'It's that place of, you know, because it's your business and your livelihood, having to say, "Come and buy my thing because I'm great. I'm great at it. Look at me, look at all these great things I can do for my clients." And oh my goodness, that's difficult.'

Jenny Proctor is living proof that you don't need to shout to get the right kind of attention. It can feel pretty lonely, being an introvert in the famously extrovert environment of a corporate marketing department. But setting up her own business meant Jenny was free to set her own rules, and the fact that her book, Marketing for Introverts, won the Business Self Development Book of the Year award is proof that her approach is welcomed by others, too.

Whether it's the quiet power of a well-crafted blog post or the paradoxically introvert-friendly nature of video marketing, Jenny's insights on how introverts can rewrite the marketing rules are as practical as they are reassuring.

I'm an off-the-scale extrovert, and we discovered, hilariously, that we have at times both secretly envied the other's MBTI profile. But whether you're an introvert, an extrovert, or something in between, you'll find something worth listening to in this episode.

'[And this is} the rationale and the motivation for the book. It's about, well, how do we spread this? How do we do some good with it? How do we improve the economy? How do we make businesses more effective?'

David Falzani has spent decades building and growing businesses, and now, as a Professor of Practice, helping others to do the same. And throughout that time he's watched entrepreneurs grapple with one constant, intractable, mysterious issue: pricing.

It's not just about numbers. (In fact it's not really about numbers at all.) The price we put on something, the price we're prepared to pay for anything, is wrapped up in emotion and our deepest most irrational cognitive processes. Understanding that and getting your pricing right is all too often the difference between thriving and failing as a business, which is why David wrote his Business Book Award winner, 'Double Your Price'.

If better pricing leads to better business, David is equally clear that smarter writing leads to more satisfied readers. (Or at the very least, fewer rewrites.) And he has some good tips to help you with that, too.

'The writing is joyful, more or less. It's painful, but it's also joyful. The marketing of it is much harder.'

Dr Lucy Ryan's book Revolting Women touched a nerve worldwide: many women can relate all too well to the perfect storm of challenges facing midlife women at work, and everyone has an opinion on it.

Which took a bit of getting used to. In this week's conversation, part of my series talking to this year's Business Book Awards winners, Lucy talks frankly about the learning curve when a doctoral research project becomes an award-winning, conversation-sparking business book, and how she learned to love (or at least manage) the work of promoting it.

From being squeezed down to seconds in her first radio interview to talking sex, drugs and rock and roll with Mariella Frostrup, her experience and hard-won lessons are pure gold to anyone setting out to write - and promote - a business book that makes an impact.

'The TLDR, the too-long-didn't-read of the whole thing, is that everybody's skimming. So we need to write in a way that makes it easy for skimmers if we want to achieve our goals as writers.'

Todd Rogers has been using behavioural science for good for many years, from strengthening democracy to increasing student attendance, so his kids were somewhat underwhelmed when he turned his research to writing.

But think for a moment what the world would be like if everyone wrote clearly and effectively in a world where readers have little time and patience. Imagine the time not wasted, the offence not taken, the goodwill not squandered, the ideas not lost in translation.

Todd argues, and I agree with him, that better communication can lead to a kinder, more efficient world, and it starts with us. Whether it's an email, a business report, or a book, here are practical ideas for writing that's simply easier to read.

'Ruthlessness exists on a continuum, caring exists on a continuum, and it's about being in the sweet spots of both of those, not overplaying either one, or underplaying either one.'

Amy Walters Cohen is the author of Ruthlessly Caring: And Other Paradoxical Mindsets Leaders Need to Be Future Fit, which was named overall Business Book of the Year in 2024. It's based on years of research, which revealed that the key skill for effective leadership in a complex world is the ability to hold in tension five seemingly paradoxical mindsets.

As well as talking me through these, Amy told me about the challenges and rewards of translating her research into a book, including the amount of fidgeting, procrastination and coffee-fetching involved in the early stages.

She also introduced me to the 'pub test', which I am shamelessly stealing for all future writing...

'Mom, why don't you just write it like you talk to me?'

