The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers

What are the core fundamentals of a successful independent author business? How can you focus on writing, as well as sell more books, and stay healthy? Prolific fantasy author Lindsay Buroker shares her tips. In the intro, YouTube gets into audio-only podcasts; Seth Godin's book marketing for The Song of Significance; How to make more money than the average author [Ask ALLi]; Independent author income survey from ALLi; The Authors Guild updated their model contract with a new clause: No Generative AI Training Use. Plus, my photos from Washington D.C.; I'm on the Write Now with Scrivener Podcast; Pictures from signing hardbacks at Bookvault in Peterborough. Today's podcast sponsor is Findaway Voices, which gives you access to the world's largest network of audiobook sellers and everything you need to create and sell professional audiobooks. Take back your freedom. Choose your price, choose how you sell, choose how you distribute audio. Check it out at FindawayVoices.com. Lindsay Buroker is the author of over 100 books across epic fantasy, urban fantasy, science fiction, fantasy, romance, and more. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes How Lindsay's current business works, and how she's ready to pivot and is considering other things, like Kickstarter The core fundamentals for a long-term author business What changes and what stays the same Pros and cons of writing under a pen name Dealing with negative feedback Investing, and thinking about the future for our intellectual property You can find Lindsay at LindsayBuroker.com and listen to the backlist at https://6figureauthors.com/. Header image created by Joanna Penn on Midjourney. Transcript of Interview with Lindsay Buroker Joanna: Lindsay Buroker is the author of over 100 books across epic fantasy, urban fantasy, science fiction, fantasy, romance, and more. So welcome back to the show, Lindsay. Lindsay: Hey, thanks for having me. It's been a couple years. So we'll see what's going on. Joanna: It's so exciting to talk to you because lots of people miss you, and they miss the Six Figure Authors Podcast. I do. I used to listen to that show every week, whenever it was, and we have not heard your news for a while. So you did the last main episode of Six Figure Authors in April 2022, and did a surprise extra in October 2022, but give us an update.  What does your book business look like now? And what have you been writing in the last year? Lindsay: I feel a little bad about that October episode because it was super doom and gloom. Joanna: It was really good. Lindsay: We're probably going to do another one, just pop into update. For my book business, I haven't changed a lot. I've slowed down a little bit, which it may not look like from the outside because the series I'm working on their shorter, like 80 – 90,000 words, which, compared to some of my epic fantasy stuff that's short. So I'm writing fewer words a day, I used to shoot for like 7,000 to 10,000. And now I'm just like, yeah, screw that, maybe 5,000. But because they're shorter books, I've still been publishing as much. I don't know if that will continue. I haven't made a lot of changes. I'm still launching new stuff into Kindle Unlimited. Things are still working pretty well for me, but I'm definitely keeping an eye on what's going on. You know, you were talking about selling direct and the people that are just doing other things, and Kickstarters, and I do have the Patreon. So I'm always ready. If I have to pivot, I want to be prepared. I might do a Kickstarter and try some stuff, regardless, but it's a lot of work as I think you've been talking about the Kickstarter you did. And until you actually know how much you're going to make from it, it's a bit of a question mark. Like if I'm not going to make more than I'm making a month from Amazon, do I really want to put all this extra work above and beyond what I usually do? So that's why I haven't done it yet.  I am excited about all the things that people are doing now and all the ways you can make money from your books. It's pretty fun to watch all the various ways people succeed and contemplate trying some things myself. Joanna: Well, just on the Kickstarter, I mean, your social media posts are often just interesting things with dragons on them, right, like lamps and random stuff with dragons. And if you did a Kickstarter, you would have to do merchandise of some kind because everyone will want some kind of dragon thing. Lindsay: It's true. And I don't really have a go-to person for creating things like that for art, other than cover designs and such. So that's extra work, finding that. I think people want a hardback, like a signed hardback edition, which I'd be open to, but again, I haven't done it yet. Everything would be like the first time it'd be the hardest. And I'm sure you could become like Kris a

Write and publish what you want, get paid every day for your books, and control your customer data and relationships. It's possible if you sell direct, as Pierre Jeanty talks about in this interview. In the intro, the author income survey [ALLi]; publishing clauses to avoid [Writer Unboxed; Writer Beware]; copyright registration for AI-assisted comic Zarya of the Dawn [Process Mechanics]; tips for writing with AI [Self Publishing Show]; my Sudowrite tutorial. Today's show is sponsored by ProWritingAid, writing and editing software that goes way beyond just grammar and typo checking. With its detailed reports on how to improve your writing and integration with Scrivener, ProWritingAid will help you improve your book before you send it to an editor, agent or publisher. Check it out for free or get 25% off the premium edition at www.ProWritingAid.com/joanna Pierre Jeanty is a poet and inspirational author, publisher and entrepreneur. He specializes in selling through Shopify and teaches authors his methods through 7figurebookbusiness.com. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes How Pierre started selling direct early, and how sales on other stores like Amazon happen even when he focuses on selling to Shopify first The importance of changing your mindset Flipping the business model to selling direct first Changes in the indie zeitgeist with more authors wanting more independence Best ways to market your Shopify store Separating your store by brand and genre You can find Pierre Jeanty at PierreJeanty.com or 7figurebookbusiness.com Transcript of Interview with Pierre Jeanty Pierre: Pierre Jeanty is a poet and inspirational author, publisher and entrepreneur. He specializes in selling through Shopify, and teaches authors his methods through 7figurebookbusiness.com, which I can highly recommend, and I'm personally going through at the moment. So welcome, Pierre. Thank you. Thank you for having me, Joanna. Joanna: Oh, I'm so excited to talk to you. But first up— Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing. Pierre: That is an interesting story. So as an immigrant in the US, I came here in 2000. And after entering the States, I worked my way into going into college. In college, one of the things that I seemed to be more interested in was the language itself, but also into writing poetry. And diving into social media during that time, it was Myspace. So since then, I've had a hunger to actually play with words and use poetry. Around 2011, 2010, around that time, I was building out Twitter and becoming a Twitter influencer, and I started writing more inspirational content that I felt would help people. From there on, that's where I started with a book. And the rest is history. Joanna: The rest is history that people don't know! So you're going to have to take us on a bit. From 2011, that's more than a decade ago, so you put out your first poetry book. And look, I mean, people in the community even now would say, you write a poetry book and nothing's going to happen, right? I mean, maybe you could be an insta-poet or whatever. How did you take that forward from one poetry book over a decade ago to where you are now? Like, just give us some of the highlights. Pierre: Okay, so one thing, just to be clear, my first book did not get published until 2014. So 2011, I was thinking about the poetry book, but I had almost no direction. So it was no guidance whatsoever. So what I did instead was continue to build my influence, to where in 2011, I founded a brand name Gentlemanhood, in which the whole focus was to write content for men to help them express themselves and be better in relationships, because men tend to be not as vocal. Well, now we have that ability it seems, but that was the issue then. So in 2014, after having a successful blog, it was gentlemanhood.com. And it was mostly me writing about men and relationships, but different writers would join me. My audience actually started requesting that I put a book out. My first book, it was more pretty much structured however I wanted it to be. So it was me just having poems on one side, and on the other side, expressing detail in the kind of like the situation. What happened throughout that time, what sparked the poem, and so forth. And I wrote it in a way that I felt like my audience would receive it.  So December 10, 2014, I published my first book, Unspoken Feelings of a Gentleman, and with the audience receiving it well. That was my first introduction to direct sale, to be honest, because I did not understand CreateSpace, Amazon KDP did not necessarily exist for print. So I created a WooCommerce shop, which was our old website, gentlemanhood.com. That's what I used to publish my first book where we had presales through email, and we had direct relationship, let's say, with the readers and the buyers. From

After many years of people saying, “AI can never be creative, AI could never write fiction (i.e. make things up), it's now evident that the generative AI tools make a lot up — and we need to be aware of the potential ramifications. How can we use the tools to achieve our creative purpose in an ethical manner, and understand that we need to curate, edit, and take responsibility for any usage? How can we educate ourselves and others on the way these AI models work? Tim Boucher and I have a challenging, wide-ranging discussion in this interview. In the intro, I comment on ‘A concerning trend of AI-generated submissions' to short story market, Clarkesworld, and the ‘tsunami of crap' all over again [JA Konrath], and how we can use AI tools in a responsible manner. Today's show is sponsored by my wonderful patrons who fund my brain so I have time to think about and discuss these futurist topics impacting authors. If you support the show, you also get the extra monthly patron-only Q&A audio. You can support the show at www.patreon.com/thecreativepenn Tim Boucher is a hyperrealist AI artist and writer specializing in questionable alternative realities. He's worked professionally in content moderation policy, and counter-disinformation efforts on behalf of a major web platform, a blockchain protocol. And he has advised nonprofits and governments on related issues You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes How Tim started writing and publishing, and why he decided to experiment with AI tools for images and words Misinformation by humans and AI hallucinations, how we need to fact check , edit, curate, and manage outputs — and how these can be used in fiction Tim's AI-collaborative creative process and the tools he uses for words and images Labeling and ethical use of AI [see the Alliance of Independent Authors guidelines here] Why Tim uses Gumroad to sell direct and doesn't publish on Amazon How authors need to engage with the technology, experiment, and learn to stand out in an ever-increasingly crowded market You can find Tim at TimBoucher.ca and his books at LostBooks.gumroad.com Header image created by Joanna Penn on Midjourney. Introduction: Addressing the flood of AI-generated content/books In this introductory section, I want to talk about some of the news items that have arisen this week, and that fit into this episode very well. From the headlines this week, “Sci-fi publisher Clarkesworld halts pitches amid deluge of AI-generated stories.” [The Guardian] and “Hundreds of AI-written books flood Amazon.” [The Independent].  I’m not sure why people are surprised about this, and of course, this will only increase. But as ever, the headlines are clickbait and we need to have a more nuanced approach.  Yes, there will be scammers, spammers, pirates, get-rich-quick schemes and plagiarisers using these tools to mass produce crap and publish it quickly.  But that is nothing new.  People who do this kind of thing have always done this kind of thing.  Everything I have ever written, recorded, or produced in every format has been plagiarised, pirated, stolen, and republished elsewhere. I used to try and stop it, and I still do make an effort when someone literally steals everything— but it takes up too much time to try and stop it all, so I focus on creating value for my true audience — all of you. This happens to me, and I am a (mostly) unknown author in a tiny corner of the internet. The most famous books, blogs, films, music, etc, get pirated the moment they emerge, or even before release if leaked.   Humans are the problem, but of course, AI technology enables this to be done at scale — which makes it more of a problem. But again, this is nothing new. Have you checked your email spam folder lately? Are you aware of how much content farm crap the Google algorithm filters out when you search? Do you know how much content moderation there already is on the internet? Are you aware of all the scams that go on even just in our little author corner of the internet?  Check Writer Beware for years of them, most of them prior to generative AI. Do you know how many times Amazon has been ‘flooded’ with spam books?  Have a look at David Gaughran’s blog for a glimpse [Scammers break the Kindle store from 2017, Kindle Unlimited: A Cheater Magnet from 2021, and a whole load more.]  On The Guardian UK in 2018, Fake books sold on Amazon could be used for money laundering; and in 2019, Plagiarism, book-stuffing, click farms … the rotten side of self-publishing. Because yes, we’ve heard this all before.  “The tsunami of crap” all over again Back in 2011, JA Konrath, one of the early and most successful indie authors, wrote a blog post entitled, ‘The tsunami of crap.’ “Some people believe the ease of self-publishing means that millions of wannab

How can you create a universe big enough for multiple series? How can you co-write successfully? How can you pivot your business model to achieve your creative, financial, and lifestyle goals? Martha Carr talks about these things and more. In the intro, Simon & Schuster is back up for sale [Reuters, Episode 662 with Jane Friedman]; The New Gatekeepers report [Ben Evans]; Marvellous Maps. Today's show is sponsored by Ingram Spark, which I use to print and distribute my print-on-demand books to 40,000 retailers including independent bookstores, schools and universities, libraries, and more. It's your content—do more with it through IngramSpark.com. Martha Carr is the best-selling author of over 200 urban fantasy novels. Her newest series, Queen of the Flightless Dragons, will be coming out on Kickstarter in May 2023 with Book One, Eamon. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes The mindset shift when switching from traditional to indie publishing How to take notes, and then turn those notes into books How to know when an idea is big enough for a universe Rules to follow when creating different series arcs within a universe Pros and cons of co-writing Establishing contracts and protecting intellectual property when co-writing How the business model is continually changing for indie authors Kickstarter and why it is valuable to growing your audience You can find Martha Carr at MarthaCarr.com Header image created by Joanna Penn on Midjourney. Transcript of Interview with Martha Carr Joanna: Martha Carr is the best-selling author of over 200 urban fantasy novels. Her newest series, Queen of the Flightless Dragons, will be coming out on Kickstarter in May 2023 with Book One, Eamon. So welcome to the show, Martha. Martha: Thank you. I'm so glad to be here. Thanks for asking me. Joanna: I'm excited to talk to you. So first up— Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and self-publishing. Martha: So I started writing actually, shoot, about 35 years ago, and I was published traditionally, and I was a journalist, and I had a national column. And then of course, the world changed, and indie publishing became a thing, and it just got more and more enticing. And then I ran into Michael Anderle, and then the rest is history. Joanna: Now, some people listening might not know Michael Anderle, surprising as it is. But you said the word enticing, as well. What enticed you into this indie world? And how did your work with Michael start? Martha: So in traditional world, you have to have all your ducks in a row leading up to publication because you can't change much once the book is out there. So if you get the cover wrong or the blurb wrong, you have to live with it. And all the marketing you do is front-end loaded, and they give you about three months to prove that you can sell books. Then everything gets harder if you don't sell what they consider enough. In indie land, if you find the blurb is not working, you can change it that hour. And you can always redo all the covers. I mean, there's like a million chances to get to know your audience. And it just seems more organic and makes more sense.  A lot of the marketing you do comes after the book is out. A lot of times I don't do the biggest push until Book Three is coming out. I do it on Book One when Book Three is coming out. So that's a lot more appealing. Plus, the cut you get as a traditional author is a lot smaller. Joanna: Absolutely. And we'll come back to co-writing in a bit. But you mentioned there that you were a journalist and also were traditionally published. So even though you found this world enticing, how did you break out of that traditional mindset? And I'm sure you have friends in your previous career who might have judged your choices, so how have you dealt with that mindset shift? Martha: So I have found that, inevitably, I have to answer to myself. And if I make decisions based on everyone else's gut, I'll make a million different decisions, and it will add up to nothing because I'll keep changing my mind. There was a lot of pushback when I initially went indie. And somebody wrote me a really long email about how I was embarrassing myself, and I just deleted it. They weren't even an author. Joanna: That's crazy. Martha: Yeah. And in the end, I just have to believe in myself and ask myself all the right questions, and it was more about what do I want to do. Plus, I was having a lot more fun as an indie author, and it just seemed more rewarding. With traditional publishing, there's a lot of wait time. You have to get on a schedule. You're not going to put out many books at all every year, maybe one or two at most. And that, by the way, that's Lois Lane in the background, who is my very sweet deaf dog, who I would have to chase down to stop her from doing that. But generally, the people I've

How can you embrace book marketing as a creative part of your author business? How can you effectively market your backlist over time? How can you tap into ambition and drive your author business onward and upward? Honoree Corder talks about all this and more. In the intro, Draft2Digital add a new library marketplace [D2D]; Running a publishing house is not as much fun as it used to be [Mike Shatzkin]; Microsoft launches the new Bing with ChatGPT-style co-pilot, and soon to be rolled out in other products like MS Word, Teams, etc [The Verge]; My future of publishing talk, 22 Feb [register here]; Thanks for joining the Pilgrimage Kickstarter, and pre-order on other stores; Superstars writing conference. Today's show is sponsored by Draft2Digital, where you can get free ebook formatting, free distribution to multiple stores, and a host of other benefits. Get your free Author Marketing Guide at draft2digital.com/penn Honoree Corder is the author of over 50 books, with more than 4.5 million sold worldwide. She's also a strategic book coach, professional speaker, and host of the Empire Builders Mastermind. Her latest book is, You Must Market Your Book: Increase Your Impact, Sell More Books, and Make More Money. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes The book marketing mindset and why it is important Scheduling creative time vs. business time How to find the book marketing options that work for your personality Email marketing and how it has stayed consistent over the years Marketing your backlist books effectively How personal development can help your author business You can find Honoree at HonoreeCorder.com Transcript of Interview with Honoree Corder Joanna: Honoree Corder is the author of over 50 books, with more than 4.5 million sold worldwide. She's also a strategic book coach, professional speaker, and host of the Empire Builders Mastermind. Her latest book is, You Must Market Your Book: Increase Your Impact, Sell More Books, and Make More Money. So welcome back to the show, Honoree. Honoree: Hi, I'm so happy to be here. Joanna: I'm so excited to talk to you again. Now, you were last on the show in 2015, which is kind of crazy. Tell us a bit about you and how you got into writing and publishing. Honoree: I was a business coach, and an executive coach and corporate trainer, motivational speaker. And of course, everyone would always say, “You must write a book. Where's your book? I want to buy your book.” And I met Mark Victor Hansen, who everyone would probably know is the co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. And he said, “Hi, I'm Mark,” and I introduced myself and he's like, “What do you do?” And I said, “Oh, I'm a coach and a speaker,” and he could not have been less impressed. He was like, “Yeah, okay, everybody's a coach and a speaker. You must write a book.” And I thought, okay, and I just started asking him questions because he seemed friendly. And I didn't realize in that moment, I was probably asking him the same 52 questions everyone asks him, that we get asked all the time. But he was very kind and gracious and answered my questions.  I immediately went home from that conference and sat in a chair for three days and wrote the first horrible, ugly draft of my very first book. And that's really how I got started, I made every mistake that we caution against in our books for writers. But I got the fever, I was like, oh, this is great, I love this. I loved having a book, I loved being able to make a difference and connect with people in ways that I hadn't been able to do without a book. And then I started learning the lessons of how to professionally publish a book, and to publish a book well, and market a book well, and sell books and market with my book. And that was really the beginning of my journey, and that was over 18 years ago, now. Joanna: There are a few things I want to come back on there. First of all, he said, okay, you need a book, right? You need a book to be a speaker. Now, are we living in different times in that everyone does now have a book? And if that's true, if more speakers now have books, or it's much, much easier to publish now, obviously, than it was back then— If everyone can have a book, or does have one, how do we stand out? Obviously, we're going to talk about how to market your book, but is that true anymore for speakers and coaches, I guess? Honoree: I do think it's true for speakers, and coaches ,and entrepreneurs and anyone who wants to differentiate themselves in whatever their discipline or work is, definitely. I think the next question you are probably going to ask is: then how do we differentiate our book from other people? Joanna: Especially for nonfiction, like you mentioned being a business coach, let's say, how to communicate better with people o

Who are the Choctaw people and how can authors write authentic Native Americans in their books? How can we research diverse characters and include a diverse cast without worrying about cancel culture? Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer talks about how her Choctaw heritage influences her books. In the intro, the Pilgrimage Kickstarter is done — thanks to all backers and I'll be in touch soon; With a Demon's Eye on my store and pre-order elsewhere; Opportunities in 2023 [Ask ALLi Podcast]. Today's show is sponsored by Draft2Digital, where you can get free ebook formatting, free distribution to multiple stores, and a host of other benefits. Get your free Author Marketing Guide at draft2digital.com/penn Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer is a historical fiction author, speaker, course creator and Choctaw storyteller. The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian honored her as a literary artist for her work in preserving Choctaw Trail of Tears stories, and she is the creator of the Fiction Writing: American Indians digital course. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes Who are the Choctaw people? How to include representation without being stereotypical Researching cultural callbacks to include in your writing How to use oral history from tribes in your research Writing diverse characters outside of our personal experience Creating well-rounded characters when writing diversity You can find Sarah at ChoctawSpirit.com or her course at AmericanIndians.FictionCourses.com Image generated by Joanna Penn on Midjourney. Transcript of Interview with Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer Joanna: Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer is a historical fiction author, speaker, course creator and Choctaw storyteller. The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian honored her as a literary artist for her work in preserving Choctaw Trail of Tears stories. And she is the creator of the Fiction Writing: American Indians digital course. So welcome to the show, Sarah. Sarah: Thank you, Joanna. Halito. Sv hohchifo yvt Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer. Chahta Sia Hoke. Hi, everyone. My name is Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer, and I am Choctaw. And it's just such a delight to be on your podcast, Joanna. Joanna: I love that. And of course, we have listeners from over 200 countries. Perhaps you can first explain, what is Choctaw, anyway? And how does that relate to your writing?  Also, please advise on the preferred terminology because we mentioned American Indian, which I thought was not allowed anymore. So tell us about that. Sarah: Oh, I will try to give you the short answer on that one, but let me first tell you about Choctaws and my Choctaw people. So we are an American Indian tribe, originally in the southeastern United States. Primarily Mississippi was our homelands, and that's where my ancestors came from before we were forced to basically sign a treaty, the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, which ceded the last of the Choctaw homelands for lands in Indian Territory, or what is now the state of Oklahoma.  So we had the Trail of Tears in the 1830s, where about 20,000 Choctaws were removed and came across the trail over 400 miles to the new homelands. And it is estimated that around 2000 died, and that's why it became known as a Trail of Tears and Death. Thankfully, our Choctaw people are very resilient, and we rebuilt the tribe and the nation to what is now the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. And we're the third largest federally recognized tribe in the United States. There are also still the Mississippi Choctaws, the Mississippi Band of Choctaws, who remained in Mississippi and were federally recognized in the 20th century. And we have some pockets of Choctaws really everywhere. I meet Choctaws everywhere that I go. There's a large contingent in California, during the Dust Bowl, the 1930s, many of them migrated out from Oklahoma. But there were over 500 nations here in America prior to European contact. So the Choctaws were among that, but each tribe were distinct. And how that relates to my writing, I have seven Choctaw, what I call my Choctaw Heritage books, where I feature our Choctaw history and culture. I do a lot of research and interviews, and we'll get into that a little bit later. I have seven of those books that I've based around my Choctaw history and culture. The terminology, boy, that's the big question. And you're going to get different answers depending on who you speak with. So I did decide to title my course, Fiction Writing: American Indians. That's still one of the really dominant terms in Indian country. We say, the National Museum of American Indian, and there are just tons of organizations that still go with American Indian. Native American is considered the politically correct term. A lot of natives do reject that term. And then you'll meet those that completely reject the term American Indian and are offended

