Writing Hard Truths And Tips For Writing Non-Fiction With Efren Delgado
Jun 24, 2024
How do we write authentic humanity into our books, whether that's our own experience or a fictional character's? How can we embrace the challenges of life and the author journey and make the most of the opportunities along the way? Efren Delgado gives his tips in this interview.
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 writing software, ProWritingAid will help you improve your book before you send it to an editor, agent or publisher. Check it out for free or get 15% off the premium edition at www.ProWritingAid.com/joanna
Efren Delgado is a former FBI special agent with 25 years of national security, law enforcement, and private protection experience. He's also a consultant, professional speaker, and the author of The Opposite is True: Discover Your Unexpected Enemies, Allies, and Purpose Through the Eyes of Counterintuitive Psychology.
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
Balancing being authentic while maintaining your boundaries
How to take our failures and move on to success
Creating a mind map to help during the brainstorming process
Fact checking and managing citations when writing nonfiction
Writing to deal with trauma while avoiding using it as therapy
Uncomfortable truths indie authors need to face about the industry
Common misconceptions authors get wrong when writing FBI thrillers
Joanna: Efren Delgado is a former FBI special agent with 25 years of national security, law enforcement, and private protection experience.
He's also a consultant, professional speaker, and the author of The Opposite is True: Discover Your Unexpected Enemies, Allies, and Purpose Through the Eyes of Counterintuitive Psychology. So welcome to the show, Efren.
Efren: Thank you, Joanna. I've been looking forward to this.
Joanna: Yes, it's very exciting. First off—
Tell us a bit more about you and how you went from FBI agent to author.
Efren: I'm going to backtrack a little bit. It all started from a little bit of minor bullying, relatively minor bullying, when I was a child. That planted a basic seed in me just asking, why would people choose to be mean when they could simply be nice? If you think about that question, it's the fundamental question of psychology.
Why do people do what they do? More specifically, why do bad people do what they do?
As a child, I had no idea and a legitimate interest. So that seed was there. It did also inspire me to want to protect others if I ever could.
As I grew up throughout school and university, I developed my interest in psychology and, accidentally, my interest in criminology. I decided to pursue a career in protecting people, and I simply thought the best vehicle for that was the FBI.
So I joined the FBI, I implemented my purpose, you could say, in protecting people in the National Security Division of the FBI, and later the Criminal Division, what most people think of when they think of the FBI. Then later in the private sector, protecting people as a bodyguard and a threat assessment consultant.
Now, currently as a writer, author, speaker, I'm just trying to express the observations I've made to help encourage the “good guys,” your audience and my reader, that they are actually stronger than the bad guys.
They are not chihuahuas barking at the doorbell presenting this large presentation of how scary they are. Good guys actually have the courage to be vulnerable, to be humble, to be kind. That's the main message I want to come across, and that's what brought me to the FBI, and brought me to you today.
Joanna: Yes, and I love the book. We're going to get into it in a minute. I'm fascinated. So you were bullied, and you became a protector. Obviously, a lot of people listening are fiction writers, and so often when we think about writing antagonists, sometimes they may have been bullied and turn into bullies.
Sometimes people who are abused become abusers, whereas some people who are abused become protectors. So just with all your knowledge of psychology and criminal behavior—
How do you think people become the protector instead of the bully in a situation where you came from?
When does it go one way, not the other?
Efren: So I love this question, not only as a protector, but also as an author. The best antagonists, the best protagonists, have elements of both. It's just not one or the other.
So in the writing world, you'll have an antagonist who is this evil villain, but you have these pet the dog moments, and that's showing their humanity, their motive. Their belief might not be that they're actually evil, they actually might think they're doing good, they're just misguided.
Then the opposite is true with the good guys. They're the most interesting protagonists, or characters in general. They have some dichotomy there too. They're not saints, but they show some human vulnerability. So I've seen that in the real world too.
The answer is not as complicated as it seems. The trend, the pattern I've noticed all of my life, and particularly in the criminal world, is —
Good guys are more selfless, and the bad guys are more selfish.
There's a reason for both of those. They always bark at the doorbell, like the analogy I was giving you before, not because they're brave and courageous, but they're so scared that whatever's on the other side will actually see their weaknesses. So they selfishly attack, project, and they're very loud so that nobody dare see what's on their inside.
On the other side, the good people expose themselves to their weaknesses or imperfections, their mortality. That takes courage. That takes risk of being judged, risk of being ridiculed, risk of exposing your humanity, and that's all bravery.
The antagonists are jealous of that bravery. They have that envy. What do people do when they're envious and jealous? They hate. What do you do with things you hate? You attack. That creates your villain.
Joanna: Yes, there's loads in your book that people can mine for their fiction. Absolutely, and of course, I did psychology as well at various levels in my career. So I loved reading all the psychology stuff.
You did mention there that good people expose themselves. That brought me to a quote in your book. This is from the book,
“Most people should not know everything about you. That is privileged information that should be held by the special ones who have earned your trust.”
I found this really interesting dichotomy in the book between these boundaries and keeping things close to you, don't give too much away, but also, like you just said, good people expose themselves, they are authentic. You're having to put yourself out there, and you're talking about things you've done. So how can we balance these things? How are you balancing these things?
Efren: I just think it's really important to acknowledge that if you're human, you're mortal. You have flaws, you have weaknesses, you have insecurities, you have failures. That's what makes us human.
Instead of shrinking away from all of those imperfections, we should embrace our humanity. Even though it's difficult to do, anything worthwhile is difficult. So part of that is acknowledging the concept I talk about, that oil and water, emotion and logic, don't mix. So these insecurities are coming from an emotional place.
So simply acknowledging our imperfections and other people's imperfections, you have to be careful about who you trust with those insecurities, and your secrets, and your goals, your ambitions, because it's very easy for the naysayers, the negative nancies of the world, to tear you down and pull you off your path, or at least distract you from your path.
So I suggest to your audience, to my readers, to be truly dispassionate when you're assessing your associates, your family members, your friends, your colleagues, and be objective.
Recognize the patterns of people who have always been supportive and encouraging, and reward those people with trust in them, with more of your business, your life, your insecurities, your interests, your goals.
Don't be in denial about people who should be your allies, but are not.
Simply because they're blood, or you've known them for 30 years, or you've done business deals with them, if your gut is telling you they're not truly your allies, listen to that.
It's hard enough to seek your purpose and climb your mountain to reach your summit, you don't need to invite other people to pull you down. So I just ask everybody to be truly objective and discerning about who their true wolf pack is, and sometimes you just have to fly alone like an eagle.
Joanna: Just some practicalities, though. Again, with your background and a lot of the details you've included in the book, which as you put in the beginning, you have had to run past the FBI. You haven't shared anything you couldn't share, but you do really put stuff out there that gives away a lot about you.
I imagine there are people out there who might have some issues with you. So how do you balance putting yourself out there in the world to share what you want to with your own safety and this kind of difficult balance? Now, most of us won't be in the situation you are, but—
We all feel vulnerable about sharing things about our life with the public in marketing.
So just practically, how are you doing that? How do you balance it? Or is this something you don't even worry about?
Efren: I do have to worry about it, but it's just lethal force, when you have to potentially kill a bad person to save other people. In that extreme scenario, you can't decide when you're in the moment, you have to decide it early on.
In sharing my private information, or some personal information, or some personal vulnerabilities in a book to the public or on social media, I've made a choice already in advance to face any potential backlash before it arrives.
So I contend that true living is worth dying for. That's hard, but also a good life is difficult. So I just think it's so important.
We live once in this world so you really have to commit some risk in order to truly live.
One of my biggest regrets would be being on my deathbed and not truly living my life. I'll sometimes re-engineer what I wish I would have done when I was 30, 40, 50, I'm approaching 50, and just go out and do that. I just mentally time travel and try to do those things.
This book is a classic example of it, or doing an interview with you is a classic example. I'm putting it all out there, anything that is truly beneficial to other people, and facing the backlash.
There's different motives for being a critic, so if somebody is criticizing your book, your writings, your podcast, you have to know what their motive is. If they haven't accomplished much, then their motive is probably just a Negative Nancy kind of mode of trying to tear people down who are risking entrepreneurship and living life.
If their motive is constructive, then I would heed those criticisms because they're not coming from a negative place, and there's probably some merit to it. Or as an author, when you have a developmental edit, that's very humbling. That humility is where wisdom is, so you can learn a lot during these developmental edits.
Joanna: Yes, that's true. It's actually funny that you mentioned backlash there.
We all worry about what people are going to say or what people are going to think, but the reality is, most people in the world are not going to read our book.
Efren: That's true.
Joanna: So even if we worry about it, like my mum, when I put out a book called One Day In Budapestyears ago now, my mum was really worried that some right-wing fanatics were going to come and attack me. She was like, “You can't publish this!” and obviously, it was crickets. Like there was literally no response.
Efren: Right. That's funny.
Joanna: So we always overthink the fear of what will happen when we put ourselves out there.
I do want to come to another quote from the book, which kind of relates to how many of us have fear of failure. You have this quote which says,
“Failures, counter to their common perception, are integral to achieving any success. As the title of the book announces, the opposite is true.”
I wondered about this, how you're thinking about failure. Like whether that's failure that's happened in your career so far, or for authors in particular, it is lower than expected sales.
How can we take our failures and move on to success?
Efren: I think we've been taught in working-class, middle-class cultures, in particular, we've been taught to be spokes on a wheel, and not to be the wheel, not to be the leader. So we fear getting a bad mark in school or having any kind of imperfect running in a football match.
So people start to fear risking anything at all. So you're trained, or we're trained, to be spokes on a wheel. The reality is that failure is a prerequisite to success. You cannot succeed without failure.
The bigger overarching idea is humility is the only path to wisdom. So when you fail, you're humbled. Just like when we're little kids and we go from crawling to walk in, and we stumble and scrape our knees, those are difficult moments of getting our knees scrape, and yet they build resilience.
The same is true of becoming an author, or a speaker, or an FBI agent. Whatever that difficult goal happens to be, I guarantee one thing, you will fail and stumble all throughout your journey.
I contend that the only time you actually truly fail, in the conventional sense, is when you give up. Otherwise, it's just a journey, and you're growing from that journey. So I suggest for people to embrace failure because you're always growing. Embrace the humility because that's where the wisdom is.
Joanna: What specific failure have you faced that led to the success of you finishing this book?
Efren: I failed in everything I've done before I've succeeded. So that's my point. So even if your failure is reaching a timeline of when you want to get that vomit draft done, then you just have to reassess and set a new timeline.
Or it means that the bones you've been writing, the foundational bones of the book, need more work, and it's becoming a better book for it.
Then when you start to get into the meat of it, the stories, the anecdotes, the parables, or the research, which I also consider the spice of the book. Then it's just going to be a better product as you grow from, look, this isn't working, let me pivot and do that.
Becoming an FBI agent requires a lot of physical training or testing and that sort of thing, and sometimes people don't pass those on the first round. Getting in the fetal position and giving up is not the path to success.
We've got a pastor out here in Southern California that I often quote that says, “Fruit grows in valleys, not on mountaintops.” So when you're climbing your mountain to reach your summit, you'll eventually fall in the valley, but that's where all the fruit is, all the fruit of wisdom.
So you have a choice. You can sulk and give up, or you can embrace that wisdom and stuff your pockets and renourish yourself and resume your climb.
So I've faced failure in every aspect of life, but I've got a stubborn bone in me that I just want to persist. I'm grateful for that bone, even though it makes other people mad. You only live once, go for it.
Joanna: This is a very ambitious book, and I think it's excellent. I really enjoyed it. It surprised me. I don't know why it surprised me. It's got a lot of great stuff in.
How long did it take you to get this book into the world, from when you thought about it, to finally publishing?
Efren: So I had the bones, the ideas of the book, probably building throughout my career, but I didn't have the confidence or maybe even the experience yet to back it up. Near the end of my public career in the bureau and in joining the private sector as bodyguard and threat assessment person, I was pretty confident in my idea.
So that's essentially the bones of the book, the ideas that most truths are counterintuitive and paradoxical, ideas like emotion and logic don't mix, the only thing to fear is the unknown. Little ideas like this that I knew could benefit my reader, your audience, anybody who wants to live beyond mediocrity.
So that probably took about a year to nail down in an organized format. Then when you're writing fiction or nonfiction, you get these ideas at three in the morning, or these stories that pop in your head.
Whether they're experiences from your memories, or from conversations you have from people, or things you observe in the real world that suddenly go, wow, that would be a great illustration of these principles, the bones of my book. So I'll jot those down, and I start to build the book that way.
At the very end, the spice of the book is the little additional anecdotes, the refinement, the clarifications, the editing, and then the formatting to present this big picture with all those elements together. So overall, it probably took about three years to complete.
Joanna: How did you keep everything organized? There are a lot of different, as you say, a lot of anecdotes, there are different quotes, there are things about your life, there's bits of memoir.
What tools did you use for researching and the writing process?
Efren: So what's funny is I've got all these softwares, and what I ended up using was simply Pages on my iPad. I'm just very, I guess, linear that way. I'll have those bones, which essentially become an outline, but I started out with the mind map.
That was the idea portion of the book, what I wanted the book to be about. What are like five essential points I need the reader to understand? Then I easily converted that mind map into an outline.
As these anecdotes, or stories, or things that need a little bit more due diligence materialized, I would research that, plop it in whatever area of the outline that belongs, or the ongoing manuscript. Then I'll skip to the next spot that I'm currently motivated to research or explore.
So writing the book was not from page one to the last page, which I think is page 550, it was a lot of skipping around. What really guided me were those bones, the outline.
I think that's a lot more important in the nonfiction so you have a rough outline to know where you're going, so I'm not all over the place. I, on purpose, divided the first half of the book to be named Volume One: Foundations and the second half Implementations.
The first half covers a lot of those foundational issues that you just have to get out of the way, but I back those up with stories and biographies.
The second half really gets into the weeds once I've got the reader with me and understanding these concepts. Now it's more about implementation and how things affect the reader, their own communities, and then society overall.
Joanna: Coming back to that mind map, I like mind maps too. I just would tend to do that on a piece of paper, like with my hand. Is that how you did that?
Did you use software for mind mapping?
Efren: No, the mind map was a pen-to-paper, one-page kind of thing. I knew the book I wanted to write. I thought the theme of the book would be empathy because that's such a vital part of understanding behavior. I just contend that empathy is the active synonym for psychology.
It takes some work to understand other people. It's not just something you read in a textbook. Then as I wrote the book, I almost started discovering the patterns of these counterintuitive truths.
That kind of took over the role of pointing out these truths to encourage the reader that these truths are on their side. That the good guys actually have a lot of benefits over the bad guys, even though on the surface, it appears that the bad guys are always winning these little battles.
Joanna: Yes. I'm sorry to ask you all the technical questions, but I know how hard it is to write nonfiction. For people listening who are writing nonfiction, these are really important questions.
So as I said, you have a lot of quotes, you have citations. The book is really rich for all of those, but I know how hard it is to wrangle it. If you were just doing it in Pages, like it sounds crazy. So how did you make sure to not plagiarize and make sure all of your quotes had proper quote marks? Did you get fact checking?
How did you manage the citations and quotes?
Efren: Yes, that's a great question. As I was illustrating the book with parable stories, I'd focus on a certain section that needed further illustration or research. I would dive deep to look for things that are, first of all, interesting.
I had two principles for writing the book, in general. One was reader first, and two, not boring. So part of that mindset of whether I'm writing a fiction or nonfiction, it's everything has to benefit the reader, and number two, it can't be boring.
So as I'm researching the points I'm trying to convey, I want them to be corroborated, that's the education part, but also to be interesting. So these emotional stories about reality, or parables, or whatever it may be, that's what I honed in on to really illustrate my points and entertain the reader.
So when I finally got to that, I implemented stories, quotes, anything that could serve that purpose.
I could only do so much to make sure those are truthful, so then I hired a company of fact checkers.
I can't believe they love doing this because it's such a tedious work, but they fact checked my quotes, my stories, that sort of thing. Then they created roughly a 30-page bibliography for the back of the book.
I did not do most of that work. I did what I could in the beginning, and then I passed on everything I could for them to corroborate it.
Joanna: That's great. Would you recommend that company? Give their name?Because I know people are like, oh, what's that?
Efren: Absolutely, I would. Book Launchers is an independent publishing company that allows you to keep 100% of your IP, your intellectual property. In their company, Julie Broad is the owner, and I've become friends with her.
She has people who are professional developmental editors, copy editors, formatters, everything you could think of under the sun that could really get the book to a professional level that a traditional publisher would provide.
Joanna: Yes, so that is partnership publishing. That's what we call partnership publishing. It's great that you've been happy with that because some people have difficult experiences, but it sounds like you had a very good one.
Efren: I did. Frankly, most of the companies I researched, I wasn't very impressed with them. I got a very salesy vibe from them, and that's a turn off for me and probably most people. My favorite trait from Book Launchers was, frankly, their authenticity, particularly from the founder, Julie Broad.
Joanna: Oh, that's great. Coming back to the book because you do cover some difficult situations in it. Again, a quote from the book, you say,
“Trauma does not note its presence lightly. It engraves itself into the stone of our minds.”
Of course, I read that and I was like, okay, I wonder how much trauma is engraved in your mind because of the things you've been through.
How can we use our writing to help deal with trauma, but also make sure we're not using it as therapy?
Efren: Yes, that's great. I think writing is very therapeutic because it allows you to pause with your issues, and think about them, and digest them.
So in nonfiction book writing, you could truly learn, but as you're exploring your characters in a fiction book, you could really start to dive in and empathize with your different characters.
So, for nonfiction, writing journals for yourself or memoirs as an actual book, it still has to be reader first, but it really will help the individuals process their own life experiences.
On the fiction side, hashing out your protagonists, and the villains, or the support characters, I just think that helps the individual reflect on their own issues and empathize with their characters. Even if they're bad, knowing what truly motivates this bad person.
For example, if you've got somebody with extreme bullying in their background, and maybe they get in their villainous heart for vengeance. That's kind of a classic trope that would work, but it would help the individual actually digest their own thoughts. You're forcing yourself to think and reflect, as opposed to just emote.
Joanna: I can't remember—
Do you have a trigger warning in the book?
Efren: What do you mean by a trigger warning?
Joanna: Oh, I love that you even asked that question. Okay, so I guess in the last few years, we've seen authors told to include this at the beginning of a book. It might be a novel, it might be a nonfiction book. This might include things that will upset you or offend you or will.
If you're claustrophobic, it might make you feel claustrophobic. If you have been through trauma, it might trigger that. Now, I'm not saying your book does that, it didn't trigger me. It's something that's become trendy in case you upset people. So what do you think about that?
Efren: I think that's fine, but those people are not my reader who need a trigger warning. So I dedicated my book—like, I love my family, and my wife, and all of that, but I don't do the traditional dedication to my wife, or my parents, or to a best friend. I dedicated my book to those who want to live beyond mediocrity.
Anybody who really wants to live a great, fantastic life has to face a lot of uncomfortable truths about reality.
The benefit to that is just like exercise, the more you do it, the better you get at it. So when you stop relying on denial for comfort or seeking comfort in everything, you start embracing the difficulty of accomplishing things, and you get good at it. You literally get in shape for it.
Just like tearing muscle for increased strength, you're getting better with resilience of facing a lot of uncomfortable truths. As somebody from a criminology background, a lot of those uncomfortable truths are that bad guys exist, criminals exists, bad people exist.
There are some not so nice people in your own family, your own bloodline, or your own “friendship circles” that are not good for you. So the proactive, deliberate acceptance of that suggests you should create boundaries for that, but not at the extent of denying it.
A trigger warning for me is almost the antithesis of what my book is all about.
It's almost like somebody who doesn't want to face reality, or I guess maybe they just want to know if they're not my reader.
As I put literally twice in my book, if you are not appreciating some of the truths I'm laying out my book, you would have thrown it across the room by now. I'm talking to the reader, in case they are not my reader.
So that also encourages the person who progresses in my book to know they are my reader, and that they're willing to face some of these uncomfortable truths that I promise at the end will give you a lot of benefits.
Joanna: I agree, I don't like trigger warnings. I think you should be able to communicate what's in the book by the cover, by the description, and people should know whether or not this is something they want to read. For example, if you don't like horror, don't pick up a horror book. If you don't want to know what humans are like, don't pick up a book like yours.
Efren: Right, exactly. Pretty quickly, I think not just from the covers, but from the early-on parts of the book, that first chapter, you know if something's for you or not. There's nothing wrong with closing a book and putting it down or turning off the television or the radio. It's just a choice.
I'm a big proponent of freedom and free will. So people could not like something and just turn it off, or they should be allowed to have the opportunity to engage in something.
Joanna: On that freedom then, and that you worked with a partnership publisher—
Why did you choose to go the independent author route?
With your background and experience, I imagine you could have pitched a traditional publishing deal.
Efren: Frankly, I just think that in the modern time, it's a lot easier to independently publish professionally than it used to be.
Also, the whole spirit of my purpose in protecting people from tyrants and encouraging people who have more difficulty protecting themselves from others, it's almost like the big traditional publishing industry takes advantage of a lot of potentially great authors.
If they do give them a deal, they keep a lot of the IP or a lot of the profits, and I just resent that. So in this day and age, I would encourage people to publish independently.
I'm not criticizing the traditional publishers because they have to make money, but in this day and age we have the internet, we have so many great podcasts like yours, and YouTube trainings. People can really grow independently.
I'm a big fan of independence for an individual and for society because a strong independent person could help other people on their own.
They don't have to be forced to do it. So I'm just very much of a freedom kind of person and independence kind of person. So in my mind, I had no choice but to publish independently.
Joanna: Yes, it's interesting. Then coming back to facing uncomfortable truths, which I think you talked about in a different context, but as indie authors we do have to face those things. You've now been doing this a while—
What are some of the uncomfortable truths that indie authors really need to face in the industry?
What are things that we might need to tackle?
Efren: I think one of the most fundamental ones, especially for a newer author, is to realize your book is not for everybody. In fact, it's not for most people. You shouldn't be disappointed about that, that should not be your goal.
You want to reach your particular audience. Somebody is interested in history of battles or wars is not interested in basket weaving techniques, and vice versa.
If somebody this is not interested in human behavior, or a lot of these uncomfortable realities about the bad guys make them squirm, and they'd rather just enjoy cookbooks or whatever, there's nothing wrong with that either. They should not read my book because they will be triggered.
So I just think that's one of the most important things is facing the reality that your book is not for everybody. The other thing is that you're going to face a difficulty for anything worthwhile, and just stay the course and persist because you'll grow a lot as you write the book.
The idea you have for your book when you start it definitely evolves into what your book is meant to be.
I just think a good guideline for that, or guidelines, is what I wrote on a little sticky and stuck to my iPad, and it's still there.
It's just to remember, number one, reader first, and number two, don't let it be boring. The way to implement the not be boring part is educational value in an entertaining or emotional way. Emotion is what engages people, whether it's fiction or nonfiction.
Joanna: Yes, absolutely. It is hard to remember that. Of course, what's boring for one person is interesting for another, and vice versa. For example, some people absolutely love romances, sweet romances. My mum has written some of those as Penny Appleton, and they're not my cup of tea as such.
So I guess that is another point, that what might not be boring for some people, might well be for other people. That comes to your point that your books are not for everyone.
Efren: Right, and if you're writing a technical book, I guess it's not designed for that. You just have to know what your book is for, what the purpose of your book is.
If you're writing a book about computer software, it's going to be very difficult to engage the emotions, but that reader is not interested in the emotions. They want to know the technical things. If you're writing a romance novel, you better engage that heart, or you will not have any readers.
Joanna: Yes, absolutely. In fact, those authors who engage the emotions the most do the best in terms of book sales. We've definitely seen that. I wondered what your plans are next.
Have you got the taste for writing books? Have you already started another one?
Efren: I have, and I've expressed it a little bit. I'm excited about the project I'm working on now, and I think your British audience would truly appreciate it.
Remember George Orwell's 1984, back in 1949? So if you remember the details of the book, it is totally depressing. It's a great book, but it's totally depressing. It ends where the protagonist, Winston, and his love or affair interest, Julia, get “reindoctrinated.” They pretty much get tortured to become compliant. The book ends where they're compliant followers of big brother, and it's very sad.
So what I've done as an optimistic American, is I've written a big draft of a sequel to that titled 2084because Julia got pregnant from their love affair, and their great grandchild is my protagonist in 2084, 100 years later.
This protagonist, just like a fish doesn't know it's wet, this protagonist is in a world where big brother is dominating, there is no resistance, there's zero memory of how it used to be, but his humanity starts to leak out. To vent out these criminal thoughts, these crime thoughts, he starts taking these walks. The walks don't suffice, so he has to find another outlet, and so on and so forth.
So you can imagine the character arc where he discovers humanity and has a lot of difficulty and resistance to discovering that humanity, but the character arc is very clear. There's plenty of conflicting characters and supportive characters along the path that will surprise the reader. I'm really excited about all three acts of my 2084, and it'll complement Orwell's 1984.
Joanna: That sounds good. Did you know about—and this is not at all like the story you've mentioned—but a book called Julia came out last year by an author called Sandra Newman, and it tells Julia's story in 1984. If you haven't read that, it might be interesting. It's set back in 1984 time, so it doesn't overlap with yours.
Efren: I did not know about that.
Joanna: It's about Julia. It came up when you said that. I was like, oh, you should put that on your reading list.
Efren: I'm definitely going to read that. Thank you for telling me. I can't believe I didn't know that. I'm super excited about it now.
Joanna: That's fantastic. Now, we're almost out of time, but I do have to ask you the FBI question because there are so many authors writing FBI thrillers. It's a very popular genre. There are so many TV shows and films.
Is there anything that really annoys you that people get wrong about the FBI regularly?
Efren: Yes, it's funny you mentioned that because probably less so in books and more and movies, the thing that gets to me is some of the tactics. Watching actors running around with their fingers on the triggers makes me absolutely crazy because that's so incredibly dangerous, but they do it all the time.
So we're trying to keep our finger on the side of the weapon, whether it's a long gun or a pistol, because just life happens. You trip over a log, or somebody sneaks up behind you, the human reaction is to jerk or defend, and so your finger goes right alongside that.
So if people are running around with their finger on the trigger, they'll be shooting people all the time. So that makes me crazy.
On the similar lines, when actors are carrying the long guns, they have what we call a chicken wing, that elbow is sticking out in the air. Now you're never going to unsee this when you watch movies, but we always want to put that elbow down and stay center balanced, as opposed to sticking that elbow up.
I don't know why people do that, but it's a tendency with long guns to stick your elbow in the air like a chicken wing. So it's not so serious, but those things drive me nuts.
More on the serious side, movies and books both always make it seem like the FBI and local police are enemies and in competition, when frankly, the opposite is true. The most professional detectives and police officers have worked alongside the most professional FBI agents like partners.
So the FBI can't get much done without their local partners. So we actually partner up very well. There's a lot of resources and overarching reach that the FBI has that the local police don't have, so it develops a great partnership.
So I'm a huge proponent of task forces. It's different agencies, local or federal, working together for one common mission. That kind of complements my idea on life in general, not just in combating crime or terrorism.
Just people working together, complementing their own resources, their own ideas, and being mission-oriented like a North Star, as opposed to ego-oriented where not a lot gets done, and there's a lot of bickering and squabbling.
Joanna: Do you have any recommended resources that authors can go to?
Efren: I'm not too familiar with a lot of quality FBI books because, frankly, I don't read a lot of FBI books because I've done it. It doesn't interest me so much.
The Michael Connelly books really do a good job of showing the police officers' life. He does a lot of research with how cops in LA are. I think there's a lot of accuracy there.
Then once he has those founding cultural principles down, then he branches off into creative storytelling that maybe aren't so true, but they're entertaining, which is the whole point of fiction. So Michael Connelly's books are great for police work in general.
Frankly, not to hoot my own horn, but my book would be excellent not just for understanding some FBI thought processes, but understanding criminals in general.
I think anybody writing fiction, you're always going to have an antagonist and protagonist to some degree, whether it's grand or focused on an individual. Truly understanding what motivates good and bad people to do what they do, and how they interact with each other, and the psychological reasoning behind it, my book is a blueprint for understanding all those things.
Where then your audience will have epiphanies for their own characters and for their own lives, and probably the antagonists in their own life, understanding why they're doing what they're doing. That knowledge will empower your reader to realize, look, I'm just fine. This person's a chihuahua barking at the doorbell.
Joanna: Fantastic.
So where can people find you and your book online?
Efren: So I've got all my links in one spot. My website EfrenDelgado.com, E-F-R-E-N-delgado.com.
Joanna: Brilliant. Thanks so much for your time, Efren. That was great.
Collaborative Writing With AI With Rachelle Ayala
Jun 21, 2024
How can we use AI tools to enhance and improve our creative process? How can we double down on being human by writing what we are passionate about, while still using generative AI to help fulfil our creative vision? Rachelle Ayala gives her thoughts in this episode.
Today's show is sponsored by my patrons! Join my community and get access to extra videos on writing craft, author business, AI and behind the scenes info, plus an extra Q&A show a month where I answer Patron questions. It's about the same as a black coffee a month! Join the community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn
Rachelle Ayala is the multi-award-winning USA Today bestselling author of playful and passionate romances with a twist. She also has a series of books for authors, including Write with AI, An AI Author's Journal, and AI Fiction Mastery.
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
Understanding generative AI tools as a non-technical person
How the creative process can work with AI tools and why it's always changing
Using AI tools as a collaborative discovery process, and why it's all about your creative vision and author voice. For more on this, check out my AI-Assisted Artisan Author episode
Joanna: Rachelle Ayala is the multi-award-winning USA Today bestselling author of playful and passionate romances with a twist. She also has a series of books for authors, including Write with AI, An AI Author's Journal, and AI Fiction Mastery. So welcome to the show, Rachelle.
Rachelle: Thank you, Joanna. Thank you for having me.
Joanna: I'm super excited to talk to you. As I was telling you, I have the ebook and the print edition of AI Fiction Mastery because I think you put things so well in your writing. Before we get into it—
Tell us a bit more about you and your background in technology and writing.
Rachelle: Okay, sure. I was a math major, and I actually have a PhD in applied math. So you would think that's kind of the farthest thing from writing.
I got into parallel computing back in the 80s. Then in the early 90s, neural networks, where we were basically trying to recognize handwritten characters between zero to nine. So that was quite interesting and fascinating.
So I basically worked in software development and network management until 2011. Then I got into writing. So romance writing was my gig, and I liked dealing with feelings and happy endings.
Joanna: Well, I love that, going from maths and neural networks into romance. You do explain a lot of the stuff behind AI in your books, which I think is really good. You're used to writing for normal people, so I don't find your writing technical at all.
Do you think people who are not very technical are struggling with this AI world at the moment?
Rachelle: I don't even think you need to be technical to understand AI because—well, there's different types of AI, but we're talking about large language models for writing.
So there's other AI systems like expert systems, machine learning, and people have been using that. They don't even know it, but they've been using it under the hood.
The AI we're talking about, large language models, ChatGPT was one of the first ones that most people became aware of. So GPT is a Generative Pretrained Transformer.
You could think of it as a word slot machine, where you could think of all these slots. So when you write a prompt, then the AI will look at the words that are in there, and then try to predict the best word that comes after.
Let's say, we say Monday, Wednesday, and most people will say Friday because that's the next word that you think of. Or if you say Monday, Tuesday, most people will say Wednesday.
So what the AI does is it was trained on reading, I think somebody said between half a trillion or trillion pieces of text. When an AI is trained, it's not reading a book like we do, where we read it from beginning to end.
So think of if you cut a piece of newspaper into a strip or a square, and then it's got all these words that are in there, and it's looking for words, associations, and patterns. So it'll say, oh, this word goes with that word, and those words go together.
So it could take a word like, say, “bark.” If it sees dog in the other slots, it's going to most likely come out with “woof,” but if it sees trees in the other slot, then it might say, “the bark is wrinkly or hard,” and it's thinking of a tree bark.
So that's how it is able to create words, and that's why you think it's intelligent, because it understands the context. It does so with these huge, huge context windows. So I don't want to get too technical, but a context window is how many words can it keep in its memory.
So it can look at all these associations and how those words go together, so it can best predict the next word that comes out of this word slot machine, so to say. It doesn't remember anything.
Joanna: It's interesting. You mentioned words there, like associations and patterns. I feel like the big misunderstanding with large language models is that some authors think that it's more like a database, where all these “stolen” books are sitting in a big database.
Then if you query it, it will pull out exact chunks from other people's books and use them. So you're always going to plagiarize or you're always going to be “stealing.” Like you and I hear these words a lot from authors who are really just starting out.
Can you explain why it's not a database?
Rachelle: Well, databases are storage. So if you query at a database, it pulls out exactly what's in there. I mean, this is like your social security number. It's not going to get it wrong, it's going to pull it right out. Your birthdate, if it's entered in correctly, it will pull it out.
Everybody knows that AI doesn't get things correct, or it doesn't get things exact. If you prompt it twice with the same prompt, like, say, “Write me a story about a road runner who is sick,” or something, it's going to write you something different.
Even that, if you think about how they trained AI, they trained it by inputting all these words that are associated together. Then they adjusted the weights of how these words are more likely to be with those words.
They're not retaining the words, the words are thrown away. The only thing it keeps is the weight.
So sort of like when you read a book, unless you have a photographic memory, you cannot recall that book, but you can recall the concepts because you have made associations between what you read and it communicated to you these ideas.
In fact, people say our memories are not like videos, our memories are actually assembled whenever we're recalling something. So we are making things up on the fly, based on all the associations that we've had in our lives. Similarly, that's how AI LLM really is making up things.
So when people say it lies to you, it's like, no. It's actually just making things up. You gave it a prompt that said, like, “Say happy birthday to me,” and it just keeps going with that.
There's also something called a temperature knob where you could basically increase the randomness, because you know, it's boring if that always gives you the same answer.
So they built in this randomness thing where it's going to look for either the most probable, or the next most probable, or it has a whole list of probable words that come next. If you turn on that temperature, you dial it all the way up, you're going to get gibberish.
The other thing with LLMs, they've literally read the kitchen sink. It's not just literature, they read code. So a lot of times, if I turn up the temperature and I'm prompting it, all of a sudden it's just all this gibberish code that comes out of it. So that just shows you that it has no memory.
Joanna: I think that's definitely one of the reasons why the legal cases are so complicated and why people actually need to have some technical idea. It's not just a case of like copying and pasting.
Let's talk more about your creative process. So you're a discovery writer, which I love, although you have given tips for outlining in your books. Can you tell us—
How does your creative process work with AI? Are you just writing a prompt and then hitting publish?
Rachelle: Oh, definitely not.
I think the first time I got on ChatGPT, and I'm sure every one of you guys have done it, you said, “Write me a novel.” Then ChatGPT wrote a 200-word story about some rabbit jumping across a meadow, and it might have seen a turtle, and it's like a kid story. So it's interesting, and it's fun.
I think today, they probably won't do any of that because they put some processing in where it will probably say, “Please give me enough detail.” At the very beginning, it would happily go off and write this little fanciful story.
So getting back to, yes, I'm a discovery writer, but I think I have also learned about story structure. So very early in writing, I realized that if I just sat there and meandered around with my character, we could do all these interesting things, but it would not be telling a story.
A story has to have some kind of meaning behind it. So it's characters, they're going through actions, they're experiencing things, but there needs to be an emotional meaning behind it or something where readers want to find out what happens next.
So I did study story structure. I think I read Larry Brooks's book on story engineering, so I know about the inciting incident, and the progressive complications, and there's like this midpoint review. So you kind of have to have those things in the back of your mind.
AI actually does not know all this. The other thing most of you've probably tried is if you type in what you want the AI to do for the story, it takes the most direct point.
So like for romance, this really doesn't work because the romance thrives off conflict. It means there's attraction, and then there's this push and pull of, okay, I'm really attracted to this guy, but he's got some things that just doesn't work.
So it's the push and pull between the attraction and the conflict and two people are working things out. Both of them are flawed, but we believe in redemption, and we believe that everybody deserves to be loved. So the reader is really looking for how this is going to work out.
Well, the AI would just say, okay, so we talked about it, and then happily together we can face these things. It's really so innocent. It's like, “Oh, well, why don't we just talk it out? Then they can walk hand in hand and face the future with determination.”
Joanna: You know that's a ChatGPT story!
Rachelle: Of course.
Joanna: What are some of the ways you do use [ChatGPT] in your creative process?
Rachelle: Well, actually, every book I've written with the assistance of AI, I have done something different. That's because the tools change so fast. So I think at the beginning with ChatGPT, I was just asking it questions about, “Oh, let's make up some mythological figures that can do this or that, or some magic.”
I was sort of using it like a search engine, which it's not because it's making stuff up. I was just heightening descriptions and things like that.
So I think I talked about that in my first book, Love by the Prompt, which was basically just brainstorming and asking it, “Give me premises for a romance,” or, “Give me an enemies to lovers story.” So it was doing that.
At that point, it couldn't write more than 300 words or so. So we weren't really using it to write prose, we were using it maybe to enhance your descriptions or bring in things that you didn't think about.
The speed of AI went so fast, so by the time we were into summer when I wrote the AI Author's Journal, we were actually writing scenes. The way we were writing the scenes is we would list out the scene beats.
So these are just very basic actions of, “they walked down the street,” “there was a gunfight going on,” “there was a sheriff that came in.” So basic beats. We were doing that, and then laying that out and feeding it to the AI so that the AI would kind of fill it in.
So you're really leading it like a horse, like a horse to waters. Like, “Come on this way. Okay, now you're going to do that.” It was really funny to see what it would do in between.
I happen to like hallucinations. I think a lot of authors don't like it.
I really get a crack when it goes, what they call, off the rails. I'm like, oh, really? Okay, this is funny.
So that's how I was using it. It wasn't like this prescriptive thing where I already knew like beginning to end, and I'm going to lay it all out, and then push a button, and this is going to go through.
It doesn't listen to you anyway, so you're not going to be able to. Even if you're an outliner, and you have an 80-page outline and you've got everything listed.
I should say, you can make it listen to you by dialing the temperature down and using one of the more boring models. I don't think you're going to like what comes out because it will be very concise and succinct. They would just literally stick to your beats like glue.
It's not expanding from it, so then why bother have AI write it. At the same time, if you turn the temperature up, it might deviate, and it might deviate in really fun ways. Or it might be like, no, this is not what I want you to do, and it's already solved the problem by chapter two.
Joanna: Yes, and I think the temperature dial, as you mentioned, that's really only available if you go through more like the Playground options.
If people are just using ChatGPT, for example, there is no particular temperature dial in that.
Rachelle: There isn't. It's really interesting now because they give you access to the latest 4.0, as well as 4 and 3.5. If you really want some of the more quirky stuff, you need to go back to 3.5.
It's, in a sense, much more innocent. It will just happily go off and do something. Whereas 4.0, I've noticed they've made it more, what they call, safe.
It tends to feel more like business writing a lot more because what 4.0 will tend to do is whatever you give it, it's going to make a bold heading, and then it will give you some bullets, and then it's another bold heading. It's like okay, so you just summarized my scene brief, and you didn't put anything creative in between.
That's what brings me to Claude. I really love Claude. Claude is the other chat. So if you're beginning, I think most people say, well, we've got to get ChatGPT.
With ChatGPT, I think because it's more structured for business, it's much better at writing the scene briefs and the outlines.
It will stick to the topic, so if you wanted to outline so for nonfiction, especially—and I think Gemini works good for that, too—is that it will stick to the outline. Then you can work with it and say, “Okay, I'm going to write a nonfiction book about decluttering,” and it will help you stick to it.
Whereas Claude, I think is a little bit more freeform. With old Claude 2, it might balk and say just, “I do not feel comfortable being judgey about somebody's hoarding problems. I think with the new Claude 3, they've loosened that a bit, and so it will be more creative, but it may be less structured.
So I think ChatGPT, you can use it for structuring and writing your outlines, and even your scene briefs or chapter briefs. What we talk about when we talk about scene briefs is you need to give the AI a lot more information.
Just telling it, “Write me a scene of a cute meet between a cowboy and a waitress,” it gives it too much leeway. So a scene brief basically is a piece of information, and we call this mega prompting, but we're giving it information of the characters in the scene, the settings of the scene, and then the beats.
What's going to happen first, second, third? What's the inciting incident? What are the progressive complications? I'm using the story grids way of developing scene, so you have the progressive complications.
Then you have some kind of crisis because there has to be something to motivate your protagonist or to challenge your protagonist, and then some kind of decision where that's made to move this thing forward.
So if you only have a scene that only has beats and there's no sort of story element in it, then it's not going to work. So that's why you have to do a lot of leading.
Joanna: It's interesting. You mentioned leading there, and also the different personalities of the models, and also, the fun. I mean—
I feel like it's a fun back-and-forth process.
It's like I might ask Chat for a list of things that might go wrong in this particular situation or places where I could set a scene.
I think I use ChatGPT for a lot of lists of options, and also marketing. I think it's very good on marketing copy. Then, as you say, with Claude, I use what I think you call completion prompting. I might upload what I've written so far, and then say, “Okay, what are 10 ways this scene could continue?” and it will help in in that way.
So I think it's being more fluid almost, isn't it? Going backwards and forwards, and you have ideas, it has ideas, that kind of thing.
Rachelle: I've discovered I like Claude Sonnet the best because Sonnet will actually write. Like if you go through a Workbench or Playground type of thing, and I go through Future Fiction Academy's Rexy, where I get to specify every parameter, including the length of the output.
So with Sonnet, we always say, “Write a 3000-word scene.” Some people used to say 10,000, hoping ChatGPT would do it. Well, it doesn't work that way.
They have a parameter called max-length that they've already programmed into chat. You don't know what it is, but it's probably not going to be that long because you're sharing the chat with so many other people. You're doing a flat fee, and they're paying by the token.
When you go into Playgrounds, or through Rexy, you can special specify a max length. Like I said in the book, all of them, even the million context windows, they may have 100,000-200,000 tokens that you can feed in, the maximum output is 4096 tokens, which is roughly around 3000 words.
So some of them are just like the C students. You tell them do 3000 words, they do 500-700. With Sonnet, I found, and Haiku, will gladly go up to your limit.
If you didn't give it enough information to prompt, it'll just kind of get repetitive and have your character doing the same thing over and over in different ways, but that's your fault.
Joanna: I think, again, this is really important. You're still not just copying and pasting that scene, right? You're not taking that scene out of Haiku or Sonnet and then pasting that and then publishing it.
So just explain—
How are you leading the AI? How are you editing?
I still think people are afraid that we're just going to lose our creativity and the AI will do all the writing, whereas that's not really what's happening.
Rachelle: First, I just want to say there is no wrong way to use AI. I know everybody's process is different.
So there are authors who spend a lot of time with their outline, and whether they're using ChatGPT or they're just working on it by themselves, everything is going through this person's filter, this person's creativity.
So even if someone works a long outline, and then tells the AI, “Write these scene beats, write what I just gave you,” that author has put in all those scene beats. That author has said, “This is the emotion I want in the scene.” That author has said, “This is what's going to happen.”
So even the most prescriptive author that architects it from the beginning to the end, that person has put themselves into that story.
It's not like AI is just going to write you a story.
