The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers

How do you research a book in the most appropriate way? How can you keep track of your sources and attribute them correctly, as well as avoiding inadvertent plagiarism? How can you get your book/s into libraries? Vikki Carter talks about all these questions and more. In the intro, Has Amazon Changed Fiction? [New Republic]; The Bigger the Publisher, The Blander the Books [The Atlantic]; A basic income pilot scheme for artists [Irish Times]; Struggles we face as authors [6 Figure Authors]; My 5-day solo walk along the St Cuthbert's Way. 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 Vikki Carter is the author of Research Like a Librarian: Research Help and Tips for Writers for Researching in the Digital Age. 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 Overcoming dyslexia and learning to love booksResearch as a disciplineChoosing where to focus researchDifferent ways to research your bookHow do we know when a source is good enough?How to avoid accidental plagiarismHow to cite sourcesHow to get your books into libraries — this article will also help. You can find Vikki Carter at TheAuthorsLibrarian.com and on Twitter @theauthorslib Transcript of Interview with Vikki Carter Joanna: Vikki Carter is the author of Research Like a Librarian: Research Help and Tips for Writers for Researching in the Digital Age. Welcome, Vikki. Vikki: Hi there, Joanna. Hi, everyone. Joanna: I'm excited to talk to you today about this because I think it's so important. Before we get into it, tell us a bit more about your background because I know you struggled a bit in your early experiences with books. Vikki: Oh, I did. And it's such an interesting part of my story and I just actually started to talk about it with people as I wrote my first book. When I was younger, in elementary school, I had a speech impediment and I also was a very slow reader and very slow learner. We didn't discover this until about halfway through first grade. When I was in school, I didn't talk very often, which surprises everybody when they know me now, like all she does is talk. I really struggled with reading and seeing words formulate on a page or on a chalkboard. My brain couldn't quite grasp that concept. Now we know it's dyslexia, and it was very severe dyslexia. But at the time when I was little, I didn't know that. And then compounded with a speech impediment, I just turned super shy because I would get teased all the time, as kids do that. So when I was little, I wouldn't go out and play on recess very often. I would hide myself away in the libraries of our schools because the librarians were awesome. They let me come in, get books, and I'd always get picture books. I would sit and I would look at the picture books, trying to decipher how the pictures were related to the words until I did get some help. I had two amazing teachers that identified that there was some possibility of some help for me, and I started with speech therapy and then we started with reading and writing therapy. So about the fifth grade, I caught up a little bit with everybody else but I've always been painfully slow reader and a very painfully slow writer. That experience of being around the library and the librarians, it became a sanctuary to me. So books have become my sanctuary now. Joanna: I think for many of us, the library is a sanctuary. It certainly was for me as an introvert child, totally bookish. I spent a lot of time in the library and I think that's why so many of us care about libraries now. It's because of how they've affected us in earlier life. You actually became a librarian, is that right? Vikki: I did. I had this interesting journey to a librarian. It was a little later on in life. I went back to college/university as an adult student with two children in tow and I wasn't sure what I really wanted to do. I kept going back to the idea of books, writing, researching, but I didn't know how that would work out into a career. It didn't really dawn on me as a librarian until I started to work in the school district where my daughters were and I worked in the school library, and I'm like, ‘Oh, this could be a thing.' It dawned on me. I started to go back to school and I ended up working at the public library in our area while I was working on my bachelor's because I really felt like I wanted to have a broad experience. I worked in the public library, and I loved that. And then finally when I started on my master's, I was recruited to work at the community college library in our area in the library department. I finished my master's and stayed w

How can anthropology — the study of human cultures — teach us to build richer and more convincing worlds for our stories? What questions do we need to ask of our characters and settings to bring them alive? Michael Kilman talks about how anthropology can help with world-building in this episode. In the intro, the late Sue Grafton's books licensed for film and TV even though she stated otherwise before she died [BookRiot]; Tina Turner sells IP rights [The Guardian]; Estate planning for authors; NaNoWriMo Storybundle; Pics from my St Cuthbert's Way walk on Instagram and Facebook; Relaxed Author interviews – 6 Figure Author and The Indy Author; Focus on your strengths [Ask ALLi] Today's show is sponsored by IngramSpark, which 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. Michael Kilman is an anthropologist, filmmaker, artist, science fiction author, and musician. Today we're talking about Build Better Worlds: An Introduction to Anthropology for Game Designers, Fiction Writers, and Filmmakers, co-written with Kyra Wellstrom. 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 knowing even a little bit about anthropology can support fictional world-buildingHow artifacts reflect what matters to a societyImportant features of urban anthropologyCautions about info-dumping when describing a world you’ve builtThinking of cultures in terms of how the pieces work together to form a cohesive wholeWriting about different cultures without straying into cultural appropriation You can find Michael Kilman at LoridiansLaboratory.com and on Twitter @LoridiansLab Transcript of the Interview with Michael Kilman Joanna: Michael Kilman is an anthropologist, filmmaker, artist, science fiction author, and musician. Today we're talking about Build Better Worlds: An Introduction to Anthropology for Game Designers, Fiction Writers, and Filmmakers, co-written with Kyra Wellstrom. Welcome, Michael. Michael: Hi. Nice to be on the show. Joanna: It's good to have you here. Tell us a bit more about you and your background and how you got into anthropology and writing. Michael: I fell in love with anthropology in undergraduate after trying many majors, and really trying to figure out who I was. And on a whim, I took a class called Anthropology. I said, ‘Anthropology, what in the world is anthropology?' Reading the course description it says, the study of human cultures. I was like, ‘Hmm, okay, all right.' I took the class and fell in love. After that, I was just set on a path for studying other cultures around the world. I had already been writing for quite a while. I started writing when I was about 14, 15 years old, I started my first attempt at a book. It was terrible, of course, and so was much of my other work for quite a few years, I really didn't publish anything fiction-wise until my 30s. So it was a long process for me. But in the meantime, I went off to grad school in my mid-20s, and I started working with other cultures, I've worked with a lot of Native American tribes. Over the years, I lived and worked in a rural village in Mexico, and a lot of like urban anthropology, which means we study populations, and cities, and stuff. My area of focus in anthropology ultimately became media systems and representation. So looking at how media represents people, and why is that problematic? Or why is it good? All those various things, trying to uncover exactly what happens when you represent people in spaces like fiction, for example, although video production was in my background, and so I focused a lot on that kind of media at the time. And then, a couple years ago, Kira and I ran into each other again. Ironically, we went to the same college as an undergraduate, but we never actually met each other until we were both teaching again at the same college we were both undergraduates in. So we met there, and we became friends, and we started talking. Kira, she's a biological anthropologist, which means she focuses on the biological side of culture, how does biology and environment impact humans? And her area of specialty is in forensics. If you've seen the show, ‘Bones,' that's the kind of stuff she does, although she doesn't really like to be compared to ‘Bones,' because there's a lot of problematic science in that show, forensics is not so magical. And there's a number of other things that are troublesome with that. Although on the other hand, ‘Bones' has made physical anthropology very popular, so we can't fault it for that either. But we were both talking about how representation in fiction, or how a lot of these fictional worlds, they just don't work, or they have big problems, they're not holistic,

How can you use elements of mystery to hook your readers, regardless of the genre you write? How can you make sure your writing process prevents errors or plagiarism? Jonah Lehrer covers these aspects and more. In the intro, KDP Print available in hardback; Bookvolts book-specific NFT platform [Medium]; Books for writers in the NaNoWriMo Storybundle; ALLi self-publishing conference; Tomb of Relics. 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 Jonah Lehrer is a New York Times bestselling author of non-fiction and a journalist. His latest book is Mystery: A Seduction, A Strategy, A Solution. 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 children’s Surprise Egg YouTube videos inspired the bookHow do we know when an idea is big enough for a book?Practical ways of bringing mystery into any storyHow spoilers aren’t always badUsing the rules of mystery in non-fictionRecovering from a career-changing writing mistake, and how it has changed Jonah's writing process You can find Jonah Lehrer at JonahLehrer.com. Transcript of Interview with Jonah Lehrer Joanna: Jonah Lehrer is a New York Times bestselling author of non-fiction and a journalist. His latest book is Mystery: A Seduction, A Strategy, A Solution. Welcome, Jonah. Jonah: Thank you so much for having me. Joanna: Oh, I'm excited to talk to you. So, let's get right into it. Why a book about mystery? What was it that drew you to write about this topic? Jonah: The book is full of examples drawn from the canon, from great works of literature, from ‘Hamlet' to Emily Dickinson, but what actually inspired me to write this book was watching my son watch YouTube videos. He fell down the rabbit hole, this specific genre of kids YouTube video called ‘Surprise Eggs,' which, to make a long story short, if you haven't had the pleasure of watching these inane videos, it's essentially parents make these giant paper mache eggs and stuff them full of toys. And what a child does is he punches a hole in the paper mache egg, and then pulls out the toys one by one. It's like a slot machine for toddlers, they never know what toy is going to come next. So it's incredibly exciting. I watched him watch these videos and just become enthralled by them. And then I quickly realized he wasn't the only one that a lot of these ‘Surprise Egg' videos on YouTube. The ‘Surprise Egg' genre is now one of the most popular genres in the YouTube Kids world, that he was just enthralled by this narrative trick of not knowing what toy was going to come next. And you can look at these videos and their stats on YouTube, and they have billion plus views. Ryan's Toy Review in particular, he's one of the most subscribed YouTubers in the world. He's credited with pioneering the ‘Surprise Egg' and it's the 33rd YouTube video of all time. I became fascinated by this idea of why kids were so entranced by mystery, by these mystery boxes. And that is really what led me down this long, winding path, this investigation into mystery, not just on YouTube Kids, but in Shakespeare, but in poetry, in advertising, in magic tricks, and so forth. Joanna: For all the people who want to write non-fiction who are listening, or do write non-fiction, I'm one of them, how do we know when an idea is big enough for a book? Because you're pretty academic, from what I read, and you go deep into it. Mystery, in one way, it's really massive, and in another way, it's really small. How did you know that this idea was big enough for a book? Jonah: It's such a good question, and I wish I had a better answer. But for me, I don't know. I just kind of follow the thread. It began with me thinking about why my child was so entranced by the YouTube videos that I found so inane, and consumerism at its most banal, just like a kid tearing up in toys, and not even playing with them. So, that's where it began. Then I start to see connections everywhere, and I just start putting them together, I create these massive Word files. Then give it some time to breathe. And I see what hangs together. Slowly, over the course of, I think for this book, probably two years, a structure gradually emerged. But at the beginning, what I'm really looking for is a subject that's capacious enough, that's wide-ranging enough that I guess is vague enough, where I can just start to collect stories that fit. And then I fall in love with the stories. Joanna: So, diving down a publishing rabbit hole already, we'll get back to the book in a minute. When do you pitch the

