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How do you stand out as an author when thousands of books are published every day? What's the difference between having a logo and having a real brand that sells books? Is it possible to maintain your authentic voice while appealing to genre readers who seem more loyal to categories than authors? With Steve Brock

In the intro, Baker & Taylor shutting down [The Bottom Line]; Holiday promotions for your books [Productive indie fiction writer]; Writing Storybundle; Updating Shopify metadata — Hextom app; Publishing and change [Publishing Perspectives]; Paying AIs to read my books [Kevin Kelly]; signing my special editions at BookVault; The Critically Reflective Practitioner; Deliciously twisted Halloween book sale.

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.com to get started.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn

Steve Brock is a nonfiction author, photographer, and branding expert. His books include Hidden Travel, which he has talked about on my Books and Travel podcast, as well as The Creative Wild, Make Something Beautiful, and Brand Something Beautiful: A Branding Workbook for Artists, Writers, and Other Creatives.

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

• Brand vs. reputation. Why branding is about perception in readers' minds, not just visual consistency
• Discovery vs. creation. How to uncover what makes you distinctive
• Standing out in crowded genres. Techniques for differentiating yourself while still satisfying genre expectations
• Multiple pen names. Managing branded houses vs. house of brands when writing across different audiences
• From brand to sales. Converting nebulous brand concepts into practical marketing confidence and clear messaging
• Beautiful book production. Creating workbooks and products that command attention in an AI-saturated market

You can find Steve at BrandSomethingBeautiful.com or brandsomethingbeautiful.substack.com.

Transcript of the interview with Steve BrockJoanna: Steve Brock is a nonfiction author, photographer, and branding expert. His books include Hidden Travel, which he has talked about on my Books and Travel podcast, as well as The Creative Wild, Make Something Beautiful, and Brand Something Beautiful: A Branding Workbook for Artists, Writers, and Other Creatives, which we are talking about today. Welcome to the show, Steve.

Steve: Thank you, Joanna. It's a pleasure to be here.

Joanna: So much to talk about. But first up—

Tell us a bit more about how you got into writing and publishing and branding.Steve: I've written all my adult life, but it was more in the realms of school writing and then working in branding and marketing agencies, doing a lot of marketing copy and ad copy.

Then in 2007, I think, I had this sense of wanting to work on a book, which was the one that ended up becoming Hidden Travel. It only took 14 years to get that from idea to publication. Since then, as you mentioned, some other books, so I've embraced that.

The branding has come along actually in parallel, and it's a great point of how one area of your life, particularly your creative life, affects the other. Branding fundamentally is about telling your story well. It's understanding who you are, what you do, and what makes you different.

There's a lot of storytelling involved. So the more I focus and spend time on writing, particularly in the fiction realm, which has been mostly just short stories for me lately, the more that it has improved the work of branding.

I find branding interesting because, like we've talked about with travel, branding is really about exploration. It's diving deep into understanding something that is hidden and bringing that to light.

Joanna: Before we get back into branding—

You mentioned short stories there. Are you publishing those?Steve: No, those have always been a sideline. I have a novel that I started when I got stuck on Hidden Travel, and it's about maybe a third done, so that'll be the next effort that I focus on for the fiction realm. But no, the short stories have always just been more for my own craft building and just the enjoyment of it. I'm looking forward to actually reading yours that's coming out, or is it out?

Joanna: Well, as we record this, the Kickstarter has just finished. So depending on when this comes out, it may be available. The Buried and the Drowned is my short story collection.

I think it's interesting because you can play with short stories and you can explore, as you mentioned there, exploring and looking at hidden things. I think it's much easier to play around with short stories because you can just do such different things.

Let's come to branding, because the word “brand” is really difficult and people are already flinching. They're like, “Oh, I don't want to think about author brand.” So you mentioned a little bit there, but—

How are you defining brand as it relates to authors? And why should we even care about this?Steve: The word “brand” applies whether you are a major corporation, a nonprofit organization, a single solopreneur, or an author, because it's all about perception.

A lot of people think of branding as being about your logo or your tagline, or maybe the colors that you use in the background of your Instagram reels and having consistency there. That's part of it, but it's such a small part of it.

Branding is fundamentally about the overall perception that people have of you or your creative work. If I say, for example, Stephen King, or James Patterson, or Toni Morrison, there are going to be associations you have with each of those people, and those associations are actually what make up their brand.

The brand is a tricky thing because we think we can control it, but we can't. The brand exists in the minds of your audiences. So for writers, that means the minds of your readers out there.

Your job is to craft it, to know the story you want people to tell and be able to reinforce that over time so that they're telling the same story. Because if you do not know the story you want to tell, someone else is going to do it for you, and most likely in a way that's not going to be helpful to you.

So just think of brand almost like your reputation. What are you doing to build up your reputation? That's maybe the simplest way to think about brand and branding.

Joanna: For authors, I mean for me, I have Joanna Penn and I have J.F. Penn.

So for anyone who's writing under two names, are we thinking about two brands?Steve: Yes and no. Because you show up in a lot of places. For example, on this podcast, you show up as both people, not your products necessarily, but you as a person that represents both of those brands.

When you have an author brand with multiple pen names, there are elements of that you may want to keep discrete and separate. But on the other hand, in your case, the real divide there is—to oversimplify—J.F. Penn for the fiction and Joanna Penn for the nonfiction.

You as the person and the brand that you represent, there's a lot of consistency between those two. What you don't want to do is if those two brand names or author names are different and they represent two completely different audiences that you really want to keep separate.

The example I give in the book is if you're writing both children's illustrated fiction books and you're also writing erotica, you do not want those two audiences to even really know that you're the same person. So you would keep those dramatically separate.

It's the same in the corporate world where we talk about what the fancy jargony term is “a brand spectrum.” You have, for example, a branded house like BMW, and then a house of brands like Procter & Gamble, which has a whole bunch of sub-brands underneath that, and some people may not even know that Procter & Gamble is behind those.

If your pen names are really different genres, you're probably more like a house of brands. Whereas if you have a consistent vibe or theme or thing you want to be known for, you would be more like a branded house, even if you have different pen names.

Joanna: I like “branded house” and I like “brand spectrum.” That feels more natural, I think. There are also two angles that potentially we can approach this from. Maybe we can take them separately.

One is new author or author wanting to start a new pen name, wanting to construct a brand from nothing, from scratch—actually control it and build it.

The other way is discovery branding, let's call it, where you look back at your work and you go, “I guess I've somehow created a brand. I just can't figure out really what it is, but I just keep writing stuff and it kind of gets created.”

Could you tackle those two ends of the spectrum, of creating it from nothing versus discovering it?Steve: That's a great question because I would say that discovering it is probably the more common approach.

One of the elements of your brand is your voice or your style, and I define those as three different things. Brand is the overarching perception. Style is the visual representation of the brand. Voice is the verbal or written representation.

I think that part of finding what your style and your voice are comes through discovery almost entirely. If you try to overthink it, it's really hard.

If you start that journey of discovery, focusing on a consistent and distinctive voice, it kind of emerges naturally and it's easy to step into that. There's a point though, even on a discovery brand as you name it, that it becomes intentional.

That's where you start to identify certain themes that have emerged that you want to be known for, and then you want to elevate those or amplify those. Honestly, that's like discovery writing. I'm kind of a hybrid myself. I will do an outline, but then I'll go off of it. Same thing here.

You're discovering your brand, but once you find, “Okay, that really resonates, that element really resonates with my audiences,” then you want to amplify that and make sure that gets incorporated into everything you're doing.

Now if you're just creating from scratch, you can actually define what those elements are. That's what the book is really about—how to create what we call a brand identity, which is just like a personal identity.

It's who you are, what are the elements, what are your characteristics, what are your personality traits, what's the promise that you make to your audiences? If you craft that from scratch, you can be very intentional.

I would say even there, just like a planner writer goes off script sometimes and starts going in directions they find that their characters have a life of their own, the same way here is you can map out that planned brand, but still be able to change it as you start to find things that resonate or that you want to lean into.

Joanna: One thing that I think of when it comes to brand is also book covers. Even if I used exactly the same name, if I used Joanna Penn for all of my books, my fiction would look quite different. Different color palette, different font, different design elements.

How can we relate book covers in particular to our brand?Steve: It's consistency. Consistency is the key to all branding, whether it's for authors or anyone. As long as people can recognize you—think about branding, where it came from. It came from the American West and branding cattle to know that they belonged to a particular ranch.

A brand has evolved, but it is essentially about identification. I want to know what that brand stands for, who is it and who's behind it, and what does it stand for? On covers, you want consistency, you want a through line.

Really that's another way of thinking about a brand—what is that through line that you're going to find?

Now this is a key for authors, which doesn't exist completely in the same way in other industries: there are many, many readers out there that will always be more loyal to a genre than they are to a brand.

If you have a reader who absolutely loves your thrillers, and then all of a sudden you decide you want to start writing something in the romance category, well, they may still like you and get your books, but they're not going to necessarily buy your romance because the brand's not as strong as the loyalty to the genre.

Joanna: It's interesting also because I feel like authors know publishers and know imprints, but most readers wouldn't even know. They don't know HarperCollins or they don't necessarily know an imprint. Most readers are not loyal to those brand name publishing houses.

Secondarily, they may or may not care about an author brand, and as you say, they're more likely to be faithful to a genre. Most of us can't remember the names of the authors whose books we read. It's a sad truth, but some people will remember, and those are the people who I guess we're trying to connect with.

Is that right, or—

With our covers and our consistency, are we also appealing to those people who read by genre as well?Steve: It's a little bit of both because we're dealing with that really wacky, crazy inconsistent thing called human beings. We're all that way. Like Walt Whitman said, we contain multitudes and we do contradict ourselves.

What you're really going after is not really like Kevin Kelly's thousand true fans, but something close to that. It's finding that super fan, it's finding those people that are going to follow you no matter what you put out.

The nicest compliment I ever received was at a travel writer conference. I did a workshop and the head of it said he really liked the particular piece and he said, “You're on your way to being that person of whom it is said, ‘Whatever Steve Brock writes, I will read it. I will read anything from him.'”

I am nowhere near there. I don't know if I will ever achieve that, but that's kind of the goal that you want to be for those particular super fans.

Here's where the brand kicks in. You can still betray even the most loyal fan if you write something that doesn't feel true to who you are as an author.

For example, let's think of Richard Osman. Richard Osman, who wrote The Thursday Murder Club and all those—if he were to go and write a science fiction genre book, there would be a ton of people that would follow him and want to read that book.

If, however, that science fiction book had no humor in it, and the characters were downright mean to each other and it was really violent and graphic, he would not only lose those readers, but they would probably be hesitant to pick up the next book in The Thursday Murder Club series because he's kind of wrecked his brand.

Joanna: It's so interesting. I'm going to blame you Americans for this because we're not so sensitive here in the UK, but swearing is a really interesting thing.

When I wrote my first book, in my private life, I do swear sometimes. In my first book, I had naturally written as a British person, had included some words.

The reaction I had from my American readers, who were not bothered by the violence—and I don't write graphic violence, but I write thrillers, so there's some body count—the reaction to the swear words made me decide, this is back in 2009 now, I was like, “Okay, I won't swear in my books.”

So I don't use swear words at all. It's so interesting how there are a lot of different genre elements that might put people off, but—

If you use a swear word that you wouldn't normally use in your books, that can make readers disappear and never come back.Steve: Honestly, in today's world—and again, yes, you can blame America, but it has spread everywhere in terms of just how divided we are and how prickly we are in terms of topics and issues—basically anything you do will upset somebody. So you can't worry about that.

This is why you have to focus on that persona of that one true fan, your best fan, that you're writing towards. Because if you try to write towards every possible criticism, you're going to mess up. Just stick to that. Know that not everyone's going to be happy.

The example we give in a lot of corporate branding workshops: there's always a good number of people sitting around in the conference room with a MacBook or some Apple product, and I mention to them, “Do you realize that there are far more people in the world that absolutely rabidly hate Apple than there are people that love Apple?”

Just sheer numbers. If you look at PCs, for example, Apple has maybe an 8% market share. Is Apple a bad brand because so many people hate it? The reality is no, it's a great brand because those who do love it are even more passionate about it.

You're not going to be able to please everybody, but if you can please those who are in your tribe, then you're going to succeed. After all, we're in a “niches are riches” world. The more you niche down, the more profitable it is in today's world.

So don't be afraid of being true to who you are, but also being sensitive to who that audience is.

Joanna: I wasn't saying don't swear. I was saying if you decide to swear or not swear, stay consistent. The level of sex and the level of violence—if you're writing fiction, those three things are things that people's preferences generally stay pretty similar on within a brand.

So the mainstream thriller niche, those things—you could read a lot of mainstream thrillers and they would obey those rules as well.

You mentioned niching down and thinking about that, but one of the things you had in the book—and you have some really big questions in the book because one that is very difficult is: say you are writing action adventure thrillers.

So my Arcane series, a bit like Dan Brown. Dan Brown has a new book out, The Secret of Secrets, and I'm reading it at the moment and it makes me feel both happy because I write similar books to him, but also, “Oh no, I write similar books to him.”

You tackle this: how do I make my work distinctive and stand out amid all the noise? There is so much noise and I'm not competing with Dan Brown, by the way, but in terms of action adventure thrillers, there's tons of them.

How do we stand out when we also need to please genre readers?Steve: I would say by knowing what it is that makes you distinctive. Part of it is your voice, part of it is your interest, part of it is just the way you go about framing sentences and plots and so forth.

Take, going back to Stephen King as an example—part of it, for loyal fans, they know this and they don't necessarily like it, but part of his brand is he doesn't end his books well. He's known in a lot of circles as just having pretty mediocre endings. But people don't care because they know that the journey to get there was really rewarding.

I would say things like that—being known for just a surprise ending, being known for—you know, the O. Henry Awards, right? We look at O. Henry simply because he was so good at those surprise twists at the end that we actually use his name today associated with that. Or even like Hemingway, his style, the short, curt sentences.

There are elements of your book that are going to be unique to you. For example, your voice, your human voice that comes across in your brand here. That's the main thing that I think people will identify with—separating out you and your products from you the person.

That can get kind of complex, but one of the key things to me is recognizing that your products are going to have a certain voice to them, and that voice in those genres may be different from genre to genre.

You as the author, as you're interfacing with the public, will have a consistent voice, but it's still different from you the person from Joanna Penn the person versus Joanna Penn the brand. Those are two different things, and that's hard for a lot of people. If you think about like an actor playing a character, it works pretty well.

We as authors, when we're publicly speaking or talking, there's a character that represents our brand that is going to be, in some ways the best of our personal characteristics, but it's not us. And that gives you some padding, some distance from it so that you can separate that out and be able to address it.

But going back to your point: knowing what the distinctives are of your own personality and the brand there, and being able to identify those and call those out—that's what helps you be distinctive.

If you do not know what those distinctives are, how you're different from Dan Brown in this particular case, it will be very difficult. And by just reading Dan Brown, it starts to seep in, and you might start writing like Dan Brown and you don't want to do that.

Joanna: I don't know, getting banned by the Vatican was the best marketing move he ever made! But on this, like you said there, if you don't know what makes you distinctive—from the side of many authors listening—

I don't think we do understand what makes us distinctive.It is very hard. We have this thing in particularly the fiction community of finding your author voice. The reason we say “finding” it is because it's so hard, it's not obvious, and it takes practice writing lots of words and then something kind of emerges from it.

I think the question of what is distinctive—this is where AI can help. I've certainly done this: if people are happy uploading their work into ChatGPT or Claude or Gemini—read the terms and conditions as I always say—but you can then have a discussion with it as to what makes you distinctive, where do you fit in the spectrum of different authors.

I've actually found that the most useful tool, even though I've been doing this for a couple of decades, because it's so hard to figure it out yourself.

Steve: I totally agree with your last statement there, and I think that is a really good tactic for doing that. I would just add to it another thing that seems obvious, but I know so many authors who have never done this: You ask your audience. You ask your readers.

You take a dozen readers of any of your series, and you ask them, “Okay, why is this book different? What do you love most about this? What makes it distinctive from others?”

Now, they're not always going to be able to give you a clear idea, but pretty soon it's really interesting how themes start to emerge there when you start doing that.

I mentioned Richard Osman, for example. I could just whip off those as just three characteristics that make his books different: he has a really good sense of humor, his characters are all caring about each other, and he addresses age from a fresh perspective.

Many, many other authors address those three type of elements, but not in quite the same way. So in the same way with you, there's going to be elements that are going to be similar to Dan Brown and others, but that combination of those—that's something that only you do.

Joanna: I guess we've been talking a lot about fiction.

Is there anything that nonfiction authors need to think about differently, or do all the principles apply?Steve: I think the principles are even clearer and in some ways easier to manage for nonfiction writers because you can talk about the subject. If you're thinking about nonfiction, it's like, “How do I become the thought leader expert on this?” And then what are the distinctive ways I'm going to treat things?

I can speak to it. Let's talk about from the standpoint of this book and from my own branding. I have been told by clients over the years—probably the best compliment I get is that “we've hired branding experts before, they come in, they tell us what they think our brand should be, and then we fire them.”

“We don't like consultants, but you don't act like a consultant. You came in and you listened and you heard us, and then you didn't tell us what we should be. You told us what we already knew, but we didn't have the words to use to explain that.”

So that tells me that my own brand is: there's a high degree of empathy, there's a high degree of listening, but there's also an element of synthesis. I can start to unpack those and say, “Okay, this is why my nonfiction book or works, in particular this book on branding for artists and writers, is going to be different.”

Another element would be simplifying. I've seen too many organizations, particularly working with nonprofits, that fail because they've tried to take on too much. So a key part of this is making it simple.

You start to understand what those elements—simplicity, empathy, synthesis—those things can become brand points, characteristics, distinctives, that then I could apply to other nonfiction works that I do.

Joanna: So then once we've got these, I guess, quite nebulous words around branding, how do we turn that into effective book marketing?

How do we go from this broader idea to specifics that will actually sell books?Steve: I would say listen to your episode from, I think it was in August, where you read from Marketing for Authors, and you have the entire list of the specifics there. So those are the tactics that you can do in terms of selling more books.

Marketing is downstream from branding. But here's how branding can help you sell more books—two ways: internal and external.

First is the internal. Branding gives you the clarity of the messages that you want to communicate because it gives you a sense of what it is that you're really about. There's almost this idea of mindset that comes and the confidence that comes from having that clarity about what you stand for, what you believe.

One of the examples in the book is this exercise of “I believe… I exist to…” Just that simple sense of knowing what your purpose is and your beliefs and values are—that alone can help provide that clarity. So there's clarity, there's mindset, there's confidence.

Externally, your messaging becomes so much clearer because you know how to talk about yourself. That's the thing—authors, we are great at telling stories, but we're terrible at telling our own story.

That's what branding is about, is helping you to tell your own story better, so it builds the confidence, gives you the story that you want others to tell so that they can in turn tell others about you.

That's a huge piece of it. It's like the game of telephone. If you have a very clear and consistent message, they can tell others about you in a way that they couldn't before.

I think another aspect about this is that quite frankly, most authors can go out there and ask ChatGPT, “Give me 20 tactics that I need to do to market my book,” and you'll get them right away. There's no lack of access to information on how to market your book out there. The problem is we don't do it.

The reason we don't do it is because usually we're afraid. We're either afraid of what might happen, what people might think. We don't think we know enough to do it. We do all these things where we do not act.

Part of the beauty of the brand—you say it's nebulous concepts, but I would say that the nebulous concepts, the intangibles of life: trust, relationships, love, friendship, hope, accomplishment. Those are all nebulous concepts, but those are also the most powerful drivers that we have in life.

I think the same thing is here. You get that nebulous concept of knowing what you're doing and how you're different and how to tell your story better, and that builds your confidence. So you are far more likely to engage in doing those tactics that are going to help you sell the books.

Joanna: I wonder if it's also that in book marketing we do rely a lot on things like paid ads where the book cover is the thing that draws people in, and so having this sort of whole-self approach is less used.

Podcasting is a game, I think, where this kind of branding that you are talking about can really come across. Is that a good way for authors to think about pitching different podcasts around elements of their brand—in terms of their story behind the books, the person behind the books?

Steve: Yes, I think podcast is one channel for that. I mean, your blog, if you have one, even your social media—all of those are ways for the audience to connect with you as the author, and you're absolutely spot on.

Because the problem a lot of times with author marketing is we confuse the author brand—which is almost like the equivalent of an organizational brand, but you're just a one-person organization—we confuse that with a product brand. The book itself is a product. It has in some ways its own brand, so it has to relate.

Just like I'm selling products on a shelf in a store, you're going to have one reaction to the product itself, and you're going to compare that to other products on the shelf.

Over time, if you find that there is a particular product from a particular manufacturer that you really like, you're going to be more loyal and you're going to start looking for other products in that line.

So the podcast, the blog, all these other touchpoints give people a way to engage with you so they know what other products… Here's a key thing about all this: think in terms of ecosystems.

We tend to think in terms of one-offs, like, “Oh, okay, I've got to work on this particular book. I'm launching this particular book. I'm doing the Facebook ads for this particular book,” and not thinking about how it relates back.

To your earlier question or comment about having consistency in the book covers, same type of thing. You want people to know that there is this through line, that there's this consistent connection back to something more.

If they can connect that to you as a person through the podcast or other ways of having more of the personality of you and everything else, all the better.

Joanna: I did want to also talk to you about the product itself, your book, which is this workbook. It's more than a workbook though because I think I have called some of my workbooks—they really only just contain the questions, not the full text.

Mine are also not designed and laid out as yours is. It really is a beautiful product in the layout, in the way it's done, and it makes me want to do better with mine. I wondered if you could maybe—

Talk about this product of a branding workbook because I feel it's so much more than that. And any other thoughts on multiple streams of income?Steve: Thank you for that. I would say thank you also because unbeknownst to you, you were actually one of the reasons for this particular format.

It was probably a year or so ago on one of the podcasts where you said, “Amazon's pulling my workbooks because they're pulling everybody's workbooks because they're finding that people are using AI to say, ‘Hey, Claude, give me 40 different questions about this topic and some exercises,' and then they add in some fill-in-the-blank lines and publish it on Amazon.”

So the idea of that traditional fill-in-the-blank workbook, I think it made me hesitant to try something like that.

The other thing was I started this off as a course, and so the course creation—I had a lot of the graphics and different things in place, and it just ended up being that this became a hybrid.

So it's both a workbook and a book, but I think this is key, and I would say for a lot of listeners, if you're doing something particularly like this in nonfiction, to consider this approach.

It's not just a hybrid from a formatting standpoint, it's a hybrid in terms of the outcome or the goal of the book. Here's the thing I say in the book: The goal of this book is not to make you an expert on branding. The goal of this book is to help you create your own creative brand.

So this book, I do not care. After you're done with it, you've filled it in, it's an artifact of your learning. Every other book I've worked on has always been about educating, and this one is about accomplishment.

I think people today—we have too much information out there. People want to achieve things and get things done, and so the more that you can think of formats that are going to help with that, I think the better.

The other thing about it is breaking it down to smaller bites and takeaways that people can use.

I'm also mindful of just the positioning of it. I think it was Jonah Berger in his book Contagious, who talks about venture capitalists and how when they're evaluating a company, they look at it and say, “Is this company a vitamin or a painkiller?”

A vitamin is something that's very good for you and very useful and very healthy, but you can put it off. A painkiller—if you got pain, you need it right away.

My previous book, The Creative Wild on creativity, it was very vitamin-like. I would actually say that even Hidden Travel was more of a vitamin. It's good for you, it's interesting, it's about meaningful travel, all of that. But it's not a pressing felt need for a lot of people.

I think this book on branding for those who are struggling with marketing and everything—I positioned this one, it really is more of a painkiller. So the question for all of you out there listening is—

How can you make your nonfiction work more of a painkiller?Then look at other formats that are related to it. Another key aspect of this is that the workbook has a paper and a Kindle version, but then the worksheets—I call them worksheets—I have two versions: a Google Doc version and a fillable or editable PDF version that are on my website that have all the questions.

It doesn't have all the explanatory text, but it has all the questions and all the fields. But what I'm doing is I'm sending people to my website and they have to sign up for it. So now all of a sudden you've got them into the broader ecosystem there. And there could be follow-ups, right?

You've already written the marketing book, so I don't need to do that, but I could take any chapter and go into much more detail about it. I could do this and there's a tiny element in this thing on choose-your-own-adventure.

There are ways of formatting a book so it's more of a choose-your-own-adventure or a scavenger hunt, which is more of a guidebook that could help people. You can have additional merchandise that's related to it. All these different things.

I have a friend, Naomi Kinsman, who has a “creativity in a box” type of thing. So these boxed elements, lots of ancillary products that you can add to that for multiple streams of income as well.

Joanna: Your book also leads to speaking engagements. It really is—it's beautiful. I do want to emphasize that, but you've also made it harder on yourself. So one of the reasons that we as independent authors have done more basic workbooks and have done more basic books is because of the cost of production. I wondered—

Has this made it more complicated for you to sell?Or are there different versions of the print edition for, say, Amazon print-on-demand versus selling from your website, for example? Because it looks very high quality.

Steve: Yes, but it is the same for all of us, right? The more heavy lifting you do upfront, the easier you make it for others. So yes, it has been a pain. I will not argue about that.

I think the writing of this was the easiest book of all because it's just 27 years worth of expertise that I could just—I didn't have to research anything. I just whipped it out. That part was easy.

Formatting it, getting into all that—pain in the ankle. But I think that it makes it more accessible for people, because a lot of people have the same reaction that you have. With the title, like Brand Something Beautiful, you kind of want it to look that way.

That has been actually an allure to people. I don't think that a lot of the graphics got translated into the Kindle version of it. The tablet version that's full color works, the Kindle version—I had to scale down a lot. But that's okay because it still delivers the product as well.

Joanna: I love AI, everybody knows that, and I use it a lot, but I also don't like the sort of mass-produced books that are coming out. So anyone who puts more effort into physical production of beautiful products is going to stand out.

I mentioned about what is it that makes you distinctive, and I'm at this kind of point in my career where I also want to be known for making beautiful books. So I love that you've used the word “beautiful.” We all love beautiful books and we buy stuff because we love covers and we love the foil, and we love all the cool stuff.

Just so people know, on your website, brandsomethingbeautiful.com, you can see examples of the interior pages so people can see how that is done.

Did you do this yourself or did you work with a designer?Steve: I worked with the designer actually, though the full disclosure is my son is a graphic designer and a brilliant one. So he did all the graphic elements.

What I did was—and this is taking the extra step—I remember there was, I think it was Steve Zaillian, some producer in Hollywood years ago who's been dramatically successful, and someone said, “How did you become so good at this?” And he said, “Because I looked around at the work that needed to be done and I looked at the level of effort that other people were making, and I just did a little bit more.”

I think on here, I upped my game using Adobe InDesign for the layouts and things like that. I would encourage people that there's so much you can do in Canva these days. Just dive into it and get competent in it. But I think there are also times when you do want some professional design help on it as well.

Joanna: It's interesting you mentioned Canva because I'm sure you've heard me talk about my gothic cathedral book, and over the summer I was looking at my photos,and obviously you are a photographer as well and you do travel stuff, and I was like, “Oh my goodness, there's so many ways this book could go in terms of how the beautiful layout is done.”

It almost just opens up a completely different form of creativity, even though that's not something I'm focusing on right now because it feels like a whole other area. I also feel like it does help set us apart. As you said, it's that extra effort in terms of making a beautiful interior as well as a beautiful cover.

I think nonfiction, this is easier because, fiction, obviously the inside of a novel is plain text mostly—you can do some extra title pages or maps or whatever, but I think these nonfiction books can have all kinds of elements of design that help people: pull-outs and quotes and diagrams and all this kind of thing.

So it is a really creative process.Steve: It totally is. I just read a book—we're about to head off to Portugal soon, just for vacation—but I was reading a book that takes place in Lisbon called The Murderer's Ape, like ape as in gorilla. It's about a gorilla who can speak and is an engineer on this guy's boat.

The long story of it is at the beginning of each chapter are just kind of these beautiful hand-drawn pen and ink illustrations, and just having that makes it such a richer experience. Little things like that.

So there's a case where, if I had more time in my life and everything, I would be focusing on illustrated adult books, which are fictional like a novel, but that I illustrate.

What is it? The T.S. Spivet by… can't remember his name. They made it into a movie, but The Life of T.S. Spivet. Anyway, he does that. It's a brilliant book because of the illustrations that are on the margins of almost every single page. So there are ways of doing that even in fiction.

Joanna: We've all got to do more creative stuff in order to stand out, and for ourselves as well as for the readers. It kind of just brings the material alive. So I think that's really cool.

But you mentioned there heading off to Portugal, and you and I connected around our love of travel. Hidden Travel I think is a wonderful book and you came on my Books and Travel podcast and we talked about that.

This is an interesting thing, right? Even for your brand, because brandsomethingbeautiful.com to me doesn't look like the same person who did Hidden Travel. The conversation we had around that, to me, is very different conversation to the one we've had today.

So how does travel weave into your business? Or do you feel like those two things are quite different?Steve: Oh, you called me out because it's like, you know, do what I say, not what I do. Because I totally feel that way. Honestly, from my own brand and what I'm trying to do, I probably should. You know, what is it? The cobbler's children have no shoes.

Joanna: The cobbler's children have no shoes or something like that.

Steve: Right, exactly. Well, but the answer to that is, what you're going to see over time is I start to build out more of particularly some of the social media stuff for Brand Something Beautiful, and this goes back to the idea of confidence.

Once the book is done, I'm into getting it out there. I'm like you, I do not like video, I do not like to be on video, et cetera. So I've never done anything, but I decided for this book I'm going to do Instagram reels.

One of the things I did was—I think it was either Gemini or ChatGPT—I just said, “Okay, here are the themes that I want to cover. These are going to be like blog posts and Substack type of things and LinkedIn articles over the next 12 weeks. Give me—and I'm going to be in these places in Portugal. I want to create reels that illustrate these points. Give me some ideas.”

It came out with some really wonderful ideas like the 25th of April Bridge in Lisbon. It said the point is that one of the points in the book is that the brand is the bridge between the making of something beautiful and the marketing of it.

Most people, artists especially, and writers, we hate marketing, but if you do the branding right, it's the bridge between it, so it makes the marketing easier. And so then have a shot of me holding the book in front of the bridge and blah, blah, blah.

Joanna: Nice. That is great, actually, that's a really good prompt. Thank you for that.

Steve: Yes. So those type of things. I'm definitely using those, so you will start to see a connection between the travel and the brand, but it will emerge over time because in a way, I have my brandwallop.com, which is the company, the agency I've run for decades.

That's really more for corporations and nonprofits. So this Brand Something Beautiful is really more the individual brand type of stuff. It is exactly what you were talking about earlier. There's some intentionality to it. I have not fully lived and leaned into that as much.

The travel and adventure—because the theme of my other book, The Creative Wild, was about what does it mean to create adventurously? It really is like a sequel to Hidden Travel in the sense of what do we learn from travel that we can apply to our creativity?

How do you create adventurously? What does that mean? What does that look like? How does discovery fit into creativity? All of that type of thing.

So that will all get woven in there. But the main thing of all is that even if it never shows up in my external artifacts and manifestation of the brand, it is affecting me as a person, as a creative.

As you know, in fact, one of the quotes—I paraphrase, I should say—from you, I think it was on the St… was it St. Cuthbert, the one you did in the southern part of England?

Joanna: The Pilgrims Way to Canterbury.

Steve: Okay, the Pilgrims Way. You said something after that in one of the podcasts, which I have told so many other people because it is so true. When I heard you, it's like, “Okay, validation.”

It was this: “I went on this pilgrimage thinking I would have all this time walking and I would have all this time to come up with new ideas. And I had like virtually none on the trip itself.”

Joanna: Hmm.

Steve: But then two weeks later, after I got back, I couldn't stop the ideas. I was overwhelmed with all the new ideas that came, and to me that's the benefit of travel for all of us.

Yes, you can use the sites for, if you're writing a novel, for getting the research. I know you love doing that and that's a key piece of it, but just the experience of getting out of your comfort zone, being in a foreign place, particularly where your senses are picking up on things.

You notice things better, you pay better attention. All of that is going to help you as a creative.

Joanna: It's so interesting and I'm glad we kind of finished with your own personal journey of growing into this other side of yourself as well, or trying to knit them together. I think that's brilliant. It certainly shows that we're all on this journey. This is a lifetime of experience and we just keep creating.

So people, if you are like, “Oh, I just don't know,” just keep creating and something will emerge, won't it?Steve: It is absolutely true, and that would be one thing I didn't mention earlier, really quickly, that relates to this in terms of those other streams of income: this idea of combinatorial thinking, where everything you do affects everything else in a good way.

To me in terms of multiple streams of income, the question is, rather than thinking of these one-offs, but this idea of ecosystems—how it all relates to each other and how can I leverage that?

I may do this, but I would say advice to anyone out there is: instead of selling individual courses—not instead of, in addition to selling like individual courses and books—start thinking in terms of membership programs.

There's a ton of membership programs out there, but most of those memberships, or even like the subscriptions, like if you have a paid subscription on Substack or something like that, or even Patreon, is to treat those less as just like this gathering place for people to get additional content, but to make it more achievement-oriented.

What can I accomplish? Are there steps? Think in terms of the audience's pathways and their journey through that, so that membership has these elements of like, “I'm gaining something and I'm growing through this.”

Key to that is gamification. Things like levels of rewards, of access, of just status. All these different things we can learn from gamification that you can be applying to that.

Quite frankly, I don't think you have done this overtly or consciously, Joanna, but I think you do a great job of that. Like with your Patreon, you don't just say, “Okay, I'm going to give you access to just additional content.”

Yes, you do that, but in addition, there's a sense of belonging, there's a sense of participation, there's a sense of access that you get to you. And all those little elements really are about the key.

The last section of Brand Something Beautiful is all about creating experiences of delight rather than trying to see your audience as someone you want to sell to. It's someone you want to delight. So what do you do? What can you do with every little touchpoint?

All these little touchpoints add up. So whether it's travel and how that helps us to learn new things, or it's intentionally using your multiple streams of income—all the different books, merch, all that stuff coming together. If you focus on it being about delighting your audience, it just changes the whole way you look at them.

Joanna: Fantastic.

So where can people find you and your books online?Steve: Probably the easiest way for the purposes here would be BrandSomethingBeautiful.com or Substack, brandsomethingbeautiful.substack.com.

Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Steve. That was great.

Steve: Thank you.

The post Brand Something Beautiful: How Authors Can Stand Out In A Crowded Market with Steve Brock first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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How do you know when it's time to wrap up one phase of your life and move on to the next? What's the secret to staying connected as a writer when you're working alone? And if you have multiple passions and endless ideas, how do you actually finish things instead of constantly starting new projects? Pilar Orti gives her tips in this interview.

In the intro, Writing Storybundle; An honest accounting from an extensive self audit of an indie author publishing business [The Author Stack]; Money books; Direct purchases through ChatGPT; Book discovery and GEO; The ultimate guide to AEO [Lenny's Podcast]; Conversions through Chat [SearchEngineLand]; SORA video app; AI for eCommerce and Amazon Sellers; Deliciously twisted Halloween book sale.

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.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn

Pilar Orti is a nonfiction and memoir author, as well as a voiceover artist, podcaster, and Pilates instructor.

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

• Wrapping up life phases with books. Using writing to process and close chapters of your personal and professional journey
• Connection strategies for remote workers and writers. Understanding your own connection style and respecting others' preferences
• Co-writing across continents. The practical process of collaborating with someone you've never met in person
• Using AI as a writing collaborator. How generative AI helped overcome the blank page and create a unified voice
• Knowing when to end projects. Recognising the signs that it's time to stop versus push through challenges
• Being a finisher in a world of ideas. Balancing multiple interests while actually completing projects

You can find Pilar at PilarWrites.com or on LinkedIn.

Transcript of interview with Pilar OrtiJo: Pilar Orti is a nonfiction and memoir author, as well as a voiceover artist, podcaster, and Pilates instructor. So welcome to the show, Pilar.

Pilar: Thank you very much, Jo. Hello everyone. Hello creatives. It's exciting to talk to you.

Jo: Tell us a bit more about you, how you got into writing and podcasting, and your multi-passionate career.Pilar: I'm going to try and give you the bit that's more related to writing, because if not, we'll be here for half an hour just with me bubbling on.

I always liked writing, and I was thinking about this, I wrote my first play to be performed when I was seven. I got all my friends together and we did this little show. I think it was about a soldier or something, I don't know why.

All throughout my teens I kept writing plays and got my friends together to do them, and we put on the shows. Looking back, I think for me writing has always been about sharing. All the writing I've done, I've always wanted it to be public, so I've never journaled or anything like that.

I continued writing plays. Eventually I set up a theater company with a friend and we did some plays. Then I did a translation of a Lorca play, When Five Years Pass. That was the first time that I started to think that my work could be published in some way.

So I looked for literary managers in theaters to see if they were interested in the show. I even sent it to Samuel French and Oberon Books, all these small presses that specialized in theater. They all came back with that same thing: “It's a great translation, but it's really niche and nobody's going to want to see this Lorca play.”

So I started to think about how to put it out there and came across self-publishing. Once I saw that my work could get out there relatively easily—I didn't have to go through the whole trying to find a publisher process—I started to write a lot more.

I continued doing some stuff for the theater company and then I started blogging as well. We're talking now about the end of the 90s, 2000s.

Then I wrote a book called The A to Z of Spanish Culture, which was supposed to be a nice project with lots of friends. We would each take a letter of the alphabet and of course, like these projects go, everyone dropped out and I ended up doing the whole thing myself.

Jo: We should just say at this point, you're Spanish.

Are you writing at this point in English or in both?Pilar: So I went to an English school. I landed there when I was five, in Madrid. So I'm bilingual. My first written language is English and my first spoken language is Spanish. Unfortunately I've dropped writing in Spanish and I really struggle, but my entire academic career has also been in English.

So I think English is the language I feel most comfortable in when I'm writing. Everything I've written has been in English.

Looking at The A to Z of Spanish Culture, I was sharing an office with a theater company and a couple of other theater companies at the time. At some point I mentioned this book, and someone said, “Oh, you're a writer or you want to publish some books. You have to listen to this great podcast called The Creative Penn.”

That was my gateway into the whole world of podcasting. I mean, I knew about podcasting because I'm also a voiceover artist—I've been one since '98—but that really opened up that world.

So I continued writing, and my relationship with writing up to a couple of years ago was just that I wrote mainly nonfiction about things I wanted to write about, looking back at where I was at that time.

Then I published a book on physical theater, a very small book, just as I was leaving the theater company. I also wrote a little book about my life as a voiceover as I saw that work was starting to dry out. I think I'm wrapping up parts of my life with books.

Last year, as I came to the end of my consultancy career talking about working with remote teams, I spent some time just writing, either editing something I was working on or writing. I decided after trying it for a few months that now was the time to write all those books

I wanted to write and to also start looking at my writing as the main thing I was focusing on, because as you said, I always do lots of things. So that's where I am with the writing.

Jo: I like this idea of wrapping up parts of your life with books. I actually think that's a really interesting comment and I definitely feel that. I guess I've started to do that too. I feel that it's true for me, for my fiction as well.

My Desecration, Delirium and Deviance series, I wrote when we were in London and they're about London. When I moved to Bath, I wrote my Matt Walker series, which was set in Bath. Then the Pilgrimage book was about that pilgrimage. So I really like that insight, that sort of wrapping up parts of your life with books.

Just coming back, you said you finished the consulting side. Was that a decision? I really wanted to get your insights on this finishing up things.

Why did you stop doing the consulting side of things?Pilar: It's a mixture of things and I think also a great reflection of why do we end things, especially professional ones. I set up a consultancy called “Virtual Not Distant” around maybe nine, ten years ago to help leaders of remote teams and remote teams. Of course that was a different world then.

Then through the pandemic, as we know, it all exploded. So I started to get more work, but maybe not the kind of work I really wanted to do. I was coming into helping remote teams and remote work as an alternative way of working and something that could be embraced and set up carefully and in a sustainable way.

What I found after all the lockdowns and all the remote work—the forced remote work—and as organizations started to adopt maybe a little bit more flexible working, hybrid work, the clients or the people I would end up working with were not the ones that I should be helping.

Or at least I couldn't help them in the way I wanted to help them because I have my vision. What had been left was a very different world. I just wasn't comfortable anymore with what I was finding when I was going in.

At the same time, let's be honest, the work started to dry up. There wasn't this need anymore for people who needed to work remotel. They'd figured out some version that worked more or less for them. I see it with my peers as well, that the whole cohort, almost everyone has pivoted or shifted.

So it was a mixture of both. I have to say that I don't think the market wanted me anymore as much, because before the pandemic it was great fun. But also I couldn't shape that way of working like I wanted to. So I decided to write more instead about it, as you say, to wrap up.

Jo: That's interesting. So this new book, Connection and Disconnection in Remote Teams, this is really, as you've said, summing up all your thoughts and what your ideal situation is, I guess. Lots of people listening work their day jobs separately and often write alone.

Writers, we're often disconnected in many ways and we are not really in teams, but certainly I feel like connection and disconnection are huge themes for writers.

Give us some tips for connecting with other humans when we work disconnected.Pilar: Unfortunately one of the reasons I left consultancy was because all my answers were “it depends,” and that's why I moved into Pilates teaching because that is very set and “it depends” very little. A few things—when I'm talking about wrapping up, I think that's going to be my theme.

In 2019, this season of Connection and Disconnection in Remote Teams was a podcast season that I created with a collaborator and with lots of other people actually, to talk about this theme of loneliness in remote teams, because we saw that was something that remote teams were struggling with a lot then.

We created a seven-part episode series around it. For all these years I've been looking back at that and thinking there's a lot of material here which could be useful for a lot of people. We don't want this loneliness thing of working alone becoming a problem because of loneliness.

What this book shows, what the podcast showed, and my co-author Bree Katy actually led most of those interviews, is that you need a high level of self-awareness to really find how you connect with others and then a level of awareness about how other people like to connect. So that's why it really “it depends.”

I think that level of self-awareness is:

What does it mean for me to feel like I belong in a community? Like I belong with other professionals? Like I connect to my collaborators? What is it about it? I came up with three things which you can look at.

Do you connect across the work? So is that where you really get your value of “Yes, we're doing something together and this is interesting. This makes me want to be with you. We are together in this.” So is it across the work, or is it around the work?

Is it actually the conversations like this one, Joanna, that we're having, which is around what's happening? Or is it away from the work? So some people do not connect through the work they do, but they really connect with somebody else's personal story or personal life or hobbies, etc.

I think work connection has a general meaning that's out there, but it's very wide. In understanding how you connect or when you prefer to connect in each way—because that also happens—then you can seek those opportunities, which can be, as you're saying, in our case, online communities.

But is it enough to be on a forum-type community and that's enough for you to feel like you belong? Or do you actually need to find people who will go on a Zoom call with you? The technology has opened up lots of avenues and this is what's exciting and complicated.

If you're someone who connects through writing and through being okay being a little bit anonymous, you've got that. And if you're someone who likes to have a more interactive experience, seeing people and being real time, you can look for meetups online or in person.

Jo: I think, like you said, it's understanding yourself and being self-aware and then respecting other people too. For example, we've emailed for many years. I was on your podcast years ago, but we've not hung out. Right now we're on audio only. We're not on video because I prefer audio, especially later in the day.

So we are connected, but we are not closely connected. And yet, I would say we're aware of each other and we are in a sort of adjoining community. That's completely different from somebody who wants to be on video talking to people on Slack every day, wanting to be always chatting with other people.

We have to learn how we can do this sustainably because that's the other thing, isn't it? I can do video, but it's so tiring to me that I can't do it sustainably.

How can people learn more about what works for them in this connection way?Pilar: And I think you mentioned as well, respecting other people. I would add to that asking people and learning to find out about other people. That's how we can respect each other.

The learning aspect, there's something that my friend Lisette Sutherland is very hot on, which are called personal manual. These are things that people in remote teams do where they say how they work best or how they prefer to connect with other people or how they like to spend their day.

Because what happens when you're away from people is that you're missing a lot of information and sometimes we have to make this information explicit.

If I'm trying to build a relationship, a professional relationship with someone, or if I want to connect a little bit more around the work, then I can say a little bit more about, “Well, I much prefer an audio conversation next time. Can we do audio?”

Or “Hey, I had a great time doing this video thing. Do you ever meet up with other colleagues?” or “When we talk together, do you prefer email?”

I think questioning how other people want to connect as well will help us then to strengthen those relationships. Sometimes we can maybe try something that we hadn't tried before or find out how other people are doing it.

For example, I get a lot of pleasure from reading people's comments on Google Docs when I'm working on something together. So for me, working on a shared document really gives me something more than if an email is coming backwards and forwards because the comments are always there.

In a way, when I go into a Google Doc, it's like I'm going to see someone else. I'm going to see the people I'm working with in the shared document. So that says to me, okay, if I can, I'll ask if we can work in this way.

Whereas other people prefer email for whatever reason, or audio as well. Audio recordings. So I think, like you said, being aware of all the different modes of communication and seeing when we go, “Ah, yes, okay. Now I'm really comfortable,” or “I'm really excited now about this.”

Jo: It's funny, I was just thinking then, a lot of people pitch me by sending a video and I never ever, ever, ever, ever will click on any video if they recorded some Loom or even a personalized YouTube video. I literally will never look at them.

Even people will send me an audio message and then expect me to listen to it. Even though I am generally audio, I'm like, definitely not. So this is about understanding for pitching as well.

Sometimes you just assume something because you might be comfortable with it, but that other person on the other end just might not be. It's also fascinating to me that you love Google Doc comments because I hate that too. Is it our age as well, do you think? I'm 50 and I feel like Slack messaging, for example, completely passed me by.

Pilar: I don't think it's age because I'm only three years older than you. As you say, I love Slack, but I have a way of using it. That's another thing, this feels very strange, but when you're working with someone in remote teams, you have to make explicit things like this.

So if you decide you're going to use Slack, okay, how are we going to use it? When can I get you urgently? And is it okay to wait two days to reply to your message? It is, by the way, unless it's urgent. But it's the use of it. That's another very important thing, Joanna.

When we are going more into the working together or even in communities, the technology is really widespread, is ubiquitous at the moment, and a lot of people have used either this technology or something similar. We all have our own ways of doing it.

So we need to agree on one or two things so that we use it in the same way, so that we don't get frustrated. For example, if you prefer to wait three or four days, and I'm the one that wants everything urgently.

I think it's just being explicit. I don't really know because I only worked with people who were like 10 years younger or, well, my collaborator Bree is 20 years younger and we got on well with the docs.

Jo: Yes. It's just not imposing judgment on other people based on how they prefer to do things. It's just like, well, we have to agree on a way to work together. But as you said, you've co-written this book, Connection and Disconnection, with a writer in Australia without meeting in person. So obviously you use Google Docs, but—

Tell us more about that process of co-writing.Pilar: I love co-writing, and to be honest, I've been waiting to co-write a book for ages. I did co-create a book together, which was a collection of blog posts with my colleague Maya Middlemiss, a long time ago.

This has been getting something almost from scratch, so I think the fact that we had done that podcast season is important because we'd already worked together. So there were a couple of things that meant that the book got—as I'm talking to you, it's not finished yet, but hopefully when this comes out, it will be at least on preorder.

There were a few things: one, we already had the material, but the material needed shaping. That actually took a few years because we started one process that didn't work and then we started a new process which has worked.

I think that has been finding that we could both hook onto a process that was sustainable and that would get us both onto the computer. That's been really important.

I'd met Bree more or less a few times working on the season together. We also did do about a monthly catch-up on Zoom or Google Hangouts, whatever, online. I think that was quite important because it just meant that we could just relax a little bit more in the conversation, and the conversation could go anywhere.

Of course we could make faster decisions, so we had that. We didn't have that as a rule, but it happened and neither of us are very meeting people. So we were fine with that.

You would've hated this process—we had so many Google Docs. But what we decided was instead of using a chat-based application or email, we started talking in a Google document. It could be a Word document, so a shared document where we would work a little bit on the book.

Then we'd check out at the end of the day and we just write a few things. Or if something had happened in our personal lives that the other person needed to know, we wrote it there.

What's really nice about that is, one, we didn't end up with more chat messages. We always knew our conversation was only there, our written conversation. And now we have a record. We have a whole year of this project from the start, right to the end. We might not do anything with it, but it's really nice to have.

From the practical point of view of working on the text, we've used shared documents. We split up the chapters—we had one person writing the first draft and then we went in and commented, etc.

The one thing I do have to say, and thanks to you, Joanna, because you've introduced me to generative AI—I'd been playing a lot with ChatGPT, Claude, feeding into my own writing work, and that's why I approached Bree again last year in 2024 to start to work on this again.

We'd already tried to put the book together and we'd found it very daunting because we had transcripts from seven episodes plus all the full interviews of about seven or eight guests that Bree had done. We were finding it really difficult to come to the page.

So I ran by her, I said, “What do you feel about generative AI?” I ran some ideas via Claude. I asked it to maybe generate some text based on the transcripts from our interviews. We saw that there could be something there. What Bree was saying was really useful for her was the fact that we created a project in Claude, which had all the transcripts.

So you could say, “Oh, at some point we talked about somebody who had moved to the middle of nowhere and suddenly realized that their career prospects had decreased or something. Who was that? What episode was that in and what did they say?”

Then instead of having to dig through all these transcripts, suddenly we had our own assistant that pulled it out. The other thing was that for some chunks it started to give us a common voice. It's not that Claude was writing everything, but it started to smooth the differences in both our voices. So we found one voice for the book without, and you can't really tell who's writing which bit, but it's still us. It's really still us.

So it's been interesting. We've had technology as an intermediary, not just in the communication process, but also in the writing process.

Jo: I think that's great. I certainly think these tools are really useful for when you have your own material. I'd also suggest to people listening, Google's Notebook LM, where you can actually load the transcripts and it will only use those. Whereas the other models will kind of bring insights from the rest of the model. So I think that's super useful.

You did mention that you basically failed the first time around and the process didn't work the first time around, so you said it was just too daunting. Was it literally just the volume of stuff and you didn't know where to start?

What other insights do you have from failing that first time around? Because I feel like a lot of people when they approach any sort of big project, do maybe fail at things and then they don't come back to it.

Any insights from the failure and getting over that?Pilar: I think it was the fact that we were always coming to a blank page. So we had the material, and especially Bree, she was closer to the material and she had less time than I had as well. So I think time was definitely a factor, which is why I went back to her and said, “Look, I think this can save us some time,” as well as help us in other ways. So time was really a factor.

The blank page was a factor, whereas this time we felt that we could start with something, even if it was that I prompted the generative AI with this prompt to write, I don't know, chapter one, and this is what it's come up with.

“Okay. Well I like this point. I like this point. Yes. Okay. So we can now work on chapter one, but at least we've got something that we could both start from as well,” which is quite important.

So I think it was the classic, it was time and it was the blank page, and also this feeling of how we had organized the material. Again, technology, you need to find the right space for you to work in.

We were using Notion, which has a lot of moving parts, and in the end we just went back to transcripts, PDFs, Google Doc, which are nicely set in our folder. So that was another learning—we needed our own office space that worked for us and the first time it didn't quite work and the second time it helped us.

Jo: I've tried Notion several times. I even had like a tutorial with someone and it just didn't work for me. It didn't click at all. I think this is really important for people listening.

You can hear people say, “Oh, well this transformed my process. It's just amazing,” but it doesn't work for your brain. You can't force it into a different way. Try things. I have tried Notion several times and I'm like, no, I just cannot get it. I still use Scrivener for my first drafts and I just paste everything into Scrivener.

When I co-write, I have co-written several times using Google Drive and Google Docs as the sort of beginning place. It is still probably the simplest idea, isn't it?

Pilar: Yes. I think Google Docs is definitely simple because you've got a blank page, but now of course you have to push away the AI that's trying to do everything.

I think what you said about why—what was it about the first time that didn't work—is really important because this is something that is often missing, one as individuals and then also definitely as collaborators and in teams, is that we try something, it doesn't work, and we don't stop to think why.

It doesn't mean we go, “Why?” and then we try and make it work again. No. We think, “Okay, why didn't this work? What else could work?” Or sometimes we've got the right technology, but we need to adapt something.

So we ask “Why didn't this work?” and we went, “Okay, maybe what we need to do is something different.” Or actually, like you say, “Well, this is not going to work, but now we know that when we look for the next thing, it's got to have this, this, and this.”

But that step, especially because we don't like to think back, “Why didn't that work?” It's quite hard work for the brain. But I think it's quite important. I feel like some apps, I find them so easy to use and other ones they just…

I mean, technology and humans, they go together. For me, technology, sometimes you have to have that connection with it. It's easy. You can get your brain around it, you can get your hands around it in a way, metaphorically. I think we should acknowledge that and it's fine.

Jo: Yes, exactly. Use what works for you.

I wanted to circle back on the sort of ending things, because you have paused and you've done the seasons. Like you said, this book was born out of a seven-part season. You've paused some of your shows, you've ended others. Maybe just talk about how do you know when something is ending? When is it not failure?

Because you've just explained how something didn't work, so that was a failure, but you did decide to end that. Whereas some of your podcasts, and like your consulting, you ended that. It wasn't a failure. You made a decision to end it.

How do you know when something is finished and end it in a way that feels positive and satisfying?Pilar: For me it's when I really don't want to do something anymore or when something is a bit of a drag. Sometimes there are some signs.

I'll go back to a very long time ago. I used to teach physical theater and acting a long time ago. I was doing maybe two hours a week only in a drama school around the corner. I went on my way there and every now and then, because this was before lots of email, I would turn up and my class would've been canceled.

It was great because I still got paid, but my class would've been canceled and no one had told me. I found myself walking one day towards the school going, “I wish, I hope that the class is being canceled” and I went, “Okay. That's it. This is something I don't want to do anymore.”

So there are those kinds of signs that I really listen to—when I really don't want to do something.

Then the podcasts, the podcasts are creative projects, so they're driven by a curiosity at that moment. Or I have to say, a lot of the shows I've done, I've done with co-hosts. Sometimes I've just done it because I wanted to do something with this person and something has come up.

I think that even with podcasting, because you mentioned the podcasts in particular, I didn't have anything else to say. I had nothing more to say and I thought, “Well, that's it.”

So I was doing a show called Management Cafe with Tim Burgess, who is actually the boss of Bree, who I'm writing with. Both of us have left the organizational world. Neither of us lead people anymore. We were like, “What are we doing?”

