Monique Beedles has written Asset Management for Directors. The audience for this book are the directors of ASX top 50 companies in mining or manufacturing and who are interested in asset management. Apparently that’s a thing. Who knew?

Richard Huysmans is writing a book at the moment for big universities collaborating on major research projects. Again, who knew?

The thing I love about these books is how specific they are. If I was on the board of BHP, and someone gave me a copy Asset Management for Directors, I’d be thrilled. It’s like a book written just for me (because it is). Likewise, if I was working at Melbourne University trying to get my head around collaborating with another uni for the first time, and I came across a book on that very thing, I’d be delighted.

And its commercially smart. Richard could do nothing better to position himself as the goto person for universities collaborating on major research projects.

Neither book is going to be a best seller, but that’s not the point. And a book for a small audience is fun to write. You can actually picture the specific people you’re writing to in your mind.

The book I’ve enjoyed writing the most (OK, second most behind writing Catsville with my daughter Scarlett) is Beyond Black Belt. Here it is:

This is a book that Matt Church and I wrote to give to students in Thought Leaders Business School when they hit black belt. We did a print run of 50 first up (although very cool to share that we’re up for a re-print).

If you were going to write a book for only a 150 people, who would they be? It’s a useful thought experiment to narrow your market. And it might be a really smart move to write that book.