How can you expand your creative and financial opportunities with audiobooks and podcasting? Will Dages from Findaway Voices talks about options as well as introducing the new Marketplace. Will Dages is the head of Findaway Voices, which helps authors produce and distribute audiobooks to a global network of platforms and listeners. 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 Current trends and stats in the audiobook industry Subscription services, libraries, and the future of audiobook consumption Social audio The crossover between podcasts and audiobooks and the potential for new forms of creativity when an audio product doesn't have to match a ‘book.' Introducing Findaway Voices Marketplace, where authors can find and work directly with pro narrators You can find Will Dages at FindawayVoices.com and on Twitter @FindawayVoices Transcript of Interview with Will Dages Joanna: Will Dages is the head of Findaway Voices, which helps authors produce and distribute audiobooks to a global network of platforms and listeners. Findaway Voices was recently announced as London Book Fair's Audiobook Publisher of the Year in 2021, which is fantastic and well-deserved. Welcome back to the show Will. Will: Thank you so much, Joanna. Always great to talk to you. Joanna: We always geek out on audio. You were last on the show in early 2019. And the world has certainly changed since then. Can you give us a high level overview of what the audiobook market looks like right now? And how has the pandemic changed things? Will: Absolutely. Man, that feels like a lifetime ago. I'm sure you agree? Joanna: Yeah. Will: The world has been through a lot in those last two years. Luckily, though, one thing that has been pretty constant is the growth of audiobooks. The latest APA stats show another 16% growth in sales year over year, which means eight straight years of double-digit revenue growth for audiobooks, which is fantastic. Talking about the industry, they also have some interesting stats like 50% of audiobook listeners say they're making new time to listen to audiobooks. And I think the interesting thing there is, more and more surveys are coming out that the home is the most popular place to listen. Where a few years ago, I think that would be much more skewed towards cars and commute. A lot of people think of audiobooks as being this kind of commute buddy. But more people are really carving out time in their leisure time at home, while doing chores, or housework, or exercising, or going on walks and finding time to listen there, which is helping grow the entire industry. The other trend that we've been seeing industry-wide is shorter books getting more traction, people picking up books that are one, two, or three hours long. And as the market grows outside of Audible, where the credit model demands longer books. You want to get your credit's worth out of that credit by looking at the number of hours. When the market grows around that and the books are appropriately priced, or they're in subscription models or libraries like shorter content is having its day. And we're seeing a lot more trends towards shorter content being really profitable. Joanna: What about on a global basis, because a lot of the stats seem to be U.S. focused, as usual. But it feels to me from some of the things I've heard at London Book Fair and other things that there's been growth in other languages and also other countries, whereas the market probably was more dominant in the U.S., UK, Canada before. Have you got any feeling for the global market? Will: It is unfortunate that most of the surveys and the organizations that pay for the research are in the U.S. So it is a little U.S. focused. But we release every year, the ‘Headphone Report‘ is what we call it, and this is on our blog and stuff. And you can see some of our stats where the Findaway Voices reports we put out are not including big publisher data. So it's a little bit more representative of what this audience of your listeners is seeing. We're seeing growth outside the U.S., especially in Canada, Australia, Sweden, England, Mexico, and different languages that are really growing. Spanish, obviously is our fastest non-English language that has been growing like crazy. And then behind that, German, Italian, Russian, and French are all really picking up steam. So our catalog is still really weighted towards English content, just because that's where the market seems to be more mature. But these emerging markets are really growing at a fast rate. We're seeing a lot more diversity in sales worldwide for authors. Joanna: You mentioned subscription models and libraries, and this seems to be a very big discussion both amongst indie authors and traditional publishers. And on the one hand, people say, subscription models are going to kill everything. And they take every

How can you be a more relaxed author when there is always so much more to do? How can you co-write a book and retain different voices in written text as well as audio? Mark Leslie Lefebvre and I discuss how we co-wrote The Relaxed Author and how we're publishing and marketing it. In the intro, Netflix buys the Roald Dahl catalog [The Verge]; Chuck Palahniuk launches a Substack [LitReactor]; Gillian Flynn launches her own imprint [New York Times]; Tomb of Relics in edits; ProWritingAid tutorial Do you want to be a more relaxed author? The Relaxed Author: Take The Pressure Off Your Art and Enjoy The Creative Journey, out now in all the usual formats in all the usual places. You can also buy it direct from us here, as well as bundle deals. Mark Leslie Lefebvre is a horror writer, publishing consultant, speaker, author of books for writers, and my co-writer for The Relaxed Author. 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 matters when choosing a co-writing partner Why a legal agreement is so important — even if you're friends Sharing the various roles while writing and publishing How royalty splitting works with Draft2Digital Different styles of working The benefits of recording conversations to use as a first draft — and the resulting challenges Sharing launch duties and marketing tasks Principles for the long-game You can find Mark Leslie Lefebvre at MarkLeslie.ca and on Twitter @MarkLeslie Transcript of Interview with Mark Leslie Lefebvre Joanna: I'm here with Mark Leslie Lefebvre, horror writer, publishing consultant, speaker, author of books for writers and my co-writer for The Relaxed Author. Welcome back to the show, Mark. Mark: Hey, Joanna. It's great to be here. Joanna: So here we are finally. We both have the book The Relaxed Author and it's actually very pretty. I'm quite pleased with it. Are you happy with it? Mark: Oh, you know what? When Liz saw it, she…because she hadn't seen anything. She just heard me talk, ‘You know what? I'm working on this book with Jo.' And when she saw it she went, ‘Oh, my god. That is so gorgeous.' Your cover designer did such a brilliant job. Just absolutely gorgeous. Joanna: Oh, good. I'm glad you like it because I feel like it's difficult with co-writing…well, lots of difficulties. We'll get into that. But let's go back to the beginning. How did we even come up with the idea for this book? It's not like we had other things going on and we were like, ‘Oh, here's a surprise book.' When did we come up with the idea and why did we go forward with it? Mark: Was it back in March that I was being interviewed on your podcast? Maybe the episode aired in March, or was it April? I'm trying to remember how far back it was. Joanna: It was the ‘Wide for the Win.' You came on to talk about ‘Wide for the Win' basically. And I think we said, ‘Yes, going wide makes us more relaxed.' And we started to laugh about how we were relaxed authors. And then we got so many emails about it. I emailed you and said, ‘Hey, should we do The Relaxed Author?' So when I did email you and asked you, you already had a lot of books planned for this year. What were your feelings when I asked you that? When we're offered a project or we come up with a project, when should we say no? When should we go for it? Mark: Honestly, that's one of our chapters in the book. We talk about the importance of saying no because there are so many great ideas you have to say no to and so many opportunities. For example, you are very selective in not just going and speaking anywhere. It has to be something. Maybe you can tie in…well, post or pre-pandemic, travel to a place because you want to research it for a novel or something like that. But I think I remember saying, ‘We can have some easy listening music and smoking jackets and just go chill and relax.' But your listeners responded in a big way saying, ‘Oh, my, I need that book.' I had a lot of projects already. I had four other book projects between then and the end of the year that I had on my plate. And I'll always get all of them done. Some of them are up for pre-order already, which causes stress but also causes me to work better at it, which is part of how I work. I think what happened is when that came and you emailed me, I had already been chewing on it because I saw those comments on Twitter and went, ‘Yeah, you know what? I think a book like that would be needed. Wouldn't that be helpful?' But here's the thing, and I want to throw this question back at you, Jo, because I think we agreed on it actually. So I immediately thought, ‘This is a brilliant idea. We have to do this book.' So I was in 100%. Let's do this. How about you? How did you reply to that? Joanna: It was funny because I was also feeling this is a necessary topic before we even ca

The opportunities for creation and marketing in audio format continue to expand and the lines are blurring between audiobooks, podcasts and other forms of audio storytelling. In this episode, Sarah Werner talks about writing for audio first and the challenges of full-cast audio drama and podcast fiction. In the intro, problems with publishing distribution and supply chain for print books [Kris Rusch]; Reader Reach [Written Word Media]; Do authors need to advertise? [6 Figure Authors]; AI-narrated audio and NFTs from virtual Digital Book World sessions; AI 2041: 10 Visions for our Future by Kai-fu Lee and Chen Qiufan; all the future creativity episodes; The Relaxed Author out now; and my pics from the Wye Valley and the Forest of Dean @jfpennauthor. Today's show is sponsored by Audio for Authors: Audiobooks, Podcasting, and Voice Technologies. Do you want to create, publish and market your audiobooks? Are you ready to use podcasting to grow your author brand and reach more readers with your books? It's still early days for audio and opportunities are expanding all the time. This book will help you get started — or expand your audio reach. Available on all the usual platforms in all the usual formats (and yes, I narrated the audiobook!) Sarah Rhea Werner is a writer, professional speaker, and executive producer of Girl In Space, a multiple award-winning sci-fi mystery podcast, as well as the host of the Write Now podcast, and executive producer of fantasy audio drama Omen. 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 Switching from blogging to podcastingHow writing for audio differs from writing a bookDo different kinds of novels work better as audio drama?Is having a narrator an option for audio drama?Options for monetizing a podcast or audio dramaOn the potential for using AI voices for audio dramaFinding actors, sound effects and music, as well as important copyright issuesMarketing tips for podcasts and audio drama You can find Sarah Werner at SarahWerner.com and on Twitter @SarahRheaWerner or check out her Write Now Podcast. Transcript of Interview with Sarah Werner Joanna: Sarah Rhea Werner is a writer, professional speaker, and executive producer of Girl In Space, a multiple award-winning sci-fi mystery podcast, as well as the host of the Write Now podcast, and executive producer of fantasy audio drama Omen. Welcome, Sarah. Sarah: Hi. Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here. Joanna: It's so interesting to talk to you today. Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing for audio? Sarah: I feel like I fell into it, like I've fallen into so many other things in my writing career. I started out as just a novelist, a writer, a blogger, and never really published anything, never really did anything with what I was writing for myself. I decided I wanted to start a blog that would help other writers. This was back in 2013, 2014. And so, I started this blog, and it was not getting any traction. At the time, I was working for a marketing company, a digital marketing company. A good friend there said, ‘Why don't you start podcasting?' And I was like, ‘I don't know. That sounds really intimidating. And it has a lot of dials and levers and stuff, and something I'm not really prepared for.' But eventually, I ended up experimenting with auto and I changed my blog into a nonfiction podcast called ‘Write Now.' I just really loved both the experience of speaking into a microphone. It felt so much more authentic, despite being a writer and despite identifying as a writer, it just felt better to speak than it did to write this blog. It also saw a lot more traction than my blog. I think that was partly due to the time, with there being a very saturated blog market, and back in 2014, 2015, not a ton of podcasts. So, then, after the success of the ‘Write Now' podcast, and given how much I enjoyed doing it, I was like, ‘Oh, man, what if I spoke a fictional story into my microphone? Oh, wait, maybe I should script it.‘ And so, I started just writing for audio, and turned some ideas that I had had floating around for a novel into the ‘Girl In Space' podcast. I started it as an experiment, just to see if it would be fun, if it would be viable. And when I launched the first episode, fortunately, it took off, and I was like, ‘Okay, I guess I'm going to write some more of these episodes.' And so really, I stumbled and flailed my way into it, and realized that I just really enjoyed it. Joanna: I like that you said you were intimidated, and then you gave it a try, and you enjoyed it. I feel like so many of the things, especially in this new world, with this tech, and you have to master a little bit of tech, but the main thing is, ‘Oh, I'm scared of it. And then I try it. And then I enjoy it.' And you don't know unless you try, do you? Sar