What are the benefits of selling direct? Why might using your face to advertise your books be a good idea? What might be the future of selling direct? Steve Pieper talks about these things and more. In the intro, ACX lowering audiobook prices, Chokepoint Capitalism, Audiblegate, Copyright valuation [Dean Wesley Smith]; courses on copyright; Happy Money; Write to Riches; Failing to predict the future [James Altucher]; Pilgrimage Kickstarter (until 5 Feb, 2023), then find it here. Today's show is sponsored by ProWritingAid, writing and editing software that goes way beyond just grammar and typo checking. With its detailed reports on how to improve your writing and integration with Scrivener, ProWritingAid will help you improve your book before you send it to an editor, agent or publisher. Check it out for free or get 25% off the premium edition at www.ProWritingAid.com/joanna Steve Pieper is a USA Today best-selling thriller author under the name Lars Emmerich. He's also an entrepreneur and business consultant, specializing in digital marketing and selling direct. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes Reasons to write under a pen name Selling wide to create multiple income streams Potential problems with exclusivity Benefits of selling direct and accessing customer data The empowerment of controlling your intellectual property and author business Humanizing yourself as an author to create a more relatable brand Author marketing mastery through optimization NFTs and how they tie into the future of direct sales You can find Steve Pieper at AMMOauthor.com or under his pen name at Lars.buzz Transcript of Interview with Steve Pieper Joanna: Steve Pieper is a USA Today best-selling thriller author under the name Lars Emmerich. He's also an entrepreneur and business consultant specializing in digital marketing and selling direct. So welcome to the show, Steve. Steve: Thank you very much. It's a privilege and a pleasure. Joanna: Oh, I'm excited to talk to you today. So first up — Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing. Steve: That's a great question. I started off as an F-16. Pilot, I was actually in pilot training the first time—I think maybe this was the first time—I read a Tom Clancy novel. And the way that he wove all of those different stories together was just fascinating to me. The idea that something is happening in plain sight, but there's a much deeper meaning behind it, that was also very fascinating to me. So I think that's probably the first time I hatched the idea that maybe I would like to write thrillers like that.  It wasn't until maybe 19-ish years later, when I found myself traveling all over the country to sit in boring meetings and needing something to do productively with my off time that I really got serious about writing books and came back to it. Joanna: So tell us a bit more about how your entrepreneurial background fits into writing and publishing. Did you choose the indie route from the beginning? Steve: From the get-go, I had zero interest in the traditional publishing route, just because I looked at the contracts. I realized this is not a terrific deal, really, at all. And of course, it's terrific if that's the only deal that you have available. But when I got serious about writing books, it was during the Joe Konrath Gold Rush era, you know, when there were more Kindles than books available on Kindle kind of a thing. So the opportunity space really seemed wide open at that point for independent publishing rather than trying to go the traditional route. Joanna: So I think that that was around 2009. I mean, some listeners won't even have heard of Joe Konrath, which is kind of crazy for those of us who've been around a while because he was an early adopter. But of course, I think he had around 100 books from traditional publishing or at least 50 books that he put into indie, and that's how he kind of started. But you were starting from zero, right, back in 2009. So tell us where you are now. How many thriller books do you have out there? Steve: Not enough, is always the answer. I'm allegedly working on my thirteenth. I say allegedly, because these other projects keep coming up. Like we were talking about earlier, I have a few too many interests, and I'm involved in a few too many businesses. So I'm doing what I feel is a relatively poor job of juggling all of the things. Most are in the same main series. All of them are either in the series or spin offs with some of my favorite characters from the series. Joanna: Tell us why you wrote under a pen name. Steve: Well, at the time, I had a day job and a security clearance, and some of my characters do some crazy things. I didn't want to be mistaken for my characters, and so I thought that I would try to keep the world separate. It was funny though, one time

What do you need to consider when writing travel memoir? How fear of judgment and fear of failure are real issues even for established authors, and more in these selected excerpts from interviews with J.F. Penn around Pilgrimage: Lessons Learned from Solo Walking Three Ancient Ways. In this episode, I talk about: How Pilgrimage fits across several sub-categories of the travel genre and the perils of writing cross-genre  Fear of sharing personal aspects in the memoir, fear of launch, fear of failure, fear of judgment, and being terrified of doing a Kickstarter (recorded several days before the launch) How journals can be the basis of writing a travel memoir, structuring a book around theme, and why you have to think of the reader Jo Frances Penn with Pilgrimage I have a Kickstarter running as this goes out for my new travel memoir / solo walking book, Pilgrimage: Lessons Learned from Solo Walking Three Ancient Ways, and I’ve been doing interviews on the topic on various shows, so I wanted to share some snippets. It might also introduce you to new shows that you might enjoy and you can find them all on your podcast app, wherever you’re listening to this. The clips are from Travel Writing World, Wish I’d Known Then, and Sacred Steps, and I was also on Into the Woods. I’ve included different clips on my Books and Travel Podcast, more about the walking than the writing side, so you can also listen there.  I also wanted to let you know that we reached the stretch goal — even though I was scared of not making it! All backers will get an extra audio with a transcript on how I turned hundreds of pages of hand-written journal entries and hundreds of photos into a finished travel memoir. This will only go to backers, so even if you’re not that interested in pilgrimage, you might want my tips on writing travel memoir, and you can back the campaign with just a few pounds.  Just go to JFPenn.com/pilgrimage and that will redirect to the Kickstarter until 5 Feb, after which it will take you to where the book will be available later in the year. So let’s get into it.  In this clip from the Travel Writing World podcast with Jeremy Bassetti, I talk about how Pilgrimage is sits across different sub-genres of the travel niche.  J.F. Penn – Pilgrimage and Perspective Transcript of the clip from Travel Writing World Jeremy Bassetti: You'd mentioned your journal and leaning into your journal while writing this book. It has kind of this memoir or travelogue component, it has an account of your pilgrimages, but it's also kind of like a guidebook, if I may, for the idea of going on a pilgrimage itself.  So, it does many things this book, but I was wondering how would you describe it? Jo Frances Penn: Well, you know how difficult this is!  Originally I thought I would write travel guides to the routes. I thought I would just have three travelogue-type books. And then I thought I would do a travel memoir about all the travels of my life.  And then I realized after I finished the Camino that I did have a personal arc, a character arc. Memoir, I think is defined by some kind of transformational arc in the person.  So, I mean, you can go on a trip like your photography trip to Bolivia, for example. It doesn't have to change the direction of your life. It can just be a trip for taking photos and whatever.  In terms of how I would describe the book, it's kind of a travel memoir, so it is a personal, emotional, spiritual transformation, but it's also a self-help guide for people who want to do solo walking. And I put in the appendices some very practical things, including accommodation and gear and stuff like that.  So, I feel like it can do both, but of course, that makes it very difficult in terms of a particular genre. I guess it falls through the gaps of so many sub-genres, but I hope it's both useful to people who consider the idea of pilgrimage, but also those who practically want help. Jeremy Bassetti: You mentioned that you originally set out to write travel guides and also like a memoir, so I was wondering if the evolution of the idea of the book happened as you were writing it, or did that happen in the earlier stages when you were trying to figure out what it was exactly you were going to write? Jo Frances Penn: It really happened right at the end there, once I came back from the Camino. I mean, I had over a hundred thousand words in a Scrivener project. And like yourself, I've read very many travel books over decades. And so I had a lot of quotes and I had a lot of musings, and I just didn't know what the book was going to be until I returned from the Camino and I realized that I had discovered home, for example, which is something I really hadn't felt before, which is quite weird. But I think many travelers feel this, like, where is my home? And I did kind of discover that.  I also had the sort of midlife realizations around things. I had so much material, an

How can you use AI tools to ethically and responsibly create in whatever sphere you love? What are some of the tools and why are creative direction, voice, and taste, so important? I discuss these issues and more in a solo introduction and an interview with Oliver Altair. In the first 28 mins of the podcast, I give an extended introduction about the various legal cases around AI and copyright, my thoughts on the best way to approach it for your creative work, and how to use AI tools ethically and responsibly. I've included the transcript below with lots of links and further resources, and you can find more at TheCreativePenn.com/future. If you'd like to learn more, you can get 50% off my ebook and audiobook on Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, and Virtual Worlds if you buy direct, and you can get 50% off my course, The AI-Assisted Author. Just use discount code: FEB23 at checkout for either. Today's show is sponsored by my wonderful patrons who fund my brain so I have time to think about and discuss these futurist topics impacting authors. If you support the show, you also get the extra monthly patron-only Q&A audio. You can support the show at www.patreon.com/thecreativepenn Oliver Altair is a dark fantasy author, a digital artist and creator of the Ravensfield Collection. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. The interview starts at 28:33 mins. Show Notes The creation of the Ravensfield Collection using AI art How AI art can be used as a marketing tool for authors Available tools for an AI-augmented creative How to write AI prompts to achieve the best results Concerns about intellectual property when training models What are the different kinds of Creative Commons licenses? The importance of creative confidence, voice, and taste, for making art with AI tools Generative writing tools as a brainstorming co-pilot You can find Oliver Altair at OliverAltair.com. You can view the Ravensfield Collection at Ravensfield.art. Header image by Joanna Penn on Midjourney. Transcript of the solo introduction on generative AI with Joanna Penn Before we get into the interview, I just want to add some over-arching comments as I’m getting a lot of emails about generative AI for art and obviously for words. It feels like a lot of people are going through now what I did a few years back when I first heard about all this, so I understand how it feels to be kind of scared, kind of excited, kind of unsure as to what we can do with all this, and of course, you have to spend some time figuring out your position on it all and that’s not helped by the hyperbole, misunderstanding, and rage fuelled by press and social media. There is a real sense of fear and confusion in the media and amongst different kinds of creators.  But instead of jumping into the outrage, take a deep breath and do some research for yourself from different points of view — and of course, I am only one point of view!  As I have talked about many times over the last few years, these generative AI systems are tools, and new technology always enables new forms of creative expression and helps creators of all kinds achieve new things.  Photography didn’t kill painting or drawing, online gaming didn’t kill tabletop games, ebooks didn’t kill beautiful print editions, synthesised music didn’t kill the live concert. In fact, all these things made the personal touch even more important.  Yes, there are many issues with generative AI, I know it’s not all rainbows and unicorns! Tools can also be weapons, to borrow the title of Brad Smith’s book on the promise and peril of the digital age — which was more about the disruption of the internet which has a similar dichotomy — but we can use these tools responsibly and ethically and encourage others to do the same. Let’s first take a step back  These tools are not new, they have just been noticed by people outside the tech industry since ChatGPT was launched in late November 2023. I started commenting about generative AI on the show back in 2016, and have done many interviews on it since then — you can find all the backlist episodes at TheCreativePenn.com/future In July 2019, I did a solo episode on 9 Ways That Artificial Intelligence will Disrupt Authors and the Publishing Industry in the next decade, episode 437 if you want to listen. My very first point was “Non-fiction books, blog posts, and news articles will be written by AI,” which is certainly happening with GPT3, ChatGPT, tools like Jasper, and more. I also said that “Copyright law will be challenged as books are used to train AIs which then produce work in the voice of established authors.”  The first legal cases around copyright law have now been brought by artists as their art is being used to train models that can be used to produce work in the voice of established artists — it’s essentially the same thing a

How can small, daily habits make you more successful as an author? How can you use the 80/20 rule in your author business? How can you create multiple streams of income when you sell mostly print? Marc Reklau shares his tips in the interview. In the intro, my Kickstarter for Pilgrimage is live!; Spotify's promotion codes [The Hotsheet, FindawayVoices]; publishing 2023 [Carly Watters]; Writer Beware round-up; Hitting bestseller lists [Reedsy; my USA Today breakdown]; Nick Thacker's dictation course; Today's podcast sponsor is Findaway Voices, which gives you access to the world's largest network of audiobook sellers and everything you need to create and sell professional audiobooks. Take back your freedom. Choose your price, choose how you sell, choose how you distribute audio. Check it out at FindawayVoices.com. Marc Reklau is the best-selling author of 13 books on habits, productivity and happiness. He's also a speaker, consultant and coach. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes The importance of consistency to reach your goals Different streams of income as a nonfiction author Creating a series from your nonfiction books to increase sales How to make money in foreign language markets Taking your books wide to expand your income streams Why successful authors sell more books than struggling authors You can find Marc at MarcReklau.com Transcript of Interview with Mark Reklau Joanna: Marc Reklau is the best-selling author of 13 books on habits, productivity and happiness. He's also a speaker, consultant and coach. So welcome to the show, Marc. Marc: Hello. It's such a pleasure to be on your show, Joanna. Joanna: Oh, I'm excited to talk to you. So first up — Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing. Marc: Yeah, that's a good story. Because actually, I never had it in my life plan to become a writer. But nine years ago, I was fired from my job, and I also had done a life coach training, so I was very naive, and I said, “Yes, I'm going to be a coach now and a consultant, and I will have many clients.” But it didn't work out as I wanted. At the same time, in my coaching training, I noticed that there are many, many exercises, that if you do them, they really work. It's just nobody does them, like 98% of the people don't do them. And it's like goal setting, or meditation or practice gratitude. Then the idea of the book came up and I said, I want to give people the tools at least to have a happy life and to have a productive life. And it's really so obvious that you only have to do the exercises. Although doing the exercises and doing them constantly is more difficult than one thinks because we like to distract ourselves or something. So that was the idea of my book, 30 Days: Change your habits, Change your life, which was actually going under the working title 101 Things You Can Do While You're Waiting to Win the Lottery because all the people I met, I lived in Spain in that time, and it was the end of the financial crisis, and all the conversations were like, “Oh, well, yeah, everything is bad. But well, now it's Friday, maybe I win the lottery.” And of course, most people never win the lottery. So I was like, if you would do for one year, any exercise, or mix, like getting up early, writing 1000 words a day, do goal setting, I'm sure in one year, you will be in a better place than you are now, or in an even better place if you're already in a good place. So that was the idea. That's how I started. And then thanks to three straight BookBub deals, it did pretty well, this book. And then it happened to me, what happens probably to most of us, so we will finish one book and you already have the idea for the next book. And that's how the last nine years went by. Joanna: I love that. I want to come back on the waiting to win the lottery thing because I feel that that actually has a parallel in publishing, in that people are like, oh, well, this one book, if I just get the agent, if I just get the book deal, if I just get the film deal, or the TV deal, I will make a million, and I can retire. And yet, as you said, it's actually the daily exercise of writing, finding readers, publishing. Have you used that positive, consistent mindset as an indie author? Marc: Exactly the way you said it, right. So my goal was never to sell 600,000 books or become an international bestseller or sign a publishing deal in Japan. My goal was write 1000 words a day or write 2000 words a day. And I also have to admit that Amazon ads was a huge game changer for me. Because before, I was, I would like to call it a poor author, nearly getting by, burning away my savings, burning away a life insurance. But then with the rise of Amazon ads, suddenly, I could multiply my sales by 20. And it was the same thing, really Joanna, since four and a half years, I do one h

Do you sometimes just ‘know' when a story is right? Does something ‘click' during the writing process and suddenly things make sense? Do you lean into your curiosity and emotion when it comes to writing and marketing? If yes, you might be an intuitive writer, as Becca Syme explains in this interview. In the intro, Chokepoint Capitalism [Decoder]; Direct sales [Kris Rusch]; Amazon Ads for Authors by Ricardo Fayet; Ads for Authors course; Why I Ignored Target Reader Feedback for my Book Cover Design; ChatGPT for teachers [Hard Fork]; Pilgrimage Kickstarter. This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors. You can find my books for authors and my fiction here on Kobo. Becca Syme is an author, coach, and creator of the Better-Faster Academy. She is a USA Today bestselling author of small-town romance and cozy mystery and also writes the ‘Dear Writer' series of non-fiction books. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes How a writer knows if they are intuitive The data-gathering process of intuitive writers Learning to apply feedback while trusting your intuition Knowing when it's the right time to write your book Standing out in a crowded market by using your intuition Tips for avoiding burnout to have a sustainable author career Why we make decisions based on fear — and how to stop You can find Becca at BetterFasterAcademy.com or on her QuitCast on YouTube Image generated by Joanna Penn on Midjourney. Transcript of Interview with Becca Syme Joanna: Becca Syme is an author, coach, and creator of the Better-Faster Academy. She is a USA Today bestselling author of small-town romance and cozy mystery and also writes the ‘Dear Writer' series of non-fiction books. Today we're talking about Dear Writer, Are You Intuitive? co-written with Susan Bischoff, which was one of my books of the year in 2022. So welcome back to the show, Becca. Becca:  Thank you so much for having me. And I'm so excited to talk about this topic. I'm so glad you picked this. Joanna: Me too. As I said, I love the book. And I was reading it going, ‘oh, this is just me, this is so me.' And I wanted to bring it to my audience. We're just going to jump straight into the intuitive topic today. So let's start. What do you mean by intuition? How does a writer know they might be intuitive when it comes to their writing? Becca:  So a lot of us who are intuitive — I'm also intuitive — we know things without knowing how we know them. And a lot of that gets attributed to things like emotion or assumption, right? So if I walk into a room, and I think, “oh, everyone in here is very uncertain.” Like, I just know that and I can't point to certain data pieces of what it is that I used. And a lot of people will say that you're just making an assumption, that you don't know that is true. But what we found about intuition — and this is strengths related, but I'm not going to use any of the language because I want it to be more accessible to everyone — but there are certain behavior patterns that you have that allow you to gather data without knowing that you're gathering data. And they allow you to make connections between the data. So like when I assume that someone is feeling something, and I am actually an intuitive, and this is something I do all the time, I'm reading things, I just don't know that they're there. Usually with intuitives, you can wait a couple of hours, and then kind of deconstruct what you were thinking in the moment, and say, “oh, yeah, I saw this, and this, and this about your body language, etc.” And this isn't just emotional intuition, because of course, in the book, there are several. There are several types. But in general, intuition is the ability to know something based on data that you've taken in, that you do not have the ability in the moment to point to how you know that.  Almost always we say things like, “well, I just knew,” or “I didn't know why I made that assumption. I don't know why I made that choice.” And that can feel extremely uncertain to people who are intuitive because people who are not intuitive will try to deconstruct that and prove us wrong, or say we don't know what we're talking about, or we're making assumptions, or we're being emotional.  So I think it's really important for intuitive authors to know that is not what that means. You not being able to prove something right away in the moment doesn't mean you don't know it, or you didn't base it on data. It just means it's happening subconsciously. And then, of course, that affects storytelling. It affects marketing decisions. It a

What are the most common reasons why writers don't finish their books —and how can you overcome them in order to finish yours this year? Roz Morris gives practical writing and mindset tips. In the intro, Spotify promo codes [FindawayVoices]; Rachael Herron's money episode [How Do You Write?]; Changes at Amazon [Kris Writes, BBC]; AI as a writing co-pilot [Stark Reflections]; Hindenburg Narrator for audiobook mastering; Pilgrimage audiobook chapters [Books and Travel]. Today's show is sponsored by Ingram Spark, which I use to print and distribute my print-on-demand books to 40,000 retailers including independent bookstores, schools and universities, libraries, and more. It's your content—do more with it through IngramSpark.com. Roz Morris is a best-selling author as a ghostwriter and an award-nominated author with her own literary novels. She writes writing craft books for authors under the Nail Your Novel brand, and is also an editor, speaker and writing coach. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes The most common reasons that writers abandon books Creating a system for your creative process Finding the motivation to finish your book even when it gets tough The importance of research to help you keep going How to commit to finishing one project when you have multiple started Staying confident when you start doubting your book Knowing when to park a project You can find Roz at RozMorris.org Transcript of Interview with Roz Morris Joanna: Roz Morris is a best-selling author as a ghostwriter and an award nominated author with her own literary novels. She writes writing craft books for authors under the Nail Your Novel brand, and is also an editor, speaker and writing coach. Today, we're talking about why writers abandon books and how you can draft, fix and finish with confidence. And we'll have tips for both fiction and nonfiction authors. So welcome back to the show, Roz. Roz: Thank you, Joanna. It's so nice to be here again. Joanna: And this is your sixth time on the show which is amazing. It's probably been like a decade now since you've been coming on the show. Roz: Yes, it has. I was a listener from the early days, and when you contacted me and said, “do come on my show,” I thought, oh, that's brilliant because I've been listening for ages. Joanna: And over the years, we've become friends, and we've both written lots of books, and we've had a journey. But what's great is that you have so many books to help authors, and you're very wise, which is why I like talking to you. We're not going to get into your background because we've done it many times before. Let's get into the topic itself and start with a bit of an overview. What are the most common reasons that writers abandon books? Why doesn't every author just finish every book? Roz: Well, we always start on a blaze of enthusiasm and inspiration. You get terribly excited, can't wait to get to the keyboard, hammer loads of words down, and then we lose enthusiasm. And then what might happen is we grind on anyway. For most people, that's quite hard because they don't know how to do it and how to do it productively. Or we get interested in something else and start another book, and off we go again. Or we've run out of material, or we don't have enough time to actually do justice to the book and make enough regular appointments with ourselves to write it because it does take a while to write a whole book. Or we read something else and think, “oh, someone else has done it better, what's the point?” That's really why most books get abandoned. Joanna: And I wondered, because I did a survey on The Creative Penn Podcast last year, well, this year as we're recording this, last year as this goes out. And it was kind of stunning to me that this was one of the most common questions. So I did just want to ask you because you wrote this particular book about why writers abandoned books and how to sort it out. How did you know that not finishing was one of the most common issues? Roz: Maybe from talking to writers, meeting them, and they would say, “oh, well, how do you get to the end of a book?” So they'd all been able to start, and then it just failed them in some way. But I'd got quite a lot of books under my belt by that time as a ghostwriter because I used to do a lot of ghostwriting fiction. So I realized I developed a method for doing all the work necessary to go from that big bang of inspiration to start with and then finally end up with a book that was not only finished, but presentable. And I thought, I have obviously developed a system that gets me to the end and gets me through all the bad bits, because there are bad bits. And I thought, well I'll write a book about how I do that. And then it turned out that quite a lot of people found it helpful. Joanna: It is a very good book. An