The show Management Cafe was just like therapy and reminiscing of how it used to be and what happened to this and what happened to that.

I think understanding, especially if it's a creative project that you keep doing, and suddenly you're like, “I don't know why I'm doing this. I have nothing more to say. I'm getting tired of the sound of my own voice” in whatever way.

Then wrapping up, I think especially with creative projects, we need to try so many things to understand what it is we want to do, what it is that we like doing, and I'm being very lucky in that respect that I've been able to try lots of different things in my life.

Because of that, I've learned to try things that don't work out without thinking that there's something wrong with it. Of course some things don't work out and they have larger consequences than others.

So understanding that, especially in a creative process, whatever you're doing, you touch on one thing and then that doesn't work. Well, maybe that's not the right thing for you right now. You can always come back to those kinds of things.

So I think it's recognizing that that's not the right thing to be doing anymore, and just seeing it as something that I'm going to put to one side now because, okay, it might be doing well, but I'm not getting anything out of it.

Jo: It's funny though. I was thinking there, you mentioned earlier that your voiceover work, that there's less work there than there used to be. I guess that's a lot to do with AI, digital voice.

I guess for some people sometimes the decision as to things ending is not necessarily theirs. Or they need to do it for money or something. I think this is probably happening to a lot of people. They're seeing some streams of income begin to dwindle because of whatever reasons.

How do you pivot into something new? What's your process?Do you end something and then learn something new? Or do you make sure these overlap so you have periods where you're still earning from the old ways?

Pilar: Just going back to the voiceover, because that's a very good example, as you said. I still work as a voiceover, but not very much. When we're talking a few years ago, actually, my own work didn't decrease because of the AI.

It decreased because of the internet, great internet connections that we can now have with voices in Spain. So I'm a Spanish voiceover in London, and before we always did our recordings in London. Whereas as the internet connections got better, they can now beam into Spain and they have a wider talent pool there.

The other thing that happened was the home studios. I don't have a home studio. My bedroom's good enough for podcasting, but not for client work.

I started to see it was pre-pandemic that the artificial intelligence was taking all the small jobs, like the “press one for this, press two for that.” That was actually a decision, talking about when to shift.

I saw that coming and I had to make a choice for myself, which was do I set up a home studio? Or do I get out and do something else? Which is why I started the consultancy on the side. Of course, I love voiceover and it still brings some income. So talking of that—

I think starting to do something and trying it out while you're still doing your income-generating work is a very good idea.You can start to try it. Like maybe I'm going to do this thing, I don't know, could be writing.

“I really want to write, but I don't have the time. I'm going to try and do two hours a day and see if I still like it if I have to do it.” Because I think that when you discover that you can go into a profession is if you have to do something, is it still that joyful?

So finding out how sustainable your new career might be by doing little experiments before you decide to take a big plunge.

Again, you've said it many times and your guests have as well, that when we leave something that is a recurring income at the moment, we have to look at our figures. We have to look at how we are going to live before we take that plunge and then start making our plans around that.

Can you work a little bit less at your full-time job, you know, four days a week instead of five, and things like that? And not be afraid of the fact that that might not happen.

We might try it and it's okay if actually we discover that, “You know what? The stress of thinking that I'm going to have to earn an income with this is making me sick.” That's fine. Pull right back. It might not be the right moment as well. Again, see what it is bringing up in you.

So I've recently trained as a Pilates teacher, which actually, talking of income, it's going to be a small part of my income, but I just noticed that I was really enjoying the classes that I was taking, getting really curious about it.

That's how I know that it's time to move on to something else. I might not leave behind what I've already got, but I need to start looking into something else. I find myself listening to podcasts around the subject. I read around the subject. I start to want to know more, and that's when I know.

When I start to bring in the input from other places, and when I start to really soak in lots of other information, that's when I know, “Okay, something is shifting. I have to look at this.”

I've tried lots of things. At one point, I started doing cartoons, and I've got this happy daisy. So I looked into merchandising, could that work? Well, no, because the money coming in from all the print-on-demand merchandising side is really small and also they treat you not very well.

Okay. That won't do, I'll put it to one side. It might turn into a comic at some point, but for now I've got to do something else.

I've had to train myself because you can hear that I can go anywhere, anytime. I've had to train myself now to go, “No, that is for later. Write it down, make notes, have a place where you can record your thoughts around that thing you really want to do. But now is not the right moment.”

So now I'm doing this book and I'm doing the Pilates thing. That's it for now. I've got lots of things that are going to come after, but for now, not everything all at once.

Jo: Because you are also a finisher. I think this is really important. It's interesting because I do talk to a lot of creatives who are similar to both you and me. We have lots and lots of ideas and start lots of things, but a lot of people can't finish them. So they've got too many projects on the go at the same time.

People say to me all the time, “Oh, you must be so busy.” And I'm like, actually, I'm not that busy. It might sound like I work on a ton of things, but I don't really. I'm kind of launching one book, and then writing another book and doing this show.

I feel like the finishing energy is just as important. So is that something you've had to learn or is that just something you have naturally, which is, I must finish this thing before I move on to the next thing?

Pilar: It's natural. I've always had this. When we first set up the theater company, I remember my friend Philip, who we set it up with, he said, “I'm like an ideas person. You're a finisher.” Yes, I am. I think it comes naturally. I don't like open endings and open loops.

It also comes back to this knowing that because you don't succeed at something, it doesn't mean you are not a great person. You know what I mean? So finishing for me sometimes is not doing it anymore. It doesn't mean I've completed the project. It doesn't mean that I've made a success of this thing I wanted to do.

It means I've gone, “You know what? In one year, how much have I enjoyed this? How successful was it? If it was supposed to bring income, did it bring an income?” You know what? Okay, let's wrap that up and that's okay. Put it away.

Sometimes it is about, “Okay. This book, it's dragging.” My books, Joanna, they take like three or four years. If it's worth it, then I finish it. I have put some books away. I put some ideas away.

I had some brilliant ideas about things and I thought, “Am I going to be able to do that? It's going to take me three more years and I have to do all this research.” Put it in the ideas list, and being okay with that.

Jo: I think being okay with it, I mean, I'm the same. I have a massive drive, so I use Dropbox for my main drive. I've got this “for later” kind of folder structure. Sometimes I do indulge myself, especially now with like deep research on ChatGPT.

Sometimes I'll be like, “Do a deep research into this topic,” to just see if I want to go deeper into it. I always say, “Recommend like 20 books on this subject.” Then if I want desperately to kind of get into all that, it's like you said, if I feel that need to research, then I will dive into that more seriously.

Like right now by my desk, I have about 20 physical books on gothic cathedrals and architecture and beauty and awe and wonder. I just needed to go down that rabbit hole. But a lot of the time I'll be like, “Okay, I am not quite ready to do that.”

It sounds like we have a similar process on what to spend the time on and projects that are worth spending the time on.Pilar: Yes, and I think you develop an instinct at some point, or a process, or you trust that the right thing will kind of stay you in the face or something. Because I think that that is also a process and it'll be different for everyone, is learning to trust how we manage our ideas.

There was something else I was going to say. Oh, the other thing is, of course, that it's also okay to dream. So sometimes I know I'm not going to do something. I would've loved to be a cozy mystery writer. I still have my first novel there waiting for me and sometimes I just dream. I dream I have this series and it's okay.

I don't have to then turn it into anything. I wonder sometimes when something we love doing, like writing, can be so close to how we want to earn an income. I think that sometimes we forget that it's okay to dream about plans and then we let them go and that's fine.

Jo: I think that's good. Hold some of them lightly or hold them lightly until you decide to commit. Then if you're going to commit, then absolutely commit. This has been super useful and we are out of time.

Where can people find you and everything you do online?Pilar: I have one website that I'm sure will be there for a while, which is PilarWrites.com. That's P-I-L-A-R-writes, as in writing. Then on LinkedIn, I'm Pilar Orti.

Jo: Fantastic. Well, thanks so much for your time, Pilar. That was great.

Pilar: Thanks Joanna. Thank you so much. I've been listening to your show forever, so this has been amazing. Thank you everyone for listening too. Thank you, Joanna.

This transcript has been edited for clarity and readability while maintaining the authentic conversational tone and key insights shared by both speakers.

The post How to Pivot Careers, Co-Write Books, And Stay Connected As A Remote Creative With Pilar Orti first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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Have you optimized the seven essential elements of your Amazon book page before you even consider marketing? Are you making the most of A+ content, and advertising with Amazon? Amazon Ads expert Geoff Affleck gives his tips.

In the intro, potential TikTok US changes [BBC]; Special editions [Written Word Media]; Self-Publishing with Dale Kickstarter books; Successful Self-Publishing Fourth Edition; Egypt beyond the pyramids, an example of fiction-adjacent content marketing [Books and Travel]; British Powerlifting; Starting something new, clearing space, beginner's mind, and Leuchtturm1917 journals.

This episode is supported by my patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn

Geoff Affleck is a bestselling nonfiction author, self-publishing consultant, and Amazon ads expert working with authors to produce and promote their books through his business, Authorpreneur Publishing. Geoff is originally Australian but now lives in Canada.

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 seven essential elements every Amazon book page needs before spending a penny on advertising, from cover design to A+ Content
• Why Amazon ads work like shopping in the soup aisle (targeted intent) versus Facebook ads being like impulse candy purchases at checkout
• How series authors can break even on book one ads while making profits from organic read-through on subsequent books
• The critical difference between automatic ads and manual targeting, and why manual campaigns with specific ASINs get better results
• When new authors should start advertising (even with few reviews) and how established authors should maintain their backlist keywords and categories

You can find Geoff at GeoffAffleck.com.

Transcript of the interview with Geoff AffleckJoanna: Geoff Affleck is a bestselling nonfiction author, self-publishing consultant, and Amazon ads expert working with authors to produce and promote their books through his business, Authorpreneur Publishing. Geoff is originally Australian but now lives in Canada. So welcome to the show, Geoff.

Geoff: Hi Joanna, thanks for having me here. It's great.

Joanna: Yes, this is an interesting topic. So first up—

Tell us a bit more about you, how you got into writing and self-publishing, and why you decided to move into author services.Geoff: Sure. It was about 15 years ago that I started getting involved in this industry. I had always been involved in marketing in more of a corporate job.

I got involved in personal development for myself, just for personal growth, and managed to connect up with some New York Times bestselling authors who appeared in the movie The Secret.

Joanna: Oh yes, wonderful time!

Geoff: Right. So I worked as a marketing director for a couple of these authors who were part of that movie and, as a result, got exposed to the world of traditional publishing because they had New York Times bestselling books.

We started a course where we would invite people to come and learn about—basically the premise was we'll teach you how to become a bestselling self-help author.

I was the marketing guy, mostly talking about building their author platforms, and became really interested in the self-publishing side of it because that was really the door that most of these authors would come into rather than traditional, and had to learn very quickly about self-publishing.

So this was, as I mentioned, probably now 2012 or thereabouts. As I learned about self-publishing, we decided to self-publish a book ourselves, the four of us. Since then, I've just continued to be really enamored by the whole industry.

I realized quickly that I'm not really an author. I've co-authored a number of books, but writing's not my passion, although copywriting is, but not story writing.

I really love the production side of it and the book launches, the marketing, especially with Amazon. So that's really where I focused in my business over the last eight years or so.

Joanna: That's so funny with The Secret—it brings back those days. I remember reading that and it's where I really first learned about affirmations. My first affirmation that really changed my life was “I am creative. I am an author.” And I said that years before it actually happened.

I know it's funny now, isn't it? We kind of look back and I don't think it's been tarnished, but there's not so much a halo around the law of attraction stuff. At the time, I feel like that really made such a big hit. A lot of the mindset stuff around it I still feel is valuable.

Let's get into the advertising stuff, but before we get into that, I feel like a lot of authors jump into ads like they're some kind of magic bullet.

What are the basic things that an author needs to get right with their Amazon book sales page before they even think about advertising? We're going to focus on Amazon today.

Geoff: Right. Yes, absolutely. This is the starting point, and it should be the starting point for anyone who's looking to publish a book, let alone promote it or spend money on it with Amazon ads.

You have to think about the conversions. What I mean by that is that if you're going to generate clicks to your book page, you have to be confident that a reasonable percentage of those clicks will turn into orders, or if you're in Kindle Unlimited, you know, Kindle Unlimited page reads.

The number that we look for is 10%. So if you get 10 clicks from an ad, you want to get one sale or the equivalent of that in page reads.

So it's really important to optimize your Amazon page—some people call it a product page or a book listing—so that when people land, they're going to be attracted to buying your book. Just makes sense, doesn't it?

Joanna: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: There are about seven elements that we focus on that you really need to get right, and you need to get all of them right. Sometimes just having one of them a little bit off can skew it. I could do a two-hour talk on this, but I'll just give you a quick introduction.

Obviously the first one is the book cover.And that's the one that actually helps generate ad clicks because people don't see a lot about your book. They just see the cover, the title, how many reviews you have and so on.

If it looks interesting, they'll click on it. So if you've got a cover that stands out as a little thumbnail on an Amazon ad, you're more likely to get a higher click-through rate on your ads, which means more traffic. So that's super important. Of course, the cover has to be aligned with the genre and be legible and all of that.

Here's one that a lot of people miss, and it's the attention to keywords. You probably know that when you self-publish, there's seven keywords you can put in the metadata when you upload your book to Amazon, right? Most people don't give a lot of thought to that—just put in some words and hope that's okay.

Keywords are really important, and it's a whole thing to learn how to get them right. Finding keywords that are popular yet not too competitive is the key because that's what Amazon's algorithm looks at when it's deciding whether your book's going to show up or not on a search.

It's really important to get at least one good keyword phrase into your title or, more often, into your subtitle. I see a lot of authors that they'll publish a novel with a title and then leave the subtitle blank.

So adding a subtitle that describes a little bit about the genre or a trope—like “A Billionaire Office Romance” could be a subtitle for a romance novel—that tells the reader something, but it also tells the algorithm something. That is one of the most important fields I find.

If you're only relying on your seven keywords, I think you're potentially missing out on organic traffic. Beyond that—

Obviously people look at how many reviews you have and what the quality is of the average star rating. Those are super important. So doing whatever you can to boost the number of reviews and ratings early on will give your conversion rate a big boost.

So beyond that though—

We've got to have a strong blurb. Usually there's a whole structure for blurbs, but not too long. Back even a few years ago, we were writing longer blurbs. Now it's around 200 words. A really strong headline with a hook, bolded is nice. Short paragraphs, the right elements, and then a call to action. I won't go any further than that, but that is key.

But beyond that, a lot of people don't read blurbs. They kind of skim them. That's why shorter is often a little bit better.

Increasingly, A+ Content is another way to supplement the blurb.So it's kind of like an additional blurb where we can put graphics up on the page that will help the reader understand more about the book and some reasons why they should buy it.

Finally, I think price is really important. It can't be too high or even too low—that can sometimes be a disincentive because price and quality are often correlated.

You've got to make sure your books are in the right categories, so that's really important too. Categories that are relevant. Sometimes I see people, even people who are helping other authors, put their books in categories that just aren't relevant in order to try to game the system and get a bestseller badge. That just doesn't work.

Joanna: Yeah, that again feels like a tactic from like 15 years ago.

Geoff: Let's just put it here in basket weaving, even though it's a basket weaving romance!

Joanna: That is interesting. Lots of things to come back on here, but the A+ Content—your team helped me do some A+ Content for my How to Write a Novel book. I think as a buyer, like as a reader, I never, ever, ever scroll down that far. So I had some hesitation of, was this worth it?

So talk a bit more about A+ Content and why you think that it is a good idea to have.Geoff: Well, first of all, for anyone who's not familiar with A+ Content, it doesn't say that word anywhere on your book page. But if you notice, as you're browsing on Amazon, you'll see the section called “From the Publisher.” So that's what we're referring to.

You go below the book description, below the first couple of carousels of ads or suggestions, and then you'll see it there. It'll be snuggled in just above the editorial review section. What it is is kind of like a magazine-style layout of banners and images.

You can have up to five rows of them, and you can choose as few as one or as many as five different banners. There are different layouts, and it's all template-driven on the backend of Amazon through your KDP account. It's also available to traditional publishers using Amazon Advantage.

So I think the only time you can't really use it is, let's say you publish with IngramSpark or Draft2Digital—you won't be able to apply Amazon A+ Content to your books.

Anyway, lots of different layouts available, including for nonfiction you can do side-by-side charts and this type of thing. You can provide, for a series, a series layout where people can see all the books in your series, or up to six anyway, and then click directly through to the different books.

I think, other than being visually appealing—provided, and this is really important, they must be designed well—you design them outside of Amazon usually, although Amazon does have some sort of an AI image generator.

Last time I checked it wasn't very good, so I don't use it. I get a professional graphic designer to design the graphics and then we upload them ourselves.

We find that generally speaking, it will help increase your conversion rate because as people skim the book blurb, maybe don't take it all in, it gives you another chance to connect with them.

It's visually appealing, so it tends to stop shoppers from scrolling because it's a little more interesting. So it's something they can quickly read and perhaps even get more of an emotional connection to the book.

You can use it to build trust and authority for the author in a way that you can't really do in the blurb. As I mentioned, you can showcase the series, and it gives you an SEO boost because behind each image you get to input more keywords.

We all know that Amazon is basically just a big search engine. Search engines are driven by keywords. So you can have, in addition to the seven boxes on your book listing, you can add more keywords on the backend of your Amazon A+ Content.

So I think for most authors, it's worth doing. It can work very well for series authors, children's authors, because you can show the visuals of the inside of the book. I feel like if you're not doing it, you're sort of leaving something on the table that with not much effort you could do.

Joanna: I think another important thing is it is free. I mean, obviously if you hire someone to make the images that costs money, but actually you can just add it onto your KDP account per book and per country as well. It has to be done per country, which is a bit of a pain, but it's not a great interface, to be fair.

Geoff: No, no, it's not.

Joanna: But it's free.

Geoff: Absolutely. I will say that some authors that I've come across have done their own A+ Content using say one of those design tools like Canva or something, which can be great if you are a graphic designer.

I've seen some pretty poor A+ Content design, and that can detract from the book and it can actually impact your sales negatively because I think if readers see sort of amateurish graphic design, they subconsciously think, well geez, what's the writing like?

I'd caution your listeners to get a professional designer. It doesn't have to be expensive—a hundred dollars or something—and you get some good design.

Joanna: Yes, absolutely.

Joanna: Okay, so let's come to the advertising. We're going to assume now that we've got our page sorted with all those things, and I know some people who haven't heard this before are like, “Goodness me, that's a lot to do before just clicking on an ad.” But as you say, it's not just a magic bullet.

Let's ask a bigger question: do we really have to advertise? People back in the old days could just upload a book on Amazon and it would sell. Is that possible anymore? Is organic reach a reality?

Geoff: I don't really think so. For new authors, for most authors who don't have a platform—say a large email list, social media following and so on—it's pretty hard to get noticed. I don't know what you've heard. I think it's something like 5,000 books a day are published on Amazon or something.

Joanna: It is ridiculous. It's just crazy.

Geoff: Right. So you've got all this clutter that you've got to cut through. I came across someone last week who'd done nothing. He'd published his book in July and he said, “Oh, I think we've done all right. We sold 1,800 copies so far.” I said, “Oh my God, that's really good.”

Joanna: That's very good.

Geoff: That's really good. It's his first book, and no advertising. “What did you do?” “Oh, well I've got a pretty big email list.” “Ah, right.” So we all know that that's important, but he's probably tapped out his email list by now.

So now we're doing the things we just talked about, optimizing the product page, and then starting Amazon ads, because eventually your email list is going to run dry.

So in the absence of a platform or some way to promote your book, Amazon ads are, I think, the best way to have your book put in front of thousands, even millions of shoppers over time.

Usually we see it takes about a thousand impressions to get a click. So in other words, your ads show a thousand times, you get a click—that's average, sometimes better, sometimes worse. So you've got to get lots of impressions of your ads to get a small number of clicks, to get a small number of sales.

So I think it's important unless you've got something else that works for you. Some authors do really well with Facebook ads, and I think that's great too.

To me, Amazon ads is like you're going to the supermarket and you're looking for soup. You go to the soup aisle and you look at the soup, and then another can of soup catches your eye. And you know what? That's interesting. I think I'll try that one.

Whereas something like a Facebook ad is more like you're at the supermarket and you're looking for corn, and then you're at the checkout. You happen to see candy or some gum, and so you go, “Oh, impulse buy.” It's not really what you were on Facebook looking for—it's sort of a random thing. It does seem to work for some authors, so…

Joanna: Yes, as you say, there's lots of different options. I mean, even like podcasting—you can't track clicks from podcasts because it's more of a brand-building approach and people will go look for stuff. But it's definitely a way to market. So there's lots of different options, but as we said, we're focusing on Amazon ads.

So your team helped me with some nonfiction books, and one of the things that I thought was great about your approach is even on your website, you are really clear about what books ads work best for and what they don't work well for. So let's start with the good stuff.

What are Amazon ads good for? What are the kinds of books they work best for?Geoff: Yes, they work best for series or if perhaps you have multiple standalones. The reason, of course, is read-through. Usually you're going to spend a little more, perhaps break even, on getting those initial readers. But if they enjoy your books, they're going to want to read more.

Usually they're not clicking on an ad for the second, third, fourth, fifth book. They're going to just find it directly. So that becomes an organic sale with full royalties. So series can work very, very well with Amazon ads.

I think in general, any book where the book page converts from clicks to orders. So that can be the book one in a series, which perhaps has a low price to entice the reader. It can also be a standalone. It could be a standalone nonfiction, could be a standalone novel, as long as it converts.

We've got some examples where we just know that for every six clicks that this author gets, there's a sale. It just happens over and over again, probably because they've got the great product page and good reviews.

I think sometimes it doesn't work as well if you're in a very low-volume niche, something that's just really obscure. That's more because there's just not much traffic, you know? So I think those are probably the best answers I can give for you.

Joanna: What about KU?Geoff: Yes, absolutely. Amazon ads will certainly drive up your KU. We've got one author in particular is doing 150,000 monthly page reads on KU from her ad clicks, but a million and a half monthly overall. So the ad clicks are just driving people into book one, and then they just keep on reading.

Joanna: You mentioned series, but for example, there are some genres where most of the series in a genre might be in KU, and then if you're trying to advertise a book that's not in KU, it might not work so well.

Geoff: Yes, we find it works either way. It really varies from case to case, but Amazon ads on the dashboard, it does track your page reads that you generate from the ads as well as the orders that you generate. So you can really effectively see the impact of the ads—exactly how many page reads came from your ads versus orders.

Joanna: You've mentioned reviews briefly. Many authors, who are new to self-publishing especially, think that they should be advertising at launch doing Amazon ads.

You don't really have any reviews at launch, so when is the best time to be advertising?Geoff: Well, one thing about advertising at launch—it can help you certainly get your book, your brand out there with all of the different impressions of your ads. And Amazon gives you like a little banner on your ads when your book is new that says “Just Released.” It's a little gray banner that goes right above the cover.

I think even if you have low reviews, because you have the “Just Released” banner on, shoppers might be a little more forgiving about the low number of reviews because it's obviously just released.

So when we do book launches, I almost always include Amazon ads in the book launch. It might not be a really high budget, but just to continue to do everything we can to get that initial traffic. Because what we're trying to do with a launch is really three things:

1. Get the Amazon algorithm to notice your book and figure out how it fits into the Amazon universe
2. Get as many reviews as you can quickly
3. Royalties, because without the first two, long-term royalties are just not going to happen

So I think Amazon ads play an important role in helping the algorithm understand your book.

Joanna: But if someone is brand new, it's their first book, is that a good fit? Or are we really looking at—

Do you need a couple of books to make advertising worth the money?Geoff: Yes, it's a good question. I think with new authors, in a way today, you have to be prepared either to invest in your book, in book marketing. It's kind of like, I used to often use the analogy of a rocket launch—rockets burn a lot of fuel to get off the ground. Without the fuel, they stay on the ground.

So there's that consideration that if you want the book to have a chance, you've got to invest in marketing somehow, whether it's Amazon ads or whether it's paid third-party book promotions through the different book promotion websites, or Facebook or TikTok, or whatever you are able to do. Email, whatever you can do.

A small Amazon ads budget can help. Even if you're not doing $20 a day, which is what we would normally recommend, you might find that you can start to generate some sales with a much smaller budget and very conservative bids or cost per click.

Perhaps you're only spending $3 a day and you're only picking up a couple of sales a week or something. But you've just got to do something to get that initial inertia going. Otherwise, the Amazon algorithm will basically drop you like a hot potato.

Joanna: So that's new authors, but then authors who've been around a while, like myself, who have big backlists—and as you are talking about the seven things we need to have, I know there's people listening in the same place as me. They're like, “Well, we've got 40 books, 50 books, 100 books. This is way too depressing.”

I was in my KDP dashboard like yesterday, and I realized that a whole load of my sales descriptions had reformatted to some old version. I don't even know when that happened, but it made me laugh. Then I looked down at my keywords and my categories.

So if we want to keep things moving, how often should we be reviewing these fields if we've been going a while?

When do we refresh categories? When do we refresh keywords?Geoff: Yes, good idea. I think it was perhaps a year and a half ago, Amazon changed their category rules where you used to be able to have 10 and now you have three.

So some authors who were grandfathered into the old 10-category system, it may be well enough just to leave that alone because it's great to have to be across all of those categories.

I think keywords is probably the most important thing to look at. Well, I'll say book blurb and keywords. Book blurb for sure, because that's very much customer-facing. Keywords aren't customer-facing. They're Amazon algorithm-facing.

I was just listening to Dave Chesson last week with a webinar that he presented on Amazon's new algorithm. He stressed the importance of finding the right keywords, but also the importance of having the keywords in your book blurb. It must be done in a way that doesn't sound like it was just written by AI or something, you know?

So that's probably one area to really take a good look at and republish. Publisher Rocket is a great tool for researching the best keywords. You can look up other books and see what keywords those books are ranking for, and therefore that might be a good set of keywords for you.

So it is something worth doing and spending an hour or two on, as well as book blurb is also worth spending time on for sure.

Joanna: Yes, it's one of these things that the more you write, the more you publish, and then the backlist becomes this kind of sprawling thing, especially when you're wide like I am.

Then you have all these different formats and platforms, and you figure how traditional publishers forget to maintain things. It's kind of obvious when you realize how many books they manage.

Geoff: You mentioned formatting issues with book blurbs, and that's quite common too. Because Amazon's little WYSIWYG where you enter your book description isn't perfect, and it does strange things. So you've really got to—

After you publish your book description, make sure you look at it on your Amazon page and check the formatting.I can't tell you how many times I've seen all bold…

Joanna: Oh yeah, all bold or…

Geoff: All bold or large heading, or all italic, no spaces between the paragraphs or whatever. So you've got to really check your output as well. There are tools out there that can generate the HTML so that you could put it in directly that way.

Get some eyeballs on your product pages, whether it's yours, but better off someone else's, or even better, someone like me who does this for a living. Get some opinions on what are customers seeing when they come to your product page.

Usually you're, as an author, too close to it. You can't see the forest for the trees, so to speak. So get some other opinions on what do you think about my blurb and the cover? Is it clear? Because it might be clear to you, but it might not be clear to someone who's never heard of your book before.

Joanna: Yes, absolutely. There are so many things, and that's partly why I wanted to talk to you because I feel like people just say “advertising” or “paid ads” as if it is going to solve all the problems of selling books. And yet so much stuff does go into it.

A lot of it is basics, like it's basic marketing 101, but it's still hard, particularly for cross-genre books. A lot of my fiction, I found that many of the standard approaches don't work on Amazon when you write cross-genre because just in the categories and the keywords, it doesn't fit the boxes.

Geoff: Yes, cross-genre is a tough one for sure.

Joanna: Yes, it is. So my answer to that is to focus on the books that are more easily marketed. That's another trick, isn't it? You don't have to market every single book.

Geoff: Oh no, you don't. Absolutely not.

Joanna: Just market the ones that are going to make you the most money and the ones that are more easily marketed on this platform. So for me, Amazon ads work best for my nonfiction because it's really obvious what it is.

Geoff: Yes, that makes sense. Absolutely.

Joanna: So I did want to ask you, because I've used a combination of auto ads and manual targeting.

Can you explain to people what's the difference between auto ads and manual targeting, and when might auto ads work and when might they not?Geoff: Oh, absolutely. So with Amazon ads, the way that they work is all about something called targeting. And targeting, you can think of it like this: Which other books on Amazon do you want to piggyback on? Which ones are like yours?

If you can find books that are like yours, then when someone's browsing that book, they'll see your ad, they'll click on it, and they might buy your book. So we want to target, and there's really two—we call it three ways of targeting your ads.

One is automatic, often just called auto ads. Amazon decides where it thinks your ads should be displayed, so you have no control over where they show up. You just trust the algorithm understands your book and will put it in the right place.

Now usually it's going to advertise it on books that are in the same categories as you. That's sort of the default. That can result in some wasted reach because it might just not be really zeroing in on books that are like yours, especially if you're in a little bit of a broader category.

The other thing we find with auto ads is that quite often you don't get that many impressions. Impressions is how many times your ads are displayed. When you have low impressions, you have lower clicks, and when you have lower clicks, you have lower sales.

So while auto ads can be a sort of a time saver—they don't take much research to set up, you just fill in the boxes and click the button and off they go—usually they don't have a terrific result until such time as the algorithm really understands your book.

So we don't set up auto ads at the beginning when we work with authors. We wait until we feel like the algorithm has a better understanding of the book.

So what do we do? We do manual campaigns.

Manual campaigns are, as the name suggests, where you have to tell the algorithm where to display your ads. And there are two types of manual campaigns:

One's called a keywords campaign, and as the name implies, you would enter in, let's say, 50 keywords that you want to use for your ads. They could be author names of comps, they could be other book titles or series titles, and they could be genre or trope-related terms or even character types, et cetera.

So if you have a combination of those things, which you should—which you have to manually research by perhaps looking at the also-boughts for your book that are showing up on your product page, using Publisher Rocket is a great tool. Even AI can help you come up with your keywords.

Then the second kind of manual ad is the product ad. With that ad, we're targeting specific categories of books and also specific ASINs. ASIN being a product number. So you find the ASIN of a book like yours and you target it, and we might target five categories and 20 ASINs to start with, something like that.

With those ads, we find that we usually get better results because we are in control of where the ads are showing. So it's one of those things—it's easier to show than tell.

If you can just remember, there's auto and manual. There's two types of manual. When you're starting out, manual's the way to go because you will get more traction with manual ads.

Joanna: I think another issue with the manual advertising, certainly for anyone who's like me, who's just not that interested in data—this is where it becomes difficult. People are like, “Oh my goodness, this is so difficult.” So if people are manually doing their own ads, should they have to log in every day to check things?

What are the time requirements if you want to do your own ads?Geoff: Not every day. Although at the beginning, it's hard to resist the temptation sometimes to log in every day.

It's a bit like when I first started buying stocks for investments—I'd check the stock price every day, but you drive yourself mad. Every time it would go down, you'd get all stressed out, and then it would go up, you'd get all excited.

So probably once a week is a better timeframe. Maybe a little bit more in the first week, but you can set some parameters to make sure that your ads don't run away. That's important. You can set a daily budget, you can set a monthly budget, and then when your ads hit those upper limits, they'll just stop. So that's really good.

You don't want to have that problem where you suddenly get a huge bill that you weren't expecting. You also want to check on them to make sure that you haven't perhaps accidentally bid too high on one of your targets.

Every target, you set a dollar or pound or euro amount for how much you're willing to pay for a click on that target. Sometimes, if you're a little bit careless, you could accidentally bid too much because they may default to a suggested bid, which might be $2.

Well, imagine you're paying $2 for a click and you're making, maybe you're only making $2 on a sale—you could be really upside down on your advertising. So do take care, make sure nothing's gone awry.

You also want to be checking to see which of those targets are getting the clicks and the sales, and then adjusting bids up and down accordingly. If one of your targets is really working for you, you might want to increase the amount that you're willing to bid.

That'll make your ad show up closer to the top, which is going to get you more clicks. Similarly, if you've got targets that are getting clicks but not sales, you may want to turn those off. We usually use a rule of thumb of 20. When we get 20 clicks and we haven't had any orders, we'll turn it off.

So you do need to do some adjustments, and usually twice a month or so is enough time between adjustments.

Joanna: Obviously authors can do their own ads. It's just available. People can log into their KDP dashboard, or there's just one marketing link for the whole thing. You can go in and manage it all there.

If people want help, what does your team offer?Geoff: Yes, sure. Everyone can do Amazon ads, even if you self-published, or even if you're traditionally published, you can still run Amazon ads. That's just fine.

I should just mention those who are traditionally published won't have a KDP dashboard, but you can get into Amazon ads through your Author Central account under the Marketing and Reports tab.

We offer a managed Amazon ad service. We've been doing that since 2019. Basically, you turn over your ads to us.

We access your ads account through what is known as editor access, which basically is a permission that you grant us so that we can log into your ads account through my account. We don't need your password. We can't go shopping and buy anything on your Amazon.

We handle the setup of the ads, including all the keyword and target research, set up the ads, and then monitor, analyze, and optimize regularly. We provide support for authors as well.

In particular, we'll take a good look at your product page—back to the beginning of our conversation. That's actually our first step before we even run the ads. We'll have a session with you.

One of my team will evaluate your product page and make written recommendations about what we recommend that you would improve before you even start advertising. Then we give you the guidance on what to do. If you can't do it yourself, we can help you with those things usually too.

Joanna: Fantastic.

Where can people find you and everything you do online?Geoff: Thanks. My website has everything there. All our pricing and everything is upfront. It's GeoffAffleck.com. Or you can go to GeoffAffleck.com/ads. That goes directly to the Amazon Ads page on my website.

Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Geoff. That was great.

Geoff: Thanks, Joanna. I appreciate you having me on today.

The post Amazon Advertising For Books With Geoff Affleck first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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Are you truly procrastinating, or are you protecting yourself from uncomfortable emotions? What if the real reason you're not finishing your book has nothing to do with laziness or lack of motivation? Colleen Story explores the types of procrastination that keep writers stuck and how you can move past them into success.

In the intro, lessons learned from 14 years as an author entrepreneur; Surprised by Pilgrimage on The Leader's Way Podcast; Blood Vintage, out now.

Write and format stunning books with Atticus. Create professional print books and eBooks easily with the all-in-one book writing software. Try it out at Atticus.io

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn

Colleen Story is the award-winning author of historical fantasy, supernatural thrillers and motivational books for writers. Her latest book is Escape the Writer's Web: Untangle Your Procrastination Type, Discover Personalized Solutions, and Transform Your Writing Life.

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 procrastination is an emotional coping technique that protects your current identity
• How “overthinker” writers use learning and courses to avoid actually writing their own work
• The “guilty type” who feels bad whether they're writing or not writing
• Why perfectionist writers fear failure so much they endlessly revise the same manuscript for years
• How successful writers still procrastinate on uncomfortable tasks like submissions and marketing
• The power of five-minute timed sessions and small wins to ease into a new writing identity

You can find Colleen at ColleenMStory.com and MasterWriterMindset.com.

Transcript of interview with Colleen M. StoryJoanna: Colleen Story is the award-winning author of historical fantasy, supernatural thrillers and motivational books for writers. Her latest book is Escape the Writer's Web: Untangle Your Procrastination Type, Discover Personalized Solutions, and Transform Your Writing Life. So welcome to the show, Colleen.

Colleen: Thanks, Joanna. It's great to be here. I'm really excited to have this chat today.

Joanna: It's such an interesting topic. But first up—

Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing.Colleen: Well, you know, I wasn't one of those people who knew from the time I was in the cradle that I wanted to be a writer. I hear about that a lot, that people seem to know early on. I did not.

I always enjoyed reading. I don't know if anybody will remember the bookmobile that used to come down the street in our neighborhood. That was a highlight of my week, going out and seeing the books in the bookmobile.

So I was always a big reader, and I enjoyed whenever there was an essay test in school. I was thrilled because I felt like I could do well at those.

I didn't think about writing until I had actually graduated with my music degree. Music came first for me. I graduated with a music degree and had moved to a different state, which gave me a little time to think.

When you go to a different state, I would have had to have gone back to more classes to have gotten my teaching certificate in that state. So I just kind of took some time to think.

It was during that time that I got bit by the writing bug. It's just kind of weird how it happened, but it was like out of the blue. I wanted to all of a sudden write stories.

I grabbed a word processor—shows you how long ago this was—and started writing short stories. Within three years I had gotten my first short story published and I got a $10 check for it, which felt so awesome. I had to frame that and put it up. It's still on my writing desk.

So that kind of changed the whole trajectory of my career because I continued to teach music privately, and I still play in the local symphonies and pit orchestras, but as far as my job went, writing just was the thing.

After I got that publication, it was soon after that a copywriting job opened in my town and I got it. That kind of sent me on this new career. I started out as a corporate copywriter and was promoted to managing editor before I left there. I was there for about three years.

My dream at that point was to write a novel and have it traditionally published. I knew that as long as I worked for the corporation, I wouldn't have the time to devote to that—that I needed to really learn the craft of writing a novel.

So I went ahead and went freelance so that I could control my schedule a bit more. I worked on the side for about six months and then turned in my notice. I've been a freelance writer full-time ever since then.

So that got me into the business side of writing. Then on the side I was working on novels for many, many years and got my first novel published in 2015. As of this year, I've now published 10 books, both fiction and nonfiction. That's kind of how it happened for me. I almost fell into it accidentally, but I'm really glad I did.

Joanna: That's interesting.

So are they all traditionally published or are you hybrid now?Colleen: I am hybrid. Yes, my novels were all traditionally published until my very latest series, the historical fantasy series. So my first three were traditionally published.

Then when I started writing for writers, that kind of happened accidentally too. I had never intended to be a nonfiction writer. But when my second novel came out, the publisher—this was back in 2017 when it was released—was wanting you to build more of an online author platform.

The one that I had started, the blog I had started, was not doing very well. So I wanted to try something else. I ended up combining my day job expertise, which was really as a health and wellness writer, with my passion for creativity and I created what was then called Writing and Wellness.

I've since morphed that into Master Writer Mindset, but Writing and Wellness kind of took off and was doing very well. I started getting invitations to go speak at conferences and workshops and things. During that time I was really discussing issues with writers and realizing that they needed some help in different areas of productivity.

Time management at that time was what I was looking into, and I decided I wanted to go ahead and write a book on that. But I didn't want to submit it to a publisher because I knew I would have to create a marketing plan and everything for it, and then I would have to allow them to change it however they felt that they should.

I kind of knew what writers were looking for at that point. I wanted more control over that book so I could really deliver what my writers and my subscribers were telling me they needed. So that's when I dove into self-publishing, was with my writing books, and I've done those that way ever since.

Joanna: That's interesting. So then this book, which is about procrastination specifically, I mean, to me it's like, wow, a whole book on procrastination. You were not procrastinating when you decided on this one.

I said to you before we started recording, I personally don't understand procrastination because I just don't suffer from it myself, but I know that lots of other writers do. So when you sent this to me, I was like, oh yes, this is something that writers really do need. It was interesting, but—

You don't sound much like a procrastinator. So why did you decide to pick this topic?Colleen: It was interesting, and right, I never would have thought of myself as a procrastinator. I typically do surveys of my subscribers and it seems like over the years… I mean, I started the Writing and Wellness, I think it was around 2015. So it's been about 10 years and I will regularly do these surveys.

Repeatedly the subject of productivity, time management, and procrastination would come back as one of the main things that writers were struggling with every year that I would survey.

So I had done some articles, some blog posts on procrastination. I did a couple of YouTube videos on it, but I kept hearing this come back to me. I also would talk to writers at conferences and things, or even at signings.

I would have people come up and say, “I started this book and I never finished it,” or “I really wanted to write this book, but I just never did.” I would talk to writers over and over again and just see this haunted look in their faces about this dream that was untapped. They just had not been able to find a way to finish it.

Then even those writers who had dove in with lots of enthusiasm and maybe were halfway through and then they got stuck, or maybe they got almost finished, but then they weren't sure what to do next. So the story would end up sitting there and they would never actually complete that cycle.

That made me feel really badly because I know what a joy it is to actually go through, finish the project, put it out there, get feedback, and then be on that road of actually being a writer.

There are so many benefits to that that it just felt so badly for these people who were struggling with the different steps along the way that would lead to procrastination.

It's interesting though, as I started doing research for this book, which I did quite a bit, that I did learn that I had procrastinated in the past in certain ways. Because procrastination doesn't always look like completely avoiding the project or scrolling your TikTok feed while you're supposed to be writing.

These are the ways we normally think of what procrastination looks like, and I don't usually do those things. I learned as I was doing the research that I had done some other forms of procrastination that I didn't realize at the time were procrastination.

Joanna: So what were they? Now I'm writing down a list too. What else?

What are the other ways we can recognize procrastination?Colleen: Well, it's kind of like anytime that we avoid doing what we know is the next step, and it's usually very subtle and devious how procrastination works, this type of procrastination, because even very productive writers can end up procrastinating on things that bring up uncomfortable emotions.

At its core, procrastination is always an emotional coping technique. It is a way to protect us from any sort of uncomfortable emotions we may be feeling around doing a certain task.

So I'll give you an example. Where I realized it had happened for me was in submitting my work to editors and publishers. So there came a point in my career as I was writing that I had a novel that I felt was potentially good enough to get a traditional publishing contract, but I wasn't being serious about taking that next step.

I might offhandedly find one publisher, work really hard on the query letter and the synopsis, send it off, get the expected rejection, and then I wouldn't touch it again for another six months to a year.

I was looking back now—I didn't know it at the time—but looking back now, I realize I was totally procrastinating on getting serious about submitting my novel because when I'm honest about it, it was because I was afraid of getting rejected, which makes total sense. All of us are afraid of that.

So I was afraid after all this blood, sweat, and tears I put into this novel to put it out there, nobody was going to want it. So my procrastination was protecting me from the reality of potentially being rejected or having this story never be picked up by a traditional publisher.

It wasn't until I finally got ticked off at myself for not getting serious about this, that I started really making it part of my schedule. So I would make it part of my weekly writing schedule to research publishers, to find their submission guidelines, to create query letters that would go with what they were looking for, to really dig deeper into finding publishers that would fit for my project.

When I finally did that and got serious about it and stopped dancing around it, that's when I got my first publishing contract. So looking back, I could see, okay, I was procrastinating on the part of the job, so to speak, that I needed to tackle, but that brought up uncomfortable emotions.

I've since realized that even very productive writers, I hear this from other writers, perhaps in their marketing side of the work that they do that brings up uncomfortable emotions. So they may avoid that or decide they're too busy for that, or just, “Well, I'm just going to focus on writing and not worry about that.”

We're actually procrastinating on this other part of our craft or business that we know we should be doing because it's uncomfortable for us.

Joanna: Yes. Well, it's good we're talking about this because I now think back to when I started writing. So when you are at the beginning of your writing journey—and I did all the course. I love learning. I spent really years doing courses, going to conferences, taking a lot of notes.

So I did a lot of writing, but it was all writing notes on other people's talks and things like that.Colleen: That sounds familiar.

Joanna: Yes, exactly. I know this is common. There are people listening who are like, yes, I'm still doing that too. So perhaps I was procrastinating about actually writing my own work by thinking I was doing all the right stuff, you know?

I was going to all the conferences and actually I was going on courses, but I was never writing my own work as such. Or if I did, it was just a tiny piece.

Then I remember going to one course and this guy said, “Okay, before we get started, we're going to do some writing.” He said, “The time is starting now. Write for five minutes on the moment where you knew something had happened, like the moment you knew this thing had happened.”

I was like, “What? We have to do some writing. This isn't what I signed up for. You're meant to tell me more stuff so I can avoid writing.”

So I guess that's an example from my earlier days. Then after I did that timed writing exercise, that kind of just tipped me over and I've never struggled with that since. It literally is, if there's an issue, do some timed writing exercises.

So if people are listening and they're like, yes, I recognize myself, how do you get over it? Like, what are some of the things we can do? Timed writing worked for me.

What are some of the things people can do?Colleen: Well, I think the first thing we have to do is be aware. I mean, because most of us at the time, I certainly wasn't aware that that's what I was doing until I finally got ticked off enough that I was like, I need to move forward or I need to forget this.

So I think we have to be aware that what we're doing is actually procrastinating on the next step we need to take. That can be, I think, the most difficult part because it's like you said, you didn't feel like you were avoiding anything. I didn't feel like I was.

So I think we have to kind of take a step back and say, am I doing what I need to do to progress to the next level I want to get to?

If I'm really serious about whatever your next goal is, whether that be selling your self-published book, or that be trying to get a traditional publishing contract, or that be actually finishing this novel, whatever it might be for you.

Am I really taking the steps I need to take to get to that next place?What you were speaking of reminded me of one of the types in my book, which is the overthinker. We think that thinking is going to help us progress. I have been guilty of that myself in the past, thinking if I think through things that that's going to help me move forward.

I've since learned that doing is a far better teacher. It's like you said, once you start doing the writing, that is going to take you a lot farther.

There's an example in my history that I was leaving a lot of novels half finished because I would get halfway through, I would get stuck, and then I would start thinking about it.

So I would say, “Okay, well this must not be a very good idea, or the idea must not be good enough to carry through a novel, so I need to actually think about a new one and start a new one.” I would do that over and over.

It wasn't until I had a mentor talk about how important it was to actually finish the story. “You can't learn how to write a story until you finish this story,” that I realized I was procrastinating, that I was not doing what I needed to do to get to the next level, which for me was learning how to tell the complete story.

The only way that I could learn to do that was to do it. I had to stick with the story I had and go back and study story structure, go get some help from an editor or book coach, or do something to help me take it to the next level, which was to actually finish the book.

So I think the first thing we have to do is be aware of what we're dancing around or what we're avoiding because it makes us feel nervous or afraid, or we won't be up to this next step. That's often what happens is we don't feel ready for the next step.

We have to bring that into our awareness and then say, okay, I think the best way to always approach it is in the smallest step possible.

I talk a lot about giving yourself small wins. So what you said about some timed writing, he asked you to write for five minutes. That's one of my favorites, is the five minute rule, to sit down and do something for five minutes. That can apply to most anything.

For a lot of writers that are struggling with, “How can I start building my platform?” or “How can I start marketing this book?” Say, “Today I'm going to sit down for five minutes and I'm going to create some graphics for my social media posts,” or “Today I am going to sit down for five minutes and I'm going to start researching places where I might be able to promote my book,” whatever it might be.

Taking little, tiny, small wins is a way to ease yourself into what this is really about, which is building a new identity. Because if we take a look at this seriously, procrastination is a comforting, emotional coping tool that keeps us in the identity we are at right now.

So if I look back at the example I gave, I was the writer who was not yet published. I was the aspiring writer. I was the writer who wanted to be published, and that was my identity at the time. So there was a lot wrapped up into that. You know, I was comfortable being that person.

I was trying to get better at writing. I was trying to finish a good novel. I was trying to create a novel that was good enough to be published, and that was my identity at the time.

What I needed to do was step into a new identity of being a traditionally published author. That is a big step in our brains because we are very used to being who we are. Anything that takes us beyond that feels scary to us. So we have to then take a very small step.

So the small step, anything that has to do with, “I want to get here. So what's the smallest step I can take to start down that path?” If we take one little tiny step at a time, we can gradually ease our brains and our identities into this new identity we want to create, if that makes sense.

Joanna: Yes, I like that. It's interesting. I think the five minute thing is also good the other way.

So you mentioned before, are we avoiding things by, for example, scrolling TikTok. Or, for me, I'll sometimes check X or go and look at my Feedly list of blog posts and things that I've got on there. So I give myself five minutes in that direction sometimes.

So it's like, this isn't procrastination, this is a break. This is a break. I think these types of behaviors can turn into a way of procrastinating if they go on for an unlimited amount of time. Like people look up and suddenly they've actually spent two hours on social media or something instead.

So can we stop that as well?Colleen: Well, what you said sounds like something that I recommend to people who have a type of brain that seeks out that novelty, that seeks out that occasional distraction. That's another type of brain I talk about in the book.

There is actually a distracted type of procrastination, and I've actually discussed this with several different writers who do struggle with this. They have found success doing that very thing, giving themselves a limited amount of time.

“Okay, so I'm going to do whatever distracted behavior I enjoy,” whatever those various things you mentioned, whatever it might be, “but I'm going to do it for a set amount of time.”

Some people will also trade time, so they'll say 10 minutes of distraction for 20 minutes of writing. So you might have a half an hour blocked out for writing, and 20 minutes of that time will be writing and 10 minutes will be your chosen form of distraction, whatever that may be.

One of the things I talk about in the book a lot and in my videos too, is this importance of self understanding, being able to understand the kind of creative brains that we have. I've learned over the research of this book and just over my experience working with different writers, that we are all so very different.

We all often talk about what we have in common as far as being writers go, but we're all very different in how our brains work and how our creative selves operate. Knowing how they operate and what they need to operate at their best can really help us improve our productivity and take that next step into the next identity that we want to reach.

So finding out that this is something that you need or that you enjoy or that helps you stay on task, can be a good piece of knowledge that you can then turn around and say, “Okay, how can I use this to help myself be more productive?”

Joanna: Yes, I think that's so important, this self understanding. I spoke to someone recently and she was almost having guilt over not writing. Guilt seems to be a massive thing in the writing community. “Oh, I didn't write, therefore I feel guilty,” which is crazy because there are a lot better things to feel guilty about, I think, than not writing.

It's so interesting that it's very real though. I think the self understanding is like not beating yourself up over this. It's trying to figure out who you are and what works for you, and then figuring out a way that will make it work for you if you like.

If you really do want to write a book, for example, then you have to figure out your type as such.

So maybe you could give us a couple more of the common types that you found.Colleen: Well, let's talk about the great one that you just brought up there. I do actually have a guilty type in my book because this is so pervasive in the writing community.

I saw this many, many years ago. I did a blog post on writing guilt and just punched it in at Google at the time—”Writer's Guilt”—and I was shocked about how many posts came back. I was like, “Wow, this is huge in the writing community.” It's this thing that so many of us writers seem to carry around with us.

It's like we're guilty when we're writing and we're guilty when we're not writing. Many people end up in this place so they feel guilty if they don't get the writing done. But then if they actually set the time aside for themselves to write, then they feel guilty about what they're not doing when they're writing.

So it's this really mean double-edged sword that can just tear a person's whole motivation for going after this dream down into shreds. So in the book, I talk about guilt as it relates to that, but also as it relates to procrastination.

You procrastinate on your writing for whatever the reason is. There are many different reasons. Then you feel guilty that you procrastinated.

So you come back and try to restart your writing process, but that guilt gets in the way and you're feeling bad about everything you haven't done that you should be at this certain point in your book or whatever it might be. That kind of tends to destroy the joy you might have brought to writing for that day.

So there's all kinds of coping techniques for that. One of them is just that you have to always allow yourself to start fresh. Always allow yourself to start fresh.

Then if you're someone who tends to feel guilty one way or the other, whether you're writing or not, I think that often is a case of not allowing yourself to follow your dreams.

There's a whole thing about people pleasing that I'm going to talk about on YouTube because I was definitely a people pleaser for a long time that we have to reckon ourselves with.

We have to say, “Okay, my dreams matter too.”This is one of the things I'm really passionate about helping writers with because as you and I know having lived the writing life, we realize all the benefits that come from devoting your life to a craft like writing.

It's not just about finishing the books or having something to leave behind you. It's all the ways that it shapes you. There are studies proving that regularly writing helps to shape your brain. It helps you to become smarter in a lot of ways. It increases the connections in your brain.

It makes you more empathetic. Studies have shown that as well, that you tend to overcome difficulties and challenges along the way because we all know how difficult the writing life can be. You become a more resilient and stronger person.

Also, you're always expressing yourself through writing, which can really be, even if you're not writing about your own life experiences, it can be really therapeutic.

So people that are robbing themselves of that by not allowing themselves to take their dreams seriously, aren't just robbing themselves of the book they may write, they're robbing themselves of the people they could be becoming by going through the process of writing and completing a book and perhaps publishing it.

So I try to emphasize to people that if you have a dream to write, there's usually a deeper reason for it besides just that you want to write a book. There's usually, I like a calling to your soul that is asking you to step up and be even more than perhaps you are right now.

If you deny that, if you say, “Well, it's not that important,” or “What other people want me to do is more important,” or you feel guilty because you're making room in your life for that.

Imagine if you had a friend who was doing that, and you could see this in this friend wanting to come out, you can see that this is where this friend needs to go in their own personal development and they're denying themselves that. It's really a crime because it's kind of like you're robbing this person of their ability to self-actualize at an even higher level.

So I try to impress upon people to give your dream the position it needs in your life so that you understand that making it a priority is not about being selfish or self-indulgent. It's about your own development, about becoming the best person you possibly can be.

If that dream is there and has been there, especially for the person you are talking about for 30 years, that dream has not left, and there's a reason for that. I believe there's kind of a soul calling reason for that, whether people believe that or not. It doesn't matter.

Giving yourself that importance in your dreams and allowing yourself that time is going to make you a happier person. So I would just suggest, again, a small win. Set aside 15, 20 minutes, however many days of the week that you can make it, and start making that a priority. Don't allow anyone to take that time away from you.

You will start to see how beneficial it is for yourself. How much better you feel, how much more whole as a person you feel because we've all experienced it as writers. When we actually make the time and we honor that part of ourselves, how much better people we are.

Once a person starts doing that, they'll realize that they're a better person, not only for themselves, but for everyone around them. So that's a little bit about the guilty type.

Joanna: Yes, I think it's interesting. I mean, you said there about, think about it as another friend or something, you wouldn't knock down their dream.

I kind of think that our creative selves are like children. Like you, there's the child inside you who wants to write and as you say, this kind of calling, creative calling that we have had for a long time whenever it came up in our lives. You had it for music at the beginning and then it came for writing.

For me it probably was always writing. Like you would never say to like a 6-year-old or an 8-year-old, “No. Go and do some accounting or something.”

Like you encourage—you know, nothing wrong with accounting—but I mean, you wouldn't say to a little 6-year-old, “No, you can't go write a story or you can't go play with words or play music or whatever.” We encourage that behavior in children.

So I think when we squash down that creative self in our own lives, it can almost feel like that growth is stunted somehow, or there's this kind of sad child inside that just really wants to play with words or play with music. So we want to help that and facilitate that. As you say, find the joy.

