, and where he sees the industry heading. 

Mar 13, 2017

How to Write Your Book Without the Fuss is just a brilliant title. And Lucy McCarraher is equally brilliant. Cofounder of Rethink press and the 'Publish' mentor for Daniel Priestly's Key Person of Influence programme, she uses the WRITER model to support her clients through the process and sets it out in this interview, along with her thoughts on how business owners can use their book to build their business. 

Packed full of practical advice and expert tips - without any fuss - this is essential listening for business book authors. 

Mar 6, 2017

'There's no such thing as writer's block. It's a myth. What you do is you sit down at a keyboard and you type a letter, and then you type some more letters, you have a word. Then you type some more words, you have a sentence. A few more sentences, you have a paragraph. What you write is better than you think, but what stops people is the self-editing, this little person in your head who keeps critiquing you. You got to kill that person, you just got to flick them off your shoulder, stomp on them 'til they're bloody. You have to sit down and write, and stop worrying whether people will like it. Just write for yourself.'

Alan Weiss's approach to writing is bracing. If you're getting bogged down in endless rewriting or self-critiquing, this is going to be uncomfortable listening. Uncomfortable, but essential. 

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