How can you use paid advertising as part of your book marketing strategy? How can you reach more readers and sell more books in the year ahead? Mark Dawson provides strategies and tips in this interview. In the intro, publishing trends for 2023 [Written Word Media]; Apple AI narration; ChatGPT into Bing [The Verge]; Comments on Audible [Brandon Sanderson, Audiblegate]; TikTok ban and problems [Reuters, Rolling Stone]; my Pilgrimage Kickstarter. Today's show is sponsored by Draft2Digital, where you can get free ebook formatting, free distribution to multiple stores, and a host of other benefits. Get your free Author Marketing Guide at draft2digital.com/penn Mark Dawson is the award-winning USA Today best-selling author of the John Milton series and other thrillers, with over 6 million copies sold. He's also the co-founder of SelfPublishingFormula.com, with books, courses and events for indie authors who want to sell more books. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes How advertising has changed in the past decade The difference between paid advertising and other forms of marketing Why building your mailing list can be your best free advertising option Is it worth it to advertise a standalone book? Different ways to monetize your brand to make ads profitable What is the biggest mistake indie authors make with advertising? The effect of Apple's privacy rules on Facebook ads Using AI to create more and sell more You can find Mark at MarkJDawson.com and SelfPublishingFormula.com. Image generated by Joanna Penn on Midjourney. Transcript of Interview with Mark Dawson Joanna: Mark Dawson is the award-winning USA Today best-selling author of the John Milton series and other thrillers, with over 6 million copies sold. He's also the co-founder of SelfPublishingFormula.com, with books, courses and events for indie authors who want to sell more books. Today, we're talking about how to use paid advertising as part of your book marketing. So welcome back to the show, Mark. Mark: Hi, Jo. Thanks for having me. Third time? Fourth time? Joanna: I reckon it might be the fifth time. Mark: Oh, my goodness. Joanna: I know. We've been doing this together for a while. And in fact, that does bring us to the first question because you recently tweeted a great thread, and you did a blog post and things, about your lessons learned from a decade of being an indie author. And I reckon I was there at the beginning, would that be right? We met quite soon after you got started. Mark: I would say we met two years after that, perhaps. So I thought my decade was next November, but Amazon contacted me in early November 2022, and said, “Your anniversary is coming up. Do you mind if we post something on our Facebook feed?” And I checked, and obviously they were right. I published 2012 was my first book. So it's weird. It's a good opportunity to look back and see how things have changed. And I've been full-time since 20 — oh, goodness, I don't know now — 16, something like that. So about six, seven years. And it's been the most fantastic second career, really. I have to pinch myself sometimes to think I can still do this and make a living out of it. Joanna: And I think that's what's exciting. And I often say to people, that a lot of this journey is learning from other people who have been doing this longer or doing it differently, or who are still here. I think that's the other thing, the more the years go by, the more we know people who've disappeared and fallen off the radar, who've stopped writing. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with people leaving the career, you know, we've come into this career, but things change — some things change, some things stay the same.  Since this is about advertising, I want to pick up one of the things you said in your long list, which I will link to in the show notes if people want to read the whole thing. “Advertising used to be a luxury. It isn't anymore – it's a necessity.” So I wonder if we could just take a step back and think about when do you think things changed? When did organic reach stop being effective on its own? Mark: I think it's a combination of things. I think it's kind of organic reach becoming less effective, and also, there's so much more noise you need to cut through now. By which I mean, other authors advertising or other choices for readers to get whatever they want to read next. You have to shout a little bit louder now to put your book in front of them. But on the organic reach — so I should I suppose we should probably say organic reaches effectively publicity that you don't have to pay for on social media. So back in the good old days, maybe eight or nine years ago, you could post something on your Facebook feed, and it would get through to a good number of your followers without you needing to spend anything to

Happy New Year 2023! I am more excited than ever this year about the books I want to write and publish. I've had a difficult few years (haven't we all?!) but now I'm ready to create at full throttle in 2023, aided by the incredible AI-powered tools emerging for writers. Here's an overview of my 2023 goals: J.F. Penn — Pilgrimage (and my first Kickstarter); Catacomb book, ARKANE 13, and some short stories Joanna Penn — The Shadow Book (and maybe another Kickstarter), The Creator Economy for Authors, and maybe The AI-Assisted Author Continue The Creative Penn Podcast Experiment with futurist technologies and share what I learn with you along the way More digital, more physical. Focus on optimizing my health, and do more in-person travel and events. Financial goals As ever, I am a full-time author-entrepreneur and this is my job, so I have a lot of goals. If your goals are simpler — like finishing your book, or publishing for the first time, or selling 1000 copies, then fantastic! You don’t have to have such extensive goals as me. Please share your goals in the comments so we can keep each other accountable. J.F. Penn — Kickstarter for Pilgrimage with a special signed hardback edition I have finished Pilgrimage and am currently narrating the audiobook as well as formatting the print edition. It's a very personal book, and so I want to do a special signed hardback edition that won't be available anywhere else. The best way to do that is to know how many people want to buy it, so I can order the books, have them shipped here, sign them, and then send them out myself. So I'm (finally) going to do a Kickstarter! Click here to sign up for the pre-launch list (no commitment to buy) You'll be notified of the campaign when it launches on 23 Jan, 2023. The Kickstarter will also have the ebook and audiobook (narrated by me), as well as the special edition hardback (signed and unsigned available), a special edition paperback edition (POD, not signed) and a Pilgrimage workbook, with guided prompts so you can plan your own pilgrimage. My plan is to sell direct through the Kickstarter, and then put the books in all formats (except for the special edition hardback) up on my store, www.CreativePennBooks.com and available everywhere wide a month later. character and setting Images for the Catacomb book, generated by joanna penn on midjourney J.F. Penn — Write and publish the ‘catacomb' book, ARKANE #13, and some short stories — and maybe other fiction The catacomb book is a stand-alone story I have had on my mind for a while, and I want to get it out of my head and onto the page. I'm not sure if it's a novel or a novella yet. At the end of Tomb of Relics, ARKANE #12, I left Morgan and Jake heading to Vienna for the next adventure, but until recently, I didn't know what they would find there. But now I know — and the plan is to go to Vienna sometime in 2023 — so I will be able to write the story. I've also got some short story ideas that I'd like to finish and publish. My goal is to do a short story anthology in 2024, so I can print a book, so I need more stories for that. I love writing short stories, but they take a lot more time than you expect! Joanna Penn — Write and publish The Creator Economy and The AI-Assisted Author I have courses on both topics, and since I think these are two of the biggest trends for authors, I'd like to expand them both into short non-fiction books. I already have drafts based on the course transcripts. The AI-Assisted Author will be a follow-up to my 2020 book, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and Virtual Worlds: The Impact of Converging Technologies on Authors and the Publishing Industry, much of which is now starting to happen. I am always early, lol! Joanna Penn — Write and publish ‘The Shadow Book' I've been talking about this for years and I have many thousands of words in a Scrivener project, but in 2023, I will overcome resistance and (finally) write this book. I'm also planning to launch it as a Kickstarter, and one of the reasons for doing the Pilgrimage Kickstarter is as practice for this one. I'm not sure yet whether this will go out under Joanna Penn or J.F. Penn, but the basic concept is about writing from your darker side, and about integrating your shadow into your creative work, rather than trying to bury it or sublimate it. I studied Jungian psychology as part of my degree in Theology, specializing in the psychology of religion, and I also have a Graduate Diploma in Psychology. Morgan Sierra in my ARKANE thriller series is a psychologist, and I have brought my interest into my fiction over the years. Now it's time to turn it into a book that you might be able to use for your creative process. book with ideas, Image created by joanna penn on midjourney I will continue to experiment with future technology and share what I learn with you Regular readers and listeners to the show know that I have been commentating on the AI space since Alpha Go beat Lee Sodol at the ga

Another year ends, and once more, it's time to reflect on our creative goals. I hope you will take the time to review your goals, and leave a comment below about how the year went. Did you achieve everything you wanted to? You can read my 2022 goals here and I reflect on what I achieved below. Books for authors — Joanna Penn Fiction as J.F. Penn — thrillers, dark fantasy, crime, horror, short stories Shift to the Creator Economy and focus on selling direct Embrace multi-passionate creativity — and optimize for curiosity — as we move into The Creative Future. Generative AI, NFTs, and more The Creative Penn website and podcast Book-binding: Limited hand-bound edition of A Thousand Fiendish Angels I achieved a lifetime goal of walking the Camino de Santiago — and finished my Pilgrimage book The end of my Books and Travel Podcast Travel and speaking, health and personal things Header image generated by Joanna Penn on Midjourney. Books for authors — Joanna Penn I've had a draft of How to Write a Novel in my Work In Progress drive for over five years, but this year, I overcame resistance and finally finished it. I was worried that I didn't have anything to add to the millions of other books on writing craft, but it turned out to be useful for some people, especially those who write out of order and are discovery writers. I launched the book direct on my Shopify store, CreativePennBooks.com and sold it exclusively direct for a month before publishing it wide. It's now available on all platforms, in all formats, including the audiobook narrated by me. Click here to buy it direct from me. Click here to buy it from other stores. Fiction as J.F. Penn — thrillers, dark fantasy, crime, horror, short stories In the first quarter of 2022, I re-edited my first novel, Stone of Fire, and the subsequent two novels, Crypt of Bone, and Ark of Blood. Click here for my lessons learned from re-editing. Was it worth it? Yes, creatively, because I am much happier about advertising the early books in the series now. Financially, I can't see any impact, but it was still personally worth it, especially as it helped me see how far my writing has come since that first novel in 2009 and the lessons helped me to finish How to Write a Novel. I also wrote and published two short stories. Blood, Sweat, and Flame, a dark little story set in a glassblowing hot shop, inspired by the Netflix series, Blown Away. Soldiers of God, an ARKANE short story, featuring a popular secondary character, Martin Klein, my AI geek/ ‘Q' character in the ARKANE universe. It's based around a document found in the Vatican Secret Archives that leads to a crypt hidden under Paris which holds a dark secret. I've also written another short story which is currently with my editor, working title, Demons in the Smoke, but even though the work was in 2022, I will include that in 2023. A shift to the Creator Economy and a focus on selling direct In 2022, I purposed shifted into the Creator Economy model. This is essentially a mindset shift, as well as a behavioral change. Instead of chasing algorithms and focusing primarily on building business for the big tech companies, it's about nurturing a direct relationship with readers and selling direct as much as possible. This means that the author takes a bigger slice of the revenue upfront, as well as controlling the customer data and the customer relationship, plus we get paid faster than going through other distribution platforms. I've been selling direct since 2008 when I started online, but it's always been an afterthought for book sales. I offered it, but I didn't focus on it. I also only offered digital formats. In 2022, I prioritized selling direct in print as well as ebook and audio, and made sure to release direct first and direct only for new books. In July 2022, I launched www.CreativePennBooks.com, my Minimum Viable Shopify store and you can read all the details here, where I outline all the reasons it's a good idea for your income, your customer data, and your mental health! I launched How to Write a Novel for a month direct only with all formats, before putting the book wide on all the stores in all formats. Plus, I have kept the How to Write a Novel Workbook as direct only exclusive to my store. This will be my model going forward — release direct first for at least a month before putting the book/s wide and keep some products as direct only. I spoke at London Book Fair and at SPS Live on the topic of the Creator Economy, and produced a course on this in mid-2022: The Creator Economy for Authors. Embrace multi-passionate creativity — and optimize for curiosity — as we move into The Creative Future. At the beginning of the year, I decided to optimize for curiosity, rather than trying to rein in my eclectic, multi-passionate interests. This allowed me to play in the technological and futurist spaces that I find so invigorating, and I have shared much of this experimentation with you in the extra podc

“If you just keep writing/querying/marketing/etc you will eventually be successful. Just don't give up.” We've all heard a variation of this, but what if it isn't true? When is quitting worthwhile? Joanna Penn and Orna Ross discuss Quit: The Power of Knowing When To Walk Away by Annie Duke and give examples of what they have quit around writing, book marketing, and more. In the intro, book recommendations, and Pilgrimage Kickstarter pre-launch page. Get 33% off my ebooks, audiobooks and courses for the rest of 2022. Use coupon 2022 at checkout at CreativePennBooks.com (ebooks and audio, not print), and/or TheCreativePenn.com/learn for courses. Valid until the end of 2022. This episode is supported by my patrons at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn. If you support the show, you get the extra Q&A episode for patrons only. Joanna Penn and Orna Ross Joanna Penn writes nonfiction for authors and is an award-nominated, New York Times and USA Today bestselling thriller author as J.F.Penn. She’s also an award-winning podcaster, creative entrepreneur, and international professional speaker. Orna Ross is a novelist, poet, and non-fiction author. She's also the founder of the Alliance of Independent Authors, a professional speaker and creative coach. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes Why we need to reframe quitting — and why it's so hard to do Getting over sunk cost fallacy Why Orna quit a whole series of non-fiction books Why I quit my Books and Travel Podcast Other things you might want to quit: social media platforms, blogging, an author name, a book series, writing a book that's taking forever, marketing a book that isn't selling, a business model, a day job, being a full-time author, a city or even a country How quitting makes room for you to create something new You can find Orna Ross at www.OrnaRoss.com and listen to the Ask ALLi Podcast on your favorite podcast app. This episode originally went out on the Ask ALLi Podcast, 2 Dec 2022. Shareable image generated by Joanna Penn on Midjourney. Transcript of the discussion Joanna Penn: Hello everyone, and welcome to the Alliance of Independent Authors Advanced Self-Publishing Salon with me, Joanna Penn, and Orna Ross. Hi Orna. Orna Ross: Hi Joanna, and hello everyone. Joanna Penn: Hello. Yes, we are back. It is almost the end of 2022, which is crazy, and today our topic is, when to quit and what to quit, and all the things we've been quitting. I'm going to put this into context. So, basically, my friend J Thorn, who many people will know, author/podcaster extraordinaire, J Thorn recommended this book to me. So, it's called Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away by Annie Duke, and J recommended it to me. I recommended it to you. I've recommended it to Sacha Black, who's also talked about it on her podcast now. It's going around at the moment, this book, and what is so brilliant about it, and what we want to do is reframe it as the book reframed it, which is, quitting doesn't need to have this negative context. What we want is it to have a more positive context, and letting go of things, and we're at that time of year when it's like, yeah, we need to let something go for a good reason. So, when I recommended it to you, Orna, why did you say, yes, that sounds like a good idea. Why is quitting necessary? Orna Ross: Well, I was thinking of it as letting go because that's my vernacular, but I periodically do this anyway, as a clear out. No matter how careful you are, how intentional you are, you accumulate dead wood and also you change, you shift, or things change, tools change, the climate changes, readers change in what they want, and so you can get stuck. So, it's good to do a bit of an inventory and have a look and see what's going on. So, just at the moment that I was doing all that, we were chatting, and you said, oh, great book, Quit. And then we said, okay, that's got to be the theme for our next podcast. Joanna Penn: Yeah, well, this is it. I feel like so often we idolize grit and perseverance, and they have all these positive connotations. You'll often hear, for example, in the author industry, oh, all you need to do is stick it out. Eventually people fall away, and ‘if you keep going, you'll make it.' If you keep submitting to agents, you'll eventually get an agent, or if you keep writing more books, you'll eventually be successful, whatever that means, and we have all this stuff that basically says, you must keep going, whatever happens. And that is considered a good thing. Whereas, the word ‘quitting' can imply negativity, and Annie Duke, who's the author, she played professional poker and she basically talked about that professionals quit more often; the most successful poker players quit more often, and we are not playing poker, but it's a game of

What has changed in the publishing industry over the last few years? What can authors learn from the DOJ vs PRH court case? How can mid-list authors thrive in uncertain times? Jane Friedman talks about these things and more. In the intro, USA Today list is on indefinite hiatus [US News]; Paid for bestseller list; Recommended books; My scallop shell custom ornamental break; A Midwinter Sacrifice; The Author’s Mindset Podcast; What do you do if your book isn’t selling? [Rachael Herron]; My Pilgrimage Kickstarter pre-launch page; History Quill Writer's Conference; Get 33% off my ebooks, audiobooks and courses for the rest of 2022. Use coupon 2022 at checkout at CreativePennBooks.com (ebooks and audio, not print), and/or TheCreativePenn.com/learn for courses. Valid until the end of 2022. This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors.  Jane Friedman is the author of The Business of Being a Writer, as well as other nonfiction books. She's also an award-winning publishing commentator, writer, editor, professional speaker and teacher. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes How the pandemic and increasing online sales have changed traditional publishing Thoughts on the DOJ vs PRH legal case (lots more at Publishers Weekly) Why backlist sales are so important The struggles of the mid-list author Key book publishing paths (updated) How acquisitions affect authors Why marketing is important however you choose to publish Tips for using a paid newsletter as part of your author business What to watch out for in the coming year You can find Jane at JaneFriedman.com Image generated by Joanna Penn on Midjourney. Transcript of Interview with Jane Friedman Joanna: Jane Friedman is the author of The Business of Being a Writer, as well as other nonfiction books. She's also an award-winning publishing commentator, writer, editor, professional speaker, and teacher. So welcome back to the show, Jane. Jane: Thank you. I'm so delighted to be back. Joanna: So you were last on the show in 2018. Seems like a different world. For those who don't know you — Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing. Jane: Well, it's been a lifelong endeavor. I was a creative writing major in college, and I went straight into a publishing job right out of college. It was a midsize commercial publisher. I stayed for about 12 years. And then I had a brief detour into teaching at university level where I was teaching writing. And then I went back into publishing, and now I'm full-time freelance. So I write a newsletter, I host classes, and I go to publishing conferences. So it's all been kind of one long, unbroken focus on writing and publishing. Joanna: And we're going to come back to The Hot Sheet in a minute. But I wanted to talk to you, I mean, you do just fantastic commentary on the publishing industry. And you've seen so many different things. But I wanted your reflections, I guess, on the last couple of years. How has the pandemic and increasing online sales changed the more traditional publishing industry? Because I feel like indies, like myself, we were already doing everything online. But I feel like the pandemic has really shifted traditional. So what are your thoughts on that? Jane: Yes, I mean, first of all, the pandemic was great for traditional publishing, generally. I mean, there are supply chain issues, of course, which are still affecting everyone. But print book sales were up 9% in 2021, and for a mature industry that is astonishing. And they're still doing pretty well in 2022. Comparatively, I think they're down maybe 5% versus last year, which is still great. It's above where we were in 2019. Something interesting that happened too, is that Bookshop.org and independent bookstores are in a better position — Bookshop being the online retailer that competes against Amazon. They're very flexible, they're more focused on the things that only they can do well, and they're benefiting from people who want to consume more conscientiously. I think the Bookshop founder said ‘virtuous shopping', a virtuous alternative to Amazon is what he was hoping for. And they have, they've succeeded. There's now a UK version of Bookshop. I think there might be one in Spain. So, yeah, I think the pandemic really helped the launch of that because they were established in January 2020, having no idea what was about to happen. The other thing that was very positive, for novelists in particular, is that adult fiction sales came back after many years of decline. So at first, it was believed this was driven by comfort reads. But now I would say it's probab

Why might a first-time author choose to independently publish? Barnaby Jameson talks about his experience with his first historical novel, and why valuing intellectual property is critical for authors to understand. Plus tips for self-publishing and marketing. In the intro, Draft2Digital distributing to Smashwords store [D2D], expansion of Google Play Books auto-narration into more countries, and multiple voices per audio production, with more detail in episode 642; 3 surveys on author income [ASA; CREATe UK; Written Word Media] and why you need to choose your path. Get 33% off my ebooks, audiobooks and courses for the rest of 2022. Use coupon 2022 at checkout at CreativePennBooks.com (ebooks and audio, not print), and/or TheCreativePenn.com/learn for courses. Valid until the end of 2022. Today's show is sponsored by Ingram Spark, which I use to print and distribute my print-on-demand books to 40,000 retailers including independent bookstores, schools and universities, libraries, and more. It's your content—do more with it through IngramSpark.com. Use promo code PENN at checkout for 1 free book upload, print, ebook, or both, if uploaded at the same time—until December 31, 2022. Barnaby Jameson is an English barrister specializing in terrorism and counterterrorism. His first novel is Codename: Madeleine, a historical espionage thriller. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes Research for writing historical fiction The challenges of switching to fiction as a non-fiction expert — especially with writing dialogue Deciding to use a pen name vs your own name The benefits of self-publishing — and the importance of valuing your intellectual property Becoming the CEO of your own creative endeavor Publishing services for self-published authors — and why Barnaby recommends White Fox as a premium publishing partner. [More in my episode with White Fox here.] Different platforms and methods for marketing your book You can find Barnaby Jameson at BarnabyJameson.com Shareable image generated by Joanna Penn with Midjourney. If you need help self-publishing, check out my free ebook, Successful Self-Publishing, also available in print and ebook. Transcript of Interview with Barnaby Jameson Joanna: Barnaby Jameson is an English barrister specializing in terrorism and counterterrorism. His first novel is Codename: Madeleine, a historical espionage thriller. So welcome to the show, Barnaby. Barnaby: Thank you, Joanna. It's a great pleasure to be here. Joanna: Oh, I'm excited to talk about this. So first up, you are a busy guy. You're a barrister with important cases. So what got you interested in writing fiction? And why write a historical novel? Barnaby: Yes, I am quite a busy guy. My life is one of extremes. And so sometimes I'm probably the busiest man in the kingdom if I'm in the heat of a major terrorist case. But then I do, because I'm now a King's Counsel, get breaks between cases. And so I can then find myself between cases having a little bit of time, maybe to go to Greece where I like to write, to have a bit of time to myself to do some writing. So it's kind of, in my life, it's feast or famine. Barnaby Jameson, in his barrister's wig. Photo used with permission from barnaby jameson Joanna: And why a historical novel? Because I guess most people would say, “oh, well, why don't you just write a terrorism thriller?” Because that's what you know all about. Why historical? Barnaby: Yes, that's an entirely fair question. And maybe the terrorist blockbusters will come, but I think I'd have to hang up my wig first because I can't write them while I'm currently in practice. In answer to your question, I've always been interested in history. I read history, rather haphazardly at Cambridge, but it's probably the only subject that I showed any degree of interest in as a student. I've got a particular interest in World War Two because I come from a post-war generation, but it's clearly a seismic event that I think we're still coming to terms with. And of course, it's moving now from living memory into the history books. I've got a personal connection because my grandfather on my mother's side was an airman serving in Ethiopia in World War Two and also an intelligence officer, moonlighting for something called the Special Operations Executive. And my book is inspired by an agent of the SOE. Joanna: Interesting. So apart from that personal connection, how have you done your research? Because readers of historical fiction can be very finicky about what is exact. Barnaby: You're absolutely right. And when my book was edited, every single historical assertion or description was challenged at every stage. And you're right, historical fiction writers (and readers) do not suffer fools gladly. I read effectively the official history of the Sp

How can authors use generative AI as a co-writing tool? How can creatives approach AI possibilities with curiosity rather than fear? Charlene Putney talks about writing with LAIKA. In the intro, ChatGPT, thoughts on the GitHub Co-Pilot case [WIRED]; and why digital abundance is an opportunity for curious creatives, not a threat. I also mention my book, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, and Virtual Worlds: The Impact of Converging Technologies on Authors and the Publishing Industry, and you can find more interviews and resources on my Future of Creativity page. This podcast is sponsored by Written Word Media, which makes book marketing a breeze by offering quick, easy and effective ways for authors to promote their books. You can also subscribe to the Written Word Media email newsletter for book marketing tips. Charlene Putney is an award-winning writer, professional speaker and university lecturer. She's also the co-creator of LAIKA, an AI-powered creativity tool. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes Why people with arts backgrounds need to get more involved in AI AI-powered creativity tools for writers Using your own backlist to train an AI brain Tips for approaching AI tools as an author Copyright, bias, and plagiarism Data licensing and how fine-tuning models might benefit creatives The importance of personal branding, author voice, and connection with readers in a future of digital abundance You can find Charlene Putney at AlphaChar.com and on Twitter @alphachar. You can try LAIKA at WriteWithLAIKA.com Header image by Joanna Penn on Midjourney. Transcript of Interview with Charlene Putney Joanna: Charlene Putney is an award-winning writer, professional speaker and university lecturer. She's also the co-creator of LAIKA, an AI-powered creativity tool. So welcome to the show, Charlene. Charlene: Thanks so much, Joanna. It's really great to be here. Thanks for inviting me. Joanna: Oh, I'm excited to talk to you about this. So first up – Tell us a bit more about your background at the intersection of creativity and technology. Charlene: Sure, so I am quite old now. I'm 42, so I've been around doing a lot of things for a long time. I started out my “career” – I'm doing inverted commas here – studying ancient Near Eastern languages in university. And then after that, I wasn't quite sure what to do next, but then they had openings for people to work in Google in Dublin, where I'm from. And I applied there, and I worked there for the next almost five years. And then from there, I went and worked in Facebook. And weirdly, my ancient Near Eastern languages helped me out a lot because I was able to use those to work on product teams with right to left languages. So I worked in tech there for about almost 10 years. Then I really wanted to do something a bit more creative with my time. And I had been doing a lot of experimental writing classes and I was writing a little sci-fi novel myself. And so I basically left Facebook to just devote myself for a few months to writing. After those few months had gone and I realized that I still needed to earn money and pay the rent, I started trying to figure out how I could actually use my writing to do that. And that's how I got into writing for video games. So after a few small projects in and around Dublin, I ended up working for Larian Studios on much bigger games, big role-playing games, like Divinity: Original Sin 2 and Baldur's Gate 3. And from there, I started speaking at different games events all around the world, and one of them was here in Copenhagen, where I live now. And there I met Martin Pichlmair, who's my partner on LAIKA and my partner in life. And together, we've basically been just making wild experiments with writing ever since. So that's where I am. Joanna: That's awesome. And just to say, I'm older than you. So I'm 47. Charlene: Oh nice. I never meet people older than me. Joanna: But also my degree is in theology, and so I did ancient Greek, and studied Israel before the exile, and some ancient Near Eastern stuff and I started out doing Arabic. So I kind of feel like we have quite a lot in common in our background, but not computer science, right? And I think this is so important. Let me then ask you that question, essentially you've got an arts background – How does your arts background help you in this technological world full of people who do computer science? Charlene: That's a really good question. So in my undergrad, I also did philosophy. And I think that part of what has helped me a lot, like in all of the tech world and also in the games industry, and now also coming into the AI industry where I've been for the last year or so, is this feeling of, it's okay to stop and slow down and think about things before rushing into solutions. I've kind of always been the person in the room

