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David Galanis at the Peeble Creek Partners Blog shares the secret to creating a successful business book:
Start with multiple authors – including an academic from a prestigious business school and a seasoned business consultant plus a business journalist from a major newspaper or magazine (someone has to actually write the book).
Using free graduate student talent from the B-school, develop a database of the performance of thousands of companies over the past decade – more if you want to sound really authoritative. Be sure to select a few unique performance metrics to differentiate your results from all the other formulaic books.
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The Barnes & Noble Review published an essay this morning by Daniel Menaker, the former editor-in-chief of Random House.
The piece disassembles publishing into its sub-optimized pieces: Editors competing with editors. The chasm between creative and commercial, both in acquisition and execution.
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The longlist for the 2009 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award has been announced. The press release states that "The award is designed to highlight the book that provides the most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues, including management, finance, and economics. "
The books on the longlist are:
Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism by George A Akerlof, Robert J Shiller
Clever: Leading Your Smartest, Most Creative People by Rob Goffee, Gareth Jones
Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson
Good Value: Reflections on Money, Morality and an Uncertain World by Stephen Green
House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street By William D Cohan (Cohan won the award two years ago for his first book, The Last Tycoons.
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Last week, Penguin launched a set of micro-sites for their newly published books. Called From the Publisher's Office, the initiative uses text excerpts, audio interviews and video clips to promote upcoming titles.
Our friends at Portfolio are specifically involved with one of the microsites called Penguin Business Thought Leaders.
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Aaron and I are headed to New York City tomorrow to attend Book Expo America, the yearly event for book publishing in North America.
Many are holding their breath wondering what it will be like this year. Exhibitor space is down 25% and attendees registered is down almost 30%.
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