What are the different types of travel books and how can you blend them within the genre? How can we tackle our imposter syndrome when writing in a genre we love? Jeremy Bassetti explores these questions and more in today's show. In the intro, my 10-year author entrepreneur lessons learned; the different stages of an author business [Ask Alli]; London: A Personal History. 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 www.draft2digital.com/penn Jeremy Bassetti is a travel writer, editor, teacher, and author of historical fiction. He's the host of two podcasts, Travel Writing World and Sonus Loci: The Sound of Place. 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 drives the human desire for travel?The different types of travel books. Jeremy has a great article on this: 10 Travel Book Sub-Genres with ExamplesIs an emotional journey necessary in a travel memoir?How nature writing and travel writing overlapPitfalls to watch out for in travel writingSensory descriptions that bring readers a richer experienceHow to deal with travel writer imposter syndrome — and how practice can help you break through it (and I have some personal reflections on this in the show introduction!) You can find Jeremy Bassetti at JeremyBassetti.com and on Twitter @jeremybassetti Transcript of Interview with Jeremy Bassetti Joanna: Jeremy Bassetti is a travel writer, editor, teacher, and author of historical fiction. He's the host of two podcasts, Travel Writing World and Sonus Loci: The Sound of Place. Welcome, Jeremy. Jeremy: Thank you for having me. I'm so happy to be here, Jo. Joanna: I'm excited to talk to you. Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing. Jeremy: I'm a teacher and I've been doing academic research and writing for literally half of my life since university. My plan was always to turn my attention to creative writing, to creative nonfiction when I finished grad school. I always said that like I didn't want to be a secondary source. I wanted to be a primary source. I wanted to create the type of things that I was studying. But anyway, so that's what I did around 2015. I was studying and researching about the business and craft of writing in my free time and that's when I founded a podcast. I dabbled a little bit in self-publishing. I published a book, Denounced. It's a historical fiction set in Seville and Renaissance Spain. What I'm really interested in now is travel literature because I found out during the writing process of my historical fiction, I was drawing on a lot of my personal experiences living in Spain for that book and it dawned on me that this is a type of travel writing, I read and travel writing. This is what I'm interested in, that's my home. So I found my home in travel literature. That's where I belong. That's my story in a nutshell. Joanna: We met a couple of years ago at Podcast Movement and share this love of travel and with my Books and Travel, we share our podcasts. We're both working towards our own travel memoirs, but as we speak, the pandemic goes on and on. And we're both passionate about travel. You mentioned setting a bit there, but maybe go a bit deeper on that. What do you think drives our desire to travel and how can traveling help our writing regardless of genre? Jeremy: I think travel springs from deep within us, movement and migration are part of the human experience now. It's in our DNA. We have legs, right? We walk and I think the modern travel industry plays off these instincts a little bit. Movement is a necessity, people follow food, right? They follow the herds and maybe people move for spiritual or economic necessities and reasons, but I'm not sure that that's travel. When those needs are met, I think what drives our desire to travel is adventure, or curiosity, or boredom or marketing agencies or something like that. I can speak for myself here, but what drives me and my desire to travel was a little bit of curiosity and I think a little bit of restlessness. You talk about from time to time, Jo, about refilling the creative well. And like you, I think I need routine, but I also need to break away from the familiar because I need to be inspired, and traveling exposes us to new people and places and things. And I think it's cliché to say this, but travel can be transformative and inspirational. So you asked about how can this help with writing? People say write what you know. And I think that the curious traveler knows a little bit more. Travel can expose us to new ideas, and experiences, and settings, and situations, places, and character can renew our energy to write and live. So I think it's inspirational, transformative, and it exposes us to much more. Joanna: Let's get in

We all have different strengths as writers, but sometimes we don't know what they are. Or we get frustrated because we try to succeed at something that just won't work for our personality. In this interview, Becca Syme explains how our strengths can help us and how to ‘question the premise' whenever we face different career choices and varied writing advice. In the intro, 14 Reasons Agenting is Harder Now than 20 Years Ago [Kristin Nelson]; Salman Rushdie will release his novel on SubStack [The Guardian]; Tree of Life on special; Transience and Permanence on the Pilgrim's Way [Sacred Steps] 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 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 Lessons learned from burnoutWhy we need to be aware of how we spend energyQuestioning the premiseHow knowing our individual strengths can help us as writers. Becca and her team specialize in the Clifton Strengths assessment and coaching. You can also just do the assessment at Gallup, but it's not specifically for writers. [If you're interested, my top 5 strengths are Learner, Intellection, Strategic, Input, and Futuristic.] How Becca uses video for content marketing and prefers word of mouth to ads for her business. You can find Becca Syme at BetterFasterAcademy.com and on Twitter @beck_a_tron. Check out her QuitCast on YouTube. 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. Welcome, Becca. Becca: Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here. Joanna: I'm looking forward to talking to you. Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing. Becca: I've been one of those people who wanted to write my whole life. But I actually got into writing romance specifically because I was a reader. Because I loved reading and I loved the stories and the characters. So I definitely came to writing from a love of reading and then realized just how much I actually love the process. Beginning to end, I just love the process of writing books. And so I started full time in 2012, 2013, and then just never looked back. I really love it. Joanna: Did you have a previous career? Becca: I did. What I'm doing now in terms of I write fiction and nonfiction. The nonfiction is really aligned with what I used to do. Which is a combination of strategic leadership development, consulting, or leadership in nonprofits. My background is very much in what I'm currently doing with writers, which is success alignment and strengths coaching. We use the CliftonStrengths program. I've been a certified CliftonStrengths coach for almost 16 years now. That's definitely what I loved doing before I was writing, and then I fell into doing it with writers after I became a fiction writer because there was so much need for people to understand how and why they're successful. It's not something that's innate for a lot of us and so I found that there was a big need for that, and fell into that second career after also having been a fiction writer. Joanna: I've read a number of your books. And in Dear Writer, You Need to Quit. Which, it's a very provocative title… Becca: Right. Joanna: …which I'm sure you designed on purpose! But I think it's very interesting. And, of course, you go through a number of different things that writers should think about quitting. But you talk about how you burned out. Can you talk about that experience of burnout and how you got through that process in order to change things? Becca: The way that I burned out initially, I was an executive director at a nonprofit at a very young age and I didn't understand that there was an end to energy. I didn't understand that you couldn't just keep overworking. I think a lot of us are like that. We learn about burnout from having burned out. What I realized through that experience, the initial burnout that I went through which was very devastating. I was not able to, really, even get up off the floor out of bed. It was a very, very thorough burnout. But what I learned was that there is an end to how much energy I can expend. And if I'm not cautious about how I expend energy over time, that I'm going to end up right back there. Because, of course, I burned out again in 2013. There is absolutely a learning curve to burnou

How can you design a story that branches into multiple directions? How does writing for games help with writing a novel? Ed McRae explains narrative design and the opportunities for writers in the gaming industry. In the intro, ‘the inevitable decline of open platforms' [Seth Godin]; pros and cons of different print distribution models [Adam Croft; ALLi]; Canterbury: A History of England Written in Stone. Do you need help with editing and cover design, marketing, or translations? Find a curated list of vetted professionals at the Reedsy marketplace, along with free training on writing, self-publishing, and book marketing. Check it out at: www.TheCreativePenn.com/reedsy Edwin McRae is a freelance narrative designer for the games industry. He's also a game design teacher, and writer of nonfiction for authors, including Narrative Design for Writers. 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 narrative design in video games?Why is gaming important to the entertainment industry?How writing for games differs from writing a linear bookCreating many options for story beats and character actionsWriting like a readerThe skills needed to break into different areas of writing for gamesThe increased opportunities for writers with gaming, AI, VR and AR You can find Edwin McRae at EdMcRae.com and on Twitter @edmcraewriter Transcript of Interview with Edwin McRae Joanna: Edwin McRae is a freelance narrative designer for the games industry. He's also a game design teacher, and writer of nonfiction for authors, including Narrative Design for Writers. Welcome, Edwin. Edwin: Kia ora Joanna, and tena koutou to your audience. It's really cool to be here. Joanna: You should probably just explain that. Edwin: I just said, basically, ‘Hello,' and ‘Hello everyone,' in Maori. Joanna: It's because you're in New Zealand, right? Edwin: Exactly. Joanna: Just so everybody knows. Edwin: Yeah, it's quite nice. A lot of people here we try to use Te Reo, which is Te Reo Maori, in everyday conversation as much as possible these days. So, we're all gradually becoming bilingual. Joanna: Interesting. Tell us a bit more about how you got into writing and what your job actually is like. What is narrative design? Edwin: I'll start with the second part of that question, to discuss where I've got to. Narrative design is effectively the design of story elements that then go into video games. I steer away from the general term of writing for video games, because often within the industry, the games industry, writing gets siloed into things like dialogue and flavor text. And the player-facing material that you would see in a video game. Whereas narrative design, there's a lot more behind the scenes than that, creating the story experience for a video game, which I'm happy to elaborate on more what a story experience for a video game is. I started out writing a novel, pitched that around, almost got picked up by HarperCollins at one point, but to no avail. And then shifted to doing theater for a while, and then studied screenwriting for film. And then on that course, which is at Victoria University in Wellington, I managed to get a work placement on New Zealand's soap opera, ‘Shortland Street.' I ended up as a storyliner and script writer there for four years, which taught me a lot about churning out a lot of story and the best practices for that kind of fast-paced storytelling. And then I got to the end of my tenure with writing for soap opera, I wanted to do other things. I started to hang out with some game developers in Auckland at the time, at a game developers meetup, met the guys at Grinding Gear Games who make the game ‘Path of Exile.' They Facebook messaged me one day and said, ‘Hey, do you want to try writing some dialogue for us?' And then that kind of, the rest is history. Joanna: It's so interesting. You've done lots of different types of writing, obviously. But I wonder if you would also maybe start by giving us more of an overview of the gaming industry, because I feel like there's a lot of misconceptions. I'm 46, and a lot of the gaming I know would have been the really old games that were around 20 years ago when I watched my brother play things. But gaming is such a huge industry now compared to the author industry which is also part of entertainment, we're all part of that. Why is gaming so important in the entertainment industry? Give us an overview. Edwin: It's certainly become a large industry. It has eclipsed cinema as an industry. I was looking a few things up, I think cinema is around $110 billion, games are around $150 billion as an industry internationally, which you compare that to books. Publishing still sits around over $200 billion, but of that, books I think are around the $120 billion mark. I would see games as a platform being as large as the