If you're not making the money you expected from your books, how can you pivot genres in order to write what you enjoy AND make a living? How can you change your mindset to one of creative abundance and productivity? Dan Padavona talks about these topics and more. In the intro, publishing year in review [Kris Rusch]; how you can use ChatGPT with examples; Collaborative writing with AI [Andrew Mayne]; Open AI usage guidelines; Ethical AI usage for authors [ALLi]. Get 33% off my ebooks, audiobooks and courses for the rest of 2022. Use coupon 2022 at checkout at CreativePennBooks.com (ebooks and audio, not print), and/or TheCreativePenn.com/learn for courses. Valid until end of 2022. Today's podcast sponsor is Findaway Voices, which gives you access to the world's largest network of audiobook sellers and everything you need to create and sell professional audiobooks. Take back your freedom. Choose your price, choose how you sell, choose how you distribute audio. Check it out at FindawayVoices.com. Dan Padavona is the best-selling and award-nominated author of thrillers and mysteries, including the Wolf Lake Thrillers and Logan and Scarlett Serial Killer thrillers. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes How — and why — to pivot genres Combining what you want to write and what sellsCreating a new audience when pivoting genresAre Facebook ads and AMS ads still worth it?Financial factors that influence the decision to become a full-time writerRevitalizing a series with Facebook adsThe importance of a positive mindset and how to stay motivated for the long term You can find Dan at DanPadavona.com Dan has now started The Author's Mindset series. Image generated by Joanna Penn on Midjourney. Transcript of Interview with Dan Padavona Joanna: Dan Padavona is the best-selling and award-nominated author of thrillers and mysteries, including the Wolf Lake Thrillers and Logan and Scarlett Serial Killer thrillers. So welcome to the show, Dan. Dan: Thank you so much, Joanna. It's a pleasure to be here. Joanna: Oh, I'm excited to talk to you. But before we get into it – Tell us a little bit more about you and how you got into writing and self-publishing. Dan: Writing came to me very late in life. I did some writing as a child. I wrote a few short stories during high school, which ended up getting published in the school newspaper. It interested me back then, but I didn't really follow through on it.  Now, I do have a communications degree, which is somewhat angling towards that direction. But I ended up going into atmospheric sciences and meteorology eventually. And I think I became a writer because I love reading. It was probably late 2013, early 2014, I read a fictional book, which absolutely blew me away, and I just knew right then and there, I needed to create something like this. Not that I could ever create something quite that brilliant, but I got into writing and I read everything that I could on the subject of writing. I began as a horror author in 2014, switched to thrillers in 2018, and that's pretty much where things took off for me. Joanna:  So we'll circle back on that. But you said you came to writing late in life. I didn't think you were that old, actually. Can you give us a sense of what time of your life you started? Dan: I still get proofed if I buy wine, but I am actually 54 now. I started writing in 2014, so that would have made me 46 at the time. Joanna: Okay. And then, like you said, things took off in 2018, so you were 50. And I think that's really great because so many people are like, “oh, I have missed the chance to become a writer.” And my mum wrote her first book at 72, so there's no need to think that. For people listening, it's never too late. So you were in meteorology. That's like a weatherman? Dan: That's right. I did that since 1994. I retired in September of 2021, so there was 27 years of that. I loved the job and I loved the people, but the shift work was killing me. It had really for 27 years, and that's what made my decision for me to make a move. Otherwise, I think I would still be doing it. I was just so blessed by writing and the way my career took off, that I was making many times my income that I was working at my day job. So it was kind of like, well, I could do this for four hours a day and make a lot, or I could do that for eight or nine hours a day and make a little. So you know, easy choice. Joanna: Oh, it is. And we're gonna dig into all of that. But you said you started out writing horror, and I think that's where I must have first seen you. Did you co-write something with J Thorn? Dan: I did. Yeah. Joanna: Like everyone has, clearly. I have. Dan: That's right. He's like the Kevin Bacon of writing. Joanna: He is. Dan: There may be eight degrees of separation when it comes to J Thorn. And he's been

What is genre, and how can transcending it improve your fiction? How can you effectively write cross genre? John Truby gives an overview of the Anatomy of Genres. In the intro, the PRH acquisition of S&S is over [The Guardian]; Amazon Advertising Everywhere [Vox]; Spotify expands audiobooks to more markets [TechCrunch]; Plus, 20BooksVegas recordings; Machines Behaving Badly: The Morality of AI by Toby Walsh; A16Z podcast with Neal Stephenson; Jane McGonigal on Moonshots and Mindsets; Join me for this Webinar on Amazon data and trends for 2023 – 1 Dec. Plus, my mermaid images on Midjourney @jfpennauthor. Today's show is sponsored by Draft2Digital, where you can get free ebook formatting, free distribution to multiple stores, and a host of other benefits. Get your free Author Marketing Guide at draft2digital.com/penn John Truby is the founder and director of Truby's Writers Studio, and teaches story principles and techniques through books, courses and audio programs, as well as speaking and story consulting. He's also the author of The Anatomy of Story. And today we're talking about his new book, The Anatomy of Genres. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes How John became an expert on storyDefining genre — and examples from science fictionGenre vs. Amazon SubcategoriesHow to transcend genre How to successfully write cross-genre storiesTips for editing and rewriting The importance of advanced theme and complex plotThe future of storytelling as an immersive experience You can find John at Truby.com Header image by Joanna Penn on Midjourney. Transcript of Interview with John Truby Joanna: John Truby is the founder and director of Truby's Writers Studio, and teaches story principles and techniques through books, courses and audio programs, as well as speaking and story consulting. He's also the author of The Anatomy of Story. And today we're talking about his new book, The Anatomy of Genres. So welcome to the show, John. John: Well, thank you so much, Joanna. I can't tell you what a thrill it is for me to be here on this podcast with you. This is one of the top podcasts in the world, and I couldn't be happier to be here with you. Joanna: Thanks so much. Before we get into the meat of the book, tell us a bit more about you and how you came to be so enmeshed in the world of story. John: It's interesting. When I first started writing stories, there were no books I could find about how to do that, if you can imagine that. It was that long ago. So I had to be self-taught. And what I did was I read as many great novels and saw as many great films as I could over about a three-year period. And I broke them all down to see what works and what doesn't work. I found that about 90% of what works came from the deep story structure under the surface. So I came up with a theory of story that was based on the organic development of the hero as they move through the plot. I then translated that into specific practical techniques. I began writing my own work and helping other writers fix their work. This led to a lot of story consulting jobs, and I started getting a reputation for being really good at story. Now, as you probably know, Hollywood is a small town. So that reputation got around very fast. And based on the techniques I was using, I decided to teach a course called The Anatomy of Story, which is also the name of my first book. By now, over 50,000 writers have taken my story courses. And those students have sold over $15 billion worth of books, films and television. The book, The Anatomy of Story, has sold over 200,000 copies worldwide in nine different languages. Now, if I may, just to give you some background on how this new book came about, a lot of times when I talk to writers about what I do, they say, oh, I know all about story. And they say, I use three-act structure or hero's journey or Save the Cat. And they think, that's all I need. Well, here's the problem. These books are great for beginners, but they have very few practical story techniques and certainly nothing that can tell you how to write a great story at the professional level. Because remember, we're talking about being in the top 1% of writers. So when I wrote The Anatomy of Story, my goal was to include all the professional story techniques a writer would need in order to write a best-selling novel. But the one subject it does not cover, which is now crucial to writing a best seller, is how to write to different genres that make up 99% of popular story today. That's why for the last five years, I've been writing The Anatomy of Genres. And now that book, I'm happy to say, is finally here. And I really believe it's going to change how writers tell their stories going forward. Joanna: Indeed. I think I saw you speak–I don't think I've told you this–I saw you speak at L

How can we shift our mindset to thinking about a long-term creative career? What can we do now that will make our future selves happy? Dorie Clark gives some ideas for playing the long game. In the intro, sell books directly on TikTok Shop [The Guardian]; Plan for author success in 2023 [K-lytics webinar, 1 Dec]; PDF workbooks for authors [CreativePennBooks.com] This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors.  Dorie Clark is a best-selling author, keynote speaker, executive educator, film director and producer for a multiple Grammy-winning jazz album. Her books include Entrepreneurial You, Reinventing You, and The Long Game: How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World, which we're talking about today. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes How to balance your time as a multi-passionate creatorLearning how to say no in order to reach your goalsFiguring out what your goals arePracticing long-term thinking in your author careerWhat can you can do now to make your future self happy?How your (non-fiction) book can open up other business opportunitiesThe strategy behind deciding what to writeAdapting to changing technology — the potential impact of generative AIMarketing the same book for the next 5 years You can find Dorie Clark at DorieClark.com Image generated by Joanna Penn with Midjourney Transcript of Interview with Dorie Clark Joanna: Dorie Clark is a best-selling author, keynote speaker, executive educator, film director, and producer for a multiple Grammy-winning jazz album. Her books include Entrepreneurial You, Reinventing You, and The Long Game: How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World, which we're talking about today. So welcome, Dorie. Dorie: Joanna, I'm so glad to be here. Thank you. Joanna: Now, I'm excited to talk about this. But I want to ask you first, because as I was looking at your bio, I'm like, ‘oh, my goodness, you are such a multi-passionate creator,' and a lot of people listening are as well. And you've got this visual art thing, the music thing, writing, teaching, speaking. How do you balance your time between everything you do and prioritize? Dorie: Well, one of the concepts that I actually talked about in my latest book, The Long Game, is 20% time. It was actually originally created by the company 3M, that's famous for its sticky notes. They had something called 15% time. And then Google popularized a related concept of 20% time. And the idea was that they would encourage their employees to spend up to 20% of their time on basically more speculative projects, things that were outside the scope of their official responsibilities. Now, the caveat, of course, is that a lot of Google employees, even though theoretically they're encouraged, don't actually do it because they are too busy, you know, like all of us.  In theory, this is something that is part of the company DNA. And that's how Google News was created, that's how Gmail was created, is people just exploring things and trying new stuff that seems interesting. And so in The Long Game, I really beat the drum that I think it's important for all of us to proactively choose to do this. Whether we work for ourselves or whether we work at a more traditional job, finding pockets of time, you know, maybe it's 20%, maybe it's 5%, who knows. To invest in something that is outside the norm of what we are “supposed to be doing” I think is really valuable, both for keeping us engaged and creative, and also pushing the envelope on something that might be the next big thing. So I really actively try to invest my 20% time in things like directing of film or writing musicals or things like that. Joanna: But even just with what you're doing — I mean, obviously, a lot of people listening have a day job, whatever they do as a day job, and writing is their 20% time. So it's normally the thing people do that's separate, where with you and I, it's part of our professional career. But you have a teaching job, I think, and you're a speaker and all these other things. So it's almost like, yeah, there's that extra bit, but even within what we have to do as part of our normal job, how do you balance your time? Because a lot of people worry about how do they create ‘from scratch' time? And then how do you get the business stuff done, basically? Dorie: Yes, yes, absolutely. It's always the balance between the long-term vision of where we want to go and the short term of just feeling the press of the things that are on us. Whether it's all the messages in our inbox or all the meetings or things we have to get through, and I empathize in a big way. I

How can generative AI tools augment and amplify your creativity? How can digital originals/collectibles (NFTs) add value to authors and readers? In the intro, my solo episode on Creativity, Collaboration, Community, and Cash: NFTs for Authors (also in video); Midjourney v4 [Ars Technica]; Deviant Art launches their own generative AI tool [Engadget]; Rumors of GPT-4 [Robert Scoble]; The Inevitable by Kevin Kelly; Other futurist episodes on AI and NFTs; The AI-Assisted Author, The Creator Economy for Authors. This podcast is sponsored by Written Word Media, which makes book marketing a breeze by offering quick, easy and effective ways for authors to promote their books. You can also subscribe to the Written Word Media email newsletter for book marketing tips. This podcast is also sponsored by my wonderful patrons, www.Patreon.com/thecreativepenn J. Thorn is a bestselling horror and dark fantasy writer, and he also writes nonfiction for authors. He's a podcaster at Writer's Ink and the Music NFT Show. J and I have co-written several books together, including Risen Gods, Co-writing a book, and American Demon Hunter's Sacrifice. How J is using generative AI tools for NFTs featuring music and imagesThe creative appeal of generative AI and how it augments and amplifies the direction of the creatorHow J's opinion on generative AI has shiftedAI prompt generation as potentially a new jobWeb 3 = general wave of technology that is going to transform our lives in a way that hasn't happened in decadesNFTs as digital collectibles, and how we see them being applicable for authors, and how they might fit as a new layer on top of the existing digital market for ebooks and audiobooksAn attitude of playfulness and creative experimentation, rather than commerce You can find J. Thorn at TheAuthorLife.com and g3arz.com, and on Twitter @jthorn_ Transcript of the interview Joanna Penn: J. Thorn is a bestselling horror and dark fantasy writer, and he also writes nonfiction for authors. He's a podcaster at Writer's Ink and the Music NFT Show. J and I have co-written several books together, including Risen Gods, Co-writing a book, and American Demon Hunter's Sacrifice. We also share an interest in NFTs blockchain and Web 3, which we're talking about today soon. Welcome back to the show. J. Thorn: Hey, Jo, it's weird for me to hear you introduce me prior to us talking. It feels odd! Joanna Penn: I know. And for anyone who hasn't been listening to the show a long time, you've been on lots of times and we've done lots of things together, but I feel like this is like the latest thing we're doing together having worked together on and off on lots of things. I will have recapped in the intro what NFTs are, so we don't need to go into that. But we talked in February 2022. It's nine months later as we record this in November 2022. And it's really important to timestamp it because lots of things have changed and moved on. What's changed for you in terms of your own NFT projects and what are you doing in this music scene and everything? What are you up to? J. Thorn: Well, yes, the last time we talked feels like a lifetime ago in this space. I've fully embraced the future and we're going to talk about several of those aspects in this conversation as far as. Specifically what I've been up to, I started a podcast called The Music NFT Show. I'm doing it with my youngest daughter who's 17 and we're focusing on music. And that's been great because she's very into music, writing her own and that's been a wonderful thing to do together. I started creating some generative music pieces on a platform called Async and I've just been immersed in the culture. I've been purchasing NFTs. I've been following the industry, more so on the music side than publishing, but also just always straddling that line and seeing what can I take from the music industry and bring it into publishing and vice versa. Joanna Penn: Well let's get into that a bit more. You mentioned generative music pieces on Async. So, for people listening, we are going to mention language that might need a bit of explaining, but one of your things was Nosferatu — with funny spelling! What are your NFTs like? J. Thorn: So I've minted two projects and the third one will be live by the time this episode airs. They are generative music projects. And what that means in plain speak is that — generative art is not new, generative art has been around since the sixties — but we now have the technology in web 3 for basically everyday people to create generative art. So essentially the artist or the creator, we'll make certain aspects of the art, but then the final piece is determined by an algorithm and in a lot of generative art, that means that the algorithm is developing a unique piece of art. So, for example, Nosferatu is a generative music piece that was inspired by the movie Nosferatu, which is having its 100 anniversary this year, which is one of the reasons why I chose it.

How can you find the intersection between what the market wants and what you love to read? How can you strategically seed book sales to improve your marketing? Rachel McLean talks about her 5 steps to indie author success. In the intro, how to predict and profit from publishing trends [ALLi blog]; my live, in-person events IRL and online; Trends for 2023 webinar with Alex Newton, K-lytics. Today's show is sponsored by IngramSpark, which I use to print and distribute my print-on-demand books to 40,000 retailers including independent bookstores, schools and universities, libraries, and more. It's your content—do more with it through IngramSpark.com. Use promo code PENN at checkout for 1 free book upload, print, ebook, or both, if uploaded at the same time—until December 31, 2022. Rachel McLean is the award-winning and best-selling author of the Dorset Crime novels and the Zoe Finch detective series, and she writes nonfiction for writers under Rachel McCollin. Today we're talking about Five Steps to Author Success: Write Books Readers Love and Become a Full-Time Writer. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes Why Rachel chose to become an indie author — and why her first books didn't sell so wellHow to find the intersection between what the market wants and what you want to writeThe importance of characters in a seriesResearching locationsStrategically seeding book sales to improve book marketingAdapting to change as an author You can find Rachel at RachelMcLean.com Header image by Joanna Penn on Midjourney. Transcript of Interview with Rachel McLean Joanna: Rachel McLean is the award-winning and best-selling author of the Dorset Crime novels and the Zoe Finch detective series, and she writes nonfiction for writers under Rachel McCollin. Today we're talking about Five Steps to Author Success: Write Books Readers Love and Become a Full Time Writer. So welcome, Rachel. Rachel: Thank you for having me on. It's lovely to be here. Joanna: Oh, yeah, this is gonna be so fascinating. But first up, just tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing? Rachel: Well, I mean, like many writers I've been writing since I was in primary school. I think I wrote my first serialized story when I was about nine. And I loved to write stories when I was a child, and then went to secondary school and had it drummed out of me and had to write essays, went to university much the same process. And then quite a few years later, I was working at the Environment Agency and I was responsible for communication skills training. I had to test out a business writing course. It was all about plain English and also about writing for an audience and understanding the needs of the reader. And on this course, we had to mind map a piece of writing that we were planning. I wasn't actually planning a piece of writing because I was there to trial the course, as against because I was doing the kind of writing where I needed it. So I thought, I know, I’ll mind map a novel. And so I did, and that eventually became A House Divided, which is one of my political thriller trilogies. I started writing that when I was pregnant with my oldest son who's about to turn 18, and it took 15 years to get from that point to publication. I write a lot faster now though. Joanna: That's brilliant. And then, okay, so just bring us up to date then because he's 18 now, and so you said 15 years. So three years ago you really started getting into publishing. Why didn't you go the traditional route? Rachel: So yeah, three or four years ago, I was a member of writers' group, Birmingham Writers’ Group, which I joined to get some motivation to write. And I had a couple of friends through that group, Heide Goody and Iain Grant, and they’d been publishing independently, they'd been self-publishing for a few years. And I'd seen that they were doing well, they were making money, building up a readership, getting quite a loyal following. And at the same time, I was querying agents and not getting anywhere. And then I went to a festival of writing in York which is run by Jericho Writers. And there were people there from the indie world and the trad world talking about the differences between the two. And I thought, actually, I think this could be for me, because I've always run my own business, I've got a head for marketing, and accounting, and all those kinds of thing that you need to do to run your own publishing business. And I like to have autonomy over what I do. So I started publishing in December 2017. It was slow at first, but I stuck with it and did a lot of learning around the marketing and the publishing and also improving my craft. And then eventually, it was July 2020 that I released the book that took off and made my career, which was the first Zoe Finch book. Joanna: What I love about your book, The Five Steps to Author Success, you

What are some of the fundamentals behind self-publishing success? James Blatch shares tips and insights. James Blatch is a historical military thriller author. He’s also the co-founder of Self-Publishing Formula, Fuse Books, Hello Books, and the co-host of The Self-Publishing Show.  You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes Lessons learned from writing a second book in the series — and why ‘show, don't tell' is so difficult for new authors. You can also find James's interview about his first book here. How marketing a second book differs and why free books still work for finding readers Different measurements of success when you're starting out, and writing for love vs commercial success Why the ‘language' of self-publishing is important to learn — and it might take a little time, but you will get there! How to navigate the choices as a self-publishing author Some fundamentals of marketing — using email lists, and free books in KU or permafree Tips for rebooting an older series, or when you've got your rights back on older books You can find James at www.JamesBlatch.com and on Twitter @jamesblatch and also @selfpubform You can listen to the Self Publishing Show on your favorite podcast app and find the backlist here. Header image generated by Joanna Penn with DALL-E 2 Transcript of the interview with James Blatch Joanna Penn: James Blatch is a historical military thriller author. He's also the co-founder of Self-Publishing Formula, Fuse Books, Hello Books and the co-host of the Self-Publishing Show. So welcome back to the podcast, James. James Blatch: Hello Jo. Thank you so much for having me back on. I'm, excited to be here as always. Joanna Penn: Well, it's good to talk to you again now. You were on the show last year, May, 2021, which I guess is almost 18 months now, talking about the launch of your first novel, the Final Flight, and now you have a second book out in the series, Dark Flight. And I wanted to talk to you a bit about this because many authors obviously put out their first book and they do all the stuff, and then they put out a second book in the series and it's quite different. What did you do differently with your second book in terms of the creative writing side, since you must have learned a lot? James Blatch: Yeah, I did. I mean, writing the first one was a ramshackle, ridiculously long-winded process of me having no idea what I was doing and gradually over four years, probably of the intense part of it, learning parts about the trade and what I should be doing and being directed and finding it hard to learn. And rewriting and rewriting. And I had a book that was huge and unwieldy, 210,000 words at one point, and then a book that was ridiculously short, 50,000 words that made no sense because I got the wrong idea of what ‘show, don't tell' meant. And then eventually got to this point where the book was done. I got there and I'm proud of the book. I mean, I think it's a kind of ‘story for my heart' type book. Book two, honestly, it could not have been different. I had the idea when I was marketing and releasing book one, I started to think about this idea. I had the story fully formed in my mind. I wrote it down over two pages on the Word document of the whole story. And that never really changed. And I wrote it in a fraction of the time. I wrote it probably in nine months. And it didn't change very much even in the edit, which is so far apart from the first book. So everyone said to me, the second book will be easy, and I hadn't anticipated quite what a different experience it would be. I mean, it was a slightly different book. I'll say Jo, I think the first book is like that book from the heart about my dad and everything. And book two is much more influenced by me reading in the genre, reading Clive Cussler and Len Deighton and trying to work out what it is in these books, these multi-selling books. People just burn through those series. That's the type of thing commercially that's going to work for me when I've got 10 books out, they will do the selling for me. Each one can't be kind of a Blatch family blockbuster type thing. So it was a different type of book, I think, but anyway, it was a ridiculously short experience. Joanna Penn: Well, nine months is still not ridiculously short. James Blatch: That's true. Joanna Penn: You said there that you got the wrong idea about ‘Show, don't tell.' Can you expand on that? What did you think it was and what did you get wrong? Because it is one of these things that new authors find really difficult. I did too. James Blatch: Yes. So I've been from one extreme to the other. So I went through writing the first book and writing the first draft, which is, as I say, quite long and unwieldy. Then writing a second draft that's stripped out everything to the point where — St

