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By Thérèse Roberts – Retired, mother of Emma Kapoor. Summarising an 80,000-word novel into a 150-word blurb for the back cover was never going to be easy. We turned to the expert guides for suggestions, but we mostly got a combination of the blatantly obvious and the impossible: You need to make it interesting – it’s the second thing a potential book buyer will glance at – after the cover. You must have a good opening line, ideally with a hook, and a sense of jeopardy if a t

By Stephanie Mueller – Head of Global Rates Trading, TDT Capital. “Never judge a book by its cover,” must be the most inappropriate metaphor of the English language, Alexander sighed. We had been reminiscing about what we had expected to be the most exciting part of the book production: releasing our artistic creativity into the book cover! “In the end, it’s probably been the most successful part of the end product and, frankly, it’s where I’ve made the least contribution,” h

By Eric Chevalier – Head of Southern Europe – TDT Capital. So more than 3.5 years after the first sentence was drafted we had our final script. I had published my own book on option pricing a little while ago and Alexander had got in touch with me about the process, though obviously my book was non-fiction and distributed only in France. Alexander seemed set on the self-publishing route. Though accepting that an agent would probably considerably improve his draft, he was conc

By Jemima Lawrence – Octangle Media Consultancy. My only complaint with Alexander’s, otherwise excellent, first draft of Dark Pools was...

By Andrea Bartorelli – Head of Asia Sales, TDT Capital. I confess I was surprised to hear from Alexander – he had interviewed me in...

By Muttu Murali, Manager and Chef at Villa Traxler. It was the evening after our fifth anniversary celebrations and I was on my way back...

By Urs Waechli, ex-senior partner of Banque Gaumet et cie and Owner of Villa Traxler. It was at the celebrations for our...