The Biz Book Broadcast

Sick to death of the advice to "Get on podcasts to get your message out there?" Me too. It's not even close to the best reason to be a guest on lots of shows. So today, show regular Rachel Allen is back in the studio to help me remind you of the many, wonderful things being booked on a show can do for you and your business. And to prove she's walked the talk - she's been on 78 podcasts so far this...

A mysterious marble falls from the sky into a park. One enterprising spider spots an opportunity. Business is booming. But only for a while. Show regular Ron Tester is back to discuss the Fan Brothers' It Fell from the Sky - a beautifully illustrated picture book with a lot to say about pricing. We discuss what a long queue is really telling you. And in other news, Ron's dentist has a lot to answe...

How do you want to be remembered once you're gone? If you're like most people, odds are you've never really thought about it. Death doula Nikki Smith is back for the first of three conversations. No business, no books this time. We discuss what people ask her most when time is short + where to start if this is your first time grappling with legacy. And in related news - please don't send me a pape...

Every project delivered. Everyone exhausted. Hands up if that's you. Innovation expert Lucy Gower is back + for the first time we're looking to a nursery rhyme for business inspiration. We discuss what the old woman should do first + how long-term planning doesn't seem to be her strong suit. This is a Classics episode, where we take a very old story and wring sensible-ish business lessons out of i...

You've finally finished the draft. Now comes the editing. Traditionally it's at least six weeks of waiting, a bill in the thousands. And the typos still breed when you close the book. Barry Solway is a science fiction author with his own imprint + a chief technical officer. These days he edits his books with AI. Edits... he doesn't let it write a word. I'm deep in editing Think Like a Film Crew, s...

Today we're discussing the best Sneetches on beaches. And everyone's favorite chancer in the Seuss world - Sylvester McMonkey McBean - who has probably the best product-market fit in all of fiction. Show regular Ron Tester is back to dig into his business plan to discuss what he gets right + why he leaves exactly when he does. This is a Classics episode, where we treat a book that is absolutely no...

An alien arrives and ends war, famine + poverty. Everyone's delighted. But is it actually benevolent? Kandas Rodarte of the Sci-Fi Book Pod is back for a Fiction Pop-Up. We're sharing faves about worlds where the machines have solved everything + the knock on effects for humanity. There's also a murder by mushroom, a book Kandas loved and hated at the same time + the series I've been re-reading si...

Big meeting coming. A mountain of documents to get through first. AI can help here, but not in the way most people assume. Chris Fenning is back for part three of our mini series. He explains why the executive summary will quietly let you down + what to ask instead - including the question that surfaces the problem nobody in the room is mentioning. There's also the reason Chris now leaves his typo...

Some books promise you one thing and hand you another. That breaks the trust of the reader.  I've read three of them recently + I’m still furious.  Ron Tester is back + he's brought a multi-million bestseller filled with a promise it can't really keep. I've brought two that made me squeak with rage, including one that does something unforgivable to the most beloved character in all of Dickens.  If...

CFO Karen Gordon is back for a Classics episode + we're taking The Cafe at the Edge of the Woods entirely seriously as a business proposition. Magical or not - sadly, it does not hold up. We discuss the many issues of which not having a business plan is only the start - what happens when your only customer pays in gold? And that's before we get into the hygiene issues of magical creatures. This is...

Turns out coffins have fashions. I was told dark wood wasn't in this year. Nikki Smith is a death doula + grief coach. Not a job most of us have heard of, so I ask her what it involves. Then we turn to Caitlin Doughty's From Here to Eternity, on how the rest of the world handles death rather better than we do. We discuss the festival where families bring their dead back out for dinner each year, w...

Nobody wants a soggy bottom. So cook Dominic Franks turned his tarts upside down - problem not only solved, but dinner improved. Business coach Ron Tester is back for more cookbook business thinking. This time we're taking that flip + pointing it at businesses with a known weak spot they've simply learned to live with. I bring Ron five major business flips + we discuss them. One is so good, I'm go...