Colleen: Exactly. And I think when you become an adult, I would almost say it's even more important than I think that it is in children because of the many benefits I see that in people and that the studies have found in people when you write and you write regularly.

It's hard to describe when you've gone through a lifetime of writing as you and I have, but it's kind of like imagining myself not having devoted my life to the craft of writing and everything that entails.

I mean, you go through the process of just writing a story is a huge thing that happens in your brain when you learn how to do that, and that happens with your empathy. Studies have found that we become more empathetic as we write about different characters, and we have to be in their skin as we write about them.

We go through the process of actually completing this story, and then we publish it, and then we get feedback, and then we go back and do it again. This is all very much a personal development thing that happens.

So we are becoming better versions of ourselves through this whole process. Like you say, if we squash it down, then we're denying ourselves that ability to become that person. It's almost like we kind of sit there and we stay at the same level rather than growing, which we would hope to do throughout our lives.

Joanna: Absolutely. Okay. So one more type.

Do we have one more type that you're like, yes, that one I definitely want to talk about?Colleen: Yes, and that would be the perfectionist, I think. When I was asking writers to complete the questionnaire that I have in the story and making sure that it was all coming out accurate and everything, a great number of them were coming back as the perfectionist types.

In my book, just so people know, there usually isn't just one type. There usually is maybe one or two primary types. But when I was doing this, checking with writers and having them take this quiz, I often found that many of them were a blend of perhaps two or three more types.

I talk about the blend and how that operates in your writing life, but many of them had the perfectionist in there. It was either their primary type or perhaps their secondary type. The whole thing about perfecting our work. I've always known that I was a perfectionist as well, and so many writers came back with that.

So it's kind of like the guilty type that seems very pervasive among writers as creators. So I looked into that research a little bit more carefully, and what I discovered surprised me and has helped me with my perfectionism as well.

Perfectionism, at its core, is a huge fear of failure.So we often think when we're perfectionists we're like, “Well, I just want this project to be as good as it can be,” and there is a lot of that in there.

I mean, often perfectionists do put out very high quality work, but there's also something else behind that if we are so perfectionist that we are endlessly tweaking and “here's draft number 75” and we're not taking that next step to share our work. What's really at the core of that is this huge fear of failure.

So in perfectionist writers, I feel like one of the big things they have to help themselves with is to gather the courage to take the risk that they need to take. Because one thing that I've learned over my writing career, the more that I risk failure, the less of a big deal it seems to be.

So I'm more willing now to go out and try things that I may fail at or some new marketing technique or some new author platform building thing, or some different type of book or story, because now I realize that failure is not as big a deal. In fact, failure is great. It's a good way for us to learn.

When you're in the early stages of being a perfectionist, that can really hold you back because you're just constantly thinking about it. One example that I hear often from writers is they're on the same book. They've been working on this first book that they wrote for 10 years because they got to make this book just perfect.

They have this belief that this one book is going to kind of be their writing career. I understand that because I did that too. I really focused on that book number one. Book number one was going to be what launched me into my novel writing career, which looking back now to me seems really silly.

Book number one is basically just practice. After I had written seven half-finished manuscripts and I finally managed to complete one that I felt was good enough for publication, and it did get published. But still looking back at it now, it's like, “Okay, well that was just practice.”

We start to realize the more we do, and this is going back to that thing, that doing is so much better than thinking. Doing the book and going to the next book and going to the next book.

Perfectionists tend to really get caught up, especially young writers in that first book and not taking the long view of, “Okay, do you want to be a writer for life? Then you want to be thinking about book five, book 10, book 15 down the road. When we think that way, we are less likely to be so nitpicky about that first one.

Yes, make it as high quality as you can, but have a time limit. You know, “I have this book, and I'm going to give myself one year or two years, or whatever it is to finish it, and then I'm going to move on and I'm going to risk failure.”

I'm going to risk perhaps this not being perfect or perhaps it not selling millions of copies or whatever our dreams might be for it, because I know that this is about my experience and getting better and developing my skills as a writer. I do that by writing the next book.

Joanna: Yes, I actually get really annoyed at this kind of “my book is my baby” metaphor. I mean, obviously babies are very precious and special when they're with you for a long, long time and all of that, and so you attach the kind of emotional language around a book.

People just get obsessed with this one book for years and years and years. I have a lot of books now too, and it's sort of that they're employees actually. Once they're finished and they go out in the world, they're employees.

Colleen: That's a great way to think of it. I haven't thought of it that way.

Joanna: Yes, they're assets.

They're intellectual property assets, and they earn me money. So, therefore, they're employees.Now, of course, I didn't think about that at the beginning of my career, but it feels like a much, yes, I do the best job I can on every single book, but I'm not so emotionally attached, you know, to them, I think in the same way.

So as you say, it's changing the attitude, and I agree with you. There's so many people who just fixate on one book for a really long time, and also I think you, you don't think you have any more ideas.

I remember that from the beginning of my career. It was like, “Well, I'll never have any ideas.” But the truth is, once you clear that pipe—that's how I call it, it's like a pipe—you just need to clear that first blockage out the way, and then that pipe just keeps flowing. The ideas keep flowing, but you need to kind of unblock it with that first book.

Colleen: Oh, so very true. I was going to say, even if you do remain emotionally connected, which I think many of us do, I'm emotionally connected to my stories.

The whole thing of finding the courage and risking getting that book out there is such a good skill to develop because once you put it out there and you realize, like you say that the pipe is now open and you're off working on book number two, suddenly book number one is not as important to you.

You're now attached to book number two, and it happens that way with every single one that you go on and do next. Your next book is the one that you're really emotionally invested in.

So I think that's the other thing we don't see when we're just starting out, is that this same sort of investment could apply to a different child, so to speak, if that's how we look at our work. We could apply to the next story that we're doing.

We think this is the only one in our lives, which is just a shortsighted way of looking at it. So I try to encourage young writers to try to take that longer view and like you say, to realize that they have a lot more in them than just the one book.

I think the other big problem with that approach is that then when you finally do get it out there, if it doesn't fulfill all of your dreams, it is so hugely crushing and is so discouraging.

Esepcially for young writers to have put all this stuff in there, maybe 10 years, 15 years, 20 years on one single book, and then you finally get it to where you think it's amazing and you put it out there and it doesn't do everything you wanted it to do.

Then you, instead of realizing this was book number one and I have a lot more in me and I need to keep going and get better and go on and have this writing life, you think, “Oh. Well, this wasn't what I thought it was going to be, so I guess I better just quit” because it becomes such a crushing defeat, if that makes sense.

So I think trying to reprogram kind of your thinking into “there will be another one that I can be invested in. There will be the next project, and the important thing is to get this out and give myself the time to do these other books that are going to come along afterwards” is going to help you retain much more of your courage and your motivation as you move forward than if you put all your eggs in one basket, so to speak.

Joanna: You've used the phrase “young writers” a couple of times. Just to be clear for people, you mean people who have a low writing age, as in people who are still on one book or only started writing last year, whatever their actual age, they might be 65.

Colleen: Right, exactly. Exactly. Still a young writer. I think that's really important.

Joanna: And then you just said something like, and if that book doesn't fulfill all the dreams you had for it, then you might be disappointed. I'm thinking—

How likely is it that any book fulfills all the dreams?Colleen: Right. But I mean, I remember thinking that when I was first starting out that this book was, and I hear that from so many writers. They're, “Here's draft number 20 of the first book that they're working on.”

What really kills me is when it's book one in a series, and they've still got book two and three to write and they're putting all their eggs in this basket and I can just see this huge fall coming in the future. I don't want that to happen.

Joanna: Well, I guess we've talked about that writing craft side, but I'm also interested around the business side because you said earlier that you did procrastinate around sending out the book and pitching and that kind of thing. I feel like writers also procrastinate on marketing.

So you write fiction and nonfiction, you're also a freelance writer.

So how do you tackle marketing and the business side? What might people procrastinate in around that?Colleen: Yes. I feel like that is a huge side of it that I wouldn't have really thought about procrastinating applying to before I did the research for this book. I am definitely a good candidate for this because I'm more on the creative side. I was not looking at this as a business early on.

This has been something that I've tried to then develop later in my career, because I've always had my freelance writing job to cover the bills, so to speak. So the writing was my creative outlet on the side.

Then as I've grown as a writer and have several books now, and I've gotten older and kind of in looking at the future, I'm like, “Boy, I really would like this to be more on the business side of what I do.”

Also, I'm experiencing changes now because as AI comes on, the whole freelance writing industry is going through a lot of big upheavals and changes. So as I look at that, I think, “Okay, well I need to tackle the business side of this as well.”

I've always had that along there as far as I have built author platforms that have grown and I've got a subscriber list and I'm doing all those things. I find that the marketing things that work change so often that it becomes like this whole other part of what we do as creatives that we need to learn about and get better at as we go.

So for me, it's become very much a self-education thing, and I'm learning and then I'm doing, and I'm learning and I'm trying something else, and I'm learning and trying something else. I think the whole thing of being willing to risk failure really comes in huge on the marketing side.

So again, it's like what's going to work for you personally? Maybe you are really good at creating a blog and that becomes your platform. Maybe you are better at doing YouTube videos and that becomes your platform. Maybe you do a podcast like you do, and that becomes how you reach people.

At the end of the day, marketing is just about trying to introduce our work to more people. So it's like, “How do I do that, and what are my natural strengths, and how can I apply those to the marketing side of things?”

I think most writers are uncomfortable with this because we never learned how to do this. Many of us are not natural business people or marketing people. That's not something we've done in our past. We were drawn to the creative side, but the business side seems very foreign to us.

So many writers will come to me at workshops and say, “I'm bad at marketing.” And I don't think that that's it necessarily. I think we just didn't learn how to do this and perhaps we're not naturally gifted at it, but that doesn't mean that we can't educate ourselves and put ourselves out there.

So I think for me, the key has been just trying this and trying that. The more I do that, the more marketing becomes fun because it's like experimentation and trying different things to get word about my book out there, and then just seeing what works and going back and analyzing the results and then doing more of what does and less of what didn't.

So for me, I'm definitely not a master marketer by any means, and I'm always listening to The Creative Penn podcast so that I could learn more about all of that. The Novel Marketing podcast and some of those others that I'm always tuning into.

I've kind of made it part of my writing life now. I think that's another key for writers is just to bring that marketing side in more often in what you're exposing yourself to and working into your weekly timeline of what you're tackling so that you have writing time, but you also have marketing time.

That's how I'm tackling it at this point. I don't know if that really answered your question, but that's where I'm at.

Joanna: Well, I mean, even that you said you listen to podcasts and here you are on the podcast. I feel like people feel—and I have had this feeling—like I should be doing something like TikTok. TikTok is the obvious one we should be doing, you know, short form video.

I'm like, I did try and literally my friend Sacha Black got on the phone with me, tried to help me do it, and I had a TikTok account for about six hours, and I just hated it. I hate it.

The main thing is, like you said, I don't consume short form video. Not on Instagram. Not on YouTube, not on TikTok, not anywhere. I don't really watch video, but I listen to a lot of podcasts.

So whether this has all become one because I've been podcasting so long, but the fact is, of course I can do podcasting and I listen to podcasts so I know the medium and it suits me and it's what I enjoy—the longer form discussions.

Whereas somebody who loves being on TikTok as a consumer would also be better at it as a creator. So we have to think about it that way, don't we?

You can't do everything. You just have to find what works for you.Colleen: You're exactly right. This comes back to that self-knowledge. What are we? What do we naturally gravitate toward? What are we good at? And what do we enjoy?

Personally, I enjoy doing YouTube videos. I didn't think I would, but I saw that YouTube was a place where you could connect with people. I started picking that up. I'd had the channel for a while, but I hadn't done much with it.

Last August, actually, I decided to get serious and start posting once a week, and I found that I really enjoy that format. It seems a little similar to blogging to me, which I did well with my blog on my platform.

Now it seems like video's kind of becoming even more of an immediate way to reach people, especially in an age of AI. So the long form video, kind of the educational type videos I've taken to, and I think people have to decide what is going to work best.

I think often the only way you can figure that out is to try it. You just have to give it a try. The good thing is, I think the biggest thing that's helped me is most people don't care. They're not watching you.

You know, when I was first thinking about getting on video, I'm like, “Oh my gosh, people are going to see me and this is going to be scary and all that.” But you realize after you do it that it's really hard to build an audience and you have to get serious about it.

You have to have a regular plan for how you're doing it. It has to be in your writing life regularly. So one video, two videos, three videos is pretty much probably going to be ignored. We can assume that. So that kind of takes some of the fear out of it. It's like, “Oh, go ahead and try it. See what happens.”

If you have an inclination to do short form video, give it a try, see how it goes. You're not going to get 50 zillion views on your first or second or third video most likely, but you can determine if you enjoy it.

Do you enjoy this type of creative outlet? Do you enjoy blogging? Do you enjoy creating graphics and things on social media?

Now, one of my writing friends just loves Instagram. Is always creating reels and things for Instagram, not really my cup of tea. I found out that that's not really where my interests lie, but again, it's just trying these different things and seeing what works for you and what helps you to connect with new readers.

Joanna: Right.

So where can people find you and your books online?Colleen: My writing motivational site is MasterWriterMindset.com, and then my author site is just my name, ColleenMStory.com. People always ask me, that is my real name. My dad gifted me with a pen name. It's cool how often that happens actually.

Those are my two main websites. I am on YouTube at ColleenMStoryteller, and there is actually a free quiz that people can take that's related to the procrastination book that's on my website right now. That's called MasterWriterMindset.com/findyours.

Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Colleen. That was great.

Colleen: Thank you, Joanna. It was great to be here.

The post Overcoming Procrastination With Colleen M. Story first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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Fourteen years ago, in September 2011, I left my day job to become a full-time author-entrepreneur. Every year since, I’ve reflected on the journey and what I learn along the way.

My challenges continue to evolve with the business, and you'll likely be at a different stage, but I hope you find my lessons learned useful on your own author journey.

You can read all my lessons learned from previous years on my timeline here — and remember, just like everyone else, I started out writing my first book with no audience. But with time and continued effort, everything is possible.

(1) Self-publishing continues to change — and there are more choices than ever Earlier this year, I updated Successful Self-Publishing, now in its Fourth Edition, and it was extraordinary to realise how much had changed over the couple of years since the last edition.

There are more choices than ever in terms of how you get your book into the world and how you reach readers, and while that can be daunting, it can also be a liberating ‘choose your own adventure’ experience.

You can still start with an ebook on Amazon and put it into KU, or go wide with ebook and print on all book retailers, or produce an audiobook and a hardback along with the main editions and sell in the usual way on the usual stores.

But you can also do so much more now!

Direct sales have become an important part of the indie author business model, and personally, I make far more money away from Amazon than from the platform that has been the dominant source of revenue for indie authors for so long.

Indie authors have always been a hidden part of the publishing industry, and our sales and revenue barely acknowledged by media and industry reports, but it’s even more so now.

Kickstarter and other crowdfunding platforms, Shopify and other direct sales stores, subscription sites like Patreon and SubStack, and many others are not counted in bestseller lists or industry reports, but as ever, indie authors just keep on creating, enjoying our freedom, and focusing on our readers and fans, rather than industry commentators.

I’ve done three Kickstarter campaigns since last year’s lessons learned — Blood Vintage, a folk horror special hardback, Death Valley, a standalone thriller, and The Buried and the Drowned, a short story collection. None of these fit the model of what sells well on the main retailers, but they are perfect for crowdfunding and selling direct, and also end up on the main stores eventually.

I have two Shopify stores — JFPennBooks.com and CreativePennBooks.com and I use BookVault print on demand for my physical books, and Bookfunnel to deliver ebooks and audiobooks, as I prefer the freedom of having no physical stock or shipping.

But there are indie authors now pushing the boundaries of selling direct. Sacha Black as Ruby Roe, as well as Adam Beswick, are both killing it with Kickstarter and Shopify sales and shipping from their own warehouses, powering sales by TikTok and Instagram rather than paid ads.

David Viergutz started selling horror stories by physical letter in the post and is now expanding into his own epistolary empire!

There are so many indie authors doing exciting and new things with their writing, publishing and marketing. There is no single business model anymore.

You get to choose your path — or invent a new one, and of course, this is both the opportunity and the challenge at the heart of being an indie author.

(2) Some creative projects are books of the heart, rather than commercial prospects — and that's okayMy short story collection The Buried and the Drowned is a really personal project. It means a great deal to me, as there is something tangibly important about having my short stories in print after more than a decade of digital-only publication.

The book represents a mind shift, a moment when I started writing in a form that I didn’t even know I wanted to write, but have grown into and now look forward to creating.

These stories also contain more fragments of my life than my longer fictional works, and more glimpses into my own back story through the Author’s Notes included throughout.

Short stories can make money, for sure, but like poetry, they are written more from a creative drive, than a commercial one. Perhaps that makes them even more precious.

The Buried and the Drowned will be available from my store, JFPennBooks from 1 November and at all the usual stores from 1 December — www.JFPenn.com/buried

(3) Not everything works out as planned — but that’s okay too, as indie authors have options! In October 2024, I did a Kickstarter for the gorgeous hardback edition of my folk horror novel, Blood Vintage, but then, rather than self-publishing it in all formats, the book went out with my agent to major publishers in the US and UK. (I didn’t want a small press deal as I can do what they do myself, so it only went to significant imprints.)

There were many months of waiting, and then some lovely rejections, but mostly silence. The trad pub process is incredibly slow, and that in itself was a reminder that it might not be a good fit for me, at least for this book.

After nine months, I said that we needed to set a time limit and then I would take it back, and we have now reached that point.

Blood Vintage is available now in ebook and print editions from my store, JFPennBooks, and I am just working on the audiobook with my voice clone through ElevenLabs, which is a fun project! It’s also on pre-order at the other stores for 15 October 2025 — www.jfpenn.com/bloodvintage

I’m thrilled to have it back as this book has some very personal elements and it’s set in my home county of Somerset, so if you’d like to try an English folk horror novel set at a biodynamic vineyard, click here to check it out.

Will I try the traditional publishing approach again?

Yes, at some point, but probably for a more mainstream kind of thriller, or a different kind of book altogether.

(4) Some books take longer than others I’ve learned this lesson before as my Pilgrimage memoir took three years, and my ‘shadow book,’ took almost two decades to emerge as Writing the Shadow, but it’s sometimes hard to figure out which books need more time — and it turns out that I’m working on another one of those!

Over the last 18 months my husband Jonathan has worked on an MBA as well as his day job, so we haven’t traveled as much as usual. I’ve taken the opportunity to work on my ‘gothic cathedral book,’ visiting lots of cities in the UK, researching and taking photos and thinking about how this book might come together.

Originally, it was going to be a purely photo book, which I then abandoned as I discovered the pain of getting photo permissions.

But then ChatGPT became my useful sidekick, and with Deep Research, I was able to get a full list of all the contacts at all the cathedrals, as well as a draft letter and a process for doing that.

Then, during my travels this spring and summer, the book has deepened and shifted. I have thoughts on memento mori, stone and deep time, the nature of change, and so much more. Right now, it is tens of thousands of words of disjointed thoughts and ideas, and tens of thousands of photos!

I told Kristen Tate, my editor, that I would have a draft to her by the end of the summer, but a few weeks ago, I told her it wasn’t happening. This is not a book I can rush, so it might be 2026, it might be 2027. I don’t know.

This is another book of my heart. It is about as far as writing to market as you can get! It has taken a lot of time in the last year and it will take a lot more time.

But I trust the creative process.

I’ve been in this position before, and I will be so again. The chaos is part of the fun of discovery writing, so I won’t rush it, or try to force the book into shape. I trust emergence, and it will come in its own time.

You can see my photos and articles about the gothic cathedrals on my Books and Travel site here. These write ups are the first part of the processing phase, or the incubating phase, a necessary part of any kind of travel based research, at least for me. I hope you enjoy the virtual visits!

(5) Sometimes you need to push into a new trajectoryI turned 50 in March 2025, and so inevitably, thoughts of the next decade flashed into my mind. I’ve also had a need for change for a while, and have started a slow pivot over the last few years.

I started writing seriously for publication in 2005, so it’s been twenty years of focus to get to this point.

I left my job in 2011, so I’ve been a full-time author entrepreneur for 14 years — which is now longer than I was an IT consultant in my previous career.

My work is deepening and I want to think about and write what matters, so in a few weeks time, I'm starting a Masters in Death, Religion and Culture at the University of Winchester. It is a full-time online course, so I will be back to having a ‘day job equivalent’ in terms of the time I need to focus on something else other than being an author entrepreneur.

I’m doing this because I need more input and variation in my thinking. I want to dig deeper into the big questions that fascinate me — mortality, meaning, and the sacred. These themes run through my fiction and memoir but I want to explore them more rigorously.

My Top 5 Clifton Strengths are Learner, Intellection, Strategic, Input, and Futuristic, so it’s not a surprise that I would seek out another degree. My previous degrees are in Theology, and also Psychology, so this builds on those, and potentially gives me a new trajectory and new ideas for my writing.

The academic environment will challenge me in different ways. I'll read texts I might never have encountered, engage with ideas that stretch my thinking, and defend my arguments in ways that will ultimately make my writing stronger. As authors, we’re always researching, but formal study is a different kind of discipline. Whatever happens, I know this course will generate a whole load of new ideas for my creativity, which will emerge in fiction and non-fiction alike.

Don’t worry! I’m not giving everything up. Not at all!

I’ll continue to share with my author community first on patreon.com/thecreativepenn and also continue to podcast at The Creative Penn, although I will be reducing the number of interviews in 2026 and doing more solo, shorter episodes.

I’m not sure whether I’ll write any new books in the coming year, but the beauty of the backlist is that I can continue to market my other books and still make income that way.

I also have multiple streams of income through the podcast, Patreon, and also my AI-Assisted Artisan Author webinars. The final one for 2025 is on Sunday 21 September 2025, and I will do a new batch in early 2026.

If you're feeling stagnant or like you need a fresh perspective or a new trajectory, consider pushing yourself into something new.

It doesn’t have to be a degree, of course, but perhaps try writing in a new genre, or taking a workshop outside your comfort zone, traveling somewhere new, or attending a live event that you know will be a challenge. I will be at Author Nation in November, so perhaps I will see some of you there.

ConclusionAfter 14 years, I'm still here, still writing, still learning, still growing, still sharing.

I'm grateful for this weird, wonderful career that lets me explore whatever fascinates me while sharing the journey with others. From AI to Gothic cathedrals to death studies, it’s quite the ride!

Thank you to everyone on this journey with me — my readers, my Patreon community, podcast listeners, and everyone who backs my Kickstarters and buys my books. You make this possible.

The next year will bring new challenges and discoveries, and I’ll keep sharing what I learn along the way. I hope you'll join me for whatever comes next.

What about you? What lessons are you learning on your author journey?I'd love to hear about them, so please leave a comment or question below.

The post Lessons Learned from 14 Years as a Full-Time Author Entrepreneur first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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What are the challenges of writing and publishing books for children? How can you publish high-quality books and still make a profit? How can you market books to children effectively in a scalable manner? Darcy Pattison gives her tips.

In the intro, Novel Writing November; Business models and ethics for authors [Self-Publishing with ALLi]; AI-Assisted Artisan Author – my final AI webinar for 2025; Metal-working! with WTF Workshops, Bristol; Blood Vintage, a folk horror novel – out now on my store, coming 15 October everywhere.

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

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn

Darcy Pattison is the multi-award winning bestselling author of more than 70 fiction and non-fiction books for children across multiple age groups. Her book for authors is Publish: Find Surprising Success Self-Publishing Your Children's Book.

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 writing children's picture books is more challenging than you might think
• Why Darcy moved from traditional publishing books to self-publishing for creative freedom and business control
• Working with illustrators through contracts, sketch revisions, and treating them as professional collaborators
• Using multiple print-on-demand services (Ingram, KDP, Lulu) instead of expensive offset printing for 70+ book catalog
• Marketing to educators through state and national conferences rather than individual school visits for scalable reach
• Focusing on STEM narrative nonfiction as a reliable income while still writing fiction passion projects
• Longevity as an author

You can find Darcy at IndieKidsBooks.com and MimsHouseBooks.com. You can find the Kickstarter here.

Transcript of Interview with Darcy PattisonJoanna: Darcy Pattison is the multi-award winning bestselling author of more than 70 fiction and non-fiction books for children across multiple age groups. Her book for authors is Publish: Find Surprising Success Self-Publishing Your Children's Book. So welcome to the show, Darcy.

Darcy: I'm so excited to be here today.

Joanna: This is such a great topic. So first up—

Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing.Darcy: Well, I have four children and I found myself reading books to them, and at some point I wanted to be on the flip side of that—to write the books that were read to kids. So I started writing.

It took a long time for me to learn the craft of writing children's books. It's very different than adult books. Picture books especially are very different than just a novel. So it took me a while, but I finally got an offer on a picture book, and I have eight traditionally published books.

Then at some point I decided that it was better for me to bring books to market myself. We'll probably talk about that more, but I'm actually a hybrid at this point. I do some pop-up books with a small Christian press, so I'm designing the pop-ups, but I do a lot of nonfiction STEM books for kids. I also do several novel series.

Joanna: I think that's really interesting. First up, you said that the craft of writing children's books is different, picture books in particular. So just tell us more about that craft side, because I feel like often people say, “Oh well, it's only a few thousand words. It must be super easy compared to writing a lot more words.”

Tell us about the craft side of writing children's books.Darcy: I do teach writing picture books all the time for the Highlights Foundation and other places. Picture books are a very tight art form. I sort of compare it to writing poetry.

There are 32 pages, and you have a title page, a half title page, a copyright page. It turns out you have about 14 double page spreads, and in those 14 double page spreads, you have to set up a character and a problem.

You have to complicate the story, then resolve it in some satisfying way, in less than 500 words, while leaving room for the illustrator to do their job. So it's a very demanding process.

Joanna: And it's not the same now then, because like you say there, the 32 pages and all of this—I mean, this is a very print-heavy issue, I guess—but there are plenty of things now that might be on tablets.

Has that shifted at all or is it still a real print-heavy world?Darcy: It still is a print-heavy world for children's books. Most people who independently publish will tell you that 90% of their sales are paperback.

It's still 32 pages. I can do 27 pages, I can do 36 pages. The problem is if I ever need to offset print—and I've needed to several times when I have a large order—then it's cheaper if it's 32 pages, because they figured out how to print 32 pages on one piece of paper.

If I go to 37 pages, it's two pieces of paper, more expensive. If I do 25 pages, you're wasting paper. So really the 32 pages is because of the requirements of print. I still go with that because children's books, even for independent people like me, are still by and large paperback or hardcover.

Joanna: Then I guess, talking about a 32-page picture book, that's not the only thing for children.

What is the range of books for children?Darcy: You can do board books. That's for the very young children. Those are hard for self-publishers to do because there's no one who does print-on-demand for that. You have to do offset printing. So those are more difficult.

Then starting about age four to eight is picture book world. That's the young readers where the parents are reading to the kid.

Then—and the ages are very fluid here because some kids read faster than others—but maybe about six or seven years old, they're starting to read more independently. They want these short chapter books.

So those might be 48 pages or 60-page short novels where you're really paying attention. That's the only place where you really have to pay attention to the vocabulary levels for kids.

Then after that, you have middle grade, and that would run eight to twelve years old, roughly. Then YA would be—again, the definitions are very fluid—but maybe 14 and up would be young adult.

Joanna: Yes, and that YA category now I feel like has moved very adult. So I think that can probably be quite fluid as well, depending on what you find in the store.

Let's come back to your journey. You mentioned the hybrid approach. You did eight traditionally published books, but in your book Publish, you said deciding to self-publish was a way to avoid creative death, which I thought was a brilliant line. Maybe you could expand on that and—

Why is self-publishing a great choice?Darcy: Self-publishing is a very great choice. There was a time period when I had sold eight books. I teach on a very high level—I teach a novel revision retreat. To come, you must bring a full draft of a novel. We talk about how to revise that novel.

One lady came to my retreat, she revised her novel, sent it out for submission. It sold in 11 days flat and went on to win one of the major awards in children's literature in America, the Newbery Honor. So I know what I'm doing. I know how to write, and yet I could not sell anything. It was so discouraging at that point.

I either decided I would quit—I don't know what I was going to do, but I was going to quit—or I had to figure out how to bring books to market myself. So I decided, yes, I can do this. I can bring books to market myself.

So I worked. I worked for five years. I just put my head down and worked. I published books that I liked. I did what no one else would accept, but I thought was good writing.

I looked for great illustrators and I found some great illustrators to work with, because children's picture books have pictures. You have to work with an illustrator.

So I worked for about five years and finally after five years, I kind of lifted my head and looked around and went, “Wow, look at this. I've got books out that I love. They're winning awards. They're selling, I'm making money. This works.”

So for me, one person asked me recently to talk about this in terms of scarcity and abundance. For me, the traditional publishing world is a place of scarcity. Nobody respected my opinion, nobody respected my writing. As we know from Scheherazade, if you do not have a story, you die.

So self-publishing is a place of abundance for me. I do what I want. I find stories that excite me, and I put them in the hands of kids.

Joanna: So what year was it when you were like, “Oh, I really can't sell, I am going to try indie”?Darcy: Thirteen years ago. I've been doing this 13 years.

Joanna: So around 2012, I guess.

Darcy: Yes, 2013 I think.

Joanna: 2012, 2013. That really was, I think, a real takeoff time in the self-publishing arena when you could actually start doing this. For example, doing print-on-demand through Amazon. These things weren't that easy when you started in traditional publishing—it wasn't easy to do self-publishing.

Darcy: No, no, no. When I first started submitting books, self-publishing was not available. I did a book on writing very early and that taught me how to do the self-publishing process. It was not a book anyone was going to publish because it was revising your novel, which is very niche.

For people who want to write a novel, that's a fairly big market, but those who finished the novel and want to revise it, it's even a smaller market. So I self-published that book and that taught me so much about how to set up your files, how to set up the accounts on everything, on KDP and everywhere else.

Joanna: Yes, I do feel like so often actually just doing one—whether it might be maybe a short story or just something, but actually just going through the process gets rid of a lot of the difficulty with it.

Let's come back to some of the things you have to do. So you mentioned illustrators there, particularly for the picture books. Illustrators are important, but it also might be cover design.

What are your tips for finding and working with illustrators?Darcy: This is a long topic, but basically I find illustrators through a couple of sources. One is the SCBWI.org, that's the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.

It's the only professional organization for people who write for children, and they have a gallery that's available to their illustrators, and it's not behind a paywall. You can just go look at it.

Most illustrators use the Adobe suite of programs. There are other programs, but they learn on that one at least. Adobe has a social media platform for illustrators called Behance.net. The illustrators from around the world put their portfolios there, and I find people there all the time.

My family has hosted exchange students eight times, so I'm familiar with working with internationals. I'm not afraid of that.

I've had illustrators from Colombia, Ukraine, Poland, Canada. So I don't mind finding an international illustrator to work on my projects and I work well with them. So Behance.net is one of my main ways to find professional illustrators.

And then finally referrals. Just talk to other people. Ask them who they used, were they happy with the process, that kind of thing.

Joanna: Then what do you give them? Do you give them like the story, the text, or—

How do you actually work with an illustrator?Darcy: Everybody wants to know, can I write notes to the illustrator and tell them that this character must have red hair and white boots? Of course you can do that. If you're self-publishing, you are the art director and you are in charge.

I prefer not to do that. I prefer to pick out an illustrator that I think has professional skills and an imagination of their own. So I give them my story, then they give me sketches, and when they give me sketches, then I'm very picky about the sketches.

For example, you cannot in a picture book have every page the same. So it can't always be in the cafeteria. It must move from place to place. You must make sure the character looks consistent from page to page.

There's a long list of things I go through to make sure that the illustrations are right at that point. So when I get the sketches, they get a long letter and I want a revision of their sketches.

Joanna: So you've given them the whole story upfront, then they've given you the sketches, then you've gone back with a letter.

How many revisions are you looking for in that process, and is this all set out in a contract upfront?Darcy: Yes. I always do contracts to make sure everything's understood. Usually the contract will say that I need 14 double-page spreads plus a spread for the cover and a spread for page 32. So I'm asking for about 15 to 16 illustrations and within that, then they must tell the story.

So they get the manuscript. I try not to give them too many directions on where it goes and just see where they take it. Usually they're much better than I am and usually work well.

Joanna: Yes, we all have different gifts, right? Different interests and different skills. Your skill is in writing as is mine. So that's what we do.

Darcy: I've found I'm actually a pretty good art director though. I really have a vision for what this should look like in a picture book, so I know how the story has to flow well.

The pacing is in the pictures also. So you have to think of all the things you would in a novel, like pacing, characterization. That comes through in the story, so I have to make sure all of that is right in the sketches.

Once the sketches are approved, then it's not fair to ask them to change. You cannot do those last minute changes and go, “Oh, I want those white boots.” No, no, no. That's not fair to the illustrator.

Joanna: Yes, so treating them like a professional.

What about copyright assignment? Are you getting that in the contract?Darcy: Yes, everything's in the contract. There are different ways to do it. You can do a flat fee where you take all rights or you can negotiate a royalty payment. It's all in the contract.

Joanna: And if people want templates for those kind of contracts?

Darcy: That's the difficulty, isn't it? Because I'm not a lawyer, I don't give them templates, but there are reasonable literary lawyers.

I'm glad to give them referrals to some literary lawyers who can do it, and usually they have pretty much a boilerplate and for less than $500 US, you can get a template that you can use multiple times.

Joanna: There are also author organizations that have these kind of templates. The most important thing here is you need to sort that out upfront, and absolutely some of the ones I've seen, they do also include things like you can have one revision on this type of level or whatever.

It's the same with covers, right? If you're doing older children's books, we are respecting other people's time and professionalism.

Darcy: Yes, absolutely. You know, you may want one or maybe two or three revisions at that sketches stage, but after that, when they give me final art, there's almost no changes because we've hashed that out early. That's where they want you to is in the sketches stage, because that's where they can make the changes the easiest.

Joanna: So another challenge is quality color printing, because as you said, most of your sales are going to be in print.

Talk a bit about printing and distribution and how you manage that.Darcy: So I use three print-on-demand printers. I use Ingram because that reaches the wide distribution that I need, that goes to the schools and libraries and the education distributors and goes out in the world internationally also.

So Ingram's quality is what Ingram's quality is. I think if we go into this and say we're going to print-on-demand, we need to accept what they do.

I mean, people complain about everybody. Every printer gets complaints, but I think they all do a reasonable job. They correct mistakes when they're made, I think they do fine.

So Ingram's print quality is good. It's not offset printing. It will never be offset printing, but we do print-on-demand because the economic issues make sense.

We don't have to put a huge investment upfront of ordering 10,000 books. Then your money is tied up in that inventory and you can't recoup and you can't move on to the next book until you sell those books.

So I don't think that's wise for self-publishers. I think it's wise to be more nimble. So then the print-on-demand makes a lot of sense.

Then the second one I use is KDP, because I find that Ingram and KDP don't always work well together. So I just go ahead and upload it to KDP. It's always available on Amazon. It's never a problem.

Then the final one is I use Lulu and I love Lulu's quality. They talk about great looking books. They have a coated paper, 80 pound coated paper that accepts the ink really well. So the books just look much nicer from them. I use them for the back end of my Shopify store, and then anytime I have special orders.

So last year, my book Magnet came out and I got an order of 600 books that would be used for a public television station that was having an event. So they wanted 600 books to give people, and they ordered that. And yes, Lulu is where I print anything like that because the quality is just so much better.

Joanna: So then with that example, the 600 books, I mean, one of the reasons, as you said, we do print-on-demand is because we don't have to pay for those print runs, but also we do make higher profit because there's higher price per book.

So how do you manage the profit side of it with such high printing costs when the price of books just hasn't really gone up? With inflation, people still expect to pay the same thing.

With those 600 books, how did you make a fair profit there?Darcy: So I price my books high. You cannot compete on price. I can't sell my picture books for $8.99. They are $11.99 for an eight and a half by eight and a half, full color, 32 page picture book. $11.99 is outrageous, but that's what I have to charge and they sell. What can I say? They sell.

Joanna: Plus shipping with your Shopify store?

Darcy: Yes, but I charge them shipping. So then you negotiate prices and you just make sure you're making a profit of $2 or $3 a book just like anybody else. People fight against that too. They go, “Well, I need my little chapter book just to be $6.99.” And I go, “Well, you can't make a profit.”

You must think as a business person and you must price accordingly and then write a really great book that they will buy anyway.

Joanna: Yes, I mean, this is the whole point. We are not competing on price. We cannot compete on price or shipping. Like people say to me, “Oh, well, but if I order from your Shopify store, it's going to take like two weeks or something.”

I'm like, “Yes, because I'm a small business. My printer is a small business. It gets printed, it gets sent. I mean, I'm not Amazon.” Literally then people will go, “Oh, right. Yes, I understand,” don't they? I mean, once you explain it, people understand.

Darcy: So if I have a large order, like 600 books, if I have three months to deliver, then I'll do an offset run, but I don't always have that luxury of having three months to deliver. They usually want it in two weeks and then Lulu can deliver. Lulu always delivers well.

Joanna: Right. Okay. So I guess you sort of addressed this a bit with saying, look, the quality is the quality, but I do find children's authors in particular can be a little bit precious about this, and they're like, “Oh no, this has to be perfect, so I have to use offset printing.” Given that you have more than 70 books—

I just can't see how it's practical to have a business with so many different books and insist on incredible quality every time.Darcy: I can't make a profit that way. I can't have a stock of even 500 books of 70. I can't even physically, like a physical warehouse, let alone the price. I can't tie up my money that way.

So for me, print-on-demand is the only way that works. I cannot do the offset printing. Again, I do offset printing if I have large orders and I have plenty of time, but that's the only time I can get that kind of quality.

So, yes, it is different, but there are printers now who are approaching offset quality with print-on-demand. The newer printers that are coming out are very, very good.

Joanna: They are, but again, we have to look at the pricing there because the price is also higher. The quality of the paper and the ink and all that.

Of course the same is true for anyone. I mean, like for me with 45-plus books, I never have kept stock, but you just don't know. You don't know which books people are going to buy on any given day. So having print-on-demand just makes sense.

I think people who are just starting out, they're like, “Oh, well it's only one book,” but it's like, well soon it won't just be one book.

Darcy: Well, we hope it's not just going to be one book. I mean, I want a career. I don't want just a single book out there.

Joanna: Then I guess just circling back on anything that's different, because of course—

You do nonfiction books for children, as well as fiction. Is the process just exactly the same, but you don't have a story necessarily? It's more like facts and things.

Darcy: Most of mine are narrative nonfiction. So I'm usually telling the story of a scientist making some kind of discovery or an animal. And usually it's not a species, usually it's a particular animal that's done something amazing.

For example, Nefertiti, the Spider-naut is the true story of a spider that went to the International Space Station. She's a jumping spider. She doesn't spin webs. She jumps to hunt. And the question was, could she jump in space? Because if you jump, you float away.

So would she starve to death or would she adapt somehow to that microgravity of the International Space Station? She did indeed adapt and she learned to hunt in space and lived long enough to come back to Earth.

Joanna: What did she eat?

Darcy: Well, they had fruit flies, so they had a little habitat she lived in and they raised fruit flies for her. They raised three generations.

Joanna: She wasn't a stowaway. She was deliberate.

Darcy: No, no, no, no. It was a deliberate experiment on the International Space Station.

Joanna: Oh, that's really cool. So how did you decide to do that book?

Was that a commission or is that just something you are interested in?Darcy: I heard something on the radio. Then what I like to do is original primary research. So I contacted the scientist who's in charge of all of the live animal experiments on the International Space Station.

She lived in Colorado and my daughter lives close, so we went to see my daughter and I set up an appointment, interviewed her, and wrote the book.

Joanna: I love that because like you said, I mean this is creativity, isn't it? It's kind of hearing something and then making it. So does that book sell or is that just something that you did and it's just a passion project?

Darcy: No, no, no. It sells really well. The cover either repulses people because it's a very close-up of the face of the spider, so they either hate the cover or they love the cover.

For example, I had a school right when COVID hit that ordered 1,400 copies because they wanted to give one copy to each of their fourth graders to read during the summer. That one has licensed other things also, like for reading programs and things.

Joanna: Well, let's talk about that then, because bulk sales to schools is something that children's authors often can do very, very well that the rest of us struggle with. So tell us a bit about that and—

How can people can think about things like bulk sales, which is when you sell many books at once?Darcy: Bulk sales come and go. You can't necessarily predict them. What I do is I really pay attention to the science curriculum. I make sure that each book I write and produce fits the curriculum some way. So I like to say that teachers don't just like my book, they need my book to adequately teach sound to their students.

So my book Clang is about a German scientist that went to Napoleon's court, entertained Napoleon with his sound experiments. Kind of like Bill Nye the Science Guy does—entertained him. Then Napoleon funded his work.

So in the book, there's everything you need to know about sound, how sound waves are produced, vibrating strings, vibrating air columns, all of that. It's also a great story about this scientist who goes to Napoleon's court.

So I think teachers need my book to keep kids interested in that topic. So if it fits a curriculum, then it's more likely to be picked up for reading programs, for summer programs, for summer camps, that sort of thing.

And so my book on AI, about the story about Lee Sedol playing against AlphaGo, that sold—suddenly I get on Ingram, it sold a thousand copies and I'm sure it was for a summer camp.

Joanna: Yes, that one—we're going to circle back to AI, but let's come on to marketing, because I'm sure people listening are going, “Well, I want to do that. How do I sell all of those books?”

How are you getting your information into schools?I mean, obviously you are in the USA, it's a massive country, so how are you doing that? Marketing to schools, in particular, and libraries, I guess.

Darcy: Well, everybody says go do school visits. Yes, yes, yes. You can do school visits and you can make money that way, but I prefer to try other avenues because school visits are limited to the length of school year. You might have 150 days possible and I'm not going to go out for 150 days doing school visits.

So instead what I do is reach out to organizations in the United States. Well just this month I've been to the Arkansas Association of Instructional Media. That's the school librarians. At their conference I had an audience of 60 or 70 people and I talked about my 20 STEM books.

Then the next week there was a leadership conference for the Arkansas Literacy Association, and they brought in leaders from the local councils around the state, 20 councils.

So there was about 60 or 70 people. Again, these are the leaders, the opinion makers in their region. They did a “build your stack.” So they bought 90 books and each person got a free copy of the book, courtesy of the organization.

So what you have to do is find those sorts of organizations in your area, in your state, your region, and say, “Can I fill out applications to speak at their conferences?” For me, that's the audience, not parents.

Parents are a moving target because if their child is seven years old this year, next year they're going to be eight, and pretty soon they're going to be 14 and they've aged out of my books. But teachers and librarians always have those eight-year-old kids coming through their system.

Joanna: Yes, I think that's super smart and super scalable. I mean, some people really love going into the schools and they love teaching at that level or whatever. I think that's a really interesting, but it's not scalable though.

Darcy: No, it's not. I feel like there's other revenue—like some people talk about getting paid for that speaking. It's basically paid for doing assemblies and stuff like that.

Joanna: But as you say, yours is a more scalable approach.

So is that the same way you hit librarians as well?Darcy: Yes, yes. I'll be going to the Arkansas Library Association Conference in October. So that's just local. Then I also reach out to national organizations. I've spoken at the National Science Teachers Association conferences, just went to the American Library Association Conference.

So there are many of those regional and national organizations that focus on kids and kids reading that are my target.

Joanna: So those STEM books, have you really done a lot more of those because those are the types of books that those markets want?Darcy: Yes, those sell really well. If I find a topic that's not been covered well with other books, then I can write a book that does pretty well. Then I can still write the fiction that I like, and some of those do well, and some of those don't do well. The bread and butter is probably my STEM books.

Joanna: Yes, because they, as you say, would be a lot easier to sell if that's a topic that is covered at that age group.

Then just a broader question about age groups. You mentioned you have four children, and I often meet people and they want to write a kid's book, and it's often they're writing a kid's book for the age that their child is.

Then sometimes they grow out of the idea because their kid is now a lot older than they were and they've changed their mind about the book, or it was the wrong kind of age. Now, obviously your kids are presumably grown.

Darcy: Yes.

Joanna: So what advice would you have for people listening who feel like, “Oh, I want to write a book for my kid,” but are wondering—

How does that turn into a business?Darcy: Katherine Paterson is a well-known children's book author. She wrote Bridge to Terabithia, which was a popular movie about 10 or 15 years ago. She once said that when she reads an adult novel, she hears an orchestra, but when she reads her own work, she hears a flute solo.

I just write flute solos. I don't write the big complicated orchestral pieces. It's just not the way I write. So you just need to find what's your strength and what's your passion.

I like children's literature. I read it all the time. I'm reading picture books, novels—I'm reading all the time. I just like the genre. So find a genre that you like and dive in.

Joanna: Right. So you can keep writing for an age group if you keep reading in the age group, even if your kids have grown.

Darcy: Yes, absolutely.

Joanna: Yes, that makes sense. I mean, you have to know the genre and, of course, tastes change as well. I mean, even since you started in like 2012, there's a lot more diversity now in children's books and that's a really important development.

Also I guess, translations—you've moved into translations and licensing.

How have translations and licensing worked in terms of the business?Darcy: Translations—I did a test last year of five Spanish books. They've not sold particularly well. I need to find new ways to market them, but it was an experiment and I need to find new ways to market them, frankly.

However, I do have an agent in China, and they just sold a nine-book series to a Chinese publisher. So we'll see how that goes. They have also sold a six-book series to Korea. So working with a foreign agent has worked for me.

Joanna: Yes. I've sold into South Korea as well. They clearly have an interesting book culture.

Okay, and then just coming back on the AI side, because you mentioned your children's book about AlphaGo beating Lee Sedol in 2016, as part of your Moments in Science series. So I wondered—

How are you using AI tools as part of your creative and business processes?Darcy: Well, I do use AI sometimes, so I love Google NotebookLM for research. I think the AIs hallucinate too much to let them do my research, but when I do the research myself and I find research reports, I drag them into NotebookLM.

For example, my new book out this year is NOT Extinct. It's about the Takhi horse, commonly called the Przewalski's horse, which in the 1960s was considered extinct in the wild, and they have worked for decades to bring them back. Now there's about 3000 in the world. So the story is about that process of conservation of the species.

So I found tons of research reports and I dragged them into NotebookLM, and then I asked it to give me a timeline and it can go through it, and it annotates the timeline for me.

It says this came from this report so that I know that it's documented really well and I can trust that the research is there. I really like that one once we get away from, can it do real research and deal with facts?

I do use it sometimes for outlining. I like Claude better than some of the other platforms, and I do use it for book descriptions sometimes.

Joanna: I would say that Gemini Deep Research is, I think, the best in terms of—

Have you used any of the Deep Research?Darcy: I have not. No.

Joanna: So Gemini Deep Research, I would say is extremely good and has a very, very low hallucination rate. So that would be the one I would suggest for research people.

Like you mentioned earlier that many of the illustrators use Adobe tools and of course Adobe has Firefly, it has generative AI now.

How much generative AI is being used in the illustrators' work, or is that not even something you worry about?Darcy: So far it's not been used very much. Most of the illustrators, I see their sketches at first and then they generally do digital work, but it's clearly their work. There's no question on most of them so far. That will come up, I'm sure in the next five or 10 years, but so far it's not been an issue.

Joanna: But it's not something you are embracing because, like you said, you know what you want. So you could be doing this yourself, for example.

Darcy: So I have one story. The Kitty Tuber series. It's about cats who make videos and so they're kitty tubers. The main character is Angel and she has one blue eye and one copper eye. I can't tell you how hard it is for ChatGPT to do a cat that has different colored eyes. It's just almost impossible.

Finally, I think last week I tried it, and it's finally getting to where it can do it, but it's a difficult task. The programs just aren't there yet.

Joanna: Again, I would suggest Midjourney, which is excellent. I know quite a lot of people doing kids books on Midjourney and you can do consistent characters now. So I think there's a lot of potential, and certainly for marketing, even if you don't want to use it for actual creation of the books.

Darcy: I think that's coming. I don't think you can stop it. I think it will be lovely, but I just haven't done it yet.

Joanna: No, absolutely. Well, you've got your processes for sure. I did want to ask you, because we were saying before we started recording, we've kind of known each other online for a really long time now, and you have managed this career now for a long time.

What are your tips for longevity in the market?Both, I guess, in terms of the business and the mindset and just staying the course? Because both of us have seen a lot of people leave the industry in the time we've been doing it.

Darcy: A lot of people do leave, and I'm sad when that happens because that was my impetus for doing this, is to stay in the business. I think that's one of the reasons I wrote this new book, Publish. I made the mistakes so other people don't have to.

I think staying in the business just means that you stay excited about your work. You find things that you want to write about and you are passionate about. I mean, why do we write at all? Because there's some question that we want to answer or there's some bit of information we want to pass on to kids.

I think you have to keep finding that center and just stay really positive. Keep up with the industry. Don't think that it can be run the same way all the time for business.

I am not a very good business woman. I started with no information. I've never taken even an accounting class. So accounting just killed me at first. It's really hard for me to do the business, but I think you just have to keep pushing and trying. So I'm very curious, and I research and solve problems.

Joanna: Yes, I think that curiosity is what keeps us going, to be honest. I feel at this point that if there's still books I want to write, then I'm just going to keep writing them.

Darcy: Absolutely.

Joanna: And yes, we both run businesses, but there are lots of better ways to make money than writing books, especially children's books.

Darcy: Yes.

Joanna: Which is fascinating. Okay, so tell us—

You have a Kickstarter running right now. Tell us about that and a bit more about the book.Darcy: So Publish is a book about self-publishing children's books and making a success at it. I did make all the mistakes so you don't have to.

I've been doing a blog called IndieKidsBooks.com for three years and writing things on there that I thought would eventually wind up in the book. Mostly they're about what I'm working on right now, what I'm worried about, what the current state of publishing is like. So it's a great resource for you.

But I wanted to put things together in a book that would explain the process for people who don't do this, who just come to it with curiosity and go, “Can I do this?” It's not easy. Self-publishing is never easy. You have to do everything from the creative to the accounting. It's not easy, but oh my gosh, it's fun.

I want people to get that. I want them to understand that it's not a horrible thing. It's not being put in the ghetto. I submit my books to awards, and I win awards, and I make money. You can do that too.

Joanna: Fantastic.

Where can people find you and your books online?Darcy: So the best place to find my books is MimsHouseBooks.com, M-I-M-S-H-O-U-S-E books.com. And if you're interested in self-publishing, IndieKidsBooks.com is where I kind of chronicle my journey.

So you can find the Publish book on Kickstarter. Right now it will be live when this recording goes out. It will be also available for pre-order on Amazon, but look for the Kickstarter. I think you'll find a lot of things on there that are interesting.

Joanna: Brilliant. Thanks so much for your time, Darcy. That was great.

Darcy: Oh, thank you so much.

The post Writing, Self-Publishing And Marketing Books For Children With Darcy Pattison first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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What if the key to finding your authentic voice as a writer lies in exploring someone else's fictional world first? How can multi-passionate creators manage multiple brands without losing their sanity? KimBoo York reveals how fanfiction can be a powerful training ground for original fiction, and why being your “weird self” is more valuable than ever in an age of AI.

In the intro, Everything I know about self-publishing [Kevin Kelly; his interview on The Creative Penn]; KU library distribution [Dale Roberts]; Anthropic settlement on piracy [The Verge; Authors Guild; Writer Beware];Selling direct with ElevenReader; I'm talking about Creativity and AI on Brave New Bookshelf; I'm also talking about An Author's Guide to AI on The Novel Marketing Podcast; My final AI webinar of the year, Sun 21 Sept; The Buried and the Drowned short story collection.

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.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn

KimBoo York is the author of romance, fantasy and nonfiction, as well as a productivity coach and podcaster at The Author Alchemist. Her latest book is Out from Fanfic: Transforming Creative Freedom.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights, and the full transcript is below.

Show Notes

• What is fanfiction?
• How to transition from writing fanfiction to original fiction by identifying the aspects you love
• Managing multiple creative brands under one studio umbrella without losing your mind
• The legal landscape of fanfiction
• Why fanfiction has been an innovation hub for story trends
• How AI and generative search create opportunities for cross-genre writers

You can find KimBoo at HouseofYork.info.

Transcript of interview with KimBoo YorkJo: KimBoo York is the author of romance, fantasy and nonfiction, as well as a productivity coach and podcaster at The Author Alchemist. Her latest book is Out from Fanfic: Transforming Creative Freedom. So welcome back to the show, KimBoo.

KimBoo: Hi, Jo. It's great to be back. I love talking with you.

Jo: Yes, and we had a good chat last July 2024 when we talked about intuitive discovery writing. So we don't need to go further back than that, but just give us an update.

What does your writing life and your business look like at the moment?KimBoo: Well, I think I speak for everybody when I say that 2025 has been a challenging year. So I've had to take on a little bit more freelance work as I've restructured how I'm doing some of my business. You were an inspiration for that.

I'm kind of separating out my different brands now instead of trying to be one thing to all people, and that's taking a little bit of work. I've launched a new pen name, which I'm not going to talk about here, but it seems to be doing well off the launchpad.

Then, of course, I'm redoing some of my older works, doing the business end. We're doing new covers, doing some new links, doing some new giveaways. So it's been a busy year and I look forward to what's going to be happening in the future for me, especially as I go into 2026. So that's kind of where I'm at right now.

Jo: Well that's interesting. Just talk a bit about this separating different brands. Just remind us what are the different personas that you have and the different brands you've split into? I feel like a lot of people think about doing this, and I have done myself.

I've got my two author names and I felt that they were very different, so it was important to me, but I know how much work it is.

So talk a bit about that process of separating brands.KimBoo: Well, I flopped back and forth, so for a long time I tried to keep everything very separate and that took so much work and energy, as you know. Then I tried to put everything under one banner, and that just became cluttered.

It became hard to identify my demographics, it became hard to do advertising. You can always do targeting in advertising, but with the more organic stuff, how do I post on social media? How do I talk about all my work?

So I am somebody who is a multiple project starter. I always have multiple things going on. So I have KimBoo York, me, myself, and I, who is the author and the writer, and I do fiction under that name.

I have Cooper West, which is one of my older pen names. That's gay male romance, romantic thrillers, paranormal romance. I have The Author Alchemist, which is kind of my podcast and my craft writing and writing coaching brand.

I have The Task Mistress, which is my productivity brand. I just published a new book, a collection of essays on holistic productivity under that brand.