Writing can help us process trauma — whatever that means for you — as well as help others through our words. In this episode, David Chrisinger explains why stories can save us. In the intro, thoughts on print distribution [Jane Friedman]; Hachette's acquisition of Workman and why backlist is key [The New Publishing Standard]; Your Author Business Plan; The Magic Bakery. 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. David Chrisinger is an award-winning nonfiction author and teaches writing at the University of Chicago. His latest book is Stories Are What Save Us: A Survivor's Guide to Writing About Trauma. 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 trauma and how is it different for different people?How to write about trauma without suffering furtherIs it possible to write a factual memoir?Tips for creating space between you and the ‘character’ you are writing aboutHow do we deal with people who might be hurt by what we write? You can find David Chrisinger at DavidChrisinger.com and on Twitter @StrongerAtBP Transcript of interview with David Chrisinger Joanna: David Chrisinger is an award-winning nonfiction author and teaches writing at the University of Chicago. His latest book is Stories Are What Save Us: A Survivor's Guide to Writing About Trauma. Welcome, David. David: Thank you so much for having me. Joanna: It's great to have you on the show. Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing. David: I sometimes joke that I'm about a million miles from where I thought I was going to be when I started college because I went to college initially to be either a wildlife or a forest manager. And I even got certified to fight wildlife and forest fires. For whatever reason, I realized halfway through that, it was more of an interest or a hobby, it wasn't really a passion. And there were so many students that I was in classes with who I knew I was going to have to compete someday for a job and they were going to win. And so, I tried to think of, well, what do I think I can be the best at? What can I put everything into? I settled on art and history. So, I did 3D art and focused on modern American and European history, and wrote lots of papers, obviously, in college. And it was my sophomore year that I took a historical methods course, actually doing historical research. And that's where I think I really caught the writing bug. I started to see history as this story that people told that was based on evidence, and interviews, and dozens of other kinds of records. And it was a way of people making sense of something. And there was just something about that, that really connected with me. And so I decided I wanted to be a history professor. I graduated from college as the great recession was starting. And it turned out to be a pretty bad year to apply to graduate programs. I got in to the University of Chicago. I did my Master's degree and then had a heart-to-heart with an advisor who said I think the academic job market's not coming back and you should really think of doing something else. I had no plan B. But he suggested I start looking for jobs in the federal government, maybe in public policy. A lot of social science folks end up in that sort of route. And that's what landed me at the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which is basically the research department, the evaluation department for Congress, and wrote a lot of reports and testimonies and had to really learn how to connect with an audience, with a reader that doesn't have the same expertise or the same experience that the researchers have. And I started doing my own writing. It's been a very serendipitous journey to writing, and not something I intended to do from an early age. Joanna: I think that's fascinating. And it's interesting because you mentioned history as a story. And I guess that's also what we're talking about in terms of what survivor means, and what trauma means, and what our writing is because when we write our writing's only ever from one perspective, but as you say, we are connecting with an audience. I can see how your various interests have come together, which is fascinating. Let's get into the topic of the book because I think the word trauma, particularly at this time in history, is quite a difficult word. When people say trauma, it has very, very heavy connotations, maybe a very bad injury or experience of war. What is trauma? How can the experience of what is traumatic differ between people, especially in these times? Davi

If you write fiction in any genre, you need to build your world. Whether it's the cozy coffee shop in your romance, or a complete fantasy world, or a post-apocalyptic wasteland, world-building can strengthen your plot and bring depth and conflict to your characters. Angeline Trevena gives plenty of tips in this episode. In the intro, the inevitability of unlimited subscription [The New Publishing Standard]; Scarlett Johansson vs Disney [BBC]; Notes from a small London publisher [Publishing Perspectives]; the rise in ecommerce and opportunities for authors [Kris Writes]; my tutorial on selling direct; Continued difficulty in writing during the pandemic [@writermels on Twitter] 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. Angeline Trevena is the author of urban fantasy and dystopian fiction, as well as nonfiction for authors. She's the co-host of the Unstoppable Authors podcast and organizes events for authors. 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 Different types of world-building Ideas for how to build different worlds Creating cultures and characters that make good stories The importance in a culture for the potential for conflict Guidelines to follow when creating a magic system The three things world building needs to achieve in a book Tips on the use of maps and where to find map illustrators or learn how to DIY Mistakes to avoid when world building How to backwards engineer an apocalypse You can find Angeline Trevena at AngelineTrevena.co.uk and on Twitter @AngelineTrevena Transcript of interview with Angeline Trevena Joanna: Angeline Trevena is the author of urban fantasy and dystopian fiction, as well as nonfiction for authors. She's the co-host of the ‘Unstoppable Authors' podcast, and organizes events for authors. Welcome to the show, Angeline. Angeline: Thank you very much for having me. Joanna: I'm excited to talk to you today on the topic of world-building, which we're going to get into. Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing. Angeline: I'm one of those people who has been writing stories since they were old enough to hold a pen, really. But it was never my dream. It wasn't my childhood dream to be an author. I always wanted to act, so my whole childhood was spent doing theater and singing lessons and dance lessons. Then went to university, and I did a degree in drama and writing, and about halfway through my first year, I realized that I hugely preferred the writing side to the theater side. It was a really strange moment to do that, because my whole life to that point had been so focused on theater, so it was like setting aside my entire being, and focusing on something else. I graduated university back in 2003, so the first Kindle wouldn't even come out for a good few years yet. So, being published, being an author was sort of pipe dream territory, and I never would have ever imagined that I would end up doing it for my job, for my living. When I finished uni, I started out writing short horror stories and submitting them to anthologies that were put out by small presses, so that's where I started out. And in about 2012, 2013, it would have been, I said to my writing group that I was a member of, I said, ‘Why don't we self-publish our own anthology of short stories together?' They actually turned around and laughed at me. They actually laughed because back then, it was still quite widely thought that self-publishing was still the last desperate attempt of someone who couldn't get a publishing deal. Joanna: And also, you're in England, right? Angeline: Yes. Joanna: Which I think is definitely, much, much worse. I moved back to England in 2011. 2012 was the first year I felt like, oh, maybe things are changing, but definitely, England was well behind the U.S. and Australia in terms of acceptance of indies. Angeline: Yeah. Luckily, I didn't let it deter me. I walked away from that conversation, and it made me think, ‘Do you know what? I'll show you. I'll show you.' And so, I self-published my first book in 2015. I actually hand-coded the ebook. It was really important to me that I learn how to do everything. So I hand-coded this ebook, because there weren't all the fancy programs that you get now. Now, all these years later, I have 18 books out, and I make my living out of being an author. So I'm pretty sure I showed them. I think I proved my point. Joanna: Well, what's funny though, is you probably didn't show them with that first book! Angeline: Oh, no. Joanna: That's the truth of it and it's probably the truth of most careers, you're just like, ‘Wel