The other thing I think people forget is that it's humans that tell stories because we're the ones with the emotions. When we see a list of things happening, a lot of it depends on the context.
So if, for example, you see a man punch out another man, if it's on the theater on the stage, you laugh, but if it's on the street right in front of you, you're like horrified. So these contexts are all happening emotionally in the human being.
AI will just describe, “Okay, this man punched the other one, and he hit his jaw, and the blood went flying.” It will describe the stuff, but the storyteller is putting the emotional context into that scene, and what the reader is going to feel is coming from the human.
Whether the AI writes the words or not, or even draws the cartoon or not, it's the medium of how you're communicating that story that's eliciting the emotion. So I think I don't worry whether you're a plotter or a pantser, it's more just believing that the story is coming from you.
Whether you dictated it, transcribed it, I just look at AI as it increases the accessibility of storytelling for people.
Maybe English is your second language or you're a visual person.
Joanna: Yes, it's interesting. I feel like because we describe ourselves as writers, and for a long time we've used this number of words written. You know, people will say, “Oh, I wrote 2000 words a day,” or, “I wrote 10,000 words today.” We've really viewed value of being a writer on how many words we write.
Therefore, I think people are struggling because if you can generate 3000 words with one prompt from an AI—and that's where we are now, I mean, goodness knows where it will be in a year or two. I think I did, and maybe other people, are struggling with this question of—
What is our value if it's not generating words? So how do you see that question?
Rachelle: I think your value is making sure those words are words that people want to read. That's the same with whether you're doing your messy draft or not too. I mean, before AI, I wrote 90 books. I can write 50,000 words in two weeks. I've done all the NaNoWriMos and all that.
So the thing is, you as the creative person, you can generate the words, but it may not be words anyone wants to read, maybe you don't even want to read it. So you're also the curator of those words.
Basically, it still comes down to you're the storyteller. You have to have a story worth telling.
I mean, you don't want to just report what you see without putting meaning into it. The meaning into it is what gives you the story, because ultimately, the story is a human to human communication.
Whether I'm talking to you face to face and telling you what happened to me last Friday, or I'm communicating through a novel, it really is still, like I would say, heart to heart. It will come from my heart, but when you read it, it's going through your heart.
Like I said, the AI can throw out a lot of words, and some of the time I have to admit, I don't even read what it gives me. Sometimes I ask it for ideas, and then I do exactly what it doesn't say to do. Or it can spark something totally opposite or just unrelated.
You're a discovery writer, right? So you know that ideas don't come until you start moving. It's like getting on a bicycle. So before I even sit down to write a scene, I could say, “Oh, this is what's going to happen. I think I know what's going to happen,” but when I start writing it, it's like something else just pops into my mind and it deviates.
Joanna: I totally agree. So this is the point.
We are the ones with the creative drive. We have the ideas, we have the prompts, we have the story; we have the emotion. The AI tools, they're just tools.
Someone has asked me that—
They worry that they might not be able to find their voice if they start writing with AI. Or that they might somehow lose creativity in some way. What do you think about that?
Rachelle: I actually think it's valid. I've been writing, oh, I don't know, 12/13 years, and you develop the voice by just writing, free writing. So I think it is valid because if I read too much AI, I find myself kind of writing like them, like using some of the same phrases.
So we're sponges, we absorb what we read. I mean, that's how we developed our voice. We read lots of books, right? You probably have your favorite authors, or if you're like me, I read across multiple genres. I love everything I read.
We're like humans, sponges. The LLM is just like us. I mean, if you noticed ChatGPT, it read a lot of fanfiction. So it has a lot of the same names that it gives and the same things that are always happening, and it's only because it's read all these fanfiction sites. So it tends to write like fanfiction.
So I worry about that too. I look at it, and I say, “Oh, I don't want to sound like ChatGPT,” and if I keep reading what it writes, sometimes I catch myself.
Joanna: That's interesting. It's funny, I haven't felt that at all. I feel like this comes down to being confident in your voice.
I think when we've been writing as long as we have, we kind of know when it sounds like us.
So if I read something, I'll be like, that doesn't sound like me, so maybe I didn't write that, or I don't know where that's come from. So certainly in my editing process, I edit pretty hard in order to bring my voice.
I really think that maybe people will just learn to write in a different way. In that we wrote with the Internet, so we've had the internet, and we have learned and written in that particular way.
People growing up now, this is now free, kids at school are going to use these tools. So they will probably just learn in a different way.
I still think it comes down to what you, as a creator, have as your creative drive.
I think that is really particular to you.
Rachelle: Right, and actually, I think we don't have to worry as much going forward. As we've seen, Claude Haiku, Sonnet, and Opus, they write differently. I think a lot of what we think is AI is from ChatGPT 3.5, because that was the first one that came out.
You're right, the kids that are growing up today, they're going to be reading as much AI-generated content, if not more, than the classics. Though you could always go back and read the classics, too.
Joanna: So there's definitely the responsibility of the creator. I guess we're saying, and that I'd say, I'm an AI-assisted artisan author. So it's still my work, it's what I want to do.
“In the case of a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work which is computer-generated, the author shall be taken to be the person by whom the arrangements necessary for the creation of the work are undertaken.”
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, Section 9, 3
In the US, you have quite a lot of copyright rulings that still haven't happened around that. So how do you think about that in the US?
Rachelle: Well, first of all, I'm not a lawyer. So I don't know what the legal things are. I think the US, and this is what I think, they think there has to be some kind of human touch in it. So they're trying to measure how much of the human touch.
An analogy is like taking a picture. I think immediately people probably thought, “Oh, well, all you did was click the button, and you took a picture,” but the copyright office ruled that, “Oh, but you had to set up the shot. You had to adjust the lighting. You had to catch it at the right moment.”
So the camera didn't take the picture by itself—well, actually, you can set the camera to take pictures, and nowadays, you might have a video camera that's just been watching something and AI can pick out the best shots.
At the time they did grant a copyright to photographs, the thinking was a human was behind it that pushed the button and it composed a shot. I actually think AI prompting is actually more work.
Everyone just thinks that you just push the button and out pops an article, and that's not the case.
I went to a seminar where one of the lawyers said, “Oh, well, it's all in the prompts. The originality is in the prompts,”
which does go back to that plagiarizing. If you copy and paste somebody's work into the prompt, you can get AI to spit that back out. That's on you because that was in the prompt, it wasn't AI's fault. So the lawyer said that, and believe me, all your prompts are stored somewhere.
I mean, they have not discarded any of the prompts. So he's saying that in the future, he thinks cases will be decided by looking at how creative the prompts were.
Joanna: That is really interesting. I totally agree, and it's one of my sort of red lines. I say to people:
Don't use other people's names or brands in your prompt, whether that's images or music or authors.
I can use my name in a prompt, but I'm not going to use your name, I'm not going to use Stephen King, I'm not going to use Dan Brown. I'm not even going to use dead authors because I want my own voice. So I think that's really important.
It is also interesting because in the early days—I say the early days early, like last year—I was still taking screenshots of prompts in case.
Rachelle: Like I've got to save these?
Joanna: Well, no. So that in case I had to prove that this was my own work. So I was keeping that, I took pictures of my edits, like I was quite paranoid last year. Now we're in mid-2024, I'm starting to relax a lot more.
Let's just think about what's happened. I mean, as we're speaking now, last week they released 4.0 Omni. We've had Google releasing Gemini 1.5, Microsoft has announced new PCs that will have AI in them. I mean, the pace is so fast now, and Apple's going to announce something soon.
How do you adjust to the pace of change?
Are you, as you said earlier, are you changing your process all the time? How do you stay focused, rather than getting sidetracked?
Rachelle: Well, it is harder to stay focused because there's always some new toy that comes out. Just yesterday, I got into the Hunch beta, which is basically a drag and drop prompt sequencing.
So you can put in context blocks, and then you can drag that context and feed it into these AI blocks and it does something to transform it. Then you can feed multiple context blocks into AI blocks, and multiple AI blocks into another one to aggregate the content, or you can split it out in different ways and use different LLMs for each output.
So yes, it's hard to stay focused. I think once I get into a story, I do focus on that story. Then I keep kind of an ear to the ground on what's going on.
So I joined the Future Fiction Academy because it's a group of people, Elizabeth Ann West, Steph Pajonas, and Leeland Artra, who they are all over the place looking at all this AI. They are also real writers because I knew them from indie publishing 10 years ago.
So they look at these tools and they're always thinking of new methods. It's not just them, it's the whole group in Future Fiction Academy. Somebody will say, “Oh, did you see this Hunch thing?”
So Hunch was brought in by somebody else who said, “I use this to sequence these prompts, and I wrote my scene briefs, and then I had five different LLMs write the scene, and then I'm going to look at them all and pick out the best ones.”
So by joining a group of active authors who are focused on their writing, because each one of these authors are still focused on their author career and not the AI.
AI is a means to an end
— not like the YouTubers where—and they have their uses too, but they are focused on the AI. So they're always looking at the new AI and how it came out. That's great to also subscribe to a few of their channels so you kind of know something's coming.
Also, you have to know, well, okay, I'm not going to distract myself with the new music stuff because I don't really use music in my work, but I know it's there type of thing.
Joanna: Well, what do you think's going happen next? I mean, how do you think things are going to change in the next year or two? I guess we're looking at maybe GPT 5, which might be another step up.
I guess some people think that that will just mean we can write books even faster. As you said, you were writing books pretty fast before, and romance authors are fast. So I don't really see it as a speed thing.
How do you think things will change, both creatively and in the business of being an author?
Rachelle: Well, it's hard to say. I mean, look at ChatGPT 3.5, now we're looking at it like training wheels. What we have today is Omni, and like you said, GPT-5 will come out. I don't really know, I just know that as long as these companies are fighting it out, we get access to the latest and greatest.
So I think I'm more worried about when the industry consolidates, and all the best writing tools, the AI that's able to not just spit out words, but the one that can analyze novels. Believe me, I'm sure these publishing companies already have it.
I have heard somebody say that Netflix actually has analyzed streaming behavior of their customers. So they know when the customers quit watching the video, they know when they rewound, and they know when they watched it all the way through without stopping.
So they've analyzed those story structures to come up with better stories. I'm pretty sure that anybody who owns a reading app knows this.
We buy a lot of books we never read, I mean, especially free books. You downloaded them, maybe opened into the first page, read the first page, and dropped it.
Those owners of those reading apps know full well which books have caught on, which books are the ones that it's 3am and you haven't stopped and you just keep going and going and going. So they have all that data.
So once they train their AI to recognize that kind of pattern—what kind of patterns of story, not just words, because right now, today's LLMs are just looking at word patterns.
We're looking at AI agents that can analyze the patterns of the story, like the rising action, the conflict and tension points, all of that. Then they can actually generate story, critique the story, and then match it to what readers' preferences are.
Then maybe we may just become providers of experiences, I suppose.
Joanna: I mean, let's fast forward. There's going to be perfect algorithmic fiction, you know. It'll be perfect, people will love it. They'll go and they'll get that, and that will be a lot of what people read. That's why I say to people —
You need to double down on being human, because you are not an algorithm, and I'm not an algorithm.
So I think that there's still a place for the human writer, which is flawed. We have flawed writing. So I think there's room for both.
Rachelle: That's the whole thing about romance, the characters are flawed, but they're still lovable.
Joanna: Yes, so let's hope we are!
Rachelle: It's going to be interesting. It's almost like the way with social media. They've done studies on dopamine hits, and so they made their things addictive so that you're always scrolling and scrolling and looking at the videos and hitting the likes. That's all these little shots of dopamine.
So they've done all that research on how human minds work to get you addicted to a platform. I wonder if the AI can also create books and stories that you just can't put down because it just kind of knows. It can individualize this for every reader. If your Kindle Library's as big as mine, it knows what I'm really interested in, and not what I say I'm interested in. It knows if I buy a book because I liked the author, but then I never read the books. It knows what you're really doing, and it can personalize that for you.
Joanna: Yes, well, we certainly live in interesting times. It's been so great to talk to you.
Tell people where they can find you and all your books online.
Rachelle: Well, I have a website, RachelleAyala.net, but you can just find me on Amazon. Just type in Rachelle Ayala and AI Author’s Journal or Romance In A Month, and then you'll find my nonfiction books. Then for the fiction books, I think type in Bad Boys For Hire, or something like that, and you'll find my fiction books.
Then I did recently start a new pen name using my real name, Clare Chu, C-L-A-R-E-C-H-U. This is much more AI. I decided to do these humorous guidebooks that are called Misguided Guides.
So my first book was Why Your Cat Is Plotting to Kill You. I made the cover with Midjourney, so I'm showing this to you on the screen.
Joanna: That's very cute. I think experimentation is fantastic, and you certainly do that. So thanks so much for your time, Rachelle. That was great.
Rachelle: Okay, sure. It was great being on. Thank you, Joanna.
Writing Through Fear With Caroline Donahue
Jun 17, 2024
What are some of the common fears that writers face? How can we work through them in order to create more freely? Caroline Donahue gives her tips in this interview.
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.
Joanna: Caroline Donahue is an author, podcaster, and book coach. Her latest book is Writing Through Fear: A Story Arcana Guide. So welcome back to the show, Caroline.
Caroline: Thank you so much for having me. This is such a treat.
Why did you want to write about fear? What sparked the book, and why structure it around Tarot?
Caroline: Well, I think that the topic of fear evolved because there were a couple of projects I considered doing before I landed on this one.
There was a desire to take a course I created during the pandemic, called Dream to Draft, and I thought, oh, I'll make a book version of that course. I tried to do that for most of a year, actually, and realized that I couldn't really recreate the experience of taking that course.
So I was trying to distill down elements of what made the difference for people of being able to finish a book or not finish a book. I noticed that they were able to overcome fears that they had while being in the course.
The main difference between people who were finishing books and delighted with their progress, and those who were getting kind of stuck in the swamps of sadness—if you'll forgive the 1980s film reference of The NeverEnding Story—were those who just got completely mired in fear about their writing. So I thought, okay,
If I can help people to engage with their fear differently, then they'll be able to write
— and I can do that from a distance. So that was what I ultimately got excited about. As for why I paired it with the tarot, for one thing, it made it a much easier book to write because I had a built-in structure. I had wanted to return to the tarot ever since writing the previous book, which focused on the first 22 cards, the Major Arcana.
I thought, oh, this is a great way to address the Minors because those are everyday life situations that people face. So I matched one fear to each card. Also, I could imagine people pulling a card.
I've already had one person who's read the book respond that when they're about to start a difficult scene or difficult project, they'll pull a card and then read the corresponding fear entry in the book. This helps them get into the writing. So that was delightful to hear.
Joanna: That is one of the very useful things about tarot or any of these kinds of things that spark ideas by looking at images or thinking about symbolism. So I think that's actually quite a good way into these fears. It feels like if you try and tackle it head on, it's often much harder. Did the people in your course recognize their fears?
Caroline: I think in some cases, yes. In some cases, it looked like other things. When I studied psychology ages ago, you have this kind of fight or flight, or we now have freeze that we know about, and fawn.
There are different ways that people engage with things that scare them.
Sometimes they look like the cartoon Scream face, if you think of the horror movie, but not always. So I thought that I wanted them to increase their vocabulary of how they could think about fear, so that it wouldn't feel like they had gone wrong and that this was a sign that they shouldn't continue writing.
I mean, fear comes up inevitably when we write. As you know, looking at the shadow and writing dark fantasy and suspense, that's part of the process of going into the fictional world, but that doesn't have to be the end point.
Just because fear comes up, doesn't mean you have to stop writing. So I wanted them to be able to move through that and get to the other side.
Joanna: Let's identify some of the most common fears that writers face.
What are some ones that you've encountered again and again in your students, and also in yourself?
Caroline: Oh, yes, completely. I think if we had to boil it down, like if we could boil down almost every fear, underneath there is a fear of doing it wrong, that I am doing this wrong. There's a lot that we can pick apart out of that because we have this weird language and belief structure around books.
We'll read a book that we love in a bookstore, say, or we read one of the “classics”, and we perceive it like, oh, that book is perfect. It couldn't have been written any other way. It had this exact shape and form that it was supposed to take, and that nothing about it could change, or else it wouldn't exist as it does today. I don't think that that's true, but —
A lot of people have this fear that they're going to make a mistake, or they're going to do something wrong, and the whole thing is going to fall apart.
There are many flavors of this particular fear, but it's like if you go back to the Robert Frost poem, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by.”
Most writers fear that two roads diverged in a wood, and they're going to take the wrong one for their writing project, and then everything is going to fall apart as a result.
Joanna: That could be at different stages, right? That could be I'm writing the wrong genre, or I'm writing the wrong story, and then I made the wrong publishing choice, I've chosen the wrong marketing platform. I mean, it's not just one choice, it's over and over again.
Caroline: There's so many. It can come up again and again. It's like a whack a mole fear. It's like, oh, I ended the chapter at the wrong point, this character should have this motivation, or the character has the wrong personality trait, or I've formatted the dialogue incorrectly, my grammar is wrong.
Like all of this sense is that “real writers”—I could write a whole book on that, this concept of the “real writer”—but that “real writers” do it the “right way”. I am scared that I am not doing it the right way, therefore, I'm not a real writer, therefore, I shouldn't be allowed to write at all.
Joanna: So it's interesting you picked that one.
How has this [fear of not being a “real writer”] come up for you?
Caroline: I think this used to really paralyze me. I mean, in my 20s, I wrote and abandoned about five or six novels, thinking that I had picked the wrong project. I thought that I had picked an idea that was unsalvageable, and I don't feel that there's any idea that's unsalvageable anymore.
Part of that is because I read a book, it was a very short novel by an independent press, called Love Notes from a German Building Site. Unfortunately, I can't remember the author in this exact moment. It was essentially a character’s musings and vocabulary lists. It's an Irish author writing about working on an abandoned mall in Germany.
So it's one of those ideas where if you presented it to me and said, “Would you like to read a novel about some guy hanging out on a mall construction site, and he's just randomly thinking about his relationship and is not quite sure where that's going?” that really wouldn't get me going. However, I read this book, and I could not put it down. I loved it, and I haven't stopped thinking about it for years. It's always been my example that there is no idea that cannot be executed on. You may not want to execute on it, or you may not be interested in it, but —
If you're engaged with the material, then you can keep going, and you can find a way through.
I think that I didn't believe that was possible early on. So I gave ideas up when I got scared, or when I felt like, oh, this isn't interesting enough, or I don't know if it was going to work. I felt like this means I've done it wrong, I've gotten lost. I'm lost in the woods, and I'm never going be able to find my way back.
That was rather than seeing it as a challenge and thinking there is a way for this story to be interesting. How can I find the parts that I'm most excited about? How can I make the story about those? I didn't have the ability to trust at that point.
I think the antidote for this fear is trusting that there is a way through.
Joanna: Yes, and this is so interesting as well being an independent author. So my first novel, Stone of Fire, I originally released it in 2011 as Pentecost by Joanna Penn. I've rewritten it like three times, and now it's Stone of Fire by J.F. Penn.
The bones are still the same, but as my craft grew, I rewrote it, I learned about publishing, I learned about marketing. I mean, pictures of me with that book back then, I did do a lot of things wrong, but equally, I had to take some steps in a direction in order to fix things later.
I wonder if the traditional publishing model is why people get so scared about this. I mean, either you feel you failed because you didn't get a deal, or you do get a deal, and then your craft improves, and you look back. You speak to a lot of traditionally published authors on your podcast, The Secret Library Podcast, which we'll come back to.
Where do you see this being perhaps worse for traditionally published authors?
Because you just don't get the chance to change things.
Caroline: I think this fear starts much, much earlier in life. I think it starts with the way our education system is organized. I mean, we have an education system that was built for an industrial age, which is not entirely relevant anymore.
I mean, I think back to Sir Ken Robinson's incredible talk on YouTube about how creativity is as important as literacy, and we need to be able to get something wrong and be willing to change it.
Essentially, from a very young age, we have to take tests, and we get a mark, and then it's determined what we should be doing, what we think we're good at, what paths we're allowed to follow. I think that that sense of being sorted into being an artsy kid, or being a science kid, or not being good at school, if that's the case, can have a really strong impact.
It's like, I have one chance to take this test, and I won't have a chance to take it again. Or if I write a paper, and I misunderstood the assignment, then I just get a bad grade, there's no chance to take that back. I think we internalize that message really, really early.
Since so much of our education when this happens is about writing essays, and writing papers that we then get graded on, I think it all comes back up when we write later in a way that's going to be published. Yes, we don't get grades, but we do get reviews, however we publish. I think that this is really deeply embedded.
I hope that we are more willing to write things, learn from them, and be willing to change, grow, and write more things.
Joanna: I think you're right. Actually, this brings me to a fear—and I talked about it in Writing the Shadow—which is this fear of judgment. I was told as a kid, when I wrote in school a dark essay about a nightmare I had, I was told that really wasn't appropriate to write and that I shouldn't write these things.
So I still struggle with this fear of judgment. Like, what will people think of me if I write this? I feel like this fear, in particular, is amplified in our cultural situation where people worry about getting canceled.
So the fear of judgment is not just a bad review, or someone saying, “what type of person are you?” but it's also, your career is over. I mean, people should probably fear not selling any books more.
What do you think about fear of judgment and fear of being canceled?
Caroline: I think it is very present, and it's very loud, I think, in the world right now. I think the fear of being judged, I mean, to an extent, I have to go into putting any book out knowing that somebody is not going to like it. So somebody is not going to like my book, and I have to be okay with that.
If everybody likes my book, then I feel like I haven't taken a real stand on anything. So there is that side of it. However, I feel like the fear of getting cancelled is a whole other can of worms. I am seeing that more, that kind of real, large-scale rejection of authors or writers in certain situations, in the arena of traditional publishing, for sure. That's where you're seeing sort of dramatic—not often, anymore—but whenever someone gets a big advance, then there's a lot of pressure and everything gets amplified in that situation.
I think the other thing that happens is that a lot of people fear judgment and fear getting cancelled when they haven't finished the book yet.
The internal critic yammering these fears in your ear tends to leap ahead to the next unknown step in the process.
I've watched this over and over and over again with students. So in the beginning, it's like, “Oh, I don't know if I can finish a whole novel. I don't know if I have enough to say. I don't know if this idea will carry a long enough story.”
So then we move forward, and they've written an entire draft. Then it's like, “I don't know how to revise. I don't know how to do this.” Then they immediately forget how difficult writing the first draft was, and they just want to write a new book. They're like, “Oh, it was so much easier. Writing first drafts was so much easier.”
I think, “Remember that part when you thought it wasn't going to be possible, and it was totally impossible to do this?” It's as soon as they get comfortable with revision, then there starts to be fears about publication, fears about rejection, fears about bad reviews. Sometimes this is quite far away from when the book is coming out.
I always encourage people to try any aspect of the story that they think should be included and that you can always decide later if you feel good about it being in there, if it feels right.
If you have a sense, “Oh, I think this character needs to go in this direction,” try it, because you're always going to regret holding back and not exploring a deep line of story.
So I think that the cancelled thing is almost like a blown-up fear of people misunderstanding what you're trying to say, fear of being misread, fear of being just wrong. I think, again, it's a fear of doing it wrong.
Joanna: Yes, I agree. It's funny you said that. I often get people who will email me, and they'll be like, “I'm really worried that I'm writing this memoir and someone's going to sue me, like one of my family is going to sue me. What if I say something bad?” I'll often reply, “So where are you?” and they may not have even started the book.
Caroline: Yes, absolutely.
Joanna: It's very, very common, and I think you're right. So this comes to a fear—so we're recording this the day before my next Kickstarter launches. Now, this is my third Kickstarter. By the time this episode goes out, it will probably have finished.
There is this fear, I have a great fear, this is my third one, I've been doing writing and publishing for 15 years, I am scared of failure, and like you said, doing something wrong. There's almost a problem—it's a good problem to have—but some people know who I am at this point. I do have people who will watch this.
That is kind of scary, because what if I don't fund? What if I am a public failure? It is terrifying. What's interesting is I know lots of people who will not even do a Kickstarter, and I was one of them a couple of years ago, because of fear of this public failure because everyone can see how much money you make.
So I wondered about you on this because I think I had said to you, why don't you do a Kickstarter for this one or one of your other books?
What do you think about [a Kickstarter for] this book?
Caroline: I think some of it is about what kind of experience do you want to have putting this book out. I think that part of being a creative, part of the reason that we're not accountants, which is always the profession I seem to gravitate to and use examples, is that things are unpredictable. We never know what's going to happen.
We have to accept that we're unsure how this Kickstarter is going to go. The question that I always ask, and this is one of the ones that I put in the book is, what am I making this mean?
There are two things that are happening here. You've got a book that's coming out, and there's a Kickstarter that people can support, and people may or may not support that.
There are lots of reasons why that might happen that has nothing to do with the value of your writing or your book.
I think that we are very quick to assign all the blame that something might not work on ourselves and to make it mean something global and permanent about us as writers.
When in reality, you know, let's think about it, if we had a Kickstarter start the day various global disasters that we've had over the past few years happened, would that impact the Kickstarter? Probably. So that doesn't mean that it isn't a very well written exciting project.
So I think we take a lot of responsibility on ourselves, and we give a lot of authority to the outside world to determine the value of what we're doing. I think that, in many ways, is what makes it so debilitating.
Joanna: Yes. So acknowledging these fears are an important part of it, and realizing that that might be a form of a block. Being scared of doing something is a block to our growth, even if it's not a block to our writing. It might be the fear of publishing, as we said, or the fear of marketing.
What are some other practical ways to get past these fears, other than recognizing them?
Caroline: I find that breaking them down into much smaller pieces is very helpful. So if you have an item on your list—whether it's a bucket list or your project list because you're working on a project—that is so large you could not complete it in a day, let alone a week, let alone months.
So if there's an item on there like “finish novel”, then that tends to create blocks because your mind doesn't know how to engage with it at all. Rather than, okay, “make notes on chapter three about how this character is going to get stuck in a cave.” I just made that up. You know, that's something that you can actually do in a sitting.
So I find that making sure to break things down into smaller bits helps to deal with blocks. Often blocks are not even about fear, they're just about the brain is not able to process an item that large and has no way to engage with it productively. So that's one thing that can happen.
Another thing that can happen is that there's something going on underneath. I think that this Kickstarter example you gave is one of those examples. So it's like okay, “plan the Kickstarter,” “execute the Kickstarter.” You've broken it down into little tiny steps, and it's still not happening. I think that's because there's some sort of belief lurking underneath.
So if you find you're trying to do something with your writing project, and that might be making notes about chapter three and how we're going to get her stuck in the cave, and you just cannot sit down and make any notes about this cave, then I think it's important to look at, okay, what am I making this mean in this moment?
What am I feeling underneath here? Where am I afraid I'm headed? Where am I afraid this is going to happen? With the Kickstarter, it could be, I'm going to be humiliated. No one is ever going to buy another one of my books again if they see this flop.
If you have this issue about making notes about going into the cave, it could be about that I'm afraid I'm going to make the wrong choice for the story. So whenever we get to the heart of what the fear is, I try looking at, okay, well what if that happens?
Don't try to avoid it. We're all like la-la-la with our fingers in our ears, and we don't want to think about what if the Kickstarter flops. We can't think about that. Or what if I make the “wrong choice” about the story?
What if we think about it like, okay, if the Kickstarter doesn't work out for this book, then what will I do next? If we have a plan in place, I find that immediately it doesn't feel quite as loaded because things that are unknown, and amorphous, and undefined are very difficult to engage with, in the same way that a giant to-do list item is very difficult to engage with.
If I say, okay, the Kickstarter fails, then I would probably go ahead and release the book and just not do the hardback edition or whatever I had planned to do with the Kickstarter. That's probably what I would do.
Then we have to ask the question—I mean, I'm getting in the weeds with the Kickstarter—but it's like, okay, what was I kickstarting? Is this more about people being strapped for cash at the moment than it is about book sales or interest?
Joanna: Yes, I think you're right. Coming to that question —
What's the worst that can happen?
With a Kickstarter, the worst that can happen is you don't fund, and as you said, you have to figure out a different way of publishing. Sure, it's pretty embarrassing, but hey, you can mitigate that by putting a really low number on your funding. You know, even now, I do.
I think what's interesting, you said this earlier, that part of being creative is this unpredictable nature, and that is why we do it. As you say, if we wanted a repeatable monthly career, like in accounting or bookkeeping, that kind of monthly, it's the same every month, and that's not what we do.
If there wasn't a level of on predictability, then I guess we would be bored, and we wouldn't do this. I mean, one of the reasons people stop writing books in a series and they move to another series, or they change genre, is because they get bored.
I think embracing the unpredictable nature of creativity is part of the fun.
Caroline: I think we just have to remind ourselves that sometimes. One thing, this is a really weird neurological trick, is that the physiological symptoms of anxiety and fear and the physiological symptoms of excitement are quite similar. Sometimes you can reroute it because the nerves are actually quite close together that fire when this happens.
So I had a psychologist once say, “You know, you can get it to jump the track if when you're feeling all of that pent up anxiety and excitement, to just say over and over, ‘I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm excited.'” Like, what if this is really about you being super excited about the Kickstarter, rather than scared?
Joanna: Yes, that actually used to come up in professional speaking, and most people are more scared of speaking in public than they are of dying.
Caroline: They're more scared speaking in public than anything, like literally anything. They'd rather get their leg torn off than speak in public.
Joanna: When I did my training more than a decade ago, I remember —
One of my professional speaking teachers used to say, “It's not about getting rid of the butterflies, it's about getting them to fly in formation,” so harnessing the butterflies.
When I'm about to speak, I still get a bad stomach, and I need the toilet every five minutes, and all of this kind of stuff. I still feel very, very nervous, but I try and reframe it, as you say, as excitement.
It's interesting because with speaking, you've got that moment when you're going to step onto a stage. So I guess for authors, it could be pressing like the launch button on Kickstarter, which actually is a launch button, which is different to setting up a pre-order, which isn't quite so scary. I guess sending off a pitch letter, for example. Again, when you do that with publishing, there's more of a time delay, right?
Caroline: Yes, yes.
Joanna: When we're speaking, it's like, there's the stage.
You're either on stage or you're not.
Caroline: Exactly, and it's so clearly defined, so I think it's easier to deal with. The thing with writing is that there is a lot of lurchy process. There's a lot of hurry up and wait.
I spent months writing this draft, then I went through the process of edits, then I went through the process of a cover designer, giving notes, all of this, and then formatting all the files and getting them uploaded everywhere. That's all a lot of busy work. Then it goes out, and you just have to wait and see.
I mean, you keep talking about the book, you share it, but there's really a point when you have to let go of control. I think that in many cases, at least for me, is the scariest part. Having to just sit and wait and be patient, and not know exactly how it's going to go and not be able to do something constantly to influence that.
Joanna: Yes, well, coming to changing things later and the business side of things. This is interesting because you rebranded that first book, and you re-covered it to match this new release.
Tell us about why you rebranded the first book and the challenges of changing a book title and a book cover.
Caroline: Yes, I decided to rebrand the book, which came out as Story Arcana in 2019 because—this is one of those, why was this not completely obvious to you, Caroline—I subsequently launched a course also called Story Arcana, and then wondered why people were getting confused as to what content was included in the course and what content was included in the book.
They are quite different, so I was having to explain this constantly. So when this book was going to come out, I thought it would be really nice to have a cohesive look for a series of books. I've always admired your cohesive look on your series of guides for writers.
So I thought, okay, this is my chance to do that, and this is also my chance to really make it clear that this book is different than the course, and yet related. They're all related to tarot, but there are different content in each piece. So that was the original thought process.
Then I wanted to dive into a look that felt more reflective of the Tarot aspect. So it was fun to get a cover designer to share the look and feel that I wanted. I wanted it to feel a little bit like a tarot card, and yet be linked in some ways to the brand that I have.
She used the same font for my name that I have on my website so that it was all sort of connected. I just wanted something that stood out more and that stood out as a unit. It ended up being a really satisfying process.
Joanna: So what are the challenges of doing it, though? I mean, like practicalities? I've done this multiple times, but people always are like, “Oh, my goodness, how do you do that? Don't you lose all your reviews on the first book?” What were some of the more technical challenges?
Caroline: Oh, yes. What my big fear was, if we're going into the fears, was that somebody would buy the book titled The Author's Journey, get it, and then say, “This is just like the book I have already. What is this?”
One of the technical challenges was figuring out how to be very clear. So I put it on the copyright page, “This is a second edition.”
I have it listed as the second edition on all of the sites. So I had to find places to mention that it was a second edition, that it had been formerly published under this title. I wanted to be really transparent about that. So that was one of the challenges.
I think I was okay with losing the reviews because I just wanted to start fresh, and I just wanted it to feel different. So yes, you do go back to zero with those, but I was confident that those who had read the new book would then possibly want to read the old book or would just be able to jump over to that, and that it would just take care of itself over time.
Joanna: Okay, well, that is interesting because you don't have to lose your reviews if you upload the files into the same Kindle. You do have to publish a new print book. With Stone of Fire, there's reviews on there from when it was called Pentecost, originally.
So all I've done with the Kindle, and we're just talking about Amazon, but all the sites are the same, with the Kindle book you can just change the title, you can change the author name, you can change pretty much everything. You can upload a new cover, upload a new file.
Print books, as you said, you have to upload a new print book. What I found is, because most of my reviews were on the Kindle book anyway, when you link a new print edition, it just links up like that. You have to use a new print book when you do all of that new. So you don't have to lose it, but as you said, you were happy starting again. I think there's a difference between deciding it's a completely new edition, which is different to a new cover, basically.
Caroline: I didn't want to mislead anyone, but I also changed the cover to increase discoverability. I now had people who were willing to blurb the book, so I wanted people to see a cover with those on it. I was hoping that this wasn't about a pretty new addition for the existing reader, but that this would increase discoverability for additional readers.
Then the other bit was that previously I did all my distribution through Ingram, and this time I distributed through Amazon separately, in addition to doing distribution through Ingram.
Joanna: Okay, for your print. So you did eBooks through Ingram before?
Caroline: I did. Now, I have done again, just because I do not have this sort of enthusiasm that you have to separately go to Kobo, and Nook, and all of these places to upload files. I was like, it's okay with me, it's going go to all of them under that umbrella. I haven't gone quite as wide, but I sort of shift that as I go. That was part of the reason as well, was that I had not gone through KDP the first time, and now I have.
Joanna: That makes sense. This is also interesting, it kind of circles back to the beginning.
You didn't do it wrong. You did it the way you wanted to do it at the time.
Caroline: Yes.
Joanna: Then you changed your mind later on, and you wrote another book, and it emerged, and thus it became something different, and so you changed it. This is the magic, right? This is the magic of being in control. You can do whatever the hell you want. Yay!
Caroline: Yes, and that has been really great. I could dip my toe in and do what I was comfortable with in 2019. I've learned a lot since then, and I was excited to apply it, and so that's what I did.
Joanna: Well, then on that—
Are you narrating the audiobook?
Caroline: That has been a fun question to consider because given that, and I'm sure you face this conundrum as well, given that I have a voice that people know from the podcast, I feel like I want to narrate it myself.
I have had someone offer to narrate it who has a lovely voice, and I have been going back and forth about that. I think in the end, I will probably do it myself, just because I feel like podcast listeners would expect my voice as part of it.
I think that with fiction, I do not plan to narrate my own fiction because I have a limited range of voices I can do, but most of them are impersonating my cats. I don't think anyone wants to hear a murder mystery with cat voices.
Joanna: I don't know. Cozy cat mystery is a thing.
Caroline: It is, but that's not what I write. So, sadly, there's a mismatch on that one. I think part of it is mostly just having the personal bandwidth to go back in and do this. So I think the audiobook is probably going to have to wait until the fall because I've got a novel up on deck to finish this summer.
I'm so excited to get back into that, that I don't want any distractions from it. So I think the audiobook is maybe going to come out later this year.
Joanna: Yes, I think it's a good choice to narrate it when it's nonfiction, when it's like a personal book, when you have a podcast and you're used to doing audio. All of those are very good reasons.
So coming to the podcast, you are currently on season 10 of The Secret Library Podcast, which is great. People should go listen to that. You have recently moved to Substack as a platform.
Could you comment on podcasting and Substack as a platform?
As marketing platforms for new authors or for existing creators who are thinking about different options?
Caroline: Yes, absolutely. Well, there were many reasons why I wanted to bring the podcast over to Substack. I had spoken to a number of creatives who had done so and had had a positive experience.
I think that one of the first reasons was the sort of justification, or the original logic of creating the podcast, was to build a community around the topic, and also to build a community resource for writers.
I had done a lot of bizarre things which I don't recommend, like I don't recommend having multiple Substacks that are separate publications. I think that the sections feature is a better way to go. So at the end of 2023, I just decided I wanted one Substack to rule them all, which is now called Book Alchemy.
So podcast episodes go live, but I also write longer form, or not always longer form, but different reflections on writing life that feels like a blog. I very much enjoy that. So I wanted those two to live together, and I wanted there to be an opportunity for people to comment and to just have more conversation around the process.
As a podcaster, it can feel quite weird and lonely to just record a bunch of stuff and put it out there. Then people would write back to newsletters and such and say how much it meant to them, but there isn't really a dialogue around the content. So part of moving to Substack was around wanting that conversation to happen.
That hasn't entirely developed yet because I think after nine years of doing this podcast, people are really used to being subscribed in their podcast app, and they listen when a show shows up, but they are not really trained. I never really encouraged or trained them to click through to the show notes and interact. So I think that has been a slower process.
I think it's more about encouraging people already on Substack to listen and then be in the conversation there. The people who read my articles are very eager to have comments and chat, and we go back and forth all the time. I love it. So that has been really nice. It's just about getting the podcast into that headspace as well.
Joanna: Do you think your book sales are primarily from your existing audience? Or—
Have you found that Substack has been useful for the book launches as well?
Caroline: I think it has, in that I have done some things, like currently as we as we record this, I have a book giveaway open. So I'm going to give away three books in a couple of days, and they're open to anyone who is an annual subscriber to my Substack. So I'll be drawing.
So it's sort of like, if you're a member, you're entered into this drawing. I plan to continue that practice because it's really fun. With people who are on the podcast who have books coming out, we can do book giveaways for their books and such. So that's been really fun.
People are really eager to reshare this kind of thing. If you have an event like that going, people are happy to share. It's just a really nice supportive community that I've found in my corner of Substack, specifically.
Joanna: That's great.
Where can people find Writing Through Fear, and your Substack, and the podcast, and everything you do online?
Caroline: Absolutely. I think the easiest place to go is CarolineDonahue.com. You can find the book page, there is a handy-dandy banner at the top that you can click on to get to the book order page.
The book is available on Amazon pretty much everywhere. It's on Kobo all over the world. It's at Barnes and Noble. Many, many outlets. There is a page for the book when you click through, and it has all of the places that are currently available in pretty much every English language market. So that is there.
Then the Substack is at book-alchemy.com. You can get to the podcast at SecretLibraryPodcast.com. It'll forward you right to the podcast page, but you can search for the podcast on pretty much any podcast player and it's there.
Joanna: Fantastic. Well, thanks so much for your time, Caroline. That was great.
Caroline: Thank you so much for having me. It's always a joy to talk to you.
Click Testing Ideas And Selling Direct With Steve Pieper
Jun 10, 2024
What are the pros and cons of selling direct and building an ecommerce business for your books? How can you use click testing on Meta to help refine your creative and book marketing ideas? Steve Pieper explains in this interview.
Today's show is sponsored by my patrons! Join my community and get access to extra videos on writing craft, author business, AI and behind the scenes info, plus an extra Q&A show a month where I answer Patron questions. It's about the same as a black coffee a month! Join the community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn
Steve Pieper is a USA Today bestselling thriller author under the name Lars Emmerich. He's also an entrepreneur and business consultant, specializing in digital marketing and selling direct with his course, AMMO, Author Marketing Mastery through Optimization.
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 more indie authors are embracing selling direct
How the emergence of courses has helped mature the indie author market
Differences in the process of selling a print book on Amazon vs. Shopify
Cash flow management when selling direct
When does it make sense for an author to start selling direct?
Using click testing to test a book idea with your target audience
Steve's Click Testing and Direct Sales courses — If you're interested, please consider using my affiliate link and supporting the show: www.TheCreativePenn.com/clicktesting
Joanna: Steve Pieper is a USA Today bestselling thriller author under the name Lars Emmerich. He's also an entrepreneur and business consultant, specializing in digital marketing and selling direct with his course, AMMO, Author Marketing Mastery through Optimization. So welcome back to the show, Steve.
Steve: Thank you very much. It's such a pleasure to be here, Jo.
It seems like selling direct has gone mainstream in the author community since you were last here.
What do you think has happened to make authors embrace selling direct in a much bigger way over the last 18 months?
Steve: It's a great question. I think a few things have combined to make it more mainstream, as you say. I think the first thing is that Amazon has effectively capped eBook sales prices at $9.99, and nobody's capped the advertising expenses at any particular number.
So it becomes more and more important, as ad costs to generate interest in your books continue to increase along with everything else—aside from eBook prices—it's more and more important to be able to track your metrics.
You want to be able to reach people who are purchasers, as opposed to people who are just nearly kind of curious.
Those things are made possible when you sell direct because your store knows exactly who purchases from you. You get their email address, you get their name, your store processes their credit card.
That information can be fed back to Meta, so Facebook and Instagram, to make your ads operate more efficiently and to bring you new purchasers more profitably. So I think that's the first part of it.
I think the second part is that we've heard plenty of stories of some fairly high-profile authors having trouble with their Amazon accounts, often through no fault of their own.
Whenever you run a big enterprise, such as Amazon, you have to pay attention to the quality of the listings and the quality of the accounts. You also have to deal with people who are trying to abuse the accounts to make a quick buck.
The only way to do that at scale is algorithmically, which means the machines are making decisions about whose account to close and leave open. Often Amazon doesn't even ask the authors what was happening, you just find that your account has been closed. So I think those things have combined to make direct sales a more viable option for people.
The third reason is that we've noticed, and this has been true since I first started selling directly in 2017 —
Whenever you advertise for your direct sales system, there's this beautiful thing called a cross-channel effect.
This is where your book advertisements that point to your store so that people can purchase from you, they produce sales through your store, but they also get people excited who are diehard Amazon customers, for example.
So they might see your ad for your store, like what they see, but just prefer to buy from Amazon because of convenience or familiarity or whatever else.
So it's kind of a two-for-one deal, and in some cases, like a three- or four-for-one kind of deal, depending on who you are, in terms of advertising dollars and sales that come in.
Joanna: Yes, just coming back on that Amazon cap on $9.99. At London Book Fair, I actually talk to an Amazon person, and said, “Look, it's been capped at $9.99 for like forever. A while ago, it wasn't that big a deal, but it is a real big deal now.”
I mean, I write nonfiction as well, and nonfiction, in particular, can take a lot higher prices on eBooks. So I agree with you that this is a bit of an issue. Do you think they'll ever change that ebook cap? I mean, inflation is hitting everything, it seems, except eBook sales prices.
Steve: Exactly. I don't know for the life of me why they haven't yet. It seems in their best interest, as well, because they're taking 30% of the sale price.
