The Extraordinary Business Book Club

Hosted by Alison Jones

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Episodes

400

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Nov 2026

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About the show

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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60 recent

November 9, 2026Episode 51035 min

Episode 510 - Turning ideas into books

'I don't write what I know, I write what I want to know.' Having an idea for a book? That's the easy bit. The real work begins when you try to translate that shiny, beautiful, slightly vague idea into a clearly articulated concept that can support tens of thousands of useful, readable words. This Best Bits episode explores the full range of that process, from capturing ideas and developing structure to making complex thinking accessible to time-poor readers. Hear from: Nir Eyal on how curiosity can pull you through the long process of writing a book; Alex Merry on starting small and writing for one real person; Claire Handby on noticing and capturing ideas as a daily habit; Dougal Shaw on breaking The Book down into something manageable, and carving out time for it; Melissa Swift on overcoming perfectionism and learning the craft of writing; Michelle Gielan on turning two-minute news stories into long-form writing; Caroline Webb on structural thinking and reader-focused design. That might sound linear: it's not. Writing a book isn't simply about capturing an idea on paper. The process of writing exposes the gaps, sharpens the argument, develops our thinking. You work on the writing, and the writing works on you.

November 2, 2026Episode 50934 min

Episode 509 - Fail Smarter with Dougal Shaw

' Probably 90% of the journey is about dealing with failure and the prospect of failure hanging over you.' Very often when we hear about failure it's from successful leaders looking at it in the rear-view mirror, a moment of drama on their way to eventual triumph. But what if failure deserves a story of its own, even if there's no happy ending? Dougal Shaw has spent more than a decade interviewing entrepreneurs as a business journalist, first at the BBC, where he created the CEO Secrets series, and now at Business Leader. His new book, Fail Smarter , draws on those conversations to explore what really happens when things go wrong, how looking at failure with more courage and curiosity can transform it into fuel for success, and how the best leaders create cultures in which mistakes are owned and explored. We also talk about Dougal's approach to writing, what's helpful and what's not about a background in journalism as preparation for publishing a book, and the very different interpretations of 'editing' in the industry.

October 26, 2026Episode 50828 min

Episode 508 - Leadership Intelligence with Caroline Webb

'Good structure makes it a lot easier to wrap your head around complex ideas.' How do you take a vast body of knowledge and experience and turn it into something that readers can actually remember and apply when they're in the thick of a difficult situation? That's the challenge Caroline Webb set herself with her latest book, Leadership Intelligence . Drawing on more than 25 years of leadership coaching and the latest behavioural science, she created a practical playbook organized around three distinctively human strengths: wisdom, inspiration and resilience. In this conversation we explore the extraordinary amount of work involved in making complex ideas simple without oversimplifying them. Caroline shares how she developed that structure (hello, Post-its!), and wove into it the memorable models and real-life stories that make a book both usable and memorable. We also talk about the role of business books in an age of AI age and her power move - combining a print book with an evolving digital companion. It's a masterclass in writing with the reader in mind.

October 19, 2026Episode 50731 min

Episode 507 - Finding your voice with Dr Claire Handby

'Get started. Accept that you need to write and get something out of you. That's the feeling to notice and then respond to it however it shows up.' Dr Claire Handby is a business leader, executive coach and author who's driven by the impulse to 'make the invisible visible'. Her first book, Uptick, draws on her own experience of career reinvention; her forthcoming book, Zip It, deals with the under-explored experience of professional silencing and how to find your voice again after a difficult career transition. In this conversation we explore how books can transform lived experience into something that helps others make sense of their own lives, and how writing itself helps us process those experiences and find a way forward. W e also talk about finding your voice, literally as well as metaphorically - it's a rare joy to hear a Northern woman narrate her own business book. Claire also shares how she deliberately turned her unhelpful doomscrolling habit into a writing practice: simply noticing things, capturing thoughts, and gradually building up the body of work that would become her books. It's a reminder, if you needed one, that writing a book starts with simply noticing that you have something to say.

October 12, 2026Episode 50644 min

Episode 506 – The Frankfurt Book Fair debrief

'Now that we have AI to give us all the answers, who needs books, right?' It's a question that everyone who writes, publishes or sells nonfiction books has to face up to in 2026. The decline of reading and the threat posed by AI are unarguable, yet there are also signs of resilience and reasons for hope, alongside some useful lessons for anyone writing or publishing business or self-development books. Practical Inspiration's fabulous sales and marketing assistant Lauren Moseley became a roving reporter between meetings at this year's Frankfurt Book Fair, capturing five perspectives from across the industry. Hear from: NielsenIQ Book Data's Belle Edelman on nonfiction trends, how readers discover books, and the value of writers' work in an AI world Durnell Marketing's Siobhan Humphries and Paula Moreno on how authors can support book sales, and why credibility and human connection matter Rights experts Clare Hodder and Kris Kliemann on international opportunities, shorter books, and offering something readers can't get from an AI query Liverpool University Press's Anna Champion on streamlining publishing work while preserving the relationships at its heart The Independent Publishers Guild's Tom Holman on copyright challenges, opportunities for smaller publishers, and taking a thoughtful approach to AI adoption. If you couldn't make it to Frankfurt, here's a taste of the conversations shaping the future of books - and what they might mean for yours.