I have The Skeptic's Inspirational, which is daily inspirational posts blog. That's going to be a book here soon.

Patience & Fortitude, which is my grief blog and mourning blog and book, which is the house where I published my memoir “Grieving Futures: Surviving the Death of My Parents.” And I could go on, but you kind of see what I'm getting at there.

They're very different things and I realized that what I needed was a studio type of branding. So HouseofYork.info is my studio home. House of York is my studio. It's the thing that produces all of these different brands, and so I do still have that brand. Everything is a House of York production.

It sounds a little ostentatious when you put it like that, but for me mentally, it's a great way to keep things separate and yet connected. So they're all me, they're all connected, and I can talk about different ones in different places, but they're also very clearly defined for marketing purposes. So that's what I really wanted out of that whole thing.

Jo: Yes, it is really hard.

But you don't have different email lists for all of those things though?KimBoo: No, I do not. Right now I just have the House of York email list. I'm moving into segmenting them. So I will have some different email lists going down the line, and certainly my newest pen name, the secret one, is going to have its own separate email list.

So eventually, yes, there will be separate email lists, but I'm working on developing a way where I'm not having to do six email lists a week. Cycling is important, right? Planning things out, scheduling. Who would have thought? So I will eventually, and that is the goal, is to have these different segmented lists.

I would also be able to do a full blast to everybody if I had something special coming out that I wanted all my lists to know. So again, that's one of the reasons why I went with this studio framework of doing all of my brands and putting everything under one umbrella while keeping them branded separately.

Jo: No, I like that. I mean, I often have thought about this, because I have the two main websites—well actually now I have three. The Creative Penn, J.F. Penn, and Books and Travel. And so they're my main websites. Then I have my Shopify stores and then I have YouTube channels.

I have often thought, oh my goodness, I should have one landing page where I can send people to. Then I thought, well, who do I send to one landing page, because I actually have different people do different things.

I guess this is great to start on actually, because I feel like you are a multi-passionate creator, and so am I.

We have long careers and it's like, well, you can't just stay in your lane. You know, I feel like some people say, “Oh no, you should just stay in your lane.” And we are like, well, it's not actually possible.

KimBoo: No, no. I'm a seven-lane highway. I can't.

Jo: Well, it's interesting though, because it's not a seven-lane highway. It's actually like three A-roads, we call them here, like three major roads and then there's some little back lanes, and then you might have one that's a bit of a cul-de-sac.

KimBoo: Sadly far more accurate. Yes.

Jo: But I think that's important too. I mean, I was actually looking at your grief one and the death of your parents, and I mean, that's like a whole completely different area that perhaps is almost standalone.

Different people may find that book than find your romance or your productivity or whatever, and that's fine. They don't need to find anything else. So I think that's really good too. It's having all these different things.

So just to make people listening feel better if you are a multi-passionate creator, so are we. You just have to manage it, right?

KimBoo: Figure out what works for you, but you've got to just try different things until you land on the system that works. I think that's the lesson takeaway here.

Jo: Yes. Or the way it works right now, and then you change things. In fact, let's get into the book because this is another one of these kind of quite random books to be fair, which is Out from Fanfic. I'm fascinated by this because obviously I've heard of fanfiction, but it's not a sort of world I am in at all. So just start by explaining—

What is fanfic? And what are the main sites?KimBoo: Sure. So I'm going to start actually with the Wikipedia definition, which is “fiction typically written in an amateur capacity by fans as a form of fan labor, unauthorized by, but based on an existing work of fiction.” And honestly, that is the basis for a thousand different arguments about what exactly fan fiction is.

It became very trendy there for a little while to look back and say Dante's Inferno, that's fan fiction. Bible fan fiction. Right? What is fan fiction? It's one of those, well, you kind of know it when you see it type of things, right?

I consider it to be the interaction of a creative person, whether it's writing, drawing, painting, creating videos with a property or fiction, a story that they love. It's them engaging with it on a personal level.

So that's really what fanfiction is. It's a hobby. It's the same kind of hobby as building Lego houses or model trains. You're taking something that exists and creating your own work, I guess is the word I would use, but creating your own world out of it.

So it's fun. That's the bottom line for me is writing fanfiction and reading fanfiction is fun.

Jo: So, yes, it's fun. Let's just be clear, you mentioned the word property and that it is fan labor, and it's unauthorized. Right up front we have to say, this is when it's not your character. So it might be, I don't know—

Give me some examples of what people have done.KimBoo: Okay. So take any show. Supernatural, Teen Wolf, Game of Thrones, movies. The Avengers, that was one I was in for a long time. It's currently in a lot of Chinese dramas like Nirvana in Fire and The Untamed.

You take those characters and that setting and you write your own version of it. Say, a cut scene or a post scene, or you change some of the canon facts of the story and you say, well, what if this person hadn't died? Or what if these people had met earlier?

Or what if this one character had left when they were young and then come back 20 years later? And you just add in these elements and have fun with taking it in a new direction. But as you said, they aren't yours. They aren't your characters.

It's not your setting, it's not your story. You don't own that, in the sense you own your own writing. Of course, you always own your own writing in a creative sense, but in a legal sense, you do not own it. That's something people really need to be aware of.

If they're interested in fanfiction, if they're going to explore it, if they're going to use it as a writing tool, you can, but you can't officially publish. You can't publish and make money off of this.

This is definitely hobby level stuff, which I don't say to denigrate. I've read some amazing fan fiction that's truly life transforming, how beautifully and amazingly well done it was. But it's hobby. You can't publish it. You can't do anything with it legally.

Jo: I guess you can publish on a website.

So what are the places that people are publishing their fanfic on?KimBoo: So they are posting it. The oldest site right now is fanfiction.net. It's still around, it still looks like it did in like 1998. Truly, I don't know how people use it.

The one that most people are familiar with is called ArchiveOfOurOwn.org. It is a project of the non-profit organization, Organization for Transformative Works that was started 2008, 2009, I think, for the express purpose of having a place for fanfiction to exist.

They've done a lot of work on the legal end to protect people's rights to write and post fanfiction online. I try to draw the line between saying that they publish fanfiction and they post it for that reason.

That's just a me thing. I don't think that that's really widespread in fandom, but for me mentally when I'm talking about it, you post your fanfiction to AO3, as it's known colloquially, and you share it and people can read it and comment on it and like it. It's a great site.

Their tagging system is truly a thing of beauty, but again, it's not publishing in the sense of you're publishing a book, you're publishing something.

There is fanfiction on Wattpad, but they've fought against it. They've taken down fanfiction in the past. They do allow it, it's kind of under the table on Wattpad, but there is a lot of fanfiction on Wattpad.

I think, going back a ways, the One Direction fandom really had its moment on Wattpad. That was a long time ago, but there's still people posting fanfiction on Wattpad. A lot of times people cross post, they post on Wattpad and they post on AO3. So it just depends on where you want to put your work.

Jo: Okay. A few things here. So it would be obvious to me, like if it's, I don't know, Captain Kirk from Star Trek.

KimBoo: Oh, classic.

A classic. You know, and a very obvious modern character. But think about Thor for example. So Thor obviously being Norse God, none of that is under copyright, as in anyone can write a Thor story. But then there's Thor, the movies and the things that are Thor-like in that are movie-based as opposed to the original base.

So how does that kind of work? Like how do you know? Especially when in people's minds, sometimes things might get mixed up. You know, you might mention Ragnarok now. Ragnarok is in all the ancient stories, but the way they did it in whatever Avengers movie or whatever it might be is specific.

So are there lines here that people need to watch out for?KimBoo: I would say these days, yes. There's a little bit of a line you need to watch out for. I mean, if your story's about Thor being a member of the Avengers, then obviously it's like, yes. But if it's just an independent story about Thor and his brother Loki, or Loki himself, there are definitely tells to use to be able to differentiate.

Now, to be clear, on sites like AO3 and Fanfiction.net and Wattpad, people do identify. They say like Thor MCU, which is Marvel Cinematic Universe, which tips you off, or Thor mythology, right? So then, oh, this is based on the Thor lore of the old style myths rather than the new style myths, I guess you might say.

So there are definitely ways to identify that and I think a lot of fan fiction writers take care to make sure of that because you don't want somebody coming into old school Thor and Loki mythology, thinking that they're getting the fun Avengers good time, “let's beat up the bad guy” story, because they'll just get mad.

They're like, “Hey, this wasn't what I wanted to read.” So fanfiction writers are very careful about identifying exactly what they're writing for and how they're writing for it.

Oftentimes, yes, you wrote a riff on Little Red Riding Hood. Well, you know, okay. That's definitely in the public domain. They can post that on AO3. They can also publish that as their own original story because that is public domain that is not owned by somebody. So fanfiction authors are usually generally pretty careful about that.

Jo: Yes. I guess why I am emphasizing all this is because I still feel like many authors don't really understand what is in the public domain, what is fair use under copyright. Also, it differs. So there are some countries where copyright expires earlier.

I think, is Sherlock Holmes one of these where it's sort of—don't quote me on this, people go check it in your country—but it's like some of the Sherlock Holmes stories might be out of copyright and others are still within.

I think Tolkien's Universe as well. There's like different ways that things have been extended when they haven't in other areas. So I think this is really interesting and you definitely have to check all this before you publish it.

I did have another question. I mean, you mentioned the One Direction thing. Is this just all about having sex with different characters?

Is it all romance and erotica?KimBoo: It is not, and in fact, gen—general fiction—is one of the most popular tags on AO3. Romance is very popular. They want the characters, their favorite characters to kiss, right? That is a very popular element of fan fiction, but it's absolutely not what it all is. It's not all written by 14-year-old girls. That's another stereotype that comes out.

In fact, if you go back in history, I would say the modern fan fiction era—and a lot of academics would agree with me—began with the Kirk/Spock fandom right out of Star Trek and that like those women were full grown women because this was the late sixties and the seventies. There was no internet.

If you wanted to share your stories, you had to have access to a Xerox machine. Remember Xerox machines, right? You had to have access to a Xerox machine or a mimeograph machine, and then you had to have access to the postage that would be required to mail these magazines out.

So like you couldn't be a 14-year-old girl and write fan fiction in that era. So it's always been, I would say, owned by older writers, and not teenagers, as the stereotype goes.

Yes, a lot of the fiction out there is romantic. Some of it's erotic, but a lot of it is also just general. I was just looking… what was I looking at the other day? Game of Thrones fan fiction. You look at Game of Thrones fan fiction and there's lots of different pairings that are popular in that. The “Time Travel Fix-It” tag is very popular in that fandom.

Jo: So people are trying to avoid the final series.KimBoo: Exactly. Like they either want to avoid season eight, six through eight completely, or they just want to redo it, or they want to have something different. So they have one of the characters time travel, you know, the gods step in, whatever, and go back and fix everything.

It's really popular in The Untamed fandom as well, the “Time Travel Fix-It” tag. So it's not just about the romance. I have a current Untamed fan fiction in progress right now actually, and it's very alternative universe. I wanted to see what would happen if one of the main characters was actually given some autonomy and power earlier in her life.

I just wanted to see what would happen if that happened to her and how that would change all the threads of the story going forward. And is there some romance? Yes, there's some romance. There's also a war. There's also magic and killer slaughter turtles. It's just fun.

Jo: Yes. I think fun is definitely the focus here.

So coming back on the IP side, there are books—like 50 Shades of Gray is supposedly based on, I think, was it Twilight fan fiction? Not supposedly, very much absolutely.

KimBoo: Yes. Yes, it was. It was based on Twilight fanfiction.

Jo: So how did that become a publishable original novel that was basically huge?KimBoo: So what you're talking about is what we call in the scene “filing off the serial numbers.” And a lot of authors have done this. E.L. James is not the only one. Cassandra Clare's done it. Naomi Novik's done it. Plenty of authors who don't want to be named have done it. And many I've known.

You take a fan fiction of yours that's very popular or that you just personally like, and you go and you file off the serial numbers. You don't just change the names. You change the setting, you change some of the dynamics, you change some of the character traits of the main characters.

You have to really file it down enough that if someone was coming after you to say, you based this on our story, versus you stole our story. That's really where the line has to be drawn. Again, it's not a clear one, but if you do it enough, you can get away with it. So that's what E.L. James did.

If you did not know that it was Twilight fan fiction, you would never realize it was Twilight fan fiction. Even if you've read Twilight, like most people, they might say, gosh, these characters are kind of similar, but oh, that's just tropes, right. So exactly. That's what she did, and that's what a lot of authors do.

Jo: Yes. So the tropes, I mean, tropes are kind of universal, right? As you said, I mean, the time slip, go back in time and fix things. I mean that could go in any world. It doesn't have to go in a Game of Thrones world, you know?

I never read the Twilight books or watched the movies, but I have read 50 Shades of Gray. It is obviously it's set in a modern world. There are no vampires, there's no werewolves. So a lot of it is different. So I feel like that's important as well.

So let's come back to you because I was really interested in the book you wrote. In talking about your own experience in fan fiction, you say, “My sense of shame was very real,” and I was really interested in that because I don't know you very well, but having talked to you before, I just can't associate that with you.

You seem very confident. So explain about that.

Why are some people embarrassed or even ashamed of being involved in fan fiction?KimBoo: Well, you've kind of hit on some of the reasons earlier when you asked is it all romance and erotica? And I talked about also it's not all written by 14-year-old girls. For a very long time, these associations with fan fiction was that it was very similar to romance genre, honestly, not that different.

“Oh, that's something women enjoy.” “That's what those horny lonely women in their basements are writing.” You know, “sexy fan fiction,” and “it's not real,” and “it doesn't take any effort.”

“It doesn't take any work. It's just fake people. They're riding on the coattails of other people's work.”

So there was a lot of shame. I mean, there were a couple of people even up into the nineties that—you know, I won't give out names or anything—but whose careers were almost derailed or completely derailed because it was revealed that they had written fan fiction in the past. Publishers wouldn't touch them. It was a bad scene all the way around.

It's hilarious because one of the oldest forms of fan fiction that we have these days is what's called Sherlock Holmes Pastiches, and Sherlock Holmes Pastiches started appearing in the 1800s, like they started appearing not long after Sherlock Holmes stories were printed by Arthur Conan Doyle.

They were very popular up through the twenties and the thirties, right? They were all written by very educated men. And they weren't called fan fiction, they were called Pastiches. So those were okay. Those were fine.

Then you get up into the sixties and the seventies and you have women writing Star Trek fan fiction. Yes. A lot of it was Kirk/Spock, and some of it was truly terrible, but again, I've read some truly terrible books published by traditional publishers, so I'm not really sure that's a fan fiction only problem.

You get a lot of new writers coming into fan fiction, so there is a lot of bad writing out there. I'll just be upfront about it, and you can see it right away. You're like, “ooh, that's not good,” but a lot of these people are writing for the first time.

I can't tell you how many times I've read an author's note at the start of a fic that's like, “This is the first time I've tried to write anything, but I was just so inspired. I wanted to do it.” To me that's beautiful. That's amazing. That is wonderful.

Even if the work itself is very clearly the first thing they've ever written, you're like, “Hey, you've started on an amazing journey,” and that's the beautiful part.

But the shame, the shame that's been associated with it. Like when I was first thinking about getting published in the nineties—because I don't know if anybody's listening, but I'm an old person—I realized that I would never be able to admit to having written fan fiction when I was younger. I was a Kirk/Spock girl in the eighties. I totally wrote that.

Jo: I've got to ask on this. Is this a gay romance thing with Kirk and Spock?

KimBoo: Yes.

Jo: Okay. Right. Yes. I'm checking, yes.

KimBoo: I assume everybody knows that. Yes. No, Kirks/Spock was one of the first, we call them “ships”. It's slang for relationship that grew out of, I think, X-Files fanfiction in the nineties.

The Kirk/Spock ship is one of the big motherships of fandom. If you go on AO3 and look up how many stories are tagged “Kirk/Spock”, there's a lot. There's a lot.

Jo: What about the mixed race? Because wasn't it the first kiss on screen with Uhura and Kirk? Was it those two that had a Black and a white actor?

KimBoo: Well, first interracial kiss.

Jo: Interracial kiss. Yes. That's the right terminology. I was like, what is the terminology here? But that kind of thing. Often this kind of fun writing can also push more boundaries.

We've seen so many things come out of indie that would never have started in traditional publishing.I mean you, well, you think about romance, there's no way traditional publishing would have started this romance trend. It is so big now, and they sucked up all the big ones, haven't they? So, yes. Interesting.

KimBoo: Reverse harem or “why choose”, I think is what they call it these days, that pretty much came out of the One Direction fandom.

Jo: Of course. That makes sense.

KimBoo: Yes. The Omegaverse, I don't know if you're familiar with Omegaverse.

Jo: Some. Okay.

Kimboo: You know what, we don't have two hours, so I won't explain it, but look it up. Omegaverse came out of the Supernatural fandom. A lot of people don't know that they read Omegaverse now.

The gay male, the MM Romance publishing industry, which really got started when indies came on the scene, right? 2008, 2010. Almost all of those authors, you go back to 2010, the MM big names, they all came out of fandom.

One of the brilliant things about writing fan fiction and being in fan fiction is that you can see some of these trends coming. Like I knew reverse harem was going to be big. I knew Omegaverse was going to be big.

I knew romantasy was going to be big long before anything hit because it was being so popularized in fan fiction because in fan fiction you don't have to worry about whether it's going to make you money. All you're doing is you're having fun, you're trying out new ideas, you're throwing things at the wall, you're seeing what's interesting.

You're coming up with new ideas and new stuff, and sometimes it clicks and takes off. You have that freedom as a fan fiction writer because you're not worried about how much money is this going to be? And is this on market? And is this a niche? None of that concern is there. You're just writing because you want to write.

Jo: Yes, and it feels like you're part of a group, you know, if you love the same thing as other people love. Then as you say, it's part of the fandom for whatever that property is. I mean, your book is called Out from Fanfic, so it's kind of turning from writing fanfiction into more professional writing, I guess.

I mean, one of the things I was thinking is, of course there are a lot of writers who are commissioned to write within these universes.

So do those sort of companies recruit from fanfiction? KimBoo: They do now. It was less common in the eighties, like when you had the Star Trek novels really taking off. And in the nineties when you had the Star Wars novels taking off, they still went with a lot of traditional publishers, even though the workhorses of the pulp fiction genres these days, it is a lot more popular and it's a lot more.

A lot of traditional publishers are looking to popular fan fiction authors to mine for the next big thing. There was a dust up recently. There were three Harry Potter fanfics, Dramione. That's a ship, that's a portmanteau of Hermione and Draco. So Hermione and Draco as a couple is actually incredibly popular in fandom.

There were three very, very popular fan fictions that are Dramione fanfic that have recently been taken and filed off—although they didn't do a good job filing off the serial numbers, everybody knew it right away—and then started being promoted.

They actually used Harry Potter references in their marketing, which of course, the Harry Potter people were just like, “You got to stop that right now, like you stop it.” But the reason the publishers published this is because some of these stories had a million, 2 million readers online.

So they knew this is a popular story. They could file off the serial numbers and make some money off of it. So yes, nowadays it's a lot more common for traditional publishers and agents to look at fan fiction authors who are very popular, who have a following, and who've done a lot of writing. So it is more common these days for sure.

Jo: And then I guess your other thoughts on Out from Fanfic, like for your own journey, it sounds like you are still doing a bit of both, as in you still write some fanfic.

How do people cross over if they're like, “No, I want to write my own”?Is it just mainly a case of your own characters? And your own world, I guess?

KimBoo: Absolutely, so it's easier for some people than for others. I actually wrote the book because I did know quite a few authors who tried to write their own original fiction, and what I noticed in a lot of those cases is that they tried so hard that they went so far out of their lane that they weren't interested in their stories anymore.

They're like, “Oh, I just, I get bored by my own writing. I just want to go back and write fanfiction.” And I think, and the whole reason that I wrote the book is to try to help people who are used to writing about characters that they love and writing about settings that they love learn what those things are.

Like dial it down, figure out—well, I call them parameters—like figure out what the parameters are of those characters. You know? Do you just like wacky klutzy characters who are also geniuses? Well, that's more of a trope that you can put that in any story. It doesn't have to be Stiles Stilinski from Teen Wolf.

A lot of different things that you love, you can pull into your own writing out of your fan fiction without repurposing your fan fiction, without using other people's characters.

Learn what you love of those things and use them, because it is a transition. It is definitely not super easy to transition to writing original fiction if all you've ever done really is written fan fiction.

I, of course, had a little bit of a lift up because I had been writing original fiction for most of my life. So I was already familiar with some elements of it. I did learn a lot writing fan fiction. In fact, I think I wrote over 1 million words of fan fiction before I think I really found my voice as an author and realized what I really want to write.

So it can be a learning ground if you look at it that way. I also don't want to take the fun out of it. I don't want to say, “Oh, you should use this as a training grounds,” but you can, if your goal is to write original fiction and you find that challenging.

Jo: Yes, I think that's really interesting. I was reflecting then, I mean, I have thought before, I would love to write a Bond book. Which, I think they've all been men who've written the Bond books. Obviously there's lots of them written in more modern times.

It's really interesting because then I think, well, my thriller, my ARKANE series, you could definitely trace a lot of Bond kind of tropes, a lot of Indiana Jones and Lara Croft tropes.

You say it is taking the things that you love about the movies and the books and the TV shows and then picking them out and then creating your own stories where there is still elements like that. I mean, those are not the original things.

It's how you turn that into your own work, but it's skating that line, isn't it? That remains difficult.

KimBoo: Right, and as we talked about a little bit earlier, tropes are more universal. So if you can kind of dial, like you said, the Indiana Jones, Lara Croft—well, what is that trope or the mummy? Like, oh, it's the archaeologist going on adventure and running into and finding cursed things and finding cursed items.

That's a trope, but if you're not looking for it, you could just say, well, I just like writing in Indiana Jones. I don't know how I'm going to write my own original story, but if you sit back and look at it like, okay, what is it about Indiana Jones or what is it about Kirk?

Or what is it about Wei Wuxian from The Untamed that I love? What is that? Can I pull on that? Can I introduce it into my own characters and my own stories?

Jo: That's cool. Then in the book, you have a brief section about how things have changed for indies over the last few years.

Obviously I always have to talk about AI, and you said, quote from the book, “What is the point of churning out repetitive stories written to market when an AI program can do it faster, better, cheaper?”

“What does it mean to be a human creator of anything?” I love that because then you give people hope and you talk about how this is actually ideal terrain. That's your words for you. So talk about this. Because I get people emailing me all the time saying, “what is the point?” So respond to that.

KimBoo: What is the point? What is the point of anything? Okay. No, but I think there's so many moving parts, and Joanna, you talk so well about how AI is impacting our industry, but for me personally, it's opened the door to allowing me to write what I really want to write and allowing me to put my own humanity into the writing.

This isn't true for everybody, but for me, trying to write to market, trying to write to narrow down and stay in your lane, as we talked about earlier, felt like trying to turn myself into a machine. I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to.

I tried and I tried and I failed abysmally over and over and over again. So the humanity is what we own as humans. Our experiences, our insights.

AI, and specifically LLMs—because I like to be specific when we're talking about that specifically LLMs—the training that they've done has been so broad and across so many genres and across so many types of writing and so many eras of writing that it's very generic.

Even at the point where you say you can push a button and have it write a book— which we're definitely not there yet as anyone who's played around with LLMs knows for sure. It's going to be median, it's going to be average, right? Because that's what AI is really all about.

Taking our own spark of creativity and ingenuity and allowing ourselves to grow into that rather than being worried about churning out the next pulp fiction, I think is an opportunity.

Now, some people who've made a lot of money churning out a lot of these books see it as a threat and I understand that, but things change.

Things change in our industry all the time now.Like we had a hundred and fifty, two hundred, three hundred years of things not changing at all. Then we had self-publishinga, nd indies changed everything. eBooks changed everything. AI is changing everything.

If we invest in ourselves as authors and writers, as creators, as people with creativity, I think it is an ideal terrain because then we can explore the things we love to write.

It's one of the reasons why I think that cross genre books such as Cozy Fantasy or romantic contemporary can start to bubble up is because people feel more confident that they can reach the readers they want and that they don't have to try to fit their round peg into a square hole type of situation.

So that's my thoughts on it. I mean, I know other people have different opinions, but that's where I'm at.

Jo: I actually think this is a better time for, coming back to where we started, around the sort of multi-passionate creator. For many years it's been, well, if you write cross genre—which I do—if you write all over the place, if you don't do series, if you write standalones, if you do this, that and the other, you are not going to make good money.

Many of us have made good money like that, but we've certainly felt like, oh, well I should do this. I should go into this one genre, or I should try not to write. Like I've got three books in my Brooke and Daniel series, and when I wrote them, I was trying to write a standard British crime and ended up with a male psychic character.

I was like, why isn't this selling? And I figured out over time that the British crime niche is not supernatural when it certainly doesn't have a male psychic in. So it's so funny because I love those books and I've always been like, why? Why can't the people who love this type of thing find these books?

I actually think they have more chance in a world of generative search, for example, where people can get much more granular. They're like, “Well, I like this, I like this and this and this and this, and this. Find me something that I might like.” So I feel like that is much going to be much easier for our work to be surfaced than someone who just has one category on Amazon, for example, that they buy in.

KimBoo: Absolutely. I think one of the more hilarious examples of that is the search I did recently for Supernatural Cozy Apocalypse. A cozy apocalypse. That is a nice one, right?

There were books that came up in that search and I was just like, “Oh, this is cool,” because I wanted something that was like the end of the world, but also people coming together and found family and maybe a little supernatural. Like, dragons are coming up out of the earth because of climate change.

I found the book Apocalypse Cow. It's about a cow at the end of the world, and it's fun. These are great for us cross genre writers, which I'm leaning into more.

I think my serial Dragon's Grail is in a lot of ways still very much the epic fantasy Second World type of thing, ut I'm looking at it and it doesn't really fit into epic fantasy, it doesn't really fit into romantasy. It doesn't really fit in.

So I'm having to think of different ways of building up that explanation of it because it is kind of intrinsically cross genre and it's going to be a challenge, but I think it's a great challenge to have in this day and age.

As you said, generative search is really going to be a game changer. I don't think people are ready for how much that's going to change everything.

Jo: Probably for the last year now, I used ChatGPT to find books. I just find it so much better. I'm like, “Here's a list of things that I really like. Go find me some books.” I just think it's so cool to find much more weird stuff that just would not have been surfaced otherwise.

I guess where I'm going with this too is, and what I say to people is—

You need to be your weird self. KimBoo: Well said. All of what I just said, that was what I meant to say.

Jo: Be your weird self. I can see that with your work across different things, like I bring up your parents' grief book again. I mean, a lot of people might not have expected a book like that alongside someone who also writes about productivity and this fanfic stuff.

So that breadth of humanity is, I think, what people who might come in one of your books and then they're like, oh, this person has a whole load of stuff that brings more depth is just a different side of them. I think this being the full human that you are is so important coming into this sort of new world.

KimBoo: I agree, especially coming out of the world where you were supposed to be just one thing, and do that one thing, and be there for only one thing. For me as a reader, I love seeing what other writers are working on.

I love seeing a writer whose romance novels I really love and they're branching into, you know, space opera. I'm like, I'm all about it. Like I love to read that. It's more about what I enjoy reading in the author's own take on those stories less than, “oh, this is space opera genre and that's all I read.”

I don't think readers are like that. Some are, you got your whale readers who never leave their niche, but I think a lot of us, we like a lot of different things. I think this is a great time for authors to be able to expand and take advantage of that.

Jo: Absolutely, and maybe realize that, sure—

You might not hit it out the park with every book, but then who ever did?KimBoo: Like, I know there's readers out there who love your psychic British crime stories. Absolutely. I don't have a doubt.

Jo: Well the, what's so funny is they get the best reviews of all my books. They get the best reviews. It's just the number of people who actually like that kind of book are quite few and far between. But hey, I didn't know that when I started writing them.

I am writing this book about gothic cathedrals at the moment. Nobody asked for that.

KimBoo: They didn't, but I am certainly looking forward to it because I love gothic architecture and so I'm excited about that.

Jo: Oh, fantastic. Well, this is the thing, and I think we need to keep that in mind. So I guess as we close, write what you want to write and hopefully in this new world with AI search people, more people will find us.

KimBoo: The dream.

Jo: The dream. Happy times.

So where can people find you and your books online?KimBoo: Okay, well I suggest that people go to my main hub studio website, which is HouseofYork.info, and that's all one word, HouseofYork.info.

That has links to all my sub-brands, including KimBoo York and Cooper West and Patience & Fortitude, the one about grief and mourning where they can read my dog's obituary as I just lost my pet. I'd love people to love my dog as much as I do.

So go check that out. HouseofYork.info, you can find everything there. If you want to reach out to me, I'd love to hear from people.

Jo: Great. Well thanks so much for your time, KimBoo.

KimBoo: Thank you so much, Jo. It's been a pleasure as always.

This transcript has been edited for clarity and readability while maintaining the authentic conversational tone of the original interview.

The post Writing Fan Fiction, And Multi-Passionate Creativity With KimBoo York first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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Hello everyone. I'm Jo Frances (J.F.) Penn, award-winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling thriller author, and this is my new short story collection, The Buried and the Drowned. Watch the video below or here on YouTube. .

I’ve been writing short stories for more than a decade and this is the first time many of them have been in print, and there are two new stories for this collection, so if you love dark short stories with a hint of the supernatural, here’s a glimpse into the characters you will find inside:

• A doubting priest seeks God in the far reaches of Iceland
• A burned-out coder dives for escape in the depths of the ocean
• A scientist’s daughter unearths her father’s darkest secret
• A war photographer chooses sight over sanity
• A Vatican librarian discovers a hidden tomb under Paris
• An ambitious glassblower makes a deadly choice
• An underwater archaeologist gets lost in a sunken Egyptian city
• A musician awakens something ancient … and hungry
• A scientist unravels the DNA of a biblical nightmare
• A brother chooses bloody transformation over his twin
• An archaeologist discovers an impossible relic at Seahenge

The Buried and the Drowned, a dark short story collection by J.F. Penn, available now.

You can get the collection through the Kickstarter in this exclusive signed hardback edition — with green foil on the dust jacket and interior covers, ribbon, custom end papers and sprayed edges, as well as photos from my research trips.

You can also get the paperback, and there's a large-print edition, which, as you can see is a bigger edition with a bigger font size.

You can also get the ebook and the audiobook read by human me, months earlier than you’ll be able to get them on the other stores, and there are bundle editions of my other books in different formats as well, including all my series books and my previous special edition Kickstarter hardbacks.

If you’re a writer, you can also join me for a webinar on writing short stories, or there are a limited number of consulting sessions available.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you’ll join me for The Buried and the Drowned — www.JFPenn.com/buried

The post The Buried And The Drowned. A Short Story Collection By J.F. Penn. first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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How do you know when an idea should become a poem or a short story instead of a longer work? How can indie authors publish and market poetry and short fiction in today's market? Joanna Penn and Orna Ross explore the creative processes, and the business behind writing short-form work, and discuss why being authentically human matters more than ever in our AI-driven world.

In the intro, How publishing has changed since 2015 [Jane Friedman];
The Two Authors Podcast; Anthropic settles piracy copyright lawsuit [WIRED; The New Publishing Standard]; AI-Assisted Artisan Author webinars; The Buried and the Drowned out now; Long distance walking and resilience at midlife [Books and Travel]

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.com to get started.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn

Orna Ross is a multi-award-winning historical fiction novelist, poet, non-fiction author, and the founder of the Alliance of Independent Authors. Her latest poetry collection is Night Light As It Rises.

J.F. Penn is the Award winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of thrillers, dark fantasy, crime, horror, and travel memoir. Her short story collection, The Buried and the Drowned, is out now.

This discussion was originally published on the Self-Publishing with ALLi Podcast in July 2025.

• How poems “choose” their writers and the difference between emotion-driven poetry and character/place-driven short stories
• W.B. Yeats' prose outline technique for poetry and why it helps writers actually finish their poems
• The challenges and rewards of creating print collections through Kickstarter for niche audiences
• Why submission to magazines isn't the only path—the case for direct publishing and building reader relationships
• Marketing strategies specific to poetry and short fiction, from video content to reader teams
• The importance of professional editing and beautiful book design for short-form collections

You can find Orna at OrnaRoss.com and Jo at JFPennBooks.com and BooksAndTravel.page. You can find The Buried and the Drowned at: www.JFPenn.com/buried. You can find Night Light As It Rises here.

Transcript of the discussionJo: Today we are going to be talking about what we've both been working on recently. Actually, we've got a lot of craft-related discussion going on today as we talk about writing, publishing and marketing poetry and short fiction.

There are writing craft things in today's show and also business aspects. I had this idea about this show because Orna, you shared a poem written about your mom's death on your Go Creative podcast, and I did tear up and I'm sure a lot of people listening would've teared up too, and it must have been really hard to write. So I wanted to ask you —

Why did you decide to write a poem about this really difficult topic, and how do you know when something should be a poem as opposed to something longer?Orna: So poems pick me rather than me deciding. I don't actually, with longer work, I will make a decision. I'm going to do a book on such and such, but poems kind of come along or they don't.

And so this one arrived and that's why I decided to do it. In terms of why I decided to share it, which is a relatively new thing for me to do, and certainly new to do on the Go Creative podcast, something I am going to be doing going forward and share the poetry. I'm challenging myself at the moment to kind of go out there more and share those things.

Typically I would have just shared that with my poetry patrons. I wouldn't have gone any further with it. So now I'm trying to just be more human in the world of AI as you and I talk about a lot, that whole double down on being human thing. Well, you know, reading a poem that you've written yourself is probably about as human as it gets and that's why I decided to share it.

Then in terms of how do you know whether something's a poem or something longer for me, and again, I think it's really personal for each different writer, but for me —

Lyrical poems are short and just a single flash of feeling and image coming together for concentrated emotion.If I can sense the whole experience in just one vivid moment kind of thing, that's a poem for me rather than an essay or a story.

So there'd be an image and there'd be a feeling, rather than, there may be an idea as well, but the image and the feeling are the main thing. If plots start coming in or characters, memory, side stories, anything like that, then it's a bigger thing, much bigger thing. Usually for me, novels and all. But one scene, one beat. That's poetry.

Jo: And you mentioned there about the doubling down of being human. And of course this poem about the death of your mother —

You can't get much more human than a poem about the death of your mother. I mean, AI could generate something, but that is a human experience, right?

Orna: Yes, 100%. And I believe that this is a personal belief of mine as a writer, is one of my sort of writing credo. That the feeling and emotion and experiences that you're having while you're writing a poem that opens you out, that in some way that is conveyed to the reader who then experiences.

Not exactly the same. They're going to bring their own stuff to it, but they're going to have a sense of that humanity in the poem. I do feel that is something that can't be replicated. Very hard to describe, very hard to explain where it, where it comes, where you see it in the text, but I believe it's there.

But yeah, short stories are similar. You've been writing short stories recently and —

How do you know when an idea is a short story or a longer story or a novel?Jo: I normally have like a story seed and I guess I have story seeds for novels as well. And I want to explore that.

But usually there has to be some kind of twist. So when I was growing up, I mean, I still read them sometimes, Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected, which I loved. And if people have an idea of Roald Dahl, I know in some ways he has been critiqued these days, but pretty dark children's writing as well.

But the Tales of the Unexpected are adult short stories. So I like having this sort of surprising or disturbing or unexpected sense about it. I do feel like you can explore different subgenres a lot more than novels. So my novels tend to be action adventure or straight thriller or supernatural thriller.

And then with my short stories, I get into all kinds of different things. So I've got some techno thrillers. I do a lot of archaeology. I like to research a lot, but my short stories do have these sort of themes and archaeology is certainly one of them.

So I think if I don't want to turn it into something bigger, I definitely think every short story could be turned into some kind of novel. But I don't necessarily want to do that.

I just finished a short story, it's called Between Two Breaths, and it stems from an experience I had scuba diving in the Poor Knights Islands in New Zealand almost 25 years ago, and I haven't actually written about it.

Funnily enough, I had written a poem back then I found, it's dated 2005, so I guess that's 20 years ago. And I'm actually going to put that in the edition in my collection to go with that short story. But it's an experience I had that I wanted to encapsulate in something short that leaves the reader with questions.

And actually, as we're talking, I'm wondering if that's the difference because with my novels, as a reader, I hate a cliffhanger at the end of a novel. I want things to be wrapped up. And thrillers are, even if they're in a series, are usually completely wrapped up. So they are, they're not like fantasy where you might have seven books and there's cliffhangers on every one.

My short stories leave you with a question and I find that that's really important. A bit like the Roald Dahl stories, you can still be thinking about them later because they haven't necessarily ended. So yeah, I guess that's the difference.

And it's interesting because you said that the poem stems from emotion, whereas I feel like the short story, it does start with either a character or a place.

So, for example, I went, when I went up to Ely Cathedral, it sort of sparked this idea about the area being drowned and this place called Seahenge, which kind of emerged from the waters, this prehistoric wooden circle.

And I was like, I have to write a story about that. So that, I think that's kind of the difference, the emotion versus a place or a character. I don't know. What do you think?

Orna: Yeah, I think that speaks to me though. Of course you can have character and place in poetry. You have to have it in story in narrative forms, but in poetry you can have narrative elements as well.

Poetry can be everything, and I think it very much depends on what kind of poet you are. Just as you know what you said there about your novels are wrapped up and your short stories can be, have a much more open ending for another writer, might be the other way around. And it's very much, I often feel —

The forms that we write in, they choose us.And we've discussed this before in terms of the fact that writing across genre and across the big macro genre of fiction and nonfiction. And then I do poetry as well. I mean, you wouldn't choose that if you were just operating from choice, would you? And in similar ways, I think the forms that we use, they kind of choose us a bit, don't they?

Jo: Yeah. And also for me, the short story, I'm a discovery writer. As I've talked about before, I don't necessarily know what the twist is going to be or what ending I will leave with. So, although I say that, that Between Two Breaths, I absolutely knew how it would end. I actually started with the end and then, because that's the experience I had, and I wanted to communicate that feeling.

Whereas Seahenge, I didn't know how it was going to end. I just knew that I wanted to have the emergence of this prehistoric circle, and it had this upturned tree in the middle and in the roots. Something was there like an ancient sacrifice. I love ancient sacrifice, as you know!

So I was like, well, what, what is it? What could that be? And that question of what could that be? I didn't necessarily know. And that's, you know, it eventually came to it.

I think there's a lot of fun in the creativity of short stories because it's so much shorter.And actually, I was going to ask you about this. So for me, writing a short story, it is a short process compared to a novel because normally I write between, let's say 5,000 and 10,000 words. I know the word count so you know, it literally just doesn't take so long. It could take a couple of weeks, but it doesn't take forever. Whereas a novel, you know, a lot more words.

But how about you? Because I feel like a poem can actually take a lot longer. So tell us about the process for writing a poem. Do you start with loads of words and edit or build up from a line? Like what is the process?

Orna: Yeah, so just on the thing of brevity and short. Short is one of the major reasons that I write poetry because novels and nonfiction for me take a very long time and —

Almost all the poems that I have published, I write and publish them pretty quickly. Actually, I have just one big epic I've been writing for a long time, a long poetry sequence about women and writing and a tradition, the writing tradition if you like.

So it's a huge theme and that one is taking a long time. But generally speaking, the fact that I can start and finish a poem sometimes in a day is just brilliant for me and it keeps me. I think I can keep on with these big fiction projects and things because I get the satisfaction of putting poetry together in between.

So, not every poem is done in a day, not by any means. Sometimes they take weeks and sometimes they take a few months. But that's nothing for me compared to the big books.

And in terms of then how I put it together —

I only began to produce poetry consistently when I adopted a technique that I learned from the great W.B. Yeats, who always wrote prose outline first.And it might sound really strange, but I never did that for a long time. And now that I do, it's made such a difference to actually finishing, because before I started to do that. I had, I don't know how many hundreds of unfinished poems, but now that I do the prose outline first, if I start the poem, I finish it.

And so I free-write that summary by hand and kind of listening as I write more. Then I would, if I was writing fiction or nonfiction and start reading it aloud or take it for a walk and just begin to kind of recite any lines that are. I'm looking for the rhythm and the pulse of it. Again, much more than I would be for fiction or nonfiction.

And I'll start thinking about form. Should it be free verse? Should it be, you know, a sonnet or something else. At the moment I'm looking at rondeaux. Lots of, trying to do a few poems in that form because I never did it before until recently.

And then when I thought, I kind of realized, okay, that's enough. Now thinking and walking and reciting on that, I'll open a new file and then rewrite the whole thing as poem and then just as much as needed from there. Sometimes it needs lots, sometimes only a little, sometimes I'll take it for a walk again and again. Sometimes it'll just finish up, as I said, in a day.

Not very often, but that does happen. I know when it's done. I just know there's a sort of a click and there's nothing else to change, and there's a kind of a silence settles in around the words. So then I know it's finished.

Jo: Yeah. Well, it's really interesting. I think, was it Mary Oliver who said like, sometimes she'd be out walking and a poem would come towards her and she knew she had to catch it because if she didn't catch it, it would be gone.

Orna: Oh. That's the story that Elizabeth Gilbert tells in her TED Talk, isn't it?

Jo: Oh, is it?

Orna: It's not at the top of my head, but yeah, it's a brilliant story. She'd run back to the house to write it down and thought before she missed it. What about your process for stories, short stories.

Jo: Oh, I need to stay on poetry a minute because you made me, because the poem and people, I really recommend people go listen to you recite this, the poem for your mother. What's it called again?

Orna: It's called The Milky Ways.

Jo: Yeah, The Milky Ways. And it, I mean some of those images stick in my mind, but of course it was layered. It is a very specific moment. But it's layered with a lot of memory and other emotions other than grief, obviously.

And so to me it feels like some poems and I feel like some of our creative works, whatever. They are poetry, short fiction, nonfiction, whatever, memoir take a long, long time to come in some way emerge.

I mean like this short story about the diving at the Poor Knights. I don't know why I didn't write that before and it just feels like it took a very long time. So even though some of your poems you are writing quite quickly.

Do you feel like some poems, like the one for your mother, have taken a long time to come out?Orna: Yes, definitely. Definitely you can find yourself writing a poem about an experience that you'd forgotten about even, and that is really, really a very long time ago. I feel an awful lot of stuff that turns up in my poetry image wise goes back to childhood. So they take, they've taken half a century to get to get here and come out.

And I didn't start writing poetry at all until I was in my forties. I did as a teen, but I didn't then and a friend died. And so it just started at me again and I didn't really start writing it seriously until about, I was in my fifties really. So I do think poetry, I mean there are so many different kinds of poems.

It's macro genre, which has millions of genre within, but the kind of poems that I write definitely there, there's a maturing and maturing of the ideas and things are necessary to them, I think. Yeah, definitely.

Jo: Well, I've, as you know, turned 50, so maybe I'm coming into my next poetry period!

But if people, so if people listening, if they want to start writing. Because it also, it feels to me very, even though I have written some and I've taken some classes and I do buy and read poetry, but it feels so daunting compared to writing fiction or nonfiction.

For me, even memoir, writing a poem just seems so much weightier, I think because perhaps I mainly read poems that are quite serious and I love your poem, as I mentioned, and they, it feels so big. So if people listening, they want to write poems, but they don't really know how to start. You mentioned there's a prose outline, so what even is that? Just explain like how someone might start.

How might someone start writing poetry? Orna: So in terms of the outline, it would just say what the poem is going to contain.

In the poem that you were talking about, literally just a moment standing at the window, looking out at the night sky a while behind me knowing, you know, my mother is in her bed and I can hear her breath, which is being artificially fed to her.

And knowing that, we have been told that she doesn't have a long time. So the outline is just the content, what's going to go in there. So it's, and it's best done, as I said, with free writing. Writing fast, raw, let it all out, just kind of pour it down onto the page.

And what you're looking for then is some words have energy in them. Free writing, some words in there, have more energy than others. And so you kind of pull them out and start to. You know, if it's a sentence, repeat that sentence in your mind and see what else calls and you're looking for, I mean, for me, what's very important, what makes a poem and why I don't agree that, you know, a lot of poetry that's called poetry for me, if it doesn't have an image.

In it then. It's not really a poem to me. It has to have emotion and image. And after that, then the best, the best possible words and the best possible order. I forget who said that as a description of good poetry, but yeah. Image and emotion to me are the heart of poetry. Otherwise, you might as well write prose.

To me, that's what makes a difference. So maybe that's where some people feel the challenge is to get the right image to encompass the emotion.

Jo: Yes. Because of course some poems have a certain, as you said like, like a meter or they're a certain type like my scuba diving one is a pantoum, so it has a certain rhythm to it and certain lines repeat and all of this kind of thing.

And that feels very like overly structured. And then of course we've got a lot of Insta poets who, it might just be an emotional, like, it might even read like an affirmation.

It feels like there's a lot of freedom in poetry, but you can make it quite structured if you want to, right? If you feel like you need structure, there are structures you can go to.Orna: Hundred percent. And then there can be the opposite of that, where the structure becomes a complete confinement. And that's not poetry either.

So again, if it's playful and you're enjoying it, then it's poetic, but there's nothing poetic about trying to beat yourself into some form that's, you know, your English teacher taught you 30 years ago and you think you should write or whatever.

Poetry can be anything. And that freedom. Can be, you know, that can stop us. So if structure helps use structure, if structure doesn't help let it go.

Jo: Well, I guess —

For my short stories, it's the structure of a novel in that there's a character in a setting, something happens, other things happen, and then it ends somehow.I mean, I also feel like some people think that a short story has to be only one character in one setting and only one thing happens. But I actually, some of my short stories, so one in particular, De-extinction of the Nephilim, so it was based on, there's a company called Colossal and they're de-extincting things.

So they just did the dire wolf and they want to do the woolly mammoth and all this. And obviously Jurassic Park is the classic de-extinction story. This one's about the Nephilim and it has three point of view characters, an archaeologist and a geneticist, and a maternity nurse.

And so it was like, when that came to me, I knew the archaeologist had to find something underground, and that would then spark the rest of the story. And I didn't know that the other characters would come in and that story ended up being, I think it's about 8000 to 10,000. So it's a bit of a longer one.

But I feel like if people feel like it can only be one character in one place and all that, that can hem you in as well. So I do tend, obviously a short story does have a certain word count.

I don't submit to magazines or anything, I just publish them myself. I have been in a few anthologies. I've had a few stories commissioned — but generally I write in Scrivener exactly the same as I write my novels.

Then I print it out and hand edit. There are different scenes sometimes like mini chapters, so that De-extinction of the Nephilim, it's got like different chapters based on the different characters. And I still use ProWritingAid. I still work with my editor, Kristen. She edits my short stories as well. So I have exactly the same process, I guess for short stories as I do for fiction. And the only difference is, I guess the lens, but also the leaving it with a question.

Orna: And do you ever put short stories up on your blog or anything?

Jo: No, but I sell them individually, so they are on all the usual stores. They're on my JFPennBooks.com Shopify store.

And we are going to talk in a bit about the first print collection, but I find that actually, I mean, I've had people on my podcast, on The Creative Penn podcast talk about you should always try and license short stories to magazines and anthologies and submit them to competitions first because the contracts for short stories are some of the best in the business in that the rights revert usually very quickly, and the contracts are often either for first print rights and they expire quite quickly, or subsequent print rights.

And they're usually fine in terms of the people pay per word and all this. But I'm just so impatient that I normally, once I have an idea, I'm like, no, I need to write that story. And then I publish it and I send it out to my email list and you can actually make some decent money even selling them at 99 cents, which I feel, or $2.99.

But you can't price an individual short story too high. I also narrate them myself, the audio books as human me. So that can kind of add in that human element as well.

Orna: And value. And the people who say, you know. Send them out. I think underestimate how much creative energy that whole submission process takes, backwards and forwards. So I'm the same with poetry. I mean —

People assume that you must submit poetry to journals and stuff. And I just never do, never have, never will.And if somebody approaches me or, I might, and I'm not saying never, never say never. I might decide I'd like to be in such and such a thing, but I need another reason to do it. So I have contributed to, at the moment, an anthology here in my new hometown of Hastings called Poet Town being put together.

And I have one in there. And also there's Washing Windows, which is a kind of a well-known series of Irish poets anthology in Ireland. I've got one in that, but generally speaking, I'm not going out there in the whole submission thing because it takes a lot of time and effort and energy to do that.

And I'd rather write another poem actually. So I just put, I just put them on my blog, at least two a month. The, the whatever my favorite two of the most recent kind of thing. One is for my patrons only and my best one of the month. And then when I have enough for a collection, I eventually publish it in book form, but that can take a long time.

So I have different poems sitting in different collections that won't be published until there are enough in them. But I am now beginning to bundle and looking at special editions through Kickstarter, that is something I would like to do, probably for this book.

And so the poem that you heard me read on the podcast is part of a collection of poems for bereavement, 12 Poems to Inspire series. And these are the grief and bereavement ones. So, yeah, I'm going to bring a few of those books together and create a special edition through Kickstarter in time for once again, once there's enough.

Jo: Do you teach writing poetry as part of your Patreon, or do you do classes at all? Or is that just not something you are…

Orna: No, I did in the past. Not anymore. Not anymore. Again, I'd rather just be doing it.

Jo: Oh, well, we might have to demand like a stretch goal for your Kickstarter, where you will do a special webinar or something for those of us who want to…

Orna: That sounds okay.

Jo: Yeah, I think that would be great because I feel like those of us who buy and read poetry often want to do more poetry. It's just that it feels, as I said, it feels. It feels important to me. It's really funny. Whereas I feel like my short stories, I write them and I'm really happy with them and they often, they encapsulate this moment but I don't feel that they're heavy in any way. I don't know.

Do you think that people have got the wrong impression of poetry by making it too serious?Orna: Yeah. I think that's a bad place to start. It can be anything you want it to be. And I do think that's school, isn't it? Where they sat us down and chopped it up, like they dissected it like it was a rabbit in science class or something.

And that's not how poems are written, and it's not how they're read when you're reading for pleasure yourself. So, I would say just start with the poems you love. And just start to write. I mean, you're a very experienced writer, so you can write poetry, no problem. It just depends then on what kind of poetry it is that you want to try, but definitely take away all the, it's got to be heavy and brilliant and all of that because that's the stopper for all writing, isn't it?

I appreciate you feel that way about it. And I know you're exaggerating a bit, but, yeah, it can be really playful poetry and if you look at all the, in inverted commas, great poets, and you read, once you read deeply into what they, or sorry, widely into what they've written, you'll find that they've all written light, playful pieces, you know, poems that aren't very good really, that don't really quite work.

And they have their favorite kind of ways of going on and all of those, in inverted commas less than good, you know, poems are part of what actually produces one that does shine and reach a lot more people. So, yeah, playful, I think is, I would think is the key word when it comes to poetry.

Tell us about your short story collection. Have you had challenges?Jo: It's certainly a challenge. Like, first of all, I do think that I thought a bit like maybe how I feel about poetry, which is maybe I'm not worthy and I feel I'm not really exaggerating.

I do feel like because maybe I studied English literature and I can be too serious about all these things. I feel like Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected, it's like a canon work in my mind, and to do a short story collection? Well, in the sort of literary world, doing a short story collection published by a traditional publishing house is a really big deal because let's face it, they don't make a ton of money.

Orna: So they're for super fans, you know? Yeah. Short story collections are for super fans, which means an author can do really well with them, but publishers don't tend to do so well with them.

Jo: So it does mean that the famous short story collections are sort of by big name authors. So I feel like that was the first challenge was, oh well I couldn't do that. And then I was like, no, I really want to do, I really want to have my own collection in print because it's easy enough to do a short ebook and a short audiobook digitally, but none of these are in print.

I do have a trilogy, which is in print, which is A Thousand Fiendish Angels, which is three short stories inspired by Dante's Inferno. So that is in print, but the rest of them are not. And so I really wanted to do that. And so that was one challenge. I was like, should I do it now? I really want to do it.

And then it was, okay, what do you call it? And this kind of titling of a short story collection, that I haven't written to be related to each other was really hard.

But this is where ChatGPT and Claude, I used both of them, uploaded all the eBooks that I'd written, all the short stories. Asked for titles for the themes, asked it to really examine the themes across the whole thing. And people could use Notebook LM, Google's Notebook LM as well.

Anything where you can get it to really look at your work and kind of analyze it. And we can't see these things ourselves, but there were loads and loads of titles, but the one I love is called The Buried and the Drowned, which, some people, if anyone's read my fiction, that does say a lot about me.

That is true. Super dark, dark little soul. But yeah, and I mean, for example, of the ones I've talked about here, Seahenge is very much about the drowned and De-extinction of the Nephilim is very much buried and it's the sort of dangers of messing with what has been buried for so long and what has been drowned will be drowned again and all that kind of thing.

So, so the sort of coming up with the title, but it's one of these occasions where I think AI tools can really help and I love the title. And then I asked it, okay, well I need a cover image. So let's brainstorm that. And I've worked with Jane Dixon-Smith, who's been my cover designer for more than a decade now.

And so we've got that going. I'm writing a couple of extra stories, which I won't publish separately, so people who have already read the other stories hopefully will want it because there'll be two exclusives. One of which will be that Between Two Breaths and a story called The Black Church, which is where I spent my 50th birthday.

I woke up next to the Black Church in Iceland. So writing that, my editor Kristen, is going to read the whole collection because another challenge is what order do you put these in? So I'm going to try and figure it out myself, and then I'm going to give it to Kristen, who has edited some of those stories already, but she will read it as a first reader.

I'm also expanding the author's note, so —

All my short stories have very personal author's notes, about where these stories come from. Like another one, it's about having an eye operation. When I had, after I had laser surgery. A few years ago it's called With a Demon's Eye, but it's things like that.

I've written these sort of super personal authors notes, which again, coming back to the being human in an age of AI, I feel like that's so important and, and putting in the special edition, I'm going to put like that poem I mentioned, which is really about my divorce and my first marriage, and also photos.

There's even a photo, a really old photo of me scuba diving during that time, back in the days when there wasn't digital cameras and stuff. So I want to make this collection, as you say, it is for super fans. I'm going to have a really low number on my Kickstarter, but it feels personally very important as part of my 50th year to do something that means so much.

But boy, I definitely feel it's been a challenge.

Orna: That's great. That sounds fantastic. When do you think it'll all come together? Do you have a date for the Kickstarter yet?