So I don't know what economics they're looking at, what data they have. I mean, I can't imagine they have much data on sales performance above $9.99 because you earn half the royalty above $9.99. I can't imagine many authors at all have chosen to take that route.
So I have no idea why they haven't made those adjustments yet. I mean, I think it's far more appropriate that if there were a cap at that royalty rate, it seems to me that it would be on par with what you typically see traditionally published eBooks priced at, like around $14.99.
Joanna: Yes, exactly. So that will be interesting if they ever change that. I guess they're still trying to push people to subscription for eBooks.
I also wondered whether another thing that shifted is almost the maturity of the indie author market, and also the emergence of different ways to learn. I mean, your course has been around for a number of years now, but there are other people starting to teach.
There are, I guess, even people like myself being more vocal about it, even though I sold my first PDF online in 2008, but it certainly wasn't the way you do it. So do you think there's also maybe this confidence? I mean, it was 2007 when the Kindle launched, so we're at 15 years of an indie author market now.
Steve: I absolutely think the indie author market has matured.
I think in the beginning, the people who did really well in the early days of the Kindle, were those folks who had a catalogue and had their rights returned to them, or who had repurchased their rights.
They had a dozen or fifteen or so books to place on the platform, and they were midlist authors in sort of a traditionally published ecosystem. They found tremendous purchase in the new eBook ecosystem, and there were some really high-quality authors there.
I think what's happened over the next, like you say, 15ish years in the meantime, is that many, if not most, really high-quality authors, they're just not seeing much economic advantage to the traditionally published route. The royalty split is not attractive.
There's a lot of authors who are in our community who are doing extremely well, who at one point were traditionally published, and their careers only began accelerating when they got their rights back and when they became their own business owner and their own business manager for their career.
Joanna: Let's get into the benefits and the challenges of selling direct.
You mentioned the data that you get and the cross-channel effect, but what are some other things? What are some of the good things, and also some of the challenges?
Steve: So once you start getting into the advertisement game, and with sixty million titles available 24/7, 365, at least on Amazon and many other retailers, it's really hard to have anyone discover your books unless you're actively advertising.
Or if you're spending a tremendous amount of effort to build a brand, a personal author brand, that also works. It tends to take three to five to seven years to do.
As soon as you get into that ecosystem, you are not just a writer, you are now an entrepreneur. You have to run a real business there. You have to pay very close attention to your cash flow and you need to be a professional about how you test and create your ads.
The other thing that happens is that as soon as you start spending real money to bring eyeballs to your books, it rapidly exposes any weaknesses in your product quality. The first inkling you might have that things aren't quite right is that people just aren't buying your books.
So what you find along the way is that you have to pay a good bit of attention to exactly how you're presenting books, both on your Amazon product detail page, but also if you're doing direct sales, on your Shopify pages and your sales pages leading to a Shopify purchase.
So it opens the door to business operations, and many authors just want to do the thing, we just want to write.
Again, in a world with sixty million books, it's fine if you just want to write because you love writing, but —
If you have commercial aspirations, if you'd like to make a living or you'd like to make additional money on the side, it takes a more disciplined approach and more methodical approach.
That can certainly be a challenge for authors who are already busy, or sometimes holding down day jobs, and raising kids, and all of those things.
Joanna: So let's come back on this. I feel like for many years, we did say that we were entrepreneurs. I certainly did. I have a book, Business for Authors: How to be an Author Entrepreneur. So I did use the word entrepreneur.
When I look at now how to run a Shopify store and essentially an ecommerce business, I think, actually, we didn't know what we were doing before. So just on that, the process flow of—let's just take print, I think print is a really good example.
If you sell a print book on Amazon, compared to selling a print book on your Shopify store, what's the difference?
Because I feel like a lot of people don't understand the difference.
Steve: That's a terrific question. So hidden behind the Amazon paperback purchase is also an Amazon logistics operation to print a copy of your book that is just sold.
Or you may have negotiated a wholesale order with a third-party printer and shipped those books to one of Amazon's warehouses for them to fulfill and pick from the shelves and package and ship to your customer.
All of that's happening behind the scenes if you are selling paperbacks on Amazon, but you have to actually understand how to do those things and set them up so that they function if you're selling paperbacks from your Shopify store.
You should, especially now, we've already talked about the delta between book prices and how they've gone, compared to advertising costs and how they've gone. So depending on your genre, pretty much anything other than romance, you'd really need to be very serious about a paperback operation as well. So it opens a few different discussions.
There are print on demand services, and depending on where you're at, they can make a great deal of sense logistically. They do tend to be quite expensive because they have to do all the logistical things, but also run their company, and provide profit for their shareholders, and all of those things.
So you can hook those up to your Shopify store. such that whenever an order comes in, they're just fulfilled behind the scenes for you by a print on demand company.
The difficulty with that arrangement is that depending on your format size and your page count, your profit margins can be prohibitively thin, and it can be difficult to recoup costs.
The other way that folks go and the other things to think about is to negotiate a wholesale order to drive your per book cost down. That increases your gross profit per sale. So for every sale at a given price for your paperback, you make more money because your expenses are lower.
What that means is that you either have to fulfill that purchase yourself, meaning you have to pack and ship, and many of our authors do that. Or they're also author assistants who will pack and ship on your behalf.
Then there are also third-party logistics companies that will warehouse your titles until sold, and then when they're sold, they will pull them from their shelves in the warehouse and pack and ship them.
There's a host of considerations that you suddenly have to think about if you're selling directly to your readers.
It sounds scary, and it certainly can be. It really helps to have a few tools to help you calculate costs and make heads or tails of the process of finding the right source for your books at a good compromise between cost and quality, and also fulfillment time.
You have to look carefully at the prices in your genre to understand under what circumstances it's likely to be profitable for you.
So as you mentioned, it's suddenly a whole host of things that are really common to an ecommerce business, but have not been as common to the author world, especially the indie author business, over the last five-ish years.
Joanna: I think this is really important because I've had more and more emails recently saying —
“Oh, it's really hard to sell a book on Amazon now. Oh, it's really hard to sell direct. So what should I do?”
I'm like, you could try pitching traditional publishing. I think it's really important that we emphasize that we are running this ecommerce business by selling direct.
If you do want to work with a traditional publisher, then there is a reason they get most of the money. It's because they also have those logistics set up and all of that.
So I do feel like it's a choice to go this way. I use Bookvault here in the UK, and they have great print prices. So I find that I actually can make more on selling a paperback than I even do on some of my eBooks, in terms of profits. I think this is very exciting.
So I guess I would say to encourage people is that once you get it set up—this is the other thing, isn't it—once you get your head around this, you get it set up, it is just a sort of plug and play the next book.
I found there's a lot of work upfront, and then the work is much less going forward.
Steve: That's absolutely right. Once you've figured out how to get it uploaded to your store or to the service, then it's pretty smooth sailing.
Bookvault.app has a tremendous reputation in the UK, and they're in the process of expanding over into the US. What they're finding over here is that they're subject to the existing printing and shipping infrastructure in the United States, which leaves a lot to be desired.
The distances that have to be covered here in the US between customer locations and business locations, those change the economics quite a bit for those printing companies. So it's a bit harder.
Here in the US, the print on demand company primarily, at least with a terrific Shopify interface, primarily is Lulu. I have been extremely happy with their quality. They are expensive, and it does eat into profit margins.
So Bookvault is a beautiful solution in the UK, currently. There's not currently a beautiful solution, at my page count, in the US for print on demand. It's doable, and a lot depends on the quality of your marketing assets.
A lot depends on your marketing assets in general. Like a terrific book is table stakes to be a professional author, and a terrific marketing system and process is also table stakes to be a successful indie author today, I believe.
Joanna: I kind of think it always has been, but certainly it's just changed. The things that used to work more easily back in the day, now, as you say, are more expensive, or just things have changed, or there's more books.
Let's just talk about one of the very, very good things about selling direct, which is how fast you get the money.
This is such a big deal. I feel like people don't understand it.
If you're traditionally published, you might not get paid for months or sometimes years. As an indie author, you still only get paid 60 days later, 90 days later, sometimes longer depending on the contract and the system.
I have my Shopify set up to pay me every day. Now, I know some people don't have that, they have it every week or whatever, but I really like making money every day.
So talk a bit about the cash flow with the print books. Because that's also different in terms of when you get the money and who pays for things.
Steve: Absolutely, it's so important, so critical, not to have to carry your own advertising costs for two to three months. If you spend $1 today on an ad and it produces a purchase, you want that dollar back because your credit card company is going to ask for it when your credit card bill is due.
If you're waiting that 60 to 90 day window for Amazon to issue their royalty payment to you for today's sale, well, you have to float that cost.
So that either means that you can't advertise to your full capacity, you can't sell as many books as you would otherwise be able to sell, because you can't afford personally to keep paying these ad costs without getting cash flow back.
So it's a much slower ramp up to selling books at scale when you have to wait up to three months to get paid. Whereas if you buy your ads today, and today or tomorrow, like the next business day, that money shows up in your bank account.
I'm like you, I want I want that money deposited every single day. I love those deposits. I don't like them sitting wherever they're at, I like them in my account. So you can pay off that credit card bill for your advertisements every single month, and it just makes everything much healthier.
The other thing is that if you're waiting for royalty payments to come in, and you're purchasing your own copies of your paperbacks or your hard covers to sell, those orders come out of pocket while you're waiting for those royalties to come back.
So again, it's just a much slower and much less responsive scaling capacity. That's important because there are seasons in an author's year, and also in an author's career, when you catch a bit of a flyer where there's a lot of demand suddenly for what you're offering.
It's really important to be able to take advantage of that, but if you're waiting around three months to get the cash available to purchase more books to sell to the people who want them right now, that's a really frustrating position to be in.
The cash flow management in an author career is a thousand times easier when you make a sale today and the money shows up tomorrow in your account.
Joanna: Yes, and as you say, if you do hit some big thing, like I know someone who had a really massive day on TikTok, and say you get a thousand orders for your paperbacks through to your store today, you get that money, but you also have to pay the printer.
So one of the confusions that I feel people have is that at the moment, you don't have to “pay” for Amazon to print your book if you go through KDP print because they take it out of the sales. So you never have to pay them out of your pocket.
Whereas when we're selling direct, we're paying for the printing, and then a customer pays us. So I feel like this is so important, this cashflow. If you're doing a massive campaign, then just remember this cash flow management. When does the money come in? When does it go out? Again, once you get it sorted, you can manage it.
When in an author's journey might they consider selling direct through your methods?
You're mainly talking about Shopify, which is quite different to Kickstarter. Some people might be on Payhip, some people might sell at a local school, for example. So at what sort of points should authors consider this?
Steve: That's a terrific question. The platform that you're selling from, whether it's Shopify, or Payhip, or Samcart, there's a bunch of them out there, the considerations are quite similar.
What we're seeing across our community, and we're close to 1200 or 1300 authors strong in our community at the moment, and we have some folks who are doing really well and can generate a purchase of a bundle of their books for $6, $7, or $8 in advertising costs. Those tend to be outliers.
What we're seeing on average, is that the average cost to bring in a new paying customer is between $12 and $20. That's a range, it's not like Author A gets good sales at $12, and Author B gets sales at $20. That's a range that every author experiences throughout the week or day or month.
There's a lot of fluctuation running any kind of business. You can tell this just by looking at your Amazon purchases back in the dashboard. Some day you sell more books than others, and it's the same when you're selling directly. So that $12 to $20 customer acquisition cost, it's relatively agnostic to the advertising platform that you're using.
We use Meta because they're by far the best. I test these every year, spend thousands of dollars, and I have always wound up at the same place. Facebook and Instagram are where book buyers mostly are, at least from an ad perspective.
When you have to recoup a $12 to $20 customer acquisition cost, that dictates how you need to structure your business.
So you have to have enough products to sell to make that money back in profit, and then some, so that you keep selling for your store.
So if you're a novelist, and you're selling one or two titles so far, it's really rare to do that profitably anywhere, including on Amazon, but it's really rare to do it profitably if you're selling directly due to those acquisition cost reasons as well.
The number of books that you have is important. Each of them have to be professional quality, professional grade.
They have to be so good that your readers know that they're going to love them and tell their friends about them.
So that's what you're aiming for product quality-wise, and you need a bunch of products that way. So if you write in the romance genre, we typically see around eight to ten titles being sort of the price of entry for all the goodness that comes from selling directly to your readers.
In other genres where there are typically longer page counts and a slightly less voracious reader community, we see in the neighborhood of five to eight titles.
It's useful to know too, like what's a sustainable number of titles. A good metric for that is, I like to think of it in terms of looking across our community and asking myself, what's the smallest number of titles that an author has had that they have used to sell over a million dollars’ worth of their books?
What's magical about a million dollars? It's just a nice milestone, but what it really tells you is that their setup is resilient. So it's not like they have a good week, and then everything falls apart.
To sell a million dollars’ worth of your books, you're in pretty rare air, which means that you have a system that is working really well for you. You have the right number of high-quality titles to work for you.
So if you are a novelist, the smallest number of titles that an author has used to sell over a million dollars of their books is eight.
If you're a nonfiction author, this is an interesting one, the smallest number of titles that one of our nonfiction authors has used to sell over a million dollars’ worth of their books is three.
That's a little bit misleading because it was one main title with a workbook and an associated poetry book. So it was like a suite of three products, but really the vanguard was led by that one individual title.
So I mention that just to give you a sense for what you can expect if you're looking to build a sustainable business that produces enough cash flow to be really interesting and really worth your time. So those are good numbers I think to aim for. If you are topically on point in your nonfiction title, that can be done with a single title, but it's really rare.
If you are a novelist, then I would be looking more toward five to eight as really the point when you can expect, if you're doing a good job, testing your marketing assets and elements, and testing your books, and writing high quality professional titles, that's when you can reasonably expect to start doing so profitably in a direct sales context.
Joanna: I'll put a little caveat on this, which is if you have one or two books but you still want to do this, you just can't do big paid ad spend.
If you're building up your author brand slowly, you can sell direct just through driving your own traffic through building an email list, or if you have a podcast like I have had for many years.
This is how I've done it. I've moved platforms over the years as things have grown.
I do think that some people are just launching on either Kickstarter or through Shopify, and they don't necessarily have to do a lot of ad spend, they don't have to sell a lot of books. Your course and your system is for the very, very ambitious people who have more books.
That's what we all want, but sometimes if people are starting out now, I wonder if going through building the store and learning the business can also be beneficial, even if they're not expecting the massive sales. Just with the caveat that they're not spending a ton on ads.
Steve: I believe that's absolutely true. That's what I mean by the brand building. Like if you're building a brand through podcasts, and in emails, and newsletters, and appearances at conferences, and media appearances and such, that is absolutely effective. In fact, that's ultimately where all of us need to end up if we really want to grow into a really recognized and successful brand.
I will say that there are certain elements that we teach that are quite important no matter where you are in your author career. So it's not like you should wait to engage with paid ads until you have eight titles or five titles, it's actually kind of tragic to do that.
The reason is that we tend to overestimate the quality and marketability of our own work. So one of the worst situations, and I see it, unfortunately, over and over again, where people come into the community with lots of titles, which need lots of work.
So the way around this is not to ask your friends if they like your work or not, to ask your family members if you're going to be a star author, but to —
Test your ideas in front of total strangers who are known to read in your market.
This is different than sending a survey out to your email list. It's different to asking people in person for feedback because they're solving a different equation. They're thinking about their relationship with you and your feelings.
So they're not directly answering this question, “Would you buy this right now?” That's the question. You can't ask them directly, you just have to put things in front of them that give them the opportunity to show you, yes or no, how resonant, how effective, your messaging is.
So we do this, and the name of the process is called click testing.
Click testing has been used in about 75-plus different industries. It's helped to drive over a billion dollars, including $200 million dollars per year in extra revenue.
Click testing is a way to test a number of your ideas very quickly, but also with high fidelity and a pretty high level of precision.
One of the things that we discovered—and this is like 800 authors, 6000 tests, 50,000 different individual testing elements—one of the really interesting things that we've discovered is that only about 5% of our ideas are good enough to move forward with profitably. So one idea out of twenty.
An idea might be a hook, or a tagline, or a title, or a subtitle. One idea might also be an image or a cover image.
So it's extremely important to de-risk everything you're doing, in my opinion, whether it's advertising to bring traffic to existing titles that you have, or if you're still building your catalogue and still writing, we found that it's quite important to de-risk those future titles by testing your book ideas.
The process, again, that we use to do this is called click testing. It is the foundation of our direct sales program, which is aimed for people, like we talked about, who have a number of high quality titles and want to build a serious ecommerce business around them.
Click testing, on the other hand, benefits and has benefited authors selling anywhere from $0 per month, upwards of a couple million dollars per year. It's actually quite a simple process that just involves running advertisements and treating them in a special way as experiments.
We run them for a brief period of time, and we have a very specific number of impressions that they're shown for. That's just like the number of people who get to see them.
Then we just look at the performance metrics of these little advertisements to guide us to give us an understanding of whether or not that particular idea is worth pursuing either as an advertisement, or even more importantly, worth pursuing at all to make a book out of or to include in your next book.
So the beginning of that process, the direct sales process, actually is click testing. It applies to pretty much anyone at most spots inside of your author career trajectories. Whether you're already selling a lot of books, we've got folks who are multimillion dollar year sellers who have really dramatically improved their profit margins. So they took a lot more home.
Then we've got folks who were beginning who had financially successful titles through testing the ideas and the concepts. It's not just the ideas and concepts, it's also the specific words—as writers, we know this—but it's also the specific words that we use.
So that's a really important way to think, in my opinion. If you want to do this professionally, and if you want your work to be read, it's really important to get midstream and early stream feedback on whether anybody might be interested in reading this book once you're done with it.
Joanna: Yes, and I wanted to talk to you because I have been through the click testing module, and I've always been pretty resistant to this. I tried your course a while back, and it was a lot of data. So I'm not a massive data person, but I did this click testing process, and I actually found it quite fun.
I'll tell you what's different now, and this will help people listening, is ChatGPT. I basically was like, I can't come up with fifteen different taglines, I just can't. But ChatGPT can.
My brain can only think of one or two taglines, or maybe I can't think of any. Maybe I can only write 70,000 words, I can't put it all into like a tagline.
So I used ChatGPT to come up with a lot of the variants for the click testing. I put this on my email to you, but I changed the tagline for Spear of Destiny, which as we speak right now has just launched on Kickstarter. It's already funded.
So I mean, who knows whether that tagline made all the difference, but I certainly changed it. When I did the click testing, and I put in whatever it was, fifteen different variants or however many it was, my one, the one I came up with originally, it performed like number eight or something out of the list.
So I switched it to the one that tested better, and I did that to a market that I normally sell to. So this is what's interesting, this was a Kickstarter tagline. This was not necessarily a whole advertising campaign, but it really, really helped me.
I guess the other thing to say, because we talked before about the conversion ads which were more expensive.
These are click ads. So it doesn't cost you that much to do these tests, does it?
Steve: No, not at all. In fact, we just run it at a relatively low budget of $30 per day. I recommend six tests. The number is six if you're a novelist or a storyteller, or if you are a nonfiction author who solves problems for people.
So each of those tests last one to two-ish days at a $30 per day ad spend. So the whole thing is done in like two weeks. So maybe you've spent $200 to $300 to de-risk your title, or maybe you've spent $200 to $300 total, to arrive at a really high converting advertisement.
Like you mentioned, the things that you learn about what people like, they're not just useful on the book itself or on the advertisement itself, they're useful everywhere you're interacting with your customers. So in your case, on the Kickstarter page. Also on your product detail page, whether that's on your Amazon product page or on your Shopify product page.
Also, if you're doing lead generation and getting people to sign up for your list, what you discover really resonates and really gets people excited to your click testing, guess what, it also gets them excited on the signup page.
Or if you're bringing people to a sales page in a direct sales scenario for your bundle, or for a trilogy that you're offering in paperback, or whatever, those elements really go a long way toward improving every aspect of your business.
You include them in your emails, you include them if you're making videos, if you're writing blog posts. It really is useful when you find beyond a shadow of a doubt the confluence of your particular voice and what you have to say, and also what resonates with your market.
It's really nice when you feel good about the things you're saying your market, and they really respond to it. So it's a really cool tool that way.
Joanna: Yes, so because we're talking about Meta here, we have to talk about what's been going on recently. So we're recording this at the end of May 2024, and the word in the author community in the last month has been the Metapocalypse, where—
Authors have seen a drop in revenue and effectiveness of Facebook ads. Is this the Metapocalypse?
Now, my personal thought is that Meta are rolling out a lot of AI tools, and they're trying to make it easier on us, but these experiments have caused issues. A bit like any of these changes, it's going to have an effect.
Some people have kind of freaked out, gone back into KU with their eBooks, wondering if it will ever come back. What are your thoughts on the short-term, but also the long-term, impact? What will change? What should authors be doing?
Steve: This is such a good question. I've been advertising online since 2003. Back then there wasn't just one search engine, there were like six. So I was advertising on all of them. It was different business and different ecosystems, and they all sort of had their ups and downs.
Then the advent of, first, Facebook, and then Facebook and Instagram ads now under Meta. Those became a real player for us in like the 2015/2016 ballpark, maybe 2014 even. I look back, and about twice a year in some communities someplace, there is the Metapocalypse kind of meme that circulates.
It's really important to understand that in any community of businesses, and authors are no different, at any given moment, we've got authors in our community who are having their best month ever.
Then we have authors in our community—same community, same month, same advertising platform—who are not having good months at all.
There's this continuous up and down in any business, and ours is no different.
One of the things that sort of determines which industry takes up the meme, like the sky has fallen in Facebook land, is just which individuals are having a rough month.
If it's somebody with a prominent platform and they're writing about it, or it's somebody who's got a course on something and they're having their turn in the barrel, as they say for a rough month, it can really feel like things are out of control and we need to make drastic changes.
So let me give you a resource that will stop this kind of anecdotal spread of information which may not be accurate. So there are a couple of analytics companies who connect to your Shopify store and they connect to all of the different ad platforms.
So they see every dollar that thousands upon thousands of ecommerce businesses are spending on every relevant ad platform. They see how much a click is costing, what are the click through rates, how much does it cost to bring in a new customer.
Since they have such a broad view across all the advertising platforms that are relevant to ecommerce and across so many different niche ecommerce stores, it actually gives you a real sense of what's going on.
So the resource I'd like to point everybody to is Northbeam.io. So North like the direction, beam like laser beam, Northbeam.io. They have a Media Buyer Newsletter, and what they do is they send out their statistics monthly. So the main meme that the sky has fallen in Meta-land in the book world, that was on the strength of April's results, for better and worse.
It was really interesting because the recent Northbeam media buyer newsletter, where you can see exactly what market share exists on like Meta vs Google vs YouTube vs TikTok, and you can see trends in whether it's become more expensive or less expensive, more profitable or less profitable.
The April 2024 results were better than the April 2023 results. So from that perspective, there was no Metapocalypse this year, which is really interesting. You can see the difference between what happens socially and anecdotally.
You know, we talk to each other, but we don't have the ability to see what's actually happening from a numbers perspective. So when you fold in that data, it really helps you make more informed decisions.
So how would I use this differently? Like if that data came back and said, “Oh, my gosh, April 2024, it was 25% more expensive than it was in 2023. Things really are looking bleak,” I would consider making significant changes to my business, to the structure of it, to the strategy of it.
Given that it came back, actually, April 2024, was better than April 2023, numerically speaking, that's different. Then my action is, okay, it sounds like I just need to work harder to test newer creative. Maybe test newer hooks, new images, things that are resonating now.
Culture moves at a pretty quick pace, so things that worked, they work for a shorter period of time now. Things are moving so quickly in media and culture, so it's important to be able to make strategic decisions like that with actual information.
It's not like pages and pages and reams and reams of data, it's usually summarized just in one chart, and it fits on your phone. So I recommend that everybody who's buying ads in the book world, subscribe to that Northbeam.io. I'm not affiliated with them, I just think they're awesome. Northbeam.io, and it's called the Media Buyer Newsletter. So that'll keep you from making emotional knee jerk reactions that you could live to regret.
Joanna: I think it comes back to what we were saying at the beginning around being an entrepreneur and having a real business. The reality is, it's not all up and to the right forever. Unfortunately, not everything is like that all the time.
It goes up and down and things change, and that's part of the fun of it, too. I mean, if it was always the same, then it would be so boring. So this is certainly interesting, and as I said, I find the course great. You're a great teacher, and you've recently redone the whole course.
Tell people a bit about the course and who it's most suitable for.
Steve: Thank you, I appreciate that. So there are two programs, and the front door for everybody is click testing because I've just seen almost universally positive results in a whole bunch of different industries.
The reason that the results are positive is because you're learning more about what your market wants, like what do the people actually want and respond to. So it doesn't matter where you're at.
If you're working on that first book, you would definitely want some information that your market is excited about the idea that you're spending so much time, and effort, and energy, and probably money and love, to produce.
Also, if you're selling well, but would like to increase your profit margins, or you'd like to be able to advertise more aggressively to produce more sales, but to do that, you have to be able to advertise more effectively, click testing is for you also.
Like I say it's, it's helped people who have zero books and are making $0 per month, and it's helped people who have many books and who are really big names, not just an indie community, but out in the author world.
It's improved the number of books they're able to sell and the profit margin they're able to sell it at.
So that's called Click Testing for Authors. That's the introductory program. It's the foundation for everything, and the reason it's the foundation for everything that we do inside of our processes is because it teaches you what your customers like. That's really important.
For a subset of folks who have the number and quality of titles that we spoke about earlier, there's a follow-on program called Direct Sales for Authors. Those two modules together are inside of version four of AMMO.
Direct Sales for Authors really hones in on the nuts and bolts of setting up a direct sales system. It gives you a bunch of tools to help you calculate your paperback costs, for example.
That can be a hassle, so we put some spreadsheets together to do all that math for you because people who write aren't always people who love to do math. So that's taken care of for you.
We also walk you through the process of getting your assets to work profitably. It's one thing to set everything up so that it functions, i.e. when you put your credit card in, a book comes out on the other end of that. That's one thing, but getting that process to operate profitably is another thing entirely.
It's a whole process in and of itself, and there's some art and science to it. So we provide tools for that, for those folks who are interested in building a direct sales business and interested in doing so at an exciting scale based on the number of books that you have.
So there's two programs. The first one is Click Testing for Authors. That's for everybody under the sun who writes books, in my opinion.
Then the Direct Sales for Authors is a more focused program for those folks who are in a position to most immediately benefit from a serious direct sales effort.
Joanna: Fantastic. If people would like to use my affiliate link, I'm a happy affiliate. I have done the course, and I think it's great. It is thecreativepenn.com/clicktesting, all one word.
Where else can people find it? I always like to give people the actual link because, of course, we don't expect people to go through my affiliate. Also—
Tell people where your books are, as well.
Because you are a real author, and I think that's really important.
Steve: Yes, thank you. So please do use Joanna's affiliate link. Let's support Jo's podcast and your efforts in everything that you have done for our community for all these years.
If that's not your thing, perfectly fine. AMMOauthor.com. A-M-M-O like Author Marketing Mastery through Optimization. AMMOauthor.com is sort of the front door. If you want to check out my trashy spy thrillers, they're at Lars.buzz. L-A-R-S-dot-B-U-Z-Z.
Joanna: Or “zed, zed” if you are British.
Steve: Depending if you're on the correct side of the pond or the incorrect side of the pond.
Joanna: Right. Well, thanks so much for your time, Steve. That was great.
Steve: Thank you so much, Jo. I really appreciate it.
7 Tips For Writing Action Adventure Thrillers With J.F. Penn
Jun 05, 2024
What are the tropes of action adventure thrillers? How can you please readers and sell more books? J.F. Penn shares her own tips and also features excerpts from interviews with other thriller writers.
J.F. Penn is the award-winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the ARKANE action-adventure thrillers, the Mapwalker fantasy adventures, and the Brooke & Daniel crime thrillers, as well as horror, travel memoir, and short stories.
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
Put your characters in difficult and dangerous situations
Writing fight scenes
Include a ticking clock and high stakes
What is a MacGuffin and how is it used?
Research into places and experiences
Trust your writing instinct and have fun!
Help your readers escape to exciting places
Using quotes, and source citation
Write a series
If you love action adventure thrillers, check out the ARKANE series by J.F. Penn. Spear of Destiny, book 13, is out now on Kickstarter with special edition signed exclusive cover hardbacks, plus paperback, large print, ebook, audiobook, and bundle deals in all formats.
7 Tips for Writing Action Adventure Thrillers with J.F. Penn
I’m an action adventure thriller fan from way back, but what are the hallmarks of the action adventure genre?
Clive Cussler said,
“Adventure is just putting characters in settings and locales that are unfamiliar to the reader and then as the writer, having fun with what happens.”
I’ve always loved adventure stories. As a child I read The Hardy Boys, and King Solomon’s Mines, and I remember the Choose Your Own Adventure books where you would flick to a new page as you made your choice of action.
I loved Clive Cussler’s Dirk Pitt series and read a lot of marine biology books, as I thought I might be able to join NUMA or something like it. I was able to meet Clive before he died at Thrillerfest in New York in 2015 and have a selfie which really made my trip.
J.F. Penn and Clive Cussler (Thrillerfest, 2015)
I discovered Wilbur Smith’s African and ancient Egyptian adventures, then Michael Crichton, Matthew Reilly, and James Rollins, who also combined the religious aspects I enjoyed into his books.
I love the Pendergast series from Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, with its crossover into occult and supernatural. Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code came out in 2003, and I jumped into that as soon as it launched. I had previously enjoyed Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, but wanted more action and a modern take on the religious themes.
In terms of TV and movies, I loved The A Team, James Bond, Indiana Jones and all the action movies Angelina Jolie did including Lara Croft, and of course, Nicholas Cage in his action movie era — Con Air, The Rock, and Face Off. I loved Arnie in End of Days, Keanu in Constantine, both a blend of action and religious thriller.
I have a Masters degree in Theology from the University of Oxford, and although I am not a Christian, I am fascinated by religious history, relics, conspiracy, and places in Europe and the Middle East in particular that have so much rich religious culture. I’m also glad to be able to use my degree in my books since it was pretty useless when I used to implement accounts payable systems as an IT consultant!
Adventure is generally a male dominated field, and that’s part of why I wanted to write an action adventure series with a strong female protagonist.
Morgan Sierra is my alter-ego, but she has a lot more practical fighting skills. Think Angelina in Mr & Mrs Smith and Salt, or Charlize Theron in The Old Guard. Morgan is most often joined by Jake Timber, her partner at ARKANE, a secret British agency investigating supernatural mysteries around the world.
Back in May 2011 with Pentecost — since then I have re-edited, re-covered, re-titled, and changed my author name
I've written 13 ARKANE books and a short story across 13 years, during which I’ve written many other books of course, but my ARKANE adventures have to be inspired by real life, and they take a while to research and percolate before writing. They cannot be rushed!
If you’d like to read more action adventure by indie authors, check out RD Brady, David Wood, Alan Baxter, J. Robert Kennedy, PJ Skinner, Ernest Dempsey, Nick Thacker, Avanti Centrae, and Kevin Tumlinson — and yes, several of the list are women. You can recognise us by our initials!
Right, let’s get into some tips for writing action adventure thrillers.
Tip 1: Put your characters in difficult and dangerous situations
Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher thriller series says,
“The three essential things are: Put the characters in danger early; keep the stakes high; and make sure the danger grows throughout the novel.”
Gillian Flynn, author and screenwriter of Gone Girl, said,
“I like writing about people who are flawed and human. It’s what I enjoy reading and what I enjoy writing. Thrillers are all about how you break somebody, in the best possible way.”
In 2011, I was writing the early books in the ARKANE series. Stone of Fire was just out, or Pentecost as it was back then before the rebrand, and Crypt of Bone was almost done.
I was still wrestling with writing fight scenes, and I was also slightly worried about writing violence and hard times for my characters. It’s strange to think that now because I love writing fight scenes, and in Spear of Destiny, Morgan Sierra has a particularly good fight with a mysterious soldier in the gorgeous State Library in Vienna. That was fun to write!
Vienna State Hall Library. Photo by J.F. Penn, featured in Spear of Destiny
“People expect that your main character is going to make it through to the end with some scars, and so you need to create suspense as to how they're going to get there.
You need to make them care about the supporting cast and will the supporting cast survive, and also by making the challenges they face greater, you can show more parts of their abilities and their skills with those on display. This book has got more action throughout. I really wanted to develop the antagonist by making their role bigger and bringing them in from the start, I needed to bring them into conflict earlier on.
Now I don't do gratuitous, gory things. I'm not Quentin Tarantino. We don't have Kill Bill with the blood jetting out of the necks and things like that. So I try to have a purpose for it, but I think there also is an expectation in thrillers that there's going to be a body count.
I think as long as you're not a sicko person, it's pretty easy to compartmentalize and just let your imagination run wild. I know as a kid I like to read about World War II, now that I'm older and I know about war and I've known people who have been killed in it, it's not a glory thing anymore, but it's still interesting. I think, people coming into conflict on that level is fascinating.
I listened to the Hardcore History podcast, which is a favorite, and the host, Dan Carlin did an amazing series on the Punic Wars, and he did such a powerful job of describing that hand to hand, eye to eye, chopping each other apart. And it makes you realize how horrific it is. But it's also fascinating because you want, what does that feel like? How does your psyche react? How does your body react? And we wonder what we would do if we were ever faced with a life and death situation.”
Fight scenes are part of what readers expect in an action adventure thriller.
Personally, I expect a high body count in the thrillers I read. These are no cozy mystery or domestic thrillers where there might be a body or two. These have much higher stakes!
Fight scenes are also a staple of the genre, but writing a fight scene when you are not a fighter is a skill you need to learn.
I interviewed martial artist and multi-award-winning horror and thriller writer Alan Baxter back in 2011, in the early days of my ARKANE series. I asked him why readers love fight scenes, and in this clip he explains why:
“One part of it is escapism because most people have never had a fight. Generally, that's a good thing because even people that do train fighting, it's best if you don't fight. When people fight, people get hurt. Horrible things can happen. I train fighters all the time, and the thing I'm always saying is the first defence, the first block, is to run away. Never fight unless you have to.
And so by reading about these things, we get to experience those things from that third person perspective of what’s going on. And I think it’s just a natural extension of fiction.
Most stories at their core are dealing in one way or another with conflict. If it’s a love story, it’s emotional conflict or if it’s a mystery, it’s a sort of cerebral conflict or whatever. But what makes an interesting story is conflict and challenges and tests for your characters in all sorts of shapes and forms. So of course, the most distilled version of that is actual physical conflict and people literally fighting against each other in a physical sense.
And of course, when you are writing action and you want all this fast paced mayhem going on, and people running into each other and having fisticuffs and jumping in cars and having car chases and blowing things up, that’s what gets our adrenaline going.
If we were going through that, our adrenaline would be drowning us, whereas we can read about someone else going through it and we can get that sort of vicarious ride by following them without any real threat to ourselves. So I think it's just a natural extension of the general conflict in storytelling.”
The ticking clock is a thriller trope. There is a deadline and a race against time which drives the pace of an adventure. Usually, the main characters have to stop the baddies from destroying the world, or save someone before it’s too late, or whatever the plot is, before the time runs out.
In Spear of Destiny, I have two ticking clocks. One is the countdown to the US election as my antagonist is military and a politician who intends to use the Spear to galvanise his campaign and summon a supernatural power to propel him to the White House.
The other ticking clock is more personal for Morgan. Her young niece, Gemma, is dying, because of a curse that should have affected Morgan. She will do anything to save Gemma and the Spear can be used for both healing and destruction. The stakes are both political on a country and global scale, but also much more personal and intimate.
Tip 3. Feature a MacGuffin
Action adventure thrillers in particular usually have a MacGuffin. It’s the thing that the characters are searching for, usually some kind of object of power, or historical importance. In Spear of Destiny, it is, you guessed it — the Spear of Destiny!
Spear of Destiny, Hofburg, Vienna. Photo by J.F. Penn
Morgan and Jake must recover the pieces from various locations around the world before the bad guys put them all together again and summon a great evil.
Your MacGuffin doesn’t have to be original. In fact, among action adventure writers, we often use the same objects because it’s so fun to write them. We often use the same places as well, but of course, we all have different characters and different adventures.
Tip 4: Research thoroughly. Details matter.
My ARKANE thrillers are mostly based on my travels, and many of my own experiences. One of the benefits of running a business as an author is that you can do tax-deductible business trips and that includes experiences for research, as long as they end up in a profitable book, of course!
David has always been very generous and welcoming to indie authors, and he loves his research! Here’s an excerpt from the interview, where he talks about some particularly exciting experiences. You can find David at DavidMorrell.net.
“I did a novel called Testament, which was about a man on the run from a terrorist organization who’s forced to live in the mountains over a winter. And I heard about an organization called the National Outdoor Leadership School, which is based in Lander, Wyoming, in the United States, and basically takes groups into the mountains and teaches them how to survive up there.
And so, prior to writing Testament, I went and I lived above timberline in the Rocky Mountains for thirty days. And the graduation exercise — I remember this so vividly. There's a mantra: You can go three minutes without air, three hours without heat, three days without water, and three weeks without food.
So they took our food away and then they showed us the map, and it was on the other side of the continental divide. Three days from now, we’ll pick you up over here. So you had to know how to use a compass and a map. We kept our canteen, but we didn’t have any food and basically for three days, there were five of us in this particular group, and so we just kept going and kept going, and I lost twenty-five pounds. So I did that. That was one of an exciting thing.
I went to the Bill Scott Raceway in West Virginia where people go to learn how to drive in emergency situations, and so for five days I learned how to car fight, how to ram through barricades, and at fifty miles an hour we were doing all this stuff. And the movies have it all wrong, but it was a glorious time. I never had so much fun doing all this car fighting on this raceway. And I used that in a novel called The Protector because it occurred to me that car chases in the movies are fake and I hardly ever see them in novels. So I thought, well, why not do a car chase in a novel that’s authentic in the way a professional would really do it?
And I think the one that really transports me the most. I was doing a novel called The Shimmer, which is about mysterious lights that appear in West Texas and have been for since like 1889. And they’re real. I’ve seen them. They’re very strange. And the government or the military for a time tried to investigate them using aircraft.
And so I knew that the novel, if it was going to be realistic, would have to use aircraft. And then I thought, well, what do I know about aircraft? And I'm not gonna fake that. It's like, if you're writing about guns, it helps to go out and shoot one just so you know what it's like. And so I went, I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and I went down to the local, , airport and found a place that taught flying. So I started paying flying classes and I liked it so much, and I eventually became a private pilot. So I have my license, which has the Wright brothers on it and it’s very cool. I’ve had a lot of fun doing the research.”
Trust your writing instinct and have fun
I love that David mentions fun in that last segment, because research trips to interesting places are part of why I write my ARKANE thrillers. They give me an excuse to travel and delve into some really fascinating history and culture, and it’s one of my favourite parts of being an author.
It’s great to find author friends who enjoy the same fascinations, and I’ve interviewed multi-award-winning author Rebecca Cantrell multiple times over the years.
JFPenn and Rebecca Cantrell, Berlin, 2013
We actually first met in Berlin when I was on a research trip to visit the Ishtar Gate at the Pergamon Museum which I included in End of Days, and we have also been at Thrillerfest in New York and at a conference in Oregon together. We both have an international mindset and we always geek out about cool places we have traveled to and written about.
“For the Joe Tesla stuff, which is set in the subway under New York, there’s a lot of urban explorers who go down there with cameras and they just film themselves walking through the tunnels and what’s going on. And so you get to see all these hidden places and even ten years ago, unless you happened to be in New York, you’d never ever see that material.
There’s so many places that seem kind of magical, where you go there and just like, ‘Ooh, this place has some kind of energy or some kind of story inherent in it.’ And I think that writers pick up on that and you’re like, okay, there’s something about this moment and this place that strikes you, and it strikes every writer differently, but I think there are certain places that just resonate a lot.
I think that you need to trust your instinct and then really do the research and immerse yourself in it. It’s okay to have fun. It’s okay to go someplace that you think is fascinating and wander around and sit in.
Like I had a book that I was going to set in Venice and I happened to be in Venice and I didn’t write that book until years later, but I sat in a cafe in Venice on St. Mark Square, and I drank hot chocolate in this little cafe that had been around since the 1700s, and it was real chocolate that they melted in the milk. And that feels completely indulgent because it was nothing but fun. It was fantastic hot chocolate and the setting was gorgeous, and you know, you can’t take a bad picture of Venice.
I’m not sure you can sit anywhere in Venice that isn’t just beautiful, but as a writer, it’s okay to have fun. It’s okay to enjoy those moments, and it’s okay to really indulge your senses because that’s where the gold is. Those specific moments that you love and you connect with will connect with the readers, and that took me a long time to really believe.
And I think I was working with James Rollins on something and I was like, so I think this, but is that dumb? And he is like, no, I found that if I think it’s cool, other people think it’s cool. And I think that’s true trust. Trust the readers and trust yourself. Have fun. If you have fun, it’ll show.”
Tip 5: Help your readers escape into an exciting setting
Action adventure thrillers are about escaping your current situation and delving into a fast-paced adventure for a time. Setting is a huge part of that and action adventure is usually about a realistic present day setting used as part of the plot, although there are also adventure categories under Fantasy as well, and my Mapwalker thrillers fit there.
My ARKANE thrillers are all modern day, real-world settings. Spear of Destiny opens in Vienna, and also has scenes in Nuremberg, Oxford, and Washington, D.C.
Nick Thacker also writes similar adventures in his Harvey Bennett series and other books. I interviewed Nick about writing action adventure in 2020, and here’s an excerpt about escape and setting.
“People go to these types of books and movies for the ability to not quite go to a completely fantastical world, that this isn’t fantasy adventure, but to go into a different place of the world that they know. And it just seems like a lot of readers are going to our work because they want to escape to another place that they may not have been or somewhere that they’ve been, but have not discovered enough.
But it’s those little details that I think really capture the realism of a setting. We’re writing fiction obviously, but since it is set in a world that people know, it’s important to get that stuff right.
When I started writing this stuff and really nailed down my brand, what I wanted to do, I have what I call a formula, and I’m putting finger quotes because I know formula is a bad word to a lot of writers. But my formula, if you will, is essentially taking some prototypical technology and giving it to a really bad person or organization and then dropping the whole thing into an exotic location, and the good guys have to go find the bad guys.
I mean, all of my books are essentially that, and I try to put in the history, some of the cyber tech thriller type stuff, the elements of those books that I know like Dan Brown’s and Clive Cussler, James Rollins. And so it’s that combination of it all, but the setting is really key. I try to put the book somewhere that I’ve never been or that I would want to go, that I think my readers would also enjoy experiencing.”
To go deeper into place and my fascination with cathedrals, as well as thrillers, I also loved Sanctus by Simon Toyne when it was published in 2011, the same year Stone of Fire came out. I love strong settings, and Simon’s city of Ruin fascinated me.
Simon Toyne, J.F.Penn and Peter James, Thrillerfest 2015
In this excerpt from our interview in 2014, Simon talks about how he found inspiration for Ruin after arriving in France after a stormy crossing from England across the channel.