Web 2.0 enabled the digital revolution that transformed the possibilities for authors and creators, so how will Web 3.0 transform it again over the next decade? This is a special futurist in-betweenisode on what many are calling Web 3.0 which encompasses virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), the metaverse, and the spatial web. It’s intended to give you an awareness of what’s coming as opposed to specific advice on what to do about it since this really is an emerging area.  Thanks to my patrons whose support enables me to do these special extra episodes. If you find this useful, please consider supporting the show at patreon.com/thecreativepenn or BuyMeACoffee.com/thecreativepenn  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 Definitions of AR, VR, Web 3.0, the metaverse, and the spatial webVirtual worlds and augmented reality for authors and publishing — Chapter 5 from Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and Virtual Worlds: The Impact of Converging Technologies on Authors and the Publishing IndustryDevelopments since December 2020 — and the potential opportunities for authors and publishing in the next few yearsWhat you can do now to prepare Recommended books and resources You can find more of my future of publishing episodes here. Definitions of AR, VR, Web 3.0, the metaverse, and the spatial web AR (Augmented Reality) — AR layers digital over physical reality and this is already available in limited ways through your phone. For example, you might have played with filters on social media changing the color of your hair, or adding ears or other features.  AR hair and makeup filters will make it SOOOOOO much easier to do video! IKEA has an app that will place furniture in your house. Just choose the furniture, hold up your phone and you can see it in your living room.  There is a 3D option within Google Maps where it will layer directions over the real world, pointing you in the right direction.  Google Maps 3D overlays directions on top of the real world You can also use Google real-time translation. Open the Google app and use Google Lens. Choose the Translate option and hold the camera over some text in another language. Here’s one of my ebooks in French which you can see translated in real-time. translation in google lens. the formatting isn't great but the meaning is clear AR applications can be accessed through mobile devices with cameras and also wearables like glasses or even contact lenses in coming years. This is already being used at the enterprise level with devices like Microsoft Hololens in manufacturing, healthcare and education. VR (Virtual Reality) — VR is about immersing yourself in a fully virtual world. The real world disappears. Think Ready Player One, which is a great movie even if you haven’t read the book. This is the experience economy where gaming and entertainment are taken to a new level, but it’s also a virtual space for commerce, networking, training, travel, and more. VR is currently accessed through headsets like Facebook’s Oculus, HTC Vive,  You might also hear terms like mixed reality or extended reality, where the lines between AR and VR are blended.  The Metaverse Neal Stephenson first came up with this term in his 1992 novel, Snow Crash, and it encompasses both physical and digital worlds. It won’t be a single place run by one specific company. It’s more like ‘the internet,’ a term that encompasses so much. It will be accessed and experienced through AR and VR devices, rather than just 2D screens. Venture capitalist Matthew Ball describes the metaverse not as a virtual world or a space, but as “a sort of successor state to the mobile internet” — a framework for an extremely connected life. There “will be no clean ‘Before Metaverse’ and ‘After Metaverse.' Instead, it will slowly emerge over time as different products, services and capabilities integrate and meld together.” Web 3.0 Web 1.0 (around 1991 – 2005) consisted of mainly static websites on desktops and laptops. It was expensive to create a site and so only big companies had them and they were mainly for pushing information or as replacing things like the Yellow Pages for finding things.  Web 2.0 is social and mobile and characterised by an explosion of digital creation though blogging, podcasting, social media, video, comments, digital publishing and digital commerce. The cost of creation basically went to zero and everyone with a mobile device and/or access to the internet could have an online presence. Facebook launched in 2004 and Twitter in 2006. The iPhone and the Kindle were both launched in 2007, which is when web 2.0 really took off.  Web 3.0 is the next stage and we are in the early stages now, kind of like the years 2004-2006 when early adopters began blogging, way before it went mainstream. Web 3.0 is about exponential con

Taking the long-term view plus taking advantage of new marketing tactics can help you sell more books, as Karen Inglis talks about in this interview. In the intro, Pearson launches a subscription app [The Bookseller]; A+ content could help you sell more books [The Hotsheet]; Takeaways from Podcast Movement 2021 around the audio eco-system and Facebook for Podcasts. Plus, new free video series on book marketing from Nick Stephenson, and Ask an Adventurer by Alastair Humphreys. Today's show is sponsored by IngramSpark, which 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. Karen Inglis is the best-selling author of books for children, including The Secret Lake, Eeek! The Runaway Alien and The Tell-Me Tree. Her book for authors, How to Self-Publish and Market a Children's Book has recently been released as a second edition. 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 Writing children's books across different age groupsSales split between print and ebookQuality of picture books from POD suppliers and when it's worth doing a print runSelling local. Schools, bookstores, and librariesHow marketing children’s books has changedWhy experimenting with ads is keyLicensing foreign rightsThe long-term view of success You can find Karen Inglis at SelfPublishingAdventures.com and on Twitter @kareninglis Transcript of Interview with Karen Inglis Joanna: Karen Inglis is the best-selling author of books for children, including The Secret Lake, Eeek! The Runaway Alien and The Tell-Me Tree. Her book for authors, How to Self-Publish and Market a Children's Book has recently been released as a second edition. Welcome back to the show, Karen. Karen: Oh, thank you for having me again, Joanna. It's lovely to be here. Joanna: Now, you were last on the show in 2018. And since then, of course, you've written more books. Give us an overview as to what books you have now and also what age groups because I know that's always important for the children's market. Karen: In terms of new books beyond those I have already, of course, I've got my picture books, the original ones, Ferdinand Fox picture books. But I now have two new picture books since we last spoke. I have The Christmas Tree Wish, which is for ages three to six, three to five, and The Tell-Me Tree. The Christmas Tree Wish came out in 2019, so probably a year or so after we spoke. And then The Tell-Me Tree came out last summer. Beyond that, I have brought out German versions of The Secret Lake, French and German versions of The Christmas Tree Wish and The Tell-Me Tree. And then, of course, my big nonfiction book. And then beyond that, of course, I've still got my chapter book, Eeek! The Runaway Alien for ages 7 to 10. I've got Henry Haynes and The Great Escape for ages six to eight, and The Secret Lake and Walter Brown. This is of ages 8 to 11. Joanna: It's a really interesting spread. Karen: I know. I can say it's by accident rather than design. Joanna: It's good you're taking them through from 3 till 11. There are lots of options as the kids grow. Karen: Exactly. And I always say that just comes because my stories come to me rather than me deciding I'm going to write a book for a certain age. It's always something I hear or see that then triggers the book. The Christmas Tree Wish, the one that came out the year after you last interviewed me, the idea, I'd seen a tree on valance green several years earlier and I knew I wanted to write a story about it, but I was waiting. And then suddenly I overheard a conversation that suddenly made me realize what the story would be. And likewise with The Tell-Me Tree a very similar story. So, I never know what's coming next. Joanna: What has changed for children's authors in terms of publishing options since the last edition of your nonfiction book? So, for example, is digital any bigger or is still print as dominant? And anything on audio as well because I think that might be something that might have changed. Karen: I would say that in terms of publishing options, and what sells, print is still dominant. It still makes up 95% of my sales and of most middle-grade authors I know, but there's one or two exceptions. And there was a slight increase in digital during the pandemic particularly the early part. I certainly saw that, and again, other authors I know saw that, but it has dropped back again to the usual split, for the most part. I'd say the only exception to that might be if somebody is writing for sort of somewhere that's middle grade, but slightly touching on young adult. So, maybe you might sell a little bit more digitally then. Audio uptake, I think, it's the same for children's books as it is across the board. It is on the i

What has changed in publishing over the last decade? How can a reputable author services company help you achieve your publishing goals? In this interview with John Bond from White Fox, we discuss aspects of the publishing journey. If you are considering working with an author services company or publishing partner, check whether they are a Partner Member of the Alliance of Independent Authors and whether the ALLi Watchdog service rates them well. You can also check for scams and bad companies at Writer Beware. John Bond is the CEO of White Fox, a premium publishing and book marketing partner for industry leaders, writers, and brands based in the UK and U.S. 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’s changed in the decade since John started White Fox How the pandemic has accelerated changes in publishing How attitudes toward independent creatives have changed in the last decade Crowdfunding for special limited edition book projects How to find a quality publishing partner and avoid getting scammed You can find John Bond at wearewhitefox.com — or if you want to support the podcast, please use TheCreativePenn.com/whitefox or tell him I sent you! You can also find him on Twitter @wearewhitefox Transcript of interview with John Bond Joanna Penn: John Bond is the CEO of whitefox, a premium publishing and book marketing partner for industry leaders, writers, and brands based in the UK and U.S. Welcome, John. John Bond: Hello, Joanna, how are you? Joanna Penn: I'm excited to talk to you today. So let's start. Tell us a bit more about you and your publishing journey. John Bond: I started, I guess in a bookshop. That was the beginning, a bookshop in North London. I ended up applying for and getting a job as you did in those days as a marketing manager at Penguin, as it was then, now Penguin Random House, in the early 1990s. I had three interviews for that job. The last one of which was two questions. What are you reading? And do you play golf? So I think that probably says more about that period of publishing. Joanna Penn: Publishing history, indeed! John Bond: I ended up being marketing director there and then I went to HarperCollins in the UK and ran sales and marketing there. I ended up running their literary fiction and non-fiction division, including Fourth Estate. I left HarperCollins in the UK in 2011 and set up White Fox early in 2012 with one of my colleagues from HarperCollins, Annabel Wright. We started working in a cafe in East London with two laptops and trying to organize a diaspora of freelancers around the world. That was the beginning. Joanna Penn: Obviously, a lot has changed since 2012. That actually seems pretty prescient when you started because it really was the beginning of a lot of technological changes that enabled digital publishing. What are the major changes that you've seen in the industry since you started almost a decade ago? And what might've accelerated in the last 18 months due to the pandemic? John Bond: I think that's exactly right. I think everything that was changing has just sped up in the last 18 months. We definitely, started really primarily providing project management services for traditional publishers. What's happened is we've gradually developed much more of a business working with individuals and companies and brands who want to do their own thing. They want to have more creative control over their publishing. They want to make something happen in 3 to 6 months rather than a year to 18 months. All those things have really accelerated during the pandemic; the migration to online sales versus bricks and mortar retailers, people really wanting to understand what moves the dial on marketing that they can do themselves. And the pandemic we found, at a time when so much was out of people's control in terms of their life, writing something, publishing something, starting something, finishing something, finding readers was something that people could do. And we could work remotely with those people. We weren't in an office, we were all in our homes. And seeing people developing their writing and their businesses around their writing was amazing and inspiring, actually. Joanna Penn: You mentioned the diaspora of freelancers and I wondered, you mentioned Penguin before PRH, you mentioned HarperCollins, obviously, there's the Simon & Schuster acquisition which is happening. Have you seen a lot more freelancers coming out of traditional publishing and moving into servicing the independent community? John Bond: Yes. And I think that's also happened in the last 18 months. People who have decided that they quite like their lifestyle, a portfolio lifestyle at home working with people like us who can represent a pipeline of work, but that work actually ends up being quite varied. I think for many people, it's more interesting. And I think there's