Jo: I'm aiming for 1st of September. We're recording this in July. So, if people are interested, it is up JFPenn.com/buried. The Buried and the Drowned. So JFPenn.com/buried and yeah, I think it will. I've bought a lot of short story collections off Kickstarter from people I don't know. I do actually think Kickstarter is a great place for short story collections. I think there is an audience there who are looking for them, and if you've bought one before, other ones come up in your recommendation algorithm.

So I'm kind of hoping that maybe some new people will find them, because again, people who read poetry, read poetry, people who read short stories as well as other things. But it's like if you like short stories, then maybe you find other ones by other authors.

Yeah, I mean, well what about your collection? Because you actually have quite a lot of poetry collections, so tell us about the process for that.

What's the process for a poetry collection?Orna: Yeah, it takes a while, as I said earlier, because I don't, I never sit down and say right, now I'm going to create a collection, you know? Or create a poetry book apart from that epic one, that's going to be one big, long poem.

So I have to wait until there are more than enough, on a linked theme. So I have ideas about what that might look like, and I have pinboards on the studio wall. And so I'd be looking for thematic overlaps between different poems or recurring symbols or something like that.

And then when they feel like they go together, I have a sense, almost like I'm writing a musical piece with them, you know, and of a rise and fall kind of thing. I like to feel that the reader will go in and begin to gather together, kind of what I'm saying, and then move more deeply into it and then kind of ascend out.

But, so I usually break them into sections as well. And I have never really, you know, on the publishing business side for a long time I didn't really think about poetry in that way. So it was, I put stuff out there, but I didn't go out doing ad campaigns or anything like that with poetry.

So I've been quite unbusiness-like around it really and perfectly happy to do that and to see them as something that I write and people come to, people to know me, or as you say, who like reading poetry can find them.

But then I did start to put together this new most recent series, which is 12 Poems to Inspire, and this is a bit more commercial because they're written around a particular occasion or event.

So there are 12 about Christmas or that end of year time, new beginnings, for Mother's Day, 12 poems about love for Valentine's Day, that kind of thing. And so these are the ones that I'm going to now begin to bundle together and I'll do a Kickstarter and put together three of them I think, into a collection called Poetry of Light.

And then I am going to start, when the season comes round, actually actively promoting them. And so I think these are my most accessible poems, if you like. And the ones that are most likely to, it's worth treating them in that way.

Jo: Just on the number there, so you said, so you, because I've got some of your slim volumes, so those have 12 in, so when you say there's going to be three lots, so you're going to have a collection with 36 poems in, or —

How do people know when it's enough to do something like a printed edition?Orna: Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? So yeah, in this case, yes. I specifically decided these short books, they were to really be almost like an expensive gift card in a situation where you'd buy somebody a sympathy card instead. Buy this slim volume and give them this instead to be more meaningful. They hopefully won't put it in the bin afterward.

It will last, they can come back to it and read it again and again. So that was the idea of them. They were deliberately slim and in fact, and they are illustrated as well. I forgot to say that my daughter, has done the illustrations. I had my own efforts at illustration, but I am updating them all now.

My daughter has done the illustrations for them. So, they're an experience specifically around a particular thing. So that wouldn't be your typical collection. I have, you know, they will be bigger. For example, I have Allowing Flow is a collection of mindfulness poetry. I'm not sure how many poems are there, but probably 50.

So I think the general consideration for a collection is 50 to 60 poems, makes a collection depending, again, on length of poems. So it's difficult to generalize, but that will be, you know, that will be the average, shall we say, for a collection.

Jo: And just on the poetry editing side, because as I mentioned, I work with my editor Kristen on the individual stories and then also for the whole collection. And obviously for fiction, I work with editors as I know you do.

What do you think about editors for poetry, whether an individual poem or for a collection and kind of understanding the structure of a collection?Orna: Oh, yes. Contrary to what people think. Editing is just as important for poems as it is for fiction and nonfiction, and editors make poems immeasurably better. So, at every level, at the developmental level, in the individual poem, obviously, and copy editing and punctuation choices can make a huge difference to a poem's meaning actually.

So punctuation becomes super important. The shorter the form, the more important it is. So, yes. And you need an editor who writes and edits poetry. You can't just have your usual editor for poetry. I think it has to be somebody who understands and understands both when to step in and when to stay away. So, yeah, I think it's really important.

Jo: And then I guess the other thing, one of the reasons we do Kickstarters is because we want to produce gorgeous print books. So again, I'm doing green foil for The Buried and the Drowned, which on the cover is going to look awesome.

And there'll be a ribbon and sprayed edges. And the photos and the paper will be heavier and it will just be all the cool things that we can do once we get the Kickstarter money. And you can't really do it otherwise. But also —

With your collection, are you thinking about beautiful design elements? Because of course, poetry and page layout is so important.Orna: Yeah, definitely. And I think if you're writing poetry is one thing, and producing poetry books is great.

But if you want to start to think about selling poetry, then you have to think about beautiful packaging, I think. Because that's essentially what people are looking for when they buy poems and they want, it can be very subtly beautiful, but the layout of the words on the page becomes all important and how that page feels.

And as you say, if you can make your poetry book look and feel gift worthy, then it has a much better chance of some commercial success. And it should also, I feel. The coherent emotional experience, the collection. So rather than, you know, here's the first 20 poems I ever wrote, all put together. There needs to be some sense of it working together as a whole, as a collection. And the editor can help with that as well.

And I mean, I have had, as I come to, you know, as I begin to bring a collection together, I would then realize I need more poetry for this collection and I would start to write specifically to finish off that collection, but is definitely something that happens.

Jo: Then the other thing for the Kickstarter, and in fact in general, I mentioned audio and audio narration. Now you have actually been quite resistant, I think, to publishing audio of you reading. So what are your thoughts? And of course you read this poem for your mother and The Milky Ways poem on your Go Creative podcast and it was fantastic.

Are you moving into doing more audio for your poetry?Orna: That's why I'm doing it on the podcast. It's to warm myself up. I'm not drawn to doing it, but you and a few other people have said, and I can see myself how it, you know, it's, I would think it's becoming essential now too. As part of that human thing that we were talking about to read yourself.

So yes, I am, I'm going to do, now I do have a little short sampler of my poems out there in audio form, but I did that a very long time ago. At First Flush it's called, just a sample. But yes, I am going to do these myself and to audio. So when I do this collection and bundle everything, I'll have the audio as well.

Jo: Well, I mean, you mentioned that. Is it essential? I mean, I probably would've read the poem when you had put it somewhere, but because I'm an audio sort of reader in so many ways, hearing you read that poem, I think has a lot more impact. And again, as the human element. Hearing you read it is so important.

So for people who are listening who might be feeling as uncomfortable about it as you have, any tips for getting over that, I guess?

Orna: Feel the pain and then do it anyway? I don't really know that I'm the right person to give tips about this because as you say, I have been so. I've kept procrastinating it.

I just think for me, not listening back is kind of key. So getting it off to the producer and I don't want to do my own production, for example, on them. So yeah, I don't, but I'll go through the experience maybe, and then I'll share the tips at the far side. How's that?

Jo: I think that's good. And I mean, again, talking about the Kickstarter, which I think is a great way to do the poetry collection and the short story collection is that some, a lot of people buy audio through Kickstarter. It is one of the best ways to sell audio direct. So for example, I'd be very interested in buying the beautiful hardback if you're going to do one and plus the audio as an add-on.

That's how I would want your poetry would be those two editions. So that I would have the nice print book on my shelf. Like I've got Your Secret Rose beautiful edition on my shelf. And I would, but I would prefer to listen than I would to read.

So I don't know. I mean, that's how I feel as a consumer and what I see on my Kickstarters. With fiction and nonfiction so far is that people want the bundle with the audio. So even the print book with the ebook and the audio book as the bundle that they buy. I don't know, is that something you'll offer?

Orna: Yes. And I do think that's a great offer for poetry in particular actually, and short form for, you know, we're talking about short stories as well. I think, having that combination is, is a really good thing for short form.

Jo: Then I guess, before we finish up, we should, because we also talk about business and I guess the Kickstarter side is business, but marketing. I mean, what do you think about marketing for poetry? I mean, I guess doing the audio is one way and you can put those out.

What else do you see poets doing for marketing?Orna: Well, short form video is huge for poets and if you can do that well, I'm not going to ever do that, but if you can do that well, that is probably the easiest, best way.

And of course, in doing your video that you can then harvest your audio for your audio book so you're both producing and marketing at the same time, which is my favorite form of marketing content marketing.

You don't have to show your face necessarily if you don't want to. But you can still produce videos, so you, I see some poets doing, you know, stock footage or AI illustration or indeed just if they're that way inclined their own illustrations and music and putting it all together as beautiful sort of piece.

And that obviously is almost a form in itself. Film poetry is actually an emerging genre and there's some beautiful examples out there if people are attracted to that, but obviously that's very time consuming. So it's much more than just a way of marketing your poetry.

But video in poetry, like in every other aspect of publishing is definitely big right now. I think the main thing for poets is to get the poetry out on Substack, on social, on a blog, and I think your email list is super important. It's always important for everybody, but you are depending on that relationship with your readers, in a big way as a poet, I think.

I think one thing that I would say to people is don't target general poetry magazines or bloggers, or worse again, general book bloggers and people forget that poetry is a macro genre, like fiction and nonfiction. It divides up into genres, so there's no point in sending your inspirational poems to the dark goth collection, you know it's not going to work.

So you have to research your comparable poets like you would with fiction or nonfiction. And then you find out who's working in that arena and you send them a tailored pitch or you can swap reading with other poets. I mean, there's a very thriving poetry scene on all of the platforms. I think Instagram is the one that I'm most familiar with, though I'm not there anymore. I was part of that for a few years and I really loved it.

And then there are the magazines and the literary journals and stuff, which as I said, I don't do, but if you want to do those. And they are hungry for content always. And they like dealing directly with the poet and they're not inclined to deal with mainstream PR as much.

And then I think the other big thing is to build a reader team who will go out and do your early reviews, but also share your favorite lines and talk about the poems. I think that's really important and I would say don't do ads or any direct promotion until you've seen something work and you know, if you have a reading you do on TikTok or whatever and it goes down well, that's the point at which to invest. But it would be very easy to waste a lot of money and get nowhere.

Jo: And I think for me, a lot of the short story ideas and poems, we are not looking at the massive spike on launch. Like, I'm not expecting to do a six figure Kickstarter on a short story collection. You know, it's, I will probably have my lowest goal of any of my Kickstarters. But the point is that —

Over the years, these sell. People buy my short stories every day.You know, some of them I wrote a decade ago. Same with your poems, right? They don't age ,these things. They really don't. So I feel like we launch them, we do the Kickstarter, which is a short launch, in only a couple of weeks in the end. But the point is that we will keep writing and people will find them over time.

So I just, I feel like that might take the pressure off some people is, look, just think about this as primarily poetry and short stories are creative things. I mean, you could say all books are creative, but these are very creative. You know, there are very few people who aim to make tons of money with these types of writing.

It is very much a creative drive and a piece of your body of work that you want to get into a beautiful print edition. That's kind of how I feel. And then I will do my best, but as you say, I'm not going to spend any money on marketing it. I'm going to put it out there and, yeah, see what happens.

Orna: Exactly, and I think it is important for us to understand a bit about what is commercial, what is creative in our work when you're building up a body of work, you don't have to give the same marketing treatment to everything you produce.

You can go out knowing that something is, you're doing it largely for yourself and for those, for the super fans who kind of like everything you do or for people who particularly like a particular thing.

And there is absolutely no shame in aiming small sometimes. And keep the big guns for the things that are most likely to succeed with a wider audience.

Jo: Absolutely. And I guess that brings us back to definition of success and why. Why we write these things. And it really is, as we both said, I think these ideas just come to us and we know that we want to write them as a poem or as a short story. So I guess any finishing thoughts Orna?

Orna: Just that it's brilliant to be indie. You know, with this stuff, because it can be heartbreaking. I remember back in the day when indie wasn't a thing and trying to get somebody to be interested to say, yeah, it's just great to be able to just put it together, put it out there, see what happens, and not mind too much how it goes, that there is a great freedom in that, that I think is really, really precious.

Jo: Fantastic. So, yes, you can find mine at JFPenn.com/buried. And if people want to find your collection Orna?

Orna: OrnaRoss.com/nightlight.

Jo: Fantastic. Well, thanks for being with us today, everyone. We really hope that you have found this useful and all the best with writing your own poems and short stories.

Orna: Happy writing everyone and happy publishing.

The post Writing And Publishing Short Stories And Poetry With J.F. Penn And Orna Ross first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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What if you could turn a monthly writing challenge into a successful book collaboration—all while recording the entire creative process as a podcast? What if hand-selling locally sells more books than online marketing? Clay Vermulm talks about his creative and business processes.

In the intro, Spotify’s new ‘Follow Along’ Feature for some audiobooks [Publishing Perspectives]; and thoughts on special edition vinyl or tapes for audio, like Harper Collins special edition example; AI-Assisted Artisan Author webinars; Hindenburg Narrator for audiobook mastering; Canterbury Cathedral; CreativePennBooks.com new theme; The Buried and the Drowned.

This episode is sponsored by Publisher Rocket, which will help you get your book in front of more Amazon readers so you can spend less time marketing and more time writing. I use Publisher Rocket for researching book titles, categories, and keywords — for new books and for updating my backlist. Check it out at www.PublisherRocket.com

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn

Clay Vermulm is a horror novelist and short story author, co-author of Rain Shadows: Dark Tales from Washington State along with Tamara Kaye Sellman, and a podcaster at Fermented Fiction and Beneath the Rain Shadow.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.

Show Notes

• How a chance meeting at a sci-fi critique group led to a successful horror writing collaboration
• The unique podcast-to-book model: using monthly prompts and live critiques to create Rain Shadows
• How they've sold more books by hand than online—plus specific tactics for face-to-face selling
• Essential tips for being a better critique partner without destroying someone's confidence
• The business side of co-authoring: 50/50 splits, paying contributors, and why royalty tracking is a nightmare

You can find Clay at RainShadowStories.com and on Substack.

Transcript of Interview with Clay VermulmJo: Clay Vermulm is a horror novelist and short story author, co-author of Rain Shadows: Dark Tales from Washington State along with Tamara Kaye Sellman, and a podcaster at Fermented Fiction and Beneath the Rain Shadow. So welcome to the show, Clay.

Clay: Hey, thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be on here.

Jo: Lots for us to talk about. So first up—

Tll us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing.Clay: Like a lot of people, I've been writing since I was a little kid with crayons and everything like that, so I think a lot of writers out there can relate to that story. More specifically, I went to college for English and history.

Like a lot of people, I think I was told through a good portion of my life this sort of narrative—and I think it's ironic, right? We tell people, “Oh, follow your dreams.”

If people do something creative when they're a kid or when they're younger, we encourage that. We parade that, we champion that. Then as soon as you turn 18, we're like, “Okay, time to make money now. Do something that's a real job.”

I always resented that, and once I got to college, I had a really good English professor who taught a class on actual publishing. His whole class was about how to submit a short story and how to go out there and try to get your work published.

Your final for the class was just to actually show him that you had submitted a short story to a professional market and written one, because we wrote and critiqued them throughout class.

I grew up in rural Montana, so I hadn't had a lot of opportunities to do critique groups or writing groups or theater or any of that until I went to college. Once I did and saw some of the avenues you could take to really pursue a life in creativity, I was totally hooked. That's where it officially began for me.

Honestly, I owe it largely to theater. I got into theater and I went to college on a wrestling scholarship. I ended up dropping out of that and going into the community theater, doing some shows, learning to write stage plays and standup comedy and music.

I tried writing everything and eventually landed on books because, as you know Joanna, you can carve out your own path in indie publishing in books, and you don't have to rely on like a million other people like you do in a play or a film.

That's why I've focused on writing novels and short stories in recent years, just to get some of my stories finished and get them out there.

Jo: So did you ever get a “real job” as college people like to call it, or—

Have you managed a creative portfolio career, as we call it now?Clay: I'm finally getting to where that is my full-time job. For about the last three years, I've been a full-time writer—freelance stuff, magazines, editing gigs, kind of patching all that together with what I publish and put out there and a bunch of other groups I work with.

So I'm there now, but it's only been about the last three years. Up until then I've worked lots of side jobs, kitchen jobs, a teaching job, and all kinds of stuff like that.

I freelanced in the film industry here in Seattle for a solid five, six years as well. When I was doing that, I was just taking whatever new job would come my way. So I did a lot of production assistant stuff and grip and electric stuff.

Jo: I think this is so important because I feel like a lot of people do think, “Oh well, it's just the one book.” Maybe they do a degree like yours in English and then they think, “Okay, I just need to write one book and that's it.”

But what you're talking about—this sort of patchwork of all these different creative things, plus bits and bobs of jobs—is really the reality, isn't it? I certainly don't know anyone who just writes one book and then that's it, they're done.

Clay: Yes, that is certainly an illusion, and a loosely held one at that. These days, I don't know anyone who's tried selling a book who still believes that.

Jo: But perhaps if you haven't yet finished that first book, you can still believe that. It's great that your professor encouraged you all to submit because I guess you also started getting rejections pretty early, right?

Are most of your works short stories?Because I saw from your website you do a lot of short stories.

Clay: That's kind of become my favorite medium, my favorite form. I like editing too, because I really like to bring other artists, other authors together on projects. I love to showcase things that are really beautiful and strong works of fiction, especially in the short market, because there's just sort of a thing that happens with short stories.

I think that a lot of writers read short stories. They are harder to get out to your actual larger reader base. Luckily in horror, I think there's been quite a movement towards reading short fiction, but even still, people primarily like to read novels or longer work for the larger reader base, it seems.

I love taking every opportunity I can to collaborate with people and to bring awesome artists together on projects and to get these stories that—even if they've been printed somewhere else before—to get them back out there.

When I find them and I'm like, “This story's awesome,” I see if I can get a reprint and make an anthology with it, just doing those kinds of projects. It's always been really rewarding to me. I think I like writing short stories because it also allows me to explore that editing side of the work as well.

Jo: I like writing shorts as well (my new collection is The Buried and the Drowned.)

It's funny you said writers read short stories, and I was just trying to question that in my mind, like, is that true? I think you are definitely right because many of us want to write them so we read them.

I definitely remember reading the Roald Dahl Tales of the Unexpected back in the eighties, and those still shaped me. Then I was thinking about the ones that I buy now and they are pretty much all horror, which is really interesting that you said that. So people listening, definitely short stories.

Let's talk about one of your collaborations then. You have this unusual origin story for the new collection called Rain Shadows.

Talk about how Rain Shadows started, and the prompts, and the podcast, and why the hell you did it this way.Clay: It all ties together nicely. This story came out of a critique group where I met Tamara for the first time. I found this critique group randomly on Meetup, and it's actually a fantasy sci-fi critique group.

It's still going in North Seattle right now. It's a great group of people. If you happen to be a writer of sci-fi and fantasy, they're on Meetup as North Seattle Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers.

I met Tamara there and I was the only horror writer, which happens a lot in critique groups as well. You show up being the only horror writer is a common enough thing. Tamara came in with also some pretty dark stories that she was workshopping. It was like a bunch of dream sequences from her novel that she was working on.

As soon as I read her stuff, I was like, “This person is the person out of this group that I want to really work with. I hope she likes my stories because her writing's awesome.” We had a good chemistry.

We have a similar kind of style. I wouldn't say writing style, but we have a similar flavor of the kind of story we like to tell. We both liked the slow burn, the more psychological angle on horror, and it was just a good match.

From that moment on, I knew I wanted to work with Tamara at some time, in some way. I was thinking of the story I sort of told you earlier about how a lot of writers need that person. For a lot of people, that might be you, Joanna, in this podcast.

So that person to tell them that, “No, you can do this. There are avenues forward into the publishing industry for the everyday writer.” I wanted to show people that.

One of the biggest things you have to overcome is that first draft, right? You have to overcome finishing it, and then showing it to some people, and getting some feedback and starting to polish that thing and edit that thing. You can't edit a blank page.

That's the twofold goal for this project: to both show people how to finish a project and how to kickstart that creativity, which is what we use the prompts for. Then also to show that early editing process and how far a story can come from a rough draft to a completed project.

I wanted to show how you just have to get into it, find somebody you can trust who can give you good feedback, and then work through it together.

Once you get that thing finished and you start editing it, you'll always be surprised how much of the story is in there on the first draft, how much you can bring out, and how much you can lift up and make it whatever you really want to make it.

So that was the goal of Rain Shadows—to encourage finishing your stories and getting through that early editing process to start the journey towards the finished draft and finishing projects, because that really is the hardest thing for a lot of beginning writers, I think.

Jo: Okay, so you didn't really explain the podcast. Tell us—

How is it a podcast with this process? Because I've co-written with other people and there was certainly no podcasting involved!

Clay: That's fair. The concept of the podcast—it's called Beneath the Rain Shadow—and it is a craft-centric podcast focused around writing and editing short stories into a collection. Then we have collected them into a book, which is called Rain Shadows.

Every episode we alternate. So I would come in with a prompt that I created. I would give it to Tamara. She would write a story in a month's time, and at the end of the month we would record an episode where we critique that rough draft live on the show.

Every prompt was threefold. So they all had a Pacific Northwest location—and if you're not from America, the Pacific Northwest is the northwest Pacific coast corner of the country, like Washington State, Oregon, and Montana, Idaho, those kinds of areas.

We had a Pacific Northwest location, a Pacific Northwest quirk—so something that's funny about the area we live in or eccentric, like beard grooming or driving a Subaru or something like that. Then we had a horror trope—so these are everything from “sex equals death” to slashers or zombies or whatever you want to do.

Those are largely just jumping off points for us. We had a rule to include every part of the prompt in some way, but it could be as small as a character just driving a Subaru or the story could be centered around a Subaru, but it didn't have to.

That's how the podcast worked. We would come with these fun prompts, we would use them to challenge each other. We would use them to mess with each other a little bit because we're good friends.

For example, I did not want to have to write a slasher story, so I gave that to Tamara. Then for revenge, she gave me a zombie story because she knows I hate zombies.

Jo: I mean, to be fair, I do like horror, but I'm not into slasher at all. I also read very few zombies. I read Jonathan Maberry's zombies, but that's about it. This is so interesting to me because, well, one, you mentioned this critique group, this meetup, and two, I think you are just very collaborative, clearly, as a person.

As I said, I have co-written, but I definitely struggle with it. Do you think that you have had to learn techniques of collaboration? Do you think it's part of your personality to be collaborative?

How can we be better collaborators if we feel like, “Oh my goodness, I am not sharing my writing with anyone”?Clay: That's a great question. I definitely learned a lot. The nice thing about co-writing like a single narrative would be one thing, right? And this isn't necessarily that because we were alternating short stories.

So we definitely co-edited this collection, but we also had the benefit of co-writing individual stories. So we still had final say over our own creative narratives, which I think helped.

I think that kind of collaboration could be a good way to work into it if it's your first time.

You could try collaborating something where you're more co-editing than co-writing everything. But regardless, I think the key to it is just you have to come into it with an open mind.

You have to come into it feeling ready and malleable, because as we all know, we have to kill our darlings in the writing game. That's just part of it. You're going to have passages of interior monologue or a beautiful conversation that you have to cut from the story because it just doesn't serve the larger goal.

You have to get to that stage of the editing process where you're able to take the feedback of your co-writer effectively and constructively and apply it to the work in a meaningful way.

I find that I always discover that makes the story better. It always does to get good feedback from an experienced collaborator who can bring an objective opinion to it and help you improve it from there. Then you have to make sure to hold onto the essence of the story.

I think the key to writing together is not to look at how they're going to change the story, but looking at it as what they're going to bring to the story.

What about their work or their style of writing or who they are as a person makes them someone you want to collaborate with? Remember that as you're working with them.

What are they bringing to the table that you couldn't?Because everybody is better than you at something. That's what I love about collaborating the most, everybody can bring something wholly unique. Everybody can tell a story that I could never tell.

That's what makes writing beautiful, right? I want that involved in all of my work if I can. If somebody else can bring their perspective, their vision, their creative power and energy to something I'm working on, it's always going to make my stuff better.

Also, pick your collaborators wisely. Do your research, read their stuff, get to know them as a person before you jump on board. That's important too. I knew very well that I was going to get along with Tamara on multiple levels.

As you've said, this is a podcast too, right? So it's extra tricky. You can't just be a good writer for this project to work. You also have to be good on the podcast, which is an entirely different set of skills.

Jo: I'm still interested in this. So you met this critique group. I've never been in a writer's group. I'm like a super lone wolf kind of writer!

So you talk there about the feedback and the critique in the podcast, Beneath the Rain Shadow. If people listening want to be a better critique partner, so somebody who is able to work with someone in the way that you are, where they're respecting that person's voice, they're respecting what the author wants to do with the story…

So like both you and I don't like slasher stories, but if a friend said, “Okay, I need your feedback on this,” we can't just say, “I don't like that.” I'm really asking—

How do we take our personal preference away in order to be more positive in feedback, but still useful?I feel like I get so many emails from people that say, “I went to this critique group and I got absolutely slated. I just got destroyed because people were so negative and horrible. They just don't like my stuff.” So how do we tell the difference and help be better critique partners?

Clay: That's a great question, and finding a critique group is difficult. So if you are one of those people out there that's looking for a good critique group and you've just run into a bunch of bad situations, know that that's part of the process. That is normal.

There are good groups out there, and when you find them, they really do help make your work better. I think the key to it, if you're going into it as a critique partner, go into it remembering who you are and why you brought your stuff to the critique group.

Go in remembering what you're looking for from a group, and remembering how hard it is to put a story together and to bring a final story to the page and then share it with the world and put it out there. It's a very vulnerable thing.

Writing is such a lonely game, and the critique group can be a beautiful place to not only share your story and your work, which we all end up sharing with the world eventually, but it's a place where you get to share the process too, and that's the part that's so lonely.

That's the part that the world doesn't know about, right? Unless they're listening to interviews like this and getting that behind the scenes. Your critique group is a chance to go in there and share that whole experience with people who truly understand it.

I think that's always good for people whenever you're working through something difficult like writing. It can be a very difficult game, right? So I would say start with that, and then there are some semantic tips and tricks too.

I try to read every story twice when I critique, if not three times, depending on how confusing the story is or whatever.One technique I like to use, and Tamara will champion this technique as well: Take the story off your computer and put it on an e-reader or print it out or do something that makes it feel different than a Word document.

E-readers specifically are nice because they format it like a book, and I know it's kind of a dumb little thing, but it flicks a little switch in your brain and then you start reading it differently. You sort of have a different subconscious level of respect for it almost.

I don't know if you've experienced this at all, Joanna, but I find that's really useful for me to put it on a different device, take it off my computer and get the laptop out from in front of me. Then I feel like I'm editing or correcting a homework assignment.

Read it as a reader first and try to really capture the essence of the story.Try to really look for what is the intentionality of the story, because every writer has that in every story. If you can find that, then the goal is just to help and try to aid in whatever way you can to bring that essence of the story to the surface and make the story more powerful.

You can only offer your subjective opinion, so be conscious of that, right? Everything you are offering is feedback or whatever. You never want to try to rewrite someone's story or tell them how to write.

You want to share your experience as a subjective reader, a consumer of the story itself, and then as a peer and as a writer. If you're going to give feedback, always offer something to go with it that helps bring the essence of the story to the surface.

I think if you could do those things, that's a good place to start on being a good critique partner. If you want to hear a really long rant about it, you can listen to episode one of Beneath the Rain Shadow.

Jo: I was going to say, I mean obviously you and Tamara do that on your show. But I also think those tips are pretty good for your own stories if you can get some distance from it.

Also, I think short stories are great for this kind of critiquing, aren't they? Because if people come with novels, I mean, you can't read a whole novel in that way, and if you get a chapter, then things don't make sense. There are open loops. You don't know all the things.

So short stories, again, you said writers read them because we write them. That's what they are. They're so perfect for this kind of critiquing and getting outside the genre you might usually work in.

Let's get into the business side. You and Tamara have started a new imprint for this and the other projects.

Talk about this, and also the publishing and production process and the marketing, because being a co-producer—and whether you are describing yourselves as co-writers or co-editors—this is difficult.

It is difficult to do the business side just as much as the creative side. Clay: I'm still figuring out the business side, to be completely honest, when it comes to having an imprint. That is a new experience for me.

I have worked for a couple small indie presses and helped out at a couple other magazines and things like that. I've indie published my own anthologies and my own work, but I've always just done it under my own name and not really worried about that as much.

So doing this joint business venture with Tamara is very interesting, and luckily she has like 40 years of experience in the publishing industry. So she's definitely got that skillset to put together the marketing playbook and put together the timeline and help us stay on track for everything.

My part of that has largely been finding the contacts and utilizing a lot of the tools that I used when I have indie published my own work. So I have a good contact with a guy who's really good at book formatting, copy editing, and proofreading. So I usually go to him for my final stage stuff.

That's JW Donnelly at Dark Forest Press. I definitely recommend him if you need those kinds of late stage publishing services or editing services. He's awesome. So I've had those contacts for a while, and I helped connect some of those dots.

In terms of organizing everything and getting it all laid out, Tamara was largely the instrument of success there. We're trying a lot of things.

You come from a podcast, and one of the reasons I got into podcasting in the first place was actually from—I know you know these guys—Johnny B. Truant and Sean Platt's book Write. Publish. Repeat.

They talked about finding a way to create content that works for you and to be present in the writing community in a way that actually works for you instead of just social media lurking or half-heartedly doing something you're supposed to do.

Podcasting for me is my way of engaging with the writing community. Beneath the Rain Shadow is a great way to do that, as well as create a book. Then part of our marketing plan was always to have the creation of the book connected with the book itself as a product and that going all the way back to the podcast.

So they're in this nice loop of if you're out selling your books on the street, which we do a lot of that.

A big part of where we sell is street fairs and markets and stuff, which is why we chose to do such a localized horror theme.That's why we wanted it to be from Washington state and from where we both live, because people love that. When you're selling at these big events, conventions, and street fairs, and we do night markets and all kinds of things like that, this book is perfect for that because people love to read about where they're from.

They love to read that localized horror. So that's a really big part of our marketing plan as well, that boots on the ground selling mentality.

Then obviously we went wide too. We used Ingram Spark to distribute. If you're an indie publisher, you've got to learn about Ingram Spark.

If you want to get your book into libraries and you want to get your book into smaller bookstores and you're not going to go through a distribution network that's more established and do it yourself, Ingram Spark will be a required publishing asset for you in a lot of places. Especially for libraries and bookstores because they facilitate returns and stuff like that.

So that's something to know as well, but we just went wide on the internet and we are very focused on in-person sales with this book because it is so localized.

Jo: You knew you were going to do a book from the podcast—

Did you set up a pre-order from the beginning of the podcast?Clay: We set up our pre-order about halfway through, I think. But as we were doing the podcast, we were still getting it all off the ground at the same time. Hopefully we'll be a little ahead of the curve on the next book, which is going to be very exciting as well, and the next season of the podcast.

Jo: I love the local idea again. You really baked some good marketing into the actual book itself, saying that people like to buy local stories. Of course, it doesn't have to be horror. People listening, if they write romance or whatever they write. Nonfiction as well.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre, who's been on the show, he's written sort of local various books about places. So I think this is really interesting.

Any tips for selling in person at fairs and things?How has that gone? What about writers like me who are still worried about this?

Clay: Definitely could give you some tips. I do a lot of that. We haven't sold a ton of Rain Shadows online, but we have sold almost 200 copies by hand already.

It's a lot of fun because you get to engage directly with your readership, and I think that goes a long way towards word of mouth, especially in this day and age of oversaturation out there.

There's so many writers, there's so many stories, there's so many books, so many algorithms to compete with.

Word of mouth is still our most powerful ally as indie publishers. People going out there and reviewing our work and sharing it with their friends.If they meet you in person, I think they're more likely to do all of those things as well as to read the actual book. I think a lot of people are trophy collectors too, right? Just a good looking book for the shelf and you never read it. We all have giant TBR piles.

So that face-to-face interaction I think in this day and age is exceptionally powerful and important for indie authors. So that's a good reason to do it all by itself.

And for tips and tricks, you have to learn the energy of selling books in person is definitely different than doing it online or through social media. Doing a podcast is helpful for that, learning how to talk and raise your energy level, an appropriate on-air personality. You do have to adjust all that, right?

We're always putting on a little bit of a performance even when we're just having a chat essentially. So engaging with your audience, being genuinely interested in people, and letting them engage with the work. Then there's a few tricks we have in this collection specifically.

So something that's nice about it is at the start of every story, you get to see the prompt that created the story originally. So the Northwest location, the quirk, and the horror trope are there. Then we also have a map of Washington with a little star on it so you can point right to where every story happens.

This is nice for a couple of salesy reasons. It is a good way to get the book in people's hands, which is a classic sales trick, right? If you're selling at a street fair, you can get people holding the book. They're a lot more likely to buy the book.

Jo: Nice tip. So as in—

You are opening it and showing them the map, and then they're holding it.Clay: Mm-hmm. It goes a long way. People already have it in their hand, they're already thinking about it. Then you open it and you're like, “Oh, where are you from?” And they go, “Oh, I'm from Granite Falls.” And you're, “Oh, okay, well we have a story that takes place, boom, right here, right where you live.”

Then the other thing we have is a bookmark that lists all the horror tropes we did. So I will also be telling them about the one story with the one map picture that I'm showing them, and then I'll hand them the bookmark and be like, “And if you like any of these other horror tropes, we also did these 12 tropes, so you might be into this book for all these reasons.”

Then they're holding two things. So those are some of the simple tips and tricks. I would say just have a good energy, engage with people, be interested in them, ask them a question or two, and find out what they like to read.

Then in the case of this book, we went wide on topics. We went wide all over the horror genre. So we wrote stories from aliens to zombies to technology, creepy technology, all kinds of things. Mushrooms. So there's a wide swath of horror stuff that we included in this collection.

We did that knowing that we want to capture as big of a horror audience as we can, because there's a lot of people that are into a certain sub-genre, but then there's other aspects of horror they don't like, and largely those are based on misconceptions in a lot of cases anyway.

So hopefully this collection that's dedicated almost wholly to subverting tropes and taking unique approaches at old tired ideas can help with that and get some people reading horror.

Jo: I think that's really cool. I actually haven't really talked about this on the show, but I do have an idea for a book set in my county of Somerset here in the southwest of England.

As you're talking about this and the map and all of that, I'm thinking, yes, I mean, I can see how baking in that marketing early on is just such a good idea that I think that will help a lot of people listening actually. Let's just come back to some of the other considerations around podcasting.

So when you set up the podcast with Tamara, is this a business thing?

Are you paying for hosting? Are you driving traffic to an email list, your Patreon? Is that under your new imprint? Is everything co-owned now around this idea?Clay: When it comes to this project, Tamara and I just split everything 50/50. We pay for a few hosting things and your standard things you have to have, like we have a domain name and we have a pretty basic website.

We have Patreon that we're still building out and we paid for all the publishing costs 50/50. We split royalties 50/50. So it's just all right down the middle for us.

Now for the next season, we're bringing on two more authors. So for that we have a different strategy that we've talked through and thought about quite a bit. We've decided we're going to pay them a good rate for short stories rather than do a royalty split.

Trying to split it… because I don't know if you've ever had to track someone down—it's a nightmare. It's the worst.

So that's another part of the strategy too that you might be interested in. When we do in-person sales, Tamara and I, so we split royalties just 50/50, but then when we order author copies to sell in person, we also just split the cost of that down the middle.

Then we split the books down the middle and then when we go out and sell in person, we don't really worry about royalties. If you sold the book, you keep the money for that book, unless we're both at the event. So we're collaborating on it on a lot of levels.

Luckily we have a lot of trust for each other, which is requisite for this, clearly, but it works for us. It wouldn't work in a lot of other situations.

So for the next one, that's why we're keeping it that we're going to pay both of you a good writing rate and then we are going to keep all the royalties because we don't want to have to chase our tails on that for the rest of eternity.

Jo: I think that's a really good idea, especially for short stories. I mean, having co-written with people for a decade now, some of those books, the monthly royalty is negligible. Even if you do it once every six months, it's like, oh my goodness, the time I have to spend doing reporting.

Although, to be fair, this is one place AI has just really started helping me because when you are wide, you get so many different reports from so many different vendors. I used to have to open everyone and go through and find the stuff, and now I just upload them all to ChatGPT Agent, and it does it for me. So this is a good part of AI for business admin.

But I think you are right there. I guess with your contracts with those people, there are also rights reversion within a certain amount of time because—

Short story contracts often have faster rights reversion than longer works.Clay: Yes, and we're just basing that on a cents per word situation.

We're trying to pay as high as we can, as close to the pro rates as we can. We'll probably end up averaging out that cents per word rate that everybody's happy with and then paying it as a flat rate.

Because it's all prompt based, right? And it's all writing in a month's time. There's all these other variables that someone might want to write longer or shorter. So we want them to have the flexibility to do that, but without breaking our banks.

So we're probably going to agree on a contract that's like we're going to pay 5 cents a word, which is considered a pro rate, right? Or I think it's 8 cents a word now, but 5 cents a word is a decent enough payment for an editor to pay you if you're a writer.

We'll probably agree to that with a set word count for each story, and then just pay a flat rate for all four stories since we rotate. Every writer will have to write three stories for the next book.

Jo: I think it's all good to think about though, if people get enthusiastic about doing short story anthologies. As you say, if you have 15 stories and 15 different writers, I mean, these kinds of payments are an absolute nightmare. I think you're doing the right thing there.

So let's talk a little bit more about podcasting because you also have your own podcast, Fermented Fiction, which I went over to have a little listen to before we started talking, and I was like, “Oh my goodness. This is a really long show.”

There's multiple hosts and you talk about lots of pop culture stuff, books and movies and stuff like that. I'm very interested in this. How does podcasting help you on the fiction side? Because I can see that it's part of your business and everything like that, but in your fiction side—

Talk about Fermented Fiction and how you think it builds your author brand.Clay: How much time do you got, Joanna?!

Jo: Well, you've got about five minutes left!

Clay: I love Fermented Fiction for so many reasons. It's become one of my favorite things I do.

As I said earlier, Johnny and Sean and David are huge inspirations to the beginning of my indie career and still huge inspirations to this day. They're also just such lovely people. They came on the show season one when we had like three listeners, because they're just willing to do that for people. So shout out to them, by the way.

So initially that was the goal, right? Was just to create an engine for engagement with the author community that felt meaningful and that felt productive instead of social media. Then it became something much more.

You're asking specifically about how it affects my fiction and how it helps with my writing, and Fermented Fiction has been fantastic for that because it helps me analyze fiction through a new lens, through a critical lens.

For those of you who don't know, the premise of Fermented Fiction is we invite on guests from the creative industries. So we will bring on filmmakers or writers or whoever else we can get.

We mostly bring on writers just because that's where we have connections, but we are open to bringing any creative people on. We've brought on some podcasters as well.

We choose a movie, book, or show and then we roll 2D20. So if you roll high, you have to defend the movie, book, or show. If you roll low, you have to attack it no matter what you actually think.

Then we do a 10 minute debate, and after the debate we do an hour, hour and a half long panel on the chosen movie, book or show and everything else that comes up along the way.

So this has been a fantastic exercise, Joanna, for analyzing work I love and work I don't love from a totally different lens because if you're watching or reading for Fermented Fiction, you have to be prepared to debate it either way.

So it's a good way to learn how to look for things you love in maybe movies that you didn't used to appreciate or that you didn't like on first watch or books. The same thing, right?

Maybe you read it and it wasn't your cup of tea, but if you're going in for the show, you've got to reread it and you've got to find something to love about it. Then same thing with things you love.

I had to debate against Pan's Labyrinth recently. Oh, it was so hard. It was so hard, Joanna. I had to watch that movie like three times in a row to be like, “How is this not a perfect movie?” And my conclusion was, it is. It is a perfect movie, but you can still find little things to nitpick. It's a fun exercise.

Almost more so with the things you love, right? Because then you can humanize those creators too by like, “Oh, this is still writing. It's still a story. It's still following a lot of the same rules I have to follow.”

That's a good way to look at the stories you love. It's not nitpicking for the sake of finding something that doesn't work. It's just nitpicking for finding the nuts and bolts that hold all stories together. They're in all the stories. Even the best ones. The best ones are just better at hiding it.

Jo: For sure. Any thoughts for fiction authors or anyone listening who thinks, “Oh, well, I kind of want to do a podcast because that would be awesome,” but it feels like it's oversubscribed now. Like we said with books, there's a lot of books. I mean, there's a lot of podcasts out there, right? It is hard to find an audience.

What are your thoughts on people who are new to podcasting, who might want to start a podcast?Clay: I will just give the answer I've heard from a lot of people, but I would say do it. You know, it doesn't hurt. It doesn't hurt to do it.

There's a low bar for entry when it comes to commitment in terms of money and stuff. These days you can get a pretty good mic for affordable costs. You can get a good webcam and that's all you need. Then you can get started.

I would say just think of why you want to do a podcast. What about it excites you? Because it's a lot of work and you're not going to make money on it, not for a very long time anyway.

You might eventually, but if that's your ticket to making money and then that's going to fund your writing career, neither of those is a great way to make money in the short and quick.

Jo: For sure.

Clay: So you're going to have to work really hard to pull off either of those career choices.

However, I do think podcasting is really good at fueling a creative career. It's really good at helping you promote yourself. It's a great way to put out good content out there without making your writing—if you don't want your writing to be the content that you feel you have lots of deadlines around or lots of obligations.

For example, I don't want to write a short story every month necessarily forever, right? I like doing it for Rain Shadows, but that's a self-contained project that has an end date. I don't feel like I have this looming obligation to my readership for all time to produce a story a week or something.

I would rather be able to take my time with my writing and release the stories I want to tell when they have become the stories I want to tell and not before. I like to have more control over that.

So for me, having a podcast is a great way for me to release something every single week that is directly connected to the work that is connected to the craft that is connected to the community in some way. That keeps you out there. It keeps your voice active, it keeps you thinking, it keeps you creative.

So I think podcasts can be great fuel for that. They can help you prop up your writing and vice versa. And they can be a great way to engage with the community in a meaningful way.

You will be shocked who will say yes if you ask them to come on a podcast. It's awesome. I mean, writers are very generous people a lot of the time. Most of the time. We've had all kinds of awesome guests on the show, and you can just ask. The worst thing people can say is no, and it's a great way to engage with the community.

Jo: Brilliant.

Where can people find you and your books and your podcasts online?Clay: You can find everything about Rain Shadows at RainShadowStories.com. That is RainShadowStories.com. That will have the Beneath the Rain Shadow podcast and it will have all the info on that book.

I have a Substack: Clay Vermulm Fiction Horror. There you can join my newsletter and that will also get Fermented Fiction delivered right to your inbox, as well as a monthly letter from me with all the writing updates from Clay Vermulm Fiction and Beneath the Rain Shadows books.

Fermented Fiction is a weekly show, so we go live usually on Tuesdays and Wednesdays on YouTube, and we're just Fermented Fiction on there. We're easy to find.

Jo: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Clay. That was great.

Clay: Thank you. It was a true joy to be on this show. I've been listening a long time and thank you so much for taking a punt on me here.

The post Writing Short Stories, Publishing Collaboration, And Podcasting, With Clay Vermulm first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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What happens when you fall in love with a book that deserves a wider audience but has never been translated into English? How do you navigate international copyright law, multiple publishers, and estate permissions when you have no translation experience? Dani James shares her journey from discovering a powerful Flemish memoir in her childhood home to becoming its first English translator, a labor of love that took years to complete.

In the intro, How to start dictating fiction [Helping Writers Become Authors]; Payment splitting with co-writers and collaborators [Draft2Digital]; Rise in spam and scam emails [Writer Beware]; The Thinking Game Documentary; My AI-Assisted Artisan Author webinars; The Buried and the Drowned, A Short Story Collection; Writing Partition with Merryn Glover [Books and Travel].

Write and format stunning books with Atticus. Create professional print books and eBooks easily with the all-in-one book writing software. Try it out at Atticus.io

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn

Dani James is a writer and literary translator who recently translated Return to the Place I Never Left, a Holocaust survivor memoir by Tobias Schiff.

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

• Growing up in Belgium's Jewish community and discovering Tobias Schiff's Holocaust memoir
• Navigating international rights and copyright law. The complex legal process of securing translation rights across borders.
• The creative challenges of literary translation. Balancing faithfulness to the original with making the English version the best it could be.
• The challenges of publishing
• Marketing a translated memoir. The realities of promoting a niche book as a first-time author.
• Lessons learned and what's next for both translation and original writing

You can find Dani at DaniJames.co.

Transcript of Interview with Dani JamesJo: Dani James is a writer and literary translator who recently translated Return to the Place I Never Left, a Holocaust survivor memoir by Tobias Schiff. Welcome to the show, Dani.

Dani: Thank you for having me.

Jo: It's great to have you on the show. First up, just—

Tell us a bit more about you and your background and how and why you got into translation.Dani: I'm a writer based in New York City, but I grew up in Antwerp, Belgium. Even though I'd been writing creative nonfiction and fiction for years, Return to the Place I Never Left was my first foray into translation.

It was really driven by an interest in translating this book that I personally adored and kept rereading over the years. Thankfully, I speak several languages and I grew up going to school and learning Flemish and Dutch, and being educated in that language.

I had no previous translation background, but just because I enjoyed this book so much and felt it was deserving of a wider audience, it inspired me to try my hand at it.

That's ultimately what drew me to translation. I found a lot of joy in it, and I've actually learned a lot about how translation, in my opinion, can really enhance a creative practice in ways that I wouldn't have expected before I took this on.

Jo: It's fascinating because your accent is American to my ear, but I've worked in Belgium and people might not know much about Antwerp. How did you get from Belgium to New York City?

Tell us a bit more about your traveling childhood and upbringing.Dani: My parents actually met in New York City. That's also where I was born. They met in Washington Square Park in the eighties, I feel like that gives you a little bit of a lay of the land if you've ever been there.

My mother was visiting, my father's Jamaican and he had been living in the US since he was a teenager. My mother was visiting and they met and fell in love, ended up getting married and having me.

So I was actually born in New York City, but then when I was still a baby, we moved to Belgium. I did kindergarten all throughout high school in Belgium.

In the summertime though, I would come to New York City because the biggest part of my family is my dad's side of the family and they lived in New York. So I spent my summers—the whole summer and sometimes even the winter break—in New York City, and the rest of the time in Belgium.

I've been back in New York now for about 15 years. Now I do the opposite, I visit Belgium every summer. My mother still lives in Belgium and I have a lot of childhood friends there. That's how that came about, and why I definitely have the New York City accent.

Jo: Let's get into this book then. Return to the Place I Never Left has great personal meaning to you and your family. Tell us about that.

What are the connections there? It seems so strange to hear your accent and then to think of the connections you have there.

Dani: There are so many connections actually. First, my grandparents were Holocaust survivors. When you think of the Jewish community in Belgium at the time where I grew up, they were all survivors or descendants of survivors. In the case of my grandparents, they survived the war by hiding.

My mom's side of the family is Jewish, so I am Jewish. The majority of both of my grandparents' families did not survive being deported to Auschwitz. The story of the Holocaust is one that is part of my family's history and therefore also my history.

I really grew up with this knowledge and knowing these stories. They're very common in my family because they've directly affected my relatives and my family members.

Growing up, when I used to go to synagogue—I'm not as religious, but I am of course culturally Jewish—for the high holidays, I did used to go to the synagogue to celebrate them.

Fun fact: typically there would be two Black people in the synagogue when I grew up in Belgium at the time, and it was me and another girl who actually is Tobias Schiff's granddaughter.

Me and this other girl, our mothers knew each other. Of course, it's a small community. We knew each other and I believe that this is how the book entered my home. I believe the daughter of Tobias Schiff, the mother of this childhood friend, ended up bringing a copy of the book when it first came out.

I don't really remember how I first was introduced to it, but I do know that like all people who grow up with big bookshelves at home, and when you're a reader, I would just pick up books from the bookshelf and at some point I came across Return to the Place I Never Left. The original title is Terug naar de plaats die ik nooit heb verlaten.

When I read this book the first time, it really stood out to me because I had known about the Holocaust, had heard all of these stories. Every family of survivors has these crazy stories that you know of and that you learn growing up, and I'd read several books.

What stood out about Tobias Schiff's book was the style in which it was written. It's written in verse and it looks like poetry on the page. It's very direct language because it comes from an oral project initially where he was interviewed for a documentary, and it makes reading it very accessible because the language is very direct. He's speaking to you as a friend, or sometimes it sounds as if he's speaking to himself as well.

It allows you to be a witness to his innermost thoughts, or it allows you to hear him speak to you as if he was a friend. The style of the book really drew me in and I ended up rereading it several times over the years.

I have really bad movie and book memory where I will forget entire plots. That works really well for me because it allows me to reread my favorites over and over again. Some of my favorite books and movies, I'll reread them or rewatch them four or five times.

That's one of the things I did with Return to the Place I Never Left. I've reread it several times over the years. At some point I thought I feel like more people would appreciate this story.

It gives people good insight into the experience of someone during the Holocaust and what that was like and surviving these death camps, and afterwards grappling and navigating with these really traumatic experiences and how that impacted him in his life. Outside of those really intriguing parts of the book, it's also set in Antwerp partially.

If you've traveled around the world, very few people know Belgium. A lot of people know the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, France, all the countries around it, but not a lot of people know about Belgium, and definitely not about Antwerp.

I also like the fact that in a way it shows some details about the city of Antwerp in a very unfortunate setting, but Antwerp is where I also grew up in Belgium.

For all these reasons, Return to the Place I Never Left is an incredibly powerful book in itself, but it also tells such an important story of important places and important experiences that are meaningful to me and many people around the world.

I think even if you don't have a personal connection to this, you could gain a lot and learn a lot just from reading this book.

Jo: The original was in Flemish, is that right?Dani: Yes. There's actually quite a journey even to getting to this book. Originally Tobias Schiff was interviewed for a documentary, and the documentary was titled Récits d'Ellis Island. It was in French.

It was a documentary about Holocaust survivors and their experience, and I believe it was filmed in the late eighties and perhaps came out in 1989. It was filmed by a French filmmaker named Claude Lelouch. He interviewed Schiff for hours and learned about his experience.

Afterwards, the slot that the TV station had allocated—it was going to be aired on TV—was only 26 minutes long. The filmmaker thought, “How can I distill this story into 26 minutes? It's not doing justice to the entire story. I can't tell this story in such a short amount of time,” but it was a limitation set by the TV channel.

He had to edit it down, so what he ended up doing was releasing or publishing at the time the transcripts of his interviews with Tobias Schiff. Those initial transcripts were in French and I believe it was a little booklet.

Some editors came across it and thought, “Wow, this is really powerful,” and then contacted Schiff to collaborate and use these transcripts as a starting point to create what would then become Return to the Place I Never Left, the book.

He ended up writing more and it ended up being, instead of French, translated into Flemish or Dutch, which Schiff also spoke. That was the official first publication, which was published in the nineties in Belgium, the Flemish version of Return to the Place I Never Left. That version was then translated into French around 2012.

Jo: Yes, that's crazy. He died in 1999, right? So this is now his estate who are making these decisions.

Dani: Yes, exactly.

Jo: So now it's in French, the book is in French.

Dani: Yes. In 2012, the book was translated into French, and then in 2017 it was republished in Belgium and the Netherlands in Flemish. In 2025 my version came out, which is the very first English translation of the book.

Jo: Which is great. We have to go further into this because some people listening might be thinking, “Oh great, if I find a book I love in a different language, I can just translate it.” But that's not true.

How did you get the rights to do this, and what was that process, given that you don't have a translation background?Dani: It was a complex process and I had no former knowledge of the process when I started. I just knew I wanted to translate the book. Before I even got started, I asked the family for permission.

I know one of Schiff's daughters, and so I was able to ask her because, as you mentioned, since Schiff passed away, the family is the estate. That was my initial request. I just said, “I really love your father's book. I would love to bring it to a wider audience. Would you be okay with me translating it?”

They said yes. They were actually excited about this prospect and I had a verbal confirmation. That was my first step.

I had had this idea for several years, but then in 2019 I did an MFA in creative writing, a Master's in Fine Arts. I had asked the director of the program if they had a translation course and they didn't, but they did encourage me to pursue this project. They said me translating it could be one of my final projects in addition to my thesis.

What was great is that even though there was no particular guidance on translation or what to do there, I was able to translate it and have someone give feedback on at least the parts that I produced with no context of the original.

That was just a good experience there, and I was motivated to work on it also alongside generating new material for a thesis.

Rights-wise, once I had completed the manuscript and I was ready to shop it around, I realized that when I looked into it a little bit more, I needed proof that I had the rights.

Jo: Yes, exactly. It's kind of crazy to me listening to you.

You went ahead with translating the whole thing without having any kind of contract?Dani: Yes, and I recognize that this is very different also because the original author had already passed away. There are several ways.

When books are published today and when the author is still alive, sometimes the publishers contract it out and they look for translators, and the publication deal then looks very differently because as a translator, you're contracted just to translate. The publishing deal is with the author, of course.

In this case it was very different. I have this manuscript, I start shopping it around, a publisher's interested. I have this note, this little PDF note from the family stating I have their permission.

Once the publisher was interested in publication and sent me a publication contract, then I had to ensure that I really had everything in order with the rights in Belgium and with the family.

Initially what I did is I have a friend, a good friend who's a lawyer, and I asked him to review and he said, “Okay, I can look at this, but you need to get yourself a real lawyer.”

So I got a lawyer and that was the best decision I had made because this lawyer had experience and really helped me navigate not just the publication deal with the publisher here because in the US I am the copyright holder of the English translation of Tobias Schiff's book.

Jo: I was going to say to people listening, this translation is a subsidiary right of the original book. Actually it is the publisher as well, I presume, of whichever you translated from—the French or the Flemish—that is also the point, right?

It's not even just that you are asking permission, you are using another publisher's book as the basis for your own translation.Dani: Yes, exactly. As I was navigating this—signing my publication deal and negotiating it here in the US—I was also navigating the rights in Belgium. Some of the steps we had to go through were that I had to formalize the permission.

First of all, we had to find out who owned the rights. Was it still the Belgian publisher or had it gone back to the estate? That's what we had to figure out. Actually, the rights had reverted back to the estate.

Jo: Oh, okay. That's good.

Dani: Yes, so then we knew who we had to collaborate with, who had the rights and who could transfer the rights to me or grant me permission. Then we had to create a document for the estate to sign. But in creating this document, we also had to navigate Belgian copyright law.