“We drove an hour inland, and an hour inland from Dieppe is Rouen and the storm had blown out and dawn was starting to lighten the sky. And I saw the silhouette of Rouen Cathedral up on the hill, and it’s a very weird cathedral Rouen cathedral. It’s got this kind of like hypodermic syringe of a needle of a spire. It pierces the sky and these kind of bits, it's very gothic and weird. It's almost like a spider. It’s a strange thing.
And when I saw it, this quote just popped into my head that I'd read years ago and always liked. And kind of carried around with me in, in that sort of way, like picking up a shiny thing and putting it in your pocket.
And the quote is the one that's the beginning of Sanctus, which is the Ralph Waldo Emerson quote, “A man is a God in ruins,” and there was something about that quote. The image of the cathedral and the play on words of Rouen ruin that just planted the seed.”
Tip 6. Use quotes for inspiration but be careful with attribution
It’s also a common practice amongst thriller writers to include quotes at the beginning of novels as Simon did there, ‘A man is a god in ruins.’
Many of my ARKANE thrillers include biblical quotes since the series is often about a religious conspiracy of some kind. Spear of Destiny has an extended quote from the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus:
“The soldiers put on him a crown of thorns and he was scourged and received condemnation from Pilate, and he was crucified at the place of a skull and two thieves with him, and they gave him vinegar to drink with gall, and Longinus the soldier pierced his side with a spear.”
But there was also a quote I found that became quite pivotal in the story,
“He who does not carry demonic seeds within him will never give birth to a new world.”
This is a quote from Magic: History, Theory and Practice by Ernst Schertel, and it was underlined in Hitler’s personal copy of the book. Adolf Hitler was of course an Austrian, and although he was rejected from the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in the early 1900s, he remained in the city painting and selling his work. While he was there, he studied the Holy Lance, the Spear of Destiny, and learned about the occult, which is all woven into the history behind the relic and the modern day thriller.
My reading pile for researching Spear of Destiny
As a practical note, whenever I find quotes, I note them down in my journal — always in quotation marks with the source, and I also put them in my Things app (or you can use whatever software you find helpful). I review these lists for inspiration at different times, and move them into the Scrivener project per book when it becomes time to write.
Always note your sources! If I use a direct quote in the text, I will have a character weave in the source, and I also include an Author’s Note in all my books expanding on my research with an explanation and a bibliography.
If you’re concerned about accidental plagiarism or copyright violations by inadvertently forgetting to cite your sources, have a listen to the interview I did with Vikki Carter, The Author’s Librarian back in 2021, where we discuss research techniques, proper ways to use citations, and more.
Tip 7. Write a series
Action adventure readers love a long-running series, so plan for that by making sure you have an episodic structure for the book, and a team for the protagonist to work alongside.
James Rollins Sigma series has 18 books, with the latest, Arkangel, coming out August 2024, and yes, I have pre-ordered as this is one of my must read series.
My ARKANE series has 13 books — Spear of Destiny is lucky book 13.
ARKANE action adventure thriller series by J.F. Penn
Each book can be read as a stand-alone, which is also a common aspect of action adventure thrillers.
My main character Morgan Sierra joins the ARKANE secret British government agency and mainly works alongside Jake Timber, another agent, but various books feature other characters.
Martin Klein, my super geek character modelled on Q from Bond, is popular and even has a stand-alone story, Soldiers of God where he is the protagonist, so you can expand your series into extra material based on secondary and side characters.
In 2021, I interviewed Sara Rosett about writing a series. Sara writes cozy mystery and historical mystery, and she has a book, How to Write a Series, that might be useful whatever genre you write. In this clip, she talks about reasons why writing a series is such a good idea.
“Readers love a series. If you can get your readers hooked in on book one, then book two and three on down the road is an easier sell perhaps than a standalone because your readers are familiar with the characters in the world. If they enjoy the experience, they want to return to that same world again.
Then there’s some financial stability with writing a series. If you know that book one made a certain amount of money, then maybe book two and three may not be that exact amount, but you can predict a little bit.
And not always, but sometimes, writing a familiar series and characters can be a little bit easier and it can go faster because you already know the world. You're not world-building with each book.
Then, there’s marketing reasons for promotion that make a series a good thing to have. You can save time, you can focus on book one in your marketing, and then you're not trying to run ads to all the books in your catalog, you can focus on one and hopefully as readers come into that book one, if they like it, they’ll continue on.”
If you enjoy action adventure thrillers, you might enjoy Spear of Destiny!
Available now in all the usual editions plus a special hardback, silver foil, signed edition with an exclusive cover. There’s also a webinar on discovery writing if you’d like to join me for that, and I won’t be selling the replay, so that is also exclusive to the Kickstarter. Check it out at www.jfpenn.com/destiny
A cursed bloodline. An ancient weapon. The fate of the world hangs in the balance.
When a mysterious relic is stolen from a museum in Vienna, ARKANE agents Morgan Sierra and Jake Timber embark on a deadly race against time to recover the legendary Spear of Destiny — the holy lance that pierced the side of Christ.
As they follow clues through Nazi ruins, Tibetan temples, and Washington, DC’s greatest monuments, they uncover a sinister plot that threatens to unleash an unstoppable darkness upon the world.
But Morgan also carries a curse in her veins, a shadow placed upon her that now threatens her niece’s life. To save her, Morgan must find the Spear and unlock its fabled healing powers. Standing in her way is the fanatical Jericho Command and their elite leader, Gabriel, a man both blessed and burdened by strange powers and a mysterious past.
From the ashes of World War II to the mystical peaks of Tibet, from ancient crypts to the hallowed halls of the Library of Congress and the Capitol, Morgan and Jake must brave every danger, solve each puzzle, and face down enemies both human and demonic in their quest to find the Spear before its terrible power is unleashed.
Time is running out and the fate of the world hangs in the balance — will Morgan and Jake prevail or will the forces of darkness triumph?
From New York Times and USA Today bestselling author J.F. Penn comes a gripping and explosive thriller that delves deep into the heart of an ancient mystery and a chilling supernatural evil. An unputdownable story of supernatural suspense, Spear of Destiny is a rollercoaster ride into the dark legends of the past and the shocking evils of the present, with only a cursed relic lying between salvation and damnation.
Spear of Destiny is book 13 in the ARKANE action adventure thriller series. It can be read or listened to as a stand-alone story even if you have never read another in the series. There are also binge-worthy bundles available in the Add-Ons so you can read or listen in order if you prefer.
Check it out now at: www.jfpenn.com/destiny and the link will redirect after the Kickstarter is finished. The book will be out in the usual formats in September 2024.
The Seasons Of Writing With Jacqueline Suskin
Jun 03, 2024
How can you adopt the seasons of nature in your writing? How can you allow periods of rest as well as abundance? Jacqueline Suskin explores these ideas and more in this interview.
Book cover designer Stuart Bache on AI for book covers [Brave New Bookshelf]; OpenAI signs licensing deals with The Atlantic, Vox Media, and NewsCorp [OpenAI]
Today's show is sponsored by Draft2Digital, self-publishing with support, where you can get free formatting, free distribution to multiple stores, and a host of other benefits. Just go to www.draft2digital to get started.
Jacqueline Suskin is a poet, author, speaker, and creative consultant. Her latest book is A Year In Practice: Seasonal Rituals And Prompts To Awaken Cycles Of Creative Expression.
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 a poem quickly, live and in person, or order
Choosing the poems that go into a collection and knowing when it's finished
The physical beauty of layout on the page
Embracing the seasons of life and creativity
Trust emergence
Choosing the “easeful” path for your next project
Celebrating our creative accomplishments while continuing our journey
Practices to help us slow down
‘The veil is thin' and how it manifests in our work
Joanna: Jacqueline Suskin is a poet, author, speaker, and creative consultant. Her latest book is A Year In Practice: Seasonal Rituals And Prompts To Awaken Cycles Of Creative Expression. So welcome to the show, Jacqueline.
Jacqueline: Thanks so much for having me.
Joanna: I'm excited to talk to you today. First up, just—
Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing poetry and books.
Jacqueline: I've been writing ever since I was a little kid. I feel like I'm one of those people who just sort of knew at a young age that words were the world I wanted to live in.
I didn't really know what that meant for a long time. I didn't know I was writing poems. Then the older I got, the more I was familiarized with that world, and I thought, oh, I've just always been a poet. So I ended up going to university to study poetry, and getting a degree in poetry, and then just continued to follow that.
It's really led me to some pretty incredible places, including this project that I've done for a long time called Poem Store, where for about 12 years, my only job was to take my typewriter around to public places and write poems for people on the spot.
So I really got this sort of direct connection with the way that everyday people connect with poetry. That has definitely illuminated my path as a writer.
Joanna: That is so crazy. I mean, what possessed you to do that? How did you make that a living? I mean, I have seen some people do that. As an introvert who just doesn't really want to speak to people in general, I just find that utterly terrifying.
Tell us a bit more about Poem Store.
Jacqueline: I mean, honestly, it happened by chance. I just met someone in Oakland who was doing that, and he found out I was a poet, and he invited me to come try it with him.
I had just purchased a typewriter, which was so strange, everything kind of aligned magically like that. That was in 2009. I did that as an experiment just to see if I could, and then I just realized almost immediately how special it was.
It was the perfect combination of my two skills. One is writing and the other is to connect deeply with people. So I just let myself follow it and see how far I could take it. I had no idea it would become my full-time job.
That was very clear, after about a year of doing it at farmer's markets and just kind of continuing the experiment, I was like, I think this is more than an experiment, I think this is something I should probably really give myself over to. Once I did that, it definitely took root and grew into a huge project.
I've written over 40,000 poems with Poem Store. I don't really do it in public anymore because I just kind of got burnt out.
It was a very young person's world to do that in. I had a lot of energy then, and now I'm a little older, and I feel a little more protective of my energy.
In the midst of all of that, that's how I got books published, that's how I met people. It was a really connective way to be part of the community and bring poetry to all types of different people.
Joanna: Wow, 40,000 poems. That's kind of incredible. On that, I mean, this is a very interesting thing, and I think goes to the heart of creativity.
I do know quite a lot of poets, and some poets insist that it takes a very, very long time to be happy with a poem and put it out in the world. You were basically doing a connection, and then a fast creative publishing type process.
How do you connect so deeply and so quickly, and then turn that into creativity in a finished product in a short amount of time? I know you're not doing that anymore, but—
How did you change that mindset of “it must take forever to do a poem” to going so quickly?
Jacqueline: Well, I like to hold both sides of it. I still, even throughout that whole process, wrote books. Those poems did take a lot of time, and craft, and working with an editor.
The painstaking, beautiful longevity of a single poem being on the editing board is something I'm still really familiar with and love a lot. Then I also think there's this freedom in just being able to have this poetic conversation with another person, which is basically what I was doing with Poem Store.
These poems that I would make in the moment, they're very spontaneous. so they're including that person's energy, and there's also a mystery there. Like I wasn't quite sure what I was going to write, and I didn't really know what I did write until I would read them the poem when I was finished.
Just yesterday, I work in a lot of schools now and just visit kids and show them what it's like to be a poet, teach them about poetry, and I brought my typewriter to class yesterday.
There's something really magical that happens when someone has a typewriter, and I think that that was also a big part of it.
There was like this deep lore of how is this person being so vulnerable out here in the world writing poetry, but then also, wow, this machine from the past, this is sort of like a time travel opportunity.
Joanna: I imagine some of those kids have never even seen a typewriter.
Jacqueline: Yes, and there's something about allowing oneself to be free creatively like that. Like those poems had nothing to do with my ego, right? Like, I'll never see them again. I didn't keep copies of them. Every once in a while, I would take photographs of ones that I really loved or something like that.
There was something so special about releasing that sense of control, and the need for perfection, and the need for such a clear certain outcome, that I think is actually really nice to apply to art making.
Although I really do value the craft and the focus and will continue to write books in that way for the rest of my life, I also will always allow myself to slip into that more improvisational sense of writing.
I mean, honestly, even just yesterday, it was a reminder that my imagination is this thing that's always growing and changing, and there's new language to uncover. It feels like a challenge in a playful way.I like, especially as being someone who is a writer for my profession, making any kind of outlet I can for that playfulness in my work.
Joanna: I love that. Well, let's talk about the books of poetry, the collections. I'm also fascinated with this, in that you have to choose poems to go into a collection, which are usually themed in some way. I own quite a lot of these collections of poems.
How do you choose the poems that go into a collection? How do you know when it's finished?
As in, okay, I am happy that this represents whatever that particular point in time is. It seems like quite a nebulous process.
Jacqueline: The choosing is really a fun process. I think, for me, what will happen when I know a book is coming into focus, is I will spend my time reviewing what I've been writing over the last year or two years in my journals, and I'll see a pattern or a theme.
For example, I made a trilogy of books about my time living in California, and each book in the trilogy is about a certain place that I lived.
What allowed me to choose those poems was that I saw this beautiful kind of exploration of place, and I thought, “Oh, I have an entire books worth of poems about my time living in Northern California. Oh, I have an entire books worth of poems about my time living in Los Angeles, and then another for Joshua Tree.”
I could see this theme. So then I went back in and added to it.
I thought about my core memories of those places and patched in what I thought was missing.
With all my books, it's been a similar process of sort of noticing that either there's a theme building up, or there's a collection of poems that are based on place or a certain time in my life. So that's kind of how the choosing happens with this reflection process.
Then there's how to know when a poem is done. I work a lot with clients one-on-one who are trying to create books or trying to polish their poetry.
I always say, you really do need to work with someone else at some point in the process, so that they can say to you, “Yes, this makes sense. This is clear. This is getting across the point you're trying to get across.”
You need to have that reflection of another reader, someone else's eyes on it, to give you the sense of closure that you might need.
Not every poem is like that. Some poems, randomly you'll write something that's just like, “Pow! That is done. That is good. I love it. That's very clear,” but I think that's very rare.
Joanna: I love that. So I also wonder about your poetry, and in fact, your books in general, because you have poems in this book A Year In Practice. I tend to read poetry from a physical book, sometimes I'll get an audio or maybe watch a video of a poet performing, but I'm one of those people who appreciates the physical layout of a poem.
That's often a place where people play with physical layout and the beauty of words on a page, as opposed to the beauty of the words. Do you know what I mean?
How do you incorporate physical beauty in the layout words on the page, or is that less important to you than just the words?
Jacqueline: I do love that. I love when people appreciate that because that is a big part of the craft. Deciding where to break a line, deciding what space goes between which stanza. I think for my work, a lot of times I'll be creating something that the line breaks are giving the pause and the cadence to the poem.
So I'm a huge fan of reading poetry aloud. Like every time I read a book of poems, I will read the poems out loud because I feel like there's a lyrical song-like quality to poetry, there's a rhythm.
The lines, and the way they break, and the way that the words appear on the page offer that. There's spaciousness around certain words.
I think for my work with the typewritten poems, then there's another quality of this kind of tactile, visual expression with the mistakes that I leave in, or just when the typewriter skips a beat, or when I go over a spelling mistake with just a few Xs, because on my typewriter, there's no way to backspace or amend mistakes.
I think that things like that give a different life to poems. Especially, if a poem is just a block on the page as like a narrative or prose narrative—which I do write poems like that a lot—I think it's definitely still an invitation to kind of slow down.
I think that's the difference a lot of times between just straight up prose or narrative fiction or something, is that you get this chance to have space around the words that are usually delivering something very, very macro, very large, as a condensed space, and as few words as possible, honestly.
Joanna: Let's get into A Year In Practice. It's a great book, I really enjoyed it. Of course, people can listen to this whenever because it does have all the seasons in it.
How should we consider the seasons as they relate to a calendar year, specific writing projects, and also times in our lives?
How might they overlay each other?
Jacqueline: When I was creating this book, I looked to the earth for many things. A lot of my life revolves around my connection with the planet. Especially as a creative person, as a writer, as a professional artist, I feel like a lot of times what I'm searching for, what I'm honing in on, is some sort of a methodology that allows me to have a consistent routine.
That changes throughout the seasons of my life, depending on what's happening in my life, what other work I'm doing, where I live, what personal things are happening in my world.
This project started many years ago when I lived in Los Angeles, and in Los Angeles the seasons are very subtle. You have to really be paying close attention to understand that there even are seasons, and what they're telling you is even more subtle.
So I think for a poet, that's actually an incredible invitation because I think subtlety is something that I love to lean into and kind of see what is really under the current of this. What small hints and arrows am I missing if I just kind of rushed through this? Subtlety asks you to look closer and slow down.
So I really learned about the seasons in a new way when I was living in Los Angeles, and this book kind of came out of that. I was like, okay, in the winter, I need to give myself some kind of space to slow down and turn inward a little bit.
Even if you're living somewhere where there isn't snow, or there isn't actual cold weather to deal with that kind of forces you to be in hermit mode, you need to give yourself that because your human body kind of requires that.
There's not a lot of space for that in our society. I did an interview with someone once about the book, and they were like—
“Basically, your book is suggesting that we rest a lot.”
I think that's a big part of the creative practice that can easily get overlooked because we're really concerned with product and outcome. It does feel really good to finish something or to fully indulge in creativity and let yourself be really fervent with whatever your ideas are.
I also think that noticing the season at hand and reeling it in for winter allows you to then move into spring where there is this charge, and there is a charge of energy that you can carefully and slowly approach so that you don't get burned out.
Then you go into summertime, and that's a major time of togetherness. Like that's when we're together, when we're sharing our work, when we're taking in work, but in a group. I imagine always in the summer, it's like when you're allowed to fully be out.
You're not having one foot in the door and one foot out, like you might be in spring. That care then kind of translates into the fall where you start harvesting and gathering again for your winter introversion or for your winter seclusion period. So there's a lot of energy in fall for noting:
What will I need in my creative cave? What can I do for myself now? What can I finish now before I kind of start to turn off a little?
So I love winter, and I feel that winter is a really appropriate time for creative gestation. Then the seasons that follow, there's a lot of choice that's involved.
You made these choices to turn inward and to focus and to kind of calm and take your foot off the pedal a little bit, but then when you come back into action in spring, it isn't like you just then slam on the gas. The truth is, is that winter kind of starts and stops for a long time, and spring is very moody. That really affects our creative practice. It really affects our ability to show up for our ideas that maybe we've been brewing during the wintertime.
Joanna: In the bigger level, I was thinking as I was reading the book, there are different phases of our life. So you mentioned that your Poem Store, you're not doing that anymore, that was like a phase of life that you have now moved on from.
We all have the seasons, that sort of macro level. So for me, for example, the perimenopause years were like a winter, in that I really struggled to do a lot. I needed, or I should have, given myself more grace and more time, but it really felt like a winter.
I've come through that now, and I feel like I'm really in a spring, like a reinvention. That's sort of a number of years over different parts of our lives that sort of mirror, I guess do you find that they do mirror the annual sense?
Jacqueline: Yes, and I really like considering the seasons of our lives. I think the main thesis for this book is just:
How can we remember what the energetic quality of this season is and then apply that during our life whenever we need it?
So sometimes we need a winter, we need to go inward, we need to rest and recuperate. That might happen in the middle of summer. I think it's more of learning this gift of this language that the seasons offer.
The earth is just saying like, “Here, this is what all the other animals and all the other plants are doing right now. You're a part of that, maybe you could consider doing that also.”
Then thinking how that applies to the greater practice of just living and kind of knowing, okay, I've memorized what goes on during this time of year for myself, or I've memorized what it feels like to sort of downshift. How do I apply that?
I've done the work of memorizing it, so it's almost like now I can flip the switch. I can make the choice and say that's the energy I need right now. That doesn't really happen unless we give ourselves over to learning it and practicing it.
That's, I think, why I wanted to have the word “practice” in the title of the book, and to consider practice not just being creative practice and artistic practice, but truly the practice of living and engaging with life in a healthy and beneficial way that might be forgotten very easily, because there's so many things in our daily lives that steer us away from that.
Joanna: So as we're recording this, we're coming into spring. I was telling you before we started recording that the sun is out here in the UK, and it feels like, yay, spring has finally arrived.
I love in the book, you have this poem called “Emergence,” and I actually have on my wall, I have a little card that says, “Trust emergence,” which I feel reminds me that something will emerge. Even if the garden has been bare in the winter, something will start to sprout. So can you talk a bit about that?
Why does the word “emergence” call to you?
How can people understand that that will happen? I think it's really hard, hence why I've got it on my wall to remind myself.
Jacqueline: I think this really does just circle around the theme and the thesis of the book of this remembering, even this concept of emergence and that something will emerge, something new will happen.
How incredible is it to see the flowers and the perennials all pop out of the ground every year? It's never something that I'm not in awe of. It always almost shocks me.
I think there's something in that that's change is the written law of the universe. It will always be happening.
We will always be shifting and growing and changing, something different will always emerge. That's the nature of life.
We forget that. We get stuck in these feelings that nothing will change, that things are the way they are. I think that that's partially just what it is to be human. I think we get caught in our minds. We get caught in a feeling. We get caught in our bodies.
We forget that, yes, like something new will come, and that as it does emerge, the way we respond to it, the way we notice it, the way we meet it, and what we do with it, and the pace that we do all of that with it, really matters.
So I think, again, that memorizing. Well, how do you approach emergence? How do you keep yourself in line with the fact that that will come? What will you do before it does?
I love using the metaphor of the plant world because I think that the plant world is so reliable in this way, where if something emerges too soon from its cave of growth, from its safe underworld below the soil, it might get killed in the frost.
That's what happens every spring, there are these frosts that happen, where winter kind of makes its last stand. If we're not careful, coming out into the world after our moments of inward retreat, we could have that experience as well. We could get a little burned. We could get burnt out.
Some idea that we bring to the surface too soon before we're really ready could then get kind of snuffed out a little bit by the fervent energy of spring, and then things get lost. I think that's kind of what I think of when I think of emergence.
Joanna: You mentioned fervent energy there, which I love, because I feel that is the energy right now as we're talking. Everything's growing, and it's a bit mad out in the flowerbeds.
This is a problem that authors have is that often there are so many ideas. There are some people who struggle to find ideas, but many of us, I'm sure you included, have so many ideas. I don't know which one to focus on. I wondered, since you do so many different creative things, how do you know—
When all these things are springing up and emerging, how do you choose your next project?
Whether it's a collection of poems, or a full-length book, or all the other things you do?
Jacqueline: I'll try to stay in the logical realm with this because, for the most part, I actually think that that's a very intuitive experience. When I choose a project, it's usually because some kind of door opens. There is some pathway that is easeful, and I noticed that.
I think logically and practically what that looks like usually is like, okay, I'm feeling my way into a new project, there's probably a few at once that I've been thinking of, and all winter I've been brewing these ideas.
Then something will happen where I'll say, oh, okay, this is the easy way forward with this, and it's inspiring to me, and it's easeful. So that's the thing I follow. Then sometimes that peters out, and then I turned to the next thing.
So I think having your clear ideas of: what are the things that would make you feel great? What are the things that would inspire you? What are the things that you feel energetically pulled to do? Then also, what ease comes with those things?
Like if you choose a project, and then suddenly the next day, you notice that there's a grant proposal that just opened up that's in the same vein as that project, to me, that's a practical sign to try and put my effort in that direction.
I think following those practical signs is also very much like what the Earth does. When a plant is growing up and out of the soil, it's like, I'm going to lean toward the sun, and I'm going to make this easier on myself. I'm not going to grow in a direction that would make my growing harder. So I think that that's how I focus on things like that.
I let myself intuitively move towards what's easeful.
It's hard enough in the world to make a living in any way, so I think that if your artistic practice is your daily job, then there's a lot that rides on the ease of what you choose.
Joanna: That's interesting. I'm also intuitive. We actually talk about intuition quite a lot on this show, so I'm glad you said that. I do feel when I want to tackle a project, like this is ready now, it does emerge. It comes out. Some books, like one I'm writing at the moment, it's been years in germination—since we're staying with that metaphor.
Let's come on to summer because you use the word “celebration” in the summer section. This is something I, and many authors, struggle with. In fact, someone asked me the other day in an interview, “What's the favorite book you've written?” I was like, “The next book. It's always the next book.” So I wondered, what do you feel about this?
How do we celebrate what we have done, our past, as well as just moving onto the next thing?
Jacqueline: I think that's really interesting. I love the books that I've written.
I feel that there are some books that I've written because they were more of like a prompt. They were more of something that was almost like requested of me, either to continue my career moving forward or just to get something out of my brain that I knew was almost like taking up space.
I think that I don't judge the reasons why I make things, as opposed to just looking back and being like, “This is a good book.” I still feel that way, and I actually feel that way about all of my work.
That doesn't mean I don't have a favorite, but I do feel this sense of letting myself just enjoy the successes I've had, and the fact that I've written eight books and created over 40,000 poems in the world.
I love to feel that actually anything that comes after all of that is just like a cherry on top. I've already done all of this work that I'm really proud of. I kind of let myself live in that way, instead of feeling this push and rush to be more or make more.
I haven't written a bestselling book, but that doesn't make me feel badly about myself. It's more like, well, but I have written eight really great books that I am proud of. So there's something about this comparison that can happen in the world of artistry that I try to steer away from, and just sort of look at the facts.
I actually have in my book Every Day Is a Poem, which is all about cultivating a poetic mindset and the practice of poetry, I talk a lot about reflecting on one's life, and thinking of all of the skills that we have, and all of the things that we have done, and all of our accomplishments, but on a really simple level.
I love to consider all of the experiences that I've had, all the places I've gone, the friendships that I've nurtured, just the simplicity of being like, well, you know, I've enjoyed cutting a cold apple on a really hot day with a beautiful sharp knife. That feels like an accomplishment to me.
So if I'm reflecting, I'm just like, wow, I've done a lot. I've experienced a lot in this life. Instead of thinking that that's exceptional or special, I think that every human could do that. It's just about reframing the way you see your life.
Joanna: I think I always just feel like I have so many ideas and so many books I want to write. It's like once one is done and out in the world, and I've released it, and now it kind of belongs to everyone else, I'm just excited about the next one.
I think I struggle, like many people, with the idea of rest. There's always more to create.
Jacqueline: Yes, and I mean, I feel that way too. I have many projects that I'd like to complete in my lifetime. I think there's something to be said about—and this has definitely helped me—about just practicing patience with all of that.
I've had periods in my life where I have had a book come out every single year. Now for the past few years, that's been a little different.
I think at first, even like downshifting from my experience with Poem Store, which was just constant output, constantly creating and seeing this completed poem go off into the hands of a stranger over and over again, it really sped things up for me.
I think over the last few years, I've been practicing just slowness.
I have the word “SLOW” written in huge letters right above my desk, just reminding me that great masterpieces take a really long time, sometimes a lifetime.
I think the Earth really shows us that also. A Year In Practice is kind of revolving around that same idea of your whole life, and all of the seasons of your life, and what you create, it's all adding up to be this great masterpiece.
It's not just like a book that's published in your hand. It's also just like every moment by the end of your life adds up to be this really incredible artwork. Especially if you approach it that way, especially if you try to practice living your life artfully, then I don't think there really are mistakes to be made.
Joanna: Just coming back to that word “slow” because it's so interesting that you have that. I mean, I've got loads of things written next to my desk on all my little bits of papers and quotes and things. I do not have slow.
I do have, “Create a body of work I'm proud of,” which I think that resonates with what you're saying.
What are some practices that can help us slow down? Particularly in this world, a lot of authors now, we have to be on social media, we have to do things to keep our profile up so that people can find our books because it's pretty noisy out there.
What are your suggestions for slowing down?
Jacqueline: I think there's something in the creative practice that tells me, don't grasp, don't rush. So if I'm working on something, even just a single poem, if I'm working on anything creative, I will check in with myself and be like, am I rushing? Am I grasping at something here?
Or does this feel playful? Does this feel like I'm tending to a deeper emotion? That doesn't mean I won't end up writing really quickly on the page some great burst of inspiration, it just sort of allows me to review where I'm at internally.
I do think that that's probably my greatest advice is just that rushing through anything, it can easily feel like, oh, I'm just following the blaze of inspiration. If you look closer sometimes, if you just review the feeling, you might be like, oh, actually, no, I'm just trying to push through towards an outcome.
I don't think creativity really likes that. I think our imaginations are running rampant all the time, and if we slow down to tap into them, there's a lot there, but I don't think it requires us to be on the same pace as it.
We can grab maybe one piece of that, and then slowly nurture it and take our time with it. As opposed to feeling this sense of, I've got to rush and collect every little idea or image or concept that I have.
I think I heard an interview once with Tom Waits, where he was talking about where he was driving in the car. He would always think the muse is coming to him in these moments where he's like on the highway in his car, and he'd say, “Muse, don't come to me now, I'd have to pull over on the side of the road.”
There's something about that—I might be misquoting it—but there was something about that that really struck me when I was younger. Number one, if I have an idea in the middle of the night, I'm going to turn the light on and write it down in my notebook.
Then I think over the last couple years of practicing slowness, I've thought a lot about just letting poems kind of pass through me and not feeling so pressed to document everything.
That has actually released me from that feeling of pressure. You can have a really brilliant idea, and it can just be a brilliant idea that kind of moves through your body. That's it, and that's how it lives in the world, and it doesn't become something. There's a great freedom in accepting that, I think.
Joanna: In social media there's this sort of thing, if you don't take a picture of it and post it, it doesn't exist, it didn't happen. It's similar. We don't need to share everything. Not everything needs to be documented. So I like that kind of letting go.
Let's come to autumn. In the book, it's so interesting, you do use this phrase, “when the veil is thin.” I use that phrase pretty much in all my novels, in my memoir, as I feel this in certain places, and certain times, spiritual places, different times of year.
What do you mean by the veil being thin? How does it manifest in your work?
Jacqueline: Well, I think specifically in autumn, there's a sensation of being very close to death, because everything is losing its vibrance. All of the green is gone, the leaves are falling, everything is starting to go to sleep. So beyond the veil is winter, is the period of rest, is like the inner cave.
I think that when we're kind of hovering before going fully in there, there might be this opportunity to receive some information.
So I think receiving information in these moments where we feel close to death, or close to our hibernation mode, that maybe our minds are a little bit slower, maybe we're just starting to slow down, and so we're able to receive something on a different level than just this daily grind of like mental reception.
It's actually like, oh, maybe there's something that's a little bit quieter that's talking to you that wants to share information with you. I'm speaking of that in a planetary sense.
Though I also think as the Earth is calming and turning down, and maybe there's a lot of gathering happening, like if you think of all the squirrels preparing for winter, and they're doing this great method of gathering all their food and preparing, there's a sense of us doing that also.
I think as artists, and just as people, we're preparing for this inward turn that comes with that time of year. If we allow ourselves to look at that, there might be this great information download that happens then.
I think when I'm thinking of the veil being thin, I'm thinking of that quietness and that chance for this sort of exploration of something a little more spiritual or unseen that we don't necessarily have time for or that we overlook in other moments of the year.
Joanna: Have you experienced that in any particular places?
Jacqueline: Yes. As I said, I'm an ecstatic Earth worshipper. So for me, all of that information usually comes from being in places that are less populated by humans, or being in the forest, or even just being in the park.
I think being in the natural world and having that chance to downshift into that quietness, I think that is when I typically will receive either intuitive information or my imagination kind of comes into a different play.
I've had a lot of spiritual experiences, and I think the veil can be thin no matter what the time of year is. I just think that sometimes in the fall, it's a little bit more potent.
Joanna: Of course, with the various festivals that happen, Day of the Dead, it is a time of year when that is really focused on a lot more, this acknowledgement of death and the closeness of this other world that perhaps we don't live in every day, and certainly don't think about in the spring when we're just running around in the sun.
Jacqueline: Absolutely.
Joanna: So what's next for you? You have all these different things. You've got the various poetry collections and books.
What will you focus on next?
Jacqueline: Well, I have a book of poems that's finished that I'm just kind of trying to figure out who the publisher will be. So I'll probably start putting my energy into that. I'm really excited about that book. Then I have another idea for a book.
I'm about to move into this house that my husband and I have been restoring for the last few years. That will be a big shift in my life. I'll have a new studio space, and that always gives a lot of creative information. So I'm definitely gearing up for that.
Joanna: Oh, yes, moving house. That's a big one, isn't it? That really does change the energy.
Jacqueline: Yes, a new season for sure. A definite new season of my life. I'm about to turn 40. In November, I'll be 40. So there's a lot of big changes happening.
I always know that creatively, for me, space has a lot to do with what I create. That means like mental space, physical space. I think that I'm looking forward to that next chapter of having just a more grounded space and being able to settle into my home that I'll live in for the foreseeable future.
Joanna: Where can people find you and your books online?
Jacqueline: I have a website, JacquelineSuskin.com. I also have a Substack, if you look my name up on Substack. I do a lot of writing on there.
I'm on Instagram. @JSuskin is my Instagram. I try to keep all those things updated and put out a newsletter every month. So that's a good way to find me.
My books are anywhere you want to find a book, you can find my books for the most part.
Joanna: Great. Well, thanks so much for your time, Jacqueline. That was really interesting.
Plan For Success In Your Indie Author Business And TikTok Marketing With Adam Beswick
May 27, 2024
How can you plan for success as an indie author even early in your writing career? How can you create multiple streams of income and multiple marketing channels, while still writing your books? Adam Beswick goes into his strategies.
Plus, Microsoft Build event with new AI-enabled PCs and Copilot agents [Microsoft]; My thoughts on seeing Hamilton; and Spear of Destiny coming this week!
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
Adam Beswick is the best-selling author of the Levanthria series which has taken readers on epic journeys from corner to corner of the world. While mastering the craft of fantastical storytelling, Adam simultaneously embraces the rewarding challenges of family life as well as being an authorpreneur.
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
Setting the foundation for your author business
Having the confidence to financially invest in yourself
Wrestling with the “importance” of choosing a writing career
Creating multiple streams of income
Overcoming the initial fear of creating video marketing content
Staying consistent with your TikTok marketing and growing your viewership
How to diversify away from reliance on any single platform
Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing.
Adam: Well, I started writing around 2017. I was a mental health nurse, working silly hours in really stressful environments. I absolutely loved my job, but I needed a bit of an outlet at the end of my day.
I started writing bedtime stories for my children. Then it was my eldest daughter who challenged me to write a proper story, as she said at the time. I was joking with her that by the time I've written it, you'll probably be old enough to read it. Lo and behold, two and a half or three years later, I had a story that was written.
I'd published my first book, which was Arnold Ethon and The Lions of Tsavo, which is now known as the Spirit Beast Series, as I've rebranded that story last year.
So that's really how I got into writing. I wrote a couple of books in that series, they were kind of YA urban fantasy. It was a bit confusing what genre it was in. Then I spent the next two years figuring out how to actually publish them.
I was listening to all your podcasts, listening to Jenna Moreci, Bethany Atazadeh, and quite a few different indie authors to get hints and tips on how to publish those books.
It wasn't really until 2022, when I pivoted and released a new book in a new series, which was A Forest of Vanity and Valour, which was a dark fantasy retelling inspired by Robin Hood, that my career started taking off.
Joanna: Oh, so interesting. So first of all, I love that you come from healthcare. I mean, as a mental health nurse, I feel like you bring an attitude of caring from that job. I've seen you speak, and I think that comes through in the way you are in the community, which I really appreciate.
I wanted to ask you about how you went full time as an indie author in 2023, and we're recording this in 2024. So this is a big decision. So you left that job, and—
Can you just tell us how you made the decision to leave the job and how you've dealt with that shift?
I know it's a big deal.
Adam: So the hardest part was convincing my wife that it was a stable career choice to be making. So, yes, throughout 2022, my books' trajectory started increasing.
It was late 2022 when I sat down with Mrs. Beswick and kind of laid out the financials and told her my intention that I really wanted to go full time. I did really enjoy my job. I was in a band 7 post in the NHS in a complex care commissioning team, which I did really enjoy.
I had a good sense of purpose, but the hours compared to the time it was allowing me to write and keep on track of everything for my indie author side that was really gathering momentum made it quite difficult to juggle the two.
Luckily, I managed to convince Mrs. Beswick that it was a good idea for me to go full-time. I think it was the 14th of February 2023 that I was able to leave that role in the complex care team in the CCG and become a full-time indie author. It was something that was incredible. I never thought it would ever happen.
So 2023 was more about working on my foundations which I had been putting into place in 2022. So making sure the foundations were right, and that that way I could progress and move into my 2024 plan, which was around growth.
So 2023, my primary focus was getting into a good routine, a healthy routine. I was making sure I was still being able to write books that people would enjoy, as well as planning far enough ahead to make sure there's plenty to look forward to keep me motivated as well.
Joanna: Well, on that, let's dig a bit more on what is working on foundations. You mentioned there a healthy routine and some planning, but—
Give us a sense of what foundations you were working on.
Adam: Okay, so the entire time before I went full time, in 2022 when A Forest of Vanity and Valour first started taking off, I had to learn fast with the networking side. What I mean by that is kind of replying to feedback and emails and comments on social media from readers and trying to build that engaged audience.
So 2022 and 2023, there was a really big focus on building those platforms and working on my newsletter. Making sure that my business was set up correctly has been absolutely key.
As we're all indie authors, our focus a lot of the time is just on writing the books.
What we actually forget is writing the books is only a part of that indie author career.
We've got to be marketing experts, and there's so many different hats that we have to wear, that one of the factors there as well was making sure that the business side was set up.
At first it’s quite overwhelming, but making sure that you're set up for success from the beginning is absolutely key so that you're not caught chasing your tail.
Joanna: Well on that, again, you come from healthcare, so how did you learn how to set up a business correctly? I mean, I worked in business, and I ran my own businesses, so that's always been easier for me because I had that experience. So how did you learn that?
How did you make sure you had the right [business] setup?
Adam: So as a nurse, one of the things that is drilled into you from the first day of your training is to be a reflective practitioner. A lot of those skills that I've kind of adapted as a nurse, I've transferred into my indie author career. So that reflexive practice is something that I've always done.
Seeing what's working, what can I change? If I were in that situation again, what could I do differently? How could I improve my responses?
Running the business is very much the same. You're not always going to get it perfect, but you have to be susceptible to feedback and being able to adapt, and be quick on your feet and pivot if things aren't going correctly.
What I made sure I was doing is that I got a good accountant that was able to advise me very well on how to adapt and change as my business continued to grow.
So for example, going from a sole trader to a limited company, how to set that up to go into being VAT registered. There's a lot of background stuff that can be quite overwhelming if you haven't got the right circle of people around you.
So in having a good accountant, they were able to explain everything to me, answer any questions that I might have. Obviously, I work more and more with them as my books have done better and better, as I've needed more and more support on certain elements of the business.
Joanna: I love that you did that because I also did that when I decided to leave my job as a consultant and do this. I planned to be successful, and I made a business plan for a six-figure business. It was something that is actually very rare, so well done for doing that.
Now for people listening who are like, “Whoa, Adam did that quite quickly.” So how do you have the confidence—since you started in 2017, really, but 2022 was when it really took off—
How do you have the confidence to spend the money on things like an accountant earlier on in the career when you don't necessarily know that things are going to carry on growing?
There are people listening who just don't know how they can make that step, I guess. So any tips around that?
Adam: So first and foremost, I invested in myself. It was easy to do when I was earning a full-time wage. Obviously, my time was spread a lot thinner, but when I was still working full time as a nurse, I had an income that covered all my bills.
So any extra income I was making through my books, I could just reinvest straight back into the business. So while I wasn't full time, and still had that main source of income coming in, I was using any money that was coming in to invest into those foundations I spoke about earlier.
So I was paying for future books to be formatted and edited. I was covering the cost of my audiobook narrator for multiple books in advance while that money was there.
Once all that stuff was paid for, and I could see that the royalties were kind of going beyond what I could spend on the business, that's where I started saving that money to one side to make sure I had six months wages saved up for the day that I did go full time.
Joanna: That six months, I also did the same thing. It's really interesting, I said to my husband, Jonathan, if I can't make this work in six months, then I will go back to my job. I imagine you said the same thing. In fact, you could go back anytime, right?
Adam: Well, it’s quite a surreal moment, really. So obviously, being a nurse, I have a yearly PIN that I have to register with the NMC. Last year, I renewed that, and it expires tomorrow, and I'm not going to renew it. It is a bit sad, but I haven't been practicing as a nurse for 15 months now.
I have the belief that my books and my publishing company will go from strength to strength.
So I guess you have to have that inner belief that you are going to succeed because they'll always be that seed of doubt. If you're not backing yourself, who else is going to back you?
Joanna: I agree. Well, then I'm going to ask you a question that came up a lot during the pandemic, and I've thought about it too.
How important is writing story when we maybe could do something “more important”?
Like people would say, oh, I should save lives, I should become a doctor or a nurse instead of writing stories. So I wondered if that's something you've wrestled with or any thoughts on that?
Adam: I think one element of how you could look at it is that in a way authors were kind of key workers in that pandemic. Everyone was trapped and isolated and alone, and there was a resurgence in books, in general, because more people were suddenly reading because they had nothing else they could do.
They couldn't socialize. So actually, if those stories didn't exist, a lot of people wouldn't have been able to find the escapism that they did during COVID. I continued writing.
I was running an extremely complex service-learning disability service near where I live when COVID hit. We were a week away from opening when we went into the first lockdown.
So I was working with some incredibly challenging and complex individuals with autism, mental health needs, challenging behaviors, and we had to carry out all that work during lockdown conditions.
So we were going into hospitals, working with individuals, transitioning them from one state hospital into living in their own flat in the community with the right levels of support.
Writing was a release to what was an incredibly stressful time for me. So that was my escape.
I was sitting down first thing in the morning, not so much last thing at night, and I was just up an hour before anyone else in the house got up. That way there was no time lost with my family, that my writing wasn't impacting my family life.
I just kept writing. The more motivated I got with stories, the more I found my stories were coming together a lot quicker.
Joanna: I love that. I actually have a quote on my wall. I only read it recently, but it helps me, which is by the horror writer, Adam Nevill. It says,
“If you are gifted with an imagination, it must be used.” Adam Nevill
I love that because you're obviously someone who also is gifted with imagination. You're also gifted in other ways, but I love that you're using it.
As you say, we help people through our stories. I know that took me a long time to really accept, and it's something I still think about. So yes, I love that.
So let's just come back to something else you said, which was in 2020, you pivoted. So you had The Spirit Beasts series that you rebranded, and then you moved into the dark fantasy retelling.
Why pivot? Is this about writing to market? How did you decide to do that?
Adam: It was a bit of both, really. So I was in the build up to the second book in my Spirit Beast series, as it was called then, and sales weren't anything breathtaking. Outside of family and friends, I was finding it incredibly hard to market.
Writing and releasing the books was difficult, in the sense that we're having to scrimp and scrape every penny we had to do the formatting and the book cover design. So I was kind of limited to releasing one book a year.
So I was actually sat watching the latest Robin Hood film with Mrs. Beswick, featuring Taron Egerton. At the end of the film, I was having a bit of a grumble that I didn't like it, and Mrs. Beswick lost it with me and just kind of said, “If you think you can do better, why don't you write it?”
So I just got the bit between my teeth and was like, right, okay. Then I sat down and thought, well, what if it wasn't Robin Hood's story, but more a retelling?
Then it kind of escalated to, oh, what if it was a fantasy retelling? So a completely new fantasy world, but it's more of the trope of Robin Hood that you recognize.