How can you rediscover your creative free spirit if you're feeling burned out? How can you combine creativity, spirituality and money to experience more in your author life? Peleg Top talks about these things and more in today's interview. In the intro, adding A+ content to your Amazon book pages; Audible launches Premium Plus in the UK [The Bookseller]; and Audiblegate goes on. Shopify introduces NFTs [TechCrunch], Jeanette Winterson's 12 Bytes; and A Mid-Life Journey through US National Parks. 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 www.draft2digital.com/penn Peleg Top is an artist and a coach, living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He serves the accomplished creative community with workshops and retreats, as well as his transformational course, 100 Days of Creative High Growth. 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 Pivoting to a new type of creative work after burnoutSearching for our creative free spiritThe importance of expanding, moving forward, and taking risksFacing fear when making a big changeAdvice for those creatives who feel stagnantThe importance of creating just for the joy of itBringing creativity to the flow of money You can find Peleg Top at PelegTop.com and on Twitter @pelegtop Transcript of interview with Peleg Top Joanna: Peleg Top is an artist and a coach, living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He serves the accomplished creative community with workshops and retreats, as well as his transformational course, ‘100 Days of Creative High Growth.' Welcome to the show, Peleg. Peleg: Thank you. Good to be here. Joanna: I'm so excited to talk to you, and several of my close creative friends are your clients, and so I'm very excited about today. Peleg: Me too. Thanks for having me. Joanna: We're going back in time a bit. You had this incredibly successful career building one of LA's leading creative agencies, and you served clients in the music and entertainment industry; pretty sexy stuff, to be honest. What made you pivot from what many would consider the height of creative business success? Peleg: It's an interesting story because it wasn't anything that actually made me pivot, but it was really an organic process that came about. I was a creative professional from, gosh, right out of high school, and I became an in-house designer, and then a freelancer, and then opened my own agency, and did that for 20 years. In the beginning, it was just amazing, because design was such a passion of mine, and I loved doing the work. I was one of those odd creatives that had a passion for the business side and the marketing side as well. To me, that was a big part of the creative process as well, so it helped grow the business, to the point of becoming really successful. But somewhere along the line, after about 15 or so years of working as a creative, I started getting burnt out. I started feeling like it's the same thing over and over again. And I didn't really feel as challenged anymore. Over time, I started caring less about the work. And I found myself in this place that, now, looking back, it was a bit of a spiritual crisis, because my whole identity was so wrapped up around being a designer and running an agency that, when that all of a sudden didn't satisfy me, satisfy my soul, my reason for waking up in the morning, I felt lost. The pivot really began when I started noticing that this isn't working for me anymore. I'm not really excited about this work anymore. And it became a process of shifting into something new. But it wasn't something that was so clear in the beginning as far as what I wanted to do. So, to answer your question, the pivot was a process that started with a lot of fear and anxiety, and lack of clarity, but became more of a new path to walk on after I took the time to actually do the inner work that I needed to do to get back in touch with something inside of me that I'm excited about. Joanna: That resonates with me a lot. And I think a lot of writers are burned out from doing the same thing over and over again. We see this in the writing community, with this need to create ever more product, books, and what might start out as the book of your heart or the thing you really want to write, and then once you've written that, or once, as you did, you've created that design, and then it becomes more like work. And work is great. We love work. You mentioned the process of discovery and not really knowing where to go. How did you find where to go? I feel like a lot of people would love to pivot, but the process of doing that, does it take years? I know you enrolled in chef school. You did some practical things. Does it take all this deeper, meaningful work in order to pivot? Peleg: That was part of the journ

How do you know when the seed of an idea is enough for a novel? What makes literary fiction different from other genres? Roz Morris shares her writing process from idea to the publication of Ever Rest. In the intro, my experience of COVID, my interview on Story of a Storyteller, and A Mouthful of Air poetry podcast. 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. Roz Morris is a best-selling author as a ghost writer 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 writing literary fiction and Roz's latest novel, Ever Rest. 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 difference between literary fiction and genre fictionHow to know when an idea is right for exploring in literary fictionHow Roz incorporates music into her writing processResearch and preparation before the writing beginsRevising a book the way music is mixedGiving a novel space to breathe while it is evolvingHow do you design a book cover that doesn’t fit into a genre? You can find Roz Morris at RozMorris.org and on Twitter @Roz_Morris Transcription of interview with Roz Morris Joanna: Roz Morris is a best-selling author as a ghost writer 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 writing literary fiction and Roz's latest novel, Ever Rest. Welcome back to the show, Roz. Roz: Hi, Jo. It's great to be back again. I love these shows. Joanna: We've literally been doing these on and off for over a decade now. You're one of the regulars on the show. I'm excited to talk about this. So, as I said, you've been on the show a lot. People can go back and listen to your history, so we're just going to dive into the topic. I wanted to start with a definition. What is literary fiction as compared to genre fiction? And why is it such an emotional question? Roz: Usually literary fiction is bigger than just the story and the characters. There's usually a sense of universality. The writing is often more nuanced than…maybe sometimes poetic than genre fiction, if we're comparing with the genre fiction. And if we are comparing it with genre fiction, it might not conform to genre tropes. So if you've got a murder in your book, for instance, in certain kinds of genres it's very clear what must happen about that murder. In a cozy mystery, it's got to go a certain way. It's all got to be solved and it's got to be put right. In something much darker, it might end with a much darker, more uncertain note. But usually, it would be very clear for each genre what has to happen about that murder. In literary fiction, almost anything goes. The murder might not be solved at all. And solving murder won't necessarily be the point. It will be something else. So literary fiction doesn't really conform to many genre tropes. However, this is where it gets quite fuzzy, genre novels might have certain literary qualities. And I think it has a continuum. Each writer might be very genre or very literary or somewhere along the whole rainbow that goes through the middle. I suppose you could say literary tends to be bigger, deeper, perhaps more mining for individual truths, more enigmatic than just being about the plot and the characters. And it's an emotional question, as you say, and I think that's because there are all sorts of issues that people might have with literary fiction or non-literary fiction. There's a sense of superiority sometimes one over the other that literature is worthwhile and other kinds of books are ‘entertainment.' You can hear the air quotes in my voice there. And indeed, you have to think about what entertainment is. These ideas changed drastically over the years anyway. In certain academic circles, Charles Dickens was not taught as literature because he was an entertainer. So tastes change all the time. It really depends what you like.. Another example is that, again, if you talk to literary people about plot, they think that's an absolutely filthy word. And, in fact, some very literary writing courses, I was talking to somebody I'm helping with her novel. She said she's never taught about structure and pace, and she's been on numerous writing courses. There is just very different values, I think, between certain factions of the writing world. But really, as f

Can book marketing really be gentle, sustainable — and even enjoyable? Sarah Santacroce talks about how to reframe marketing and gives ideas for marketing your books. In the intro, Kindle Vella launches in the US [The Next Web]; A UK report calls for a reset in music streaming revenues to ensure fairer pay for artists [BBC] and how it relates to authors and publishing [The Bookseller]; are you in a mid-year pandemic slump? and a wet adventure walk [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.  Sarah Santacroce is the author of The Gentle Marketing Revolution: A Radical Business Approach to Getting New Clients with Integrity and Kindness. She's also a business coach, podcaster, LinkedIn specialist, and the founder of The Gentle Business Revolution. 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 breakdown led to a breakthrough What does ‘gentle’ mean when it comes to marketing? Why client avatars are overrated Building a brand around yourself so that when you pivot you can take your audience with you Making a book launch about the message, not about you, the author Lessons learned from a Kickstarter book launch Pitching podcasters You can find Sarah Santacroce at SarahSantacroce.com and on Twitter @sarahsantacroce Transcript of interview with Sarah Santacroce Joanna: Sarah Santacroce is the author of The Gentle Marketing Revolution: A Radical Business Approach to Getting New Clients with Integrity and Kindness. She's also a business coach, podcaster, LinkedIn specialist, and the founder of The Gentle Business Revolution. Welcome, Sarah. Sarah: Hi, Joanna. Thanks so much for having me. This is fun. Joanna: Tell us a bit more about you and your background in business and writing, and also where you are in the world as I think people would find that interesting. Sarah: Off recording, we said we're both Europeans, but I guess that's not so completely true for both of us because I'm in Switzerland and we're not part of the European Union and England is a whole other story! I born and raised in Switzerland. That's where I am based now. Still, we did a little exchange in California between 2006 and 2010, and that's where I started my business. I first got into social media in general, and then we came back to Switzerland in 2010, that was still the ice age regarding social media in Switzerland. People were maybe on Facebook, but just about started. So when I came and thought, oh, I'm going to help businesses with their social media strategy, I quickly realized never mind strategy, they don't even understand what social media is. And so I had to pivot into training and then focus mainly on LinkedIn, and that's what I've done the last 10 or so years. I created an online LinkedIn consulting business. A bit more than two years ago, I had this breakdown that led to a breakthrough, how they often go, and really started realizing I can't do this anymore, this whole online marketing thing. Something is just wrong and nobody's addressing it. Am I the only one feeling that way? That's where The Gentle Business Revolution was born and then led me to write this book about gentle marketing. Joanna: Can we explore that a bit more? You mentioned the word breakdown, you said everything felt wrong. I know many authors don't like marketing, but there's also a lot of hype-y marketing in the author space. Tell us a bit more about that process of feeling because I know authors feel it too. How did you know things were wrong or you were feeling it was wrong? Sarah: Through my work, mainly with clients in the LinkedIn space, but they were all online entrepreneurs. I heard it over and over again, this phrase, ‘I hate marketing. I love what I do.' A lot of my clients are in the service-oriented business, so they love coaching. They love creating transformations but marketing their business, they hated that. I think for a lot of authors, that's kind of similar. It's like, yeah, we loved writing our book, but now we have to market it and market it the way the gurus tell us, oh my God, that's just another story! I really felt an ever-growing anxiety when it came to marketing and I started realizing that the anxiety is two-fold. On one hand, there is anxiety from us, the entrepreneurs who are told to market in a certain way, because when you go online there's millions and millions of things that tell you how you should be marketing. So that creates anxieties for entrepreneurs, but there's also anxiety on the receiving end. When I used to open my email inbox and there was all these headlines, like, you know, ‘Have you created your seven-figure business yet? If not, what are you

