'The crux of our whole business is just really finding talented people to help others do what they can't do themselves as well.'

Kevin Anderson never planned to become CEO of one of the biggest editorial agencies in the world, but that's where his knack for seeing opportunities in a fast-changing industry together with the guts to take them has landed him.

In this episode, we talk about how publishing professionals can support authors at every stage – from clarifying the concept through writing the manuscript to securing the right deal (and we note that 'the right deal' means different things to different authors.)

From the impact of AI on writing and piracy to top tips for writing business books, the enduring appeal of long-form nonfiction to the plethora of publishing options open to authors today, it's packed with insights and advice for aspiring authors.

Don't wait until you've written your manuscript to listen to this!

"Love feedback, hate feedback, feel sort of somewhere in the middle, it still creates this sense of anxiety for everyone around."

Organizational psychologist Becky Westwood is an expert in social anxiety at work. And that gives her a unique persepctive on the situation guaranteed to created anxiety in ALL of us: giving and receiving feedback.

In her book Can I Offer You Something? Expert Ways to Overcome the Horrors of Organizational Feedback, she invites us to reject the grim reality of most workplace feedback processes and return to the original sense of the word: nourishment. It's refreshingly human, and might just save you some lost sleep, not to mention relationships.

This book was named Short Business Book of the Year, and we talk about what length is the right length for a book, and how the answers come as you write, not before you start.

So start.

"We need to think carefully about whether it's going to be the kind of pressure that creates energy and joy and diamond-style transformation, or the sort that sucks the air out of the room and makes things buckle and break."

Pressure is the new normal - in life, at work, in leadership, and also in writing. Other people put pressure on us, we put pressure on ourselves, we put pressure on other people...

This Best Bits episode explores how we deal with that, and also whether it's possible to use it well, and to find some joy in it. (Spoiler alert: it is.)

Hear from:

• Henry King on becoming 'change native'
• David Sinkinson on how to enjoy pressure in the moment
• George Walkley on turning negative feedback into fuel for progress
• Dominic Colenso on the transformative power of career meltdown
• John Amaechi on curating your own power and the discipline of writing
• Zoe Arden on the pressure to do justice to others in your writing
• Catherine Xiang on the pressures you don't even know are there.

Pressure is inevitable, how we respond is down to us.