Then I was like, oh, what if Blackbeard lived in this world? What if there were witches, and King Arthur, and Merlin, and St. George? Then my mind just kept escalating.
I was like, oh, these could all be standalone stories that interconnect with characters that appear. Like in the first book there's a bit-part character, but by book three, they're a main character with a book around them. Then it just grew from there.
I think I wrote that book in a few months, and it was the quickest I've ever written a story because I was hyper-motivated once that concept started to grow. It all came about because Mrs. Beswick decided to challenge me because she was sick of me grumbling.
Joanna: I mean, there's lots of ideas that come up like that. So you wrote that book, but did you keep in mind the marketing?
How did you then discover that this was going to be the thing that would sell more easily?
Adam: I didn't. So at first, I was looking at how I could speed up the process of publishing, from a cost perspective, and I came across a platform called Kickstarter. I'm sure everyone is aware of it now.
I'm proud to say that my first Kickstarter finished about a month before Brandon Sanderson made it widely known that Kickstarter is a fantastic platform for publishing books.
The money that I was able to raise from that Kickstarter meant that I could publish A Forest of Vanity and Valour, and I had enough money to cover the costs for book two.
That meant I could release that three months after the first book came out, rather than a year. Up to that point, my books were taking me about a year at a time to release.
Joanna: So just tell us there so people get an idea, because you mentioned Brandon Sanderson, and, of course, his money on Kickstarter is ridiculous.
How much money did you make on that first Kickstarter?
Adam: Around two and a half thousand pounds.
Joanna: Okay, so let's say that's around three thousand US dollars. So this is not a Brandon Sanderson amount of money, but that was enough for you to take that and invest that in the books.
So then, let's talk about how you drove success from there. I feel like you talked a bit earlier about how you were building your engaged audience, and you mentioned a few things, but you're kind of well-known now around TikTok and using that platform.
Talk about when you started to use TikTok and why you decided to go that way.
Adam: I think it was January 6th, which was a week before A Forest of Vanity and Valour came out, that one of my friends who was my accountability partner, we'd had a conversation to say we're going to make 2022 our year.
To do that, I knew that I needed to say yes to more opportunities and stop being overly cautious and avoiding scenarios. I was always worried about what was going wrong, or what could go wrong and the risk, rather than looking at what the reward could be.
So my mantra was kind of as long as it doesn't put my family at detriment, then it's a risk that I'm happy to take, regardless of how uncomfortable that may make me.
Rob challenged me to join James Blatch's TikTok for Authors group, where they were doing a five-day TikTok challenge. It was designed to get yourself on camera and start talking about your books on a video format.
I was absolutely terrified. I couldn't hold the camera.
I tried filming myself, and I was shaking that much. It was ridiculous, it was only me in the room.
So I did the challenge, I filmed a video, and I think I released three videos a day, every day for five days. I became hooked very, very quickly. I started posting about A Forest of Vanity and Valour, letting people know about it, letting people know about me, introducing myself, trying different kinds of videos.
By the end of January, I'd made 100 pounds without spending a penny on advertising. That proved to be a pivotal moment and probably the most important part of my career so far.
Now, a lot of people might think that's a lot of work to do, and look and think, well, you've only made 100 pound profit. Whereas my mindset was that I've made 100 pounds without spending anything on ads. So I did a deep dive —
I looked at the content that was generating engagement, and I just started tweaking it like you would a Facebook ad, doing your AB testing.
I kept trying different types of videos, and then continued posting three videos a day, until I think it was the back end of April, or middle of April, that I had my first semi-viral video. That meant that from two books I made just around 2000 pounds.
That really opened my eyes to what was possible from a video, from a content-making point of view. So that was all the motivation I needed.
I started thinking in small term goals. Let's aim to continue to get at least X amount of sales every day for a whole month, or X amount of page-reads. Then it was if I can do 2000 pounds a month for six months, that shows this is sustainable.
I just kept repeating that, trying different kinds of videos, releasing new content, but most importantly, keeping writing books, keeping the audience engaged and showing them what is coming in the future. As, obviously, it was a series that I was writing.
It just kind of went from strength to strength with the video marketing. In August of 2022, I had my first viral video, truly viral video, which was about 2 million views.
By that time I had two books out, but I also had had the audiobooks produced with the money I'd made that year from my books taking off on TikTok. It was just in that cycle of posting content, and I wasn't really chasing virality.
Virality, it's fantastic when it happens because it can set you up for more than a few months, but the focus for me was keeping posting content, keeping engaged, keeping motivated, keeping growing that audience for the remainder of 2022, and beyond into 2023.
Joanna: All right, a couple of things I want to come back on. So first of all, your business model around platforms and things. So you've mentioned Kickstarter, but then you also just mentioned page reads, and I think you also have your own store.
What kind of setup have you got around sales? How are you driving most of that revenue?
Adam: Okay, so obviously, I heavily use video marketing to direct traffic and sales. As everyone knows, with platforms like TikTok and Instagram reels, for example, you're not guaranteed that engagement. So your sales can't be as consistent as you might like.
So again, this is why the foundations of having your own audience to tap into is key. So last, I think it was 2023 about August time, I wasn't really happy with the page reads, what I was getting paid for page reads. My page reads weren't necessarily groundbreaking, I have a lot of people that will buy the physical copies of my books.
So in September, I set up my own store. I took all my books out of Kindle Unlimited, and I took all my audiobooks from exclusivity with ACX.
I set up my own bundles on my store and started working with a company called Bookvault to print my books.
They will print the books, and they'll distribute books, so I don't have to worry about having a huge amount of stock, and they're print on demand. I started letting my followers know about it. Between September and December, my store just completely blew up. It was absolutely insane how well it was doing.
People were really interested in that story, it wasn't just the books they were interested in. It wasn't that I was completely unhappy with Amazon, but I think I'd be lying if I didn't say we all have grumbles that things could be better with royalty rates, things like that.
It just felt like everywhere I went to, the indie author and the creator who has put all this money and invested all this time into the product, was actually getting the smallest piece of the pie. Which again, when I get the bit between my teeth, it kind of sends me into hyper focus.
So my store became my priority. So I still left my books on Amazon, but all my links, everywhere I directed people, was just to my store.
I started hitting five-figure sales on my store within that first month, and that's continued ever since.
What I was also surprised by was my Amazon sales were kind of matching what my store was doing. It was kind of neck and neck for the rest of the year, which is something that I really didn't expect.
So I've just gone from strength to strength, and my focus now is having as many income streams as possible. I've got a wife, a family, and children to support, so I need to protect them as best as I can.
The best way I can do that with my books is to have as many different revenue streams as possible. It doesn't matter how small that stream might be trickling in because it all adds up down the line.
So I've got some audiobooks on YouTube. I'm just in the process of setting up Ream, which is a subscription platform like Patreon. That's something I've only started doing recently.
I'm on Amazon. My eBooks are wide now from Draft2Digital. They're on Findaway Voices, my audiobooks, and they're on ACX as well, just on the frustratingly lower end of the royalty scale.
Joanna: I love that, and I really think this is something that a lot of people don't realize with selling direct. As you've done, and as I've done, is that directing all the traffic to your store means that people will still look at it, but a lot of them will just buy elsewhere. So that's what you've seen.
Let's come back to the video. So you said, originally, you were in the room on your own, you were terrified, you had anxiety, and you were worried about it. Look, I am someone who has not done much video because I just don't like it. I just don't want to do it.
I feel like there's pressure as a woman to wear makeup on videos, and I just cannot be bothered. Also, that's not how I spend my time as a consumer. I don't watch video. I'm not on TikTok, or YouTube Reels, or any of the YouTube Shorts, all of these things.
So I feel this massive resistance to video, but everybody seems to suggest that this is a very good thing to do. So if there are people listening who are like me, and they just do not want to do video, what are your thoughts on people like me? Should we even bother?
Are there ways we can do video without using our faces?
Adam: There's tons of different ways of creating short form and long form video content. I suppose you've got to find the balance of what works for you.
Now ultimately, if you've tried it and it just doesn't work for you, don't push yourself. Ultimately, you don't want to give yourself anxiety, but you're going to have to look at other organic or paid ways to generate traffic.
Now, video content is a great way as a new indie author to generate that interest, and find new readers, and potentially create that small level of income that you need to invest back into your business to then start building that sustainable growth over a period of time.
It's not going to happen overnight. There's too many people that will post videos sporadically over a month, once every three, four, or five days.
With your video content, you've got to show up every day. You've got to be creative.
That's not necessarily a bad thing because you're constantly trying to figure out what's working, what's not working. Then when you think you've solved it, TikTok, Instagram, they all change their algorithms just to keep us on our toes.
So it is about adapting, you have to have a strong mindset and a belief that you can achieve it. You also have to be aware that it could take months, it could take six, seven months of putting the work in before you start seeing the results. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.
I think if you were to have a video take off on day one, you kind of psychologically have that expectation that you deserve your video to go viral every single time you post. Ultimately, TikTok and Instagram, they don't owe us any favors.
It doesn't mean they're punishing us when a video doesn't go out, it just means that that given day, that given time, that video just didn't resonate with people. There's absolutely nothing to stop you reposting that video another time. Again, that might work, and sometimes it might not work.
At the moment, TikTok doesn't seem to particularly like reposted content. The viral video I spoke about earlier that got 2 million views on TikTok in August 2022, on Instagram that same video has generated 10 million views.
It was posted quite a few times because there's times where it doesn't get views, and then there's times where it just goes crazy and starts getting that engagement. Every time they do, it generates sales.
Once you've created the content, you've got it forever. So you can repost that as many times as you feel comfortable doing. If you don't post about your books, people aren't going to know about them. If you post about them, what's the worst that can happen?
Joanna: Yes, and I think you're right.
Everyone has to have some way of marketing, and whichever thing it is, concentrate on that.
I mean, obviously I have the podcast, I have a big email list. I use, I guess, more traditional methods.
I think, as I said to you before we started recording, I came into this 2006/2007, and I feel like I need to relearn a lot of things, especially as things change, as they do all the time.
That's why I love listening to you, and when you spoke at Seville, and I listened to other people, and it's like, things do change. So while some things stay the same, some things change.
I did want to ask you, so earlier you said that you were struggling to sell that first series and it was hard to market. So you only started doing TikTok on a series that did start selling. So is it that TikTok is not a magic bullet to sell anything, it needs to still be used for book series that are already selling? Or—
Have you tried marketing that other series that was hard to market?
Adam: I have tried. I have completely rebranded the other series. I've sunk quite a lot of money into having new covers designed, rewriting them, having them re-edited because I wasn't happy with the editing the first time around. I'm happy with the books, but they don't make any significant amount of money.
The readers enjoy it, which is what is important. I know if I stopped marketing my Levanthria Series and focused on my Spirit Beast Series for a couple of months, they probably would start shifting more.
There's more books in my Levanthria Series, which means that's my main income maker, so there is more of a focus. So I suppose I can be guilty myself of neglecting it.
It is part of my plan over the next few months just to start giving The Spirit Beast Series the attention that it deserves. Whether that be looking at the more conventional ways of marketing, like email newsletters and stuff like that, paid promos, Facebook ads.
I think what my focus is going to be is kind of splitting my time better. So I went to SPS Live last year, and Marc Reklau gave a fantastic talk. One of the take homes there was his 80/20 split.
So I've kind of broke that into different segments. So for example, this week, 80% of my time I've set specifically for writing because I'm writing a new book. 20% is the business and marketing side of stuff.
Now, within that 20%, 80% of my marketing will be focused on The Levanthria Series, and 20% will be focused on other things that I'm working on, other books or other projects or new things that I'm releasing, if that makes sense.
So it's just about balancing that time right to make sure that I'm able to market other series more, but it's always hard. Again, it's a mindset thing. You can put a few videos out, and if they don't take, you kind of get deflated. Then I'll naturally go back to my series that I know sells, which I can be guilty of.
Joanna: Well, the fact is, it's true, and many authors don't like it, but in every business—
80% of the revenue comes from 20% of the books.
Or 20% of the work. I mean, that 80/20 rule works for so many things. In a traditional publishing house with millions of books, only a small number of those are going to be the money drivers. The same is true for us, as authors, I think.
Out of my catalogue, there are books that barely sell a single copy in a month. I mean, it really is concentrate on the ones that do make money, and then put time, as you say, into new series and other things that might be more experimental.
It might not happen, or there might be a sale to somebody, maybe Mark Zuckerberg or whoever. Like whatever happens, there are going to be some changes. I mean, even if it doesn't sell, there are always changes in the algorithms, as you said.
What is your advice to authors who might be worried about what might happen to TikTok if they're relying on it for a lot of traffic and sales?
Adam: Yes, so you've got to have a backup plan. Now, TikTok has kind of blown up again in America with TikTok Shop. Now, we were fortunate enough to get that around six to nine months before it kind of landed in America.
I know so many indie authors in America who their careers are thriving because of TikTok Shop, and I absolutely get why they would be worried. TikTok Shop enables people to literally watch a video and buy a physical book, there and then, while still watching the video. That level of integration can really drive sales.
I used to TikTok Shop, but I've kind of pivoted to focus more on my store. That's, again, just because the profit lines are better, and they work for me. So again, it's just about how you want to manage that.
I like to have my eggs in multiple baskets, rather than all being in one.
I used to just be on Kindle, and Amazon, and KDP, and it was just over a year ago when all the horror stories were coming about.
People's accounts were just being banned out of the blue, the crime being their books had been pirated by other people, which they've got no control over. It frightened me, especially because I was quite damn dependent on my income from my books.
So I made the decision then to start exploring wide options. It wasn't until three or four months later in September, having spoken to a friend of mine and her husband, Laura and Ross Bertie, where their focus was direct selling, that it really opened my eyes.
Even after having that conversation and the difference it made for them, it still took me a couple of months to actually start implementing that change. We're all scared to change, but we kind of have to embrace it.
The worst thing we can do as creatives is get stuck in a monotonous routine because it'll just affect how we write, how we market our books. So just explore in different ways, in different avenues of advertising.
For example, we're on TikTok fire. It's a free platform for marketing our books, which is great, but that doesn't mean it's always going to be free. You've got to be ready to pivot and change at the drop of a hat.
It's us that has to change, not the platform.
So use it while it's there. Use any upcoming platforms that you think might make a difference. Again, I'm in the UK, so it's not as scary for me, but I've got a big readership in America. Like 70% of my readers are based in America, so it could impact me massively.
So again, it's using the time we've got to inform people, let people know what your concerns are, try and build that connection to say, “Well, we don't know what's going to happen with the app. There's a link to my newsletter in my bio if you want to keep in touch,” in case anything happens to you.
Or you can set up a store with the integrations, for example, like Shopify. Then you're not as reliant just on TikTok Shop or TikTok driving the traffic. If you are making money, make sure you are investing that back into your business.
So for example, for the last four or five months, I've been investing money into Facebook ads, which are the bane of my life, I absolutely hate them. I think paid marketing is the biggest con going because, again, the marketing companies make money more money than we do.
I've had to kind of bite that bullet because I need to find a way to get ads working for my Levanthria Series because I know that's the only way I can focus on a new series that I'm writing or other projects that I'm working on, from a video marketing perspective.
Otherwise, my attention is always going to be split between books. So I've got the video content I know that works, so I'm pivoting by running paid Facebook ads to my store to try and keep those sales coming in for one series.
So then I can focus on my other platforms, not just TikTok, and any other growing platforms. So for example, the last two weeks, I've been more heavily involved on Threads because there's quite a big author community growing on there, which is great.
So it is just that. Don't get sucked into just having one avenue to generate traffic or generate that engagement.
You need to be active over time, over multiple platforms, which in itself can be quite overwhelming.
So you have to find a balance that works for you and that isn't a detriment to yourself, your family, or your mental health.
Joanna: Absolutely. Everything we've learned, since I've been an indie author as well, is that things change, and often they move from free to paid.
So Facebook used to be free to reach people, and then it ended up being mostly paid traffic. A lot of the stuff on Amazon has changed. You mentioned ACX. I mean, when that first came out, the royalties were much, much higher, and then they kind of ratcheted lower over time.
So I think you're right. Everything that we do, you can't take it for granted that it's going to last. I mean, Twitter/X also is another example of something that completely changed under new ownership. So, yes, very good to think about. We're almost out of time, and—
You have been working on a new project. So tell us more about that.
Adam: Yes, so, I've got a few projects because I like to keep myself busy. So not only am I writing a brand new series in a brand new genre, which is LitRPG, which I am having an absolute blast with that. It is probably the most fun I've had writing a book in a long time.
I've also set up a publishing imprint to start publishing books by other authors. I've been working with a bestselling author Cara Clare, creating a new pen name for a dark fantasy romance series that she has written.
That we will be publishing through my new imprint, which is Arcane Passion Press. That comes out on the 28th of May.
Joanna: Yes, so as this goes out, it will be tomorrow. So hopefully by the time it goes out, people can go and have a look at that. So do you have a whole new sort of website and a whole new sort of place for that? Or is that still through your main website?
Adam: Yes, so Mrs. Beswick started working full time with me at the beginning of this year, as it was just too much for me to do because I like spinning plates, but some were starting to smash on the floor.
We've been busy behind the scenes kind of getting, again, all those foundations set up. So the website is live now, AlexisBrookeBooks.com.
We've got a profile on Ream set up where you can actually read the story for free at the moment, but when this goes out, you won't be able to anymore as the book will be launching on Kindle Unlimited. The book is called The Jester, which is a fae fantasy romance.
Joanna: Tell people where they can find you and everything you do online.
Adam: So my store is APBeswickPublications.com, that's where I drive all my traffic. My books are also available wide on Amazon, and digitally through Draft2Digital across a lot of other platforms. Same with my audiobooks, they're available wide.
I've got a website in development which will start integrating the novel games community, which is the social media marketing side of things that I do, because I just like to keep myself busy, apparently.
Joanna: Fantastic. Well, thanks so much for your time, Adam. That was great.
Outlining Tips And Video Marketing On YouTube With Jenna Moreci
May 20, 2024
How can you outline a story based on a ‘thought dump' and interweave genre tropes you love to create a successful book? How can you use video marketing to reach more readers, even if you are an introvert? Jenna Moreci gives her tips.
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.
Jenna Moreci is the bestselling author of dark fantasy romance, The Savior's Series, and books for authors including Shut Up and Write the Book: A Step-by-Step Guide to Crafting Your Novel From Plan to Print. She's also a YouTuber at Writing with Jenna Moreci, with over 300,000 subscribers.
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
Structuring and outlining — utilizing the “thought dump”
The planning process for including tropes in your book
How long should an outline be?
Conquering fears and distractions to get words on the page
Researching publishing options as a first time author
Getting comfortable in front of the camera through trial and error
How to build a channel around a fiction author business
Different goals of short form and longer form video marketing
Joanna: Jenna Moreci is the bestselling author of dark fantasy romance, The Savior's Series, and books for authors including Shut Up and Write the Book: A Step-by-Step Guide to Crafting Your Novel From Plan to Print.
She's also a YouTuber at Writing with Jenna Moreci, with over 300,000 subscribers. So, welcome to the show, Jenna
Jenna: Thank you so much for having me. It is such an honor to be here.
Joanna: I'm excited to talk to you. First up—
Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing.
Jenna: Well, how I got into writing, it's literally been my lifelong dream ever since I was a child. I've wanted to be a writer since I was six years old. So it, quite literally, is a childhood dream fulfilled.
With my first job after college, I was a stockbroker. Which is just like writing, right? It is exactly the same thing, you know, dealing with finances. So similar to writing.
Basically, I was working full time in finance, and I really, really, really just did not enjoy it. I had this moment where I thought, you know what, this is going to be my life. I'm going to be trading stocks forever, and I can't do it.
So I thought I would, at the very least, give writing a shot since that was my dream, and I had been writing stories my whole life on the side. So I figured I would go ahead and try to write a book and see how it did.
My goal was for it to be a lucrative side gig, something that made my life feel fulfilling while I paid the bills working in finance. Then along the way, things happened. My partner suffered a major accident, so I had to quit my job so I could sign on to be his caregiver and help him recover from the accident.
During that time, I started my YouTube channel. I started it on a whim because a lot of people told me that I would be good at YouTube. It wasn't something I was really interested in because, like a lot of authors, I'm an introvert.
I did not want my face on the internet, but I gave it a shot. My goal was 100 subscribers, and nearly 300,000 subscribers later, at some point, it blew up.
Due to the YouTube channel blowing up, my first novel sold well enough that I was able to make writing a full-time job.
Now at this point in my life, I'm on my fifth and sixth novel, and I write and do YouTube full time. I never thought that this would be where my life was headed, but here we are.
Joanna: I love that. Obviously, we have some similarities. My job before this was in accounts payable, and I used to implement systems. So it was a similar feeling of I just cannot do this for the rest of my life.
So lots to come back on there. I've been through your book, so we'll start with the writing process, and then we'll get back into YouTube and business. So you talk about structure and outlining in your book, and I'm a discovery writer, so I'm always absolutely fascinated by outlining.
Can you talk about how you structure and outline your dark fantasy romances?
Jenna: Well, the very first thing I do is what I call the thought dump. It is basically brainstorming, but thought dumping just feels like a more accurate picture.
Basically, I just write down any and all ideas that I have for the story. It doesn't need to be in any specific order, and it doesn't need to be in any kind of structure. It's just any possible idea that I have.
It could be streams of dialogue, it could be world building elements, it could be a fight scene, it could be a kiss scene, it doesn't matter. Once I feel like I have exhausted all of my ideas for that moment, then I start going through the ideas.
Then I start finding the ones where it's like, “Oh, this kind of sucks, we're not going to use this one,” or, “Oh, this one is workable. This feels like it could be a plot point,” or, “This feels like it could be the dark night of the soul,” or something like that. I start trying to find the gems within the dump.
Once I get to that point, it's sort of like piecing together a puzzle. I actually call it the puzzle phase, which is where I take the gems that I found in the thought dump and categorize them into specific plot points, like the first kiss, or the inciting incident, or different pieces of the rising action.
You can do this digitally, you can use some kind of software to do this. I like the physical feeling of doing this. So I usually do it with sticky notes and a poster board. I will write down the plot points on the sticky notes and just rearrange them on the poster board until they fit some kind of realistic structure or sequence.
At that point, there's going to be tons of holes because your thought dump is not going to be flawless. It's going to be incredibly flawed. So at that point, I start trying to fill in the hole.
So it's like I've got two pieces of the rising action, but I need more of a mini climax, or I need a greater crisis or something like that. I start trying to figure out how can I piece point A to point C. Where's the point B in the middle? So that's also part of the whole puzzle aspect.
For me, it's fun figuring out how I can make all of these points combine together.
Once I feel like I have a very full flow in terms of the structure and outline of the story, I start dividing it into chapters. I look for natural breaks, where it's like this would be a great cliffhanger.
I like to make sure that my chapters begin and end on very opposite emotional tones. So maybe if the chapter begins in a really happy way, I want it to end in a sad, scary, angry way, just something that's very different from how it started.
So I look for those shifts within the post it notes, essentially, and I start dividing it into chapters. Once I have that structure down, that's when I actually start the outline, and I'll start typing it up.
I will take elements from the thought dump that haven't been utilized but I still really enjoy, and I will find places to shove those elements in. Maybe there's a big conversation that I want the two lovebirds to have, and I'm like, oh, it would fit really, really well in this particular scene.
So it's just about taking the thought dump, breaking it down into its most basic pieces, and then once those pieces all fit together perfectly, adding in all of the extra fluff and details, everything that kind of makes the story shine.
Joanna: You have videos about tropes on your channel. I mean, I often look at my books later and go, “Oh, that's that trope,” where I discovery wrote it, and it ended up there.
Do you look at the tropes of romance, and then you make sure that they go into that outline?
Jenna: I'm a little bit like you and a little bit like planning that way. For me, the discovery aspect of writing is the character arc. I know where I want my characters to head, but I don't necessarily know how they're going to feel about it as the story progresses.
So that's what's really fun for me is watching the transition of my characters starting off as this one type of character and ending another way. Like, how do they feel about that? How did they get to that point?
So a lot of tropes revolve around character development. So those tropes for me are always like, “Oh, look where we ended up. This is great.”
For example, my character, Tobias, he starts off at the beginning of the book kind of a cinnamon roll, naive, doesn't really know politics and things like that. By the end of the book, he ended up being quite morally gray.
Morally gray is an on-trend character type right now, and it's considered a popular trope in romanticized books. It wasn't something that I had originally planned, but here we are, now Tobias is a morally gray character.
Then there are other tropes where it's just that I'm such a huge fan of the trope that I have to include this. So for example, forbidden romance is one of my favorite tropes. So that was one where I was like, right from the gate, this is going to be a forbidden romance. We have to do it, we have to make it happen.
Joanna: Yes, and combining those different things that you love with the things that the readers expect is, I guess, the point.
Just to come back on the actual writing, so you have this outline. So I guess—
How long is your outline?
Is it just like a 10-page Word document or something?
Jenna: My outlines are long. I say this in Shut Up and Write the Book, it completely depends on the person. Some people are pantsers or discovery writers, some people really need a structure, some people are somewhere in between.
So when I say this, I just like to make sure everyone knows you don't have to do what I do. My outlines can be like 30 pages long and super detailed.
It's funny because I'll have one chapter that is a page-long outline, and then I'll have another chapter that's just one line. It's like, “They fight here.” Then I get to that part of the outline, and I'm like, oh, no, now I have to figure everything out on the fly.
My outlines tend to be really long. That’s in large part because I'm very character focused. A lot of the ideas that I come up with early on are conversations between characters. So I will have entire streams of dialogue in my outline, just sort of waiting to be used.
I know a lot of people in those situations will just write the conversation, write the scene in full and then save it for later. I like to just shove it in my outline and be like that is future Jenna's problem. Future Jenna can craft the conversation and the narrative around it, but this is what I want them to say in that moment.
Joanna: You say it's quite long, but Jeffrey Deaver, the mystery writer, his outlines are like 200 pages long.
Jenna: Okay, good. That makes me feel better.
Joanna: James Patterson famously does outlines, and I think his are maybe three chapters each page. So yes, it's such an interesting process. Of course, everybody listening does it differently, too.
Let's get on to the actual writing. So you've got this outline, and the title of your book for authors is Shut Up and Write. It is kind of funny because you have a book on writing, and I have a book How To Write a Novel, and we're basically saying, “Shut up and read our books, and then go and write.”
I guess this is one of the problems for writers—well, not a problem, because we're a self-sustaining industry—but I definitely remember reading like 100 craft books before actually writing something.
How can newer authors get over the fear of putting the words on a page, or just stop with all the distractions and shut up and write?
How can they get to that page if they're new writers?
Jenna: I host live streams on Mondays, and that's a question that I get almost in every single live stream. Every time I'm like, “You're not going to like the answer. I'm so sorry,” because I know a lot of people just think the fear is going to go away if they do XYZ.
They think, oh, like, I just have to wave a wand, and do a little dance, and I don't know, eat this special food, and it's not like that.
From my experience, and I'm someone who has been doing this for a decade now, I still have days where I'm like, “Oh, I don't want to write. It's going to be bad. I just know that everything I write is going to be terrible.”
I just feel like you have to grit your teeth and do it and understand that the fear is going to be there, and it's not going to go away until you actually start writing words on the page. So I think a lot of it is just grit, and getting it done, and doing the thing.
I think a lot of it is understanding that the fear is normal. It's not unique to you, everyone experiences it at some point in time. You just kind of have to open up the Word doc and keyboard Smash, just do something.
I feel like once you get the words flowing, the fear will start to dissipate.
Then you wonder why you wasted so much time to begin with.
Another thing is to set yourself up for success, and this is something that takes trial and error. Everyone thrives in their own unique way while writing. Everyone's different.
So for example, I have a friend who has to be playing music while they write. Whereas, for me, music is more of an idea phase thing. It's not so much in the writing process.
I know some people who can't have any distractions. They have to make sure that the Wi-Fi is off, and there's nothing going on. It's just the blank Word document page.
For me, I need a little bit of distraction. I need the temptation of reward. So I thrive in the way of being like, “Okay, if I just finish this scene, I can take a break online and watch some YouTube videos,” or something like that.
So for me, it's just a matter of understanding what would make you most successful. Some people, they need to have an office that they write in. I need to be comfortable while writing, so I write in bed. For other people, if they would write in bed, they'd just fall asleep.
So it's all about setting up your environment so that it is most suitable for you to actually get words on the page. The only thing I would say outside of that is don't let that be an excuse, because sometimes the environment isn't ideal, but we still have to get the words done. In those situations, you just got to grit your teeth and do the thing.
Joanna: I think you're right. I mean, you said just do something. Once you get started, then you can make it better later, right? Just get some words down.
To be fair, I think it's harder as a discovery writer because you don't have an outline. So I always say to people that I write out of order because I don't know where it's going. So I will just start writing that fight scene or whatever it is, and then I'll figure out the rest of it later.
So in a way, I guess it's easier because you can just start wherever and then rearrange things. Then when you're writing your actual word chapters, you've got an outline.
So do you just write start to finish? Do you just go in order?
Jenna: Yes. When I have written out of order, it has always been a huge mistake for me. So I've always had to rewrite everything. Like it's terrible, I've just got to start all the way over. So I just follow my outline.
That's another thing that I tell people. Like if you are new to this, and you are really struggling with not knowing what to write next, outline the next scene really quickly. Just jot it down. If you don't have an outline, just whip something up really quickly, so at least you know where to go.
It's kind of like training wheels. It helps you out a little bit as you're going. So, at least for me, it's like I always know what I need to write next, it's just sometimes I don't feel like writing it.
Joanna: That's also the same for me. So let's just talk about publishing before we get into all the marketing side. So with an audience like you have, and you're marketing savvy and everything—
What did you think about when you were publishing the first book? How did your publishing choices work?
Jenna: Like a lot of writers, I initially thought I was going to go traditional. I thought I understood the publishing landscape, but I wanted to make sure that I thoroughly researched my options. I'm so glad I did because I was definitely misinformed about traditional publishing.
After doing thorough research, I decided to go the indie route. I read a lot of books about both sides of things, I read a lot of articles, but the determining factor for me was actually interviewing other authors.
I interviewed a ton of people because I wanted to get the first-person perspective of people who had actually been through either traditional or indie. A vast majority of them were super negative and jaded.
They were like, “Don't do it. If you become a writer, you're going to waste your life, and you're never going to make any money, and blah blah blah.” They were just not happy with their life or their choices.
There were two authors who were really, really happy as writers, and one was indie, and one was traditional. The indie writer had just released independently their first novel, and it was selling well enough where they projected that by the second novel, they would be able to be doing this full time.
So they weren't there yet, but they were nearing it. They saw the light at the end of the tunnel, and they were really, really excited about it.
Then when I talked to the traditional author, she was an older woman, and basically she was telling me that she was with her traditional publisher for 20 years and ten books.
It was after the 20-year mark that her publishing house started taking her seriously.
They were giving her higher advances, not cutting the book after two years on the shelf. So basically, she had been writing for 20 years, and at that point, she was able to transition into writing full time.
She was like, “Don't worry. If you're patient, and you just write those books, and keep at it, and hound that publisher, eventually, you'll be able to do it full time.”
I just thought to myself, I don't want to wait 20 years. I mean, basically, she was at retirement age when she was able to do writing full time. I was like, I don't want to wait until retirement age to do that. At the time, I was in my late twenties. So that's when I decided to go indie.
I still maintain that there are vast pros and cons to either indie or traditional, and I think hybrid is also a really great option. It's just a matter of an individual writer's strengths, their goals, and whether the pros and cons of each side matter to them.
For example, the biggest con of indie publishing, in my opinion, is that it can be expensive. If you are in a financially comfortable place, that might not be as big of a problem for you as someone who is not in a financially comfortable place.
So it's just a matter of weighing the pros and cons and seeing how heavily they impact your life.
Joanna: Of course, there are lots of ways to bootstrap as an indie. So it doesn't have to be expensive, but you do have to invest in it as a business. If you want to make money, you do have to invest money, as you say, in terms of editing, cover design, and all that. Just coming back there—
You said you were misinformed about traditional publishing before you did that research. What did you think it was?
Jenna: I thought, and this is something that a lot of writers who talked to me all had the same impression, that the traditional publishing house are just going to do all the marketing for you. They're just going to promote you and try and make you a big deal.
I thought, and what a lot of writers think, that you're going to get the Stephen King experience. I researched it, and it's like Stephen King gets the Stephen King experience.
Everyone else, unless you have a large platform already, and you've got this large audience, the odds are that they're not going to invest a lot of marketing power in you. I was like, well, that kind of sucks.
Then I researched what the publishing house would do for me outside of marketing, and they were all things—I have a business background—they were all things that I was like, well, I'm comfortable doing this myself, and anything that I don't know, I think I can easily learn.
So the way I thought is, well, I'm going to be marketing myself no matter which option I go. I would rather market myself and get the higher royalty check, so I think I'm going to go indie.
Joanna: Yes, and as you said, I mean, you weigh up every decision in the future. I mean, you might write a series in the future. I'm 15-plus years into this now, and I have some ideas that I might pitch to various publishers.
For people who are newer to the industry listening, it's not an either/or forever decision. There's pros and cons every single time, every single book. So I think the industry changes so fast, and it's good to reassess.
You mentioned your business background there. Just having a look at the various things you do—
What are your multiple streams of income for your business right now?
Jenna: Just going back on what you said really quickly, I'm actually in the process of becoming a bit of a hybrid author, so I could not agree more with you. It's like you reassess over time because right now being hybrid is a great option for me, but at the start, it wasn't. So I definitely encourage people to be open to opportunities and whatnot.
So my multiple streams of income, obviously, my biggest stream of income is my book sales. That's probably the highest percentage of my earnings. I have a YouTube channel, so I have ad revenue from my YouTube videos. I have the ads enabled.
Sometimes I accept sponsorships, which is when a company that is writing related will be like, “Hey, can you basically do a little mini commercial and promote us on your video?”
If you are going into YouTube or podcasting or something where you get sponsorships, I would just encourage you to pick the ones that maybe are the best fit for your audience. I've received some wild sponsorship requests. I mean, I've had underwear requests. I had a mini cordless chainsaw, that was a strange one.
Joanna: You should have done that.
Jenna: I was kind of tempted. It's like, “Do you hate your manuscript? Do you want to saw it in half? Well, have I got the solution for you.”
So just keep it in mind. I tried to keep my sponsors writing related or social media related.
I also have merch available for people who enjoy my YouTube channel or my books. I do affiliate arrangements with other writing related companies like NovelPad.
I also have courses that people can take and learn a little bit more about the publishing process and marketing themselves. So those are my various streams of income.
I would say book sales are my most prominent stream of income. Then after that, it would be a YouTube ad revenue or sponsorships.
Joanna: So let's come back on the video because you said earlier that you are an introvert and you do video. So people always say to me, like, “Oh, you're not an introvert because you do podcasting.” I'm like, that just doesn't make any sense because it's just the two of us as we're doing it.
I do social media and all the stuff you do as well, but I definitely do not do much video. My YouTube channel, The Creative Penn is mostly audio only with an image on top. Many authors hate the thought of video.
So what are your tips for authors who know that we really should do video these days, but we just hate it, and we're worried about it, or it's just too much work?
So what are your thoughts there?
Jenna: This is another situation where you just have to understand that it's normal. It's uncomfortable, especially at first. I've been doing this for 10 years now, and I still get like, do I look okay? Like is my lipstick smudged? I still have those moments.
It's an adjustment, like anything else. It will eventually start to feel just like a normal part of your life. If people are like, “Oh, I'm too introverted to do this,” you're just talking into a camera. No one else is there.
I mean, it tuckers me out just in the sense of how much talking I have to do. I batch film, so I'll film all my videos for one month in one day. So that element will exhaust me, but it doesn't tire me out in the same way socializing does because I'm not talking to anyone. I'm talking to a camera. I am alone in my studio.
So I think what I would tell writers is that it will feel better as time goes on. Don't wait for everything to be perfect because you need trial and error to perfect your channel.
Your first few videos are going to be your worst, you're going to cringe later when you watch them, but you need to get them done. You need to start somewhere, so just understand that it's only going to go up from there.
So get those first few videos out, see how they perform, see what's going right, see what's going wrong, see what people are responding to, what they're not responding to, and tweak and adjust from there.
My biggest piece of advice, especially because writers are introverted and uncomfortable in front of the camera, is to be authentic.
As someone who did videos for months before they saw any traction, once I stopped trying to put on this professional front and I started just behaving like myself, that's when my videos started to perform well.
So authenticity is something that people can absolutely notice and respond to, especially on a platform like YouTube. You may think you're weird, or quirky, or boring, or something like that. Just be your authentic self, and someone out there will appreciate it.
Joanna: Both you and I have our primary media platforms for the nonfiction audience, the authors.
So how would someone advertise or market or build a channel around their fiction?
Do you have some ideas for more about that rather than the tip-based content?
Jenna: Just in general, I think that at this point, if you're getting on YouTube specifically, I wouldn't recommend giving writing advice. When I started my channel, I was very lucky because there were only two other writing advice channels out there. So I was kind of entering into an untapped market.
Now that I've been doing this for 10 years, there's a bazillion different writing channels out there. So for nonfiction writers, I wouldn't necessarily recommend giving writing advice on YouTube, just because at this point it is a saturated market.
A lot of the people who give writing advice on YouTube are—or not a lot of the people—but there's a handful of people on YouTube who are bestsellers and award winners and things like that.
So if someone has their choice of where they're going to get writing advice on YouTube, they're probably going to go to someone with credentials versus someone who's newer and trying to get their name out there.
There are a ton of other options available for YouTube. What I like to tell writers is think about your target audience and what they're interested in. So for example, if you're writing romantasy like me, maybe talk about the art of romantasy.
Maybe talk about your favorite romantasy books, your favorite romantasy movies, your favorite romance tropes, your favorite fantasy tropes. You can bond with your audience over that sort of content.
There are people who do book reviews on YouTube, it's known as BookTube.
That's very popular, and you are welcome to do that.
My only warning I would give is that if you are a public reviewer, when it comes time to release your own book, just take into consideration that people are going to judge your work harsher than they would have otherwise because you're a book reviewer.
Since you're out there giving “professional opinions” about other books, people are going to be like, okay, well, they have strong opinions about other books, I'm going to have strong opinions about theirs. So just something to take into consideration.
More than anything, I would tap into your target audience and what they're interested in. That's what a lot of writers on YouTube do. If they're writing sci fi, they will talk about sci fi on their channel.
They'll talk about the newest sci fi movie, and they'll talk about the tropes utilized and the writing style of it. Fellow sci fi geeks will watch and be like, wow, this is really, really interesting. Then once that YouTuber is like, “Hey, I've got a book. Check it out,” you've attracted the appropriate audience to then purchase that book.
Joanna: Well, let's talk about the trend of short form video. So obviously, TikTok and BookTok is the big thing right now. Instagram reels and YouTube shorts have appeared to sort of try and capture that similar vibe.
Do you do the short form videos? How has video changed?
Jenna: What I do is I repurpose my YouTube content. I will take videos that I posted on YouTube and cut them down into little one-minute segments and share them to TikTok. TikTok isn't my favorite platform, just because I prefer longer form videos.
So for me, it's like, oh, gosh, I've got to make this quick little 15 second video. It's not my platform that I use. I do have TikTok, but I usually use it to repurpose my content or to talk about my books.
There are some writers who are thriving on TikTok, and then there are some who are like, oh, I just can't do this. So just take into consideration that there are other options available.
There are entire video essays on YouTube that have millions of views. So just because the short form content is popular, like if you're into that, definitely milk that for what it's worth, but if you're not so much into it, YouTube is still doing really, really well.
Like I said, there are people who make hour long video essays on YouTube that are absolutely killing it. So I think short form gives people greater options of what they can do in terms of content, especially because making a 15-second video is obviously going to be significantly less time consuming than even a 15-minute YouTube video.
So it definitely gives people greater options, but I don't feel like you have to be forced into just going the short form way. There's still a lot of long form content available for people.
Joanna: I think about YouTube a bit like I think about this podcast, which is it's more content marketing, and like for you as well, part of the business. Whereas I see short form video and social media as just marketing, whereas they're not necessarily content marketing.
So people listening here and watching your channel, it is content. I mean, that content can be a short story or it can be whatever else with the fiction side.
I feel like what we make with these longer forms stick around longer.
People can find things years later. Whereas TikTok and the short form videos are almost designed to disappear.
Jenna: Exactly. I mean, I had a TikTok blow up and get over 2 million views, but it didn't get me book sales. I mean, I'm sure maybe it got me a handful, but with the YouTube videos, every time I release a video I get a spike in book sales.
So that's not to say that TikTok can't be used to help you sell books. It's just the idea that I have videos that are seven years old that are still selling books for me, whereas that TikTok has just faded into the distance. So I definitely think content marketing absolutely has its place and its value.
Joanna: Yes, and this is why authors need some kind of strategy because with the huge number of splintered services now, if you tried to do everything all the time, that's when people just give up. I mean, you have to choose.
It's interesting, like you said you got in early on the YouTube writing stuff. I was one of the very first podcasts in the writing space, me and like Grammar Girl and Writing Excuses. There were just a few of us in those early days. Again, similar, it's very crowded now.
I wouldn't put people off entirely from trying to start something new, it's just very, very hard to kind of breakthrough. You kind of have to go super, super niche. Can I just ask about some other types of videos?
So one of the things that many authors are doing for the ad revenue is putting whole audiobooks on YouTube. What do you think about that?
Jenna: I think if it works for them, that's fantastic. It wouldn't be the best option for me because my audiobooks, just selling them on Audible and Amazon, are just killing it. So for me, it would be a decrease in revenue if I were to do it that way.
However, the way I see it is that it's all about whatever works for that individual person. I know some people who are putting their audiobooks on YouTube because of the ad revenue, and they're making money that way.
I know some people who are doing it solely because their platform is really small. They're hoping that if I give this book away, essentially for free, I will attract an audience. When it comes to business experimentation, I'm all about seeing what works, seeing what doesn't, and not being afraid to experiment.
For example, if they were to put their audiobook on YouTube, and they didn't make a lot of money off of it, I don't really see that as a failure. I see that as a like a learning experience. It's like, okay, well, now I know that I won't do that again. What's the next step?
So I'm all for people doing that. I don't think it would work for me. I think anything you could do to try to experiment within the industry and try to increase your revenue somehow, I'm like, so long as it's ethical, go for it and try it out.
Joanna: Okay, well, something that was popular over a decade ago when I first started out was the book trailer. What's interesting is it used to cost us so much money to do a book trailer.
Obviously, now the tools are much, much better in terms of AI images, and AI for marketing, and you can find licensed music for cheap, and all of this. I've started to see book trailers on social media because a 30-second video or a 10-second video can be quite interesting.
So what do you think around the book trailer type video, where it's not the author, it is the story or the hook?
Jenna: I think, and I don't know if they'd necessarily count as book trailers, but I see reels all the time on Instagram, and then I see TikToks, obviously, where it's like beautiful imagery, character artwork, and then quotes from the book with music. I've made those myself. They're really easy to make.
It's one of those things where if you could make one of those in less than a half hour, you might as well give it a shot and throw it out there and see how it works. I know a lot of authors who that's how they make their book sales is they make those beautiful little trailers, and they just post them constantly.