How can you create an ecosystem of children's books around a central idea? How can you market books for children? Ada-Ari talks about how she writes, publishes and markets her children's books based on African folk tales and African languages in the USA. In the intro, Court blocks the PRH S&S merger [PublishersWeekly]; Spoken Word Audio report; Amazon Prime includes 100m songs [TechCrunch]; Spotify pulls audiobook purchases on Apple [The Verge]; Changes to Twitter Blue [The Verge]; Facebook and Instagram are introducing digital collectibles – yes, NFTs. [FB] Join me for Your Author Business Plan Live. This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors.  Ada-Ari is the author of books for children, including The Spider's Thin Legs, and The Turtle's Cracked Shell, as well as language learning books for African languages. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes Creating books for children as a connection to African cultural heritageFinding an illustrator outside the usual freelance platformsWorking with a printer and distributor vs. print-on-demandOn book sales expectations vs. realityMarketing books for children in schools and storesWhat keeps us going when the going gets toughTurning a book idea into a much bigger vision for a creative business with a mission You can find Ada-Ari at Ada-Ari.com. Header image generated by Joanna Penn with DALL-E2. Transcript of Interview with Ada Ari Joanna: Ada-Ari is the author of books for children, including The Spider's Thin Legs, and The Turtle's Cracked Shell, as well as language learning books for African languages. Welcome, Ada. Ada Ari: Thank you, Joanna. Joanna: This is such an interesting topic. Tell us a bit more about you, and how you got into writing in the first place. Ada-Ari: I am a Nigerian immigrant to the United States. I moved here back in 1996, as a teenager with my family, and fast forward to now I have a parent with two young children. When I started reading to them, I wanted them to also have some of the stories that I grew up on. Some of our African folktales. I realized quickly that there was no way that I could share these stories with my young children if I didn't tell them myself. They were so young that I felt they needed a picture book version of the story, just for retention, like that age of infancy and toddlerhood. They really need the pictures to go along with the stories for it to make sense. And so that's in brief my story. My children are my inspiration. Joanna: I know a lot of people listening want to write books for children because of their own children. I think that absolutely comes through with people. I guess growing up in Nigeria, you heard those stories. But why did you decide to focus that on doing in a book? You could have retold them in a different way or come up with different stories? What is it about these stories that you care about so much? Ada-Ari: Before putting pen to paper, I was also thinking that it would be great to actually animate some of these stories, or in general just have more representation of black characters, and the different animated series that my children watched. But animation is a completely different beast altogether. I happened to be reading a book when I just thought to myself, you know, why not create these stories for my children. The first book that I wrote was actually The Turtle's Cracked Shell. That's a story that I remember from my heart growing up. It's amazing, but I still remember it, remembering it and all the details. When I wrote it down, I shared it with some friends to get their feedback. And another friend from Ghana, she said, ‘Well, there's this story that I remember from childhood as well.' That just birthed the idea of why not look at all the different stories that came out of Africa, and put them in a book format. I will say I also wanted something that could be shared easily. So with a book, my children can easily take them to daycare and share them with their teachers, it can be part of reading time. And so I suppose that's why I thought books. I want to say that pre-pandemic, I was super anti-TV. So my children weren't doing much screen time. So maybe books were just the obvious medium. Joanna: My sister-in-law is Nigerian and I went to school in Malawi, in Africa. So I've got a few ties into the continent, but a lot of people listening won't know much about Nigeria. When you were growing up and hearing these stories, were you learning in English or is English your second language? Ada-Ari: English is my first language. And for pretty much every Nigerian who goes through the education system English is the first langu

What are tropes and how can you use them to strengthen your fiction? What are some examples of horror tropes, in particular? With Jennifer Hilt. In the intro, Why book sales are down and what to do about it [6 Figure Authors]; Undisruptible: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention for Individuals, Organisations, and Life by Aidan McCullen; Sadness about sales [@LouiseVoss1]; How pop stars really make money [The Telegraph], Impact of subscription models [Ask ALLi]; Shutterstock will sell AI-generated stock images [Digital Trends]; Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and Virtual Worlds; The Creator Economy for Authors. Today's show is sponsored by ProWritingAid, writing and editing software that goes way beyond just grammar and typo checking. With its detailed reports on how to improve your writing and integration with Scrivener, ProWritingAid will help you improve your book before you send it to an editor, agent or publisher. Check it out for free or get 25% off the premium edition at www.ProWritingAid.com/joanna Jennifer Hilt is the USA Today best-selling author of over 24 books across four pen names, writing in urban fantasy, supernatural suspense and paranormal romance. Her books for authors include The Trope Thesaurus, Trope Your Way to a Stronger Story, and appropriately for Halloween, The Horror Trope Thesaurus: Killing it with Tropes. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes Creating the time to write despite a full lifeWhat is a trope and why are they important?The five categories of tropesThe diversity of the horror genresWriting familiar tropes without becoming clichéExamples from horror TV — Stranger Things and Midnight Mass — as well as booksUsing tropes in book marketing You can find Jennifer Hilt at jenniferhilt.com and on Twitter @jenehilt Shareable image generated by Joanna Penn with DALL-E2 Transcript of Interview with Jennifer Hilt Joanna: Jennifer Hilt is the USA Today best-selling author of over 24 books across four pen names, writing in urban fantasy, supernatural suspense and paranormal romance. Her books for authors include The Trope Thesaurus, Trope Your Way to a Stronger Story, and appropriately for Halloween, The Horror Trope Thesaurus: Killing it with Tropes. Welcome to the show, Jen. Jennifer: Oh, thanks so much for having me. Joanna: This is such a great topic. Before we get into it, tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing. Jennifer: I've always loved storytelling, even as a kid, I was able to walk to my local library and spend tons of time there, which is a huge gift. And so I just read everything possible. I thought that I would become a writer. And the way to do that would be to go to school. So I went and got two degrees, one in linguistics and one in language and all the time thinking about, ‘Oh, I'm going to write a book someday when I know enough to do that.' When I got into school, I realized that school didn't really teach me how to write. I needed to figure that out myself. Reading and thinking about how books are put together is really the way to do that. I didn't really feel like going to school to learn to write a book was the way to do it. So that's what led me to a lot of self study and thinking, how is the story put together and just being intensely curious, that led me to doing some plotting with others, because I do have lots of story ideas. I'm helpful at helping them develop their ideas into like a full-blown book. As I was doing that process, I started to really think more in detail about the specifics of how stories put together, particularly tropes. Joanna: How did you get into going the indie way? Do you have a day job in this kind of thing? Or how do you manage that side of things? Jennifer: I had two children who had health problems. So I even though I did have a day job, I wasn't able to keep that up. So I ended up just doing lots of writing to help my mental health when I had some free time to escape all the stuff that was going on with the kids. That was how I managed that. I wasn't able to keep working outside the home, doing teaching and writing things. Joanna: Thank you for sharing that. I think it's really a strong message that you've written, how many books did I say? Over 24? I think I lost count. Jennifer: Yes, it was really interesting. When my first son developed his health problem, I was always thinking, Okay, I'm really going to push this when I have time, and when the kids whatever. And then when he got that illness, it was like the horror of that. But also, I did feel some shame as a mom/storyteller in that, I realized, I'm never going to get the time, I'm going to have to find it somewhere. Nobody's going to give me this time, because now there's this big thing that we need to do to keep him alive. So I really can identify with people who are trying to juggle multiple things. And you just

What do you need in the beginning of your novel so your reader buys your book? Shane Millar shares tips for writing brilliant beginnings, regardless of your genre. In the intro, trends in what publishers want at Frankfurt Book Fair [Publishing Perspectives] Adobe incorporating AI-generation alongside a Content Authenticity Initiative [Adobe blog]; Bertelsmann-owned venture capital firm BDMI invests in NFT book company, Book.io [Yahoo Finance]; NFTs for books overview [The Future of Publishing]; NFTs and copyright with Kathryn Goldman; NFTs for authors; Plus, Writing Career Toolkit Storybundle (limited time); A pilgrim in the path of history [Books and Travel]; Sign up to be notified of my Pilgrimage book; and Your Author Business Plan workshop live sessions. Today's show is sponsored by IngramSpark, which I use to print and distribute my print-on-demand books to 40,000 retailers including independent bookstores, schools and universities, libraries, and more. It's your content—do more with it through IngramSpark.com. Use promo code PENN at checkout for 1 free book upload, print, ebook, or both, if uploaded at the same time—until December 31, 2022. Shane Millar is the author of urban fantasy thrillers and craft guides for writers, as well as a story coach and editor. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes How Shane started his indie career with rapid release in 2022 across multiple genresWhy the beginning of a novel it matters so muchExamples of different types of beginnings for different types of novelsThe importance of reading for pleasureHow to signal genre to readers so they know the book is for themHow much of a character should be revealed early in a book?Different writing processes for fiction and non-fictionHow the basics of marketing don’t change and what is working for Shane since he started earlier in 2022, 15 years after Joanna. You can find Shane Millar at swmillar.com Shareable image generated by Joanna Penn with DALL-E 2. Transcript of Interview with Shane Millar Joanna: Shane Millar is the author of urban fantasy thrillers and craft guides for writers, as well as a story coach and editor. Today we're talking about How To Write Brilliant Beginnings: Crafting Your Novel's Opening Chapters Made Easy. Welcome, Shane. Shane: Thanks for having me on the show, Joanna. Joanna: It's good to have you here. Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and the indie author world. Shane: So way back in 2010, I read the first novel in Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden series. And in my youthful naivety, I kind of thought I can do that, that'll be fine. So I wrote the most terrible vampire urban fantasy novel you will ever read. I did what 99.9% of writers do, I stuck it in a drawer, I let it gather dust while I fell into a “sensible” corporate job. I found that manuscript in late 2018, skimmed it through and promptly realized just how awful it was. And as sobering as that experience was, it made me want to write again, but do it a lot better this time. With that in mind, I did what any self-respecting nerd would do: I studied a lot. After a ton of trial and error, I published the first four novels in my myth and magic urban fantasy series this year, as well as the first five guides for writers in my Write Better Fiction series, I also qualified as a Fictionary Certified story coach too and that's pretty much me. That's how I got into it. Joanna: So a few questions out of that, then before we get into writing beginnings. What is your sensible corporate job? Shane: In my day job, I work for an insurance company. So it is very sensible, very corporate and very dull. It is not creative at all. And it's one of those kind of soul-destroying cubicle slavery type jobs, that I'm hopefully using writing as a way to transition out of. Joanna: But it absolutely pays the bills. Looking back on my own corporate job as well, which I did for five years, while building up my writing business, there are people who email me and they say they are a freelance writer, writing for hire, and they have nothing left for their creative work. Whereas with insurance and what I was doing with IT, I had a creative side that I wasn't using at work. I want to encourage people listening, if you have a similar corporate job, it does actually leave you some creative space for writing. Shane: Yes it does and writing is definitely the one good thing I would say. If anyone out there is struggling with their day job, whatever that might be, is that you do have that creative outlet in writing. It does provide somewhat of an escape from the day job, even though you're still there. So just keep going. And you will make a success of this and get out if you want to. Joanna: Then you said you launched the first four in your myth and magic series, and five guides for writers, right? Are you followi

How does curiosity fuel creativity? How can we balance consumption and creation in an ever-busier digital life? How can you break out of the myth of the ‘starving artist'? Maria Brito talks about How Creativity Rules the World. In the intro, insights into Colleen Hoover's popularity [NY Times]; Amazon bugs [Kindlepreneur]; Ingram invests in Book.io for NFT ebooks and audio [PR News Wire]; The Matter of Everything by Dr Suzie Sheehy; Solid with Tim Berners-Lee [Inrupt]; Microsoft including DALL-E 2 into Designer products [TechCrunch]; Microsoft partnering with Meta for enterprise [Oculus]. This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors.  Maria Brito is an award-winning New York-based contemporary art advisor, entrepreneur, author, and curator. Her latest book is How Creativity Rules the World: The Art and Business of Turning Your Ideas into Gold. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes Finding the courage to start a creative business when you have a steady, well-paid jobHow curiosity drives creativity, and how to tap into itBalancing consumption and creationWhy creativity is important for you — and the worldThe complex relationship between money and artEmbracing technological change in the creative arts — and sharing yourself as the artist in order to connect You can find Maria Brito at MariaBrito.com and on Twitter @MariaBrito_NY Header and shareable image generated by Joanna Penn on Midjourney. Transcript of Interview with Maria Brito Joanna: Maria Brito is an award-winning New York-based contemporary art advisor, entrepreneur, author, and curator. Her latest book is How Creativity Rules the World: The Art and Business of Turning Your Ideas into Gold. Welcome, Maria. Maria: Hi, Joanna, and everybody who's listening. I hope you are well, anywhere you are in the world. Thank you for being here. Joanna: . And we do have listeners all over the world. Now, I wanted to take a step back. You started out as a corporate attorney at a big law firm. And there are lots of people listening who are in day jobs in the corporate world. How did you break out of such a high-paying job to start a creative business? How did you find that courage to pivot? Maria: I think that once you feel the pain of being in a place like that, you can't really think about anything else. But how do I get out of here? And how do I reclaim my life because, literally, I feel that for all the many years that I was doing things that I just did not want to do, it's like I was losing my life. I was losing my energy and my joy. And when I had my first child, which I was still working at the law firm, I thought to myself that life was short or long, but that I really had a different perspective once I had this child. I have to teach him, by example, how to live a life of joy, and purpose, and meaning. I had been very, very interested in contemporary art and art history, in general, since I was a child, to be honest with you. And I had taken many courses in high school and in college as well. When I moved to New York City after graduating from law school, collecting informally, things that were young and emerging and fun, and that was always on the back of my mind, how to make people live with art. When I quit my job and opened my business, that was 2009. The art market and the art world were mysterious and seemed snobbish and impenetrable. I thought to myself, ‘I have been pondering this question for a number of years now, how do people actually get into collecting and living with art and having the excitement of understanding artists through their ideas and their aesthetics without people getting so intimidated, or people feeling that they are being looked down when they stepped into a gallery? Or how do people demystify the thought that to be a collector, you have to be one of those people who go to Sotheby's and spend $10 million in a painting because the art market and the art world is a whole lot bigger than that?' So all these preoccupations along with the baby gave me the impetus to say, ‘I don't want to do something that is actually killing me alive.' Basically, because if we talk about mental health today…back then we didn't really have those conversations, but I had them with my husband, and I had them with my friends. And I said, ‘This job is basically is killing me, is annihilating everything.' Nothing really happens overnight. Because once you have arrived at a place where you say, ‘I do need to quit this job to start something new,' it's because you have been accumulating a lot of painful memories, moments, situations. It's not just like one day you wake up and you have a big

Generative art tools like DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion are taking AI art into the mainstream. What are the opportunities for authors? What are the problems and controversies to be aware of? I talk about these issues and more with Derek Murphy. In the intro, I mention my J.F. Penn NFTs with AI-generated art based on words from my novels; Microsoft will incorporate DALL-E into design products [TechCrunch]; Meta's Make-A-Video and Google's Imagen Video [TechMonitor]. You can also find more podcast episodes and tools at TheCreativePenn.com/future. Derek Murphy writes urban fantasy, YA, and romance fiction as D.S. Murphy, as well as books for authors on writing and marketing. He has a Ph.D. in literature and is also a visual artist, designer, and course creator. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes Why AI art is such a fascinating emerging area — and how it can help existing artists improve and iterate their creative ideas faster The tools available — DALL-E 2, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion How prompting works and determines the quality of your output, and why iterations and curation are so important as a creative director with a vision How AI art generation tools might replace stock photography sites The problems with AI-generated art, including the use of living artists as models, copyright, and more Using AI images for ads and emotion-driven content that might help sell more books How book cover designers and other artists can use AI tools in an effective way You can find Derek at www.Creativindie.com and on Twitter @creativindie. You can go through Derek's Midjourney tutorial here. Transcript of the interview (lightly edited) Joanna PennDerek Murphy writes urban fantasy, YA and romance fiction, as well as books for authors on writing and marketing. He has a PhD in literature and is also a visual artist, designer and course creator. So welcome back to the show, Derek. Derek MurphyHi, thanks for having me on. It's been a long time since we've talked. Joanna PennIt has indeed. And I mean, you and I go way back. Now you designed some of my early book covers — Derek MurphyI want to say it was like 15 years ago or something, I think I found one of your books in Portland, a long, long time ago. And I was really excited. Because I wanted to be a writer. So that kind of got me on to the path. Derek designed this beautiful cover for Desecration, when it was just a standalone novel Joanna PennYeah, I mean, it's kind of crazy how long we've known each other online. But you were on the show in 2014 talking about book cover design. I can't believe how time passes. But give us a bit of an update. What does your author business and your author life look like right now? Derek MurphySure. I started with fine art. I was a painter. I did my PhD in literature. And then I was doing editing and painting. And then I transitioned towards book cover design. So I did that for quite a long time. But book cover design has changed a lot in the last 10 years because of all the new technologies. But in the last few years, I switched more to passive income with some courses, so that I can focus on my fiction. And in last, basically, five years, I think I've written like 20-something novels, but I haven't finished a whole series yet. And this month, I'm finally finishing a full series, which is kind of a big deal. So I've been doing just enough work to get by. But now that I have a finished series, I think I can focus more on my fiction as income revenue, which hasn't been the case so far. Joanna PennWhat's your fiction name? So people know. Derek MurphyI use DS Murphy. And then I also use Drake Mason as a pen name. And it's mostly like Twilight with mermaids and vampires and things like that. So young adult, plot-heavy fantasy, I guess. Joanna PennThat's cool. And we might come back to the mermaids because you've got some cool stuff on that too. I wanted to talk to you because I know you're a multi-passionate creative, you're very visual, also with words, obviously. But today, we're talking about AI for art, which is pretty contentious in the world as we record this in October 2022. But let's start with the attitude to AI. Why are you interested in AI as someone who's done some pretty traditional work in the creative sphere? Derek MurphyRight. So as an artist, I understand the frustration, because it's weird. Like, I was never the greatest artist. I had really big ideas, and I just couldn't execute them with oil painting. Now I could recreate the same idea much better in a minute. And it just looks awesome. So I'm not exactly torn, because I like the art that I'm making, I think the AI art is, is really, really good looking. It's really fast, I don't have to pay a lot of money for designer and wait for designs. So for me, it's new enough that when I share images, it's going to make a really big dif

How can we accept imperfection as writers while still striving for excellence? How can we make space for going deeper into our writing while managing a busy life? Beth Kempton talks about The Way of the Fearless Writer in this wide-ranging interview on the creative mindset. In the intro, when life throws a curveball and writing in the midst of chaos, Useful tutorials for writers including Scrivener, Rule of the Robots by Martin Ford, Moonshots and Mindsets; and AI narrated audio on KWL. Today's show is sponsored by Draft2Digital, where you can get free ebook formatting, free distribution to multiple stores, and a host of other benefits. Get your free Author Marketing Guide at draft2digital.com/penn Beth Kempton is a Japanologist and the author of multiple non-fiction books including Freedom Seeker, Wabi Sabi, and her latest book, The Way of the Fearless Writer. She also runs multiple creative businesses, and is a podcaster, speaker, course creator, and also co-hosts retreats. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes How Beth's disillusionment with the corporate world led to her business, starting with courses, and the books emerged from thatIntegrating a passion for all things Japanese with creativity and businessHow the concept of wabi-sabi can help writers with an acceptance and appreciation of the impermanent, imperfect, and incomplete nature of everythingEmbracing the imperfection of being human, not a machine — and how we can apply that to our writing and our booksWriting fearlessly, tapping into flow, and keep a part of your writing practice sacredBalancing time between books, business, creativity, and family — and how Beth utilizes planning and seasonalityThe importance of saying ‘no' You can find Beth at BethKempton.com, on Instagram @BethKempton, and her courses at DoWhatYouLoveForLife.com. Transcript of the interview Joanna: Beth Kempton is a Japanologist, and the author of multiple nonfiction books, including ‘Freedom Seeker,' ‘Wabi Sabi,' and her latest book, ‘The Way of the Fearless Writer.' She also runs multiple creative businesses and is a podcaster, speaker, course creator, and also co-hosts retreats. So welcome, Beth. Beth: Thank you so much. What a joy to be here, Joanna. Thanks for having me. Joanna: I'm excited to talk to you today. So, first off, Tell us a bit more about how you became a writer and a creative entrepreneur, and also how your experiences in Japan impact your books and business now. Beth: It's so funny hearing you do the intro. I feel quite exhausted listening to all those things I do. And I think it's really important to say I don't do them all at the same time. I've had my own business for 12 years now, and I do a retreat every couple of years, whatever, you know, over that time. I've not done that many, and I spread things out. I've done five books in five years, and that has taken a huge amount of time and attention, as you know. And I think I feel quite fortunate that we started our business 12 years ago with online courses, really, before many people were doing online courses. Especially in the kind of self-help and personal development arena, there was hardly anything around, especially on this side of the pond. And so it's been amazing to have that foundation already built. And then the books have kind of come out of that, rather than writing a book and having to then do all the stuff after that. But I just wanted to say that I think it can be quite intimidating to hear that stuff. And, you know, I've got two children at home and do run three businesses, but it's the day-to-day is slow progress, even when you look back on it, and it feels like quite a lot. So, I'm grateful, absolutely, for… Joanna: I completely get that. Beth: …for doing it this way. Joanna: This podcast has been going since 2009. Beth: It's amazing. And I think for people who are just coming into the arena can feel like there's so much catching up to do. And there isn't at all, because, actually, I was probably the same for you when you started your podcast. The technology was so different, and so, like, clunky, and difficult, and expensive. And so even if you don't have that particular foundation, it's a lot quicker to start doing new things, I think. So, I'll answer your question now. Joanna: That was a great way to start, as well. Because you're right, starting now. If you were starting now, you might start on TikTok, for example. And personally, I'm not going anywhere near TikTok. So, it depends when you start. But yes, tell us more about Japan. Beth: Yes, sure. So, I did Japanese at university, not because I was a linguist. I was the opposite of a linguist. But because I had a massive ‘aha' moment when I was 17, it made me ditch all my convictions that I should be an accountant, and in the space of a few weeks had to figure

