At this risk of going a bit meta, this is a brilliant conversation podcast about how brilliant podcast conversations are… Michelle Glogovac is an author and host of the My Simplified Life podcast, and a frequent guest on other podcasts. She’s passionate about the special, intimate connection that podcasts create between authors and their readers, and the triple win of a good conversation: great content for the host, great marketing for the guest, great insights for the listener. If you’re...

‘That last pillar before you go make your decision: is it ethical? What's the effect it's going to have? The feedback I've got from a lot of people was, oh, I never really thought about that.’ While ethics has become more talked-about in business, it might not be something you’ve considered as a factor in your business writing. But you should. In this Best Bits episode, I draw together insights from a wide range of recent guests that show how the moral position you take – in work and life –...

‘So they go, “Hang on, I've got to look confident… I have to have all the answers,” which is the worst place to come from.’ Becoming a first-time CEO is a lonely experience, and David Roche (who’s got that particular t-shirt himself) believes every new CEO should be assigned a coach and mentor, because if we expect our leaders to have all the answers, we’re setting them - and ourselves - up for failure in a complex, fast-moving, uncertain world.  David has been involved in the book trade...

'We basically treated legal compliance as a proxy for ethics, which has never really been a particularly good fit.' I think we can all agree the world is ready for some fresh perspectives on the ethical obligations of the business world: Alison Taylor is here to provide them.  All too often there are stark differences between company statements and their day-to-day actions, as they perform the delicate dance between ethical decisions and turning a profit. Alison questions long-standing...

"Do what you can in the circumstances you are given right now. And don't wait for the systems in the world around you to change in order to get some life into your life." Most of us are only too familiar with 'languishing' - the opposite of flourishing. It was when Adam Grant wrote his famous 2021 New York Times article that we all recognised it as the defining post-pandemic emotion, and it continues to dominate discussions of wellbeing. Grant's article credited research by Dr. Corey Keyes,...

'For an academic book, you are looking to demonstrate that you stand on the shoulders of giants. For a practitioner book, you ARE the giant... But you're not the first giant.' Meredith Norwich is a senior acquisitions editor at Routledge, part of Taylor and Francis Publishing, and she has seen a LOT of business book proposals. What makes a proposal stand out for her? You might be surprised... Packed with valuable insights for first-time authors and behind-the-scenes glimpses into the...

I’m just back from an exhausting, exhilarating few days at London Book Fair. My ears are still ringing slightly, my feet hurt, I need to spend a few days on my own in a darkened room and I can’t even tell you how many follow-up actions are on my to-do list – in other words, it was a great Fair. But what does that mean? As publishers, we at Practical Inspiration Publishing are all about selling books, but we don't actually sell our books at book fairs: so what DO we do? Here's an insider's...

Louise Brogan helps entrepreneurs and professionals elevate their LinkedIn game. In this week's conversation she explains why LinkedIn is so important for businesses and why most people are so dreadful at it. From fundamental mindset to the most effective tactics right now, it's a masterclass in maximising your profile on LinkedIn without losing your soul.   She's also in the throes of writing her first business book, so this is a great report from the frontline if you're in that place and...

"It was fantastic, just as a sheer exercise in putting something out there and being brave and saying, these are my thoughts, what does everyone else think?" Lucy Adams spends her days helping HR leaders reimagine their profession, and her classic work HR Disrupted and its sequel, The HR Change Toolkit, are critical to this mission. Her message is simple: treat employees as adults. But the implications are profound. In this conversation, we talk about how HR is changing (or not), the...

'The beautiful part of it, which is also the hardest and the most painful part, is the editing... [if] you put a book out into the world which will be around longer than you, you might as well put in the effort to get it right.' David McQueen has never been one to shy away from tough conversations. In his book, The BRAVE Leader, he challenges all leaders to lean into the difficulty, to be more courageous and ambitious in their decision-making for inclusivity.  And it turns out that...

Following last week's quadricentennial episode, a slightly belated but still brilliant best bits episode, showcasing the shiniest gems from the last few Extraordinary Business Book Club conversations.  The theme is pushing through discomfort, and it brings together extraordinary stories, illuminating insights and gloves-down challenges from:  Errol Doebler on emotional regulation and the discipline of writing;  Sir John Tusa on the traits of people who Get Things Done; Bonnie Wan on...

How can I start running when I absolutely hate running? What's your one big, albeit lesser known, tip for writing your first book? Have you tried smoked chili peanut butter yet? When I put out the call for questions for this quadricentennial episode, I could never have imagined the response. From the playful to the profound, these questions have got me thinking and I hope they, and my answers, will get you thinking too.  So for one week only, to celebrate this 400-episode milestone, you're...