Sometimes they'll boost them online, they'll put some ad revenue behind it, and that's how they're able to support themselves as an author. Especially, like right now, the writing industry has evolved so much, and —
Social media, as annoying as it can be, social media is the reason that a lot of us are now able to do writing full time.
So this is another situation where I'm like, go for it! Make the little book trailer. You can do it easily on Canva, and that's available pretty much for everyone. I know people who their entire careers revolve around just making these cute little videos with character art.
There are wonderful character artists that you could hire to create entire elaborate scenes from your book, and it's very affordable. I say go for it. Like I said, I've done it myself.
Joanna: So you mentioned Canva, which I also use. It is fantastic.
What are some of the other tools that you use as part of your YouTube side of things for making videos?
Jenna: Well, I'm at this point in my career now where I have a video editing team. So I now get to outsource those tasks, thankfully, because that was the least fun part of YouTube.
Before then, I would edit my videos using iMovie as well as Final Cut Pro. iMovie is free, available to anyone with a Mac. You don't need the fancy tools in order to edit your YouTube content. iMovie works just fine.
I would use Final Cut Pro, for example, for book trailers that I would post to YouTube, as well as some of the fancier overlays and imagery and things like that. That's what I would use Final Cut Pro for.
I have a screen so that I can sort of watch myself while I'm filming and make sure I look okay. I obviously have the camera. I have a ring light and then two spotlights. Then, of course, I have the onstage podcast microphone. A lot of equipment, basically.
My studio is just filled with lights and cameras and all that good stuff. A lot of people hear this and think that if they're going on to YouTube, they need to immediately have these items.
What I started with was natural light from my window, a good microphone, and I used the camera on my laptop.
So just understand that. I personally wouldn't recommend, if you are getting into YouTube specifically, investing a whole lot of money at the start because some people try out YouTube, and after six months, they're like, “I hate this. I don't want to do this. This is not for me.”
What a shame it would be if you spent thousands of dollars on a YouTube setup that you don't want to use anymore. So if you're going to invest in anything, I would recommend investing in a good microphone, but you can get a good microphone for a really good price.
So there's nothing wrong with natural light and using your iPhone camera to get started.
Joanna: Yes, although if you're going to use an iPhone camera, put it on a stand, don't hold it.
Jenna: Yes, exactly.
Joanna: Or people will feel sick.
Jenna: Yes.
Joanna: So both you and I have been doing these various parts of our business for quite a few years now, and I wondered if you're thinking about reinvention. I hit my 15 years just before Christmas, and this podcast has been going since 2009.
So I started to feel like there are new voices around, there are different ways of doing things, and I'm very interested in reinvention at the moment. Although I'm kind of calling it a very slow pivot reinvention because I'm still enjoying myself. What do you think as someone who's been doing YouTube for so long as well?
What are your thoughts on what's coming next for you? Do you have any plans for new series? What's next for Jenna?
Jenna: Absolutely, this is actually something that I've been thinking about a lot lately, especially because I'm at my 10-year mark with YouTube, and my family recently went through a medical crisis, and we're on the other end of it, and things are so much better.
Those sorts of things make you reevaluate your life. It's like, what's working? What maybe is something that I kind of want to leave in the past?
So I'm already in the process of tweaking my YouTube channel. I'm making shorter videos that that are a little bit easier for me to digest and produce. That way, I can put a lot more focus on my writing.
In the past, sometimes there would be so much YouTube stuff going on that it would eclipse my writing time. Then it defeats the purpose. I'm doing YouTube to support my writing, not to eclipse my writing.
I mentioned earlier that I am in the process of segueing into being a hybrid author. I can't talk about the specifics quite yet, but that's definitely a new venture that I'm looking into that has been very exciting.
So that's part of the reinvention is now I will be both independently and traditionally published, which is really fun for me. Also, I'm still finishing up The Savior's Series. I'm almost done with a third book, and then I will get started on the fourth book.
I would like to venture into books with a little bit less violence. So I was thinking about dabbling in rom coms and things that are a bit fluffier and on the cute side. I have a whole bunch of books that I would like to produce eventually.
Right now, I'm just focusing on one step at a time, which is finishing up contracts on the hybrid side of things, as well as tweaking my YouTube channel, and finishing up the two writing projects that I'm currently working on.
Joanna: Fantastic.
Where can people find you, and your books, and everything you do online?
Jenna: Awesome. Well, people can find me on YouTube at YouTube.com/JennaMoreci. That's J-E-N-N-A-M-O-R-E-C-I.
They can follow me on Instagram, TikTok, all of those places, @JennaMoreci. I keep it pretty standard so I'm easy to find. The only one that's different is Facebook, which is AuthorJennaMoreci.
My books are available at all major retailers. So you can find them on Amazon. You can find them at Barnes and Noble. You can find them all over the place.
Right now the books that are available are The Savior's Champion, The Savior's Sister, and Shut Up and Write the Book. The Savior's Army and then another secret project is on its way.
Joanna: Fantastic. Well, thanks so much for your time, Jenna. That was great.
How Writing Work For Hire Books Led To Becoming An Indie Author With Aubre Andrus
May 13, 2024
How can you blend ‘work for hire', ghostwriting, and being an indie author into a successful hybrid career writing books for children? Aubre Andrus gives her tips.
In the intro, Countdown Pages on FindawayVoices by Spotify; the impact of AI narrated audiobooks on Audible [Bloomberg]; Ideas for short fiction anthologies and Kevin J. Anderson's Kickstarter; Penguin Random House launches internal ChatGPT tool for employees [Publishers Lunch]; 2024 is the year AI at work gets real [Microsoft].
Plus, reasons for the new theme music, licensed from AudioJungle for 10m downloads (the podcast is up to 9.7 million with the old tune); and planning for my Kickstarter launch for Spear of Destiny.
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.
Aubre Andrus is an award-winning children's author with more than 50 books, as well as being a ghostwriter and former American Girl magazine editor. Her books, The Look Up Series, feature women in STEM careers.
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 background of the American Girl brand
Pros and cons of work for hire and ghostwriting
Work for hire best practices to make it worth the money
Differences in work for hire contracts and payment models
How to seek out work for hire projects
Using lessons learned from past projects in your own series
Creative control over content and marketing a self-published author
Joanna: Aubre Andrus is an award-winning children's author with more than 50 books, as well as being a ghostwriter and former American Girl Magazine editor. Her books, The Look Up Series, center around women in STEM careers. So welcome to the show. Aubre.
Aubre: Thank you so much for having me.
Joanna: I'm excited to talk about this today. So first up—
Tell us a bit more about you, how you got into writing children's books originally, and how you started out in work for hire.
Aubre: So I started at a kids' magazine right out of college. If anyone is familiar, the company was American Girl. So they publish magazines, books, and also have an extensive doll collection that's very popular in the US.
So while I was working at the magazine, I noticed the book department next door and all the wonderful books they were creating that I had also read as a child. I learned that they were developing all of their concepts in house, and then just hiring authors to execute those ideas.
I also learned that a lot of them were former magazine editors. So it was interesting to me that one day, perhaps, I could leave the magazine and then pitch myself to become one of these authors. So that is what I did.
It was interesting because American Girl was based in Middleton, Wisconsin, in the US. That's very much in the Midwest, not near New York City publishing. So we're very much an island separate from any other type of children's publishing, like the industry.
So even though I got my foot in the door in publishing books, I was still kind of stuck. Like, uh oh, is there any way I can expand this anymore? Do other publishers in New York do this also? I had no idea.
I just started networking at children's book conferences, and frankly, just blindly reaching out to people and saying, “Hey, do you offer any work for hire projects? I've done a couple. I'm interested in doing more.” So I was able to slowly build up that work for hire career.
Joanna: I have a few questions about this. So first of all, I have been in of the American Girls stores in New York. So I am aware of this, but I know some listeners won't be. So can you maybe just talk a bit about that?
I was just fascinated. It did seem to be more modern as in it wasn't just really old school stuff, there were more modern female role models, I guess. I mean, that's what the worry is with these older IP brands, is that they have an old, outdated version of what women are.
Talk about how these IP brands work, and if people don't even know what American Girl is.
Aubre: So it started as kind of like an heirloom doll company from a former teacher and textbook author. So she was really like an educational entrepreneur. So she was sort of not interested in Barbie for her nieces, and she was trying to create something better, in her mind's eye.
So she developed this line of three dolls that were historical characters that then also had a series of six books that accompanied them. It basically was teaching girls what it was like to be a girl back in time.
You know, so what was it like to grow up during World War Two? What was like to grow up as an immigrant coming to the US for the first time? Then it kind of expanded from there, the historical doll collection.
Then it really ballooned into just creating contemporary content for girls. That's what I was a part of at the magazine, which was just like a lifestyle magazine for 8- to 12-year-old girls.
Similar to at the time there was Nickelodeon Magazine, Disney Magazine, Highlights Magazine, like in that same vein, but specifically targeted about girlhood and for girls in that 8 to 12 age range.
Then from there spun the contemporary line of books, and a lot of like crafts, and activity, and recipe, and slumber parties, and just anything that kind of celebrates that girlhood from ages 8 to 12. Then the dolls also then became more contemporary, a line of dolls that looked like you.
Joanna: Like customized content.
Aubre: Yes, and that's really where the company stands today. The historical characters, I think maybe girls today aren't as interested in them, but there is the line of dolls that look like you and you can dress.
They have partnerships with Harry Potter and anything you can imagine, so it's quite a fun company. I loved it as a kid, so it was amazing for me to work there as a grown up.
Joanna: I mean, as business people, we have to think this way. I feel like so often because we are, and the listeners, we're authors first, we're books first, and I think we forget that there's so many other things.
Brands like American Girl, they're good examples. Even if no one is interested in that particular type of thing, the business model is great. I mean, obviously, Barbie does it so well as, as well. So I do like this idea of thinking further than just a book, even if, of course, we're not going to grow a whole empire like this.
You mentioned it was separate from New York publishing. Did you almost feel like sort of second rate? I don't want to use that word, but you know what I mean. Did you find that difficult?
Aubre: I did. I mean, we were so isolated from New York publishing. I think, you know, this isn't an offense to anyone who's working there, I think they would all agree. Some of them have gone on to work for more like New York City publishers, and it is more fast paced, and it's just different.
We sort of had our own little bubble and had our lovely little pace, and we were creating amazing stuff for kids. So I felt like I knew American Girl publishing, but I did not necessarily know children's book publishing. So it was a little intimidating to dive into that.
Joanna: Yes, and on that, I mean, you mentioned networking and going to conferences. I still remember how it felt as a newly self-published author, to feel kind of second rate, to feel looked down upon, to feel like I was a second-class citizen. I imagine you kind of felt that way when you were networking and at conferences.
How did you get through that mindset in order to meet people at these conferences?
Aubre: Well, I mean, I felt that way, that second rate way, in so many ways, because A, I had only done publishing in Middleton, Wisconsin, and then B, I was doing middle grade, which at the time was not hot, not sexy. Everyone was doing YA.
Then I was also doing nonfiction, which also is not fiction, which is where most people want to be. Then also, I was doing work for hires, I wasn't even developing the concepts myself. So there were so many reasons why I felt like a second-rate author. Like, am I a real author? I don't know. So for a while there, I really second guessed myself. Then I just kind of had to get over it like that.
I started working with really amazing brands, like National Geographic Kids and Disney. I mean, these are amazing, and people would kill to have these opportunities. So I just really started embracing work for hire. I get to work on so many fun projects for really amazing brands and IP, and that's really cool. So, yes, I just had to kind of mindset shift.
Joanna: You gave yourself like a talking to and said, make the most of it.
Aubre: Yes.
Joanna: I do think it has to be a mindset shift if people feel that way. Like you mentioned, whether it's the type of publishing you do or whether it's the type of genre you're writing.
What's so funny, I think, with the self-publishing world, is that the romance writers in old school publishing were always looked down upon. People who wrote romance were considered sort of lesser in some way. Now, it's very clear, and it always has been true I think, but before it wasn't so known that they make so much money and they prop up basically the rest of the industry.
Aubre: Exactly. I mean, it blows my mind if anyone ever looks down upon romance. It is the industry, and they are so savvy. I actually keep quite an eye on the romance industry because they are just so smart and what they're doing works. So even though I'm writing books for kids, I'm always kind of peeking over there. Like, wow, they're creating these universes, they're doing this on TikTok. I'm always so impressed by the romance community.
Joanna: They are always ahead. Well done, romance writers listening. I always wish I could do it, but I can't.
Aubre: I'm thinking about it. I'm always like, hmm could I do that? I'm starting to read more in that genre because it is interesting.
Joanna: That's interesting. Okay, so let's come back to the work for hire because, of course, you mentioned some of the great brands you've been writing with. So I guess one thing is that that is an amazing experience.
What are some of the pros and cons of work for hire and ghostwriting?
Aubre: Well, for me, it was a great way to dip my toes into the water, instead of just jumping into the deep end, and slowly build up my skills as an author. I imagine some people who hit it big on their first novel, I mean probably are just absolutely drowning in the industry and don't feel very savvy.
I've really been able to build up a knowledge of different publishers, of different types of projects, discover what I'm good at, what I like. I've really just got a wide range of experience that has only made me a better author.
So after I left American Girl, I took a job in marketing, but I was freelance writing on the side. So compared to freelance writing—because then my dream was to eventually go freelance and just to be a freelance writer—I would have had to take on so many freelance writing projects that pay like two hundred bucks.
I mean, I still see some of these come across my social media feeds. So if they're paying $200 for an article, I mean, how many articles would you have to write and pitch to make a living?
So compared to freelance writing, this is fewer higher paying projects. I like that so much more. I get to control the workload. I can even take on some freelance projects outside of this field. In the past, I've dabbled in content marketing and social media to kind of balance my day.
I don't need to come up with the ideas, I just need to execute someone else's ideas. So it's a little bit, you know, I have felt that I was on a hamster wheel of content production, for sure, absolutely.
There is a hustle element to it of always trying to find the next gig, but I have to remind myself that I'm in control of my workload.
I can turn down a project, if it doesn't pay well, I can hold out for the higher paying project.
I do get a lot of the benefits of a traditional process. I get royalties, I've gone on book tours, I have fan mail, I do school visits, I've done book events. So really, I've gotten everything I wanted out of being a children's book author from these work for hire projects. Also, I see that most books don't earn out their advances.
So there is a balance to it, where I'm like, am I on a hamster wheel? Can I ever get over this hump? But at the same time, I feel like we're all kind of on a hamster wheel. Unless you really hit it big on one huge book project, like you're always going to have to keep pumping out books in a series or—
Joanna: Marketing the backlist.
Aubre: Exactly. I mean, marketing is exhausting as well. So in general, I've very much had a good experience with work for hire. I get my name on the cover and on the spine, depending on the project. I think it just really depends on the publishers you're working for and the relationships you establish. Then from there, you can put your own ideas, you know.
Then the cons would be like, maybe you're working on some projects that you're not as excited about. You can always say no, but you know, when you're getting your foot in the door, you might take on a few things that aren't exactly in your wheelhouse.
I always saw these projects as stepping stones to where I wanted to go, whether it was a stepping stone to get into a certain publisher, or just establish myself with an editor, or kind of wade into new waters.
I kind of slowly stepped into narrative nonfiction and eventually started doing narrative nonfiction novels. Now I'm doing a lot of short story fiction, and I hope that leads to a fiction novel. So there's these ways to slowly build up your skills through work for hire.
Joanna: Yes, I mean, I think some people will be like, yes, but you said they're not your ideas. You're basically writing someone else's ideas, and that, to me, seems one of the biggest issues. So I have co-written a few fiction projects and nonfiction. The fiction, I found extremely hard because I don't play well with others. I was like, I do not want to write anything that is not what I feel is me. So how do you get over that?
I mean, tell us how the process works. If you take one of these projects on, do you get given story beats? Is there anything you can do that's individual or—
Do you just flesh out what someone else has written as an outline?
Aubre: Well, I can speak to my experience in the nonfiction children's book world, and that is often I'm just given like a title. So I really can run with it. You know, I get a lot of control and a lot of the responsibilities put on me to flesh out a project.
I have also done ghostwriting for fiction, so I think it just depends on the project. I agree with you that fiction is much harder. I have a place where I want the story to go, and it might not be the place where what we would call the author—which is the person who came up with the idea, you would be the ghostwriter—where they want it to go.
So you've got to look at it more like, this is my client, and I am trying to make my client happy. On those type of projects, I don't want my name on them. I want my name on the paycheck, I don't want my name on the book.
I think that's how I get over it. I'm just like, this is not mine. I am helping them do theirs, this is their thing, and that is what it is.
In the kids' nonfiction, I've had a ton of fun and a ton of agency to do what I want with the project. They're looking for my expertise to really bring this to life.
Joanna: So the other thing I've learned about people, like yourself, is you have to be incredibly professional, and you have to work to deadline, and you have to do a whole load of things that, frankly, some authors can't do. So tell us about the level of professionalism and your best practices.
How do you get these projects done in a timely manner that make it worth the money?
Aubre: Yes, so most of the projects have pretty quick deadlines, like the writing portion is really just going to be like three months. So I'm a fast writer, my background is in journalism.
So at this point in my career, I just know what I need to do to get this project done. Get your butt in the chair, get the outline, just start writing. I might start at the middle of the book, the beginning of the book, the end of the book, whatever is like hitting me in that moment so that I can get it done.
If some idea is flowing, I'm going to run with it. I'm not going to necessarily write the book from beginning to end because, again, I'm doing a lot of nonfiction. So that has helped me make these projects worth it. Also, maybe not like over researching, because I know, especially with a journalism background, I could easily fall into that rabbit hole.
For the most part, I've had very few projects where I'm like, ugh, that was not worth my time. Those were mostly like kids' craft and science experiment books. Those just take more time because you have to test the crafts, test the science experiments, maybe something didn't work and you have to scrap that whole page or that chapter, do it again. So again, I've just kind of learned that if I'm going to take on a project like that it has to pay quite high.
If I'm going to take on an early reader for National Geographic or something, those are really fun and quick to write and they pay well. So there's such a wide range in the kids' publishing world.
I have friends who do a lot of work for hire fiction, and they are just excellent at it. They love developing story and just pumping it out, like that's their favorite part of the process. They're just going through the process and can just do it as fast as they can. I'm not super fast with fiction, which is why I haven't taken as many fiction projects. I do really well with short stories where I have some constraints, but not the idea of a whole fiction project that is work for hire.
I think, for me, it's good because you are given some characters and a loose outline and an idea. So it's more almost like a writing prompt. You know, like I'm almost getting paid to execute a writing prompt.
So it kind of just depends on if that's something that sounds exciting to you or not. Like, for me, I work good under deadlines, I work good when I have a little prompt and a format. You're often given a title and the page count.
Usually it's part of a series because this is work for hire. So I wrote something for American Girl, it was A Smart Girl's Guide: Travel, and they have a whole Smart Girl's Guide series.
Joanna: So you get a style guide?
Aubre: Yes, like I know what these other books look like, I know kind of how they're divided up. I've read a lot of them. I'm just familiar with it, so it just comes faster.
Joanna: I've met quite a lot of writers who have written in the Star Wars universe, or The X Files. All of these franchises, they do have the book of the TV show or the film. You know, Doctor Who, or that kind of thing. So I feel like this is quite common. It's funny, it's kind of common, but not talked about that much.
Aubre: Well, exactly, which is why I wanted to talk about it.
Joanna: It's so interesting. You said earlier that you do get royalties. Now, I thought this was one of the biggest issues, certainly with some of the worlds and universes that people have written in, is that they do not get royalties. Often work for hire is—whatever's in the contract, obviously—but usually it's: you write it, we pay you once, and you never see any other money. That is kind of the freelance model.
Does that just differ by contract?
I mean, even if you do get royalties, it must only be a small percentage.
Aubre: Yes, it just depends on the contract and depends on the publisher. So I've gotten them for multiple publishers. Then also some publishers decide, well, if we came up with the idea in-house and you executed, then it's a flat fee. If you come up with an idea and we run with it, then we'll give you royalties. So I've had that happen too.
So it just depends on the project, and the publisher, and the budget, and also on negotiating. Most people don't use an agent for work for hire projects because the pay is less. So it's not really financially worth an agent to go seek out these projects.
So when you establish these connections and relationships, you can learn a bit more depending on the publisher. There's certainly a lot of work for hire opportunities that pay royalties.
I mean, I just see like Disney Publishing coming out with a lot of different fiction series and working with big name authors. I have to assume that those are paying royalties. So there's all different levels of work for hire projects.
Joanna: Okay, so you said there's loads of work out there. So how would people get into it if they wanted to? Like I sometimes say to people, well, you can write a book for them, and one for you. You can use it as almost day job type money while you're building up your own stuff.
How would people get that kind of work?
Aubre: So I think particularly in the kids' book industry, it would be beneficial if you had some experience writing for kids.
Whether that be magazines, or your own stuff that you've created, or even if you have a teaching background, you've developed curriculum, or you've created programming and libraries. School teachers and librarians often become children's book authors.
Then I do a lot of networking at, as I said, children's book conferences. So very occasionally there'll be a panel about work for hire, but even if there's not, anytime you meet an editor you can just ask them. “Do you do any work for hire projects? Does your publishing house do any work for a prior projects?” You know, “Do you know an editor who does any work for hire projects?”
You can find a lot of this on LinkedIn too if you search for editors at various publishing houses. Not everybody fills out their LinkedIn, but if you are looking for keywords like “works with freelancers,” “hires freelancers,” like “develops concepts in house,” and then “finds writers to execute them.”
If you look, a lot of these editors work in the licensing division because this is who's in charge of the intellectual property and franchise and those types of projects.
There's so many TV shows, and if you've walked around a bookstore, you've seen this.
So many TV shows, movies, brands who then want to create a publishing program around that IP.
They reach out to a publisher, and the publisher acts as a consultant and helps them develop this program.
Usually, that means they're developing the concept in house, and then they're hiring a writer to execute it. So basically, LinkedIn and conferences is where I've done a lot of my networking. Then I have—I'm a little bit extra—so I have like flown to New York and set up meetings and gone out of my way to really get my face in front of some editors.
Joanna: Then I guess once you've done one or two things, then you know the right people.
Aubre: Yes, then it's much easier to spin those projects into further work.
Joanna: I just want to come back on another of the negative things here. So there's been some court cases around this type of stuff, so if you're writing in someone else's world, even if the contract is that you come up with your own ideas. Let's say you come up with a new character, but you write it into an American Girl world, you no longer have control of that character. That's usually the way it works.
If you've written it into their world, then they own it.
Aubre: Right. I feel like even in the traditional model of publishing, you're giving up the copyright as well. So I don't see it as too different than that way. Even if you pitched your project to a traditional publisher, and they signed you, they would own the copyright to that project, you know.
Joanna: Only if that's what the contract was, how long you assign the copyright to a publisher. Only if they ask for life of term of copyright, do they have it for term of copyright.
I think this is really important in terms of mixing IP. So it might be tempting. Like, I know people who get co-writing deals with bigger names, and then they kind of feel like they want to write a character from their series into someone else's world.
You just have to be so careful with this commingled IP because you don't know. I mean, the thing is that so many authors think, oh, well, my stuff isn't that valuable, and that other person's stuff is more valuable. That may not be where it is in like 20 years though.
Aubre: Right. I've never experienced that. Any fictional character writing that I've done has been in a pretty strict universe, like Disney Princess, you know, where there's very strict brand guidelines. I wouldn't even be allowed to necessarily create a new character. It would really be existing characters within the universe. So I haven't really confronted that.
Joanna: Okay. So it's interesting because, of course, you've done a lot, and you still do a lot of this writing in other universities, but you also have your own series, The Look Up Series.
Tell us more about that and why you're so passionate about STEAM.
I thought it was “STEM” and you used both, I think. Explain that if people don't know.
Aubre: So STEAM and STEM. STEM is science, technology, engineering, and math. The A in STEAM is for art. So STEM has sort of naturally progressed into STEAM because, and as I've met many women in STEM and interviewed them, you really can't do a lot of these more scientific and technical fields without a creative mindset.
As a kid, I was always creative and thought that meant I'm an author, I'm an illustrator, that's where I am. I'm not a scientist, I'm not good at math. It turns out that these more scientific and technical fields actually require you to be super creative when it comes to problem solving or anything. So I have a series called The Look Up Series, and it features real women in STEM. It's targeted for 8- to 12-year-olds, it's like a middle grade nonfiction series.
Each book features a really awesome career, really amazing woman, and sort of what she was like as a kid, what this career is like, how do you get into this career.
So for example, I have Dr. Maya, Ice Cream Scientist. So she's a real woman who is an ice cream scientist. So it's interesting to see how she has her PhD in food science, but she's also being very creative using flavor, and visuals, and ice cream.
It's this cool mix of science, and arts, and just helping kids get excited about really cool careers in science and technology and engineering, and also learning that just because they have maybe been pegged as creative or artsy, doesn't mean that they can't also land in these more scientific and technical fields.
These jobs are really in high demand, you know, as the next generation enters the workforce. We need people to be solving the world's biggest problems, which is often in these STEM fields. There's obviously a huge wage gap and gender gap when it comes to these careers, which is why I'm featuring women. I have diverse women on the cover, just so every kid can see themselves in these roles.
Joanna: What did you bring to your series, in terms of the lessons learned from all these other IP worlds you've worked in?
Aubre: So it was very important to me to, one, create a series. So I'd always been interested in self-publishing. I'd always been traditionally published, I've written more than 50 books for kids for like major publishers.
For many reasons, like we mentioned the content hamster wheel, we mentioned royalties, IP, all that, and I wanted to create my own thing and have more income potential. I also just wanted to write on a project that was purely me that I was super passionate about.
I certainly could have pitched this to a publisher, and I think I could have got some bites, but I really wanted to do it myself. It was a nice test of all of my publishing knowledge. So it was important to me to create a series, so there was more potential in marketing it and making an income. Then I really just got to learn everything.
I would say it's been both easier and harder than I thought. Easier, in that like none of the systems, or the technology, or the gatekeepers behind ads, or awards, or reviews, or whatever are complicated. Like you can definitely figure it out as an indie author.
What was harder for me was like the mindset and the investment, like you really have to cut out to be an entrepreneur. That means spending money on ads and maybe not turning a profit right away. That was really hard, and still is hard for me.
It's an investment, but it brings me back to the books I've written where, you know, a lot of my books are only marketed for couple of weeks. So the benefit is that I can continue to market this series, and it won't get pulled off the shelf. I can recover it, I can retitle it, I can kind of do whatever I need to do with this series.
Also, as we mentioned with American Girl, thinking beyond the book. I can create a web series, or I see a lot of indie children's book authors creating plushies or like little stuffed animals to accompany their books. So there's just like more potential because I chose to do this project on my own.
Then I was pregnant with my second daughter as I was creating the series. I was like birthing five books while also preparing to birth a child. So I created this whole series while I was pregnant with her. It was just like I felt more of a legacy to leave for them. I felt like it was a passion project, and it just felt good to do this project. So that was why I wanted to do it on my own.
Joanna: Yes.
A lot of it comes down to control when traditionally published authors go indie.
Most people say it's creative control, that's the main reason, because you don't have that. Once you've written something, even if you've got a lot of freedom in writing some of these things before, you weren't in control of anything else. You can't fix it later or change the cover, and like you said, there's no point in marketing those projects.
Aubre: Yes, if I'm not getting royalties on a book, what's my incentive to market it, and many books have been taken off the shelf.
So it just felt, as I said, just really good to be in creative control, know that my efforts are going to continue to help this series be a success, and also know that it was just aligned with my beliefs. It was just a project I was truly passionate about. It was funny how it kind of came to be because I was actually pulling onto the Disney campus for a project, I was meeting with my editor, and I passed the Disney Imagineering building.
I used to, when I was a kid, I wanted to be an Imagineer. They're like the engineers and artists that designed the theme park rides, and I had just completely forgot about it. I was like, oh my god, in another life, I would have been going into that building instead of this building. Like, you know, what was missing that I didn't become an Imagineer? So every project informs another project, I guess.
Joanna: Absolutely. Well, it's interesting, I mean, you did mention that you're an illustrator.
Did you illustrate these?
Aubre: Well, I wouldn't call myself an illustrator, but I was always very into art. So on these books, because my background is at American Girl and we were very until girl aesthetic, I decided to make little doodles on the cover.
So the covers have my doodles, which are not great because they're supposed to look like girl doodles. So I have made doodles for American Girl Magazine and some books, but I am not a formal illustrator.
Joanna: So you didn't hire someone separately to do that?
Aubre: I didn't. The books are nonfiction, so each book is sort of a combination of a biography and activity book. So I relied on the women I interviewed to provide a lot of photos from their childhood. Then combined with these doodles of mine, we were able to piece this project together without an illustrator, because frankly, it would have been quite expensive. I was funding this project myself and launching with five books from the jump.
So maybe one day, I'll be able to invest in an illustrator and add that to this project. I know my covers feature real women on them, like we did a little photoshoot. So that makes the series stand out a little bit, in a good way or bad way, in that it's a biography for kids, but it features a non-illustrated cover because these are real women. So it was just kind of a creative decision that I decided to give a try.
Joanna: Yes, because there is a series for girls that has real people, but a sort of cartoon version of them, isn't there? Like sort of Maya Angelou and people like that.
Aubre: Yes, most of them are illustrated. Even if they feature real people, the covers are illustrated.
Joanna: That's interesting. It's interesting that you have based this on, and you've got photos from, real people.
You must have had some proper contracts done to work with those people and use their image and their photos in your books.
Like that must have been a bit of a process.
Aubre: Yes, I did work with a lawyer to draft up some contracts. Also, I didn't want them to think I was like owning their story. Like they can go on and write more books about themselves if they would like.
I basically did the two-plus hour interview with each woman and then translated that into a biography, like a first-person biography. Then I combined it with knowledge of what the field is like, and you know, what this particular career is like.
There were also just questions like: What is college? What is a major? What is a PhD? Then I created some activities at the end so kids can feel like they are an ice cream scientist. We also have Amanda, Toy Engineer, and Angella, Beauty Chemist, and Tracey, Theme Park Designer. So I didn't get to become an Imagineer, but I did get to interview one. So I got part of what I wanted as a kid.
Joanna: That's very cool. I guess that contract with those women—
They understand that they're not getting royalties from the books.
Aubre: Correct. I did compensate them for their time, which is unheard of in a journalistic sense, but I felt that was important. I was really relying on their knowledge, and I think the women I work with are really passionate about getting other girls into STEM. So it was a passion project for them as well. They were very happy to be a part of it.
Joanna: I think all of that is so important. So if people are wanting to work with real people, in whatever situation, there should be communication of what everything is and contractual terms.
The point of a contract is it doesn't need to be confrontational in any way, it's more a case of just making sure everything's right for copyright and all of that.
In the self-publishing space, I get questions from people because people are bootstrapping, they're doing it themselves. But in these cases, it is very important to get all of those permissions and stuff up front.
Aubre: Yes, that's one of the reasons I didn't have an illustrator because of the legal fees.
Joanna: Yes, I get you. Although if people do use an illustrator, for example, then they also need a contract to make sure the copyright is assigned, and all of that kind of thing. So publishing is a business, like it's a proper business.
Aubre: It is. Absolutely.
Joanna: You've learned that as well. So I do want to ask you about the marketing, because of course, when you're doing work for hire, the marketing is not really your job, but when you're self-publishing, it is your job.
How are you doing marketing for your own series?
Aubre: So I feel like I kind of have two customers. It's the kids' book world, so it's different. So I've got parents, but then I also have teachers and librarians.
So I'm on Amazon, I did KDP, I did print on demand to start with. Then I've also done a print run and have a direct-to-consumer site, thelookupseries.com, so I can offer discounts to teachers and librarians and discounts on bulk orders.
I went to the American Library Association Conference, and it was very clear to me very quickly that they don't have large budgets. You know, they are really tight in these schools and libraries. So it was important to me to be able to offer something off of Amazon where I could offer like a bulk discount.
Then I've got the Amazon business, relying on Amazon ads. I do a little bit of Facebook marketing where I'm offering a free activity download, kind of targeting Girl Scout troop leaders or teachers or anyone who has like a STEM space, like a makerspace in a library.
I've pulled a little activity from Amanda, Toy Engineer and from Tracey, Theme Park Designer, to capture email addresses and build up my email list. I have done the LA Times Festival of Books and some other children's book specific conferences.
My next step is I want to go to more STEM-focused conferences. I live in Los Angeles, and there are a lot of like STEM events for kids. Free one-day events where you can get a booth, and I think that would be a great place for me to be.
So I need to remind myself to step out of the children's publishing world a little bit. I'm very much like, oh, I'm going to go to the library conference and go to LA Times Festival of Books.
It's like, oh, there are other marketing opportunities besides book people. Like there are STEM people and people who are looking for science content for their kids. So I'm trying to be better about marketing on a more broader sense to those people as well.
Joanna: I think that's such a great idea, because let's face it, the children's book conferences are full of traditional publishers, but also all the other books are there. Whereas if you if you've got a booth, and then you're next to some science thing and some genetics thing, you're the only one with books, and that makes you stand out.
So I think that's so good for anyone who writes anything that has a theme, some kind of theme. It doesn't have to be nonfiction, I think you could still do it with fiction, as long as the theme aligns with that.
Aubre: Absolutely.
Joanna: Do you do any live events?
Going into schools or anything like that? Or is that just not scalable enough?
Aubre: I do. I'm looking at building that up more. COVID really took a hit on that. So I had a little momentum, and then it got squashed. Now I'm trying to maybe pick that up again. Now that I have done my own print run, and I can offer bulk discounts and that kind of thing, I feel better about investing some time into that.
So I have done some school visits, in particular, that are more like going into the auditorium for multiple grade levels, something a little bit bigger than just visiting one classroom. I do offer like a free 15-minute virtual visit on my website, just for individual classrooms. I just kind of see that as a volunteer thing I can offer. That's kind of where I'm at right now with that.
I do think it's important that you've done your own print run and are able to offer your books at a discount. If you're buying your author copies from Amazon, from KDP, like I don't know if the financials will start to work out for you.
Joanna: Oh, no, completely. A lot of kids' authors use Ingram Spark, and then the schools can order direct.
Aubre: Yes, so I do have that as well. I just have a little bit more of a royalty from my separate print run.
Joanna: Absolutely. Well, then how do you see your future?
How are you going to balance the work for hire with building your own brand and your own book series?
Aubre: I mean, I definitely focused solely on The Look Up Series for like six months as I was launching them, before I had my second daughter. Then coming back, I really hit the ground running on marketing those books, even more after my maternity leave.
Now I'm doing both, I'm balancing work for hire projects with The Look Up Series. It's actually really nice because with work for hire, like I mentioned, it can feel like you're on a treadmill and hustling your next gig. Now I feel like I can kind of calm down a bit and wait for the next good gig that I actually want.
I know I'm not wasting my time because I'm in the between because I'm working on The Look Up Series. I'm bringing in an income and building up my business for this more financially lucrative potential.
I'm not just like wasting my time waiting around for a project, and maybe taking a project that doesn't pay well or that I don't want to do. I just feel like I'm actually working on something that can last with The Look Up Series.
If you want to learn a little bit more about work for hire, you can go to AubreAndrus.com/WFH. If you're interested, in particular, in like how to break into the children's book industry, you can learn a bit more about my background in that.
Joanna: Fantastic. Well, thanks so much for your time, Aubre. That was great.
Aubre: Thank you for having me. It was so nice to bring this to light. I know so many people who it's their life dream to become a children's book author. So that's why I like sharing this like secret backdoor, this other part of the industry that people don't really talk about.
It's just another skill in your toolkit, like as an author and a writer. If you ever have a goal to write for a TV show or something one day, writing in these IP, and these characters, and for these brands is just always like a really good skill to have.