Traditional publishing is not a monolithic thing. There are different kinds of publishers, and authors want different things out of a publishing deal and relationship. Georgina Cross talks about her experience with two different traditional publishers and the pros and cons of each. In the intro, new e-reading devices, Kobo Clara 2E and Kindle Scribe; Findaway Voices now allows you to do audiobook promotional pricing for Spotify (as well as Chirp, Apple, B&N Audio); YouTube Learning; Change in Google Search [Search Engine Journal]; Writing Career Toolkit ebook Bundle (limited time); Stepping back to step forward with me and Orna Ross [Ask ALLi Podcast]. Plus all the pictures from my Camino de Santiago Portuguese Coastal pilgrimage, and last chance to do my survey before 7 Oct, 2022 — TheCreativePenn.com/survey22 Today's show is sponsored by ProWritingAid, writing and editing software that goes way beyond just grammar and typo checking. With its detailed reports on how to improve your writing and integration with Scrivener, ProWritingAid will help you improve your book before you send it to an editor, agent or publisher. Check it out for free or get 25% off the premium edition at www.ProWritingAid.com/joanna Georgina Cross is the best-selling author of five suspense thriller novels with Bantam, Penguin Random House and Bookouture, Hachette Publishing. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes Making the decision to pursue traditional publishing — and the patience needed along the way The need for validation The pros and cons of an agile, fast-moving publisher vs a bigger imprint at a larger publishing How much marketing does a traditional publisher do for you? Tips for getting a traditional publishing deal How the money works with a traditional deal What do you want — and what are you willing to give up for that? Aspects of control. You can find Georgina Cross at Georgina-Cross-Author.com and on Twitter @GCrossAuthor Transcript of Interview with Georgina Cross Joanna: Georgina Cross is the best-selling author of five suspense thriller novels with Bantam, Penguin Random House and Bookouture, Hachette Publishing. Welcome to the show, Georgina. Georgina: Thank you so much for having me. Joanna: It's going to be interesting to talk to you today. Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing. Georgina: Like a lot of authors that you've interviewed, I always wanted to be a writer as a child, and I was that kid with the desk in her bedroom, who would sit there and write books, even if it was just on notebook paper. My very first book was ‘Me and My Alien Friend.' It was a masterpiece. I was the illustrator as well. All through high school, and I've heard other people we've interviewed say the same thing. It was a career path that wasn't guaranteed. I didn't know if I could even publish a book, whether I could even make a career or a living off of that. And so, going to college, I thought, okay, I'll at least get the degree, broadcast journalism is writing, sort of. It's really not. It's shorter sentences, fragments, four-second promos, 30-second other bits and pieces. To me, it just wasn't satisfying. But a few years back, I thought, okay, it's time to double down. The kids are a little bit older now, and I can at least try to make a go of this. The goal was, before aged 40, I wanted to get published. And I missed my goal. It took me until age 41. But that's okay. I didn't want to give up. And so, here I am, several books, several years later. Joanna: If your goal was to get published by 40, when did you start writing seriously for publication? Georgina: About four years before that. When I rolled out of TV news, like a lot of us do, we go into marketing communications. In Huntsville, Alabama, which is where I live, we have a lot of aerospace and defense. NASA's here, Redstone Arsenal, lots of military. My husband is former army. And so, a lot of us will land in marketing comms, but it wasn't as creative for me as I wanted it to be. On the weekends, I would write, and I was basically working seven days a week. Still am working seven… I'm like you. I'm a workaholic, just like you. Because we love it, right? We enjoy it. I just thought I've got just to make a go of this. We could talk about this, but it took about four years before my agent was able to finally sell my books. Joanna: Interesting. Okay. Well, you said to me before we started recording that you've been listening to this show for years, and that you listen to my show with Orna Ross on the ‘Ask ALLi Podcast.' You are clearly educated about the indie author business model and all of that side of things. So, why did you decide to go the traditional route? Especially, like you said, it took four years. I don't have any patience. I would have just given up by then. Why did you decide to go into tra

Every fiction author will (eventually) find their own method for writing but all fall somewhere on the spectrum between outlining/plotting and discovery writing/pantsing/writing into the dark. In this excerpt from How To Write a Novel, I share two chapters on the topic from the audiobook, narrated by me (Joanna Penn). You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show notes: The benefits and difficulties of outlining How to outline and examples from authors who use this method The benefits and difficulties of discovery writing (and why I hate the term pantsing!) Examples of authors who discovery write My writing process: Discovery writing with a hint of plotting Links to books and resources that might help you This is an excerpt from my audiobook of How to Write a Novel, narrated by me. If you'd like more on How To Write a Novel: From Idea to Book, you can buy in multiple formats directly from me here, and you can find it on your favorite online store, order from your local independent bookstore, or borrow from your library (just ask your librarian to order it). Outlining (or plotting) “Outlining is the most efficient way to structure a novel to achieve the greatest emotional impact… Outlining lets you create a framework that compels your audience to keep reading from the first page to the last.” — Jeffery Deaver, Wall St Journal Writers who outline or plot spend more time upfront considering aspects of the novel and know how the story will progress before they start writing the manuscript. It’s a spectrum, with some outlines consisting of a page or so and others stretching to thousands of words of preparation. The benefits of outlining While discovery writers jump into writing and spend more time later cleaning up their drafts, outliners or plotters spend time beforehand so they can write faster in the first draft. When it’s time to write, outliners focus on writing words on the page to fulfil their vision rather than figuring out what’s going on. Outlining can result in more intricate plots and twists, deeper characters, less time rewriting, and faster production time. If you co-write, outlining is the only way to ensure your process works smoothly. As a discovery writer, I have found it particularly challenging to co-write fiction, which is why I rarely do it! If you have an agent or a publisher, or you want an agent or a publisher, you might have to write an outline anyway, so learning how to do it well can help. If you’re a discovery writer, you can always outline after the book is finished, if you need to. “When you plan a story the right way, you guarantee a tight, compelling structure that keeps readers turning pages and delivers a satisfying reading experience from start to finish. And really, a satisfied reader is all you need for a ‘good’ book.” —Libbie Hawker, Take Off Your Pants! Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing The difficulties of outlining Outlining and plotting suit some writers very well. But not all. Some authors get lost in outlining and plotting and world-building and character bios and theme exploration and symbolism… and never actually write full sentences and may never finish a book. Such writers may go astray through a combination of procrastination through preparation, a delight in the learning process without a desire to do the work to turn it into a story, or perhaps fear of what might happen if they do write. Some authors outline a book and then decide it’s too boring to write it and never finish. Some authors become so obsessed with the technicalities of outlining that they decide writing is too hard, so they give up. Other writers try outlining only to find it is no fun at all. If you can do it, brilliant! If you can’t, don’t worry. See the next chapter on discovery writing. How to outline “Every hour spent outlining prior to starting a novel saves you many hours in the actual writing process. It also helps you to write a better novel, as you will ‘tighten’ down the story in your outline before you write, rather than having to do it in rewrite.” —Bob Mayer, The Novel Writer’s Toolkit There is no single way to outline, but options include a text document, a spreadsheet, mind maps, and/or Scrivener or other software. Outlines can also vary in length and complexity. Shawn Coyne describes the Foolscap Method in The Story Grid, where an entire book can be outlined on one A4 page with just a few lines describing the beginning, middle, and end of the story. [Interview with Shawn on The Story Grid here.] You could expand this brief outline into a document of a few pages by describing the main action points and characters of each scene in a couple of lines or a paragraph. This is often what agents and publishers mean by an outline. At the more extreme end of the plotting spectrum, thriller author Jeffery Deaver creates a lengthy outline for his thrillers. As he said

How can you adapt your novel into a comic or graphic form? What are the different types? How does a creative career develop over the long term and when do you need to take a step back to consider how to move forward? Barry Nugent talks about all this and more. In the intro, Amazon changes ebook return policy [Society of Authors]; Spotify introduces audiobooks [Spotify; FindawayVoices; Publishing Perspectives]; Neal Stephenson on The Sword Guy podcast. Please complete my Creative Penn Survey 2022 here (by 7 Oct). You can also get 30% off my courses here until the end of Sept with discount coupon: SUMMER22 This episode is sponsored by Publisher Rocket, which will help you get your book in front of more Amazon readers so you can spend less time marketing and more time writing. I use Publisher Rocket for researching book titles, categories, and keywords — for new books and for updating my backlist. Check it out at www.PublisherRocket.com Barry Nugent is the author of the supernatural adventure Unseen Shadows Transmedia Universe, as well as the middle-grade adventure Trail of the Cursed Cobras. He's also the co-host of the Geek Syndicate podcast. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes Shifting from traditional to indie publishing in the early days What is transmedia? The production and sales of full-color comics Different formats of graphic novels Crowdsourcing to cover the expense of creating a graphic novel The different artists that are needed for comics and graphic novels In the intro, I mentioned AI comic creation [Twist Street; Campfire] You can find Barry Nugent at BarryNugent.com and on Twitter @Unseen_Shadows Transcript of Interview with Barry Nugent Joanna: Barry Nugent is the author of the supernatural adventure Unseen Shadows Transmedia Universe, as well as the middle-grade adventure Trail of the Cursed Cobras. He's also the cohost of the Geek Syndicate podcast. Welcome, Barry. Barry: Hi, Jo. Thanks for having me on. Joanna: It’s an interesting topic today. First up, tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing. Barry: I am now at the ripe old age of 53, so we'd have to turn the clock all the way back to me being 11 years old, and my brother took me to see Raiders of the Lost Ark. Joanna: Ah, wonderful. Barry: Yeah. We're kindred spirits on this front. Joanna: Indeed. Barry: I remember I came out of that film and my mind was just completely blown. I knew I wanted to do something. I'd never written before. I knew I wanted to do something, but I didn't know what it was I wanted to do. I remember saying this to my mom, and my mom saying to me, ‘Why don't you write something?' So I did. I remember the story I wrote was particularly terrible because it was just a complete ripoff of Raiders of the Lost Ark. The weird thing was is that story never really saw the light of day, but the title for that story I lifted. And now that is the title for my middle-grade novel. Trail of the Cursed Cobras was actually the title of the very first story I tried to write when I was 11 years old. So I thought it was quite a nice nod to the 11-year-old me. Joanna: Did you write that for your kids or something? Barry: No. I don't have kids. It's a strange story. I'd basically I'd been approached by an agent who had read some of my other work, and she'd asked me had I ever thought about writing middle-grade fiction? And I'd said, ‘Nope. Never thought of it.' I've read a load of middle-grade fiction. I love that area, but I didn't think I could do it, I thought it was a lot more difficult than people think it is. But I gave it a go. As it turned out, me and the agent parted ways and I decided to carry on my own. And it's been great fun. I'm currently working on the follow-up to it at the moment, and yeah, it's been great fun. Joanna: You mentioned that you had an agent and you were originally traditionally published in 1999 with your novel Paladin but then you went indie. Tell us a bit more about how your publishing journey unfolded. Barry: Paladin got picked up by a traditional publisher who at the time… Let's just say I wasn't necessarily impressed with some of their business practices and we'll leave it there. And back then, I knew I wanted to do something on my own. I think I'd sort of came out of this and I'd started to approach other publishers and agents. This was when I'd finished Fallen Heroes. And basically, the feedback that I was getting were people were saying to me, ‘We can't find a space for it. We can't see where it would go on the bookshelf.' This might seem crazy now, but the term urban fantasy didn't exist back then. So, stuff like Da Vinci Code and even like your books, were very difficult to market back then because there was nowhere to really put it. Yes, you could call it a thriller, but I wouldn't say it was a thriller bec

In this solo episode, I talk about my lessons learned from 11 years as a full-time author entrepreneur, and why I am (finally) taking some time off. In the intro, Soldiers of God short story, The Creator Economy for Authors course (use coupon SUMMER22 for 30% off), Science Fiction Writing online conference, Author Tech Summit; Pilgrimage on Books and Travel. Today's show is sponsored by ProWritingAid, writing and editing software that goes way beyond just grammar and typo checking. With its detailed reports on how to improve your writing and integration with Scrivener, ProWritingAid will help you improve your book before you send it to an editor, agent or publisher. Check it out for free or get 25% off the premium edition at www.ProWritingAid.com/joanna Joanna Penn writes non-fiction for authors and is an award-nominated, New York Times and USA Today bestselling thriller author as J.F. Penn. She’s also an award-winning podcaster, creative entrepreneur, and international professional speaker. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes It can take a long time to figure out what you think about a topic — but writing a book can helpPhysical sickness and mental health issues can have a bigger impact than expected Pivoting a business model takes timeIf you can’t take time out for life events and goals after more than a decade running your own business, you’re doing something wrong!  You can follow my pilgrimage on Instagram @jfpennauthor and Facebook @jfpennauthor and Twitter @thecreativepenn Lessons Learned from 11 Years as an Author Entrepreneur (Almost) eleven years ago, in Sept 2011, I left my day job to become a full-time author-entrepreneur. Every year since I have reflected on the journey and what I learn along the way. My challenges change and grow along with the business and you will likely be at a different stage, but I hope that you find my lessons learned useful along your own author path. You can read all my lessons learned from previous years on my timeline so far – and remember, just like everyone else, I started out by writing my first book with no audience! But with time and continued effort, everything is possible. (1) It can take a long time to figure out what you think about a topic — but writing a book can help!  I finally finished and published How to Write a Novel in July 2022 after starting with an initial draft in 2016. It has taken me that long to figure out my thoughts and also to feel confident enough in my craft to publish a book on the topic.  I was only able to write it because I rewrote my first three novels in early 2022 (lessons learned here), and that exercise proved to myself that I know what I am talking about. There is often an emphasis on writing and publishing fast in the indie author community. But some books take time to mature, and are all the better for waiting until you feel the book is ready to emerge. Long-term listeners/readers know I have been talking about ‘the shadow book’ for years now, and that is a similar project. I have 30K words and I even had a cover ready, but I don’t know when it will be ready.  As I discuss in How to Write a Novel, I am a discovery writer. I follow the urging of the Muse. Once I settle on a book, I follow one of Heinlein’s Rules — I finish what I start — so ‘the shadow book’ will arrive at some point, but I still don’t know when. I need to have some patience and give it time to emerge. Perhaps you have a book that's similar? Maybe you also need to let it breathe and emerge when it's ready.  (2) Physical sickness and mental health issues can have a bigger impact than expected  The pandemic has taken its toll on all of us in different ways and of course, COVID19 is still with us. These days we are learning to live with it, but most of us have had it, or know people who have had it, to varying degrees of severity. I had the delta variant back in July 2021 and I talked about how much it impacted me in my 2021 round-up, Not Quite the Year We Hoped For, so I won’t go into too much detail here.  Suffice to say, I was much sicker than I expected — both physically and mentally — and it had a bigger impact on my life and business than I expected. I’ve never really been properly sick, so it was a wake-up call in terms of the impact. Some days I could only do one or two things per day and didn’t have as much time as I used to. I had to rest a lot, and my productivity was way down.  If you have a chronic illness or long-term health issues, check out Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s book, Writing with Chronic Illness. I was still using an Airofit breathing trainer to get my full lung capacity back into February 2022, more than six months later. I think it helped — or maybe I just recovered with time — and I now feel I am back to where I was pre-Cov

How can you make sure your heirs and successors are able to manage your books and copyright licensing after your death? What aspects do you need to think about in terms of your author estate? Michael La Ronn explains this important topic in clear terms. In the intro, more quotes from the DOJ vs PRH hearing [The Hotsheet]; Direct by Kathryn Judge; Chokepoint Capitalism Kickstarter by Cory Doctorow and Rebecca Giblin; Soldiers of God, an ARKANE Short Story [Available now from CreativePennBooks.com; or preorder on the other stores for 29 Aug.] Today's show is sponsored by Draft2Digital, where you can get free ebook formatting, free distribution to multiple stores, and a host of other benefits. Get your free Author Marketing Guide at draft2digital.com/penn Michael La Ronn is the author of over 80 books across science fiction, fantasy, and self-help books for authors, including The Author Estate Handbook: How to Organize Your Affairs and Leave a Legacy, and The Author Heir Handbook: How to Manage an Author Estate. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes Coming to terms with our mortalityHow planning your estate is an act of loveThe importance of a living will as well as a last willFiguring out how much time and effort an heir wants to put into the writing businessManaging passwords for your successorShould authors think of selling their IP before they die? You can find Michael La Ronn at AuthorLevelUp.com and on Twitter @MichaelLaRonn Transcript of Interview with Michael La Ronn Joanna: Michael La Ronn is the author of over 80 books across science fiction, fantasy, and self-help books for authors, including The Author Estate Handbook: How to Organize Your Affairs and Leave a Legacy, and The Author Heir Handbook: How to Manage an Author Estate, which we're talking about today. Welcome back to the show, Michael. Michael: Hi, Joanna. Great to be back. Joanna: This is such an interesting topic. You've been on the show several times before, so we're going to just jump straight into it today. Why did you want to write about this topic of estates and heirs — basically death — and how does your professional and personal background play into that? Michael: Yes, I have this morbid fascination with death… Joanna: Me too! Michael: This is something I've been thinking about in the back of my head that has woken me up a few times in the middle of the night. And I didn't know what to do about what would happen if I suffered an untimely death. I think a lot of authors have this problem, and I think a lot of authors react the same way as I do, or I did, which was just to go back to bed and forget about it and continue to bury your head in the sand. I had a wake-up call in 2021. I lost a grandfather to old age. And when he passed away, he passed away like a gangster. I don't know how else to say it, he left such a clean estate. He had a will that had everything cleanly outlined. He told everyone before he passed that he didn't want to be a burden to the family, and he was true to his word. And everything with his estate was settled in like 6 months, which, if you've ever had someone pass away, you know that that is blazing fast to have everything settled. I was in such admiration and awe of how my grandfather did that and, ultimately, how kind he was to be so organized. I started thinking to myself, ‘How could I do the same thing with my own business and my own writing?' Because there's a big difference, my grandfather was born in the Great Depression and he never owned a computer, never had an email account. So, in many respects, things were a lot easier for him. When I look at my own career and my own self and my own things that I have going on in the 21st century, I realized that dying like he did is a phenomenal challenge. And so, I realized that I had to do it. I have a unique background in that I'm an executive at a global insurance company and I've made my living helping businesses prepare for disasters. And I also went to law school. I'm not an attorney but I have a legal education, so, I'm not afraid of the legal side of things. So, I thought, ‘I'm going to go on my journey to figure out how I'm going to do this for myself. And I'm going to write a book and try to help other people through it as well.' Joanna: A couple of things there, when you said your grandfather died like a gangster, I was thinking in like a hail of bullets outside… Michael: Oh, yeah. It’s an American idiom I guess you could say. Joanna: In my mind, that's a hell of a way to go. But you said he died of old age, so, I guess it wasn't so dramatic. And also that he said he didn't want to be a burden, and I think a lot of us feel that way. I definitely feel that way. My mum is so organized in this. My mum is still alive, in fact, she's off gallivanting the world at the moment. But

What is auto-narration of audiobooks and how can it benefit authors and rights-holders as well as listeners? What are some of the common objections to auto-narration and how can we keep a positive attitude to embracing change? Ryan Dingler from Google Play Books goes into detail on these questions and more. You can also listen to my recent round-up of AI narration options across multiple platforms in episode 623. Ryan Dingler is a product manager at Google and also writes about the intersection of technology and business. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes What is auto-narration? Who can use it and what languages and accents are available? Tackling common objections to auto-narration — “the voices aren't good enough;” and narration should be “kept for humans” Stratification of audio rights and how both human and AI narration fit into the audio ecosystem Multi-cast audiobooks The potential for growth in non-English-speaking markets Pricing an AI narrated audiobook How will the market change in the coming year? You can find Google Play Books at play.google.com/store/books and you can publish at Play.google.com/books/publish/u/0/ g.co/play/autonarrated – Publisher website for auto-narrated audiobooks g.co/play/narrator-library – Narrator library g.co/play/autonarrated-help – Help center Transcript of Interview with Ryan Dingler Joanna: Ryan Dingler is a product manager at Google and also writes about the intersection of technology and business. Welcome back to the show, Ryan. Ryan: Thanks for having me on. Joanna: It's good to talk to you again. You were on the show in April 2021, talking about publishing on Google Play Books in general. And we just mentioned auto-narration for audio, which was in beta at the time, but we're going to go into that in detail today. What is auto-narration for audiobooks? Give us an update on where the program is now. Ryan: We've come a long way since I last spoke with you both in terms of the beta and in terms of what we've done with the product. But just to start off, what are auto-narrated audiobooks, it's very simply, instead of being read by a person, auto-narrated audiobooks are read using Google's text-to-speech technology. We have a whole tool set and framework around building these auto-narrated audiobooks. And this all came about a few years ago, actually, where we noticed just a massive gap between eBooks and audiobooks. 95% of eBooks do not have an accompanying audiobook, which in our book catalog is millions and millions of books. And it's not that we looked into it, some of these eBooks would make sense as an audiobook, it's just that, as most everyone knows, audiobooks are very expensive to create and take a lot of time. So that's when we came up with the idea of auto-narrated audiobooks. We have been progressing it forward since then. Joanna: And It was in beta. Who can get into it now? Has it come out of beta completely? Ryan: Beta can be somewhat of a confusing word; it is still in beta. Google is known for keeping our products in beta for a long time. Available in 8 countries and 2 languages and multiple accents and genders (as of mid-2022) We are just beginning our process, but it is actually available generally in eight countries today. Those countries are the United States, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Spain, and Argentina. If you are a publisher in one of those countries, and you have an account with us in our partner Centre you can go in and try it out. It's in two languages, English and Spanish, as you might be able to guess, by the countries. And all you really need is three things, you need an eBook that's in English or Spanish, and it needs to be an ePub format. And the book does need to be live on Google Play. We have, as I said, before, a whole editor around this process to help walk you through it and make sure that the auto-narrated narrator is actually pronouncing things the way that you want. And that your eBook that is now going to become an audiobook has all the things that an audiobook would have and doesn't have, which of course, it's like the Table of Contents, copyright, and things like that. Joanna: I've got a quite a few questions coming from that then. I have tried this. I have a couple of auto-narrated books. You've got English and Spanish but so just using English because that's what I was doing. You have different accents as well, don't you? Because of course you and I both speak English, but we both have, well, different genders but also different accents. What are the range of accents available in those languages? Ryan: We have, I think about six different accents for English language today. Off the top of my head, I think we have American, we have British, we have Indian, Australian, and a few other ones. We