How can co-creating with AI tools enhance your writing process — and make it more fun? Shane Neeley talks about his AI-augmented writing and visual art creations. This futurist show is sponsored by my Patrons at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn. If you find it useful and you don't want to support every month, you could Buy Me A Coffee (as I drink a lot of it!). Shane Neeley is a data scientist and software engineer. He's also the author of AI Art – Poetry and Stone Age Code: From Monkey Business to AI. 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 Shane's background in bioengineering and programmingHow co-creating with AI is fun and brings a different spark to creativityThe co-creation process with AI writing and image toolsTips for prompt engineering and how to change your mindset around AIWhy it's important to make art with technologyAI-augmented creativity and how we can work with AI tools You can find Shane Neeley at ShaneNeeley.com and on Twitter @chimpsarehungry Transcript of Interview with Shane Neeley Joanna: Shane Neeley is a data scientist and software engineer. He's also the author of AI Art – Poetry and Stone Age Code: From Monkey Business to AI. Welcome, Shane. Shane: Hey, Joanna. So happy to be here. Joanna: I'm excited to talk to you. So, first up, tell us a bit about how you went from lab scientist to programmer and then author. How does your biological background help you to understand AI? Shane: I worked in laboratories after my undergrad for several years, as one does, looking for stem cells in monkey knee cartilage, engineering new viruses to inject into monkeys, various radioactive things and inhaling formaldehyde, and all of that. I eventually thought, ‘Yuck. I don't want to do this anymore.' I joined a lab that had a lot of data, because they were doing genetic sequencing, and the boss was using an old programming language from the '90s in some scripts, and I was able to upgrade some of his scripts into some more modern Python programs. He was super happy with that, so he had me, instead of doing all the monkey procedures and virus work, he had me sit down and program, and help the lab out with that. So that's how I got started and found out being a coder was a much more preferable job for me. And I've been doing AI writing in the last year, and it's been amazing. It's been, for an engineer biologist like myself, during the pandemic, pretty much exactly when it started was when I had some extra time to become more creative. But I wanted to use the angle of my skills as a programmer in order to do that. And in my day job right now, I'm at a cancer research search engine. We rank the various documents for clinical trials and publications on cancer treatments. And so we have millions of documents of language. We built a search engine so that we could rank the most relevant ones for a patient, the most quality ones at the top of a search, obviously, like Google. You want the best things to come up first. I'm in charge of AI and machine learning at that company. I spent a lot of time in natural language processing (NLP), and a couple years ago, going to conferences and finding out about transformers. And specifically, we use a lot of the BERT model for language understanding, which I want to get back to with AI writing. When I had some extra time on my hands, I was able to use some of these same platforms I use to do the language generation part. And there was a total spark when I started generating language that from a robot that I thought was hilarious. That became my first two books that I wrote and published this year. A lot, thanks to people like yourself in the self-publishing community as well, that showed me how it's possible to, even with a day job, to manage all of these things, and write books and get books out and distributed across the world. So using my skills, and then learning from the self-publishing community, I did some AI writing. Joanna: That's fantastic. You mentioned a few things there, which were awesome. You said you were looking to be more creative, and you used the word ‘spark,' and also the word ‘hilarious,' when it comes to writing with what we're calling robots, but this is all software, right? We're not having the classic big robot with, holding a pen. We're talking about software. I feel like this is something I want to emphasize, is that this is fun. I'm now using this tool, Sudowrite, and I'm just giggling away at what it comes up with. And seriously, in the last decade of writing, I have not been giggling as a writer. Now I spend a lot of time laughing. [Check out the interview on Sudowrite here.] Can you talk about the fun side, the spark, and how you use AI to help you write the book? Shane: I'm glad you're having that experience too. Because, yes, as soon as I turned it on and got a GPT-2 model outputting, some of

What are the key elements of a good crime novel? How can you reboot your author career through publishing and marketing changes? Ed James shares insights on his writing craft and author business. In the intro, Jeff Bezos steps down as CEO of Amazon [The Verge]; Why this is the best time to be in publishing [The Hotsheet]; Why enterprise publishing is on the rise [Mike Shatzkin]; plus I'm on the Intermittent Fasting Stories Podcast. 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. Ed James is a Scottish crime author with over 20 crime and thriller novels spanning five different series set across Edinburgh, Dundee, London and the Pacific Northwest of the U.S.A. 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 differences between crime audiences in the US vs UKThe essential elements of a crime novelHow Ed’s engineering background influences his writing and plottingWhere ideas come from and how to keep things original while adhering to genre tropesCuriosity as a muscleDifferent publishing choices for different books at different timesThe importance of book covers for book marketing You can find Ed James at EdJames.co.uk and on Twitter @EdJamesAuthor Transcript of interview with Ed James Joanna Penn: Ed James is a Scottish crime author with over 20 crime and thriller novels spanning five different series set across Edinburgh, Dundee, London and the Pacific Northwest of the U.S.A. Welcome, Ed. Ed James: Hi, Joanna. It's good to catch up again after so long. Joanna Penn: Indeed, and we see each other in person occasionally at events. Tell us a bit more about you, and how you got into writing. Ed James: My path to writing was because I was looking for a creative outlet as I was growing up, and it used to be music, and I was in bands and so on and so forth, and then that all died a bit in about 2005, 2006 time. I was very angry about music, and how much time I'd spent on it and a lot of other things, so I just started channeling my energies into writing. And over that next four years, it was a case of writing what people call practice novels, I suppose, over various genres, sending them off to agents, getting absolutely nothing other than maybe a few little leaflets back, saying yeah, no, thanks for sending, it's not for us kind of thing. And then I think about 2010 I finished the first Scott Cullen book, and actually had some interest from agents there. And that was quite exciting, because everyone I knew who'd been involved in writing had never even got that far, so it was like three months you wait when you send off the full manuscript, and then another not quite a form rejection, but just saying, yeah, it's not for us. That was a bit dispiriting, and I gave up writing about that point, for about a year and a half. My day job got a bit hectic as well, and then I remember reading lots of stuff late 2011, about how the Kindle was taking off, and I thought, right, I've got that book, I think it's probably got a lot of potential, so I'll finish it, publish it and see how it goes. And that took me a bit longer than expected because it needed a lot of work, so maybe the agents weren't so daft. Then my dad did the copyediting and proofing for it, and I got it up in the middle of April 2012. And it took me quite a while to get any sales to come in, and that was, like, I think you talk about the flip of being an author to being the publisher, and it's understanding that side of it. I knew absolutely nothing, no understanding of what publishers even did around editing or marketing, all that kind of stuff. And actually, just having to get a handle on marketing, and then start to sell books, that was in those days you got a lot of stuff free from Amazon, I think it's fair to say. They used to present your books to people, and that was always quite nice. And once you got enough traffic on, you'd get quite a lot of traction off that. Joanna Penn: So that takes you up to sort of 2012, 2013. What happened with your day job? Ed James: Around that time, I think I published five books in about a year, maybe… a year and a half, and it started creeping up to being quite a good monthly income. And at that point I was working in London, and I was actually traveling from my home near Edinburgh every week on a 6:30 flight down to London in the morning, and then back up on Thursday night and working from home on Friday. I was basically either working or writing when I was down there, occasionally seeing friends. I started to get quite a bit of money coming in from having a decent start to a series, so four books in that, and a vampire thriller that didn't exactly set the world aflame. I had back pai

Your personal story can change other people's lives, but only if you get your words into the world. In this episode, Gin Stephens shares how she self-published her first book on intermittent fasting and went on to get a traditional deal for more books, and lead a community of people into a healthier way of life. [For more on my IF journey, listen to Intermittent Fasting Stories episode 155.] In the intro, Jane Friedman on SPS; my 2021 book sales revenue breakdown; my Author Timeline; Clifton Strengths Assessment. Plus, I recommend Undisruptable: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention. 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 www.draft2digital.com/penn Gin Stephens is the New York Times bestselling author of Fast. Feast. Repeat., Delay, Don't Deny, and Feast Without Fear. She's also a podcaster with three shows, including Intermittent Fasting Stories, which is one of my favorites. 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 Getting over fear of judgment when writing a personal storyWriting with the aim to teach and help othersThe pros and cons of self-publishing vs. traditional publishingHow podcasting sells booksDon't depend on one platform! The importance of owning the tools you use to reach your community and followers. Why Gin gave up Facebook. You can find Gin Stephens at GinStephens.com and at The DDD Social Network and on Twitter @gin_stephens Transcript of Interview with Gin Stephens Joanna: Gin Stephens is the New York Times bestselling author of Fast. Feast. Repeat., Delay, Don't Deny, and Feast Without Fear. She's also a podcaster with three shows, including Intermittent Fasting Stories, which is one of my favorites. Welcome to the show, Gin. Gin: Thank you for having me. And I'm so glad that's one of your favorites. Joanna: Oh, it is. Gin: I love doing it. Joanna: I love to hear all the stories about everyone's different pathway, but today we're talking about you. Gin: Yay. It's odd to be on this side of the microphone, right? Joanna: Oh, absolutely. I want to start with why did you decide to write a book in the first place and how did you actually get through to the end? Because so many people say, ‘Oh, I'm going to write a book,' and never actually finish it. How did you do that and why did you decide to do it? Gin: That's a very interesting question. I actually have had ideas for books as far back as I can remember. I wrote as a child. I think every writer probably has stories like that. But getting published is so tricky, especially now it's even harder than ever, because just because you have something good to say doesn't mean that a publishing house is going to take a chance on you. Because unless you have a big audience, a big following, they're like, ‘Sorry, I'm not interested.' So, really, all that has changed with the advent of self-publishing and the ability for anyone just to get their message out there. But I didn't really know what would happen with self-publishing. I had a couple of Facebook groups that were really small, although they didn't feel small to me back at the time, it was 2016, and I was supporting people who were doing intermittent fasting. Actually, at that time, before I wrote the book, I only had one Facebook group and we were probably right around 3000 members when I started writing Delay, Don't Deny, my first book and the one that I self-published first. It all started because people would join the group and they would be like, ‘How do I get started?' Or my friends, people that I knew. I lost 80 pounds with intermittent fasting and have kept it off since 2015, and so people wanted to know what to do, what did I do. And there weren't any books that I could send them to. Dr. Jason Fung had just released The Obesity Code in 2016, but he didn't really say, ‘Here's what you do.' It wasn't a plan for how to get started. At the end, he had a little bit of alternate daily fasting with a 36-hour fast, but I was like, not everybody wants to do 36-hour fast. I prefer a daily eating window approach where I eat every day. I like to eat every day. And there were several books that were good, but they missed some of the important information like fast and clean, which is something I realized over time was so very important. So I would tell people, ‘Well, you can read this book over here, but ignore what he says about drinking diet soda. Don't do that. And let me tell you why.' I really need a book that I can send people to, so I'm going to write it myself. And maybe nobody will buy it, but I'm just going to put it up on Amazon. That was back in the days of CreateSpace when, if you wanted to publish on Amazon, you did CreateSpace for the paperback, and then you did KDP, Kindle Di