Using Tools To Automate Your Author Business with Chelle Honiker
May 06, 2024
How can you use automation and tools to help you streamline your creative and business processes so you can get back to the writing? Chelle Honiker gives some mindset and practical tips. In the intro, IBPA guide to publishing models; We need to talk about independence [Self Publishing Advice article; my podcast episode with Orna […]
Human-Centered Book Marketing With Dan Blank
Apr 29, 2024
How can you connect to readers in a way that is sustainable for you and effective at selling books? How can you choose the best platform when there are so many options? Dan Blank gives his recommendations. In the intro, TikTok ban signed into law in the USA [The Verge]; No One Buys Books [Elle Griffin]; […]
The Midlist Indie Author With T. Thorn Coyle
Apr 22, 2024
How can you build a creative, sustainable career as a ‘mid-list' indie author? How can you design a business that works for you and your books over the long term? T. Thorn Coyle explains more in this episode. In the intro, BookVault bespoke printing options; Harper Collins partners with Eleven Labs for AI-narrated non-English audiobooks […]
Generative AI Impact On Creativity And Business In the Music Industry With Tristra Newyear Yeager
Apr 15, 2024
What can authors learn from the adoption of AI into the music industry? What are some of the ways musicians are making money in the fractured creator economy? Tristra Newyear Yeager gives her thoughts in this interview. In the intro, Draft2Digital announced a retail distribution agreement with Fable [D2D]; Kobo launches a new color e-reader […]
Facing Fears In Writing And Life With Rachael Herron
Apr 08, 2024
How can you overcome your fears and make a life change towards your dreams? Or tackle the fears that stop you from writing and publishing your book? Rachael Herron talks about creating despite the fear, and getting unstuck in this interview. In the intro, Blackberry movie and IP questions; The Copyright Handbook by Steven Fishman; […]
Different Ways To Market Your Book With Joanna Penn
Apr 01, 2024
There are many options for book marketing, so how do you choose the right ones for you? I give my thoughts on the different polarities on the marketing scale to help you figure out what might work for your book, your stage on the author journey, and your lifestyle. In the intro, Storybundle for writers; […]
Tips For Selling And Marketing Direct Using Meta Ads With Matthew J Holmes
Mar 25, 2024
What mindset shift do you need if you want to sell direct? How can you use Meta and AI tools to amplify your marketing? Matt Holmes gives his tips as well as insights from running my ads for my store, JFPennBooks.com. In the intro, how to sell more books at live events [BookBub]; Future of […]
Insights On The Enneagram And Sustain Your Author Career With Claire Taylor
Mar 18, 2024
How can you use insights from the Enneagram to help you with a sustainable author career? How can you get past your blocks and move towards success, whatever that means for you? Claire Taylor provides her insights. In the intro, will TikTok be banned in the USA, and how will this impact authors and publishing? […]
Dealing With Change And How To Build Resilience As An Author With Becca Syme
Mar 11, 2024
There are more options for publishing and reaching readers than ever before, and the indie author business models are splintering and diverging, so how do we know which path to follow? How do we deal with the changes due to generative AI, and how do we manage the grief and anxiety about these shifts? Becca […]
How To Create Beautiful Print Books And Sell Direct With Alex Smith From Bookvault
Mar 04, 2024
How can you create more beautiful print books — and make more money with your products by selling direct? Alex Smith explains how BookVault can help with various options as well as helpful resources. In the intro, audiobooks and AI [Frankfurt Bookmesse]; Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, and Virtual Worlds by Joanna Penn; Google's woke AI Gemini […]
Tips On Writing Memoir With J.F. Penn
Feb 26, 2024
How can you write a memoir that is emotionally honest and revealing enough for readers to care, and cope with the inevitable fear of judgment that evokes? How can you write about real places and people in memoir? Why is editing a memoir so challenging and what should you keep in mind around publishing and […]
The Hard Joy Of Writing With Sharon Fagan McDermott and M.C. Benner Dixon
Feb 19, 2024
How can we focus on the joy of the writing process itself, rather than the outcome? How can we embrace the positive side of being jealous of the success of other writers? How can we deepen our writing with metaphor and sense of place? Co-authors of writing book, Millions of Suns, Sharon and Christine share […]
Writing And Producing A Micro-Budget Film With Jeffrey Crane Graham
Feb 12, 2024
How can you pick yourself, rather than wait for someone else to pick you? How can you take control of your independent career and bring your creative vision to life? Jeffrey Crane Graham talks about his experience as an indie filmmaker, with lots of tips for indie authors. In the intro, 6 Types of Submission […]
Your Author Brand With Isabelle Knight
Feb 05, 2024
How do you find the story behind all your stories? Who are you at the heart of your books? Isabelle Knight talks about the importance of author brand in an age of limitless content, and gives tips on how to discover yours. In the intro, 20 new miniature books added to Queen Mary’s Dollhouse [BBC]; […]
How To Be Successful On Kickstarter With Paddy Finn
Jan 29, 2024
What are the benefits — and the challenges — of crowdfunding on Kickstarter? How can you fund successfully, as well as make a profit with your campaign? Paddy Finn gives his tips. In the intro, you can find more selling direct resources here; Streaming due for a streamlining [FT]; Authors Guild explores AI licensing deal […]
A Creative Approach To Generative AI In Book Cover Design With James Helps
Jan 26, 2024
I really enjoyed this laid-back discussion around AI tools as part of the creative book cover design process with James Helps from Go On Write. We discuss how generative AI tools can help make more unique and interesting cover designs, and how designers can have a more imaginative time making them. This episode is supported […]
Direct Sales And Merchandising For Authors With Alex Kava
Jan 22, 2024
What are the benefits and challenges of selling direct? How can you use limited edition merchandise to add more value to retailers and make more money on a launch? Alex Kava talks about her author business. In the intro, award-winning Japanese writer, Rie Kudan, used ChatGPT to write parts of her prize-winning novel and judges […]
Facing Fears, And Writing Unique Characters With Barbara Nickless
Jan 15, 2024
How can we move past our fears to write the books that mean the most to us? How can we write unique and compelling characters that keep readers coming back for more in a series? Barbara Nickless talks about mindset and writing craft in this wide-ranging interview. In the intro, Planning for a Creative 2024 […]
The Next Strategic Step On Your Author Journey And Author Nation With Joe Solari
Jan 08, 2024
Wherever you are on the author journey, there are some important questions to consider along the way. Joe Solari outlines a strategic step forward for new authors, midlist indies, and those with ambitious financial goals. Plus, what is Author Nation? In the intro, Top 10 trends for publishing [Written Word Media]; Indie author predictions for […]
My 2024 Creative And Business Goals With Joanna Penn [Updated]
Jan 01, 2024
Happy New Year 2024! I love January and the opportunity to start afresh. I know it’s arbitrary in some ways, but I measure my life by what I create, and I measure it in years. At the end of each year, I make a photobook, and I publish an article here, which helps keep me […]
Review Of My 2023 Creative And Business Goals With Joanna Penn
Dec 31, 2023
Another year ends, and once more, it's time to reflect on our creative goals. I hope you will take the time to review your goals and you're welcome to leave a comment below about how the year went. Did you achieve everything you wanted to? Let me know in the comments. In the intro, 2023 […]
The 15-Year Author Business Pivot With Joanna Penn
Dec 18, 2023
In this episode, I reflect on 15 years of TheCreative Penn, and outline how I will reposition myself for the next 15 years of being an author entrepreneur. In the intro, We used to do that [Seth Godin]; Penguin Random House has acquired Hay House [Publishing Perspectives]; Business for Authors; Your Author Business Plan; OpenAI […]
How Generative AI Search Will Impact Book Discoverability In The Next Decade
Dec 11, 2023
How will changes to the way people search impact book discoverability? What can authors and publishers do to ensure their books are still found in the new form of generative AI search? While it's still early days for this technology, I share my thoughts in this article, with the hope that we can surf the […]
Publishing A Cookery Photo Book With Jane Dixon-Smith
Dec 04, 2023
Do you want to publish an image-heavy book like a cookbook? How can you navigate the challenges of photography, book design, and publishing choices to make the best product possible? Jane Dixon-Smith shares her lessons learned from her first cookbook. In the intro, Brandon Sanderson's predictions about publishing [Daniel Greene]; Craig Mod talks about walking […]
Subscriptions And The Creator Economy With Michael Evans
Nov 27, 2023
How might subscriptions help expand your author business ecosystem? What are some tips on encouraging readers to buy direct? Why is the future looking positive for authors in the creator economy? Michael Evans gives his thoughts. In the intro, marketing for multi-genre authors [Self Publishing Advice]; Same as Ever: Timeless lessons on risk, opportunity, and […]
Starting A Second Career As An Author And Networking Tips With Patrick O’Donnell
Nov 20, 2023
How can you transition into being an author after a long-term career elsewhere? How can you adopt an attitude of service in order to build your network in an authentic manner? Patrick O'Donnell shares his tips. In the intro, Spotify subscribers in the US now have 15 hours of free audiobook listening [The Verge] — […]
The Mindset And Business Of Selling Books Direct With Russell Nohelty
Nov 13, 2023
How can you shift your mindset from catalog sales to selling direct? How can you reframe the direct author business model to take advantage of creative possibilities for different kinds of products and long-term marketing? Russell Nohelty gives his tips in this interview. In the intro, Top 10 tips for indie authors [Clare Lydon]; 10 […]
Pinterest For Book Marketing With Trona Freeman
Nov 06, 2023
How can using Pinterest more like a search engine help you sell more books? What are some of the ways to use Pinterest most effectively for book marketing? Trona Freeman gives her tips. In the intro, KDP announce an Invite-Only KDP Beta for Audiobooks; How to Double Down on Being Human: 5 Ways to Stand […]
Managing Your Author Business Over The Long Term With Tracy Cooper-Posey
Oct 30, 2023
How can you reinvigorate your writing process, breathe life into your backlist, and prepare your author business for the rollercoaster that is publishing? Tracy Cooper-Posey gives her tips. In the intro, Authors Guild results [The Hotsheet]; more Promo Stacks with Written Word Media; Amazon's robot [BBC]; Amazon's generative image AI for products [Venture Beat]; Shutterstock's […]
Stop Trying To Do Everything With Patricia McLinn
Oct 23, 2023
How do you keep up with everything you need to do as your author business grows? How do you decide what to focus on as the industry changes — and you change, too? Patricia McLinn discusses her challenges with a big backlist of books and a mature indie author business. In the intro, Self-publishing's ongoing […]
Writing The Soul Of Place With Linda Lappin
Oct 16, 2023
What is soul of place or genius loci and how can you write it in a more immersive way in your books? How can you discover it closer to home, as well as write real settings more authentically, and invent it for your fiction? Linda Lappin gives some tips in this interview. In the intro, […]
Let Your Dark Horse Run. Writing The Shadow With Joanna Penn
Oct 13, 2023
How can you let your creative dark horse run? What is the Shadow — and why explore your Shadow side? This episode features excerpted chapters from the audiobook of Writing the Shadow: Turn Your Inner Darkness Into Words, written and narrated by Joanna Penn, available on Kickstarter until 25 October 2023: www.TheCreativePenn.com/shadowbook (link will redirect […]
Writing Faster Without Burning Out With LA Witt
Oct 09, 2023
How can you establish a creative routine that enables you to write the books you want to write without burning out? How can you balance a sustainable work ethic as an author as well as spending time away from the desk. LA Witt talks about her strategies. In the intro, Spotify introduces 15 hours of […]
As much as we try to plan for things, sometimes life happens and we have to adapt to a new situation. Jessie Kwak talks about adapting to life as a freelance writer and author after being injured, and her tips for managing work and energy. In the intro, I mention Accessibility for All, the interview […]
Writing And Publishing A High Quality Photo Book With Jeremy Bassetti
Sep 25, 2023
How can you create a high-quality photo book and publish it on Kickstarter? How do you market a beautiful, high-value book? Jeremy Bassetti talks about his photo book project, Hill of the Skull. In the intro, Slow release book strategies [ALLi]; Seth Godin on how he is using ChatGPT; Consultants using AI worked faster and […]
Lessons Learned from 12 Years as an Author Entrepreneur
Sep 18, 2023
In this solo episode, I talk about my lessons learned from 12 years as a full-time author entrepreneur. You can read/listen to previous updates at TheCreativePenn.com/timeline. In the intro, Finding readers [ALLi blog]; Writing the Shadow Kickstarter. Today's show is sponsored by ProWritingAid, writing and editing software that goes way beyond just grammar and typo checking. […]
Writing And Producing Audio Drama With Joanne Phillips
Sep 11, 2023
What's the difference between an audio book and an audio drama? What are the steps to write a script and produce it? Joanne Phillips gives her tips. In the intro, Amazon KDP's new AI content guidelines; AI at the heart of what Amazon does [The Verge]; Writing the Shadow Kickstarter; 1000 Libraries Kickstarter; Today's show […]
Using AI Images In Your Book Cover Design Process With Damon Freeman
Sep 07, 2023
How can you expand the possibilities of book cover images with AI? What are some of the controversies and how can authors and designers work together with AI tools to create original design? Book cover designer Damon Freeman discusses his views. There are lots of links in the show notes below to specific resources, but […]
Producing Visual, High Quality Books, Thinking Differently, and Kickstarter Lessons With Holger Nils Pohl
Sep 04, 2023
How might thinking differently help you create clarity in our noisy world? How can you produce a high-quality print book — and successfully fund it on Kickstarter? Holger Nils Pohl discusses these things and more. In the intro, Copyright in an age of AI [Self Publishing Advice, Monica Leonelle, Ars Technica, The Verge, The Atlantic; […]
Writing Poetry In The Dark With Stephanie Wytovich
Aug 28, 2023
How can you stop self-censoring your writing and share the deepest aspects of yourself with your readers? How can you break poetry out of the restraints that many try to put upon it? Stephanie Wytovich talks about these things and more. In the intro, 5 trends that are shifting the future of publishing with Monica […]
Build A Successful Author Business For The Long Term With Joe Solari
Aug 21, 2023
How can you build an author business for the long term, and not just for the launch of one book? How do you ensure secure cash flow and profits, instead of focusing on short-term spike sales? Joe Solari discusses key aspects of your author business. In the intro, Kobo Plus expands to audiobooks in Australia […]
Publishing Books For Children And Profitable School Visits With Tonya Ellis
Aug 14, 2023
How can you create a book series that children love — and that you can expand into multiple streams of income? How can you offer a fantastic experience to schools — and get paid well for your time? Tonya Duncan Ellis gives her tips. In the intro, investment firm KKR will buy Simon & Schuster […]
How AI Tools Are Useful For Writers With Disabilities And Health Issues With S.J. Pajonas
Aug 10, 2023
How can AI tools help authors who struggle with energy and time because of disability, chronic pain, health conditions, post-viral fatigue, or other unavoidable life issues? Steph Pajonas explains why AI is important for accessibility and more. Today's show is sponsored by my wonderful patrons who fund my brain so I have time to think […]
The Marketing Mind Shift And The Power Of Ad Stacking With Ricci Wolman
Aug 07, 2023
How can you shift your mindset in order to reach more readers with your books? How can you leverage the tools available for authors to sell more copies? Ricci Wolman from Written Word Media gives her tips. In the intro, The Hotsheet useful newsletter; Book publishing is broken; In the US, the Federal Trade Commission […]
Writing Fast, Collaboration, And Author Mindset With Daniel Willcocks
Jul 31, 2023
How can you write fast but also make your creative process sustainable for the long term? How can you collaborate effectively with other authors in your genre? Dan Willcocks talks about his creative and business approach. In the intro, Draft2Digital acquires SelfPubBookCovers; Different types of creative energy [Self Publishing Advice]; Twitter becomes X [The Verge]; […]
Writing From Your Shadow Side With Michaelbrent Collings
Jul 24, 2023
How can you use what you're scared of to write better stories that resonate with readers? How can you acknowledge your shadow side and bring aspects of it into the light in a healthy way that serves you and your customers? Michaelbrent Collings talks about his experiences — and you can do my Shadow Survey […]
Your Publishing Options With Rachael Herron
Jul 17, 2023
What are the pros and cons of traditional publishing vs self-publishing? How can you combine multiple options for a more creatively satisfying — and profitable — author career? Rachael Herron gives her tips. In the intro, Power Thesaurus and editing tips for audio; How Writers Fail — Kris Rusch; Finishing energy; Sidekick for Shopify; Shadow […]
Writing Tips From The Movies With John Gaspard
Jul 10, 2023
How can you exploit the unique in your stories, as well as amp up the conflict? John Gaspard gives writing and creative business tips based on movies and TV. In the intro, Meta launches Threads, the new Twitter-like app — you can follow me @jfpennauthor; Possible Podcast episode with Ethan Mollick; Moonshots and Mindsets podcast […]
9 Ways That Artificial Intelligence (AI) Will Disrupt Authors And The Publishing Industry. An Update With Joanna Penn And Nick Thacker
Jul 03, 2023
Four years ago, in July 2019, I put out a podcast episode that went through the 9 disruptions I saw coming for authors and publishing in the next decade. It turns out that most are happening faster than even I expected. In this episode, Nick Thacker and I discuss some of the main points. In […]
Using Sudowrite For Writing Fiction With Amit Gupta
Jun 29, 2023
How can fiction authors use Sudowrite to assist with writing tasks they need help with? What functionality does Sudowrite have that will be useful to different types of writers? Amit Gupta gives his tips in this interview. I use and recommend Sudowrite as part of my creative process. You can try Sudowrite through my affiliate […]
The Craft And Business Of Writing Non-Fiction Books With Stephanie Chandler
Jun 26, 2023
How can you stand out in a crowded market of non-fiction books? How can you build a business around your central topic? How can you deal with failure to move on to success? Stephanie Chandler shares her experience and tips. In the intro, HarperCollins and KKR make bids for Simon & Schuster [The Hotsheet]; more […]
How Authors Can Use Bookfunnel To Reach Readers And Sell Direct With Damon Courtney
Jun 18, 2023
How can Bookfunnel help authors reach more readers, sell more books, and sell direct? Damon Courtney outlines features of Bookfunnel that you might not know about. In the intro, Hello Books and Written Word Media have joined forces for promo stacking; Call to Action (CTA) tips [ALLi]; my free Author Blueprint; Bundle for writers [Storybundle]. […]
Novel Marketing And Christian Publishing With Thomas Umstattd Jr.
Jun 12, 2023
What are some of the most effective ways to market your book? What strategies have remained the same despite the rise of new tactics? What are the best ways to reach a Christian audience? Thomas Umstattd Jr. gives plenty of tips in this interview. In the intro, Freedom, fame, or fortune — what do you […]
Writing Your Transcendent Change: Memoir With Marion Roach Smith
Jun 05, 2023
Memoir can be one of the most challenging forms to write, but it can also be the most rewarding. Marion Roach Smith talks about facing your fears, as well as giving practical tips on structuring and writing your memoir. In the intro, Amazon's category changes [KDP Help; Kindlepreneur; Publisher Rocket]; Book description generation with AI; […]
Crafting Your Novel’s Key Moments With John Matthew Fox
May 29, 2023
What are the crucial linchpin moments in your novel and how can you keep a reader turning the pages? John Fox gives fiction writing tips in this interview. In the intro, writing and publishing across multiple genres [Ask ALLi]; Pilgrimage and solo walking [Women Who Walk]; My live webinars on using AI tools as an […]
Writing Novels Inspired By Place With Tony Park
May 22, 2023
How can we write about places that inspire us in an authentic way even when they are not our own country? Tony Park gives his tips for writing setting, and also outlines how his publishing experience has changed over the last two decades. In the intro, KDP printing costs are changing from 20 June; plus, […]
Making Art From Life. Mental Health For Writers With Toby Neal
May 15, 2023
What are some of the common mental health issues that writers face? How can we use writing to help us process our problems, and turn our life into art through our books? Author and mental health therapist Toby Neal shares her thoughts and tips. It's Mental Health Awareness Week here in the UK with a […]
Intentionality, Beauty, and Authorship. Co-Writing With AI With Stephen Marche
May 12, 2023
AI tools can generate words, but the human intention behind it, as well as the skill of the author, drives the machine. Stephen Marche talks about the creative process behind Death of an Author, 95% written by AI, out now from Pushkin Industries. Today's show is sponsored by my wonderful patrons who fund my brain […]
Generative AI And The Indie Author Community With Michael Anderle And Dan Wood
May 07, 2023
What are the implications of generative AI for the indie author community? How can we make choices for our own creative business while respecting the decisions of others? Dan Wood (Draft2Digital) and Michael Anderle (20BooksTo50K, LMBPN) and I discuss our recommendations for the way forward. In the intro, Ingram Spark offers free title setup and […]
The AI-Assisted Artisan Author With Joanna Penn
May 05, 2023
What is the AI-Assisted Artisan Author? How can we use AI tools in our creative and business processes while still keeping our humanity at the core of our books? As generative AI development continues apace and new possibilities emerge every week, the focus of AI discussions in the author community has been centered around productivity […]
Excellent Advice For Living With Kevin Kelly
May 01, 2023
How can we build a creative life based on following our curiosity? What are some important attitudes to hold that will help us with a sustainable life and career? Kevin Kelly shares some Excellent Advice for Living. In the intro, author newsletter tips [BookBub]; Mark Dawson's 20+ year writing journey; Thoughts on 20Books Seville and […]
Book Marketing: How To Get Publicity For Your Book With Halima Khatun
Apr 24, 2023
How can publicity form part of your book marketing strategy? How can you research the best media and craft a pitch or a press release that might get you and your book some attention? Why is publicity still useful in an age of pay-per-click direct advertising? Halima Khatun shares her valuable tips and experience. In […]
The Challenges Of Small Press Publishing With Jon Barton
Apr 17, 2023
What are the most important aspects of becoming a successful publisher? Jon Barton talks about his lessons learned and how to avoid the pitfalls. In the intro, Amazon AWS Bedrock for generative AI; Impromptu: Amplifying our Humanity Through AI by Reid Hoffman and co-written with GPT4; reflections on the fantastic 20BooksSpain Seville conference; Ideas and […]
How To Use ProWritingAid To Improve Your Writing With Chris Banks
Apr 14, 2023
You cannot see many of the problems with your own writing, as you are so close to the manuscript. ProWritingAid can help you self-edit your work before you take it on to a human editor, so they can focus on the bigger issues. In this episode, Chris Banks, the CEO of ProWritingAid talks about how […]
Writing Nature Memoir With Merryn Glover
Apr 10, 2023
How can we bring a place alive in our writing? How can we tackle the challenges of writing different types of books at different times in our writing career? Merryn Glover talks about her experience in this episode. In the intro, Kobo launches Kobo Plus in the US and UK; Amazon is closing Book Depository; […]
Legal Aspects Of Generative AI And Copyright With Kathryn Goldman
Apr 02, 2023
As generative AI tools continue to expand the possibilities for creators, what does this mean for aspects of copyright? Intellectual property lawyer, Kathryn Goldman, talks about the possible ramifications. In the intro, Ben's Bites newsletter, Microsoft Co-Pilot for Office tools [The Verge]; Canva Create AI-powered design tools; Adobe Firefly for generative images; OpenAI ChatGPT Plugins […]
Lessons Learned And Tips From Pilgrimage, My First Kickstarter Campaign
Mar 27, 2023
My Kickstarter campaign for my travel memoir, Pilgrimage, funded within minutes and raised over £26,000 (over US$31,000) for a niche book in a new market. In this episode, I share my lessons learned and tips for a successful campaign. In the intro, I mention the 6 Figure Author Podcast, The Writers Well Podcast, and Reid […]
Prolific Writing, Diversification, And Using Emerging Technologies With Joseph Nassise
Mar 20, 2023
If you want a long-term successful career as an author, you need to learn the craft and the business of writing. Joseph Nassise talks about his writing process, how he diversifies his business across different publishers, different products, and different technologies, as well as how he is embracing new options for his books. In the […]
Writing Fiction With Sudowrite With Leanne Leeds
Mar 17, 2023
We all use tools to help us improve our skills, and in this episode, Leanne Leeds explains how she uses the generative AI tool, Sudowrite, to write better books and serve her readership more effectively. In the intro, OpenAI launches GPT4, and how it can be used for accessibility with Be My Eyes. Other tools […]
Content For Everyone: Accessibility For Authors With Jeff Adams
Mar 13, 2023
Writers and readers are a diverse bunch, and we all want to do our best to make sure our content is accessible to all. But how do we do that when it seems like a huge (and time-consuming) challenge for an individual creator? Jeff Adams gives some tips for getting started. In the intro, making […]
Writing And Investing For A Long Term Indie Author Career With Lindsay Buroker
Mar 06, 2023
What are the core fundamentals of a successful independent author business? How can you focus on writing, as well as sell more books, and stay healthy? Prolific fantasy author Lindsay Buroker shares her tips. In the intro, YouTube gets into audio-only podcasts; Seth Godin's book marketing for The Song of Significance; How to make more […]
How To Build A Seven Figure Book Business Selling Direct To Readers With Pierre Jeanty
Feb 27, 2023
Write and publish what you want, get paid every day for your books, and control your customer data and relationships. It's possible if you sell direct, as Pierre Jeanty talks about in this interview. In the intro, the author income survey [ALLi]; publishing clauses to avoid [Writer Unboxed; Writer Beware]; copyright registration for AI-assisted comic […]
The Tsunami Of Crap, Misinformation, And Responsible Use Of AI With Tim Boucher
Feb 24, 2023
After many years of people saying, “AI can never be creative, AI could never write fiction (i.e. make things up), it's now evident that the generative AI tools make a lot up — and we need to be aware of the potential ramifications. How can we use the tools to achieve our creative purpose in […]
Co-Writing In A Shared Universe And Changing Indie Business Models With Martha Carr
Feb 20, 2023
How can you create a universe big enough for multiple series? How can you co-write successfully? How can you pivot your business model to achieve your creative, financial, and lifestyle goals? Martha Carr talks about these things and more. In the intro, Simon & Schuster is back up for sale [Reuters, Episode 662 with Jane […]
Book Marketing Mindset, Ideas, And Ambition With Honoree Corder
Feb 13, 2023
How can you embrace book marketing as a creative part of your author business? How can you effectively market your backlist over time? How can you tap into ambition and drive your author business onward and upward? Honoree Corder talks about all this and more. In the intro, Draft2Digital add a new library marketplace [D2D]; […]
Writing Choctaw Characters And Diversity In Fiction With Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer
Feb 06, 2023
Who are the Choctaw people and how can authors write authentic Native Americans in their books? How can we research diverse characters and include a diverse cast without worrying about cancel culture? Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer talks about how her Choctaw heritage influences her books. In the intro, the Pilgrimage Kickstarter is done — thanks to […]
The Empowerment Of Selling Books Direct To Your Readers With Steve Pieper
Jan 30, 2023
What are the benefits of selling direct? Why might using your face to advertise your books be a good idea? What might be the future of selling direct? Steve Pieper talks about these things and more. In the intro, ACX lowering audiobook prices, Chokepoint Capitalism, Audiblegate, Copyright valuation [Dean Wesley Smith]; courses on copyright; Happy […]
Writing Travel Memoir, Fear Of Judgment, Fear Of Failure, And Journaling With J.F. Penn
Jan 28, 2023
What do you need to consider when writing travel memoir? How fear of judgment and fear of failure are real issues even for established authors, and more in these selected excerpts from interviews with J.F. Penn around Pilgrimage: Lessons Learned from Solo Walking Three Ancient Ways. In this episode, I talk about: I have a […]
The Importance Of Confident Creative Direction, Voice, And Taste, In Generative AI Art With Oliver Altair
Jan 26, 2023
How can you use AI tools to ethically and responsibly create in whatever sphere you love? What are some of the tools and why are creative direction, voice, and taste, so important? I discuss these issues and more in a solo introduction and an interview with Oliver Altair. In the first 28 mins of the […]
Multi-Six Figure Book Sales And The Power Of Daily Habits With Marc Reklau
Jan 23, 2023
How can small, daily habits make you more successful as an author? How can you use the 80/20 rule in your author business? How can you create multiple streams of income when you sell mostly print? Marc Reklau shares his tips in the interview. In the intro, my Kickstarter for Pilgrimage is live!; Spotify's promotion […]
Intuitive Writing And Book Marketing With Becca Syme
Jan 16, 2023
Do you sometimes just ‘know' when a story is right? Does something ‘click' during the writing process and suddenly things make sense? Do you lean into your curiosity and emotion when it comes to writing and marketing? If yes, you might be an intuitive writer, as Becca Syme explains in this interview. In the intro, […]
How To (Finally) Finish Your Book With Roz Morris
Jan 09, 2023
What are the most common reasons why writers don't finish their books —and how can you overcome them in order to finish yours this year? Roz Morris gives practical writing and mindset tips. In the intro, Spotify promo codes [FindawayVoices]; Rachael Herron's money episode [How Do You Write?]; Changes at Amazon [Kris Writes, BBC]; AI […]
How To Use Paid Advertising As Part Of Your Book Marketing With Mark Dawson
Jan 06, 2023
How can you use paid advertising as part of your book marketing strategy? How can you reach more readers and sell more books in the year ahead? Mark Dawson provides strategies and tips in this interview. In the intro, publishing trends for 2023 [Written Word Media]; Apple AI narration; ChatGPT into Bing [The Verge]; Comments […]
My 2023 Creative and Business Goals With Joanna Penn
Jan 01, 2023
Happy New Year 2023! I am more excited than ever this year about the books I want to write and publish. I've had a difficult few years (haven't we all?!) but now I'm ready to create at full throttle in 2023, aided by the incredible AI-powered tools emerging for writers. Here's an overview of my […]
Review Of My 2022 Creative Business Goals
Dec 30, 2022
Another year ends, and once more, it's time to reflect on our creative goals. I hope you will take the time to review your goals, and leave a comment below about how the year went. Did you achieve everything you wanted to? You can read my 2022 goals here and I reflect on what I […]
What Do You Need To Quit? With Joanna Penn And Orna Ross
Dec 26, 2022
“If you just keep writing/querying/marketing/etc you will eventually be successful. Just don't give up.” We've all heard a variation of this, but what if it isn't true? When is quitting worthwhile? Joanna Penn and Orna Ross discuss Quit: The Power of Knowing When To Walk Away by Annie Duke and give examples of what they […]
Changes In Publishing With Jane Friedman
Dec 19, 2022
What has changed in the publishing industry over the last few years? What can authors learn from the DOJ vs PRH court case? How can mid-list authors thrive in uncertain times? Jane Friedman talks about these things and more. In the intro, USA Today list is on indefinite hiatus [US News]; Paid for bestseller list; […]
Choosing Your Route To Publication With Barnaby Jameson
Dec 12, 2022
Why might a first-time author choose to independently publish? Barnaby Jameson talks about his experience with his first historical novel, and why valuing intellectual property is critical for authors to understand. Plus tips for self-publishing and marketing. In the intro, Draft2Digital distributing to Smashwords store [D2D], expansion of Google Play Books auto-narration into more countries, […]
Co-writing Fiction With Generative AI With Charlene Putney
Dec 09, 2022
How can authors use generative AI as a co-writing tool? How can creatives approach AI possibilities with curiosity rather than fear? Charlene Putney talks about writing with LAIKA. In the intro, ChatGPT, thoughts on the GitHub Co-Pilot case [WIRED]; and why digital abundance is an opportunity for curious creatives, not a threat. I also mention […]
Pivoting Genres And Mindset Tips For Success With Dan Padavona
Dec 05, 2022
If you're not making the money you expected from your books, how can you pivot genres in order to write what you enjoy AND make a living? How can you change your mindset to one of creative abundance and productivity? Dan Padavona talks about these topics and more. In the intro, publishing year in review […]
Writing Tips: The Anatomy Of Genres With John Truby
Nov 28, 2022
What is genre, and how can transcending it improve your fiction? How can you effectively write cross genre? John Truby gives an overview of the Anatomy of Genres. In the intro, the PRH acquisition of S&S is over [The Guardian]; Amazon Advertising Everywhere [Vox]; Spotify expands audiobooks to more markets [TechCrunch]; Plus, 20BooksVegas recordings; Machines […]
How can we shift our mindset to thinking about a long-term creative career? What can we do now that will make our future selves happy? Dorie Clark gives some ideas for playing the long game. In the intro, sell books directly on TikTok Shop [The Guardian]; Plan for author success in 2023 [K-lytics webinar, 1 […]
Using Generative AI For Digital Collectibles And NFTs With J. Thorn
Nov 18, 2022
How can generative AI tools augment and amplify your creativity? How can digital originals/collectibles (NFTs) add value to authors and readers? In the intro, my solo episode on Creativity, Collaboration, Community, and Cash: NFTs for Authors (also in video); Midjourney v4 [Ars Technica]; Deviant Art launches their own generative AI tool [Engadget]; Rumors of GPT-4 […]
5 Steps To Author Success With Rachel McLean
Nov 14, 2022
How can you find the intersection between what the market wants and what you love to read? How can you strategically seed book sales to improve your marketing? Rachel McLean talks about her 5 steps to indie author success. In the intro, how to predict and profit from publishing trends [ALLi blog]; my live, in-person […]
Self-Publishing LaunchPad With James Blatch
Nov 09, 2022
What are some of the fundamentals behind self-publishing success? James Blatch shares tips and insights. James Blatch is a historical military thriller author. He’s also the co-founder of Self-Publishing Formula, Fuse Books, Hello Books, and the co-host of The Self-Publishing Show. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are […]
Writing And Marketing Diverse Books For Children With Ada-Ari
Nov 07, 2022
How can you create an ecosystem of children's books around a central idea? How can you market books for children? Ada-Ari talks about how she writes, publishes and markets her children's books based on African folk tales and African languages in the USA. In the intro, Court blocks the PRH S&S merger [PublishersWeekly]; Spoken Word […]
Using Tropes To Strengthen Your Fiction With Jennifer Hilt
Oct 31, 2022
What are tropes and how can you use them to strengthen your fiction? What are some examples of horror tropes, in particular? With Jennifer Hilt. In the intro, Why book sales are down and what to do about it [6 Figure Authors]; Undisruptible: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention for Individuals, Organisations, and Life by Aidan […]
What do you need in the beginning of your novel so your reader buys your book? Shane Millar shares tips for writing brilliant beginnings, regardless of your genre. In the intro, trends in what publishers want at Frankfurt Book Fair [Publishing Perspectives] Adobe incorporating AI-generation alongside a Content Authenticity Initiative [Adobe blog]; Bertelsmann-owned venture capital […]
How Creativity Rules the World With Maria Brito
Oct 17, 2022
How does curiosity fuel creativity? How can we balance consumption and creation in an ever-busier digital life? How can you break out of the myth of the ‘starving artist'? Maria Brito talks about How Creativity Rules the World. In the intro, insights into Colleen Hoover's popularity [NY Times]; Amazon bugs [Kindlepreneur]; Ingram invests in Book.io […]
Using AI For Art, Images, And Book Covers With Derek Murphy
Oct 13, 2022
Generative art tools like DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion are taking AI art into the mainstream. What are the opportunities for authors? What are the problems and controversies to be aware of? I talk about these issues and more with Derek Murphy. In the intro, I mention my J.F. Penn NFTs with AI-generated art based […]
The Way Of The Fearless Writer With Beth Kempton
Oct 10, 2022
How can we accept imperfection as writers while still striving for excellence? How can we make space for going deeper into our writing while managing a busy life? Beth Kempton talks about The Way of the Fearless Writer in this wide-ranging interview on the creative mindset. In the intro, when life throws a curveball and […]
Different Traditional Publishing Experiences With Georgina Cross
Oct 03, 2022
Traditional publishing is not a monolithic thing. There are different kinds of publishers, and authors want different things out of a publishing deal and relationship. Georgina Cross talks about her experience with two different traditional publishers and the pros and cons of each. In the intro, new e-reading devices, Kobo Clara 2E and Kindle Scribe; […]
Writing Tips: Outlining/Plotting Vs Discovery Writing/Pantsing
Sep 30, 2022
Every fiction author will (eventually) find their own method for writing but all fall somewhere on the spectrum between outlining/plotting and discovery writing/pantsing/writing into the dark. In this excerpt from How To Write a Novel, I share two chapters on the topic from the audiobook, narrated by me (Joanna Penn). You can listen above or […]
Transmedia And Publishing Comics And Graphic Novels With Barry Nugent
Sep 26, 2022
How can you adapt your novel into a comic or graphic form? What are the different types? How does a creative career develop over the long term and when do you need to take a step back to consider how to move forward? Barry Nugent talks about all this and more. In the intro, Amazon […]
Lessons Learned From 11 Years As An Author Entrepreneur
Aug 29, 2022
In this solo episode, I talk about my lessons learned from 11 years as a full-time author entrepreneur, and why I am (finally) taking some time off. In the intro, Soldiers of God short story, The Creator Economy for Authors course (use coupon SUMMER22 for 30% off), Science Fiction Writing online conference, Author Tech Summit; […]
Estate Planning For Authors With Michael La Ronn
Aug 22, 2022
How can you make sure your heirs and successors are able to manage your books and copyright licensing after your death? What aspects do you need to think about in terms of your author estate? Michael La Ronn explains this important topic in clear terms. In the intro, more quotes from the DOJ vs PRH […]
Auto-Narrated Audiobooks With Ryan Dingler From Google Play Books
Aug 19, 2022
What is auto-narration of audiobooks and how can it benefit authors and rights-holders as well as listeners? What are some of the common objections to auto-narration and how can we keep a positive attitude to embracing change? Ryan Dingler from Google Play Books goes into detail on these questions and more. You can also listen […]
How can you intensify the conflict in your books to hook readers? How can you introduce different types and layers of conflict to improve your story? Becca Puglisi explains why and how to write conflict. In the intro, thoughts on the DOJ vs PRH trial [Twitter @JohnHMaher] and Publishers Weekly round-up; my thoughts on subscription […]
Selling Books Direct With Shopify: The Minimum Viable Store
Aug 12, 2022
In July 2022, I launched my online shop at www.CreativePennBooks.com. It’s built on Shopify’s eCommerce platform, and in this solo episode, I’ll explain why I built the store, my lessons learned, tips if you want to build your own, and how I intend to expand it over time. This episode is sponsored by my wonderful […]
Selling Books Direct On Shopify With Morgana Best
Aug 08, 2022
Selling your books direct to readers and listeners can bring you more money, faster, and allow you to control your customer's experience and data. Morgana Best explains why selling direct is so important for an author business, and some of her tips for implementing a Shopify store. In the intro, the publishing court case of […]
Lessons Learned From 3 Years As A Full-Time Author with Sacha Black
Aug 01, 2022
What do you need to consider if you want to go full time as an author entrepreneur? What challenges might you face in your first few years? Sacha Black shared her lessons learned from 3 years full-time. In the intro, PRH and S&S merger heads to trial [Publishers Weekly]; Pilgrimage episodes on my Books and […]
Blockchain For Copyright And Intellectual Property With Roanie Levy
Jul 29, 2022
How will blockchain technology change the way creatives register copyright, as well as monetize their work? Roanie Levy explains how blockchain can solve the attribution problem, and how smart contracts will allow new business models with ownership of digital assets in web 3. This podcast is sponsored by Written Word Media, which makes book marketing a […]
Writing A Bestseller With A.G. Riddle
Jul 25, 2022
How can you lean into your strengths as a writer to find the genre — and the business model — that suits you best? A.G. Riddle talks about his writing process, his publishing choices, and how he's planning to pivot into the next phase of his career. In the intro, I talk about my experience […]
Reach: Create The Biggest Audience For Your Book With Becky Robinson
Jul 18, 2022
Tools and tactics may change, but the principles of book marketing remain the same whatever the situation. Becky Robinson gives advice on how to reach readers and market your books for the long term. In the intro, The Things You Think Matter — Don’t [Ryan Holiday]; Boost Your Backlist [ALLi]; Craving Independence [The Bookseller]; 21st […]
Writing A Novel Will Change Your Life. Audiobook Introduction Of How To Write A Novel.