At some point I also had to find a Belgian lawyer to not just review, but to make sure that what we are writing in this document aligns with both US and Belgian copyright laws.

Jo: Oh my goodness.

Dani: Yes. We also, for best practice, had to translate the paperwork on the Belgian side as well. All the documentation with the family were in two languages, they were both in English and in Dutch or Flemish. All of that had to be squared away before I could sign the publication deal here.

Jo: You're paying for all of this, you're paying for all those legal things.

Did you get an advance from the English language publisher or is this all a labor of love?Dani: This is really a labor of love. I did not get an advance because I already had the finished manuscript. I was like, “Here it is.” So no advance.

Thankfully in Belgium there was an organization for Belgian authors and we were able to get support from a Belgian lawyer specializing in literature who was able to help us pro bono. So that was a beautiful find.

I had to dig deep, just because I was reaching out to several lawyers and trying to find out who could help and then find out about some organizations. It took a lot of navigating.

I have to say, I'm very grateful for my lawyer because my lawyer had more experience, not in translation specifically, but just in the literary or creative industry, and so he's able to see ten steps ahead.

While I'm looking at a document and thinking about how does this make sense for right now, he's thinking, “But what if three years down the line this happens and that happens?”

Jo: Yes, like if there's a potential movie, for example, from the English language.

That's what you have to plan for—utter failure where nothing happens and then utter success where everything happens.It's like, “Okay, movie deal, massive amount of money comes into whose account and how does that get to the estate and where's the split?” It's great that you had that experience with your lawyer because these kinds of rights are really difficult to manage.

Dani: Yes. With the right people in place, specifically the lawyer, that was amazing. You mentioned no advance, you have to invest your money in it, but money well spent when it's someone who's really out to also protect you and has this experience and this insight for just those situations that you mentioned.

What about if there are movie rights involved? What if someone wants to adapt this into a play? Who owns the rights even?

Jo: Yes, or even somebody then decides to translate your English version into a different version. These things go back to multiple layers, which is why copyright law is so complicated. Just taking a view now—

Would you have done this project if you had realized all of this stuff you would have to do later?I would say to people listening, it is important to get that stuff done before you start a project, because if you hadn't known them, they could have just said, “Well, no, you can't have the rights,” or they could have had an offer for an English translation as well, and your work would have been wasted. I guess it's just all worked out well.

Dani: I probably would have done it the same had I known. It ultimately, in my experience, was a great learning experience and like you mentioned, the book is here, it's published in the US, it's doing well. So it was very much worth it. I learned so much from it.

I've also learned that the way that the process works is not always this way, and it really depends on the whole situation. How long has the book been out? Who owns the rights? Is there interest? Is there a publisher?

Typically I would say though, in smaller cases, in the case of this book, this is written in Flemish or Dutch, it's a language that's not really spoken in many places in the world. Between the estate and the publishers, people would usually be excited to have this become available for a larger audience.

Typically there's also when you negotiate these rights and when you publish something, there's also a percentage of potentially profit sharing or royalty sharing, so it also benefits ultimately the rights holder if they're interested in that as well, of course.

Jo: Yes, absolutely. Potentially earning from that.

Dani: And also having the book receive a wider readership, so that's where the benefit lies.

Jo: Yes, absolutely. It's very different to you doing this pretty obscure book compared to somebody saying, “Oh, this is a bestselling novel in English, let's turn it into Flemish,” because that's sometimes a lot more complicated.

Let's just finish the publication story. You find a publisher who's interested. Was this just then an easy process all the way to publication, or—

How was the publication process for you?Dani: I will say… it was a learning process.

Jo: This is your first publication, right?

Dani: Yes, my first publication that's through a publisher that's not in an anthology or literary magazine. The publisher was great. It's a small publisher, Wayne State University Press. Great team, small team, but they were great in keeping me in the loop.

I had to complete a sales and marketing questionnaire to talk about ideas about how we would market the book. I had to do a design questionnaire and was able to share my ideas for the cover art, which I really enjoyed because it was fun.

I would go into bookstores and look around and look at covers and think about ideas. The final cover for Return to the Place I Never Left merges some elements of the original cover, which I really love. It has red and the barbed wire, and we kept that the same.

Then there's also a lot of white space, which I was intentional about because there's also a lot of white space on every page. I felt like it really reflects this modernized version of the book.

We went through these design and marketing decisions and then through copy edits and proof edits. It actually went pretty smoothly because it was already a completed manuscript when I presented it to them. Those parts went well.

It was fun to think of new things to generate when it came to sales and marketing and the cover, but when it came to the book itself and the copy edits and the proof edits, that went pretty fast.

Jo: Well, it's not like they're going to say, “We need you to improve the story in this way,” because as a translation, you're not making a change to the story. I also presume they couldn't read the original, so they couldn't really say to you, “Well, that's the wrong word.”

Dani: That's right.

Jo: Just on that sales and marketing, because most authors have a massive problem with this—

Is it basically down to you to do all the marketing?Dani: A lot of it is, not all, but a lot of it is. The publisher will take some things on. They'll submit the book for reviews to several places. They'll sometimes share some ads that they've launched for the book in specific places.

I just recently came across a new prize for Jewish literature in translation, actually, given by an organization in the UK. I was able to contact my publisher and send it to them and ask them, “Hey, is this something that you could submit this book for?”

They will take that part on so I don't have to go and submit myself and send copies of the book myself. If I see an opportunity, I send it to them and see and ask them, “Was this on your radar already or not? Is this something you'll take care of or will I take care of it?”

They will do that, but I would say the majority falls on the author, or translator in this case, to really push it out into the world.

Jo: You made a lovely video. In fact, you pitched me for this and I went to watch your video and I think it's lovely. You've got a lovely voice, but you've got a lovely manner about you which comes across really well on video.

Is video something you do normally or is this something you've done specifically for the book?Dani: This is something I've done specifically for the book. I kind of shy away from video specifically.

Jo: Oh, me too. I think you did a good job of talking about yourself, but also about the book and reading. I know it's hard, but I do think it's an effective way of breaking through when books are hard to market.

Dani: Thank you. I think one of the things that made that video work as well is that the director of that video is also a friend of mine and a creative collaborator. He was really good at teasing out some responses from me, I would say.

I generally get excited when I speak about the book and the translation process. There's so much to say about it. I really appreciate it.

As writers, we typically are very excited about the writing and the creation part, so I could talk about it for a very long time.My friend, his name is Kofi, he's also a writer himself and a filmmaker. He was also very good at just asking specific questions and he also knows me and knows some parts of the stories.

He can look at it from an outsider perspective and then know, “Okay, this could be interesting to other people,” because there's some parts of the story that for me are just so normal that I don't really think somebody else would be interested in hearing this.

But he'd be the one to say, “Actually, let's talk about this a little bit more. I think people would be interested in that.” Sometimes I would think, “Really?”

Then later when people see the video, sometimes people come back and share some things that stood out to them in the video, and they're the things that I wouldn't have even put in that video myself because I would think this is normal, no one's going to care.

It's really helpful to have that outsider perspective, and when you have a good editor or director, they can really direct and pull out things from you and put them together in a way that would be interesting to the audience. I'm very grateful that's how that came together with two friends working on a project there.

Jo: I think from everything you've said, a lot of this has been based on relationships and tapping into your network, and I think that's really good and what you have to do, especially with a labor of love. I don't imagine this is going to make you like millions of dollars. I mean, it's just not the reality, is it?

Dani: We shall see. You never know.

Jo: The amount of work you've put in and the amount of work you're going to have to keep putting in to keep this book alive, I think is amazing. That's partly why I want to talk to you, because I feel like a lot of translation work is contracted by a publisher. It's not necessarily done in the way that you've done it.

Let's just briefly touch on the creative side of the translation. You said that you learned a lot, obviously, but that it enhanced a creative practice.

Just tell us a few things about the actual translation process and the literary challenges of that.

Dani: Happy to talk about this. Again, this was my very first time undertaking literary translation. So the first version was me translating it longhand. I wrote it in a notebook. I had the original book, and then I had my little notebook.

I translated it almost word for word. I wanted to stay as close to the original in this first version. Later I took my notes from my notebook and put them on my laptop and already started making some tweaks here and there.

You see a word and think, “Hmm, actually,” or sometimes I would notice, “Oh, I actually translated this with Flemish grammar, this doesn't quite read well in English.” So I start making those types of edits.

Over time, I would re-edit, reread the whole body of work and edit it. Over time, as I became more familiar with the text and started seeing certain things like, “Hmm, actually I feel like the way that this sentence is written, it kind of glosses over what's actually a really important moment.” So I made some choices there.

For example, the original, if you see the book, it has very little punctuation and only names and place names and people's names are capitalized. It reads almost like this stream of consciousness and it looks like poetry on the page. The original is the same way. That's where I got that style from.

I ended up pulling that style through a little bit more because there were some scenes in the original where I felt that you almost gloss over something that's really important.

I made deliberate choices to add some line breaks sometimes, or create more vignettes so that some parts were standalone. For example, when they get deported, or when scammers ring the doorbell pretending that they can get the daughter who's deported back to the family.

There were some moments that I felt could stand out a little bit more, and so those types of choices came in further editing rounds because I really wanted to honor this original text of this man who has passed away.

At the same time, I also wanted to really bring forth the meaning of the text as much as I could and make sure that it resonated with English readers as much as it did with me in reading it in Flemish.

Over time and later editing rounds, I saw that I became a little bit more comfortable in making those stylistic decisions to emphasize some things by changing words or adding a word or two, or removing a word or rejiggering a line.

That was challenging since I had no one to guide me through this, and so I had to think to myself —

What is the ultimate goal? Is it to stay as close as possible to the original text, or is it to make the translation as strong as possible?What was helpful to me was to think about the fact that no two translations are the same. You have several classic novels that have been translated several times and some translations win awards.

What makes one translation better than the other? When I thought to myself about this, I realized, “Okay, it's okay to put some of myself into this piece.”

There are these two quotes by translators that I absolutely love. The first one is by Mark Polizzotti, who says, “When you read a translation, it doesn't mean it's a secondary experience. It doesn't mean that you're not reading the author. It means that you are reading the product of two authors: the original author and the translator who has to read the text, interpret it, and regenerate it in terms that make linguistic sense.“

There's another translator named Catherine Øhrgaard Jensen, who actually is now, I believe, the director of ALTA, which is an international organization for literary translators.

She calls a translated book “a sibling of the original, but not a twin.”I love both of these quotes because they really show how the translation is, in a way, a collaboration. It is in a way being a conversation with the text of the original author and in some cases with the original author when the author is still alive.

Over time in later editing rounds, I was more comfortable in making these decisions and infusing a little bit more of myself and how I would approach this, how I would change this up a little bit to amplify this a little bit and make sure it reads well.

I made sure it presents well with the goal to honor the original text and make the English version as strong as the Flemish version. Once I was in that mode, I think the challenges, I wouldn't say fell away, but they became a lot more fun. Also because you're able to still be creative and really think of what is the perfect word here.

What words specifically would personify or would really highlight what this line means? Sometimes there's not a one-to-one translation either. Then you get to play around and really figure out, “Okay, which word do I use? Do I need two words to replace one?”

There's a lot. You have to really flex your creative muscles in ways that I hadn't really expected and in ways that I find have made me a better writer, even when I come back to my own projects.

You're so concerned with every single word. It's similar to poetry and to all good writing, really. We think about every word and what it evokes to the reader and how it looks on the page.

With translation, that is very true as well, in a way that I hadn't really expected when I started translating it. I didn't think that I would find so much joy and that I'd be able to be this creative when it came to word choice and sentence crafting.

Jo: It just sounds like a lovely process. I'm a kind of classic British person who doesn't speak any other languages, and I think it's really interesting.

I did want to just ask you about your thoughts on AI-assisted translation, because this is obviously becoming a big part of the industry now, in traditional publishing as well as in the self-publishing space. Obviously the type of book you are talking about is, like you said, more poetry. It's not a standard, just a novel, narrative novel.

What are your thoughts on AI assistance in translation?Dani: I did not use it for Return to the Place I Never Left at all. I don't know that I would use it. I understand why people would use it, especially for a first draft potentially.

The reason that I would stay away from it personally is because I think even in that first draft, when you're taking words from one language into another, you become more familiar with the original text. So you're really rereading it from one language and putting it into English or the language that you're translating it in.

You already start forming ideas sometimes about certain words or certain things you might want to do or change when you're translating it. I think if I were to use an AI tool to take on even that earlier draft, it would already make assumptions for certain words.

As we mentioned, certain specific word choices can have such a big impact. Not every language has a one-to-one translation for every single word in a different language.

I think that process of becoming really intimately familiar with the original language and your first draft into the language you're translating in, I think that's actually quite important to do.

I would be nervous that AI would translate certain words, and then I would now look at the AI translation and base my translation off what AI already selected.

For some words, when you then look at the original, you might think, “Hmm, actually what the author meant is a little bit different from how AI translated it, but now I've given it the same meaning of the AI translation.” That's why I would personally be hesitant specifically when it comes to literary translation.

Now, for legal documents or marketing terms or anything, that's different. I'd probably leverage it, or I'd be open to leveraging it.

With literature and writing, we're so concerned with words and strong writing is so important at this time, I would not yet use it in my own translations. Who knows? That might change in the future.

Jo: Who knows. But I love that your process was so detailed, and as we said, you've put a lot of love into this project. Before we go, I am interested, are you done with translation? Like you mentioned you've got your MFA, you've got lots of other writing.

Are you now working on your own original work in English, or are you still open to other translation work?Dani: Yes, I am still open to other translation work. Actually, someone already gave me a little booklet to consider. It is a short book also about a Holocaust survivor, and I do plan to do something with that one day, just not right now.

Right now I am working on a fictional novel and one thing I have learned is when you are publishing something, you're steeped in the subject matter for at least a year, I'd say around two from writing it or generating it.

Then if you have a publication deal, or if you're self-publishing, the proof edits, the copy edits, you're so knee deep in the subject matter.

When it comes to the topic, like the Holocaust, it was very challenging at some point. I actually took a break for about three years after I had finalized the manuscript before I ended up picking it back up and shopping it around because it was a pandemic, it was lockdown.

There was a lot going on, and it's a very, very heavy subject matter, especially when this is something that my family members went through. What I've learned now is you have to be so entrenched in the subject matter for so long.

I actually have two manuscripts that are far closer to completion, but they also deal with quite heavy subjects. I have decided to pursue a different project that is a little bit of a lighter subject matter. It has some humor in it, a little bit of romance, little bit of juiciness.

That is going to be my next project that I hope to complete and be able to find a home for by next year. After that one then I'll tackle one of those other more serious or a little bit darker subjects again.

Jo: I think that's good. It's good to have a break. I often do a nonfiction book in between thing. It kind of helps, but I guess you've done a nonfiction that was the heavy one. But no, that's great.

The book is Return to The Place I Never Left. Where can people find the book and find you and everything you do online?Dani: Thank you. Return to the Place I Never Left can be found anywhere books are sold online, and also at DaniJames.co. That's my website. That's where you can order the book. That's where you can sign up for the newsletter. That's where I'll publish any upcoming events and readings. You can also find a link to my YouTube channel as well.

Jo: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Dani. That was great.

Dani: Thank you so much. I just really want to take a moment to thank you because I absolutely love your channel. I found you through YouTube, by the way. That is where I mainly listen to your podcast.

I have to say, you have created such an incredible wealth of resources for writers. Every time I look at your videos, I have like ten videos that are in my queue that I want to listen to, and they're all so helpful.

Even though I know that you talk a lot about the journey of being self-published, it's so helpful—all the guests you have on, all the resources. I just wanted to thank you. I have shared your channel with several of my friends who are writing books as well and taking on other creative projects. Big, big thank you for doing this work.

Jo: Thanks so much.

The post The Art And Business Of Literary Translation With Dani James first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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Have you ever dreamed of turning a passion for storytelling into a profitable, long-term career? How do you build multiple successful author brands without burning out? What marketing strategies actually work in today's fast-changing industry? Ines Johnson shares her journey and the secrets to her success.

In the intro, 5 phases of an author business [Becca Syme]; Lessons from writing every day for two decades [Ryan Holiday]; What the First AI Copyright Ruling Means for Authors [ALLi Podcast];

Plus, Lichfield Cathedral; The Buried and the Drowned Short Story Collection; and 50% off all my JFPenn ebooks and audiobooks and digital bundles for July 25.

Write and format stunning books with Atticus. Create professional print books and eBooks easily with the all-in-one book writing software. Try it out at Atticus.io

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn

Ines Johnson is a romance author with over a hundred books spanning paranormal, urban fantasy, contemporary, and erotica, as well as sweet romance under another pen name.

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

• From funk band upbringing to TV, teaching and writing
• Writing faster as a trained screenwriter
• Staying within your lane — depending on your goals
• The business of writing, and planning income and progress
• AIDA for marketing — Attention, Interest, Desire, Action
• Kickstarter for PageTurner Planning
• Selling direct and the experience you bring to readers
• The joys of Romancelandia

You can find Ines at InesWrites.com or InesWrites.substack.com.

Transcript of Interview with Ines JohnsonJoanna: Ines Johnson is a romance author with over a hundred books spanning paranormal, urban fantasy, contemporary, and erotica, as well as sweet romance under another pen name. Welcome to the show, Ines.

Ines: Hi, Jo. Thank you so much for having me.

Joanna: I'm excited to talk to you today. First up—

Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing.Ines: I grew up in a funk band; that's always my truth. My father was the bass player, and one of my formative memories was of him explaining music composition to me.

He explained how the keyboard had its part and would tell a story, the drums had a part and would tell a story, and then finally the vocalists came on and they told a different story.

He showed me how all of these worked together to make the story complete, to be the characters. It was from that moment I knew I was supposed to be in storytelling. I thought I was going to be a singer, but my daddy said, “Oh, sweetie, no, you're not going to be a singer.”

So I started first in television, and then I found my way into novel writing. I worked in cable television for a number of years for National Geographic Television, on the Explorer show, which was before they had a channel. I loved that; we met so many fascinating people from all around the world.

Then I started to work in children's television. While I was working in children's television, I was also an avid reader, which I have been since I was very young.

There are pictures of my youngest aunt corralling me and my cousins off the city bus and into the library. Going to the library and being able to take books home was the best thing ever.

But my godmother, who lived a few blocks up the street, had a pantry where you’re supposed to keep boxes of pasta and cans of beans. She didn't have that. Instead, she had all these teeny tiny little Harlequins and Silhouettes; that was my second library.

She said I could take and read whatever I wanted, and I did. She didn't try to censor me because, back then, the love scene was when the waves would crash!

I read those books and it became an absolute addiction for me, and it stayed with me even when I was working in television. When I went on to work in children's television, I was reading Twilight in between reading scripts for the show.

The writing bug bit me. I would be writing screenplays in Final Draft, then switch over to Word or eventually Scrivener and work on a novel. It took me years for that first novel to be recognizable as a piece of literature. It has not seen the light of day, but that was fine.

After the first one, I wrote the next one in a year, the next in six months, the next in three months, and now I'm a whole lot faster than that. But I always like to preface my “speed” with the fact that I'm a trained screenwriter. We would do 13 scripts per season, two seasons per year. That's a normal pace for me.

My brain doesn't think it's supposed to take a year or more to write a novel. No, you need to have this full script, this part of the story, done in the time you have.

Joanna: That is really interesting. I think people who come from screenwriting or journalism are fast writers because they're used to deadlines. It’s a job, you do the work, and there are the words. I get that.

When did you first decide to self-publish?Ines: I first self-published in December 2014. I published a three-part serial, as it was really popular to do serial books back then. It was the era of KU 1.0, where you got paid the same no matter how long or short the book was.

That worked for me because that's how my mind is; I don't think in terms of a feature film, I think in episodes. So I started to write these shorter stories, and they did well, and then I just wrote more and more.

At the time, I only wrote romance, but I didn't understand genres or tropes. I started writing a dystopian, then a sci-fi, then a paranormal. I was going all over the place, and each time I was building a new audience that wouldn't follow to the next genre.

The people that read the dystopian were not interested in the contemporary, and so on. It didn't make sense to me until other authors pulled me up by my bootstraps and said, “Girlfriend, let me give you some advice.”

That's the beautiful thing about the romance author community. They told me,

“It's fantastic that you keep finding an audience, but you want to try to retain them. One of the ways to do that is to pick a lane and stay in it.” I was crisscrossing too many lanes on the highway to keep my readers.

That's when I decided pen names were for me because I didn't want to limit myself, so I just made more than one.

Joanna: I know that people don't cross over and it's so weird, isn't it? Because I think many writers, myself included, read so many different genres. So I don't really understand people who only read one.

How have the pen names worked for you and how do you keep multiple names going?Ines: For the folks that are listening, I think the vast majority of readers probably read a handful of books a year. Indies aren't focused on the masses like that. We're very focused on the ‘whale readers,' the ones that read a book a day. I'm a whale reader; I read one to two books a day.

A lot of these whale readers are often mood readers, so you don't necessarily have to pick a lane and stay in it forever. For a period of time, they may only want one specific thing. Right now, I'm in a contemporary mood. Next week I'll be in a historical mood, and after that, I might be in a sci-fi mood.

However, if you want a faster route to profitability, picking a lane is a strategy that works. It's just a strategy, and it's a strategy that works if you're looking at profitability.

If you are an artist, then you don't have to listen to this advice. You have to determine what you want out of your career, and that's the lane you need to pick.

If your goal requires you to be a very focused genre writer, then you do that.

If you are a different kind of writer and you want to write across various spectrums, you just need to set your goals accordingly.

Find the right readers, and then stay on your beautiful highway.

Joanna: Apart from focus, what are the other mistakes that either you've made yourself or that you see others make?Ines: The main mistake I see… well, one person's mistake can be another person's boon. I feel that if you understand who you are, what you want, and what your goals are, you make fewer mistakes. They just become opportunities.

For me, you are not going to see me talking about politics in my books. I'm trying to escape it as much as I possibly can. But I see other authors who embrace it wholeheartedly, and the readers love them for it.

I see authors who post very personal things on social media. I am not that girl. I keep a lot of things close to my chest. You'll feel like you know me, but you couldn't tell a lot of actual facts about me after a conversation.

I don't suffer from that because I know what my limits are. For other authors, that’s a mistake for them because they go too far. I really think it becomes about understanding who you are and what you want because this industry changes so fast you will get whiplash.

The thing that stays the same is you, your goals, and why you're doing this. If you can keep that close to your chest, any potential mistake becomes an opportunity that you can really see and dig deep into to make the best of it.

Joanna: You mentioned you started in KU, but now you are selling direct as well as publishing wide. A lot of people think all romance authors are just KU authors.

Tell us about selling direct and wide.Ines: I started in KU because I didn't understand how to upload to the other retailers. Eventually, I learned, but I'm always looking at my goals, and my pen names have different goals.

My Ines Johnson pen name mostly writes paranormal and fantasy. My Shanae Johnson pen name is the queen of wholesome romance. She sticks to her lane. Those are my two main pen names.

Shanae can be wide because if you look on Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, or Google Play, you can see genres like contemporary western, military, and small-town romance. Those are universal.

Genres like paranormal romance, paranormal women's fiction, and reverse harem were born on Amazon. Those specific categories were born there.

So I'm always watching not only what the industry is doing but what the readers are doing and where they are.

Shanae could go into KU with her clean and wholesome romance, but why, when there are readers everywhere? Ines could come out of KU, but why, when the readers for her genres are concentrated right there?

And yes, I am selling direct.

I sell more print books direct than I do on Amazon, and the margins are better for me there. When you're selling direct, you have to think about how you are different.

Amazon can't do everything. Amazon can't sell you the ebook, the audiobook, the print book, a special edition, and a swag pack all in one bundle.

For one Kickstarter I did for a spicy romance, I sold the ebook, the print book, and the audiobook. I also sold a webinar. Inside the book, there were some spicy scenes that dealt with rope play, so I got an expert to come on and give my readers a special demonstration, and they all got some rope. You can't do that on Amazon.

You can give a completely different experience. You can have tea parties. You can build a book box with all kinds of amazing goodies. A friend of mine who's really crafty made objects for her readers to go with the book. You can't do that on Amazon.

Direct is an experience. It's about bundles and creating an experience you can give your readers.Joanna: You’ve got a Kickstarter campaign coming for Page Turner Planning.

Tell us about that and any tips for people who want to run a Kickstarter.Ines: You really have to know yourself, your why, and your lane.

My number one strength on the CliftonStrengths chart is discipline. I like doing the same thing over and over again. My number two strength is achiever. I have to achieve; I have to evolve; I have to win something new. For the longest time, those two just clashed.

I'm a planner. Every day I get up—and I have a number of journals—every day, I get up and I record my data. It costs me about $2,500 to $3,000 a month to cover my living expenses, which is about $80 a day.

So I sit down in my little journal and I go through and check the dashboards to see how much I've earned, and I write the numbers down. I'm not just writing it down from Amazon because I'm wide, so I write all the numbers down.

I don't put it in a spreadsheet; I just write them down, and that calms my mind. It reminds me, “Yes, you can do this self-employed thing. You can do this small business thing. You are fine. You have made the money to cover your expenses. You're good. Now, go have fun.” And that's where my muse starts to write the book.

When I'm on retreats, people look over my shoulder and ask me about my planners. I record my word count, what's going on in the story… I have tons of different journals for all this information. It's really anti-anxiety for me.

Two years ago, I started a little mastermind where I was showing people how to write with pacing, how I marketed, and all the prep work I did before the book was even out—how I set up my Instagram, my website, my newsletter.

I also knew I needed to go to the bank and get a DBA, which became an LLC, then maybe an S Corp. Because I have a couple of degrees in education, I figured out how to deliver the information in a logical sequence.

I would talk to them once a week about what they should be thinking about in their writing, their business, their branding, and their marketing.

As I was supposed to be writing Page Retention, the second book in my Page Turner series, I looked back at all this content from the mastermind—more than 52 weeks' worth—and said, “This is a book.”

I turned that two-year-long experiment of helping people write their book, build their business, and market themselves into a planner. And that's Page Turner Planning.

Joanna: That's really useful.

How does a Kickstarter work? Why is the pre-launch page so important?Ines: Kickstarter says you're going to pull some people from your audience, but you're going to pull a lot of new people to you. These new people don't know you, so you have to introduce yourself and build trust.

I'm asking you for money for something that came from my brain. In this instance, it's a product that will benefit you, but you don't know me. I could be making all this stuff up.

So the pre-launch page is to give you sneak peeks and to build trust. Once you have those things, people are more likely to come on board and give you a try.

Joanna: What other things did you learn from your past Kickstarters that might help other people?Ines: The first thing is fear. I was terrified to run my first Kickstarter. We're both introverts who probably like to sit in our houses and write our books. I don't like to put my business out there, but when you do something like Kickstarter, you're putting your business out there for everyone to see, whether it succeeds or fails.

My very first Kickstarter was with my sweet pen name, Shanae Johnson, who has a huge audience. I got 30 backers. I limped my way to funding that Kickstarter and was all kinds of confused. I was very hesitant to do a second one. I had to do a lot of mindset work before I did the Page Turner Pacing Kickstarter.

The best thing I did was talking about it before it launched. These people didn't know me. I had to show them that I knew what I was talking about first. Once people saw that and I was giving them free tidbits to try, that's what worked.

Having tiers where they could just try something out and see… over 700 people backed that Kickstarter, Joanna. I'm still breathless over it. I had to have a moment to convince them, or maybe I convinced their friends, that I know what I'm talking about and that I'm really here to help.

Joanna: In terms of book marketing, what have you kept doing since 2014, and what have you changed?Ines: I get these bursts of energy where I figure something out and I just want to tell everybody, because I truly want us all to win. So when you see me showing up on Instagram or TikTok, it's because I figured something out and I want to show everybody. But then once I've told you, I go away.

I'm always writing. You will not find me without a piece of paper and a pen. So things like Substack really work for me because I have so much to write about on the nonfiction side.

In terms of marketing —

My number one piece of marketing advice is to find one new reader every single day. I might find them using an AMS ad, a Facebook ad, an Instagram post, or at a book signing. Every day, I'm looking for just one new reader.

To distill what I learned in television, we used a formula called AIDA: Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. That's really what marketing is to me.

How are you going to get people's attention? You could use a startling statement, music, or color theory. We learned so much psychology on how to keep you in your seat.

Then, interest starts the storytelling bit of your advertising. Then you play on people's desires—we mostly deal with emotional desires. And finally, you have to tell them to act with a call to action. That's what marketing boils down to, whether you're on TikTok, Instagram, or hand-selling in person.

Joanna: What has stayed the same? I still have an email list, which has been the core.

Do you think Substack has replaced email marketing for you?

Ines: My Substack is purely nonfiction, but I email my fiction list every week.

The thing that has stayed the same for me is consistency. I consistently publish. I'm consistently telling stories. I'm consistently talking to my audience. I don't stop. I'm consistently promoting.

Things in this industry change, but the part of you that doesn't change is your goal to succeed. You just have to change how you're going to succeed based upon what is moving and shaking in the industry. It's that consistency and just showing up and using AIDA.

Joanna: How much is paid advertising a part of your marketing strategy?

Ines: It's very much a part of my marketing strategy. I am always looking for where the readers are. If you tell me I can go on Facebook, where there are a lot of readers who read the books I write, and all I have to do is pay some money to talk to them, I'm going to pay. How else am I going to find them? It gets harder.

I'm thankful for paid advertising. Yes, I'm going to do social media. Yes, I'm going to do paid cost-per-click marketing. Yes, I'm going to do paid newsletters. Yes, I'm going to purchase a table at a signing event because guess who's there? The readers.

My dad always says it takes money to make money, so I came into this business knowing that I was going to have to spend. I have my thresholds and I know when it's not worth it, but I don't think we can expect to come into a business and just start making money for free.

Joanna: You've been doing this for over a decade and have seen people leave the industry.

Why are you still here and still so upbeat?Ines: I'm unemployable, Joanna!

But it really goes back to my dad and that lesson I learned about how story works. I feel that's why I succeeded: because I understand how story works at a granular level. That's what I try to tell people.

It's because I studied the art form that I so love, and I never stop studying. I feel like every book I write is me practicing a new lesson. What am I going to study today?

Maybe I watched a television show and they did something with an unreliable narrator, and I think, “I want to try that.” I will break that down, looking for the structure, the way that I was taught to look in screenwriting, and then I will write that book.

I think I'm still here because I understood structure and I'm a consistent, permanent student of the structure of story.

Also business. I came from corporate television—National Geographic, Discovery Channel—so I always understood that I will not be a success unless I find the audience and get my product in front of them.

Joanna: Let's come back to romance. It still feels like there's some kind of stigma in the mainstream.

What do you say to authors who love romance but are scared of writing it because of what people might say?Ines: Joanna, this is when my feral Gen X is about to come out. Seriously, if you are afraid, I don't think you should do it.

If you don't believe in “feel the fear and do it anyway,” then don't do it. Do something else, because the romance readers will smell it on you. We are also feral creatures.

I so often forget that there is a stigma outside of Romancelandia because the party inside is so loud, it's on and popping, and we're all cheering each other on. We don't come outside a lot, and when we do, we're like, “Why are you guys out here? Come inside, it's great in here!”

So, if you are not in the Romancelandia community, get yourself there. But if, after you see what it’s like, you're still scared, don't do it. That's fine. You do not have to write romance. You can write something with a romantic element, and that might do better for you.

Joanna: If someone wants to come inside Romancelandia, how do they do that?Ines: If you have a romance bookstore in your area, go. I just did my first trip to The Ripped Bodice in New York, and when I walked in those doors, I was like, “Oh, I'm home.” That's what it feels like.

Go to the romance section of your library; you'll find a friend. Go to the romance section of your bookstore; trust me, you will find a friend. I don't know what it is about the people in this world, but as soon as we see you next to us and you pick up a book, we have something to say! “Girl, not that one. You need to read this one instead!”

If that's not enough, or if you don't have a bookstore with a romance section, look up romance conferences. Look up Romance Writers of America; even though they've struggled, there are still pockets of groups and chapters that have broken off that want to talk to you and will welcome you inside.

I really feel like it's like when you get a new car and all of a sudden you see your car everywhere on the road. If you speak romance into the world and say you want a romance book sister, she will find you.

Joanna: We are out of time.

Where can people find you and your books and your Kickstarter online?Ines: If you are an author, you'll want to go and read my Substack. I've got tons of content there, so go to ineswrites.substack.com.

If you want to read any of my books, you can go to ineswrites.com for the paranormal and fantasy—all spicy, so gird your loins! If you want to read something clean and wholesome that you can share with your mom or your auntie, then you'll go to shanaejohnson.com.

The Kickstarter should be findable on Substack or my site, but the direct link is ineswrites.com/kickstarter for the Page Turner Planning campaign.

Joanna: Thank you so much for your time, Ines. That was great.

Ines: Thank you so much.

The post Crafting Stories, Finding Readers And Selling Direct With Ines Johnson first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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How is the rise of AI changing the world of audiobooks for authors and narrators? Can a synthetic voice ever capture the nuance of human performance, and what does it mean to write for the ear, not just the eye? Jules Horne talks about the seismic shifts in the audiobook industry and how you can adapt your writing process for an audio-first world.

In the intro, using AI tools in the editing business [Words to Write By Podcast]; Fair use ruling for generative AI [BBC; Publishers Weekly; Alicia Wright interview]; I'm also on various podcasts talking about author branding, longevity, and creating over the long term [Writing With Purpose; The Authors Lounge; Bookfunnel Podcast].

Plus, Pèlerinage: Seule sur trois chemins anciens pour réinventer ma vie; Traveling by Cruise Ship on Books and Travel, my Kickstarter for short story collection, The Buried and the Drowned.

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.com to get started.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn

Jules Horne is a Scottish playwright, radio dramatist, poet, and fiction writer. She also writes nonfiction for authors, including the very useful Writing for Audiobooks.

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 biggest industry shifts in audio, including the move to subscription models like Spotify and the impact of AI narration.
• An honest assessment of the quality of AI voices—what are the ‘tells' and how quickly are they improving?
• Practical tips for adapting your nonfiction book for audio, from handling visuals and numbers to structuring for listener retention.
• How to write fiction with an “audio-first” mindset, focusing on sentence length, dialogue tags, and the rhythm of your prose.
• The potential for hybrid and multicast productions using a mix of human and AI voices.
• Marketing and selling your audiobooks, including direct sales vs. platform exclusives.

You can find Jules at method-writing.com.

Transcript of Interview with Jules HorneJoanna: Jules Horne is a Scottish playwright, radio dramatist, poet, and fiction writer. She also writes nonfiction for authors, including the very useful Writing for Audiobooks. Welcome back to the show, Jules.

Jules: Hello, Joanna. Thanks very much for having me. It's great to be here.

Joanna: It's great to have you back. It was 2019 when you were last on the show. So first up—

Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and aspects of audio and performance.Jules: Audio was never really a big thing in my life, but I did start writing very small and did a bit of, I guess, very junior theatre. When I studied literature at university, I got totally put off because it was so daunting.

I got into playwriting when a theatre company came to our local area and offered engagement workshops. That eventually led to some writing commissions. I ended up writing some stage plays and a few BBC radio dramas, which was really lovely to do.

I also worked in radio news writing and presenting for a while, so I did a bit of recording voice and writing for voice. I did a lot of presenting, so you kind of got a real feel for the flow of audio.

I loved editing different people's voices; that was really fun, and the techie side. I think that led to an interest in audio first and also a real feel for voices in general and editing. It's been a long-term interest of mine.

Joanna: As I mentioned, you were on the show in 2019 when we talked about writing for audiobooks, and you've updated the book since then. I wanted to come back to it because things have really changed over the last five and a half years.

What are some of the biggest industry shifts in terms of audiobook growth, publishing, subscription platforms, and technology changes?Jules: It's been astonishing; it's just been extraordinary what's happened in the last few years. We thought it was fast then, but what's happened very recently has just been whoosh.

For many years, Audible and ACX were the dominant distribution platforms, with such a monopoly. All that time, audiobooks have been growing really, really strongly as a publishing niche with high growth and new markets taking off. It's still really going strong.

I think one of the big things that's changed is it has moved from one-off purchases to subscription models, similar to Netflix or Prime for TV and films. That's been for a good few years now.

Then Spotify launched its audiobook tier in 2023, which was a bit of a game changer. It puts audiobooks alongside music and podcasts, and it really widens the audience.

Of course, that comes along with some worries for authors because Spotify hasn't been great for musicians, with tiny royalties there. So, time will tell how that plays out.

Then of course, there's AI, which is affecting every kind of sector. It has been expected for a while that Amazon would open the gates to AI voices, and now that's happened. You can very simply upload your ebook as usual and then add an audiobook with virtual voices.

That's bound to have a major impact on publishing and, of course, on livelihoods for audiobook narrators and actors. So, that's a huge development in this last while.

Joanna: Any technological change has a lot of benefits and a lot of downsides. You mentioned Spotify and the worries over potential royalties, but from my personal perspective, I often think about these places as, yes, some income, but also marketing and reaching a much wider audience.

As a listener myself, I moved over to Spotify for podcast and music listening years ago, and then I moved my audiobook listening over. Now I wouldn't go back because I listen quite differently and use the Spotify search engine and their algorithm.

It's like we are meeting listeners where they are. Yes, there are some good things and some bad things, but you can't stop the change.

Jules: Absolutely. I think the widening of listenership and different people suddenly being introduced to your books in ways they wouldn't have before is huge for authors. So, yes, definitely one to consider.

Joanna: We're in a time where a lot of people say, “For some reason, I don't read,” as if that's something to be proud of. But a lot of people do listen. A lot of people listen in the car, when they're exercising, or whatever they're doing. I listen when I'm out walking.

I think having our books in audio is so important, and yet it has been very expensive, hasn't it?

So again, the trade-off is that for a lot of authors, it's not human or AI; it's AI or nothing because they couldn't have afforded it.Jules: That's right, and I think the thing with reading is really interesting too because more and more people are recognizing listening as a form of reading. The attitude to it being “just listening” is changing as well. People are imbibing books in different ways now.

The cost of AI is really approachable, and if that's the only option, then that's one that authors will definitely be considering. Particularly with KDP, where they've made it such an integral part of the overall indie publishing experience.

They've made it really simple to just upload, continue, and then you can preview some voices and try it out. You can try it out with different voices. It is quite extraordinary, and I think a lot of authors will probably choose that route.

Joanna: Just to timestamp this interview, we're in the middle of June 2025. Just last week, I got an email from ACX with a survey. It included a whole load of questions around what I might want from AI voices.

It feels like even though the virtual voice is through the KDP dashboard and is quite simple, there might be something else on the horizon. Did you get that or what do you think?

Jules: I didn't get that one. What were the questions? That's really curious.

Joanna: They were things like, “Here's a list of things that you might be interested in. Rate them in order of what you want.” And one of them would have been a lot more control of the text and the audio quality and sales platforms, like how to do much more marketing of things.

It was really interesting because I was like, “Oh, this seems very, very positive for the future.”Jules: Yeah, that's a really interesting one too, because the marketing side with ACX and Audible has been really difficult for authors, hasn't it? You can't really, unless you're a vendor on Amazon, advertise your books, and you can't price them. These kinds of things.

So I wonder if that's maybe in the offering too. That would be great.

Joanna: People seem to criticize the AI voices, for example, and say, “Oh, well they're not very good.” And it's like, well, they're a lot better than they were six months ago, and in six months' time, they're going to be even better.

I wanted to ask you about this because you are very experienced in all this different voice stuff, different elements of human voice performance. So I think your ear is probably very attuned.

Honestly, what do you think about some of the quality of these AI-narrated voices?Jules: I think the quality's changing super fast. What maybe sounds a bit monotonous now—and I think that's the main quality that AI voices tend to have now—I think that's going to change really fast.

When you hear some of the higher-end products in that space, like ElevenLabs, you realize the way things are evolving. It is quite astounding.

At the moment, there are very clear tells, and I think most people will be able to pick those up. Although, having said that, like in film imagery, it's starting to get quite blurred as to whether you can tell or not.

I did test my partner on a couple of examples: “Is this an AI or is this not an AI?” And what's really astounding is sometimes he thought a human voice was an AI.

Joanna: Mm-hmm.

Jules: Which is kind of, “Oh heck.” And that's happening with photos and with films too. You remember that thing about food photography where people were saying the AI food photography looks much more appetizing and realistic. Where's that heading?

Technically, it's often things like the emphasis on the wrong syllable. I hear a lot of downward inflections. If you listen to the KDP examples, you hear this: “Once upon a time, there was a…” The rhythm and the pitch go down in quite a regular way, and over time that can get almost sleepy.

People often have much more variation; they go up at the ends of sentences and they go down. A lot of the AIs are kind of going down at the end. I'm hearing that a lot, and that might be somebody's natural inflection, but I think it's quite a pattern when you listen to the voice samples in KDP.

The other thing I notice as tells, but you have to listen blooming hard to hear these and really be on the alert for them, is emphasis on the wrong syllable. One I heard was like, “salt pans” rather than “salt pans,” or “hot to the touch” rather than “hot to the touch.” It might just slightly misplace the emphasis in a phrase.

I listened to your book; I think your voice clone is absolutely amazing.

Joanna: That's a higher-end ElevenLabs voice clone.

Jules: Yes, and it sounds absolutely uncanny. Your voice timbre and the inflections in your voice are just amazing. All I could hear very occasionally was a slight misemphasis of something like “salt pans” rather than “salt pans.” It was that kind of thing, but that was the tell for me. Otherwise, I don't think I'd have known.

Joanna: It is interesting. Coming back to what your husband thought, I sometimes listen to a sample of someone, an author reading their own work, and think, “Oh, I quite like his voice.”

Then after maybe half an hour, I'm like, “I can't listen to this anymore.” So I feel like the level of judgment we have for human narration is also pretty similar.

As you mentioned, the wrong emphasis. I listened and directed almost every single line of that book, Death Valley, and we worked really hard. It's very interesting because if I had narrated that myself as a human, I might have used the same emphasis and you would've thought that was different.

When we are proof-listening to humans, these things come up, don't they? There are always things you might disagree with in terms of the way things are said.Jules: Absolutely, and there are natural inflections in certain kinds of accents which might be indistinguishable from the way that an AI would say it. It might have a downward pattern, or that thing in lots of British English now where people have that rising inflection at the end.

I as a speaker of Scots wouldn't know whether an accent which is from South Carolina or something is authentic or not. I think if you're at a distance from the accent that the book is read in, you probably couldn't tell.

Some of the Scottish accents, for example, because I'm really close to it, I'm finding, “Ooh, that doesn't sound very authentic.” But with a lot of American accents, I really wouldn't know where it was from or whether it was authentic or not.

I think conversely, that would happen for them with British accents. So it's all about context. Often I've heard that if people are primed that it's AI, then they listen in a different way than if they don't know. So I think the blur is just something that's going to get more and more blurry.

Joanna: I agree, and as you say, I label everything so people will know whether it's human me or voice clone me. I also feel like people have different expectations of what they want from audio.

You mentioned the BBC radio dramas you've been involved with. Now, the expectation there is an incredibly high-quality human production, possibly with famous actors.

Compare that to me out for a walk listening to a nonfiction book on Spotify near a busy road. I have a completely different expectation of the content and the production than for a BBC radio drama.

There are different levels, aren't there?Jules: Yes, you're listening in different ways and for different reasons, and there are different genres. You might be listening for information or for entertainment, and these things will change how you listen.

A lot of audiobooks narrated by AI are more towards nonfiction, which seems to me a sensible use when people are listening for information. Why does it have to be a very highly performed, highly characterized kind of voice?

Whereas if you've got a novel with lively characterization, you want to hear that spoken in a particular way. If it leaps off the page, you want it to leap off in the audio experience as well. So I think they're very different contexts.

Joanna: Again, with a radio drama, there's the multicast production, maybe with sound effects. This is something that for indie authors has been almost entirely impossible because of the expense and the technical skill you need to edit a multicast radio drama.

What are your thoughts on multi-voice with AI? Is that going to make it more accessible to people?Jules: I think it's open to experiment and to people trying these things out because these are new possibilities that are coming in.

I really am interested in what that might mean for radio drama because that definitely means huge implications for actor jobs, which is a massive concern. In film, you're seeing people using avatars and artificial sets. It's really quite seismic throughout the creative industries.

For indie authors, it is an opportunity to try some things out. I don't know whether many people have yet tried that multi-voice with AI voices, but things like the voice changer are quite transformative. It's really fun to actually try that out.

With that, you get the expressiveness and the inflections of your own emotion put across, so the spacing and the intensity are in there, but you can change the timbre and the voice quality. That's really interesting.

I wonder if indie authors, and indeed producers in the radio drama sphere, might be starting to experiment with that kind of thing because it certainly gives you the option of a massive cast, which you wouldn't be able to do otherwise.

In film, you've got CGI, and in some ways, people have been able to build crowd scenes that they wouldn't have had the budget to do. What are the options then in the sound world? It's a really interesting time.

Joanna: I can see, for example, maybe you keep the big-name actors because they're the ones on the headlines, but then there might be 20 other voices in the production. Perhaps somebody would've just narrated a couple of lines, like the police person coming to the door.

I think at the moment it's “this whole book is AI narrated” or “this whole book is human,” but I can see a sort of hybrid approach with multicast-type production.Jules: I can, but actually I think it'd be a real pain to edit. With an actor's versatility and different performance skills, I think there's a bit of a difference for me between a trained actor with massive performance skills, which are just brilliant to hear, and someone who's maybe got a beautiful voice but hasn't got the performance background for a novel.

I think I'd be looking for that in a narrator every time. I just think they'll do a superb job of that, and part of the interest for the listener is also hearing your Stephen Frys or actors who have got that kind of really engaging versatility and a lovely voice.

I just think that's a more immersive and compelling experience for me. I don't think it'll ever quite go there, and I think actors will actually do it more effectively. It's just that it does cost a lot more.

Then your editing costs, your production cost, I think would be quite high doing multi-voice with short-fire dialogue. I think that would be quite epic to achieve.

Joanna: But again, that might be now. There are already famous people licensing their voices, and also the estates of the dead. You mentioned Stephen Fry, who is still alive as we record this and is a wonderful writer, actor, and voice.

Is it likely that Stephen Fry will license his voice, or that his heirs and successors will license his voice after he dies? I often think of David Attenborough here.

Jules: Oh gosh.

Joanna: His voice is super famous, isn't it? As British people, it's like this voice is iconic. I cannot see how the BBC won't be trying to license Attenborough's voice.

Jules: Oh god, that's a terrible thought. I can't imagine him doing it. I think he'd be horrified if his estate and the family did it. That would be such a betrayal, but I guess some people are going there and considering it. I did spot one on ElevenLabs which was somebody who had licensed their voice, who does a lot of audio online.

Joanna: ElevenLabs has Laurence Olivier, Deepak Chopra, Maya Angelou…

Jules: Wow. Have they really got famous voices in there?

Joanna: Burt Reynolds, I'm just looking now. Richard Feynman. They've got these iconic voices. They've got John Wayne.

Jules: Oh my goodness. What would John Wayne make of that? What would Laurence Olivier make of this?

Joanna: This is the thing. I think it's very hard. You fast forward a decade, and goodness knows, this will be either completely normal or something else. It is a very interesting time.

Jules: Yes. I've certainly had my mind blown by listening to some of these voices and understanding what's possible. It is really mind-blowing.

Joanna: Regardless of whether we work with human narrators or AI narration, we still need to keep in mind principles around writing for audio. It's not a case of, “Here's the existing book in text and it will just be perfect in audio.” So, let's start with nonfiction.

What are some of the things we need to keep in mind if we are trying to adapt a nonfiction book into audio?Jules: For nonfiction, the main thing is there are lots of visual elements that are in nonfiction books like graphs, layout features, and header hierarchies. For that, you need to find some kind of workaround, such as maybe one of these PDF uploads, or just cut these elements.

You need to look very carefully at what visual elements don't translate well into audio.

Numbers are another thing that's a little bit tricky because they're hard to take in. Your brain just doesn't hold more than five or seven things at one time. There are certain radio conventions like rounding up and down.

Also things in radio like putting somebody's job before their name, like “the company boss, Fred Bloggs” rather than “Fred Bloggs, the company boss,” because we take the context in best first and then go into the details. I think context and details is a useful concept in audio writing generally.

Other techniques that are really good are forward flagging. So, “Up next, you'll hear…” You hear that a lot on the radio so people are a bit better oriented. Then backward flagging: “So, we've just heard about wombats and now we're moving on to koala bears.”

That kind of structuring and giving signals so that people are better oriented is pretty important in nonfiction in particular.

Joanna: You mentioned lists of numbers. I go further and say lists in general. Sometimes I'll be listening to an audiobook and there's clearly a list of bullet points in the text, but the way it's read sometimes just doesn't work.

I think rewriting lists into a more coherent paragraph can work. I guess the overall point is you are adapting for audio, so sometimes you will actually have to rewrite sections.

Jules: Absolutely. What I've found more productive over the years is writing audio-first, and then I don't have to spend time doing that work of rewriting. I did find that I needed an awful lot of cuts and then some rejigging, as you say. Now I actually write audio-first, then I don't have to do that editing.

Joanna: But what do you mean by that?

When you're saying, “I write audio-first,” what do you mean?Jules: I always read it out loud as I'm writing and test it for whether it will work on air. I'm writing it as a kind of performance. The sentences are shorter. I won't use really awkward words. I'll make sure the order of information is right, just so that it unfolds well for the listener.

There are things like mental backflips, where asides are a bit trickier with audio, so I'll probably avoid that kind of structure.

So, definitely reading it aloud, and to be honest, I think that that actually improves your writing anyway because it gives it more clarity. I just find that has been really helpful for me as an editor.

Joanna: For me, I often use a lot of references in my nonfiction books at the end of the chapter. Part of my adaptation is removing a lot from the narration. Some people are quite religious, like, “No, you have to read every single line that's in the ebook.” And I'm like, well, no, you don't.

It's not even abridged if you don't include things like resource lists or appendices. As you mentioned, you can do a download PDF.Jules: Exactly, because they're not going to make very compelling audio. They're just going to sound like that long list of things. URLs are terrible as well. It's great to just put those into a PDF, which most of the platforms now allow you to upload.

That adds value as well to what you're providing for the readers. I think that's a really legitimate way to solve that.

Joanna: Although as a listener, I never, ever download the PDF.

Jules: True. But we know it's there if anyone does want to.

Joanna: On URLs, if there are URLs you do want to say, I use pretty links on my site to make an easy-to-say, easy-to-read URL as opposed to the super, super long one. But generally, it's hard to listen to and unless someone's taking notes, it doesn't really matter.

Jules: Good call. And “www” is so hard to say, so you can just take that bit off and just say, “yoursite.com.” You don't need to have the “www.” That's already saving you loads of syllables.

Joanna: That's an interesting thing around human narration versus AI narration. With human narration, sometimes I will pick up on things, whether it's me or another professional, and I will have read a different word, a word that's not even there, or I would never have said “www” out loud because I just assume it wouldn't be read.

Of course, with AI narration, it is going to read every single thing. It'll be really literal.

Jules: Absolutely.

Joanna: So you do have to take it away. I will add there, one of the benefits is if there is a mispronunciation across the whole book, you only have to change it once with AI and it will update the whole thing.

Jules: Oh, that's very handy. For character names and all that kind of thing.

Joanna: Yes, that is super useful. Okay, so let's come back to fiction then.

If we are writing for audio-first, what are some tips for fiction?Jules: I think some of these points are general, whether it's fiction or nonfiction. So things like order of information and clarity and not overloading, so that there's too much for the listener to take in at once.

Remember the context that people are listening in rather than reading. They're very often doing something else. They might be in the car, or there might be noises in the background, or they might be rushing around doing jobs in the house. So, it really needs to be very clear. You can't emphasize that enough.

Some kinds of fiction are more reflective and maybe have lots of long sentences. Long sentences can be hard for a human narrator to read really effectively. So look at the length of sentences.

I heard some plays being read in my early days, and it was quite horrendous because I realized my sentences meant the actors couldn't breathe. That's a really useful tip for fiction.

That reading out loud tip I think is really important. Also, you can maybe cut some of the “he said, she said.” Depending on whether it's a straight narration of a novel or a character performance style of audiobook, you might be able to cut some of the scaffolding.

Joanna: In fact, one of the most annoying things as a listener is the repetition of words or sounds. A lot of early writing advice was, “Oh, just use ‘he said, she said' always, because it disappears on the page.”

It might disappear to the eyes, but it doesn't disappear to the ear. So as you say, get rid of “he said, she said” and use action tags like, “Morgan walked to the window” and then starts speaking. You don't have to use the word “said.”

On your breathing point, another editing tip I found with AI audio is you just add in more punctuation. It might be incorrect punctuation according to written editorial, but it's punctuation that helps with the direction of the AI audio.

Jules: Absolutely. I do that as markup in the script anyway. You wouldn't put that in the printed form, but I used to use a lot of slashes and things and extra commas religiously to make sure the breathing was clear. So I would absolutely do that for an audiobook.

If you go into the studio, if you're reading your own, it might not be the same as your printed book, but I would have a version where all those things are in there. It saves you a lot of time later on. It saves you fluffing quite a lot.

I think the other thing that's important for fiction is where you land in sentences. There's kind of real estate within sentences, which includes the beginnings and ends of sentences.

Sometimes I used to read student fiction and quite often something like the murder weapon might be buried in the middle of a paragraph and slightly go under. Whereas if you build up to something and then it's “the knife,” that's kind of resonant.

It's something from poetry; the use of lines and where things land can be really powerful on air. It's really worth thinking about that when you're writing, using those powerful places because they give such clarity to what's going on and make it easier to follow.

Joanna: I actually think that people have to be listeners in order to understand this. If you don't listen to audiobooks and then you're trying to make an audiobook—

You need to be listening to audiobooks in order to understand what sounds good.Jules: Absolutely. I think you have to do your research and listen to books in your genre and get the feel for it and really look closely at the writing.

I learned a lot from reading writers really closely and working out what they're doing, what tricks and techniques they are using. I think that's a really valuable thing for getting into audio-first writing.

Joanna: I also just wanted to mention that, as we record this, it's not out yet, but the ElevenLabs Version 3 is going to have direction available in square brackets. So you can say [whispered] and the dialogue will be whispered, as opposed to you having to write, “she whispered.” You can direct the voice within the text.