How can you intensify the conflict in your books to hook readers? How can you introduce different types and layers of conflict to improve your story? Becca Puglisi explains why and how to write conflict. In the intro, thoughts on the DOJ vs PRH trial [Twitter @JohnHMaher] and Publishers Weekly round-up; my thoughts on subscription models; D2D and Humble Bundle; Apple Books Promotions page; How to Write a Novel is now available in all formats on all stores; My non-fiction books in Italian; Digital nomad [Books and Travel]. This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors.  Becca Puglisi is an international speaker, writing coach and bestselling author of the “Thesaurus Series for Writers,” including the latest volume of The Conflict Thesaurus. Becca also writes YA and historical fiction, and can be found at writershelpingwriters.net, along with her co-author Angela Ackerman. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes What is story conflict and why do we need it?Examples of different kinds of conflicts, from large to smallHow conflict creates reader interest and empathyThe importance of internal conflict as well as externalMistakes to watch out for when writing conflictTips for co-writing a bookIntellectual property licensing and foreign rights You can find Becca Puglisi at WritersHelpingWriters.net and on Twitter @beccapuglisi The Conflict Thesaurus Vol 2 is out on 6 September 2022. Transcript of Interview with Becca Puglisi Joanna: Welcome back to the show, Becca. Becca: Thank you so much. I'm so glad to be back. Joanna: An exciting topic today. Now, you've been on the show twice before, and I will mention those episodes in the introduction. So, we're just going to jump into conflict today. Let's start off with a definition. What is conflict, anyway, and why do we need it in our stories? Becca: I think that conflict is anything that causes difficulty for your character. We tend to think of conflict at the story level; they have this goal and they're trying to achieve this objective, and there's conflict that is standing in the way. Usually, it's a villain, or it's some kind of an antagonist. But conflict happens throughout the story. It happens at the scene level. It happens as they're going about their day. And conflict can be big and really explosive, but it also can be small, and minor. It's anything that causes them difficulty, that makes things more difficult for them as they are trying to get to that end goal. Joanna: You mentioned there that there are big and small ideas of what conflict is. Let's get into some specifics. What are the big, story-level examples of conflict? Becca: We had to figure this out when we were writing The Conflict Thesaurus because there were so many different kinds of conflict, and we thought, ‘How can we make it manageable for people?' So we came up with some categories. So, you have dangers and threats. These are things that are causing a serious, physical threat to your character. Maybe it's a weather event, or somebody who is stalking the character, or a physical attack. Those kinds of things are kind of big and explosive. I call them macro. They're big problems that the character is going to have to face and deal with. You also have increased pressure, and ticking clocks. This is when, of course, you add something that creates a deadline for the character. They have this goal, and they have certain things that they have to achieve, and it's already very difficult if you've set your story up properly. But then you add a conflict that creates a deadline, so now their timeline is shortened. They have to work quickly. They have to work without a lot of planning, maybe without the resources that they have. Those are very often good for the overall story-level kind of conflicts. And then you have relationship friction. This is something that happens in every single story, regardless of the genre. You could have a thriller, a dystopian, a romance. There's going to be relationship problems. There should be relationship problems, because we're all about relationships, right? Our characters are going to have relationships with different members of the cast. They're going to be interacting with people all throughout the story, and so that's really where the meat and potatoes is, in my opinion, for conflict, because it's so natural, and it's something that the reader is totally going to relate to because they have these kind of conflicts. It could be, think big, with a romantic partner, it could be a really annoying barista at the coffee shop. All different levels of conflict can happen at the relationship level. And it's so organic, and

In July 2022, I launched my online shop at www.CreativePennBooks.com. It’s built on Shopify’s eCommerce platform, and in this solo episode, I’ll explain why I built the store, my lessons learned, tips if you want to build your own, and how I intend to expand it over time.  This episode is sponsored by my wonderful patrons. If you find the podcast useful, you can support the show at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn and you'll get discounts on my books and products, plus you can ask your questions in my private monthly Q&A. Joanna Penn writes non-fiction for authors and is an award-nominated, New York Times and USA Today bestselling thriller author as J.F. Penn. She’s also an award-winning podcaster, creative entrepreneur, and international professional speaker. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes What is selling direct? Why sell direct?Why I switched from Payhip to ShopifyWhy a separate store, www.CreativePennBooks.com instead of WooCommerce within my existing sites?Why Shopify rather than Kickstarter?The Minimum Viable Store approachSoftware and integrations — what else do you need? Options for drop-shipping print-on-demand books — Lulu Direct and Bookvault.app and why I made the choice I did How does the money work? What are the costs? How do I get paid?What about sales tax / VAT?How long does the setup take? What about support issues? How time-consuming is it?What about marketing? How do you get traffic to your store?What are my plans for the store?Are direct sales for you?Free books if you buy direct — and where to find help if you need it You can find my store at www.CreativePennBooks.com and linked in the menu as Shop and also on every book page. Imagine this…  You write what you want, with no concern about how an algorithm will treat your release. You’re in control of the site and your sales pages, with no other ads on your page to distract potential readers. You release your books in multiple formats, direct to your readers and listeners. You don’t have to store and ship books since they are printed on demand and sent straight to the buyer. Customer service for ebooks and audiobooks is even taken care of by the wonderful team at Bookfunnel. The customer receives a fantastic product and you get money in your bank account within a day or two, or even within the hour.  You also get the customer’s name, email, and address as well as details about what they bought and when, so you can foster an ongoing relationship. You can expand your store into different kinds of products through other print-on-demand services — merchandise related to your books, other formats like workbooks, journals, and special editions, online courses, audio extras, coaching, or whatever else you want to sell.  Over time, you build up traffic to your store, and that effort compounds, so you start to make sales every day on a site you control. You still publish on other platforms and third-party stores, but now you’re truly an independent author. That’s the dream — and after more than a decade as a full-time author entrepreneur, I feel like I have taken a giant step closer to it by building my direct store, www.CreativePennBooks.com on the Shopify platform. So, let’s get into the details.  What is selling direct?  Selling direct encompasses many options, but essentially it’s you the author interacting with readers or listeners on your own platform and selling your books and other products in various formats. It usually involves making more profit per sale, getting paid faster, and retaining customer data.  It can be as varied as Kickstarter for a limited edition series of books (as Brandon Sanderson famously did with his $41m campaign); it can be an author selling their hand-bound ‘zine at a local craft fair, or more usually in the indie community, it’s selling ebooks and audiobooks through platforms like Payhip, or developed stores like Shopify, or plugin systems like WooCommerce. It is part of the ethos of publishing wide, which means not being exclusive to any specific retailer, but of course, you can choose different publishing options by book, by series, by author name, and by format. Many wide authors choose different options for different books over time. Selling direct doesn’t mean you ONLY sell on your store (unless you want to.) You can publish wide everywhere else as well as sell on your store, and customers can get your books from their favorite store or from the library or wherever they get books.  However, you might decide to have direct first and/or direct only products to encourage buyers. I sold How to Write a Novel direct for a month, although it’s available from 13 August 2022 on all stores in all the usual formats. My How to Write a Novel Workbook is only available on my store. To be clear, you need to own and control your intellectual property

Selling your books direct to readers and listeners can bring you more money, faster, and allow you to control your customer's experience and data. Morgana Best explains why selling direct is so important for an author business, and some of her tips for implementing a Shopify store. In the intro, the publishing court case of the DOJ vs PRH and S&S merger [New York Times; Vanity Fair; The Hotsheet]; Publisher Pearson is planning to use NFTs [The Guardian]; More on NFTs and blockchain [Future]; Mark Dawson's Ads for Authors opens this week (affiliate link); my bookbinding project from print on demand to leather-bound original. Today's show is sponsored by ProWritingAid, writing and editing software that goes way beyond just grammar and typo checking. With its detailed reports on how to improve your writing, and integration with Scrivener, ProWritingAid will help you improve your book before you send it to an editor, agent or publisher. Check it out for free or get 25% off the premium edition at www.ProWritingAid.com/joanna Morgana Best is the ‘USA Today' Bestselling Author of over 50 cozy mysteries. She has been selling direct from her website for many years, and shares all her tips in her new book, Stop Making Others Rich: How Authors Can Make Bank Selling Direct. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes Why sell direct? The mindset you need to sell directCost of your own store vs cost of selling through the retailers (and of course, you can do both!)Delivering ebooks, audiobooks, and print-on-demand books when selling direct?Using customer data in an ethical manner, and how to optimize your store by utilizing dataDon't get overwhelmed. Start with a minimum viable storeDirect book marketing — how to drive traffic to a Shopify store You can find Morgana Best at MorganaBest.com and on Twitter @MorganaBest Transcript of Interview with Morgana Best Joanna: Morgana Best is the ‘USA Today' Bestselling Author of over 50 cozy mysteries. She has been selling direct from her website for many years, and shares all her tips in her new book, Stop Making Others Rich: How Authors Can Make Bank Selling Direct. Welcome, Morgana. Morgana: Oh, thanks so much for having me. Joanna: We've talked privately, so I'm excited to have you on the show. But let's take a step back. Why did you decide to start selling direct? And when was that? Morgana: Oh gosh, it was in 1993. Joanna: The beginning of the internet. Morgana: I was five years old at the time. No, I lie, I wasn't. No, what happened, I was interviewed by a large Australian magazine, and the journalist said, ‘Now you're going to be having publishers knock on your door.' But I only had one, but it was Random House. I was so excited. They solicited a popular book based on my doctorate, but unfortunately, it didn't come off. It took months and months of backwards and forwards. I had to send them this, they had to send me that, and it was quite a stressful process. And in the end, it all fell through. So, I was left with this manuscript and I thought, ‘You know what, I'll just sell it direct.‘ This was before the internet really hadn't taken off, and so it was in person. I went to Collins Bookstore and asked them if they'd take it, and he said, ‘We'll try five.' So, I got four friends to go and buy it, and he's like, ‘Oh, this is fantastic.' And so, they got it nationally. I got it selling there, but of course, I had a thousand copies offset run, which was fairly expensive because I didn't know what I was doing. Fast forward almost 10 years later, I did another doctorate, but this was on a bit of an apparently touchy subject. I had an agent and I had a small publishing house, which was headed by quite a famous person, in the public-eye-type famous, not like an academic-type famous that no one had heard of, approach me and try to buy the rights to privish the book. And for listeners who don't know what privish is, it's basically where a publisher buys the rights to a book to shut it down because this was a rather sensitive book. After that, I paid the agent off, got rid of the agent, and I did another print run and I sold this book. Now I had two main separate non-fiction books that I had to sell direct. So, that's actually what got me into selling direct. By the time Kindle came around, I was already used to getting all the money and not giving anyone 30% to 70%. And I was used to having customers, not having retailers own customers. Back then, you couldn't even run ads to the retailers, but I already I was so used to doing it myself and I knew all the benefits to doing it myself, and I wasn't too happy to hand it over to the retailers when that happened, when Kindle happened in 2007. But of course I did it, but I just knew the other side of the fence by then. Joanna: I think that's important is that you've ba

What do you need to consider if you want to go full time as an author entrepreneur? What challenges might you face in your first few years? Sacha Black shared her lessons learned from 3 years full-time. In the intro, PRH and S&S merger heads to trial [Publishers Weekly]; Pilgrimage episodes on my Books and Travel Podcast; plus, Steven Pressfield's new ‘tough love for creatives' book, Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be. This episode is sponsored by Publisher Rocket, which will help you get your book in front of more Amazon readers so you can spend less time marketing and more time writing. I use Publisher Rocket for researching book titles, categories, and keywords — for new books and for updating my backlist. Check it out at www.PublisherRocket.com Sacha Black is an author, rebel podcaster and professional speaker. She writes educational nonfiction books for writers and sapphic books for young adults. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes Important things to consider when leaving a day jobBuilding confidence in the first year of full-time authorshipMultiple streams of income — and when to say ‘no' Why self-care matters so much Leaning in to authentic brandingWhat makes writers good publishers? You can find Sacha Black at SachaBlack.co.uk and on Twitter @sacha_black. Her latest book is The Anatomy of a Bestseller. Transcript of Interview with Sacha Black Joanna: Sacha Black is an author, rebel podcaster and professional speaker. She writes educational nonfiction books for writers and sapphic books for young adults. Welcome back to the show, Sacha. Sacha: Thank you for having me. It's always a massive giddy honor, and pleasure to be here. So, thank you. Joanna: Oh, well, it's great to talk to you again. You were last on the show in March 2019, talking about writing heroes and villains. And you left your job a couple of months after that. Take us back to how you made that decision. What were you doing before? And why did you decide to make the jump? Sacha: I think my decision to leave the day job is probably a little bit different to a lot of writers who are very keen on leaving just to purely write books. Whereas I really didn't like my day job, I was very low, and I didn't fit. I was really creative and wanted to do quirky projects, and they just were not interested. So I felt very crushed in the day job, I was doing project management in a conservative environment. So, that was a lot of the reason that I was pushing to leave my job. I'd had a threat of redundancy. At the time, I lived in a property that was owned by my employer. So if I lost my job, I would also lose my house. And it's this being completely beholden to one other organization or one person, and it was terrifying. So I was very, very determined to leave my job. Why did I make the decision, and how did I get there? I had to do a few things before I left; I had to pay off debt. I still had student debt, I had a car loan, and some fertility treatment and stuff. And my whole ethos was that I wanted to need as little money per month as humanly possible. Of course, paying off the debt was the quickest way to do that. And that drastically lowered the amount of money that I needed, which made it easier to leave my job because the less I needed, the less I had to guarantee to come in from writing, or freelance, or whatever. I also left knowing that I had an insatiable appetite for all of the things. I knew that I wanted to write books, and speak, and do teaching, and all the rest of this stuff. So, I left probably a little bit before a lot of writers would leave if they are leaving, just to write books. What got me to that point was that I had paid off all of the debt, and it was a lot less, maybe, I don't know, £1000 less every single month. And then I had built up some freelance work. So, I did virtual assistant work, though I had gotten qualified as a developmental editor. I'd also built a pot of money, a safety net. That also went into the decision that I knew, even if I did have a rubbish month, I would be okay, because I had some money backing me up there. And then I got offered a freelance gig, which was long-term and really made up the gap between what I was earning from sales, and courses, and whatever else I was doing back then, and what I needed to earn. That was what led me there. It was a tough choice, because I did halve my income. Joanna: I think there's a few things that our listeners know. I left my job over a decade ago in 2011. But similar to you downsizing, I think this is such an important thing. We want to emphasize it. You paid off debt, we did the same thing. We sold our house, we also lowered our costs. And we also had a safety net. I know some people don't have a choice because they are made redundant. And then they have to start from nowhere. But if you have the choice

How will blockchain technology change the way creatives register copyright, as well as monetize their work? Roanie Levy explains how blockchain can solve the attribution problem, and how smart contracts will allow new business models with ownership of digital assets in web 3. This podcast is sponsored by Written Word Media, which makes book marketing a breeze by offering quick, easy and effective ways for authors to promote their books. You can also subscribe to the Written Word Media email newsletter for book marketing tips. This podcast is also sponsored by my wonderful patrons, www.Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Roanie Levy is the CEO of Access Copyright, a collective that distributes licensing royalties to creator and publishing affiliates. She also leads Prescient, Access Copyright's creative-focused innovation lab dedicated to exploring the future of rights management and content monetization through blockchain and other technologies. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes What is blockchain technology and how will it change business models for creatives?Smart contracts related to book salesSolving the attribution problem for copyrightThe differences between Web 1, 2 and 3How long will it take for the publishing industry to adopt these new technologies — or will new companies start new businesses first? You can find Roanie Levy at Imprimo.ca and on LinkedIn / RoanieLevy. Transcript of Interview with Roanie Levy Joanna: Roanie Levy is the CEO of Access Copyright, a collective that distributes licensing royalties to creator and publishing affiliates. She also leads Prescient, Access Copyright's creative-focused innovation lab dedicated to exploring the future of rights management and content monetization through blockchain and other technologies. Welcome, Roanie. Roanie: Thank you very much for inviting me. Joanna: I'm excited to talk to you today. So, first up, tell us a bit more about your career. How did you become interested in aspects of IP (intellectual property) and copyright? Roanie: Well, actually, one of my first jobs, when I became a lawyer, was to work for the Canadian federal government on copyright policy, way back, I guess, the early days of web 1 when we were talking about the internet as the ‘information superhighway.' So, that's when I started to get interested about copyright, the impact that it has on the creative sector, and how technology interacts with those copyright concepts. Joanna: So, you're actually a copyright lawyer? Roanie: I am a copyright lawyer. Joanna: That's such a good basis of what we're going to get into. So, let's get into blockchain then. What is blockchain technology? Because, I mean, a lot of creatives find the technical stuff difficult. How do you explain what blockchain is? Roanie: I think many people refer to blockchain technology as ‘a distributed open public database,' and I find that that's too amorphous and it's hard for people to wrap their head around. Blockchain technology and blockchain network is, essentially, kind of that new infrastructure that is being built for web 3. What it does is that it tracks all transactional data. Data is everything. Whether I'm buying something, whether I'm liking something, whether I'm creating something, whether I'm owning something, all of that is data. And this massive database of transactional data, so not just the data up here but what happens to the data and how people are interacting with the data, is stored in a network that is protected by cryptography and incentive in order to ensure that nobody tampers with that data. That data is, depending on the blockchain, but what's really interesting is the public blockchain, that data is public for everyone to see and build upon. Joanna: You said ‘infrastructure for web 3,' and this is what I say to people is ‘You don't need to know how the internet works, you don't need to know http protocol, whatever, in order to publish a book on Amazon or use PayPal to get money,' right? And, obviously, we know a bit more about the technology. Creative people don't need to know how blockchain works in order to make use of it. Roanie: You're right, they don't need to know how blockchain works. But what they do need to appreciate is how the concepts that blockchain allow are different from what we're used to under web 2. The concept of ownership, the concept of programmability. Just the idea of tokens, what are they and what can we do with them? That's something that's worth spending time understanding because that's what opens the imagination to all that might be possible in terms of new ways of interacting with your audience, with your fans, and of monetizing your works. Joanna: Absolutely, right, we'll get a touch on all those things. Tell us a bit more about how you got into blockchain. Because you've actually

How can you lean into your strengths as a writer to find the genre — and the business model — that suits you best? A.G. Riddle talks about his writing process, his publishing choices, and how he's planning to pivot into the next phase of his career. In the intro, I talk about my experience at Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Writing festival this week, and how we all have to decide which game we want to play. Today's show is sponsored by ProWritingAid, writing and editing software that goes way beyond just grammar and typo checking. With its detailed reports on how to improve your writing and integration with Scrivener, ProWritingAid will help you improve your book before you send it to an editor, agent or publisher. Check it out for free or get 25% off the premium edition at www.ProWritingAid.com/joanna A.G. Riddle is the bestselling author of 11 books with over 4 million copies sold and translated into 24 languages. His latest novel is Lost in Time, a time travel thriller. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes Reflecting on success — or lack of it — and assessing a career after a decadeCrafting a bestsellerFocusing on your strengths as a writerResearching a novel, and Gerry's writing processWhy the ‘job' of being an author is different nowMoving from indie to hybrid to traditional publishing — and movie dealsWhat do you want to control — and what are you willing to let go of to achieve what you want? You can find A.G. Riddle at AGRiddle.com and on Twitter @Riddlist Transcript of Interview with A.G. Riddle Joanna: A.G. Riddle is the bestselling author of 11 books with over 4 million copies sold and translated into 24 languages. His latest novel is Lost in Time, a time travel thriller. Welcome to the show, Gerry. Gerry: Thank you for having me. Joanna: I'm excited to talk to you. Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing after quite a different original career. Gerry: I'm someone who didn't grow up wanting to be a writer. It's something that is a second career for me that I came to in my late 20s, early 30s. I started an internet company in college, and I did that for 10 years. I really enjoyed it. I like creating software and loved the startup environment. I had had some success in my career, but I didn't really feel that I had found that thing that I felt I was really qualified to do and was meant to do with my life. So I was just at this point in my life where I was reflecting to say, ‘When I leave this earth, what do I want to be proud that I've worked on?' I think if you get 10 years into a career, you learn a lot about yourself and your own strengths and weaknesses. And it's incumbent upon all of us to periodically reflect and say, ‘Why am I not achieving the success I want, or what went well, what didn't?' The thing that I found is that what I loved about my job was creating something — web-based software is what we were creating. But running a company is something that I didn't have much interest in. When I grew up, my dad owned a sign company and my grandfather owned a lumber company. I grew up around business. And I guess via osmosis you inherit some interest from your parents and grandparents or your idols. But I was looking for this career that would be more creative that I could step away from running a business. The thing that I really loved in my life was reading and reading science fiction. I would come home from work every day and read, and I just thought, ‘Well, I'm going to try to write a novel.' And I thought, ‘If this takes off, I'll keep doing it. If it doesn't, just try to figure something else out.' But that was 2011 and it took me two and a half years to write that first book. Joanna: I was trying to think what year we met at Frankfurt. Would it have been like 2015 maybe? Gerry: I think it was '14. Yeah, I think. Joanna: 2014. Joanna (J.F.) Penn and AG Riddle at frankfurt book fair, 2014 Gerry: Or maybe it was '15. I don't know my memory. I have two kids now. My memory's not as good. Joanna: I don't think you had kids at the time. Gerry: I definitely did not have kids at the time. Joanna: When we met, I'd read I think the first book, and I remember that you said to me that you intended to write a bestseller in the vein of Michael Crichton. I love Michael Crichton, I've read all the books. And then when I was researching this, I went to your website, and there's a quote from Publishers Weekly saying, ‘Crichton-esque thrillers don't come much better than this.' And I was like, ‘Oh, that is fantastic,' because I knew that's what you set out to do. But, the biggest question then is…you just said that, ‘I'll try to write a novel, and if it works, I'll carry on.' And, look, many of us try and write a bestseller and it doesn't work. So how did you craft a book? How did you go about this

Tools and tactics may change, but the principles of book marketing remain the same whatever the situation. Becky Robinson gives advice on how to reach readers and market your books for the long term. In the intro, The Things You Think Matter — Don’t [Ryan Holiday]; Boost Your Backlist [ALLi]; Craving Independence [The Bookseller]; 21st Century Creative [Mark McGuinness]; My Shopify store is live [CreativePennBooks.com]; Thoughts from the Pilgrim's Way [Books and Travel]. This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors.  Becky Robinson is the author of Reach: Create the Biggest Possible Audience for Your Message, Book, or Cause. She is also the founder and CEO of the digital marketing agency, Weaving Influence. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes Reframing marketing Providing value to your audience Generosity and social karma Curated authenticity Figuring out your author brand Keeping ambition alive while building for the long-term What has changed, and what has stayed the same in book marketing You can find Becky Robinson at BeckyRobinson.com and on Twitter @beckyrbnsn Transcript of Interview with Becky Robinson Joanna: Becky Robinson is the author of Reach: Create the Biggest Possible Audience for Your Message, Book, or Cause. She is also the founder and CEO of the digital marketing agency, Weaving Influence. Welcome to the show, Becky. Becky: Thank you so much, Joanna. It's great to be with you. Joanna: This is such a great topic, and many authors need this. But let's start with an attitude question, because many authors actually hate the idea of marketing. How can authors reframe marketing as valuable and important for reaching readers? Becky: I think one thing is to really focus on the reason why you wrote the book in the first place. Most people who write nonfiction write it because they have a valuable message to add to the world, they have an idea or a cause that they want to promote through their nonfiction book. If someone's writing fiction, then they likely have a story that they want to tell that compelled them to write and publish a book. So I think staying connected to the reason why you wrote the book in the first place can help you have, perhaps, a different attitude toward marketing, because I think what authors quickly find out is that without marketing, they are unlikely to reach the audience that they have intended for their book. So in terms of another reframe, I also try to help authors overcome this idea that when they're promoting their book, they're promoting themselves. No one really wants to feel like they're a self-promoter, or very few of us do. Instead, I encourage people to reframe and look at it that when you have a book to promote, book promotion is not self-promotion, its message or story promotion. Those two tweaks of really viewing marketing your book as bringing value to others either through learning, or education, or inspiration, or entertainment, and then realizing that apart from sharing your book, likely, your audience won't discover it. Joanna: That's so important because I feel that there is a overarching message, which I think is being done by the traditional industry, which is if your book is good enough, people will find you. Is that true at all? Becky: I don't think so, Joanna, except that it's the early efforts to get our book into audience's hands that potentially could propel you beyond those early audiences, and in a way, then people would find you. But I think those chances are quite rare. Instead, if you write a book, and it's out there, and you don't promote it, chances are, it will just get lost. There are millions of books on Amazon, there are hundreds or thousands of new books released every day. Every book needs to find an initial audience. The hope would be that once you find an initial audience, if that audience finds value, they'll expand awareness and share the book with others. But there are no guarantees. In order to ensure that we create the reach that we want for our work, we really do need to have a focused and diligent approach and an approach that goes over months and years, not only just over the days when the book comes out. Joanna: You mentioned value there. I love that your book talks about value, it's definitely something that I focus on as well for my nonfiction. What do you mean by delivering value? And how can we do that in our marketing, not just in our books? Becky: The first thing I would say is that we want to be very clear about the audience that we're creating content for. It's the audience who determines the value. So you mentioned to me, Joanna, before we started to record that your au