Jul 15, 2022
How To Write a Novel: From Idea to Book is out now if you buy direct from my store, www.CreativePennBooks.com for ebook, audiobook, paperback, or workbook editions. It will be out everywhere on your favorite store in your preferred format from 13 August 2022. More details and links here. In today's special inbetweenisode, I share […]
Writing For The Long-Term With Tess Gerritsen
Jul 11, 2022
How can you write a series which keeps your readers engaged, while still keeping your creative spark alive? How can you sustain a writing career for the long term? With Tess Gerritsen. In the intro, The Creator Economy report [The Tilt]; Publisher Rocket tutorial. Today's show is sponsored by IngramSpark, who I use to print […]
Publishing Special Print Editions And Crowdfunding with John Bond and Chris Wold from White Fox
Jul 08, 2022
Print on demand makes it easy to sell print books without the hassle of storage and shipping — but it's limited to what the established POD printers allow. What if you want to do a special print run, either for a crowdfunding project, or because you want higher quality print production with extras? White Fox […]
Different Kinds Of Editing, And How To Find An Editor With Kristen Tate
Jul 04, 2022
What are the different types of editing? How can you find and work effectively with the best editor for your book? What are some editing tips to watch out for in your fiction or non-fiction manuscript? With Kristen Tate from The Blue Garret. In the intro, hiring virtual assistants [ALLi]; and I'm recording my audiobook […]
Writing Twists And Marketing As A Traditionally Published Author With Clare Mackintosh
Jun 27, 2022
How can you write twists that surprise a reader? How can you market your books effectively as a traditionally published author? Clare Mackintosh talks about her creative process, and how she works with her publisher to reach more readers. In the intro, Kate Bush is “the world’s biggest independent artist” right now and more on […]
Writing With Artificial Intelligence With Andrew Mayne
Jun 24, 2022
What is GPT-3 and how can writers use it responsibly as part of their creative process? How can we approach AI tools with curiosity, rather than fear? Thriller author Andrew Mayne talks about these aspects and more. In the intro, I mention the discussion about whether Google’s language model, LaMDA, could be sentient [The Verge]; […]
Selling Books Direct on Shopify with Katie Cross
Jun 20, 2022
How can you sell books direct to your readers for all formats without dealing with the pain of shipping print books? How can you automate sales with email? How can you earn 80-90% of the sales price and have it go into your bank account in days or even hours, instead of months? Katie Cross […]
Kickstarter And Multiple Streams Of Non-Fiction Income With Bryan Cohen
Jun 13, 2022
How can you manage a successful Kickstarter campaign without burning out? How can you expand into multiple streams of income? Bryan Cohen talks about crowdfunding, changes in his business model, and more. In the intro, 10th year of double-digit audiobook growth [Publishing Perspectives]; Spotify's plans for audiobook expansion [Spotify]; Free webinars for audiobook month [FindawayVoices]; […]
How To Get Your Self-Published Book Into Libraries With Eric Otis Simmons
Jun 06, 2022
How can you make your self-published books available to libraries in every format? How can you pitch librarians so they are interested in ordering your books? Eric Otis Simmons explains how he successfully pitches and sells to libraries throughout the USA. In the intro, Books2Read is useful for sharing wide links; Lindsay Buroker gives long […]
Build Your Email List With Reader Magnets With Tammi Labrecque
May 30, 2022
Why do you need an email list when you can just reach readers with social media? How can you use reader magnets to build your email list? Tammi Labrecque gives beginner and advanced tips for book marketing. In the intro, The state of the Creator Economy report from ConvertKit; and I use and recommend ConvertKit […]
How do we decide on the hero for our story? How can we write distinctive — but still believable — characters? Matt Bird talks about aspects of writing character. In the intro, a guide to UBLs, Universal Book Links [Draft2Digital]; Your author brand [Ask ALLi with me and Orna Ross]; The Creator Economy in Bath. […]
An Update On AI-Narrated Audiobooks [May 2022]
May 20, 2022
I've been talking about AI narration for several years now, but it's just starting to go mainstream and I've been getting emails every day recently asking the same questions, so this is a round-up article with the most important information. For context, I am an audiobook narrator. I narrate my own non-fiction and short stories. […]
Writing, Independence, And Selling Books Direct With Derek Sivers
May 16, 2022
Why is writing so important? How can we pursue true independence as authors? How can we stay open to technological change while still focusing on the fundamentals of craft? Derek Sivers talks about these things and more. In the intro, How to know if you are putting too much pressure on yourself [Holly Worton]; Breaking […]
Financial And Tax Implications Of NFTs With Joe David, Crypto Accountant
May 13, 2022
If you want to create, sell, buy, or trade NFTs, you need to understand the financial and tax implications. In this interview, Joe David explains the important aspects of blockchain assets and cryptocurrency. [Disclaimer: This is not financial or legal advice. This is just a conversation based on our interest and experience. Please consult a […]
Writing A Successful Crime Thriller Series With Angela Marsons
May 09, 2022
In this inspirational interview, crime writer Angela Marsons talks about how she overcame years of rejection and broke out of societal expectations to reach writing and publishing success. She also talks about tips for writing a long-running crime series, and how she weaves her home of the Black Country into her stories. In the intro, […]
Tiny Business, Big Money With Elaine Pofeldt
May 02, 2022
How can you make more money without growing the size of your business? What systems and mindset do you need to focus on in order to leverage your limited time? Elaine Pofeldt talks about Tiny Business, Big Money in this interview. In the intro, Google Play Books opens up their AI narration for audiobooks; thoughts […]
7 Figure Fiction With Theodora Taylor
Apr 25, 2022
How can you hook readers into your story by using universal human desires and motivations? How can you write what you love, run your author business your way, and still maintain the ambition for a 7-figure author business? Theodora Taylor gives her thoughts in this interview. In the intro, self-publishing predictions for the 2020s [ALLi]; […]
Creating A Fictional World In Web 3 With Rae Wojcik and Stephen Poynter
Apr 22, 2022
Why are digital scarcity and ownership so important to the business model of creators in web 3? How can an author use a wider fictional world for creative and business goals? Rae and Stephen talk about why creators need web 3 and their fantasy universe, SitkaWorld. In the intro, I mention the Creatokia podcast with […]
From Big Idea To Book With Jessie Kwak
Apr 18, 2022
How can you turn one idea into a short story or expand it into a novel? How can you find a writing process that brings you joy for the long term? Jessie Kwak talks about writing craft tips in this interview. In the intro, I comment on Andy Jassy's letter to shareholders and the importance […]
Creating And Selling Books For Children With Daniel Miller
Apr 11, 2022
How can you write a book that children will love? How can you reach schools and libraries with your books? What might you be leaving on the table in terms of revenue in your author business? Daniel Miller shares his tips, and we also discuss the potential opportunities in his business model. In the intro, […]
Intuitive Editing With Tiffany Yates Martin
Apr 04, 2022
How can you create distance from your manuscript in order to see it as a reader does and edit effectively? What are some of the biggest issues with editing a manuscript? How can you edit on a budget? Tiffany Yates Martin talks all about editing in this interview. In the intro, 10 years of the […]
Kickstarter For Authors With Monica Leonelle
Mar 28, 2022
Would you like to successfully crowdfund your book on Kickstarter? Monica Leonelle shares practical and mindset tips for creating the right kind of project, as well as mistakes to avoid, and how to satisfy fans — and make money with your books. Monica and I recorded this before Brandon Sanderson's epic Kickstarter which has raised […]
The Legal Side Of Intellectual Property, NFTs, and DAOs With Kathryn Goldman
Mar 25, 2022
How can you future-proof your author career by being careful with the publishing clauses you sign? Why are NFTs so interesting for intellectual property? How might DAOs help authors with estate planning? Copyright and trademark attorney Kathryn Goldman talks about these things and more. In the intro, I talk about my art NFTs [JFPenn & […]
Your Story Matters With Nikesh Shukla
Mar 21, 2022
How do we tell the deeper story that matters in a way that engages readers? How can we tackle the inner critic, self-censorship and fear of judgment? And does social media actually sell books? Nikesh Shukla talks about why Your Story Matters and gives his writing tips. In the intro, Amazon opens up Ads to […]
Different Ways Of Publishing Through Substack And NFTs With Elle Griffin
Mar 18, 2022
What if the traditional publishing model is not the best way to publish a book in a digital age? What if publishing it as an ebook on Amazon is not the best way, either? Elle Griffin questions the established ways of publishing a book and explains how she is using SubStack and NFTs for her […]
Creativity, Collaboration, Community, and Cash. NFTs For Authors [Audio] With Joanna Penn
Mar 16, 2022
I've spent the last 15 years building an author business on Web 2 — digital publishing, blogging and podcasting, social media, and more. But as Web 3 begins to emerge through blockchain, NFTs, AI, and the metaverse, I want to make sure I still have a thriving business over the next 15 years. NFTs are an […]
Improve Your Creativity With Dan Holloway
Mar 14, 2022
How can we improve our creativity and release our self-censorship to write more freely? Dan Holloway talks about aspects of creativity as well as physical challenges, neurodiversity, and how technology might augment us in this interview. In the intro, thoughts on Brandon Sanderson's Kickstarter [Kris Rusch]; Guide to Multiple Streams of Income [Self Publishing Advice]; Thoughts […]
Dealing With Self-Doubt And Writer’s Block With Dharma Kelleher
Mar 07, 2022
How can we overcome self-doubt to write the books we really want to? How can we move past writer's block? How can we reshape our definition of success and return to the joy of writing? Dharma Kelleher talks about the author mindset and more. In the intro, Brandon Sanderson's Kickstarter, Bookstore consolidation [The Guardian]; Amazon […]
Pivoting On The Creative Journey With Johnny B Truant
Feb 28, 2022
The creative journey is often a winding path to success, but our experiences along the way can enrich our writing and help us develop a unique author voice. Johnny B Truant talks about his journey from scientist to non-fiction/self-help, to over 100 books and a TV show based on his novels. In the intro, What […]
Writing Tips: Lessons Learned From Rewriting My First Novel Over A Decade Later
Feb 25, 2022
In January 2022, I re-edited my first novel, Stone of Fire, which I started during NaNoWriMo in 2009 and published in April 2011. In this episode, I explain why and how I re-edited the book, as well as some lessons learned from revisiting my writer self of over a decade ago. This episode includes: Why […]
Tips For Indie Author Success With Craig Martelle
Feb 21, 2022
It's never too late to start writing and there are many pro writers ahead of you on the path lead the way. Craig Martelle shares tips on writing, self-publishing, and book marketing, as well as how he believes in the rising tide that lifts all boats, and how helping each other is the best way […]
Draft2Digital Acquires Smashwords. The Opportunities Ahead For Wide Publishing With Mark Coker And Kevin Tumlinson
Feb 18, 2022
Smashwords was the original distribution service for indie authors and Mark Coker has been an advocate for wide publishing for over 14 years. Draft2Digital has been a fantastic service for indies over the last decade, moving into new markets, providing great tools, and helping authors sell more books. On Feb 8, 2022, Draft2Digital announced they […]
Self-Publishing In Jamaica And The Caribbean And The Importance Of Diverse Voices With C. Ruth Taylor
Feb 14, 2022
The self-publishing movement is just getting started in Jamaica and the Caribbean islands, and authors are discovering they can tell their stories in their own way. C. Ruth Taylor talks about how she became an authorpreneur and why she believes in an indie-first, empowering ecosystem. In the intro, Draft2Digital acquires Smashwords [D2D; Mark Coker]; Impact […]
Book Marketing Tips For The Long Term With John Kremer
Feb 07, 2022
John Kremer's 1001 Ways to Market Your Book was the first book I ever bought on marketing way back when I started self-publishing in 2008. He has revised it several times since and is still a prolific content creator around book marketing. I'm thrilled to discuss long-term book marketing for authors in this interview. In […]
The Creative Potential Of NFTs For Authors With J. Thorn And Joanna Penn
Feb 04, 2022
J. Thorn and I are both authors and passionate about helping writers find new ways to create, collaborate, reach fans, and make more money in the Creator Economy. We're also both excited about the creative and financial possibilities of emerging blockchain technology, including NFTs. In this discussion, we cover: Explaining NFTs for non-technical people. Some […]
Episode 600: Thoughts On Writing Craft, Publishing, Marketing, Mindset, And The Author Business With Joanna Penn
Jan 31, 2022
Welcome to episode 600! I’m doing a solo show today, answering some questions from my recent podcast survey that cover the different aspects of the author life. From episode 1 to episode 600 I recorded episode 1 in March 2009 when I lived in Ipswich, just outside Brisbane, Australia. I phoned up a bestselling author […]
Take Back Your Book: An Author’s Guide to Rights Reversion and Publishing on Your Terms With Katlyn Duncan
Jan 24, 2022
How can you take back your rights when publishing conditions change? How can you make sure you sign contracts that make it easier for rights reversion in the future? Katlyn Duncan talks about these things and more. In the intro, the splits in indie publishing [Kris Writes]; Burnout and Writer's Block [6 Figure Authors]; Publisher […]
The Craft And Business Of Poetry With Rishi Dastidar
Jan 17, 2022
How do you turn an idea into a poem? What are the publishing options for poets, and how does marketing work? Rishi Dastidar talks about his life in poetry and provides tips for taking your creative work further. In the intro, What Readers Want in 2022 [ALLi]; Ads for Authors (affiliate link); Submission on AI […]
A Writer’s Guide To The End Of Self-Doubt With William Kenower
Jan 10, 2022
How can we recognize self-doubt and create alongside it as part of the author journey? How can we write with confidence and double down on what we love the most? William Kenower talks about these aspects and more. In the intro, planning for 2022 [Ask ALLi]; Your publishing options [6 Figure Authors]; Need an audiobook […]
Improve Your Sleep And Creativity With Dr. Anne D. Bartolucci
Jan 03, 2022
If the pandemic has affected your sleep, you are not alone! If you want to sort out your sleep issues and improve your creativity — and your life — as we head into a new year, this episode with Dr. Anne D. Bartolucci will help. In the intro, publishing industry trends for 2022 [Written Word […]
My Creative And Business Goals For 2022 With Joanna Penn
Jan 01, 2022
“We make plans, God laughs.” The old Yiddish proverb will no doubt stand true for another year, but I just can’t help myself! I need to make plans to have something to aim for, but given how 2021 didn’t turn out as expected, for 2022 I will hold my plans and goals loosely and won’t […]
Not Quite The Year We Hoped For. Review Of My 2021 Creative Business Goals
Dec 27, 2021
As we all look back at the past year, it feels like it’s flown by — but also that time has warped in a way and it feels like we’ve been stuck in this pandemic for much longer than we expected. So here’s my 2021 year in review and an update on whether I managed […]
How To Find The Time To Write And Make The Most Of Your Writing Time With Joanna Penn
Dec 20, 2021
Our publishing, marketing and author business tasks are important — but at the end of the day, it all comes down to writing. We are authors. We are writers. So as we head toward a new year, how can you find the time to write? How can you make the most of your writing time? […]
Why is story so important — no matter what genre we write? How can we use emotion to hook readers — and also tap into what matters in our own lives? Lisa Cron talks about these questions and more in this discussion about Story or Die. In the intro, Ultimate Guide to Copyright [ALLi]; How […]
Writing Hooks And Improving Your Fiction Book Description With Michaelbrent Collings
Dec 06, 2021
Readers buy or borrow your book based on your cover and book description, so how can we make sure the description is the best it can be? How can we make readers want to click Buy Now and start reading immediately? Michaelbrent Collings provides useful tips — and tough love! — for authors who struggle […]
Patience, Ambition, And Financial Independence With MK Williams
Nov 29, 2021
How can you cultivate patience for your long-term author career? How can you figure out your personal, creative and financial goals and make choices toward them? MK Williams talks about these questions, as well as podcast marketing and turning a blog or transcript into a book. In the intro, my reflections on the UK FutureBook […]
Digital Narration With AI Voices With Taylan From DeepZen
Nov 26, 2021
Is digital narration with AI voices good enough for non-fiction or fiction audiobooks? Can human narrators benefit through voice licensing? What are the options for sales and distribution? Taylan Kamis from Deep Zen explains digital narration for audiobooks, and I share some samples from my digitally narrated books through Deep Zen. Taylan Kamis is the […]
Short Stories As The Basis To An Award-Winning Author Career With Alan Baxter
Nov 22, 2021
How do you know when an idea is a short story, a novella, or a full-length novel? How can you turn one story into multiple streams of income? Alan Baxter talks about a long-term craft-centered approach to the author career and how his short stories have won him multiple awards. In the intro, State of […]
Can Stories Save The World? Writing For The Environment With Denise Baden
Nov 19, 2021
The relentless news about climate change can leave us despondent — but what if we can use fiction to help people with positive ideas of what the future could look like and the actions we can take to change things? Denise Baden talks about the power of eco-fiction and explains the Green Stories Novel Prize, […]
Big Ideas In Technology And Publishing With Michael Bhaskar
Nov 15, 2021
With so many technological advances in recent years, can publishing keep up? Michael Bhaskar and I discuss AI tools for writing, blockchain and NFTs, digital narration, and impacts on intellectual property rights licensing in this wide-ranging interview. In the intro, Spotify acquires Findaway and my thoughts on what it means for authors, narrators, and rights-holders […]
Amazon Keywords And Atticus For Writing And Book Formatting With Dave Chesson
Nov 12, 2021
Dave Chesson provides many useful tools and information for authors at Kindlepreneur and he has recently launched Atticus, writing and formatting software that will output both ebook and print formats, as well as providing collaboration and ARC management tools. Dave Chesson is the founder of Kindlepreneur and producer of Publisher Rocket and Atticus, amongst many […]
Pitching A Book For Film Or TV With Chrissy Metge
Nov 08, 2021
What projects are worth pitching for film and TV? What do you need to include in your pitch? Why are there more opportunities for writers now? Chrissy Metge talks about these questions and more. In the intro, the US Justice Department sues to block the Penguin Random House acquisition of Simon & Schuster [The Guardian]; […]
Creatokia. The World Of Digital Originals (NFTs) With Jens Klingelhöfer and John Ruhrmann
Nov 05, 2021
Creatokia is one of the first book-specific NFT platforms and in this interview, co-founders Jens Klingelhöfer and John Ruhrmann explain what NFTs are and why they are an opportunity for authors and rights-holders. They are also the co-founders of Bookwire, which already provides digital publishing solutions for the publishing industry. After the interview, I reflect on […]
Writing And Podcasting Poetry With Mark McGuinness
Nov 01, 2021
How can we balance creative passion projects with work that brings in an income? What are the different types of poetry and how can we bring them alive through the spoken word? Mark McGuinness talks about how poetry is at the center of his universe, fueling his creativity as well as informing his coaching business. […]
The Ownership Economy. Business Models Around NFTs With Jessica Artemisia
Oct 28, 2021
What are the different ways that authors can use NFTs to reach readers and earn money with blockchain technology? How can we address the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that is inevitable when faced with new technological options? Jessica Artemisia Mathieu explains some of the business models with NFTs. In the intro, and in a longer […]
Who Killed My Mother? Writing And Podcasting True Crime Memoir With Kory Shrum
Oct 25, 2021
On July 4, 2020, Kory Shrum received two phone calls. One from her uncle, saying her mother was found dead in her bedroom from an overdose. A second from a homicide detective saying he believes it was murder—and her uncle is the suspect. In this interview, Kory talks about how she turned her trauma into […]
How to Research Your Book With Vikki Carter, The Author’s Librarian
Oct 18, 2021
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]; […]
Build Better Worlds: Anthropology For Writers With Michael Kilman
Oct 11, 2021
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 […]
How To Use Mystery To Hook Your Readers With Jonah Lehrer
Oct 04, 2021
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 […]
Opportunities For Audiobooks And Introducing The Findaway Voices Marketplace With Will Dages
Sep 29, 2021
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 […]
Co-Writing The Relaxed Author with Mark Leslie Lefebvre
Sep 27, 2021
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 […]
Writing And Producing Audio Drama And Podcast Fiction With Sarah Werner
Sep 20, 2021
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 […]
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 Mindset: Strengths For Writers With Becca Syme
Sep 06, 2021
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 […]
Narrative Design In The Gaming Industry With Edwin McRae
Aug 30, 2021
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 […]
Stories Are What Save Us: Writing About Trauma With David Chrisinger
Aug 23, 2021
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 […]
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 […]
The Metaverse For Authors And Publishing. Web 3.0, VR, AR, And The Spatial Web
Aug 12, 2021
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 […]
Lessons Learned From A Decade Of Self-Publishing And Marketing Children’s Books With Karen Inglis
Aug 09, 2021
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 […]
Bringing Old World Publishing Skills To New World Creators With John Bond From White Fox
Aug 06, 2021
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 […]
Rediscover Your Creative Free Spirit With Peleg Top
Aug 02, 2021
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 […]
Writing And Publishing Literary Fiction With Roz Morris
Jul 26, 2021
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 […]
Gentle Book Marketing With Sarah Santacroce
Jul 19, 2021
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 […]
Co-Creating With AI Writing And Image Tools With Shane Neeley
Jul 16, 2021
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 […]
Writing And Marketing Crime Fiction With Ed James
Jul 12, 2021
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 […]
From Self-Published Book To A Life-Changing Health Movement With Gin Stephens
Jul 05, 2021
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 […]
Writing Humor And Insights From A Long Term Creative Career With Scott Dikkers
Jun 28, 2021
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 […]
Writing Fiction With AI. Sudowrite With Amit Gupta
Jun 24, 2021
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 […]
Writing Non-Fiction With Personal Stories with Natalie Sisson
Jun 21, 2021
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 […]
Embracing Multi-Passionate Creativity And Running A Small Press With Jessica Bell
Jun 14, 2021
Some say you can only be successful if you focus on one thing, but what if you are a multi-passionate creative? What if your Muse is inspired to write song lyrics as well as poetry, non-fiction as well as novels and heart-wrenching memoir? Jessica Bell manages to juggle many aspects of a creative career and […]
NFTs for Authors And Publishing with John Fox
Jun 10, 2021
Why are NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) so exciting for authors and the publishing industry? How will they generate more streams of revenue for creators? What are some ways that authors could use them? All this and more in today's interview. I also mention Bloomberg's article on how NFTs shift power to artists in the intro. Thanks […]
Transitioning From An In-Person Business To Online Multiple Streams Of Income With Guy Windsor
Jun 07, 2021
The pandemic has favoured digital business models, but how can you transition to online sales when you run an in-person business? How can you move from one stream of income to multiple streams? Guy Windsor has lots of ideas for your author business in this fascinating interview. In the intro, fear-based decision making [Kris Rusch]; […]
How To Edit Your Book And The Different Kinds Of Professional Editors With Natasa Lekic
May 31, 2021
How you can prepare your book before sending it to an editor? What are the different types of edits and editors you can use for different phases of your writing process? When is editing software worth using and when do you really need human eyes on your work? All this and more in the interview […]
Discovery Writing And Sustaining A Long-Term Writing Career With Patricia McLinn
May 24, 2021
What is discovery writing (sometimes known as pantsing)? How can you write a novel with structure if you don't plot in advance? How can you build a writing career for the long-term? All this and more with Patricia McLinn. In the intro, “98 percent of the books that publishers released in 2020 sold fewer than […]
The Challenges Of A First Novel With James Blatch
May 16, 2021
What are the challenges of writing a first novel — even when you think you know what you're doing? How do you define success when you are just starting out on the author journey? James Blatch talks about these questions and more. In the intro, thoughts from attending the Audio Publishers Association conference, and audiobooks […]
The Heroine’s Journey with Gail Carriger
May 10, 2021
What is the heroine's journey and how can it help you write a story that readers will love? Gail Carriger shares her writing tips in this interview. In the intro, publishing house mergers [Agent Kristin Nelson]; KDP Print in Australia; Bookwire announces a new NFT marketplace for the publishing and creator industry [Publishing Perspectives]. Plus, […]
The AI-Powered Micro-Business with Ash Fontana
May 07, 2021
Artificial Intelligence is already part of our lives in the tools and services we use every day. As AI development accelerates, how can authors and small businesses use it as leverage to expand income and opportunities? Ash Fontana gives some ideas in this interview on The AI-First Company. In the intro, How GPT-3 is quietly […]
Tips For Translation, Self-Publishing, And Marketing In Foreign Languages With Nadine Mutas
May 03, 2021
The book market is saturated for certain genres in digitally mature markets like the US and UK, but readers in other markets are hungry for books. In this episode, Nadine Mutas talks about self-publishing in German, French and Italian and her tips for finding a translator and marketing the books once they're available. In the […]
Mind Management, Not Time Management With David Kadavy
Apr 26, 2021
How do we make time for original insights that set our creative work apart? How do we reframe productivity so it serves our career for the long term? David Kadavy talks about mind management, not time management in this interview. In the intro, Jane Friedman reports on how the pandemic is affecting book publishing, lessons […]
How To Make A Living With Your Writing: First Principles
Apr 22, 2021
If you want to make a living with your writing, you will need the right mindset, as well as the practical skills to write, publish and market your books. In this excerpt from How to Make a Living with Your Writing Third Edition: Turn Your Words into Multiple Streams of Income, I go into the […]
Global, Wide Self-Publishing With Mark Leslie Lefebvre
Apr 19, 2021
How can you reach every reader on every platform in a global, distributed reading environment? How can you take a long-term, relaxed attitude to your author career? Mark Leslie Lefebvre talks about self-publishing wide in this interview. In the intro, KDP introduces Kindle Vella, a new serial reading platform, perhaps a response to China Literature's […]
Writing, Publishing And Marketing Books For Children With Crystal Swain-Bates
Apr 12, 2021
How can you write a children's story with a message without being preachy? How can you find and work effectively with an illustrator? How can you market your book to kids in schools? Crystal Swain Bates gives her tips on writing, publishing and marketing books for children, as well as how we can make books […]
Publish Wide, Sell More Books And AI for Voice. Google Play Books With Ryan Dingler
Apr 08, 2021
How can you sell more ebooks and audiobooks on Google Play Books to the global market? How can you optimize your books so they are more likely to be discovered? How might auto-narrated audiobooks help expand the market? All this and more in today's interview with Ryan Dingler from Google. Ryan Dingler is a product […]
Writing Dialogue And Character Voice With Jeff Elkins
Apr 05, 2021
How can we write authentic and engaging character dialogue? How can we incorporate sub-text that deepens our writing? Jeff Elkins, The Dialogue Doctor explains more in this interview. In the intro, the new AudibleGate site; scammers using big publisher names [Writer Beware]; Vellum update for Ingram PDF [Vellum software; my tools and tutorials] ; Do BookBub […]
Fix Your Writing Tics With Chris Banks From ProWriting Aid
Apr 02, 2021
What is your writer's tic and how can you fix it with Pro Writing Aid? Why are commas such an issue for writers? (and my own personal nemesis!) How can AI tools enhance our creativity and usher in a new abundant future for writers? I discuss all this and more with Chris Banks from Pro […]
What Can Authors Learn From Digital Changes In The Music Industry? With Tristra Newyear Yeager
Mar 28, 2021
What can authors learn from the digital changes in the music industry? In this interview, Tristra Newyear Yeager talks about the empowerment of the indie musician, multiple streams of income, and the uses of blockchain and AI. In the intro, I report back on attending SXSW and some other online conferences on lessons learned from […]
How To Write A Cozy Mystery With Debbie Young
Mar 22, 2021
Why is cozy mystery such a popular genre? What are the important tropes? What are the best ways to market a cozy series? Debbie Young talks about these aspects and more in this interview. In the intro, K-lytics genre reports; Findaway Voices Headphone Report 2020; Edison Research Infinite Dial report on audio; 16 tips on […]
Publishing On Kobo Writing Life With Tara Cremin
Mar 15, 2021
How can you reach more readers worldwide and sell more books on Kobo? What are the advantages to publishing direct with Kobo Writing Life? Tara Cremin gives her tips in today's show. In the intro, the launch of HelloBooks.com; Twitter Spaces for audio-only social [The Verge]; Blockchain, smart contracts, and NFTs; Mapwalker Trilogy available now; […]
Copyright Protection, Smart Contracts, Digital Scarcity And NFTs For Authors. Blockchain For The Publishing Industry With Simon-Pierre Marion
Mar 12, 2021
Blockchain technology offers exciting opportunities for authors and the publishing industry. In this interview, Simon-Pierre Marion and I discuss copyright protection, smart contracts, estate management and faster, more transparent payments, as well as how digital scarcity could expand the revenue potential in the digital supply chain. Plus, I add some extra commentary on the potential […]
Warrior Of The Blank Page. Writing, Marketing And Mindset With Steven Pressfield
Mar 08, 2021
How can you write through self-doubt? How can you break through Resistance to write and market your work? How do you decide which book to write next? Steven Pressfield talks about being a warrior of the blank page, how he deals with Resistance around writing and marketing, as well as self-doubt and other aspects of […]
How To Write Authentic Crime Fiction With Patrick O’Donnell From Cops and Writers
Mar 01, 2021
How can you write nuanced police characters in your crime novels? What are some under-used crimes that might make interesting plots? Patrick O'Donnell talks about Cops and Writers in the interview today. In the intro, thoughts on a digital sales webinar from Ingram Content; the Immersive Books & Media 2020 Research Report [Publishers Weekly]; how […]
The AI-Augmented Author. Writing With GPT-3 With Paul Bellow
Feb 26, 2021
How can authors use AI writing tools like GPT-3? What's the best way to prompt the models to output usable text? Are there copyright issues with this approach? Author Paul Bellow explains how he is using the tools and how authors need to embrace the possibilities rather than reject them. In the intro, I talk […]
Writing Tips: How To Structure And Write A Series With Sara Rosett
Feb 22, 2021
Why is a series the not-so-secret weapon for making a decent living with your writing? What's the difference between episodic series and one with a clear arc across the books? What are some of the best ways to market a series? Sara Rosett talks about all these things and more. In the intro, Facebook shuts […]
How To Write A Non-Fiction Book Proposal With Alison Jones
Feb 15, 2021
What makes a non-fiction book stand out from the crowd? What are the essential elements of a non-fiction book proposal if you want to pitch agents and/or publishers, or if you want to prepare for effective self-publishing? In this interview, Alison Jones goes into detail on these things and how the publishing industry has changed […]
The Artist In The Machine: The World Of AI-Powered Creativity With Arthur I. Miller
Feb 12, 2021
Can artificial intelligence augment our human creativity? Will AI ever be able to create art on its own and would we even be able to appreciate it? In this interview, Arthur I. Miller talks about the nature of creativity and The Artist in the Machine. In the intro, I mention my list of AI writing […]
Value Your Books For The Long Term With David Farland
Feb 08, 2021
You are not writing one book. You are creating an intellectual property asset that can make you money for the rest of your life and 50-70 years after you die. In this interview, David Farland talks about the importance of valuing your writing, and how to keep a long-term mindset as an author. In the […]
Stop Worrying, Start Selling. Change Your Author Mindset With Sarah Painter
Feb 01, 2021
How can we reframe book marketing as a creative and essential part of the author life? How can we manage fear and self-doubt in order to write? How can we embrace our ambition and aim high while still managing the day to day writing life? Sarah Painter talks about all this and more in this […]
Turn Your Author Failures, Setbacks, And Mistakes Into Success With Joanna Penn And Orna Ross
Jan 25, 2021
We all experience failures, setbacks, and mistakes on the author journey — but if we learn from them, they can be the basis for our greatest success. In this episode, Orna Ross and Joanna Penn share their biggest mistakes, failures, and setbacks as well as lessons learned. This interview originally went out on the Ask […]
A Techno-Optimist’s View Of The Creative Future For Authors. Joanna Penn On The Kindle Chronicles Podcast
Jan 22, 2021
It can be daunting to think about the future for authors and publishing when converging technologies are expanding into the realm of creativity, but there are many opportunities ahead — if you engage with the tools rather than run from them. In this interview, Len Edgerly interviews Joanna Penn about Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Worlds: […]
Co-writing With Artificial Intelligence With Yudhanjaya Wijeratne
Jan 18, 2021
We all use tools as part of the writing process. Other books and internet resources for research, Scrivener for writing the first draft, and a computer for typing or dictating into, as well as editing tools like ProWritingAid. But what if you could use AI tools to help inspire the writing process? In this episode, […]
It’s Never Too Late. How To Achieve Your Goals At Any Age With Kate Champion
Jan 11, 2021
If you feel like it's too late to achieve your goals — whether that’s because of your age or your fear of technology or you’re late to the indie author world — or anything else, today's interview with Kate Champion will help you reboot your mindset for the year ahead. In the intro, thoughts on […]
How To Be A Healthy Writer In 2021 With Dr Euan Lawson
Jan 04, 2021
Let's make 2021 a healthy, creative year! In today's show, Dr. Euan Lawson talks about ways to improve your physical and mental health, and how it can impact your creativity in a positive way. In the introduction, some thoughts on the year ahead for authors and publishing, including continued expansion to the global, digital, mobile […]
Creative Business Goals For 2021 With Joanna Penn
Jan 01, 2021
I love the new year! As the calendar turns a new page, we get to start again. After a very strange 2020, it feels like hope is in the air, and I'm ready to embark on the next year of my author journey. Are you ready for a fantastic 2021? Here are my creative and […]
Creative Business Review Of 2020 And Lessons Learned From A Pandemic Year With Joanna Penn
Dec 31, 2020
Every year, I set creative, financial and health goals and share them on the blog and the podcast. It helps keep me accountable and focused, although, inevitably things change over the year — this year, things changed across the whole world in the wake of the COVID19 pandemic and we all had to pivot to a […]
Tips For Your Author Business Plan With Joanna Penn
Dec 14, 2020
You are an author. You turn ideas into reality in the shape of a book. You turn the thoughts in your head into valuable intellectual property assets. You understand how powerful the written word can be. Now it's time to use your words to create a business plan to take your writing career to the […]
From Chaos to Creativity: Productivity For Writers With Jessie Kwak
Dec 07, 2020
How do you balance your time between what you have to do and what you want to do? How do you decide what's most important to work on? How do you make the most of the time you have for writing? I talk about productivity for authors and writers with Jessie Kwak. In the intro, […]
Voice Technologies, Streaming And Subscription Audio In A Time Of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Dec 04, 2020
The audiobook market is currently held back by availability and cost of titles, as well as preference for narrators with different voices. The subscription model and AI voice narration will solve these issues — but we need audio rights licensing reform to make it happen. In this solo show: Streaming and subscription models AI voices […]
Copyright Law And Blockchain For Authors And Publishers In An Age Of Artificial Intelligence
Dec 02, 2020
Should copyright be attributed to original literary and artistic works autonomously generated by AI? How will creators of original material be compensated when their works are used to train natural language generation models? Intellectual property reform in the age of AI is inevitable, and we need our voices to be heard. In this solo show: […]
Writing In An Age Of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Nov 30, 2020
In this solo episode, I discuss the impact of converging technologies, Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language Generation (NLG) tools like GPT-3, and more on writing, authors, and the publishing industry. My last AI show was in July 2019, 9 Ways That Artificial Intelligence (AI) Will Disrupt Authors and Publishing in the Next 10 Years, and although I’ve […]
Business Mindset And Pivoting Your Author Career With Holly Worton
Nov 23, 2020
How can you prevent self-doubt and fear from blocking your creative expression? What if you've built an audience for your books, but then you want to change direction? I discuss these issues and more with Holly Worton. In the intro, Draft2Digital introduce payment splitting; Long-term and ‘wide' thinking with Sarah Painter on the 6 Figure […]
YouTube For Authors And Multiple Streams Of Income With Meg LaTorre
Nov 16, 2020
How can you use video to attract readers to your books — and create multiple streams of income? Meg La Torre gives some tips for video marketing. In the intro, ACX emails the community apologizing for an incredibly slow production process; but doesn't address the serious issue of returns [Susan May Writer]; ALLi revokes ACX […]
Networking For Authors With Daniel Parsons
Nov 09, 2020
How do you build a network of author friends and peers over the long-term? How can you overcome anxiety about online or in-person events in order to network more effectively? Daniel Parsons and I share tips on networking online and also for physical events post-pandemic. In the intro, new Series management tools from Amazon KDP; […]
How To Write And Market Books Across Multiple Genres With Wendy H Jones
Nov 02, 2020
How do you successfully write and market in multiple genres if you're a multi-passionate creator? How do you manage a hybrid career across traditional and independent publishing? Wendy H. Jones talks about her varied writing career and her tips for book marketing. In the intro, The HotSheet reports from Frankfurt Book Fair with positive […]
Writing In The Dark. Horror Writing Tips With Tim Waggoner
Oct 26, 2020
How do you write your darkness without drowning in it? How do you write an original horror story while still respecting the tropes of the genre? Why are horror writers the nicest people around?! Tim Waggoner gives some craft tips for writing horror, as well as thoughts on the current publishing and TV/film environment. In […]
Building A Creative Business Brand With Pamela Wilson
Oct 19, 2020
How do you build a creative business that you love — and makes you money? Pamela Wilson talks about her non-fiction business model, how to choose a niche, plus how to pivot your brand over time. In the intro, I talk about my pilgrimage walk and how we all need to weigh up risks […]
Mental Models For Writers And The Empowered Indie Author With Michael LaRonn
Oct 12, 2020
Writing is absolutely about the practical step of getting words on the page — but your mindset can make the difference between success and failure, as well as how much you enjoy the author journey. In this interview, Michael La Ronn outlines mental models for writers, facing our fears to break through to creative success, […]
Outlining Your Novel And Filling The Creative Well With K.M. Weiland
Oct 05, 2020
How can you use an outline to improve your book before you start the first draft? How can you use it to play with your creative ideas without feeling hemmed in by the process? In this interview, KM Weiland talks about how to outline your novel as well as thoughts on writer's block, filling the […]
Starting From Zero And Success With BookBub Ads With David Gaughran
Sep 28, 2020
When you've been self-publishing over a decade, it's easy to see how things have changed for indie authors and where the opportunities lie for publishing and marketing our books. In this wide-ranging interview, David Gaughran discusses the shifts in the industry, starting from zero, book marketing tips, and more. In the intro, Audible launches an […]
Audiobook Narration, Production And Marketing Tips With Derek Doepker
Sep 21, 2020
Audiobooks are one of the fastest-growing segments in publishing and the expansion of podcasts onto every major platform means there are more ways to market to audio-first consumers (which increasingly includes me!) In this episode, Derek Doepker gives some tips on why audiobooks are so important as a format, self-narration, working with a narrator, plus, […]
Publishing Wide For The Win With Erin Wright
Sep 14, 2020
Do you want to make your books available to readers in every format, in every online store and library, in every country? If yes, it's time to go wide for the win! In today's episode with Erin Wright, we discuss what ‘going wide' means, why libraries are so important, and tips for publishing wide wherever […]
Creativity, Business, And Ambition With Emily Kimelman
Sep 07, 2020
How can you juggle full-time writing and a family? How can you manage ambition about adventure and travel with a desire to be a 7-figure author? How can you be both creative and a business-person? I talk about all this and more in today's wide-ranging interview with Emily Kimelman. In the introduction, The Authors Guild, […]
Changes In Ebook Publishing Over The Last Decade And Possible Changes Ahead With Len Edgerly Of The Kindle Chronicles Podcast
Aug 30, 2020
The last decade has seen a dramatic change in the publishing industry as ebooks and digital audio have gone from a side note to a huge part of the reader experience — and a significant part of independent author incomes. In this episode, I talk to Len Edgerly from The Kindle Chronicles Podcast which started […]
How To Write Narrative Non-Fiction With Matt Hongoltz-Hetling
Aug 24, 2020
What is narrative non-fiction and how do you write a piece so powerful it is nominated for a Pulitzer? In this interview, Matt Hongoltz-Hetling talks about his process for finding stories worth writing about and how he turns them into award-winning articles. In the intro, I talk about Spotify (possibly) getting into audiobooks and Amazon […]
How To Reboot A Flagging Author Career With Michaelbrent Collings
Aug 17, 2020
What happens when you've written award-winning books, get amazing reviews from readers, and your sales still start a downward spiral? You can give up writing — or you can take a step back, review your catalog, figure out a plan and up-skill, then reboot your author career. In this episode, Michaelbrent Collings shares how he […]
AI And Creativity Update: A Voice Double Conversation Featuring Joanna Penn And Mark Leslie Lefebvre
Aug 13, 2020
In mid-2019, I shared 9 Ways That Artificial Intelligence Might Disrupt Authors and Publishing, and one of those possible disruptions concerned voice technologies, which I also wrote about in Audio for Authors. In 2020, we have seen an acceleration of AI with the release of GPT-3 for natural language processing and generation, as well as […]
How To Write A Bestseller With Suzy K Quinn
Aug 10, 2020
How can you write what you love and still aim for bestseller status? How can you combine craft and business in your writing life? Suzy K Quinn answers these questions and more in this fascinating interview. In the intro, entrepreneur and author Derek Sivers sells $250K worth of ebooks and audiobooks direct from his website […]
Writing And Business Lessons Learned From 500 Episodes And 11 Years Of The Creative Penn Podcast
Aug 03, 2020
It’s episode 500! Time flies indeed. The first episode of The Creative Penn Podcast was released on 15 March 2009. I had a couple of non-fiction books out, the international Kindle had not even launched, and there was no empowered indie author movement as we know it today. I was living in Ipswich, just outside […]
Writing Action Adventure Fiction And Systems Thinking With Nick Thacker
Jul 26, 2020
The life of a full-time independent author involves wearing many hats. You have to balance your time between learning your craft and pleasing readers with great books, as well as publishing, book marketing, and building a business that will support you for the long-term. In today's interview, Nick Thacker talks about the key aspects of […]
Writing A Series. Satisfy Readers And Make More Money With Lindsay Buroker
Jul 20, 2020
We live in a binge consumption culture and the best-loved stories are often those that allow a deeper experience of character and world. Think of your favorite TV shows or books and you will likely find a few series in there! Writing a series can also make you more money as a writer since you […]
How To Write Monsters With Philip Athans
Jul 13, 2020
Monsters tap into something primal that lies at the heart of being human. We have always feared what lies at the edge of the campfire, just out of sight, and as writers, tapping into those fears can be a powerful form of creation. In this interview, Philip Athans talks about why we find monsters so […]
How To Write Memoir With Marion Roach Smith
Jul 06, 2020
“Write something universal as illustrated by a deeply personal tale.” This advice is true regardless of the genre we write, and in this interview, Marion Roach Smith explains how we can dig deep into our truth and experience to write memoir, plus how she has created a business around a book, and a podcast around […]
Building A Creative Business For The Long Term With Natalie Sisson
Jun 29, 2020
Writing is a life-long practice, and for many of us, a long-term career. But how can you continue to thrive in a creative business while still changing over time? In this interview, I talk to entrepreneur Natalie Sisson about how she pivoted her brand after a change in lifestyle and how books play just one […]
How To Develop Bestselling Story Ideas With JD Barker
Jun 22, 2020
Do you aspire to write better stories? Do you have the ambition to aim for a career that rivals the biggest names in publishing? Today's interview with JD Barker will inspire you and give you some great tips around writing bestselling stories and building a long-term career. In the introduction, James Daunt of Waterstones and […]
Writing Tips: How To Self-Edit Your Novel With Kris Spisak
Jun 15, 2020
Writing a first draft is only the initial step in the journey to creating a novel. The next step is editing, and in this interview, Kris Spisak talks about the different kinds of editing, as well as tips for your self-editing process. Plus, I share my insights from my latest edit on Map of the […]
Creativity, Artificial Intelligence, And Time Off With Max Frenzel
Jun 08, 2020
As writers, we use tools every day — from the laptop we write on, to the internet we research with, and the social media sites we use to reach readers. We are used to using digital tools to enhance our author life, but could we really work with artificial intelligence to push our creativity to […]
How To Take Your Author Career To The Next Level With Mark Dawson
May 31, 2020
Are you ready to take your author career to the next level? In this wide-ranging interview, Mark Dawson gives tips on how to level up your books, your email list, and your advertising. In the intro, good news on book sales from New Zealand post-lockdown [The Guardian], why Joe Rogan's podcast deal with Spotify is […]
Writing Tips: How Character Flaws Shape Story With Will Storr
May 25, 2020
How can you create characters with unique and interesting flaws that lead into plots that will enliven your stories? In today's interview, Will Storr explains the science of storytelling. In the intro, German booksellers and the challenges of re-opening [The Bookseller], Facebook launches Shops meaning more opportunities for direct sales [The Verge], Facebook Live replay […]
The 7-Figure One Person Creative Business With Elaine Pofeldt
May 18, 2020
What if you could do work you love, earn great money — and have a lifestyle you enjoy? In this interview, Elaine Pofeldt talks about businesses that are doing just that and gives tips on how to get there, including ways to make more money as an author. In the intro, I talk about Apple […]
Great Stories Don’t Write Themselves: How To Develop Strong Fiction Ideas With Larry Brooks
May 11, 2020
We all want to write the best book we can — but how can we make sure the story is strong enough to make it worthwhile writing in the first place? In this interview, Larry Brooks gives 4 criteria for a great story and 8 steps for your novel premise. In the introduction, FindawayVoices releases […]
Writing And Selling Short Fiction With Matty Dalrymple
May 04, 2020
Writing short fiction can be useful for licensing and self-publishing income, or using them to grow your list and connect with readers. There are many more opportunities for shorts in the digital world and in today's interview, Matty Dalrymple gives plenty of ideas that you can use in your author business. In the intro, the […]
Writing And Working Together As A Creative Couple With Jeff Adams And Will Knauss
Apr 27, 2020
Is it possible to write together if you are partners in life as well as business? How can a community come together in the wake of difficulties? Plus, how podcasting can be an effective part of author marketing. All this and more in discussion with Jeff and Will from The Big Gay Fiction Podcast. In […]
Building A Unique Author Brand With Gail Carriger
Apr 20, 2020
How do you intentionally create an author brand that resonates with your readers? How can you write the books you love and make a successful living as a full-time author? All this and more in today's interview with Gail Carriger. In the introduction, I talk about some of the impacts of COVID19 on the publishing […]
How To Stay Creative In Difficult Times With Mark McGuinness
Apr 13, 2020
How do you deal with fear and uncertainty during these difficult times? How can you craft a new creative routine when life is so disrupted? How can you make the most of an online business now and build for the future? I discuss all this and more with Mark McGuinness on today's show. In the […]
How To Sell Your Books In Bulk And Make More Money As An Author With David Chilton
Apr 06, 2020
What do you really care about? Rankings on Amazon or money in your bank account? In this interview, David Chilton shares how you can sell books in bulk to companies resulting in a big pay-day — but no ‘bestseller' tag. This is a fascinating discussion that will challenge your definition of success and — hopefully […]
How To Get Your Book Into Libraries And Bookstores With Mark Leslie Lefebvre
Mar 30, 2020
We are writers, but we are readers first! Many of us grew up in the corners of libraries and still spend our money on books from bookstores, but did you know that it is possible to get your books into libraries and bookstores as an independent author? Mark Leslie Lefebvre gives some tips in today's […]
Keep Going: How To Be Creative For The Long-Term With Austin Kleon
Mar 23, 2020
What does it take to be creative over the long-term, especially in these challenging times? In today's interview, Austin Kleon gives his thoughts on how to Keep Going. In the introduction, I talk about my thoughts around dealing with coronavirus, plus Sanctuary, Retreat, Belonging: The Importance of Home in Difficult Times, My tips on […]
A Career In Writing With Danielle Trussoni
Mar 16, 2020
The publishing industry has changed so much in the last decade and in today's interview, I talk to Danielle Trussoni about how her writer's life has shifted — both in what she writes, how she publishes and how she reaches readers. In the intro, I talk about the UK ending VAT on ebooks [BBC], why […]
The Career Author With J Thorn And Zach Bohannon
Mar 09, 2020
What does it take to build a full-time career from your writing? In today's show, I talk to J. Thorn and Zach Bohannon about some of their lessons learned from the first two years of full-time author entrepreneur life, plus co-writing, in-person experiences, and more. In the intro, London Book Fair cancellation [BBC] and why […]
Opportunities In Audiobook Publishing With Michele Cobb
Mar 02, 2020
Audiobooks are the fastest-growing segment in publishing and increasingly, a welcome extra revenue for authors and publishers alike. In this interview, Michele Cobb from the Audiobook Publishers Association talks about the expansion of the market as well as tips for marketing audio. In the introduction, I talk about Ingram Spark's Catalog Integrity Announcement which included […]
How To Find And Pitch A Literary Agent With Barbara Poelle
Feb 24, 2020
Authors have more possibilities than ever when it comes to publishing their books, but if you want a traditional publishing deal, then it's worth considering how an agent can help sell your book. In today's interview, literary agent, Barbara Poelle, gives tips for story craft, query letters, how to find and pitch an agent, plus […]
Writing Fight Scenes With Female Characters With Aiki Flinthart
Feb 17, 2020
Whether you write fantasy with sword fights, historical fiction, domestic noir, or thrillers, chances are you will construct a fight scene at some point in your author career. In today's interview, martial artist Aiki Flinthart gives some ideas for writing fight scenes with female characters, whether they are trained fighters or in an unprepared situation. […]
From Blog To Book And Repurposing Content With Amy Woods
Feb 10, 2020
Writing a non-fiction book can provide you with authority in your niche, lead-gen for your speaking and services, and extra income. In this interview, Amy Woods, expert on repurposing content, explains the challenges she faced when turning her blog into a book, plus some tips on content marketing for non-fiction authors. In the intro, the […]
Writing Crime: Myths And Misconceptions About The FBI With Jerri Williams
Feb 03, 2020
Most of us are law-abiding citizens, but it's clear that writers and readers are obsessed with crime — and those who fight it. In today's show, former FBI agent, Jerri Williams explains some of the myths and misconceptions about the FBI, and why true crime podcasting has turned into an unexpected new career. In the […]
Empowering Authors Around Copyright With Rebecca Giblin
Jan 27, 2020
Your author career is in your hands. Publishers are not charities and even if you have an agent, you need to know about the importance and value of copyright so you can make informed and empowered decisions about your writing. If you’re an indie author, you still need to understand copyright, because when you sign […]
How To Pitch Your Book To Agents, Publishers And Readers With Kate Harrison
Jan 20, 2020
What is the best way to pitch your book to an agent or publisher? What's the best way to write a sales description that pitches your book to a potential reader if you're independent? How can you use the pitch technique to write a book that stands a better chance of selling? All this and […]
How Will Self-Publishing Change In The 2020s? Thoughts From Joanna Penn And Orna Ross
Jan 17, 2020
The 2010s saw the birth and growth of the independent author movement, so what do the 2020s have in store? In this episode, Joanna Penn and Orna Ross discuss some trends for authors and publishing in the next decade, as well as some predictions on some things that may well happen in the next decade. […]
How To Focus And Be Indistractable With Nir Eyal
Jan 13, 2020
Do you want to focus and get more writing done this year? Do you want to step away from the many distractions online and achieve your creative goals? In today's show, I discuss how to be indistractible with Nir Eyal. In the introduction, I talk about some of the challenges in writing for audio, and […]
Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) For Authors With Brad Barrett From ChooseFI
Jan 06, 2020
What difference would financial independence make in your life? What changes are you willing to make to get to that point? In this episode, I talk to Brad Barrett about the Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) movement and why it's about pursuing choice rather than denial, as well as some of the money choices we […]
Operation Evergreen: My Creative And Business Goals For 2020
Jan 01, 2020
I love the New Year! It really is my favorite time of the year and I kick up a notch in terms of getting new projects started as well as finishing up anything left over from last year. 2020 also feels special because it's the start of a new decade and I am truly excited […]
2019 Round-Up. Did I Achieve My Creative Goals? Did You?
Dec 30, 2019
Every year, I set creative, financial and health goals and share them on the blog and the podcast. It helps keep me accountable and focused, although, inevitably things change over the year. 2019 is no different! You can read my 2019 goals here and whether I achieved them — and why I changed direction — […]
Reflections On A Decade Of Self-Publishing With Joanna Penn And Orna Ross
Dec 23, 2019
Joe Konrath, one of the early US indies, said that “2009 will go down in publishing history as Year Zero for the upcoming ebook revolution.” [JA Konrath's blog]. Back then, I had a couple of books available and still worked my consulting day job, but the eco-system we have now is almost unrecognizable from a […]
From Book To Hollywood Film With Ken Atchity
Dec 16, 2019
Many authors have a goal of seeing their book made into a film or TV series, but how can you maximize the chances of that happening? Ken Atchity has some tips for creating loglines and standing out in a crowded content market in today's show. In my personal update, Productivity for Authors is now available […]
The Key To Long Term Success As A Writer With Kevin J Anderson
Dec 09, 2019
If you want to have a long-term career as an author, it's a good idea to listen to those few writers who have successfully navigated the many changes in the publishing industry over the last 30 years. Kevin J Anderson sold his first novel in 1988 and with over 140 books under his belt, he […]
How To Effectively Work From Home With Amanda Brown, The Homepreneur
Dec 02, 2019
Working from home has great benefits — flexibility in working hours, more time with family, no stressful commute amongst other things; but it also has its challenges and many writers underestimate the adjustment needed in order to have a happy and healthy work-from-home life. In today's interview, I discuss the pros and cons with Amanda […]
Writing With A Family. Productivity Tips With Andrea Pearson
Nov 25, 2019
How do you find the time to write when you have a busy family life? How do you stay creative while still managing to run a successful business? Andrea Pearson shares her productivity tips in today's show. In the introduction, I share my Voice Double from Descript‘s beta. Let me know your thoughts in the […]
Tips For Self-Publishing In Translation: Adventures With AI and German
Nov 22, 2019
Once you have a book in the world, translation is one of the ways that you can expand your readership, and potentially your income, through licensing foreign rights. Of course, as indie authors, we can reach a global audience through self-publishing our books and many indie authors are moving into publishing in different languages. Some […]