When Laura Hamill set out to write a book about the subject she knew best - the subject she'd spent years researching in theory and practice - she naturally drew on all the studies, statistics and evidence she'd gathered together to support her argument.

Turns out, that's not what the reader needed. (And it wasn't just her editor who told her that, it was her son, too.)

Those in organizations with a problematic culture don't need research studies, they need help. Laura had to learn how to step out from behind the screen of academic writing, how to own her experience and her opinion, and to sit with the discomfort of uncertainty and self-doubt that involves throughout the writing process.

The result is a book that allows leaders and indeed anyone at any level to look beyond the words stencilled on the lobby walls to see how the real culture - what's expressed in how people speak and behave - is aligned with strategy, and what to do about it if it's not.

'As we lean into artificial intelligence across every sector of business and life, how do we ensure that we're delegating the right things and keeping responsibility for the right things? And specifically, how do books and writing play into that?'

In this best bits episode, I'm exploring the role of writing in human intelligence in a world where it's suddenly possible to delegate writing to an AI tool. How does generating a written output quickly and easily fit alongside the hard yards of writing for ourselves, and is there still a place for that at work? [Spoiler alert: Yes. Yes, there is.]

Hear from:

• Patrick Dixon on why physical books have become even more meaningful in an increasingly virtual world;
• Anna Faherty on why AI takes us backwards when it comes to story-telling;
• Dan Kieran on why we need the alchemy of writing to make sense of our lives;
• Thomas Bergen on the renaissance of the book and capturing its soul;
• Kathryn Jacob and Sue Unerman on why creativity matters so much in a world run by algorithms;
• Tiffany Gaskell on how being more human benefits the organization as well as the individual;
• Graham Allcott on why he doesn't let his AI avatar write his newsletter;
• Colin Ellis on the importance of the discography;
• Alina Addison on giving readers the courage to embrace both the too-muchness and the not-enoughness.

Get ready to be challenged and cheered by these outstanding humans.

'They think the goal is to have the book, but no, the goal is to become the person it takes to write your book.'

Dan Kieran is a publishing legend: as a co-founder of Unbound he revolutionizing the industry by empowering authors and readers. He learned a lot about himself and about setting up a business along the way, and he brought all that together in Do Start, winner of the Startup Book of the Year at the Business Book Awards.

But he also firmly believes that writing isn't just, or even primarily, about the final product; it's the process itself, the way you understand and articulate your journey, both professionally and personally. Which is why turning to AI to generate your writing outputs for you is such a dangerous, self-defeating habit for anyone who cares about ideas.

Or as Dan put it: 'Why would anyone want to read something that you couldn't be bothered to write?'

'I think we are living in a renaissance of the book... AI is changing how we are looking at trusted knowledge.'

getAbstract is one of the leading corporate learning platforms, and it's based on books. The founders met with a lot of resistance from publishers in the early days, but their vision of making the knowledge in books discoverable and actionable quickly became reality. One reason was the brilliance of the team of abstracters creating summaries of the books, and in this episode we talk about how AI is changing the landscape and what that might mean for this most human of industries.

I talk to getAbstract cofounder Thomas Bergan, VP and global Head of Rights Arnhild Walz-Rasilier, and Practical Inspiration author Julie Smith, who took home the Readers' Choice gong. But it quickly becomes clear I'm never going to make it as a roving reporter....

"As she was coached during a 15-minutes conversation, she put down each of those worries and at the end of it she was standing there in her full potential and I was like, wow, that's amazing. I want to learn how to do that."

If there's a foundational text of executive coaching it's Coaching for Performance by Sir John Whitmore, first published in 1992. Sadly John died in 2017 and so Tiffany Gaskell, who co-founded Performance Consultants with John and worked with him on the 5th edition in 2017, became the driving force behind the new, post-pandemic 6th edition.

She talks to me about the power of coaching, its evolution since 1992, and how it has become so foundational for organizational and personal growth. We also explore the link between coaching and writing, and how embracing coaching principles can help you fulfil your full potential as a writer. And we're all here for that, right?