How can you write funny characters and make readers laugh with your writing? Plus the importance of long-term thinking and multiple streams of income when it comes to a career in comedy (or any creative field!). Scott Dikkers talks about these things and more in this episode. In the intro, Draft2Digital announces distribution to library service BorrowBox; a thought experiment on the US Bills to break up Big Tech [Sway Podcast; Politico; Kris Rusch]; Can you really make passive income as an author? [6 Figure Authors]; List of money books; Wanderland on Books and Travel. 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. Scott Dikkers is the number one New York Times bestselling author of non-fiction books, including How to Write Funny, How to Write Funny Characters, and Outrageous Marketing, as well as other non-fiction, fiction, and satire. He co-founded The Onion satirical news site, and he's a podcaster, screenwriter, cartoonist, voice actor, speaker, and teacher of comedy 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 Experiencing failure on the way to success — and the contract that cost Scott a lot of money! Why is writing humor difficult? What authors get wrong when trying to write humor The importance of feedback Different approaches to humor and ways to make something funny Is humor country or culture-specific? Examples of funny character archetypes Long term mindset and multiple streams of income You can find Scott Dikkers at HowToWriteFunny.com and on Twitter @ScottDikkers Transcript of interview with Scott Dikkers Joanna: Scott Dikkers is the number one New York Times bestselling author of non-fiction books, including How to Write Funny, How to Write Funny Characters, and Outrageous Marketing, as well as other non-fiction, fiction, and satire. He co-founded ‘The Onion' satirical news site, and he's a podcaster, screenwriter, cartoonist, voice actor, speaker, and teacher of comedy writing. Welcome, Scott. Scott: It's so nice to be here, Joanna. How can I possibly fit all those things into my life routine? Wonder how I got here. Joanna: That might be one of my questions! But let's start. Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into all of this and your creative journey. Scott: It started very young, before I could read or write. I think I figured out that being funny was a way to get love and attention. And so, I started doing things. I started acting funny and drawing things that were funny and showing them to my grandma, and she loved it. I got that thing that comedians always talk about where they first performed on stage and got a laugh and they heard it and they were like, ‘That felt amazing. I know what I need to do with my life.' That happened to me when I was, like, three or four. So, what you do then is you keep doing it, because it's now your strategy for living. I made little skits on tape recorders, and I made little plays, and I wrote little books. I stapled together pieces of paper and wrote funny stories, and any kind of entertainment, comedy, anything I could possibly think of. Did that throughout my early life in school. I was the class clown and all that. And then by the time I'm getting out of high school, I know I need to do this for a career somehow. I just had no idea how to do that. My family didn't really have any connections. They didn't have any money. We lived in the middle of nowhere. There was no internet, so you couldn't look up how to do this stuff. And so that's where it all started. But by that time, if you believe that Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hours thing, I was an expert. But I will say, my comedy was still terrible at that time. I was not funny at 18 or whatever, and it took a lot more practice to get good at it. Joanna: How did you go from being an amateur to co-founding ‘The Onion'? I think a lot of people would have heard of ‘The Onion' and then obviously you do all these other things. Did you ever have a normal job, or did you create this different thing? Scott: No, I had some normal jobs. I worked at McDonald's fresh out of high school and I did a lot of temp work and I worked at a radio station, and my focus was always on the comedy. Every spare moment, I was making comedy movies, writing comedy books, drawing comic strips, doing voice acting. But I always had these easy fallback jobs, minimum wage, whatever. The first thing I got into was voice acting. I just sent a demo tape because I had done all these skits on cassette tape as a kid, and had gotten pretty good at it, and put together a demo tape, sent it to a local studio in

What if you could use an AI writing tool to help you come up with ideas for sensory detail, character descriptions, story twists, and more? Amit Gupta explains how authors can use Sudowrite in this episode. In the intro, I explain how I'm using Sudowrite, plus AI for Authors: Practical and Ethical Guidelines from the Alliance of Independent Authors; Wu Dao, 10x bigger than GPT-3 [Towards Data Science]; Open source model by EleutherAI; The Computers are Getting Better At Writing [The New Yorker]. You can find other AI episodes here, and a list of AI writing tools here. This episode is supported by my wonderful patrons at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn. Thank you! Amit Gupta is a science fiction writer and entrepreneur. He's the creator of Sudowrite, an AI creative writing tool. You can watch a demo of Sudowrite here on YouTube. 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 GPT-3 is a significant step forward in tools for writersFeatures of Sudowrite including the character generator, Describe function, Twists, Expand, Wormhole, and moreTips for how to use Sudowrite to help your writingAvoiding copyright and plagiarism issuesWhat the future might hold for writing with AI You can find Amit Gupta at sudowrite.com and on Twitter @superamit Transcript of interview wth Amit Gupta Joanna: Amit Gupta is a science fiction writer and entrepreneur. He's the creator of Sudowrite, an AI creative writing tool. Welcome, Amit. Amit: Thanks, Joanna. I'm glad to be here. Joanna: I'm so excited to talk to you. Before we get into the more technical stuff, tell us a bit more about you and your background in writing and technology and how it led you to creating Sudowrite. Amit: I have been involved in technology most of my life. Years ago, I started a company called Photojojo that was all about helping photographers be more creative and have more playful fun with their work. I sold that company several years ago. At that point, I decided to make more time for writing science fiction, because it was something I'd always been interested in. In particular, I'm really keen to explore ways technology can improve our lives to push back against the dystopia that's become so common in science fiction these days. So when I was starting, that is when I met my co-founder, James, he had also been in tech, and we both independently left that world behind. And we both ended up reading science fiction, which is fun to find someone else who's like, on the same journey. We ended up forming a writing group with a few friends. [Sudowriters] We were all getting started around the same time, dealing with the same issues like imposter syndrome and how do we do this? How do we learn how to do this from the ground up? And slowly, but surely, we started getting better, started getting published in different places, and nominated for awards and all this stuff. And then last year, when the pandemic hit, like so many people, we were looking for ways to both connect with others, and also to write our ways out of the confusing mess the world was in. It was around that time that a few of us started hosting this thing called Short Story Club, where we brought these prominent authors together to raise thousands for social causes, COVID-19 PPE, stuff like that. Which is all to say, I think we were all looking for ways to contribute to the writing community, and eager to play with new ways of doing things. And when we came upon the idea of using AI in writing last year, it just felt like it could fit both of those things. Early experiments were really promising. We started sharing what we were working on with some of the writers we respect in the field. And it became clear really quickly that there was something exciting here that could really benefit writers. So James and I started working on what became Sudowrite back in August of last year, 2020. Joanna: I've been trying out in the beta and I love it. I'm also in the beta of the standard GPT-3 and listeners know, I've explained GPT-3 before, so we don't need to go into that technical side. What did you see at this point that was different to you before? Because obviously, you've been in the writing space, the technology space. The GPT-3 and the stuff that open AI is doing. Was GPT-3 the catalyst that made you think it might work this time? Amit: I think GPT-3 is definitely the catalyst. I think it showed us that the technology had gotten to a point where it could really do something for writing that I think many of us had started to assume was true in all these other creative fields. You can't really be a photographer today without using digital editing tools. You can't be someone who makes video or someone who makes music without a vast array of tools to help you make the sound and the video that you were creating to execute on your vision. But as writers, we've really had pen and paper, we'd ha

How can you write a useful self-help book with actionable tips, but also bring it to life with personal stories? How can you use a book title to attract your target market? Natalie Sisson shares her experience in writing her latest non-fiction book. In the intro, 94% of the world’s internet users are not in the USA — what does that mean for your international author business? [The New Publishing Standard]; Marketing tips for driving sales internationally [BookBub]; Facebook brings podcasts onto their platform [The Verge]; plus I answer some questions about the NFT for authors episode, and Tim Berners-Lee's NFT [The Verge]. Today's show is sponsored by Draft2Digital, where you can get free ebook formatting, free distribution to multiple stores, library distribution, and a host of other benefits. Get your free Author Marketing Guide at www.draft2digital.com/penn Natalie Sisson is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, and host of the Untapped Podcast. Her books include The Suitcase Entrepreneur, The Freedom Plan, and her latest is Suck It Up Princess. 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 know what medium an idea is suited for — book or courseKnowing what to share (and what to leave out) in memoirThe balance between sucking it up and practicing self-careHow to spot burn-outThe importance of taking time off and how to plan for that as an entrepreneurPivoting to focus on a specific type of client or customer — and how book titles can helpLessons learned from crowdfunding a book’s publication You can find Natalie Sisson at NatalieSisson.com and on Twitter @nataliesisson Transcript of Interview with Natalie Sisson  Joanna: Natalie Sisson is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, and host of the ‘Untapped Podcast.' Her books include The Suitcase Entrepreneur, The Freedom Plan, and her latest is Suck It Up Princess. Welcome back to the show, Natalie. Natalie: Thanks. I love the way you were grinning when you said the last one. I'm glad it brings a smile to your face. Joanna: Oh, it does. Absolutely. And we're going to talk about the book very soon. You were on the show in episode 495. Not too long ago. And we talked about your journey. So we're just going to dive straight in today. I wanted to ask a question that comes up a lot, which is people write their non-fiction book and then they're like, ‘Never again.' Why did you decide to write another nonfiction book, when, let's face it, you have other products and courses are more profitable. How did you know it was the right time to write another book and that this topic was something you wanted to explore? Natalie: First of all, it's news to me that people do say that. I'd love to know if there's some more research behind people who write non-fiction versus fiction and then put off the writing process. I wouldn't even say it was necessarily the right time, but I think part of it was a story sometimes just comes out of you or a book idea comes to you and you just feel like it needs to be written. As an upholder and somebody who likes deadlines and timelines, I really like pushing myself to get things creatively done. I know you turn around books incredibly fast, but I think I'm not too far behind you in there. And then when I have an idea, I really want to take action on it. This one was a little bit different because the circumstances were, over in Australia, my partner's father was dying. I was at the hospital. I decided to crowdfund for the book because I almost needed a distraction and I'd been thinking about this idea since January. So we're talking about, this is in March when I blurted out, ‘Suck it up, princess,' to myself in a park when I was in a funk and a friend said, ‘You should write a book about that. It's a great title.' And I couldn't let that rest. And I was like, ‘It is a great title, but how do you reverse engineer and write a book about something you just came up with the title for?' So it was maybe good timing, I think, and not obviously a very easy time to get a book written. Yes, lockdown helps, but also just we know what was happening in the world at that time. I had been wanting to write another book since The Freedom Plan and actually, my partner had also said, ‘Hey, aren't you writing another book? You did talk about it for the last year or so.' So whenever somebody issues that challenge to me as well, I think it was a combination of all those factors coming together that I just decided, ‘Well, there's no better time than now.' Joanna: Right. And then more specifically on the why a book and not another product because we both know you can make more money by doing a course. You could have done more like a self-help course. I'm not sure the title would have worked for a course, but it is motivational. You could have done a summit, you could have done lots of