So that is going to be hopefully available, I guess, let's say autumn 2025 maybe. So that's certainly going to be interesting.

Jules: It sounds really interesting. It reminds me a bit of music where you have the annotation for music notes and then you have an extra layer on top, which is the expression, what's emphasized and what goes loud and what goes soft. So it's kind of aligned to that. I think that's a really interesting development.

Joanna: I think the other thing I've heard about is, at the moment we're talking about doing a lot of direction in the text, but essentially—

At some point, you should just be able to upload a book and it should be able to do all of that itself. There'll be a lot more tools and help with it. What do you think?Jules: I'm not sure about that. I'm a bit skeptical because I just think human performance has got lots of expressive possibilities that I don't see AI easily being able to reproduce. So I'm kind of on that fence at the moment. But also, knowing how much things are changing, it's really hard to tell.

What I noticed in ElevenLabs is that you have these sliders. I thought that was really intriguing, that there are different sliders where you can move different parameters.

It's not just a case that you have that voice and that's what you work with. You can also tweak it and have it at low or high intensity and kind of change things.

So it's interesting what you were saying about working with your producer there and the degree of control that you have within that, which I think people are maybe not aware of. It's not just a case of uploading it and there it is, but there are lots of tweaks you can do on the way.

Joanna: Yes, I mean, there's a total spectrum of what you can do in audio. What I would like is the stratification of audio rights, where you can license a book for human narration and you can license a book for AI narration and then multicast.

So it's not just one thing; you can have different variations and then different price points as well.

People expect to pay more for a multicast human actor audio than they do for AI narration.Jules: I think that's similar to what's happening with books. Special add-ons and special formats that are really sort of artisanal command a premium price. So, I think similarly with audio, that may happen there as well.

Joanna: I just want to pick up there. You said artisanal, whereas I would say artisanal. This is a classic case of two humans actually pronouncing a word differently, and that also speaks to how difficult it is to direct a human or an AI.

Jules: Absolutely. The same word pronounced differently by different people in different countries. It's a really interesting consideration in audiobooks for lesser-known languages or lesser-known dialects because it's an opportunity to maybe hear them more.

Or voice clones could be used for that kind of thing and maybe give more airing to lesser-known dialects. So maybe more variety in the kinds of audiobooks that people can produce.

Joanna: When I was at the Frankfurt Book Fair a few years ago, I heard a Ghanaian publisher, and she was basically saying, “You are all discussing this about English language audiobook production. You have this developed market, you have all the structural stuff that you need to have a really strong audiobook culture. We don't have that, and now we are going to build it.”

In the English language, we have a long history of doing this, so there are a lot of people in the industry. But there are countries where there's nothing in their native languages. So I think this is another opportunity, as you say.

Jules: Absolutely. I think that's an awesome opportunity. It's been the same with books as well. I think access to the means of production is really opening up things for people, and I think that'll just give such great variety for listeners. I think that's only positive.

Joanna: Before we finish, you are obviously an author and you also produce audiobooks. How do you recommend authors try and sell more books in audio?

What are some of the ways that you market your audiobooks?Jules: At the moment, that's not too easy because I'm with Audible solely, and it's usually on the back of the print and ebooks. So what I would do is advertise that through Amazon and get some audiobook sales on the back of that.

Sometimes I've given out QR codes and that kind of thing, but by and large, they're just advertising on my site and I use the marketing via Amazon ads. I'm hoping that there will be more chance of audiobook-direct advertising in the future because that'll make a huge difference.

One thing I've never done, which I'm interested in—I think you do this, Joanna—is it's possible to sell books on your own website as well. Some authors are withdrawing from being with Amazon and only selling their audiobooks themselves.

Some authors have taken it into their own hands. So there is that possibility as well. Services like BookFunnel let you have your fans who want to buy your books and buy direct.

Joanna: Yes, it is actually the most profitable way to sell audiobooks, especially in bundles. For example, at CreativePennBooks.com, you can buy bundles of my audiobooks. So you get a good deal, I get more profit, and I get paid immediately.

If you go wide, to me now, going wide means having your own store plus all the other things as well. Whereas you can't do bundling on Audible because of the credit system. Of course, if you go non-exclusive with Audible, your royalty drops precipitously. So it is definitely a choice, but it can certainly be done.

Okay, fantastic.

So tell people where they can find you and your books online.Jules: I'm online at www.method-writing.com and you can buy my ebook and print books there, and my audiobooks are on Amazon.

Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Jules. That was great.

Jules: Thanks for having me, Joanna. It's a pleasure.

The post Writing For Audio First With Jules Horne first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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Is the high cost of audiobook production holding you back? What if you could create a high-quality audiobook for a fraction of the traditional cost?

In this conversation, Simon Patrick explores the world of AI narration with ElevenLabs, discussing how you can gain complete creative control, and even license your own voice clone for a new stream of income.

This episode is supported by my patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn

Simon Patrick founded Ten Times Better Books to support his daughter, Abby Patrick, as one of ElevenLabs' first users and beta testers. He has produced several of their most popular AI voices. He now develops courses and AI audiobook solutions for independent authors at Novel Productions.

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

• Costs vs benefits of human vs AI narration
• Features of ElevenLabs — realistic and expressive voices, creative control, ownership of final audio files for wide distribution to platforms like Spotify.
• Practical tips for AI narration
• ElevenLabs v3 and emotion tags
• Creating and monetizing a voice clone
• Publishing on ElevenReader

You can find Simon at Novel.Productions or 10xb.com.

Transcript of the interviewJoanna: Simon Patrick founded Ten Times Better Books to support his daughter, Abby Patrick, as one of ElevenLabs' first users and beta testers. He has produced several of their most popular AI voices. He now develops courses and AI audiobook solutions for independent authors at Novel Productions. Welcome to the show, Simon.

Simon: Thank you, Joanna. It's such a joy to be speaking with you. Your podcast and books were foundational to my daughter, Abby, becoming an author and me learning to be her publisher and all that's happened since.

I love your Patreon @thecreativepenn. It's the best money I spend every month, frankly. It's just a great community to be part of, so it's such a joy to be sharing some of what I've learned.

Joanna: Oh, thank you so much. Behind the scenes on the Patreon, Simon has done a video demo of ElevenLabs. Today, obviously, we're doing audio-only. So first up—

Tell us a bit more about your background and why you decided to get into AI-narrated audiobooks.Simon: Okay. Well, I've got 25 years of experience in marketing and design. I still am halftime head of communications for an international charity, but we've always had our own businesses too.

My wife and I ran a small home education tuition publishing business. We've home-educated our three kids, which brings me to Abby, my daughter who brought me into your world of book publishing.

She was going to college, studying early years education, and was just bored out of her mind. She asked if she could drop out of college to be a writer instead. She'd been writing a book since she was 15. To the astonishment of her friends and some of ours too, we said yes.

Let me add, it was responsible parenting. We made her finish the term, stick it out, and do the work experience. By Christmas 2019, she'd left to pursue finishing her book based on the deal that —

If she learned to write, I would learn to publish for her.Joanna: Wow!

Simon: So I attended the first Self Publishing Show in that crazy spring of 2020. I think you were there too, just a few days before the pandemic shut us all down. I've listened to hundreds of your podcasts, read your books, done some of the Self-Publishing Formula courses, and learned to be Abby's publisher.

Since then, I have used those skills and connected with a few other authors, so I probably publish a book or two a month, something like that.

Audio has always been the stumbling block. I love audiobooks. As a family, we must consume hundreds of hours a month of them. There are incredible narrators like Ray Porter and Daniel Rigby, who self-narrates his own Audible exclusives, and my absolute favourite, a guy called Jeff Hayes, who narrates incredibly.

They're amazing talents, and I don't think AI is going to touch them because they bring so much humanity to the performance.

But to ordinary authors and publishers, those narrators are inaccessible. I don't even want to think about what they cost.For Abby, who is still just starting out, any professional narration would cost her three to four thousand dollars for her books. The math just doesn't work. While there are options like a royalty split with ACX, Audible's publishing platform, I struggle with that.

Firstly, you're tied in exclusively to Audible for seven years, and we're big fans of going wide.

Secondly, you're only getting 20% of the royalties when it's being split. I just don't think for us, they're ever going to make that money back. So all of that is what led me in early 2023 to be searching for AI audio options.

ChatGPT was going crazy, you were demoing all of that at the time, and I figured there must be some kind of AI audio option that would let me take control of the process and hopefully produce good audiobooks way more cheaply than current options. That's when I discovered ElevenLabs.

Joanna: There's lots to unpack there. First of all, as you mentioned, there are some incredible human narrators, and we want to acknowledge them. I'm also a human narrator myself.

For most authors, especially indie authors or new authors, it's not a choice between human or AI; it's AI or nothing because they can't afford the fees. As you said, a lot of the time you don't know if you're going to make the money back. So I think that's really important to acknowledge.

There are lots of AI narration options now. It is hard for authors to decide which platform to use.

So what is ElevenLabs, and why do you think it's the best option for quality and also for publishing reach?

You mentioned ACX, and there's obviously AVV, the Audible Virtual Voice. Most people might think, “Well, maybe I should just do that.”

Give us an overview on why you made that decision to go with ElevenLabs.Simon: Absolutely. ElevenLabs continues to be the most realistic AI platform out there. They kicked off about two and a half years ago. I was one of their first users, and even back then, they were so much better than everything else.

There were lots of programmers wanting to do clever things with APIs and websites, but I just wanted to make audiobooks with these things. They were actually listening, which is remarkable in the publishing industry sometimes.

About a year and a half ago, and for reference, we're in June 2025 right now, they launched ElevenLabs Studio. It can take a whole book, like the ePub that I've worked on for Abby or a Word document, you can drop it in and have it convert it chapter by chapter, paragraph by paragraph into a great-sounding audiobook.

The high quality and natural-sounding elements of it are why I was first attracted to them. The expressiveness is just another step above.

The comparison with Amazon's Virtual Voice is that it's so much more pleasant to listen to, but it doesn't just sound better —

What I love about it is the complete creative control it gives me. There are thousands of voices I can pick from, a whole library of voices.They're real people, people like me, actually, who have recorded their voice and then licensed it to ElevenLabs and get paid a small amount. Then when it's used, there's actually compensation to those who've licensed their voices to it.

It’s not like the large language models like ChatGPT where the whole universe seems to have been scraped and compiled into this thing. They're being super diligent about making sure it's all kosher, that it's real people's voices and they're getting compensated.

Beyond that, the tools they're building give you control. They're incredibly open to listening to feedback, which has been brilliant. I'm talking to the programmers regularly. They've got a great Discord where they're asking for feedback.

With the tools, I can spend time perfecting the book. I can get the dialogue just the way I want it. I can create a duet audiobook with a male narrator for male POVs and a female for female POVs. I can even do multi-cast and assign different voices to each character in the book.

Probably most importantly, I can download the whole thing as WAV files or MP3s.

The big difference with something like Amazon Virtual Voice is that I own what I've created with ElevenLabs. It's a commercial license, so I can put them into BookFunnel's audio delivery service, I can put them on my website, you can add them to a Kickstarter, stick them on YouTube, or just give them away for free if I wanted to.

In terms of publishing reach, they're doing a lot. We were kind of stuck with either self-publishing, YouTube, or Kobo, who are superstars and super open. But one of the game changers that's happened in the last few months is you can now add them to Spotify, which has come in as the big disruptor for Audible and Amazon.

You've done that recently with the book that we produced together. How's that been?

Joanna: Death Valley, which has been on the feed, you can listen to a couple of chapters, and that's using my voice clone. We'll come back to the voice clone in a minute.

As you mentioned, I think it's mainly the ownership of the files and the Spotify distribution.

At the moment, it really is only Google's auto-narration and ElevenLabs that you can use legitimately on Spotify through Findaway Voices. You cannot use the AVV files anywhere else.

So I think that's incredibly important because, of course—

We can talk forever about how to make audio, but it's also about selling audio, isn't it?Simon: And for anyone who's dealt with KDP or Audible customer services, I probably don't have to say what the experience was like. So another reason I love ElevenLabs is their support has been brilliant.

There's this Discord I mentioned where there are dozens of super helpful and patient people giving input. Their customer service team replies quickly, it's personal, they're helpful, and they've got amazing documentation.

Stepping back a little bit, the fact that we can create well-narrated audiobooks for a hundred to two hundred dollars plus a few days of learning and production on each one is just incredible.

I took my two boys to a local Comic-Con recently, and there was a self-published author there with a single beautiful book. He'd clearly poured his heart and money into this thing.

There were beautiful cover bookmarks and giveaways, and then I saw he had an audiobook. We got talking about it. He'd got it professionally narrated, and he opened up and said it cost £7,000.

I honestly wanted to cry. I genuinely get emotional about it even now. I want us as authors and publishers to put our time, energy, and money into creating incredible stories and getting our words out into the world and just make everything around that as simple as possible, using tech where we can.

Joanna: I just want to comment on this because one of the reasons we timestamp these episodes is because I'll have people email me and say, “Oh, but you said this,” and I'm like, “Yeah, but when did I say that?”

For example, in 2014 when I started audiobook publishing on ACX, they were the only thing out there, and they were the bee's knees. We had a much higher royalty rate, there were very few audiobooks around, and you could make that money back. The amount of money you mentioned, you could make back quite quickly.

Now, I know some people will be saying, “Oh, but I make that money back.” And I'm like, “Well, yeah, if you are an established author, absolutely.” If you have a popular series, if you know that you already make that kind of money from audiobooks, then you can.

We are in a different era in 2025. There's a lot more audio, and of course, AI is a double-edged sword. There is going to be more audio than ever before.

The question is, how do we make that money back? If we lower the costs, then we also lower the amount of revenue we need to make to offset that.

Simon: And you know, it's going to move on fast, but now is an extraordinary time. I love good audiobooks, and the fact that AI can help me make those now is very exciting to me.

Joanna: It's super fun. You and I both have a reasonably technical background, so we can use these tools. To be fair, you said wonderful documentation. I am terrible at reading documentation. I just jump in and give it a go.

There are people who don't know anything about AI audio. How does it work?

Can you give a few key elements and tips for authors if they want to use ElevenLabs for AI narration?Simon: Yeah, I've got five tips for you. First, go in and check it out. There is a creator package that you can get for half price for the first month. I would say for exploration, it is worth getting for $11 just to have a little bit of a play with it.

Getting familiar with the platform can be a little intimidating because it does lots of different things, like voice changing, sound effects, and dubbing video.

We are really only interested in the Studio tool. As soon as you go into that Studio tool, it will start to feel familiar. You can click “Create an audiobook,” drop your ePub in there, and basically instantly see how this thing works, breaking it into chapters, applying a voice, and clicking play.

The warning though is this creator package, at $22 a month, is not good enough to create professional audiobooks. This is my first tip: you need the Pro package, which is $99 a month, because that is what outputs 192 kilobits per second.

That's the technical specification that you need to go on BookFunnel or Spotify. You only get that by using the $99 a month package. You get about 10 hours of audio creation in that, so for a lot of people, that could make a book. The hours roll over, so you can either wait for month two and have enough hours to do it.

As soon as you're done with your book, you can downgrade to a $5 a month package, so don't worry, it's not trapping you in there. Just know that you need the $99 a month Pro package to produce your audiobooks.

My second tip is to —

Really spend time choosing or making your voice. You had an experience with this, Joanna, where you try out a voice, commit to it, and then realize two or three chapters in that you don't like it. I've had that experience too.

So use that first month on the creator package to really play with voices. Generate your first chapter in five or six different voices. Really get familiar and comfortable with a voice that you want to use so that you're not wasting time and credits when you get into producing something.

Third, don't get overwhelmed; have fun with it. It's amazing hearing your book come to life in audio. I feel if you give it an hour, the Studio tool is pretty intuitive. If you have the level of tech ability to do something like typesetting in Atticus or Vellum or use Scrivener, you can absolutely master using Studio.

My fourth tip, and a warning, is that it still takes time. This isn't some one-button wonder. Your novella, Death Valley, was six and a half hours long. That took 18 hours of editing.

Joanna: And this is where people get confused because with AVV, the Audible Virtual Voice, there is no control. You literally do click one button and it goes live. There's almost no point in proof-listening to it because you can't actually change it.

With Studio, you have such fine control that you can add pauses, a breath in the middle of a sentence, or change the emphasis.You kind of direct it with Studio, don't you?

Simon: That's the word I use, yes. Directing. It's like you're directing an audiobook. If you are doing non-fiction, it is borderline a one-click wonder. It will deliver it amazingly, and you need to listen to it once, and you're good to go.

If you've spent a year or two writing a book, think about the effort we put into making it look good in the typesetting and the covers. A day or two to listen to it, refine it, and make it represent your vision is not time wasted. I'm only interested in high-quality audiobooks that do the story justice.

I want to be proud of it. I want Abby to be proud of it. I highly encourage people, particularly fiction writers, to be prepared to spend two or three days working on the book. It is so rewarding to get something that comes out the other end that you are proud of.

Joanna: And just on the proofing, if you work with a human narrator, you will be doing proofing. You listen to the audio, find the timestamp, explain what you want changed, and send it back to the human to rerecord.

The process is probably pretty similar in terms of the amount of time taken, but you can do it yourself, and there are areas that help.

For example, if there's a character name, you can fix that once for the whole audio, can't you?Simon: Correct. It's a pronunciation dictionary for any words. It really struggled with “croissant.” It does little random things. I think our favorite was when it pronounced “desert” as “dessert.”

Joanna: It just would not stop wanting some dessert! What are some other tips?

Simon: My fifth and final tip right now, and this is only pertinent to those listening as this is broadcast, is if you are wanting to do an audiobook for your fiction book, you should wait.

If you're doing non-fiction, the existing models are amazing. But last week, their Version 3 model was released, and it is a game-changer. The initial reactions are, “I can never go back to Version 2.”

Version 3, from an expression and liveliness perspective, but also from a control and direction perspective, is changing the game. It wasn't even supposed to come out for a couple of months, so they're moving forward with this fast.

The real reason to wait is it's got one massive feature upgrade that I've been waiting for for at least a year: You can add emotion tags. Previously, if we wanted someone to whisper, sometimes it would figure it out from the text.

Other times, we would literally be adding, “he whispered,” “she shouted,” “he said excitedly.” We were kind of gaming the system.

Now, we can add tags in square brackets to the text like [whispers], [shouts], [says thoughtfully], [says in a British accent].There is this whole world of things it can do that allows us to work much more effectively as a director, particularly for dialogue and emphasis. There is even a button that will read the text and put in suggested tags throughout the book. The AI is reading those instructions but not reading them out loud.

So it is the big breakthrough in terms of us creating audiobooks that sound exactly how we want them to.

Joanna: That is really good. I'm looking forward to that as well. Let's wind it back for people. You mentioned non-fiction quite quickly.

For non-fiction, what do I do about the table of contents, URLs, or images in my text?Simon: When you upload the ePub, you can just delete those bits.

I feel like people forget that you have control. You can completely change the front matter, the back matter, and the bits around it to be something that's going to work most effectively when it's delivered on the platforms you want. And you can create different versions.

Joanna: And I think it's really important for people to remember with audiobooks that it is an adaptation, however you're doing it. It is a different product.

With Death Valley, for example, I would say to you, “Oh, well, let's just rewrite that sentence,” because it would be easier for me to rewrite it and it will keep the same meaning.

Simon: Exactly. You have that luxury as the author, which is why people doing it themselves is wonderful. When producing your book for you, I can't take those liberties.

Joanna: So let's come to the voice clone idea because, of course, you mentioned earlier that you've licensed your voice. We used my voice clone for Death Valley, and I am still on the fence as to whether or not to license that publicly.

What are some tips for people who want to license their voice or do a voice clone?Simon: For me, it's been amazing getting this bonus income that I totally didn't expect. For Abby, it's been life-changing. She is the most popular English British female voice. She's called Amelia on ElevenLabs. She's earning enough from her voice that she could quit a toxic job and go full-time writing. It’s extraordinary.

So, in terms of tips, if you are recording your own voice, whether you are going to use it yourself or think about sharing it with others, first of all, the quality of the recording is essential.

You want to be using a good microphone in a quiet place. There are lots of tools to clean it up, but nothing is going to compare to something that's recorded well.

When you are delivering your voice, the delivery needs to be varied but consistent. I generally get authors to read their own book. You want to give variations in terms of tone and volume, from whispering through to high energy, as though you are reading to an engaged audience.

You do not want to put on character voices. That's really important. The AI will pick up on the variations in your delivery, but it gets very confused if you've done character voices because it doesn't know how those fit in with how you speak.

A cheat code for improving the quality if you don't have a really good mic or a quiet area is Adobe Podcast. It's a free service with an enhanced speech function. You can put your recording in there and massively improve how it sounds.

The tip is to not put it out at a 100% treatment; you want kind of 70% to 90% of their enhanced speech applied, or else it sounds too obviously affected by AI.

Joanna: And right now, my J.F. Penn voice is my voice, and I'm the only one who can use it.

There's another step if you want to license it and put it in the voice market, isn't there?Simon: Yes, and the first challenge of that is genuinely a moral evaluation. If you want to monetize your voice, you have to decide if you are prepared for your voice to be used to say almost anything.

ElevenLabs has controls to stop things like hate speech or sexual content, but to really monetize it, you have to switch off a feature called “live moderation,” which prevents things like swearing.

As soon as you turn that live moderation on, your voice becomes unavailable for most uses that would make money, like audiobooks or conversational AI.

The second option to consider is the notice period. You can choose to have the right to instantly withdraw your voice or set a notice period of up to two years. They pay more if you're prepared to have a longer minimum period.

As a producer, I am not going to start using someone's voice for an audiobook series if I might not have it to use in three months' time. I instantly filter for anything less than a year's notice period and generally only pick two years.

If you want to monetize your voice, you have to turn live moderation off and give a two-year notice period, in my opinion.A final tip would be to be safe. Do not publicly share your voice's name and connect it with you as a person. Forget about voice recognition for telephone banking, for example.

Also, do your research. See what voices are most popular, what descriptions work best, and think about the sample you provide.

Joanna: As we head towards a close, we do need to quickly come back to —

ElevenReader. It's an emerging place to publish audiobooks, too. You can also upload e-books, and then listeners can choose the voice.Back in 2020, I wrote in my book on AI that at some point there will be an app where listeners can choose whatever voice they want to listen to my book in, and this is it.

Simon: It's super exciting. It's an app you'll find on your iPhone or Android store. It's the consumer-facing side of ElevenLabs. You can drop in pretty much any content, like PDFs, e-books, and webpages, and it turns any text into speech. Right from the beginning, it's also offered books for direct sale.

Joanna: We have to mention that Melania Trump has used a voice clone of her quite distinctive voice to do her memoir, also called Melania. She has basically said this is the future of publishing. “Here's my AI voice clone, and it's on ElevenReader.”

I thought that was a tipping point for me because it means that it's going mainstream.

Simon: So you can see it like Audible or Spotify, except you can choose what voice you want to narrate it. For authors, it's an amazingly simple way to offer an audiobook.

You don't even have to go through the studio production process. You can just sign up to ElevenReader publishing and upload your book. Boom, they'll review it and publish it.

Joanna: I would say to people, you must —

Read the terms and conditions of any site that you ever upload anything to. Also, if your e-book is in Kindle Unlimited and exclusive to Amazon, you can't upload that e-book to ElevenReader because it's exclusive.

Simon: And we have just taken Abby's books out of Kindle Unlimited so we can put them in ElevenReader this week.

Joanna: Before we go, you have courses coming and you also offer services to authors.

Tell us about those and where people can find you online.Simon: Wonderful, thank you, Joanna. First, I'd be a very neglectful father if I didn't mention that Abby's latest book, Stolen Legacy, went live yesterday. You can find Abby Hope Patrick and her Deadly Ever After series on Amazon and, very soon, ElevenReader.

You can find my voice on ElevenReader; I'm “Christopher” on there.

The courses are something new. We've started a new website called Novel Productions. The first course will be “AI Audio for Authors” and will cover everything people need to know to get themselves not just onto ElevenLabs, but all platforms.

It's also going to have training on how to record your own voice clones and monetize them if you want to. I was about to publish it, and then Version 3 of ElevenLabs came out, so I don't want to train anyone on anything that's not going to be the best in a couple of months.

So right now, if you go to Novel.Productions, there will be a waiting list that you can sign up to.

Regarding services, you were my first beta tester outside the books that I publish myself. We're still weighing up how affordable we can make it. I'd rather teach people first, and if they don't want to then do it themselves, we'll see how we can help.

I'm beta testing that with authors, so you can email me at simon@novel.productions.

Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thank you so much for your time, Simon. That was great.

Simon: Thank you, Joanna. It has been such a pleasure.

The post Producing AI-Narrated Audiobooks Using ElevenLabs With Simon Patrick first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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Are you looking for new ways to connect with readers and market your books? Have you considered using podcasts but aren't sure where to start, or if they're even effective anymore? How can you turn a simple podcast interview into a powerful tool for building your author career? Matty Dalrymple talks about how to leverage podcasting for long-term success.

In the intro, Robert MacFarlane on How I Write Podcast; Are em dashes really a sign of AI writing? [Grammar Girl]; Publishing Pitfalls for Authors; ALLi Self-Publishing Services list; Writer Beware; Midjourney for video;

This episode is sponsored by Publisher Rocket, which will help you get your book in front of more Amazon readers so you can spend less time marketing and more time writing. I use Publisher Rocket for researching book titles, categories, and keywords — for new books and for updating my backlist. Check it out at www.PublisherRocket.com

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn

Matty Dalrymple is the author of mysteries, thrillers, and nonfiction, and is the host of The Indy Author Podcast. Today we are talking about her new book, co-written with Mark Lefebvre, The Podcast Guest Playbook: Turning Conversations into Connections and Community.

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 podcasts offer a deeper connection with potential readers compared to short-form video
• How to pitch podcast hosts effectively by providing value and demonstrating familiarity with their show
• Tangential topics and creative angles fiction authors can use to land interviews on a variety of shows
• The importance of building authentic, non-transactional relationships with hosts and other creators
• Practical tips on how to prepare for an interview and gain confidence as a podcast guest
• Why it's never too late to start your own podcast and how it can benefit your writing process

You can find Matty at MattyDalrymple.com or TheIndyAuthor.com. Matty also offers coaching for authors around podcast practice.

Transcript of the interviewJo: Matty Dalrymple is the author of mysteries, thrillers, and nonfiction, and is the host of The Indy Author Podcast. Today we are talking about her new book, co-written with Mark Lefebvre, The Podcast Guest Playbook: Turning Conversations into Connections and Community. So welcome back to the show, Matty.

Matty: Thank you. It is lovely to be here.

Jo: Matty's been on the show before. I need to check when it was. It was in 2020, which is obviously like a lifetime away now because it was the beginning of the pandemic. It is like a completely different life. But you did talk a bit then about how you got into writing.

What does your author life and business look like now?Matty: Well, I think this had just become true in 2020, that I am a full-time author, podcaster, and publisher. Since then, I've continued to add to my two fiction series, the Ann Kinnear Suspense Novels and the Lizzy Ballard Thrillers.

I've also been working hard on my nonfiction books for authors. We're going to be talking about my new book with Mark. Back then we had been talking about Taking the Short Tack, which is the first book I co-authored with Mark.

Since then, I have also co-authored two books with our mutual friend Michael La Ronn on being an author speaker and on, appropriately enough, co-authoring nonfiction. So, yes, continuing to add to the portfolio.

Jo: And of course, you've got the podcast and—

You are also an advisor for the Alliance of Independent Authors, right?Matty: That's right. I'm the Campaigns Manager, so I'm responsible for ALLi's campaigns which are: Open Up to Indie Authors, Ethical Self-Publishing, Self-Publishing for All, and Publishing for Profit. That has been super fun. I've been doing that for just over a year now.

Jo: Fantastic. So yes, multiple strings to your bow. So let's get into the book. I guess the first thing is, are podcasts even useful for book marketing in an age of short-form video? We're all told that it's all about TikTok and BookTok and social media.

What is special about podcasting that makes it worth investing time in?Matty: Well, I think that the strength of podcasts is the depth of the connections you can form.

I have to say, I'm not super familiar with BookTok. When TikTok first came out, I spent about 35 seconds on it and I found it so not for me that it was clear I was not going to be providing content for TikTok or BookTok, and I probably wasn't going to be consuming that content either.

I think that obviously some authors are getting great connections on BookTok, but it doesn't feel like a deep relationship. It feels more like entertainment.

The strength of podcasts is that you do have a chunk of time—you know, 30 minutes or 45 minutes or an hour—to dive into your topic in depth, to describe your book, but more importantly, the stories behind your book in depth.

The benefit that those other platforms don't have at all is the benefits that come from forming a relationship with the podcast host, which is something that Mark and I spend quite a bit of time discussing in the book. I think that's kind of an underutilized benefit of podcasting.

Jo: A few things there. I mean, the in-depth conversation… people listening to this are people who listen to podcasts. So that is the kind of audience. But you are right, it gives people time to decide whether they even identify with this person in a deeper way.

I get so many of my book recommendations from podcasting. I think, “Well, that was interesting,” and I'll go and listen to their book or read their book. You obviously interview people all the time for your show, and you are also a listener to shows.

How does podcasting translate into book sales, since that is an important reason for it?Matty: It is about letting people know about a book or a new book, but I think more importantly, it's about letting listeners know about you as an author.

The advice that Mark and I give very strongly is that if you go into a podcast interview with the mindset that what you're looking to get out of this is book sales, it's not going to be as effective, even for book sales, as if you go into it with the opinion that you're there to provide value to the host and to the host's listeners.

Then book sales and many other benefits are going to come from that. You intrigue people about your book by talking about it in a thoughtful and in-depth way, by sharing information. If you're writing nonfiction, you want to get the word out about that.

I have learned this from you: you can share lots and lots of information from your nonfiction book on podcasts and people will still buy your book because they want it in even more depth than you can provide in a podcast interview.

They want it there for easy reference. They want it as an acknowledgment of the value you've provided. So going into that with that service mindset rather than a sales mindset, I think is the most important thing for getting sales.

Jo: Yes, I totally agree. Let's talk about fiction as well, because you are a fiction writer. Both of us write fiction and nonfiction, but I do think it is harder for fiction authors to find appropriate podcasts to pitch and to talk about different angles.

So what's your advice to fiction authors who might feel like it's not so worthwhile?Matty: Yes, I agree that it is more of a challenge for fiction authors. I think the thing to keep in mind for those authors is, first of all, to find the podcasts that are focused on your genre.

I think certain genres are easier for that. I write in the general crime fiction genre, and there are a number of podcasts that are focused on that, that are specifically targeted to crime fiction readers.

I think that there are probably other genres where there isn't maybe that same breadth of availability of podcasts focused on reaching readers of those genres. I think in all those cases, the thing to do after you've identified the target podcasts is to think of the stories behind the story that you can tell.

We don't recommend that you go into an interview with the idea that you're going to share a summary of the plot of your book. That's just not going to be interesting to anyone and may deter people from buying the book if they've heard what they think is the whole story.

Readers love to hear about the fiction process. Fiction readers love to hear about the research you put into your book, or if your characters are based on real people, or even if you can come up with interesting answers to the “where do you get your ideas?” question. That can be great fodder for these conversations.

Think of those things as what you would chat about if you met a reader who loved the same genre that you write in. You might, in your podcast interview, not even focus on your own book. You and the host might get into a really interesting conversation about other books in your genre.

Listeners will think, “Oh, that person had such an interesting take on horror, or on thriller, or on romance,” and now they want to see what your take is in your own book. So I think there are lots of angles that fiction writers can take that make for an interesting and engaging interview.

Jo: And for me, it's about place. I have my Books and Travel podcast as well. As this goes out, the episode that should be up is on cruise ships and the mystery author Wendy Jones who writes cozy mysteries set on cruise ships.

She was an entertainer on cruise ships, and so we have an episode all about being on cruise ships and cruise ship life. Actually, she writes cozy mysteries, so some percentage of that audience will go on and have a look at her books, but it is that tangential thought.

Wendy pitched me on Books and Travel and said, “My books are set around cruise ships. We could talk about that.” And I'm like, “Yes, that is interesting.” Which was a much better pitch than maybe pitching me on this show to talk about cozy mysteries, because I've done that before.

So I think it's thinking tangentially. What are the themes? Like you mentioned characters.

What are the topics that you have in your fiction book that might be appropriate for a different podcast?Matty: Yes, and I can imagine that a very successful pitch for the Books and Travel podcast would be, “Here is an aspect of travel that maybe you haven't hit before, and I think that your listeners would really be interested in this.”

Some listeners are going to have been on cruises and will be intrigued for that reason. Some of your listeners will not have been on cruises and are probably equally intrigued for different reasons. So emphasizing how this topic is going to help the host and be interesting to the audience.

Jo: Yes, exactly. You mentioned it before: providing value to the host and the listeners.

In the end, it's not about you, the guest, even though it is about you. It is about giving value. So let's talk about that.

What are some other tips for pitches that will land an interview and make the host want to talk to you as soon as that email arrives?Matty: In addition to emphasizing the value you provide, I think the other key aspect of a successful pitch is making it clear that you understand the podcast you're pitching. That this is not a generic pitch.

You are sending the pitch and you're describing the value based on what is obviously your experience with that podcast.

For example, “Knowing that your listeners are interested in travel, I have an interesting spin on travel that I can share with them,” or “I think this would be a great follow-up to a previous episode where you talked about the Caribbean. I cruise to the Caribbean and I think this would be a nice companion episode.”

Sometimes I'll get pitches… as listeners of The Indy Author Podcast will know, I love the nautical metaphor for the writing craft and the publishing voyage. Every once in a while, I'll get a pitch that is completely based on a nautical metaphor that is instantly attention-getting to me.

So I think that combination of providing value and then demonstrating your familiarity with the podcast you're pitching is important. No generic, “Dear Sir or Madam” kind of pitches.

Jo: Or “Dear Podcaster.”

Matty: “Dear Podcaster.” Or even worse, when it's personalized, but wrong. I got a pitch for The Career Author Podcast once, and I was like, “That sounds fascinating, but that's not my podcast.”

Jo: I think some of the worst pitches at the moment are from traditional publishing. I don't know about you, but I just get these—they're literally, they get my name right, but then they just copy and paste a press release and say, “You would love to interview this author.”

They're not even really pitching for a podcast. They're just scatter-gunning.

What are some of the things that people should find out about the host before they email?Matty: Well, one thing I wanted to mention, because you had mentioned getting pitches from publishers or PR firms. I get a lot of pitches from PR firms and people are always really interested to hear that I actually set a higher bar for inviting a guest on the podcast if I'm being pitched by a third party.

It makes it very difficult for me to really get a sense of who the person is. I also feel as if third parties don't necessarily always have the same incentive or ability to communicate the essence of the person they're representing as the person does themselves.

So I think sometimes people who are thinking about pursuing podcast appearances think, “Oh, it's going to look much more professional if I have a PR firm or my assistant approach them.” But for me, that's not true. Hearing from the person directly is more attractive to me.

I think some of the other things to do or not to do are to be very flexible about what you're asking. I can encapsulate many of the aspects of an unsuccessful pitch easily.

If the pitch is, “I have a new book, can I come on your podcast and talk about it?” That's just wrong in so many ways. First of all, my podcast is not that kind of podcast.

My podcast is specifically with guests who have demonstrated expertise in an area of writing or publishing through writing a book about it, or writing an article about it, or speaking at a conference about it, and they're demonstrating their expertise for books outside their own books.

That's really the key for The Indy Author Podcast. You can't come on just talking about your own book; you have to discuss what you've learned from your own experiences that can be generalized to my listeners.

And so, “I have a new book, can I come talk about it?” is also not demonstrating any value for the people you're pitching. You're only emphasizing what you're trying to get out of that.

Summarizing what I was just running through:

Make the contact direct, emphasize the value, emphasize your familiarity, and mention other episodes from that podcast —that you think would be good companions. I think that combination is the recipe for a successful pitch.

Jo: I like having a few bullet points, maybe three to five, that show there are multiple angles. You can obviously mention your book in the pitch. For example, you'd say, “I'm the author of The Podcast Guest Playbook, and here are some topics we could cover.”

I've definitely said yes to pitches like that because they've given me different angles that are potentially interesting—

Rather than a generic, “I've written a book,” you can say, “I'm the author of this book, and these are the angles we could cover.” You could pitch The Podcast Guest Playbook on all kinds of levels—to an entrepreneur podcast because they are people who want to go on these shows, or to professional speaking podcasts—but on each one, you would have different bullet points as to how that might apply to that particular podcast.

I would also say, on referring to previous episodes, I think this has become a bit of a copy-and-paste hack that I get from so many now. They will literally say, “Dear Joanna, I really enjoyed the episode on The Podcast Guest Playbook with Matty Dalrymple, and I think you would like this book on flower arranging.”

They've literally just chucked in the last episode without thinking about it, and it makes you read the first sentence and then you're like, “Oh, delete.”

Matty: Yes, unless there's a legitimate connection, don't do that. The benefit of making a connection is if you're acknowledging, for example, that the host has had a guest on about podcasting previously, and you're acknowledging that you recognize that, and yet you feel like your topic is different enough.

That's another way of acknowledging that. I'm glad you also reminded me about the flexibility aspect. The idea of providing different options is great. Then the other aspect of flexibility is that a lot of authors want to have their podcast appearances grouped around a book launch.

First of all, I think that's not always realistic because I know you, for example, record your episodes way in advance. I also have a backlog of episodes. There are a whole bunch of considerations for podcast hosts about how they order the podcasts.

For example, I might have had a couple of episodes that are focused on publishing, and now I want to make sure that I get back to craft. So I need the flexibility to do that. Being insistent about when your episode airs is not good form.

I also think, in general, there is a benefit to not grouping a lot of podcast appearances around a book launch. The danger is that if I was pitching podcasts to promote one of my mystery novels, I might pitch a bunch of mystery reader-focused podcasts, and if I landed them all around the launch of the book, it's very likely that a lot of those listeners overlap and they may be hearing me on several podcasts in a short period of time.

Now, if you have different aspects you can address about your book, then you can make sure that even if someone hears you on several podcasts, they're not hearing the same thing over and over again. But still, for podcast hosts, it's not appealing to know that their show is number four of seven appearances you have lined up.

So you can really make a benefit out of what might initially seem to be a challenge by not trying to group all your appearances around a launch.

Jo: I absolutely agree, although it's a double-edged sword, especially these days with Kickstarter, because people do want things within a window. So maybe say to the host, “This is my window.”

As we record this, my show's booked out for the next six months. I get all the time, “My launch is next week.” I'm like, this just doesn't work. We put this in the calendar four months ago.

Let's be really brutal about it. I got a pitch even this week that said, “I'm still writing my first book, and I would love to come on your podcast to talk about writing.” I literally didn't know what to say to this person. Maybe you could give us some tough love, Matty.

Why is that not a good pitch, and why is that person maybe not expert enough for a show?Matty: Well, first of all, they're clearly not conveying any value that you or your audience are going to get. I suppose there could be podcasts out there that focus on early creators and what their experiences are.

I can imagine a podcast where the host is more like offering advice to somebody early in their career, and they're looking for guests who are willing to have that kind of conversation with them, but obviously, that's not The Creative Penn Podcast.

A lot of times, podcasters, just as with agents in the traditional publishing world, will post what they accept. The advice is, if they say they're looking for thrillers and you've written a cozy, then don't pitch them because you're wasting your time and theirs.

The same thing with podcasts. If the host has posted what they're looking for, then don't pitch them if you don't meet that requirement.

Even people who are representing well-known organizations that are clearly coming on a podcast to encourage people to use their products need to be able to focus on providing that value. I'm going to use Damon Courtney of BookFunnel as an example. I've interviewed Damon for The Indy Author Podcast.

Obviously, Damon has an understandable interest in educating people about BookFunnel, but we had a great conversation that never really mentioned BookFunnel until the very end, when I gave him the opportunity to let people know about it, because he had great information to share about cross-promotion and how to get the word out about your book.

I think everybody should follow Damon's example. If you're providing that value, then people are going to come to the product or book you're hoping they will get to.

Jo: Damon is a great example of a very entertaining and engaging speaker. He's got an interesting voice, he's very animated, so he brings a lot of personality as well. I think that is important.

Let's just give people some other tips.

You do have to know what you are doing, and you are only a good interview for the host if you've done this before.Someone once sent a wonderful pitch, and I was like, “This is a great pitch. Come on the show.” Then when we turned on the recording, it was very clear this person had never done an interview before.

It was so bad I had to stop the interview and say, “Look, I just think you need some more practice at this. This is a really good topic, and I'm really interested. How about you come back in six months? In the meantime, go practice and do some other interviews.”

You and I have been doing this for a long time. There is a hierarchy of podcasts. There are brand new podcasts that maybe only have a couple of episodes and are new, and then there are long-running podcasts that have a bigger audience.

How can people work their way up to bigger podcasts and also get experience so they feel more confident giving interviews on shows, radio, and TV?Matty: One tip I would share is that if you're starting to pitch podcasts and you don't have other interviews to point them to, which should be part of a pitch letter, you can create a demo reel.

I got one pitch years ago from J.W. Judge, and he sent me a video where it was his pitch, personalized to me, in video format. He said, “Hi, Matty. I write as J.W. Judge, and I would love to join you on The Indy Author Podcast to talk about these things.”

It was great because at that point, he didn't have any other interviews to point me to, but he was very clearly comfortable on camera, had everything set up, and was engaging. I appreciated the time he had spent making this specific pitch for me.

If you are really uncomfortable with the concept, I think there are a couple of things you can do. One is to be an enthusiastic podcast listener. As with any kind of content, you are most successful doing it well if you enjoy consuming the content before you start trying to create it.

That can provide comfort, especially if you're becoming familiar with a specific podcast that you want to pitch yourself to, because you'll understand the rhythm of it, the tone, and the gestalt of the podcast. I think there are certain expectations that podcast listeners develop about how a podcast interview works.

Also, practice with people you know. Find someone you can sit down with over coffee and say, “Hey, here are some questions that I would love to be able to answer as a podcast guest. Let's chat through them.” Do that a couple of times with a couple of different friends and refine your answers each time.

The great thing about that is you're sitting right across the table from them and you can kind of see when their eyes start to glaze over and when they're sitting forward and more engaged. You do less of the first thing and more of the second.

Once you have done those preparatory steps, podcasts can be really nice because you're not in front of an audience.

Obviously, you hope that there will be an audience, but unlike speaking in front of a group at your local library, it can feel like you're just chatting with the host, especially if you have a proficient host who's good at making guests feel comfortable. It can be a good entrée to other speaking engagements.

Jo: I just want to comment on that video thing. Do not send me videos, anybody, because I literally never watch videos and will not watch them!

When people send me a link to a video, I think it's a scam. What I would say is have an author website.

One of the first things I will do if someone pitches me is go and look at their author website. It is amazing how many times something's broken or it's just not professional. You can have a landing page, like your author website name, forward slash media, and you could put a video there. Then I can choose to watch that video on a website as opposed to through my email.

The other thing is, I always have notes. I always send questions before every interview. I think that's part of being an introvert and needing a lot of preparation.

ChatGPT is very good for this. If you say to ChatGPT, “I'm going on Matty Dalrymple's The Indy Author Podcast. Tell me about Matty and some of her catchphrases and some of the things she likes. How does my book overlap with Matty's interests? What are some of the things that her audience would like?” That's a really good prompt.

Then, just on the notes, I have notes as a host and as a guest, but a big tip: do not read the notes!

Matty: Over time, I've evolved to an approach where I communicate with the guest and we land on an overall topic. When I ask them to schedule, I use Calendly, and one of the questions in there is to provide five subtopics related to the general topic that we've discussed.

They provide those, so they can prepare for those subtopics, and it just gives us some sort of points in the conversation. Generally, I find that sufficient because as a host, I'm standing in for the listener.

So if Damon's coming on the podcast to talk about cross-promotion, by having five guiding points for our conversation that I can ask him questions about, I feel like that's sufficient for my needs.

But it's a great point that the more you can get insight into the preparation process of your host, the more you can be serving them by making that process as easy for them as possible.

Mark and I talk about the three P's: politeness, professionalism, and preparedness, and the importance of these in your interactions. If they ask you to provide a list of URLs for your social media sites, then don't just provide them with your handle; actually provide them with a link. If they want a bio that's 100 words, don't send them 500.

Every way that you don't comply with what they ask for, you're just making their lives a little harder. For many podcast hosts, this is a labor of love. You can't interact with them as if they were a service provider to you.

If you think about hiring an editor, you and the editor have come to an agreement, you're paying them money, and for that, you expect certain deliverables. You can't go into an interaction with a podcast host with that mindset because you really have to recognize they are doing you a favor, even if they're getting benefits for themselves.

My guess is that very few podcast hosts are making money from this. They're doing this as a service to the community.Jo: And even more than that, I do make money from this podcast, so it is part of my business, but I've been doing this for 16 years. At least seven of those years, it was not monetized.

We put our time into connecting with an audience, and listeners come back to a show for the host.

They might listen to a guest, but they come back for the host. The trust of our audience is what I value so highly, which is why I cannot bring somebody who doesn't bring value to the show.

I'm not going to interview someone unless I'm like, “That is going to help the audience.” We've spent years building up trust with our audiences so they know what they're going to get when they listen to our show.

Now, you mentioned Damon Courtney from BookFunnel, who we've both met at events. You and I met at ThrillerFest, about a decade or so ago. This is another tip. We mentioned friends before; both of us have co-written with Mark, who is a long-term friend. We met on Twitter originally, and then we met in person.

How can people develop authentic relationships that can possibly develop into things like this?It is much easier for you to say, “I've got this book coming out, can I come on your show?” than it is for a blind pitch. How can people do that authentically? The book does talk about connections as well.

Matty: I'm realizing that there's a connections aspect to every nonfiction book that I've written for authors.

This is so interesting to me that I think my next book is going to be specifically on the connections that authors and other creatives can develop with the audience they want to reach, but also the real value of making those among your creative colleagues.

I think there are just general tips that can lead to podcast appearances and lots of other benefits, and I'm going to go back again to value. If you meet somebody at a conference and they're a short fiction writer, and you've been thinking about putting together an anthology of short fiction, that is something you can offer them.

Even things like interactions on social media. When I got that video from J.W. Judge, I had already met him. I had had interactions with him, so I could feel comfortable that it wasn't spam.

If I see people who I recognize as being Patreon patrons or somebody who follows me on social media and comments in a productive way on my posts, that just paves the way to good feelings.

If I have a whole list of potential podcast guests I'm looking at and there's a name I recognize and I've already had a good experience with them, then that obviously paves the way to me wanting to say yes more than no to that pitch.

So fully understanding where your audience and interests and the audience and interests of your creative colleagues overlap can open up fantastic opportunities for podcast appearances and a whole lot of other things, whether that's co-authored books or just a collaborative friend that you may be able to provide mutual benefit to.

Jo: Just to come back on the authentic connection, as we said, you and I met a decade ago at ThrillerFest as thriller writers. There was no transactional thing going on. We met as peers at a writer's conference. That's what I would say to people—

Go to conferences, meet people, and make genuine relationships. You never know what they're going to turn into years later. It's not a case of, “Oh, nice to meet you. Can I come on your podcast?”

Matty: Right, and that idea of not treating it as transactional is so important. This is where I think that even if you've gone through all the earlier processes of doing your research, finding the right podcasts, making your pitch, preparing for the interview, and conducting it with all the best practices.

What a lot of podcast guests do is they sit back afterwards and say, “Phew, glad that went well. Now I'm onto the next thing.” I think that's a very transactional attitude.

If that's where you feel like the transaction has ended, you are really under-representing the benefit you can gain from it and the benefit you can provide.

Do those things to keep that relationship alive. If you are speaking on evergreen content, then every six months, maybe re-post on social media, “Oh, you might want to go back and look at this conversation I had with Jo.”

Make sure that you, as the podcast host, know that I'm doing that, that I'm continuing to point people to your work. Nurturing that relationship with a host can pay you back way more than just that one transactional interview appearance.

Jo: Last question, as we're almost out of time. You have your long-running podcast, The Indy Author, your co-author Mark LeFebvre has his long-running Stark Reflections, and I have this long-running show. Now some people will say, “Oh, well, it's all right for you lot, but now it's too late to start a show.”

I've just rebooted my Books and Travel podcast, and I think we need new voices more than ever.

Why do you keep podcasting, and any tips for those who want to start their own show?Matty: Well, I would first point people to my book, The Indy Author's Guide to Podcasting for Authors. In that, I walk through what is really driving you to think about hosting a podcast. You want to make sure you think through your goals and if they're realistic before you venture into that.

The primary reason that I keep doing The Indy Author Podcast is because those relationships I build up are so worthwhile for me. I first met Mark because I was a listener to the Stark Reflections Podcast.

An interaction I had with him related to a topic he talked about on that podcast is what led to our first co-authored book. It later led to me inviting Mark to be an advisor for ALLi. I feel like that connection we built long ago through Mark's podcast has paid off.

Michael La Ronn and I have now co-authored two books together, and that has been based on many appearances that Michael has made on my podcast. It's that idea that if I'm really interested in whatever the topic is, I'm developing a network of people that I can reach out to.

So I continue doing it because of the learning opportunities it offers me, the community-building opportunities it offers me, and because I just feel good about paying it back to the community. I feel as if, if I'm gaining these benefits from my guests, then I want to share those benefits with my listeners as well.

Jo: Yes, I totally agree. From my Books and Travel show, what I realized as I rebooted it is that it enabled me to write my memoir, Pilgrimage.

A lot of the episodes had helped me shape what that book became, and even though I didn't necessarily realize it at the time, it made a huge difference to me.

One of my reasons for rebooting it again is because I have a book that's gestating on English gothic cathedrals, and I've got another one on the idea of home. I am interviewing people whose books I'm reading as book research on that show, and I'm so sure that it's going to help me to bring those books into the world.

That show is not about the writing process or publishing or book marketing. I want to make sure people know that those podcasts are also wonderful.

I would recommend people start shows on what they are really passionate about, where other people are also passionate. Yes, you are a writer, but there are lots of things that intersect with that.

Where can people find you and your podcast and your books online?Matty: If they would like to listen to The Indy Author Podcast, that is “Indy” with a Y. If they'd like to find out more about all my nonfiction work, they can go to TheIndyAuthor.com. If they would like to find out about my fiction work, they can go to MattyDalrymple.com, and that's “Matty” with a Y.

Jo: Brilliant. Well, thanks for your time, Matty. That was great.

Matty: Thanks so much, Jo.

The post How To Pitch Podcasts And Be A Great Podcast Guest With Matty Dalrymple first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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How can you find your voice through writing in different genres and mediums over the years? How can you shift your mindset around book marketing, whatever your age? Betsy Lerner shares her experience of writing and books over decades in the publishing industry.

In the intro, Going Local: Authors on the payoffs and pitfalls of hometown sales and promotion [Self-Publishing Advice]; Selling Books in Person at Live Events;
Artist = Entrepreneur [Steven Pressfield]; Ecosystems come and go [Seth Godin]; 1000 True Fans [Kevin Kelly].

Plus, Exeter Cathedral, Death Valley, a Thriller; Successful Self-Publishing Fourth Edition; and The AI-Assisted Artisan Author webinar.

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.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn

Betsy Lerner is an award-winning editor, literary agent and the author of fiction, non-fiction and memoir. Her book for writers is The Forest for the Trees: An Editor's Advice to Writers.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.

Show Notes

• The publishing hierarchy—and the love of books that brings us together
• Tips to overcome your perception of writers vs. your own potential
• Balancing the desire for success and the fear of failure
• How writing can help one cope with grief
• Balancing editorial feedback and maintaining creative confidence
• Why publishers want their authors to have a pre-existing platform
• Embracing TikTok and BookTok at any age
• Navigating the current publishing industry

You can find Betsy at BetsyLerner.com or on Tiktok at @BetsyLerner.

Transcript of Interview with Betsy LernerJoanna: Betsy Lerner is an award-winning editor, literary agent and the author of fiction, non-fiction and memoir. Her book for writers is The Forest for the Trees: An Editor's Advice to Writers.
So welcome to the show, Betsy.

Betsy: Thank you so much.

Joanna: Oh, it's great to have you on. So first up—

Tell us a bit more about you and how you have managed to experience almost every aspect of publishing across your career.Betsy: Publishing was actually not my first dream. I went to NYU for film school my freshman year, and I was “invited to leave” after the first year. That was devastating.

I was not kicked out of school completely. I finished and got my degree in English, and then, like most English majors, was at a complete loss of what to do. I could not get a publishing job because I couldn't pass a typing test, which was required back in 1982.

So I did a stop gap, and I worked at an investment bank for a couple of years in the library. I got it together to apply to graduate school, and I went for my MFA in poetry.

At that time, I interned at a literary agency. That was really my first bite into the publishing world. I absolutely loved it.

I loved being around writers and books and book jackets and galleys and all the accoutrements of that world.So when I finished my MFA, I went into publishing. I climbed the editorial ladder, as one does in the States. I'm not quite sure if it's the same in the UK. You go from being an editorial assistant to an assistant editor, editor, senior editor, etc.

I really thrived and loved it very much. I became an agent when I had my child, and pre-pandemic there was no flexibility in the publishing houses. You couldn't even work at home for a half a day, let alone remote work. So I eventually crossed over to agenting, really for the flexibility of my time.

Over these 40 years, I managed to write a few books every few years or so. I think the writer in me always sort of played second fiddle to the editor or agent in me. It always sort of came out one way or another.

Joanna: I love that. You said how much you found a home in publishing because you love books and all the things of being around books.

That's what I wanted people to remember. Often, there's always this stuff about, oh, this editor or this publishing house or this agent, or whatever. People always want to moan. We’re just all book people, right?

We all love books. That's why, despite all the ups and downs, we all want to be in this industry.Betsy: Absolutely.

There’s, in my mind, sort of this hierarchy where everybody wants to be the writer. Then next best is the editor. Then next best is the marketing, publicity, sales person.

Also, all the wonderful designers and illustrators and people who make book jackets. Everybody is all in it together, but I’ve often found that the people behind the scenes get very little credit.

I always, as an editor and even as an agent, always really loved and respected all the people all up and down the chain who contributed. Yes, all book people, big readers, movie goers, pop culture people.

I’ve had a wonderful 40 years in the industry, even with all the ups and downs, and there are many downs.

Joanna: Yes, we'll come back to those. You said that everyone wants to be the writer, like that's the first thing. In the book, you have this wonderful line:

“When I entered the business, I believed that writers were exalted beings.”That made me smile because I remember feeling like that. I always was a reader, and I thought I could never be a writer, because they're so special, and it stopped me.