October 5, 2026Episode 50532 min

Episode 505 - Speaking success with Alex Merry

' Reps can help you improve your ability to speak, and you can be the person creating those reps.' If you're seeking success as a speaker, what does that mean to you? Perfectly polished delivery, Big, flashy stages? Alex Merry sees his job as helping founders unlock the true potential of their ideas, and as part of that he brings speakers at all stages of the journey into community in MicDrop. He has a more intentional, strategic approach to defining success as a speaker. In fact, turns out some of the most commercially powerful speaking opportunities happen in very ordinary rooms, with a relatively small number of exactly the right people. We talk about the beautiful overlap between books and speaking, why the two work together so synergistically, and how being in community with the right people can supercharge success in both. We also talk about the importance of doing all of this in public, testing your ideas, learning to communicate the same message in a million different ways. A practical and energising conversation about speaking, writing, business development, community, and why success might be different to - and so much achievable than - your assumptions.

September 28, 2026Episode 50436 min

Episode 504 - Resilient Optimism with Michelle Gielan

' You can continually be choosing optimistic behavior even when you're not feeling optimistic.' Michelle Gielan is a positive psychology researcher married to a happiness researcher - wouldn't you love to be at that dinner table? In her latest book Resilient Optimism: The science of sustaining a positive mindset in tough times , she explores why optimism that lasts when reality hits is not based on an emotion, but on behaviour, and more particularly on the belief that our behaviour matters. She also discovered that your behaviour matters way beyond your own mood and your own outcomes. Becoming a 'positive deviant' - actively expressing optimism, celebrating progress, spreading 'positive gossip' - can transform the outcomes of everyone around you. We also talk about writing as sense-making, experimenting with 'power leads', and how to think of a book as a collection of beautifully connected two-minute stories. A hopeful, practical conversation about agency, courage, writing, and resilience.

September 21, 2026Episode 50350 min

Episode 503 - What book awards do to and for authors

'You can be both disappointed for yourself and delighted for other people at the same time.' Book awards are great for visibility and credibility. But there's another side to them too. Entering for an award means putting the product of months or years of private work into the public gaze to be judged. And however highly evolved you are, there's a good chance that fear, hope, self-doubt, and even a sulk can all be part of the process that follows. In this episode, authors representing every dimension of the experience reflect honestly and helpfully on their experience and what they've learned. Hear from: Sarah Robb on the difference between the award and the real reward Tom Pullen on awards as a way through the 'post-publication valley of death' Helen Beedham on the surprising questions that success raised about her identity as an author Susan Ni Chriodain on why there's nothing wrong with wanting something enough to be disappointed Martin Farrell on what awards revealed about his own need for recognition Virginia Cinquemani on managing expectations and breathing through the nerves Angela Rixon on the very real value of shortlisting Ian Pettigrew on the need to take care around the meaning we attach to an outcome Alice Sheldon on treating an award result as data rather than a verdict Trevor Merriden on why awards judges understand more than authors might realise about what's at stake.

September 14, 2026Episode 50233 min

Episode 502 - Beyond Belief with Nir Eyal

'I don't write what I know, I write what I want to know.' You know Nir Eyal. He's an authority on behaviour change and human potential, a respected academic and the bestselling author of Hooked and Indistractable . His latest book is called Beyond Belief: The science-backed way to stop limiting yourself and achieve breakthrough results . But did you know that he's not writing for you, dear reader - he's writing for himself, to satisfy his curiosity about a topic that's caught his attention? Or that when he sits down to write, it immediately triggers an anxiety response: 'Why is this so difficult? It's boring. What if nobody likes my book? What if I don't make my deadline? What am I even doing?' In this fascinating conversation, we explore what beliefs mean for life and work and, most relevantly for this podcast, writing. You'll discover how he replaced those anxious questions with a more liberating belief, which I guarantee will work for you too (I know because it worked for me). And - of course - we talk about AI: where it's helpful for writing and where it becomes a dirty thief if you let it.

September 7, 2026Episode 50129 min

Episode 501 - Effective with Melissa Swift

'It's just this kind of ordinary zone of getting done the things you need to get done and making sure your work has the impact it's supposed to have.' There's a lot of talk about high performance in leadership literature. But perhaps a more realistic goal, and the one with the potential to transform an organization root to branch, is effectiveness, argues Melissa Swift. Her new book Effective: How to do great work in a fast-changing world, explores what it really means to be effective at work - not crushing it, not hustling, just consistently doing the right work well in a world where nobody is ever really 'done'. In this conversation, she talks about why we need to become our own personal organizational consultants: stepping back from the inundation of work to understand what our job actually is, where the friction points are, and what boundaries we need to keep doing good work sustainably. She also talks about the craft of writing business books, including what business book writers can learn from journalists and how to get the balance right between informing and entertaining. A thoughtful, practical conversation about work, writing, resources and realistic goals.