Your favorite local place has stopped taking cards. The napkins have gone thin. Something's up + you already know it. CFO Karen Gordon is back for our Red Flags strand, this time on spotting financial trouble - in the companies you buy from, the company you work for + your own. Karen knows the tells from the inside. Which small changes mean cost-cutting has started, what it means when the finance...

Don't ask an AI to write your book. It'll do it... but it'll be pap. Chris Fenning is back for part two of our AI mini-series, this time aimed at the book you're writing. He's firm on this - you bring the thinking, AI helps you sharpen it. Never the other way round. We discuss how to make it a proper thinking partner, how it can help with interview transcripts + the signs that you've handed over t...

Ron Tester is back for a History Pop-Up. And it turns out we both spent the month reading about people dying of things nobody understood at the time. Ron's been looking at the physician who worked out cholera came from the water, while the authorities determinedly ignored his findings. I've got an ancient language we can only trace from shared words we still use today.  Plus, we look at the histor...

Tim Ferriss has just published his recent royalty figures - that's since AI arrived - they're grim. Ally Machate of The Writer's Ally is back to work out the knock-on effects for the rest of us. She reckons one whole category of book is dead. Not dying. Dead. But it's not all doom + gloom - business books have a future. I put both my own books on the table + ask her straight whether they'll surviv...

A scientist sails to the Arctic hunting a legendary giant jellyfish. She finds nothing but the reader can see it on every page - right next to her ship. Show regular Ron Tester is back to discuss Chloe Savage's delightful The Search for the Giant Arctic Jellyfish, which for our purposes turns out to be a book about blind spots. We discuss why your customers see your business more clearly than you...

We can now all spot AI slop miles off - the em dash, the bullet points, the "it's not this, it's that". Yet AI is still super handy for speeding day-to-day tasks - so how do you use AI for business writing without sounding like a bot? Communications expert Chris Fenning is back to discuss the whole thing. He explains the two jobs AI does brilliantly + the two you should never hand over. And a stra...

When the fair shuts and the humans go home, the woodland animals let themselves in. Nobody's in charge. Yet it works perfectly. Community expert Gill Tiney is back to discuss The Midnight Fair by Gideon Sterer. It's a wordless picture book, which makes it a very quiet business text indeed. We discuss who guides when nobody leads, how your members can pay you without using actual money + the one th...

Publishers spend all day up to their eyeballs in books. Which begs the question - what do they read when nobody's paying them to? Publisher Emily Hitchcock is back - for what may be a new series - finding out what the professionals read for pleasure. We compare notes on bookseller picks, judging books by their covers - we both do it, is it a bad habit? + which section of the bookshop you'll find E...

You've written a book. AI is going to change how people find it - and yes, it's going to read it too + probably tell people what's in it. Let's discuss the good and the bad. Marketing strategist Forest Linden is back for part three of our AI mini series. Forest explains where AI actually looks when it decides who to recommend - it's not your website - and how to get your name attached to your idea...

You're explaining your work to someone important. You're being clear - you're being interesting. Obv. Yet they've quite visibly glazed over. What went wrong? Communications expert Chris Fenning is back to set us straight. Turns out the problem isn't necessarily your explanation - it's where you're starting from - and it's the reason why so many tedious business letters go straight in the recycling...

Are you the sort of person who likes to take things apart to see how they work? Maybe before you've quite got a plan on how to put it back together? If so - CFO Karen Gordon + I have some goose based thoughts that might help. We're giving Aesop's golden goose the financial review it's waited two and a half thousand years for. It doesn't go well for the farmer. Or the goose. Obv. We consider what a...

Right now, there's very likely a bag of frozen peas in your freezer + a tin of tomatoes in your cupboard. Oddly, that fact contains an interesting business lesson. Show regular Ron Tester is back + we're launching a whole new strand - business lessons from cookbooks. Bear with me here, there's lots to learn. Starting with today's book - the one I can't stop raving about - Samuel Goldsmith's The Fr...

Curious about AI but not sure where to even start? This one's for you. Kind of. Marketing strategist Forest Linden is back. I ask him for the gentle beginner's route into AI. He answers with the three AI employees he's built. One writes code. Yikes. Fear not - fascinating as Forest's system is - I steer us back to the shallow end + we get to the easy starting points - the ones any business can use...