** Grab tickets for The Energy Game Melbourne launch (29 July, 6:30pm) here and pre-order The Energy Game book here.**

Writing a book is hard. But getting a publisher to say yes to your book? That is an entirely different challenge, and one that most aspiring authors know almost nothing about.

What actually happens when a proposal lands on a publisher's desk? Who else needs to sign off before an offer is made? And in a world where anyone can ask AI to explain any topic, why has "great content" stopped being enough on its own?

This one is a little different from my usual episodes. It's a recording from a live webinar I did with Izzy Yates, head of Penguin Publishing Lab at Penguin Random House Australia, who has published my last three books, including my newest one, The Energy Game.

We unpack the full journey of a book, from proposal to bookshelf, including how Penguin's internal acquisitions process works, why pre-orders matter far more than most people realise, what actually gets retailers excited, and whether you can land a deal without a big platform.

If you have ever thought about writing a book, or you are in the middle of writing one right now, this is the conversation I wish I had heard before I started.

Izzy and I discuss:

• What made my first book proposal stand out, and the key ingredients Izzy looks for in every strong proposal

• The formula publishers use to evaluate a book: the quality of the idea multiplied by the size of the author's platform, and why it's more nuanced than it sounds

• Why authors who weave personal story into their content are having more success than those who rely on expertise alone

• How Penguin's two-stage internal process works, from publishing meeting to acquisitions meeting, before any offer is made

• The full editorial journey from first draft to printed book: structural edit, copy edit, and proofread

• How titles and covers are developed collaboratively, and what the team considers when landing on a final design

• Why pre-orders matter so much and how they create a virtuous cycle with retailers and chart placement

• Whether you can get a book deal without an existing audience or platform

• What topics and themes Izzy sees as most resonant right now, particularly in the health and personal development crossover space

Pre-order The Energy Game: https://amzn.to/48ID29M and book your ticket to the Melbourne book launch at the Malthouse Theatre on July 29 with Lisa Leong here.

Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)

Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha.substack.com/

Visit https://www.amantha.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au

Credits:
Host: Amantha Imber
Sound Engineer: Martin Imber

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We're using AI more than ever. And yet, according to research from Glean's Work AI Institute, only 10% of Australians say AI is significantly improving organisational performance.

The truth is that most organisations have done what Dom Price calls the "Woodstock theory" of AI adoption: build it and they will come. Throw the tools out there, hope people figure it out, and wait for the productivity miracle that never quite arrives.

In this episode, I sit down with Dom Price, former Atlassian work futurist and one of the sharpest thinkers I know on how organisations actually work. Dom joins me off the back of new Australian research showing the enormous gap between AI adoption and AI impact, and we dig into exactly why that gap exists and what to do about it.

If you care about building genuine AI capability in your team rather than just looking busy with AI, this conversation will make you rethink where to start.

Dom and I discuss:

• The "Woodstock theory" of AI adoption, and why most organisations are getting almost nothing back for their investment

• Botsitting and botshitting: two new terms that capture exactly what's going wrong with how we use AI at work

• The minus one, zero, plus one framework for figuring out where AI actually belongs in your organisation

• Why managers are becoming the unexpected bottleneck in an AI-enabled workplace

• Dom's board of directors inside Claude, and how he uses it to catch his own blind spots

• The question Dom asks every leadership team that almost no one can answer

Key quotes

"If you have inefficient and ineffective processes and people systems, and you layer in AI, you are doing stupid things faster."

"Most of the businesses I work with in the ASX, their human operating system's Windows 95. So you might have Claude 5.9. You're using Ferrari-style horsepower in your technology, but the way your humans and teams work and meet and make decisions... all those things are Windows 95."

Connect with Dom Price on Instagram, LinkedIn and his website.

If this conversation sparked something, you'll also love my recent chat with Professor Scott Anthony on how AI has changed the way he approaches problem-solving and his day-to-day workflows. Listen here.

My latest book The Energy Game is out on July 7, 2026. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M

Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)

Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha.substack.com/

Visit https://www.amantha.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au

Credits:
Host: Amantha Imber
Sound Engineer: The Podcast Butler

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

** Grab tickets for The Energy Game Melbourne launch (29 July, 6:30pm) here and pre-order The Energy Game book here.**

You have the calendar colour-coded. You time block. You deep work. You have iterated on your to-do list more times than you can count. And yet somehow, you are still exhausted - falling further behind, producing less than you know you are capable of, and wondering what on earth is wrong with you.

Nothing is wrong with you. But the solution you have been sold almost certainly is.

This episode is a little different. It is an excerpt from my new book, The Energy Game, read by me, and it picks up close to the start of the book where I get into how we ended up in this energy crisis in the first place, and how to spot those early warning signs of chronic depletion before they tip into full-blown burnout.

The Energy Game is out on July 7, 2026. You can pre-order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M

Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)

Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha.substack.com/

Visit https://www.amantha.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au

Credits:
Host: Amantha Imber
Sound Engineer: Martin Imber

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.