How To Write a Novel: From Idea to Book is out now if you buy direct from my store, www.CreativePennBooks.com for ebook, audiobook, paperback, or workbook editions. It will be out everywhere on your favorite store in your preferred format from 13 August 2022. More details and links here. In today's special inbetweenisode, I share the Introduction from the audiobook edition of How to Write a Novel: From Idea to Book, written and narrated by me, Joanna Penn. Introduction to How to Write a Novel Writing a novel will change your life. It might not be in the way that you expect, but when you hold your book in your hand and say, “I made this,” something will shift. The process of getting to that point will light a spark in your creative soul and help you discover unexpected aspects of yourself. It will be one of the things you are most proud of in your life. It will be worth the effort. My goal with this book is to help you get there. But How to Write a Novel is not an exhaustive tome of everything you could ever learn about writing. I have deliberately cut it down as much as possible. The writing craft is like an iceberg. You can write a novel with the basic knowledge that you can see above the surface. The hidden depths of the writing craft, like the iceberg, go much deeper than you can imagine. Learning it all cannot be achieved in a single lifetime, and that is part of the joy of being a writer. You learn something new with every story you write and every book that emerges into the world. But you don’t need to know it all in order to get started. In fact, if you wait until you know everything about the writing craft before you start your novel, you will be overwhelmed with too much information and, most likely, never finish. This book will help those writing their first novel and also those who want to revisit the creative process. It covers the basic knowledge above the surface of the iceberg and hints at the depths beneath. What sets this book apart is that I’m an intuitive discovery writer. I don’t plot or outline. Most craft books are written by plotters, outliners, and linear thinkers, so hopefully, I can also provide a different perspective. You can certainly write and finish a novel with the information in this book, but there’s always more to learn. The writing craft is the journey of a lifetime. Let’s take the first step together. You can learn how to write a novel I used to think that authors sat at their desks, and perfect words flowed effortlessly from their fingertips. I thought that the sentences in the pages of a finished book emerged from the author’s mind fully formed. That writers entered a state of flow and wrote without effort. In fact, if it was difficult, and they struggled, perhaps they weren’t a ‘real’ writer after all. Perhaps they didn’t have talent or a gift for writing and, of course, that meant I could never write a novel because I, too, had neither. But that is not the reality of the writing life. The words you read in a finished novel result from hard work, occasional moments of flow and flashes of insight, and an editorial process that transforms the first draft into a finished book. Too many new writers give up because they don’t know the next step to take, or they find that writing a novel is harder than they expect. But it’s worth the effort, I promise you, and this book will help you through the journey. Who am I? Like you, I’m a reader and I love books. I read every day — for escape, fun, and solace, as well as for entertainment, education, and inspiration. I spend way too much money on books! When I was a little girl, I would toddle into my mum’s bedroom at night. Instead of a teddy, I would drag my favorite books in with me and curl up at the end of the bed with them in my arms. I remember little about what happened at school or even university, but I remember so many of the books I read along the way. The written word has always been my happy place. Perhaps that’s also true for you. I never thought I could be a fiction writer. Such a rarefied breed of miraculous creatures surely lived in ivory towers somewhere inaccessible to mere mortals. Those who could turn their thoughts into words were so far away from my experience, there was no way I could ever talk to them, let alone become one. But if writing is the way you express yourself, if writing is the way you figure out the world, if writing is your art and your joy and the thing you do that makes life make sense — then you must write. Eventually, I discovered this truth and gave myself permission to write more than just my journals. I started writing nonfiction for publication in 2006 and wrote the first five thousand words of my first novel in 2009. Since then, I’ve written eighteen novels and novellas, in addition to many short stories, as J.F. Penn, and co-written several others. I’m an award-nominated, New York Times and USA Today bestseller, and I’ve sold nearly a million books in over one hundred countries and mu

How can you write a series which keeps your readers engaged, while still keeping your creative spark alive? How can you sustain a writing career for the long term? With Tess Gerritsen. In the intro, The Creator Economy report [The Tilt]; Publisher Rocket tutorial. Today's show is sponsored by IngramSpark, who I use to print and distribute my print-on-demand books to 39,000 retailers including independent bookstores, schools and universities, libraries and more. It's your content—do more with it through IngramSpark.com. Tess Gerritsen is the multi-award-winning and internationally bestselling author of the ‘Rizzoli & Isles' series adapted for TV and other medical thrillers and suspense novels with over 40 million copies sold. She's also a filmmaker, director, and screenwriter, and her latest novel is Listen to Me. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes Tips for discovery writingKeeping readers engaged over a long seriesStaying creatively engaged and making time for writing ideas that might not fit anywhereThe differences between writing books and writing for TVTapping into creative darkness without being overwhelmed by itChanges in the publishing industry and increased responsibility for marketingTips for a long-term writing career You can find Tess Gerritsen at TessGerritsen.com and on Twitter @tessgerritsen Transcript of Interview with Tess Gerritsen Joanna: Tess Gerritsen is the multi-award-winning and internationally bestselling author of the ‘Rizzoli & Isles' series adapted for TV and other medical thrillers and suspense novels with over 40 million copies sold. She's also a filmmaker, director, and screenwriter, and her latest novel is Listen to Me. Welcome to the show, Tess. Tess: Thank you for inviting me. I'm happy to be here. Joanna: I'm so excited to talk to you. So let's wind the clock back. You were a medical doctor before you started writing. How do you incorporate that medical background into your novels even many years after you stopped practicing? Tess: The funny thing is, when I first started writing books, I didn't incorporate any medicine into it because I was writing romantic suspense, and I thought, ‘Oh, nobody cares about medicine. It's a day job for me,' and I think that most of us who have day jobs think of them as humdrum. It wasn't until I wrote a book called Harvest and that was published in 1996 where the medicine came into play. And I found out, hey, audiences do like these details. So I incorporate my memories of what it's like to be a doctor, also how doctors think. I think that's what makes this special, is we know how doctors would approach a particular problem. And that's mainly how I incorporate it. When it comes to medical details, I either know it or I have a bunch of textbooks that I can consult or I have colleagues I can ask if it's a specialty I'm not fully aware of. Joanna: Well, you said, ‘how doctors think.' How do doctors think compared to how novelists think? Is it all about solving problems? Tess: It is. You have a patient who comes in with an unusual symptom. So you're going to go down your checklist of which systems in the body should we be looking at. And it's a fairly methodical system. And, in fact, you can go online probably and have some computer do it for you. But it is a way of approaching a problem, a mystery. I don't think it has any effect on how I write, actually. I think the medical background is more what I draw from for informational purposes and for character purposes. But when I write, I am completely disorganized. I think it probably surprises people who assume that I must be an organized writer. I don't do outlines. I've tried. I don't have my plot planned out ahead of time. It's very much for me just taking the path, starting down the dark road, and seeing where it takes me. Joanna: I love that. I'm also a discovery writer, I call it discovery writer. And I actually read that you didn't plot, and that was very encouraging. So you mentioned the dark road. Where do you start in the writing process? How do you follow a disorganized process? Tess: I like to start with an emotional springboard, and it has to do with what is the scene that plunges me or my character into the story. I think that the best premises are those that affect your emotions, that you may evoke something like fear or shock, something that makes you want to ask what happens next. I start with the premise, and I have to know something about my characters beforehand. And that is one thing I do know, is who are these people and what kind of a voice do they have. I like to listen to a voice in my head. I like to hear this voice in my head, and that will really guide me down this path. When I started writing that book, Harvest, for instance, the voice that I first heard was that of a 12-year-old boy. He directed a lo

Print on demand makes it easy to sell print books without the hassle of storage and shipping — but it's limited to what the established POD printers allow. What if you want to do a special print run, either for a crowdfunding project, or because you want higher quality print production with extras? White Fox help authors with special print design and publishing, as well as other aspects of the author business. In this episode, we talk about some of the options available to authors. WhiteFox also have a great free resource on crowdfunding your book. John Bond is the CEO of White Fox, a premium publishing and book marketing partner based in the UK and U.S. Chris Wold is the sales and business development director at White Fox. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes Why are print books still so important even as digital continues to rise? When might an author consider a special print run? Slow, artisanal printing vs fast POD Design options for special print runs — and how they might impact price How timelines compare to POD — and why that might not matter for a crowdfunding project, as long as you communicate timings to backers. You can find White Fox at WeAreWhiteFox.com and on Twitter @wearewhitefox. Check out the free crowdfunding resource here. Transcript of Interview with John Bond and Chris Wold Joanna: John Bond is the CEO of White Fox, a premium publishing and book marketing partner based in the UK and U.S. Chris Wold is the sales and business development director at White Fox. Welcome back to the show, John, and hello, Chris. John: Thank you very, very much for having us. Chris: Thank you. Joanna: It's good to talk about this today. I think this question's important. It's crazy really, but: Why are print books still so important and beloved in a world that also feels increasingly digital? John: That's such a good question. When we started in 2012 in London so we just had our 10th anniversary and when we got going, we imagined a world where every project would include an app or an enhanced ebook. And we have done some of those things, but nothing like the amount that I imagined was going to happen. What's just been astonishing is how many people are still in love with this format that's been around for centuries and which still seems to resonate with people as something which has authority and gravitas and which is the opposite of ephemera. You can't delete it. It's a rather extraordinary thing. What seems to have happened actually is the opposite. Maybe of what we thought was going to happen, which is that more and more people want to put more effort into creating more beautiful objects with higher specification and better paper. And it's almost like the two go hand in hand. As we become more digital, some things have ended up becoming almost iconic objects, which you can still gift, you can still own. So, no one was more surprised than me that has been where we've ended up. Chris: I have to say that sitting here in my front room, which seems to be, once you start noticing it, it's dominated by bookshelves in our home. And it is, I think the book as a printed object also is seen as a kind of a reflection of yourself and especially in the home or mine anyway. They're treasured for that reason, but also it is a little bit of a trophy case side of things. The books that I've held onto for a long time are precious for lots of reasons. But the ones that really stick around are the nicer ones, I have to say. And there's something to be said for something that sticks with you for your move four or five times just for the sake of moving it and putting it back on another shelf in another house, another part of the world Joanna: I know what you mean. I moved from the UK to New Zealand, then New Zealand, Australia, and then back here to the UK, and there are some books that have come with me all over the world and I've paid for shipping by weight.It's amazing how much I would've paid in shipping. Both of you mentioned interesting things there and it's funny because actually one of my mottos at the moment — One of my overarching themes is more digital, more physical. And that's both work practices. So, actually getting out in the physical world more but also more online, and it's also for books. It's like you say, John, it's surprising in a way. My question for you is what do we see then in terms of buying behavior? Are people buying just one or the other or both, or even just what we do as individuals? How is the choice of print and digital affecting book sales across all the different formats? John: We are not anti-ebook. We love ebooks. Everything we produce, we produce an ebook for, but it's just been fascinating that certainly in the last two years, we've seen what the market has seen, which is a kind of uplift in physical sales. It was almost as if the pandemic, which fo

What are the different types of editing? How can you find and work effectively with the best editor for your book? What are some editing tips to watch out for in your fiction or non-fiction manuscript? With Kristen Tate from The Blue Garret. In the intro, hiring virtual assistants [ALLi]; and I'm recording my audiobook of How to Write a Novel, launching in the next few weeks. Do you need a professional editor for your book? Check out my list of recommended editors and proofreaders here. Kristen Tate is an editor and founder of The Blue Garret, which offers editing services and advice for authors. She has a Ph.D. in English, from Columbia University, focusing on novels and publishing history. And she's the author of All The Words: A Year of Reading About Writing. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes The three phases of editing and when an author would use themWith AI tools available, why do we need human editors?Common issues that editors find in fiction and non-fictionWhen to consider rewriting or re-editing a bookTips for how to approach a rewrite and re-editHow to find an editor who’s a good fit for you You can find Kristen Tate at TheBlueGarret.com and on Twitter @KristenTateSF Transcript of Interview with Kristen Tate Joanna: Kristen Tate is an editor and founder of The Blue Garret, which offers editing services and advice for authors. She has a Ph.D. in English, from Columbia University, focusing on novels and publishing history. And she's the author of All The Words: A Year of Reading About Writing. Kristen is also my editor mostly for fiction, but also for my recent, How To Write a Novel book. Welcome to the show, Kristen. Kristen: Thanks, Joanna. It's so great to be having a real-life conversation with you, not just in the Microsoft Word comments. I'm thrilled to be here. Joanna: That is funny. And maybe we'll come back to this, but you and I have never spoken before today, which is brilliant. And of course, introvert writers, introvert editors. I mean, why do we need to speak? It's just not necessary! Kristen: We communicate very well in those document comments. Joanna: Exactly, in writing. Before we get into that, tell us a bit more about you and why you chose to become an editor? Kristen: I think as is the case for many of us, this was very much a winding path for me. But when I look back and I follow all the threads, I can see that really what I was trying to do all along was find a job that would allow me to spend most of my time reading and thinking about words. As you said, I have a Ph.D. in English from Columbia, and I thought at one point I was going to become an English professor and I did love being a graduate student. I really did get to spend the bulk of my time reading and thinking, and also starting to teach, which I realized that I loved doing too. But then there were a lot of other things about the academic life that didn't match up with the life I wanted to lead and how I wanted to spend my time. So at the point, I made the decision, I was going to step away from academia. I also had two tiny human children and was spending a lot of time with them and gradually trying to, figure out other things, to find my next steps. I knew I could write and I could edit. I started doing some freelance copywriting and copy editing. And I also did an internship with a wonderful local publisher here in San Francisco, Chronicle Books, to see if publishing would be a good fit. TI loved my time there, but also found that much like in academia, there was a lot of talking about books and meetings about books, but not a lot of time really sitting and working with words. So I realized that was not going to be the path for me and continued on with the freelance copywriting and copy editing. Then in 2015, I worked with, a copywriting client on a business book he was self-publishing and this was the first I had heard of any such thing. And that just opened up a whole new world for me. And I realized that this was something I could specialize in. So I started doing a lot of learning. That's about the time I found your podcast and just soaked it all in. I went back and did some more retraining and made sure that I had the skills I needed to work on both fiction and nonfiction, and then I've never looked back. And now it feels like this is the thing I was always meant to do. I really do get to spend the bulk of my working day, sitting quietly and as an introvert, reading books and thinking about words and I'm thrilled that I found, my place, my spot. Joan: I love that. I love that you identified the things you didn't want as well in the career. I think that's so important. I also want to say that you said you love teaching, and we'll talk about how you do editing, but I love the little comments you leave for me sometimes. I've talked openly on this show that I have so

How can you write twists that surprise a reader? How can you market your books effectively as a traditionally published author? Clare Mackintosh talks about her creative process, and how she works with her publisher to reach more readers. In the intro, Kate Bush is “the world’s biggest independent artist” right now and more on intellectual property rights [Music Business Worldwide]; A long-term view of IP [Kris Rusch]; Rethinking the Writing Business by Kris Rusch; 24 Assets by Daniel Priestley; Cosmopolitan uses AI-generated cover; My interview on AI and writing with Andrew Mayne, and more on AI + the future of creativity. Today's show is sponsored by Draft2Digital, where you can get free ebook formatting, free distribution to multiple stores, and a host of other benefits. Get your free Author Marketing Guide at draft2digital.com/penn Clare Mackintosh is the multi-award-winning author of five Sunday Times bestselling novels. Translated into 40 languages, her books have sold more than 2 million copies worldwide and have been New York Times and international bestsellers. Her latest book, The Last Party is the first in a new crime series. Show Notes You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. How being a police detective is like being a writer The difference between a twist and a reveal, and how Clare plots her novels Why marketing is important, even for traditionally published authors Why authors need an email list, regardless of how you choose to publish Using video in book marketing How networking has played an important part in Clare's publishing journey You can find Clare Mackintosh at ClareMackintosh.com and on Twitter @claremackint0sh Transcript of Interview with Clare Mackintosh Joanna Penn: Clare Mackintosh is the multi-award-winning author of five Sunday Times bestselling novels. Translated into 40 languages, her books have sold more than 2 million copies worldwide and have been New York Times and international bestsellers. Her latest book, The Last Party is the first in a new crime series. Welcome, Clare. Clare Mackintosh: Hi, thanks for having me. Joanna Penn: I'm so excited to talk to you. First up, tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing. Clare Mackintosh: I have always been a storyteller, always written short stories, written little snippets, pen pictures of characters, always a voracious reader, but like a lot of people didn't ever see as a child that there was a potential career here. I enjoyed writing, but it wasn't something I saw as a job possibility. I didn't know anybody who worked in the arts, who produced music or poetry or anything. I just knew people who worked in jobs. I went to university, I did French and business at university. And then in a slight plot twist, I joined the police and spent 12 years in the police. But, I say this a lot because people think that it's such a different career being in the police to writing novels, but there are so many similarities between the two careers. When you are a detective, you're a storyteller. You are having to write a witness statement for someone, a statement for someone who's been a victim of crime. You have this immense responsibility to find exactly the right words to put across what's happened to this person. Victims don't start with a beginning and then a middle and an end; they start with the end. They start by telling you they've been attacked or they've been burgled, and then you have to pull them back and work out what was their origin story and how did those events lead to where you are now. It's all about storytelling, pulling out the narrative that the cameras have got to tell you and the forensics and all the unreliable witnesses all over the place, and then presenting that story in a compelling way to an audience, to a court. And that's exactly what we do now as writers. So it felt like a weirdly natural progression to go from stories that dealt with fact to stories that are fictional. Joanna Penn: How does your background in the police weave its way into your fiction? Because, obviously, you've got lots of books now. Are your stories based on your experience, or how do they weave in? Clare Mackintosh: They're hardly ever based on real-life, or at least not on real-life cases. I think people perhaps have an idea that ex-police officers have this huge bank of stories that they could fictionalize. And maybe some officers do. My experience of crimes is that, for the most part, they're really quite boring and criminals are really quite stupid. And so the idea of these criminal masterminds that we see in Bond films or in crime novels is really quite unusual. It's quite rare. What being a police officer taught me that I put into all my books is about people. It's about really understanding people and coming into contact with people from all walks of life. That really mean

What is GPT-3 and how can writers use it responsibly as part of their creative process? How can we approach AI tools with curiosity, rather than fear? Thriller author Andrew Mayne talks about these aspects and more. In the intro, I mention the discussion about whether Google’s language model, LaMDA, could be sentient [The Verge]; and the Alliance of Independent Authors Ethical Usage of AI tools. If you'd like to know more about using AI for writing, images, marketing, voice, translation, and more, check out my course, The AI-Assisted Author. Andrew Mayne is the multi-award-nominated and internationally best-selling author of thrillers. He's also a magician, a magic consultant, and the author of over 50 books on magic. He invented an underwater stealth suit for shark diving, and he works with OpenAI as a science communicator. He also has books for authors, including, ‘How to Write a Novella in 24 hours,' and a co-hosts the podcast ‘Weird Things.' Show notes: How Andrew got into AI and first used a vision model for his shark suitWhat is GPT-3 and what is DALL-E? (You can find out more on OpenAI.comHow writers can use GPT-3 as an amplifier, and how to prompt it to get an effective response, as well as the different applicationsApproaching AI with an attitude of curiosity, rather than fearWhat is ‘AI-assisted' and why we should label AI-generated words and artWays to address the lack of diversity and bias in AI models You can find Andrew at www.AndrewMayne.com and his blog here which includes articles on using GPT-3. You can find GPT-3 on OpenAI.com. You can also follow Andrew on Twitter @andrewmayne There are many tools built on top of GPT-3. Here's my list of AI writing tools. I use and recommend Sudowrite for fiction, in particular. Transcript of Interview with Andrew Mayne Joanna: Andrew Mayne is the multi-award-nominated and internationally best-selling author of thrillers. He's also a magician, a magic consultant, and author of over 50 books on magic. He invented an underwater stealth suit for shark diving, and he works with OpenAI as a science communicator. He also has books for authors, including, ‘How to Write a Novella in 24 hours,' and a co-hosts the podcast ‘Weird Things.' So, welcome to the show, Andrew. Andrew: Hey, thank you for having me. Joanna: Oh, you do so many things. But we are actually going to talk about AI today. But I wanted to first ask you: With your background in magic, and also creativity, how did you become interested in AI? Andrew: Well, ever since I was a little boy, I was really interested in science, and entertainment, and everything in between. And I loved robots when I was a kid. And I'd build robots from science fairs and stuff, and I would use coffee cans, and little motors and things I pulled from toys to do that. And then when we got our first personal computer, I would try to build little chat bots and ask it questions, have it respond. And then I got kind of bit by the magic bug when I was in high school, because I lived in South Florida, and we had a lot of cruise ships there. And that seemed like a really cool way to see the world. And that became more of just a passive hobby, with AI and artificial intelligence. But then, sometimes you keep coming back to things. I had friends that were active in [AI]. And I knew some people were actually been to some pioneers in it that I used to sort of just pester with questions and stuff. But it was actually just a few years ago, when I got back into… I was just, realized that programming was something that I never really took seriously. Like, I always knew a little bit about programming. And I thought, ‘Why don't I just go learn a programming language?‘ And, you know, the older you get, it's helpful to just keep learning things. So I started to learn to program. And then I found myself involved with doing a special for Discovery Channel for Shark Week, where I was gonna try to build a suit to make myself invisible to sharks, as you explained at the top of the show, which is dumb. But it sounded like a fun thing to do. I had talked to shark scientists, and they'd explained to me, sharks have an incredible array of senses. And when you're down there, you're at a huge disadvantage, because we're tree-climbing monkeys, in the bottom of the ocean, surrounded by apex predators. And I thought, ‘How can I help myself out?' And I thought, one of the things I could do is try to build a system where I could see 360 all around me, and then use maybe, like, image recognition or something to tell me, ‘Hey, there's a shark behind you.' Because the thing I found out about Great Whites is they're ambush hunters, and they can tell where you're looking. And if you're not looking at them, then they're gonna sneak up on you. And if you're not looking at them, and they're sneaking up on you, you don't see them. There's a lot of open source code for, like, vision systems, and creating softwa