"You have to get in front of what you're writing. You have to look at it and you have to type a key. If you don't, it's just not going to happen." Errol Doebler knows a thing or two about discipline. He's been a Naval Surface Warfare officer, Navy SEAL officer, FBI special agent and SWAT operator before founding his leadership consulting firm Ice Cold Leader, which is also the name of his new book.  Why ice-cold? Because ice baths form a key part of his own self-regulation regime, and...

"We've been innovating forever, before digital formats came along... in a way we have some of the natural abilities we need. We need to remember that and not be too scared when new things come along." Publishing is an industry that runs on creativity and intellectual property. So how are book publishers responding to the challenges and opportunities of generative AI? Can the book, one of our oldest technologies, survive this latest technological revolution? And if so, what are the...

'It's an uncomfortable struggle to land that title of the book, land that sharp, sticky center of the life brief, but it is so worth it.' As a brand strategist, Bonnie Wan knows how to put together a creative brief that makes meaning out of mess, that goes straight to the essence of what a company is really about. So when she reached a moment of crisis in her own life, she reached instinctively for that skillset. The result was The Life Brief, not a document but a 'practice of permission'...

"The vast majority of business owners would happily spend 99% of their time creating and recreating and tweaking and iterating on the product side of things, because we know how to do that, we feel of service when we do that. But in order to help people, or to do the work that you love, you have to also talk about it." For many small business owners, 'selling' feels deeply uncomfortable. So too often they don't do it, and the result is the business struggles along or even fails because not...

'It's the stories we respond to in life. It's people's stories we respond to, and then... you can tease out the lessons. You don't go for the theory head on.' There are many, many books about creativity: what it is, how to do it, what steps to follow. When journalist and arts administrator Sir John Tusa turned his attention to the topic, he took a rather different approach. His book is dedicated to 'bright sparks who refuse to become damp squibs', and it tells the stories of people who...

"If you're thinking about writing a book... that's a gorgeous, sexy goal, but it's very unlikely to happen as long as it stays an outcome, a goal, in that form. But if you start to ask yourself, Okay, what's the process that's going to lead to that outcome? Then it starts to get real.' When you tell people you're a publisher, you discover pretty quickly that a significant proportion of the population wants to write a book some day. And no wonder. Writing a book is one of the most...

'Sometimes it's just writing to get it out... you can almost interrogate it more. You can hold it in your hand and you can explore it and you can look at it and then maybe it becomes something or maybe it doesn't.' Having a good idea is a great place to start when you're writing a business book. But it's only a start. Then comes the real work: testing that idea out, articulating it clearly, and - perhaps hardest of all - drawing out the 'so what?'  Andy Brown has been through all these...

Kathryn Bishop, CBE and Gillian Camm are seasoned members of both private and public sector boards. And they've learned that effective governance comes down not to rigid structure and process but to one of the most ancient human skills of all: conversation. Conversations on the right topics, with the right people, in the right way.  So it made sense of course to structure the book around the various types of conversation essential for strong boards; but what they hadn't expected was that...

'That book that's for everyone is for no one, right?' Naren Aryal is laser-focused on the business of publishing for business. In this week's episode he talks to me about how Amplify Publishing Group developed from a single title to one of the world's leading business imprints, the unique goals and expertise of business authors, and why it's so important that you're clear on the target market for your book. (Spoiler alert: it's not 'everyone'.)  

"Business books are unique because they are in that sweet spot between business activity and creative endeavour, that’s why I love them so much, that’s why I do this podcast, that’s why you’re here. It’s a beautiful thing." Too often, people see writing a business book as something comletely different from business itself. It's not. In this best bits episode, I draw together the choicest insights of recent Extraordinary Business Book Club guests to demonstrate that writing a business book...

"I started where I think a good marketer should start, by asking some people to read the book and give me their feedback." Luan Wise, a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing with over 20 years of experience in B2B and B2C sectors, is an expert on all things social media. She's also become something of an expert on writing and publishing business books over the last few years, and in this week's conversation we talk about social media tactics, the difficulty of writing about a topic...

'If I'm not doing my own writing, I'm not properly thinking.' You'll be familiar with the idea of visual identity in branding: but what about verbal identity? John Simmons, director at Interbrand, recognised that the language you use as a business is just as important - if not more so - as the logo, colours and fonts.  He also realised that most businesses were doing this badly.   In this week's though-provoking conversation, he talks me to me about human-to-human business writing, the...