So what can you say to people listening to encourage people, like if they're still feeling the separation between what they think a writer is and the truth of it?

Betsy: Well, the answer is very complex, but it’s also very simple.

You have to write.

There are so many people who say they want to be writers and dream of being writers and have stories inside them, etc, etc.

The fact is if you aren't actually writing, whatever form it takes, it's not going to happen.

It's a craft and it takes a lot of time and practice.So I always tell people, do you write diaries? Do you keep notebooks? Are you writing blogs? Are you doing Substack? What writing are you actually doing?

It doesn't all have to be prose. I wrote screenplays for years. I blogged for years. All of that was in the development of my voice and in my ability to story tell. Then, of course, all the editing that I did, I really learned what goes into making a book.

The key thing is simply writing and understanding that all the writing you do is either in practice of the professional writing you might do, or it's just who you are and how you express yourself.

Joanna: Well, it's interesting there. You talk there about you have to write and the different types of writing, but, of course —

You were 64 when you wrote your first novel. You've written loads of different things. Tell us about that. There’s this idea that you have to be young and beautiful to do your debut novel, right?

The people who seem to get all the press are the young debut writers. So tell us a bit more about that experience.

Betsy: When I was in my 20s, if I could have published a book, I'm sure I would have. I did not have it together. I went into publishing really, as I said, sort of as a default.

I did have my MFA in poetry, and many of my fellow poets were going off to write and teach. I just didn't have access to any of those opportunities, nor did I think I would be particularly good at it.

Fast forward, it was the pandemic. I did have more time on my hands. I had also just come through an extremely traumatic time in my life. My niece and nephew were killed by a drunk driver, then my mom passed away, and then my best friend committed suicide. Those tragedies all happened in the space of four or five months. I was in some sort of shock.

I was in deep grief, and I guess I wrote my way out of it. I just sat down one day, opened my laptop and wrote the first words of the book, which are: “Here are the ways I could start this story.”

I wrote for seven months, four or five hours a day, really until my hands cramped. I just poured this book out of myself. I don’t think magic happened and I wrote a novel, I do think it is based on 40 years of keeping diaries, blogging, developing my voice. Writing those screenplays really taught me how to write plot.

So I think all the writing I did came together in this novel in my mid-60s. I was very fortunate that I was able to get it published. I found a small publisher who was able to say, instead of being a hot, young debut novelist, I was a senior, late bloomer. I had all this experience.

We were able to do a bunch of publicity around the fact that I was a literary agent turned novelist. So my age sort of worked for me, both in the experience of writing and the attention I was able to get.

Joanna: That's a great way to put it. Obviously those tragedies are awful, and it’s amazing that you managed to write your way out of it, as you said. Just for that, is the book about surviving tragedy?

How did those things that happened to you emerge in the writing? Or do you think it was just an entirely different thing? You better tell us the title as well.

Betsy: Well, the title is Shred Sisters. It's really a book about two sisters. The older sister has bipolar illness, and the younger sister is the narrator.

It's coming-of-age and how she lived under the shadow of this very destructive, and yet charismatic sister. It doesn't involve the tragedies at all, except for the fact that a number of people do die in the book.

It is a way, I guess, that I really coped with a lot of grief, but it's a separate story from that. I feel that all of those events are deeply connected to my writing fiction for the first time.

Joanna: Well, it's interesting because you've also written several memoirs, including Food and Loathing, which I saw that title and was like, oh my goodness, that is such a powerful title. That's about disordered eating.

The Bridge Ladies is about your mum. You've clearly delved into really personal things before. This book, The Forest for the Trees, is also really personal.

So how do you do that? I do it now, but I know how hard it is for people to really put themselves out there in words.

Fear of judgment is a big thing. How did you get over that for your memoir and everything you write?Betsy: I think because I kept diaries from the age of nine or 10, daily diaries for my whole life. Then when I became interested in poetry, it was the confessional poets who really drew me in. Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton and Robert Lowell were among my favorite writers.

So I've always been interested in first-person writing, in intimate writing, and confessional writing. Then as an editor, I really became known for working with authors on their memoirs.

I worked on Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel and Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy. I eventually became the agent and editor for Patti Smith's Just Kids and all of her memoirs. It's really what I most love and gravitate towards.

When I started to write The Forest for the Trees, I didn't see that as an entirely personal book. I was writing in my persona as an editor. Then when I did write Food and Loathing, I think I just felt that it was my time to write.

I wanted to write my story. I felt bold. I didn't want to pull back, really, If I was going to do it, I was going to do it—I guess is what I was thinking.

Do I now sometimes regret some of the things I wrote in that book? Possibly. I had a lot of bravado, I guess. I had worked on so many memoirs, and I just thought I wanted to tell my story. I was lucky that I had the chance to publish it.

Joanna: It's so interesting. You keep saying that you've been lucky to publish or you were lucky to find a publisher. You've been in publishing for 40 years, and you're an agent.

How is it that somebody like you would even struggle to find a publisher?Betsy: Well, I guess it's more that my ego, my self-esteem, all come from being an editor and an agent. If you meet me on a plane and you say, what do you do? I'll say, I'm a literary agent. I would never say I'm a writer.

It doesn't matter how many books I have published. It's just not my identity, and I don't know why that is. I mean, it's a shame, I should own it. I still feel more comfortable behind the desk.

I do feel very lucky. A lot of people in publishing write and want to be published. I just don't take it for granted. Yes, I had connections. I was able to find an agent more easily than someone who's not in the business.

I still think it's a privilege to find people who are willing to actually pay you and work with you and put your work out there.

Joanna: Interesting. Well, then coming back to your work editing memoirs. If you have a writer who brings you a manuscript and you're like, they have not let it all out—

How do you encourage a writer to be more personal in their writing?Betsy: If I've accepted a book and I'm working with the person, we have an understanding that I would expect certain revisions from them. I would be very clear about what they would be.

That might include going deeper in certain parts and investigating certain questions that are left clearly unsaid or holes in the manuscript.

I recently read a manuscript by a woman with a child with a disability, and she never described what the disability was. Yet there was something very moving about the book, and I said to her, this can't be a question mark if you're going to write this book. So that was a very obvious one.

Sometimes it's just more subtle. Sometimes you say too much, actually, and understatement can be more effective. It's not necessarily saying more, it's just crafting. Memoirs are crafted. They propose to be the truth, but they’re really a work of art, in my opinion.

The quality of the writing is what makes people invested and believe in the story that they're being given.

Joanna: Well, in another aspect of the book, you say —

“Most writers have very little choice in what they write about.” You talk about the obsessions, and themes returning, and this finding your voice.

I remember finding this very difficult at the beginning of my career. Like, what is this finding your voice? So there might be people listening who feel that way. So how can writers identify these things?

Betsy: That's such a good question. I think it's organic, and it starts probably with what you gravitate towards as a reader. If you sit down to write science fiction, my guess is that you've read a ton of it as a kid and as a teenager.

You've immersed yourself in that world. It's a world you love. It's a world that sparks your own imagination.

I think I did a lot of personal writing because of how much I connected with books like The Bell Jar and Diary of Anne Frank and things like that when I was a girl.

So I think your voice is part of the world that you immerse yourself in. Becoming good at it really just takes a lot of practice, and getting feedback, and doing revisions, and putting in the hours, putting in the hard work.

It's very unusual that somebody who's never read in a certain genre is suddenly going to be great at that genre. At least in my experience, people write out of the worlds that they know.

Joanna: I guess with author voice, so this idea of creative confidence as well—like, I'm pretty confident in what is my J.F. Penn writing, which is my fiction and memoir brand. I know what is me, and I work with an editor, but she also knows me.

Now, I hear from people who work with editors, and there's a real line between an editor trying to make your book better and an editor who you feel might be affecting your voice.

How can people listening ascertain where an editor would sit on that continuum and when an editor is a good fit?Betsy: I've had many editors, and I would say everybody has added something of value. Certainly there were people who also stymied me with their notes, or even frightened me or put me off completely. I've had every experience.

Then with my novel, I had the most wonderful editor who completely helped me make the book better. They actually really taught me how to be a better writer in the process, which is something that has stayed with me even beyond working on that book.

It's very intimidating if you're a new writer and your editor tells you something, you think you have to do it. It takes a bit of spine to not do it.

Then are you doing that at your own peril? Are you being defensive? Are you not really listening? Or is the advice bad?

When you're a beginning writer, it's very difficult to parse all of that. It takes time and experience and even a little bit of luck to find the editor with whom you feel you're really a hand in glove in what you're doing.

I think a lot of people do suffer at the hands of editors. Then, of course, many people are extremely helped, then everything in the middle.

Joanna: Well, I think that's the point—it's not like the first editor you ever work with is it for the rest of your life. You will have different editors in your life. The relationships will be different, a bit like our friendships or partners or whatever. So yes, I think you kind of touched on that.

I also was interested, you have a lot in this book, The Forest for the Trees, around mindset. I particularly like this line: “The desire for success and the fear of failure run along a continuum.” So talk about that from your own perspective.

How have you balanced desire for success and the fear of failure?Betsy: I love that question. It's something I think about probably on a daily basis. I think that the act of writing, the desire to be in your own mind, in your own sort of playground, and the beautiful solitude of it all, is really what the heart of writing is all about.

At the same time, I would say most people are writing, even in a diary, with the hope of being read. So they're very connected. When you read writers’ diaries, you can tell that they're not just writing for themselves. It's almost as if they have an audience in mind.

So I think that when we're writing, it is about the desire to communicate, even though we really are writing alone, and in many ways for ourselves.

The ego can get very tied up in that. There are some writers who are obsessed with success. I work with one writer who's a complete and total recluse, and never reads her reviews, and doesn't want to know anything besides just getting her contract and getting her book out there. She does no publicity either, by the way, which makes it very difficult to publish her.

That's what I mean about the continuum. There are some people who are so blinded by the desire for success that their work almost seems to be secondary.

Obviously, the best is to find some balance between your discipline, and love of writing, and the outcome for any book that you create, and how much energy you're going to put into that, and how much the world is going to welcome it or not.

So many books get published with no fanfare at all, and it's always just a very few every season that seem to get all the attention.

Writers have to learn how to live with those outcomes and see if they're willing to keep going.Joanna: How have your books gone in that way? Have you hit the success as a writer? I mean, you said before that you didn't identify that way.

Do you feel like you are a successful writer, as well as an award-winning editor and all the other things you are?

Betsy: Yes, but I work very hard at it.

Part of why I was so drawn to your podcast, in fact, is that —

I love marketing. I love publicity. I love figuring out how to get the work out there.I've mostly done that for my clients and my authors, but when I have published my books, with each consecutive book, I've gotten better and bolder at doing the marketing.

So with this novel, for instance, I pulled out all the stops. I did everything I humanly could. I even got on TikTok and befriended book influencers. I made fortune cookies with lines from the book inside and gave them out at readings.

I wrote hundreds of note cards to librarians and booksellers and people in the media that I had even the most tangential relationship with. I've been helping my authors for all of these years try to get attention for their books in every imaginable way possible.

With Forest for the Trees, with my first book, I did write to a ton of writing conferences and MFA programs and offered to give talks and send free copies and do that sort of thing. I am very proud of it because it's still in print all these years later. I still hear from people that it's helped them, and that's so rewarding.

Joanna: Wow, everyone's still reeling at your comment, “I love marketing.”

So yes, obviously you're full of ideas of different kinds of things. Then you also mentioned this writer before who's a recluse and doesn't do any marketing. So how can writers listening change their attitude?

How can people learn to love marketing like you do, and be creative with it as you've obviously been?Betsy: Well, it's really difficult, since most writers do enjoy their solitude and may not be the most social people going. Some people just turn their nose up at marketing. People have such a strange idea of marketing and sales.

In my mind, what it all boils down to is communicating and figuring out that one-line pitch that can get people interested in your book, then just putting a lot of elbow grease into it.

I often use the metaphor of, if you were to open a store and you lovingly furnished it with all sorts of goods that you've hand-picked, and you've made the store so beautiful, but then all you did was put an open sign in the door—nobody's really—maybe one or two people might walk in.

If you wanted a lot of customers, you'd have to do some outreach. So it's just outreach.

It is a different head.

You have to be very sensitive to be a writer, but you also have to be sort of thick-skinned to get out there and sell your book and market your book. These days, even the big publishers often don't do all that much, and it really is up to the author if they want to get the word out.

Another thing I often ask writers too is, what are your goals? What do you want this book to do for you? How many copies do you think you want to sell? Do you want to use it as a calling card to get a job or to get speaking engagements?

Do you have a political agenda? Why are you writing this book? What do you want it to do in the world?

A lot of writers say, “I hadn't thought about that.” So I say, think about that, and then let's make a plan that's commensurate with your goals.

Joanna: Yes, you said there that a lot of publishers don't even do much marketing for books anymore.

I think certainly in the self-publishing and the independent publishing side of things, I hear often people say, “I don't want to do any marketing, so I'll just get a traditional publisher, and then they will do it all for me.” Right? Is that just not true anymore?

Betsy: It's not true anymore. It's not true at all. In fact —

Publishers these days are most drawn to authors who come with a platform — either a large social media platform or an institutional platform, because that helps them sell their books. They've identified the market already.

It's disheartening. I remember the first time I was agenting a book, and the editor, before even asking, “What is the title? Who is the author? What's it about?” said, “What's their platform?” I was so taken aback.

Another time, I heard an author, an editor, I was pitching a book, and I heard clicking, and I knew the editor was looking up the sales figures for the author rather than listening to my pitch about my passion for the book.

That’s when I knew—and I'd say that was about 10 years ago—the landscape had completely shifted from content-based material to platform-based material.

Joanna: I think people, even though we're all book people, like we said at the beginning, people still have to make money in a business. I think it's important that we think about that sales side, even though, as you said, it's like a different head.

I do have to come back to TikTok, because I did actually go and look at your TikTok channel. I have basically refused to do TikTok. I'm like, I do audio as my main marketing channel, and I do a little bit of social media.

You're on TikTok, so tell us about that. Why did you decide to jump in? What kind of things do you do? And are you still doing it?

Betsy: Yes, I'm still doing it. I love it.

I went on out of curiosity, because as I said, the landscape was changing. As of about somewhere in the middle of COVID, people began saying that BookTok was the only thing moving the needle for selling books. Everyone saw the Colleen Hoover phenomenon, and then romantasy.

I started to recognize that it wasn’t just genre and romantasy, but literary books were also getting a big bump on BookTok. I decided I had to see what this was that everyone said was moving the needle, even though most people in publishing were not going on BookTok at all or getting their marketing teams excited about it.

Just a couple of publishers were at the vanguard. In any case, I wanted to learn about it as a literary agent to help my clients, but also because I had a novel coming out and thought maybe I could get some of these book influencers to talk about my book.

So I got on the platform, started learning, and started became part of the community by leaving comments on other BookTokers’ videos. Some dialogue started happening, and I reached out to many book influencers, asking if I could send them my galley.

A lot of them said yes and many posted about my book. So that was really exciting for me watching young people with tattoos and nose rings holding my little book and saying why they liked it so much. It was fantastic.

I also thought maybe I could create some content. I started reading snippets from my diaries from my 20s.

I found very quickly that I could build an audience, and many young people resonated with my diary entries and made them feel less alone in the world.Most of my entries are all about being someone in their 20s who is sad and lost. Turns out there's still a lot of lost and said people in their 20s out there.

Joanna: I was so impressed with your videos.

I feel—I don't know, and this is totally about me, this is not about anyone else—but that I somehow have to do my hair and makeup. I know it's not meant to be scripted, but to turn on a video and start talking or share bits of your diary as you do.

You have your face there and everything. You're there. It's not just your diaries. If people are worried, like me—

What would you say to people like me? Is it really worth it? Do people have to get over themselves?Betsy: That's a great question. When I first started trying on BookTok, I refused to be on camera. I was just posting these little literary tidbits of books that I liked. I was just messing around.

One of our clients, who's big on BookTok, called me and said, “Your stuff is adorable, but you're not getting any traction. You won't get any unless you get on camera.”

I said, “No way, no way, no way.” About a month later, I saw her somewhere. She said, “So how are you doing on the platform?” I said, “I'm not getting anywhere. “

She said, “Are you going to get on camera or not?” I said, “I don't think so.” She explained how my posts were all random and that —

To get traction, you have to pick a lane, and do something people know you for. Think of it as your own little TV show. That's when I thought, all right, maybe I'll try it. What the hell?

By the way, nobody I know is on TikTok, so I had nothing to be worried about. That night, I went home and realized I have all these diaries. Maybe I can do this. That first post that I did went viral, so that was very encouraging. Not all posts go viral—many don’t.

I have built an audience. I have over 30,000 followers. My posts generally get a good reception. Every now and then, one goes viral. I find it extremely exciting. I'm a child. What can I say? I love attention. I love the app.

I've made some very good friends. Even in real life, I've met some of these BookTokers. They're all young, and I just think they're fantastic.

Joanna: I love that. It's interesting because I got on Twitter, as it was back then, in 2009. For those first few years of being in Twitter, a lot of my friends in real life are people I met on Twitter back then. I built a lot of my business on Twitter.

Obviously, that platform has changed. That almost feels like what you're talking about there with TikTok and BookTok. So I love to hear that. Hopefully, that encourages people of different ages. I always hear people say to me, it's only for people in their 20s and 30s.

There really are a lot of different ages and demographics now, aren't there?Betsy: Absolutely. Also, I'm a big science person. Within TikTok, there's everything under the sun, including STEMTok. I watch a lot of scientists talk about their work. I've even found clients on TikTok. We represent this incredible linguist called Etymology Nerd and sold his book.

I'm working with an ornithologist who has a fantastic following and is a wonderful communicator. Yes, there are a lot of cowboys dancing without their shirts on and kitten videos, that's all there.

If you have a real interest, you'll probably also find people making content, either there, or on YouTube, or even on Instagram now people are doing videos.

It is sort of the Wild West. There's a lot out there, and it takes some time to figure out how to use the platform. I'm really happy to hear you found real friends through Twitter. I think people don't understand that social networks are also about connecting.

The BookTokers who I've become friends with are people who, if I'd met them at a party, I would have loved to have met them. They're young, vibrant, read tons of books, and have tons of opinions. Yes, and they're not just talking about their knee replacements, and mortgages, and Medicare. I really appreciate that.

Joanna: I love that. You are really fun!

What I actually really enjoyed about your book is it's very ‘voicey.' I can hear your fun and your opinions, which I really like. I think that's great. Obviously, people can check you out on TikTok.

I wanted to come back to publishing because in the book, you say,

“The cyclical nature of the publishing business, the brutality of the media, and the vagaries of the marketplace are things that we all have to get used to.”So I wondered if you could maybe give us a perspective on the changes of the publishing industry that are still happening, and, in fact, even more so with AI. How can authors now navigate the industry?

Betsy: That's such a big question. It's so difficult. At least in the States, the biggest problem is when I entered publishing, there were about 40 publishers. Now they're called the Big Five. It's all been conglomerated.

There are many imprints within each major publisher, but they all basically run the same way and have the same mindset about publishing. People want either the hot, sexy debut author, or the author with the big platform, or the celebrity, or the CEO. That's what the world really wants.

If you're a literary writer or genre writer, you might have to make your way not looking at the big publishers in the beginning, as you develop your audience and grow as a writer.

Getting published by a major publisher isn't the end-all and be-all anymore.Even someone like Colleen Hoover started by self-publishing. There's a real path outside of traditional publishing. I still work within traditional publishing. I still am able to break writers in, but it's much more difficult that it used to be.

There's much more scrutiny before a book is acquired. Authors just have to have a bigger platform or some real literary fairy dust that's been sprinkled on them, either by other famous writers, or an MFA program, or publishing in a very high quality magazine.

I would just say that —

You better really love writing, because it's a long haul and it's very difficult to sustain a career. So it just has to be what you have to do. I've always written part time. I've always had my day job. I think most writers have to survive by also doing other jobs, unless you really break through.

So you just have to understand that you're probably going to have to do other work to sustain yourself, but if writing is what you have to do, then you'll find a way.

Joanna: You said earlier, every couple of years, you end up writing another book. So you clearly can't help yourself.

Betsy: Exactly. For all the books I've published, I have many unfinished notebooks. I have many projects that have never seen the light of day. I've got seven screenplays—if there are any producers listening. I have an MFA collection of poetry that will never see the light of day.

That's all fine, because that’s all of what you do to develop as a writer, and that goes into the books that you do eventually publish. All of the unpublished work is, to me, I'm as proud of that as I am of the published work. More than that, it sustained me and kept me going, because that's really how I live.

Joanna: Fantastic.

Where can people find you and your books online?Betsy: Well, there's always Amazon, of course. I love to direct people to Bookshop, which basically is also an online a bookseller that taps your local booksellers, which is fantastic. Also Indiebound.

I'm on TikTok at @BetsyLerner. I have my blog, which is BetsyLerner.com. That's really a community of miserable writers coming to check in on the misery that I post.

Now, only maybe every few weeks, but I had posted for many, many years, and that's all there in the archives. For any writing lonely hearts, I have a wonderful community of malcontents who read my blog.

Joanna: Brilliant. Thanks so much for your time, Betsy. That was great.

Betsy: Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

The post Finding Your Voice, Writing Across Genre And Loving Book Marketing With Betsy Lerner first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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How will generative AI change search and book discoverability in the years ahead? How can you make sure your books and your author website can be found in AI tools like ChatGPT? Thomas Umstattd Jr. joins me to discuss Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) and how it will replace traditional SEO marketing.

I first covered this topic in Dec 2023, How Generative Search Will Impact Book Discoverability in the Next Decade. As ever, I was early, but those changes are now starting to happen. Thomas recently covered the topic on his Novel Marketing Podcast on Does ChatGPT Recommend Your Book?

This episode is supported by my patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn

Thomas Umstattd Jr. is the CEO of AuthorMedia.com, as well as an award-winning professional speaker, non-fiction author, and host of the Novel Marketing Podcast and the Christian Publishing Show.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.

Show Notes

• How authors can benefit from AI optimization
• Principles authors need to keep in mind as search is changing
• Different AI models and their capabilities
• Making your author website LLM-friendly
• How to utilize Goodreads to improve your GEO
• The future of AI agents in book buying
• Staying positive and curious in the ever-changing AI landscape

You can find Thomas at AuthorMedia.com.

Transcript of Interview with Thomas Umstattd Jr.Joanna: Thomas Umstattd Jr. is the CEO of AuthorMedia.com, as well as an award-winning professional speaker, non-fiction author, and host of the Novel Marketing Podcast and the Christian Publishing Show. So welcome back to the show, Thomas.

Thomas: Thanks, Joanna, for having me.

Joanna: It's great to have you back. Now, for everyone listening, you were on the show a few years back. So we're going to dive straight into the topic today, which is based around a recent episode on your Novel Marketing Podcast on “AI Optimization For Authors: Does ChatGPT Recommend Your Book?”

I was like, yes, I really want to talk about this. Why did you decide to get into this topic now?

What did you see in the author community that made you want to help authors see AI differently?Thomas: Well, what triggered this topic was actually the Google I/O Conference, where one of the features they were demoing was the ability to take a picture of a stack of books and then get recommendations on additional books that were like that book.

As somebody who spends a lot of time in tech world, books and authors are often the example that the tech people use to demonstrate new capabilities of AI models.

Often, unless people listen to your show, that new tech does not actually get translated to the author community. Most authors are not watching the Google IO Conference or even summaries of it.

Joanna: Except you and me!

Thomas: So I was like, oh, I need to do some tests with this. So I started testing different models to see how they would recommend books. I kind of realized, oh, this is already happening. People are already asking AI all the questions of their life.

Google search traffic is way down.

People are moving those big questions of their life conversations away from traditional search engines and towards AI interactions.If you can get the AI to recommend your book, you'll be well-positioned for ongoing sales in this new era.

If you're holding on to ranking on Google search, or even Amazon search, as your only way of finding customers, sales are going to keep slipping, and you won't understand why.

Joanna: It's interesting. I have been using ChatGPT primarily since November '22 when it first came out. I use it instead of Google.

So I have started to use Gemini again, but I mainly use ChatGPT. Also on my phone, it's what I use. So what about your personal behavior?

Do you use a lot of AI for normal life that you once would have used Google for?Thomas: I do.

In fact, AI has boosted my productivity so much that we've been able to launch a new podcast, a whole additional podcast, called Author Update. It is a news podcast once a week, just covering publishing news.

So much of the pieces of that, like taking the transcript and turning it into a blog, creating the timestamps for YouTube, creating the thumbnails for YouTube, creating the titles for YouTube. That's all done by AI.

Different AI tools that I've built for each one of those pieces that two years ago would have been incredibly time consuming. There would have been no way we could have added yet another show to the mix.

Joanna: I didn't know that. Interestingly, I have also brought back my Books and Travel Podcast, which I stopped doing a couple of years ago because it was too much work, and it's not one that's monetized.

I also brought it back in the last few months, because I was like, do you know what? I can now do so much of this with AI that it doesn't matter so much.

Actually, one of the things with that show which is interesting, is a lot of the times I'm interviewing people with different accents. A lot of the speech to text, the transcription previously, has been very good with American men, but it hasn't been so good with British women or anyone else of any nationality speaking English.

Now I find it's all very good. So it's like people who maybe last year might have said, “Oh no, this still isn't not good enough,” it really is now, isn't it, for a lot of use cases?

Thomas: Yes, there's a kind of person who tried ChatGPT when it first came out. They tried GPT 3.5, they played around with it for a couple of hours, they weren't impressed, and then they came to a conclusion.

The conclusion that they came to was not that this particular tool isn't ready, but instead, the category of AI is no good.

What they haven't realized is that so far in 2025 a new model that's the best in the world has come out almost every 10 days. Almost every episode of Author Update we're like, “And there's a new AI model on the top of the benchmarks.” It's like they all take turns, and now they're starting to snipe each other.

So Gemini was number one for like two days, and then Anthropic is, like, “Here,” and pushed them off.

Joanna: “Here's Claude 4.”

Thomas: “You want to be number one. We're going to take that away from you.” If you were to go back and use GPT now, even the free version, it would be dramatically better than that first experience you had.

Really where the power is once you start paying for the AI models. Once you're using GPT-4.1 or -4.5, or Gemini 2.5 Pro. I really like Grok for research. I found that Grok's Deep Search functionality is unbelievable.

It has real time access to knowledge and real time access to X. So for doing research on basically any topic, Grok has won in every test that I've done.

Joanna: Oh, that's interesting. So I use o3.

My primary model is ChatGPT o3 for pretty much everything, unless it's just something very basic that I would Google. Then I use Deep Research on ChatGPT with o3, and also Gemini 2.5. So I do use Grok, but only when I'm on X. This is interesting—we're going to come back to search—but interestingly, with all the stuff with the Deep Research, for example.

People listening, you get like, a 20- to 30-plus-page report on what you want to research with loads of sources and links, and most of them never, ever surface social media links. Grok on X obviously does, but that's the only one. So I find that really interesting, too.

Thomas: Yes. In fact, that was one of the things I researched for my episode on AI optimization. I was curious which social networks affect which AI models, because some social networks affect all of the models, and some social networks have impacts on basically none.

TikTok and Bluesky don't touch anything. You can be the biggest deal on TikTok, and none of the AI will know you exist. YouTube influences Gemini. X is exclusively for Grok. Facebook and Instagram supposedly are tied to Llama.

Joanna: Who uses Llama?!

Thomas: Llama is so bad, it doesn't matter if it's connected to Facebook. Talking to all AI is like talking to a child, but talking to Llamas is like talking to a toddler that hasn't quite figured out how the words work and how the sentences work.

You can learn to understand it, but it's like, why bother when all the other AIs are like talking to middle schoolers who can now do research reports and are actually quite smart?

Joanna: I was going to say, yes, it depends on the context. Well, let's bring it back. You mentioned the Google IO Conference, and I also went to the overviews of that.

Sundar Pichai said a few things. I've just got a quote here. He said,

“AI overviews have scaled to over 1.5 billion users in 200 countries, driving over 10% growth in the types of queries that show them.” Sundar Pichai

So if people have used Google, I guess in the last six months, really, but a lot more in the last month or so, is if you ask something on google.com and then you will get this AI overview.

So you don't necessarily have to click into the article. So given that, I've heard it also called GEO, generative engine optimization, instead of SEO.

What are some of the principles that authors need to keep in mind if search is changing this way?Thomas: So one of the fascinating things about AI is that it's very much a last shall be first and the first shall be last technology. So it's taken a lot of things that didn't used to matter very much, and it's making them suddenly matter a whole lot.

The two biggest winners of this new era is the author website, which has been kind of declining in popularity, particularly amongst indie authors because most indie authors are all in on Amazon all the time. They're not wide. They dream of maybe someday going wide, but the KU money is just too good.

So if your only existence is on Amazon, it's very easy to ask the question, why does my website matter? Now, the website did matter, right? Being able to sell direct was important. Being able to build your email list was important. Being able to communicate directly to readers was important.

There was a kind of author who's like, “Eh, I'm just on Amazon. I can ignore the website.”

Now your website is your primary way of influencing large language models that train on the open web.You can't fully control Amazon, you can't fully control anywhere else on the web, but you can control your own website down to the robots.txt file. You have full control over it.

That is really, really important for educating an LLM about your book, and about your book's relationship to your other books, and about your book's relationship to the other books in the world.

So it's like, “This book is like this other book by this other author,” and your blog, on your website, is a really useful tool for that.

Joanna: You mentioned the word control, and that's exactly what I've been thinking about. Now, I've had my own author websites since 2008. You know, old school like you.

I also have Shopify stores. Shopify is actually interesting in that they are going AI first, and there are rumors of some kind of collaboration between OpenAI and Shopify in terms of surfacing direct links, which is interesting in itself.

So, yes, your control, your author website. Also we've seen—well, we're going to come back to Amazon—but they're doing a lot of things with their own AI.

What are some specific things that we can put on our author websites? I mean, if I say, okay, so I've got an about page, which is about me. Then do I have a book page?

On a book page, what are some of the things that I might add that the LLMs would be interested in?Thomas: So here's the classic mistake.

An author gets started writing, and they have “Home”, “About”, “Book” and “Contact”. It's kind of the classic author website. Then they write a second book, and they're like, oh, well, I need to put this new book at the top of my book page, and I'll rename it to “Books”.

Well, that is a blunder, believe it or not, because now you no longer have a page dedicated to either one of the books. So you've done the new book you just wrote a disservice, and you did your existing book a disservice.

So one really easy change that many of you listening can do right now is you just create a new page for each book, and you copy and paste the content from your Books page into each individual's book page.

Then you make your Books page just a bunch of thumbnails for your covers. Big, beautiful covers, even bigger and more beautiful than the thumbnails on Amazon. They click on that cover, and it takes them to an entire page just about the book. So that's step one. You can do that in 15 minutes.

Step two is now realizing this page isn't just for my readers trying to decide about the book. This page is for large language models trying to understand my book. So you want to actually make that page as rich and as in-depth as possible.

You also want to make it really good for humans, right? So put discussion questions, have sample chapters, have your audio book resources. So I'm a big reader of fantasy, but I listen to fantasy books, and I really want to see the map.

When I go to an author's website, it's some low res garbage map, and I can't see the towns, and it makes me very sad. All I want, fantasy authors, please, for the love of good maps, just upload a five gigabyte version of your map to your book page.

I will love it. AI will love it. Your readers will love it. It will make everyone happy, and it already exists on your hard drive. It's what you put in your book. It's not going to keep anyone from buying your book, the fact that they can get the map of your fantasy world for free.

That's just one example of the sort of thing that you can put on your site. Also, frequently asked questions. If you do frequently asked questions, there's a Schema, Schema.org that you can add to a page through Yoast SEO. So if you're using WordPress, it really is the best for this sort of thing.

It's called a Question Schema, where it will actually surface that question, not just on Google search, but also to the to the LLMs, where they'll see the question and then see the answer. This will really reduce the likelihood of the LLMs hallucinating if somebody else asks that question, or a similar question to the LLM.

Joanna: So just on that frequently asked questions.

We just mentioned the AI overview on Google, if you have a frequently asked question on your website that it can easily pull from, it is more likely to do that.Also useful is NotebookLM, where you can upload your book and it can actually generate those frequently asked questions for you.

So this is another thing I would say. I mean, again, read the terms and conditions but NotebookLM, in particular, says it doesn't train on the data you upload into a Notebook, if people are worried about that. You can actually use the AI tools to help you build this material.

The other thing I was going to say on images, one of the things I was reading about is the alt text. Now, the alt text on images, we've been encouraged to use for accessibility reasons. So if somebody is blind or partially sighted, the alt text gets read when there's an image.

Alt text is used by the LLMs when they're going through a website.Yes, they can “see” now, but they use the alt text. So is that something that you've considered? Because I guess I didn't think about that before.

Thomas: So this is one of the techniques that I think is helpful right now and won't be helpful in two or three years, because this is purely a way of you adding human labor to your website to save the bot from doing bot labor.

You can upload an image to GPT's Image-1 Engine and ask it to describe it, and it can describe that image with paragraphs and paragraphs of detail, but for GPT to do that, it requires a lot of compute. They don't have the compute to do that for all of the images on all of the websites on all of the internet.

Now, the compute cost is going down. You know, more efficient chips are coming out. The models are getting more efficient.

So several years from now, the AI will be able to just go to a page, look at the image, and generate a much more useful understanding of that image than what it can currently get with alt text.

In the meantime, adding some descriptive alt text could help before it's understanding the image. Also, not all LLMs are multimodal, which I realize is a big term. So multimodal is being able to interact with text and image at the same time.

So GPT is, I would argue, the most multimodal. It's just unbelievably good with images. I'm not a big fan of GPT in general, I find that the other models are better at most of the other specific use cases, but for images, it is just hands down the best.

It's often the second best in every other category. So it's a good one if you're only using one.

Some of the other engines aren't very good with images yet. I haven't been impressed with Claude's handling of images. Grok is only kind of so-so. Gemini has made some big steps forward, but I still think it's behind GPT in image rendering.

So you're also helping these other models more because, you know, Anthropic may not be able to describe the image in a very suitable way right now. It will in a few years, but right now, maybe not so good.

Joanna: It's interesting you say that. I think ChatGPT o3, that is my favorite model. I don't really use the 4-models. I also think where if people are saying, “Oh, well, you know, Thomas doesn't rate it,” well, I think everyone prefers different models as well because of personality things.

A lot of writers like Claude, for example, for the more creative side of things.As we've also said, If you don't like a model this week, try again in a couple of weeks, and it may well have changed.

I mean, GPT-5 is rumored to be coming out, which I think will be interesting. One of the things is, you and I are quite technical, so we're like, “Oh, this number and this letter,” but GPT-5, apparently it will do that for you. So you'll just put your query in, and it will choose the best model for you, which I think will really help.

Thomas: Yes, one thing to help simplify this, because GPT has probably the worst naming schema in the history of naming. So they have GPT-4o and GPT-o4, which are entirely different models and have almost nothing to do with each other. Then they have 4.1, which is actually better than 4.5. So the numbering doesn't work.

Then o3, which is based off of 4, is actually better at a lot of reasoning tasks. It's very confusing. So let's simplify it in a way that actually will help across all of the companies.

There's kind of three main flavors of LLMs in terms of main features, and that is the kind of default model, default model with reasoning, which is what o3 does really well because it can actually think about your question.

So if you think about if somebody asked you a question, you can answer off the top of your head, or you can sit down with a piece of paper and kind of think about it a little bit. That left brain slow thinking is what we mean by reasoning. When you're interacting with a reasoning model, it's slower to get back to you because it thinks about it.

Then the third kind of model is deep research, where it will actually go and do research. I don't know if you ever do this, Joanna, but on a live call, somebody will ask a question, and you'll do a quick Google search to refresh your memory about that thing that they're talking about. That's kind of how the search functions.

It's called Deep Search on Grok. I think it's called Deep Research on GPT [and on Gemini]. Those three features are rolling out to all of the different models, and they're useful in different ways.

So if you want a quick answer, you just want to talk to the core model, but if you want some deep, in-depth analysis, you want to turn on research, or maybe turn on thinking as well.

That'll simplify it to make it not quite so confusing because if you're not following this every week, the numbers and the letters and the models and the companies will just make your eyes water. It's so complicated.

Joanna: Absolutely.

Or my tip is, whatever your favorite model is, you just say, “I want to do this. How can you help me do it?” Most people aren't as technical as we are, so they won't necessarily be driving the machines in that way.

Let's come back to the website. So I agree with you that sort of the last shall be first. So the author website has sort of fallen out of favor in many ways. For example, blogging.

I was blogging from 2008, and then about five years ago I stopped because there were some really, really good websites doing the kind of content I was. So I was like, right, I'm just going to do the podcast.

Of course, for our podcast, we have transcripts and all that. I thought, well, that gets indexed, and my site does still rank for lots of good things because of the podcast transcript.

So if people are now thinking, okay, well, if these AI engines want this rich content, but we don't want to upload our books onto our website, for example, what are some of the other things they could put on the website? Is it just the book page, or—

Could people be thinking about other forms of content on their sites?Thomas: So blogging is really powerful, and I will share this with your audience. I left it out of the blog version of my episode on AI optimization, but it's in the audio and video version.

One of the big things that the LLMs look for when it comes to ranking a book is something called context, where it's in relationships, specifically. So relational context is really important for LLMs, and you can guide that with a blog post.

So you can say, “The top 10 posts on such and such trope” or, “The top 10 authors who are similar to JF Penn.”

“So if you love JF Penn, you'll love…” and you just got these other nine authors and includes JF Penn. So if I'm writing books that are similar to JF Penn, I would include my name in that list, and then train the LLMs to start associating our names and putting them in a semantic cluster. A blog is really powerful at this.

The other really good thing to do with blogging has been the best thing to do with blogging for the last 15 years, which is just answer questions. Your inbox fills up with questions, and so you just write one really good answer, you email it to that person, and then you copy and paste it to your blog.

Take out all the personal bits, add some bullets, add some headings. Now you've got a really good blog post that already existed in your outbox, that you know for sure a real human being asked. If one human being asked it, probably others asked it. If they're not asking Google, they're asking the LLM.

It's not that much more work to have a blog of some kind, the topics of which are driven by your own readers.Joanna: You mentioned there, it's easier with nonfiction because people will ask questions about that. For example, on my Books and Travel, I did the Camino de Santiago, and people email me all the time saying, like, “What shoes did you wear for the Camino?” I mean, just a question like that.

It is in my book, and I have actually put it on the website now, but it's interesting because that's easier for nonfiction/memoir. For fiction, like you said, I have done blog posts in the past like, “10 Action Adventure Series with Female Main Characters,” stuff like that.

This is what I was also wondering, because if you use any of the LLMs, and you say, for example, “What do you know about author JF Penn?” and it will kind of look at everything.

I found that Goodreads is actually incredibly highly ranked.

I wonder if that's because a lot of those posts, like you're saying, are often on Goodreads, their blog. That's literally what their blog is. They're always posting lists of relational things, and obviously they're owned by Amazon. What do you think about fiction authors in particular?

Would it be better to be posting lists of that kind of thing on Goodreads and/or their website?Thomas: I love Listopia. That's Goodreads' list feature. I don't think authors are allowed to add their own books to lists on Listopia, which means you'd have to work with a compatriot to add each other's books into the list, which adds a little bit of friction.

Goodreads has become incredibly important because Goodreads is one of the only places on the internet that has Schema.org information on books. There's actually no good way to add this to your website right now.

This is making me feel like I shouldn't have given away MyBookTable, which is a WordPress plugin for making book pages that I developed years ago and I'm no longer a part. Yoast SEO doesn't support the book schema, but Goodreads does.

So Goodreads has become like the go-to source for metadata and context and information about books. It also has reviews and rankings and relationships. It can look at shelves and which books are connected with which other books and shelves.

It's actually really rich data, and unlike most other social networks, it doesn't have a login wall to access pages. So you can go to any page on Goodreads without being logged into Goodreads, which means there's no good mechanism to keep the bots away.

Having a Goodreads profile at 100% is really important. You're like, “But I never use Goodreads, and my readers don't use Goodreads,” like, well, some of your readers do. The mega-readers, the readers who take chances on new authors, they're all over Goodreads.

If somebody reads 300 books a year, they need Goodreads to find that 301st book. If somebody reads one book a year, they just go to the bookstore and buy whatever the James Patterson book is that's facing the door.

So if you're new to writing and you're still just getting started, Goodreads was always important to you, but now it's even more important, because now Goodreads is informing all of the networks.

So when I was doing my research, every single large language model—I don't know about Llama, I don't really care about Llama—but all the ones that matter, they all look at Goodreads quite a bit for informing their context about books.

Joanna: That is quite shocking for some people. You know, when I started in 2008, Goodreads was a separate company. It was really big. It still looks the same as it did.

Thomas: It's like a time capsule to the days before social media got toxic.

Joanna: It really is. It's quite horrible. So I guess maybe a decade ago, I was like, okay, I don't really want to use this anymore. Also, a lot of us were focusing on going wide and building Shopify and all this. Then a couple of years ago I saw that, oh my goodness, Goodreads is becoming more important.

So I've really been making much more of an effort and asking people who buy direct to also review on Goodreads. Of course, let's say you read on a Kindle, you read an Amazon device, if you rate a book at the end, that will automatically appear on Goodreads if you've connected your account.

Even if people aren't writing reviews, all these ratings is another data point that does all the linking, like you're saying. So I can't see that another site can be as rich as Goodreads in the English language, I guess we should say. I think Goodreads is only in English, as far as I know.

So would this be more important than the author website updates? If people are like, oh my goodness, you two, you've just given us too much work—

Should people be thinking about updating Goodreads first, or the website?Thomas: I think for most people, starting with Goodreads might make more sense because chances are your Goodreads page is already half built because Goodreads pulls data from Amazon.

So if you did a good job with your metadata and having a good Amazon page—which if you've been listening to Joanna Penn's podcast for any amount of time, you've heard her harp on.

Joanna: Harp on?!

Thomas: You've heard me. I feel like I'm mentioning my metadata episode every single episode. I'm like, “Please. This is so important.” I don't know if you if you harp on it, but I definitely harp on it.

So if you've been doing a good job with that, a lot of the Goodreads stuff is already done. So it's just logging in, making sure account is attached to your author account, making sure all of the information is correct, tweaking the things that need to be corrected. You could be done in an hour.

Building out these web pages could be done in an hour or two if you're savvy, but if you've never edited your website before, there's actually a bit of a learning curve to do it the first time. If you had somebody build you your website, now it's more complicated because you've got to go find that person and pay them.

So the website could be a higher amount of work, but it's still really important. So don't hear me say, “Oh, Goodreads, start there,” as an excuse to then stop there. Do your website as well.

Joanna: I guess we should also say that it's early days. In 2008, do you remember back then it was, “It's the year of mobile,” or, you know, 2010, 2012 was still the year of mobile. Like it was the beginning of mobile commerce and all that.

Nobody believed it for years, until one time everybody woke up and were like, “Oh, yes, you buy things on your phone. I suppose that's what they were talking about.” This is the same thing. I mean, this is going to grow.

So right now, we're still early, I think, on this. So yes, have a look at your Goodreads. Have a look at your website.

Let's carry on. So you did mention norobots.txt earlier, which everyone's like, “Oh no, no, that sounds complicated.” Or they're saying, “Well, I don't want things to search my site. I'm against AI, or I don't want them to see my website or to search things that I've spent time doing.”

What will definitely stop the AI search engines? Why should we not do that?Thomas: I think that some of the “all AI is evil all the time,” is actually being advocated by people who themselves use AI and don't want other authors to have the competitive advantage that they have.

I don't think it's all of that, but I think that some of the most vocal people secretly have pen names where they're making a lot of money with AI everything. It's kind of like you're the first farmer in town to get a tractor, and you're way more productive on your farm than all the other farmers who are still doing it with their hoes and their backs.

If you can convince the other farmers that tractors are evil, or if you can get somebody else in the town to do that for you, then you can buy the fields from everyone else who's doing the work with their backs.

So I'm not convinced that this fear is all in good faith. There is some of it. You know, some people all they know about AI is they watched The Matrix and they watched The Terminator, and it's really scary.

Those people tend to not be very vocal because they don't know the difference between a large language model and machine learning. Like in AI, it's all just a bunch of jumble for them, and it's all scary and evil and strange. That kind of person isn't going to know how to put a norobots.txt file on their website.

I don't think that LLMs.txt or norobots.txt are going to go anywhere. I think what's going to happen with AI is the same thing that happened with mobile. So back in 2008 when it's like the year of the mobile, if you remember, we were building mobile versions of our websites.

So you had the website, and then you had a completely separate website for mobile. Then in the early 20-teens, this new approach to web design called responsive web design was developed, where everything had percentages instead of fixed number of pixel widths. Pages could get big and they could get small.

Now you only had to build one version of a web page for both mobile and for web. The robots.txt file has plenty of space for instructions to LLMs and what you can and cannot do. We don't need other txt files on a website to accomplish those purposes.

I think it's simpler for everyone to just use the page we already have for talking to robots, rather than having other pages to also talk to robots, but say different things. So I may be wrong on this, but I don't think the alternate files, norobots or LLMs, are going to take off.

I do think people are going to add instructions to robots.txt, and some of them will be encouraged by other authors, well-meaning or not, to start blocking the LLMs. I don't think that's going to work. For one, I don't know how you block Google without blocking Google. It's like, “Are you the Google search bot or the Google Gemini bot?”

“I'm the Google bot,” right?

Do you really want to block Google? You can. It's your right, and Google won't surface your website, but you have to be found if you want to be read. You can't hide in the wilderness and not let anyone read your book and then complain that no one's reading your book.

You either want to be found or you don't.

I think for some authors, they're afraid of being found, and they may be using AI as an excuse. I think pretty soon, people are going to be paying money to get AI to learn about their books, this fear of AI doing it for free, I think, is going to go away pretty quickly.

Joanna: Well, yes. We should just come back to Amazon because people are like, “Oh, well, I don't need to know any of this because I am just on Amazon,” but of course, Amazon is also moving to generative search.

I'm kind of annoyed because this mobile app that you have in the US with this Rufus shopping bot is now using it, and you can ask really detailed follow up questions, and it's more granular, but I can't see that because I'm in the UK.

I mean, I'm really pleased about this because I am sick of loading seven keyword terms into my metadata. If I give Amazon the whole book, I mean, surely they can do useful things and do all that themselves. It's very rich data.

Is there anything that people need to do specifically with Amazon, other than listen to your metadata episode?Thomas: So one advantage you have being in the UK is that you can still be blissfully unaware of how not great Rufus is. So I would rank Rufus above Llama and below all of the other LLMs.

I know that Amazon has a bunch of different AI models that they're developing. I was doing some experiments with one of them—I forget what it's called, started with an A—and it had the most delightful hallucination about me I have ever seen an AI do in my life.

So I got this tool where I had access to all the AIs, so I was asking them a lot of the same questions to see what answers they would give. It was like, “Thomas Umstattd is a professor of book marketing at Texas State University,” and then it started listing all of these book marketing books that I had written.

They were all vaguely associated with podcast episodes that I had done. It was all close enough to be believable, but none of it was true. It hallucinated an entirely different Thomas Umstattd. Like, oh, Amazon is behind on this AI thing.

So right now, Rufus, in my tests, is somewhat better than just a pure review search for answering product questions, but just barely. It's not where the other AIs are at yet.

Now, Amazon, just this week as we're recording this, signed a licensing deal with the New York Times. So they're now the only company that has an agreement with the Times for licensing data for AI models. It used to be the New York Times didn't matter for AI training because they had walled it off.

Joanna: They were suing OpenAI and all kinds of things. Microsoft.

Thomas: They were suing for big money, and Jeff Bezos is like, “Big money? I have big money.” So now they've got this really good source of data—or mediocre source of data, depending on your view of the New York Times—but they're the only ones that have access to it.

That's not going to fix Rufus's ability to find the needle in the haystack in a bunch of book reviews. So Amazon will get there. If it worked better, you would have it in the UK.

People don't want to give you the kind of mediocre stuff. They want royal quality for the UK. It's like, “This isn't good enough for the king, and the Brits aren't going to take this trash. We'll just keep it for the Colonials right now.”

Joanna: Oh, fair enough. Well, we should also say Amazon is a major investor in Anthropic, which does Claude. So it would be nice if they could use some of the Claude juice or something.

I mean, again, all these things are going to get better. So if people are like, “Oh, well, I don't like the Amazon automatics review overviews,” or whatever, it's like, look, all these things are going to get better and better.

Again, I want to stay really positive about this. As I said, I think we've been in the long tail for like 20 years already, right?

Now we're in the very, very, very long tail when we're thinking of generative search and the conversational search.So I do a lot of book recommendations through ChatGPT, and often I'll have gone backwards and forwards several times before I'm happy with the level of granularity I'm at.

No longer do we have the sort of basic keywords, but we're having a whole conversation about what we like.

Or like you said, I sometimes just upload a screenshot or a picture of my whole bookshelf. I did this the other day, like with my bookshelf with probably hundreds of books on.

I said, “Here's my bookshelf. What else might I like?” It can read all the books on the bookshelf and all of that. So I think, again, all of this is going to get better.

Thomas: I think it's also going to reward good writing, especially that kind of relational stuff. So you have a really deep relationship with your o3 mini model, right? Like it knows you really well. You've spent months, maybe years, building its context window. So it has a good sense of your preferences.

This is one area where GPT really shines, as like a per user context window that persists across conversations. So when you ask your o3 for a recommendation, it has really good knowledge of books.

The GPT book recommender is already really good, and it has really good knowledge of you. So it's going to make very likely very good recommendations, and those recommendations are likely going to be the kind of books that are well written.

So as we talk about Schema.org and all these technical things, don't forget the fact that none of this will fix a bad book. None of this will fix a bad book.

If your book is not fun to read, if it's not engaging, if it doesn't pull readers in, if it doesn't leave them happy at the end, or they're leaving a good review, if it doesn't deliver on its promises, then it's not going to matter.

Like these things are great tiebreakers, and they can be really helpful if you're obscure, to move you from obscurity to notoriety. You can't make that move if your book doesn't thrill readers.

Your book has to thrill readers first.I probably should have started with this. This is not like a “get out of learning the craft of writing” free card. It's just the opposite, actually, because the AI is much more discriminating on quality than the search engines were.

You type a search into Amazon, and it's going to surface whoever paid the most first. Then it will pick, based off of the very limited information you gave it, some books to rank.

None of that really had much to do with the writing. Some of it was connected. You know, it would look at review data and sales data and things like that, but a lot of it just became self-reinforcing. Popular books got more attention, which made them more popular.

My hope is that these new AI recommendation engines will have more nuance and make better recommendations. It will also be better for people on the fringes of society.

So I'm not sure how it is in the UK, but like conservatives got pushed out of publishing. There's hardly any conservatives in the traditional publishing world. If you're writing a book for a conservative audience, it's hard to find your readers right now. Whereas I think AI is going to help bridge that gap.

Conservative authors and conservative readers are going to be able to find each other and they're going to get really excited. That's true with every kind of niche group of readers and authors that were really limited by the search engines that were really reductive.

Now all this nuance is going to be like, “Oh, you're interested in this kind of unique sub-genre that doesn't have a category in Amazon. Well, guess what? I've read all of the books in that, and here's the best one that I think you'll like really well,” and suddenly you're reading more books.

I think this is going to be good for the industry overall.Joanna: Yes, I think so too. It should reduce, or hopefully reduce, that sort of paid ad effect.

Although, inevitably, these companies are going to have to monetize more than they are now. So it'll be very interesting how it changes.

So I'm also really interested in what else is coming. Now, people have been kind of saying agents and agentic AI for a while, but mostly these have been assistants.

So something like Deep Research reports, they're kind of an agent. You give them a task, “go research this,” and then it goes away and it will come back and bring you a report. So it's early days.

What is really interesting to me is zero-click. So zero-click with agents. So, for example, I just booked some trips in the US to Antelope Canyon, and I got my Deep Research report, but I still had to go buy the tour. I did go with its recommendation.

“Zero-click,” I say to my agent, my travel agent, let's say, “go and find me the best trip to Antelope Canyon. Here's my budget, and just arrange it. You know what I like in terms of hotels and the brands I like and all of that. Go do it.”

People are like, “Oh, no, that's years off,” but Visa, the Visa card, now has intelligent commerce. So they actually have a card you can use with an agent, so you essentially task it with buying for you.

I was thinking about this with books. It's like, “Here's my bookcase. This is what I like. Here's my budget per month. Just send me a book a week, or buy me some cool books and deliver them to my house.” I'm like, actually, that's quite fun.

With ‘zero click' + agents, the human never does the browsing, the human never clicks, and things turn up. So what do you think about this?

Thomas: I think AI agents are going to start creating zones of the internet that are devoid of humans, and I don't think that's a bad thing. So the first place we saw this was actually about two decades ago, and it was the stock market.

So if you've ever seen an old 1980s video of the stock market, there's actual men in suits with pieces of paper, and they're all shouting at each other. Then somebody was like, “Oh, we'll connect it to computers.” So then somebody had to type on the computer to place an order.

Then there was one company that literally created a robot that just typed on the keys because the NASDAQ wouldn't allow automated orders, so something had to push the keys on the keyboard. Then they're like, “Okay, this is stupid. You can just place the orders.”

Then they're like, okay, well, let's create AIs that will evaluate a stock's price and make purchases. Now almost all of our stocks are managed by agentic AIs. So we moved away from mutual funds into something called an exchange traded fund, which is entirely run by an AI. It's algorithmic. This has been around for 10 or 15 years.

Now the New York Stock Exchange is a film set, and if you go there today, it's just a bunch of reporters reporting on what the computers are doing. Stock trading is no longer the getting the call from the pushy salesman about this really good scoop on such and such stock that you've got to buy and this real scammy thing.

We were taking a lot of our really smartest people and putting them in a room and having them shout at each other to buy and sell. I don't think that was the best use of those really smart people.

Now those smart people are doing other things that are more beneficial for the economy than shouting at each other to buy and sell shares of IBM or whatever. So that's what we're going to see with these other agents and these other sectors.

So you buying a ticket for a train, that's not a very emotionally rewarding experience for you to buy that ticket. For the person selling you the ticket, it's not a very emotionally rewarding experience for them either.

Nobody wanted to grow up, like when they were a kid thought, “Like all I want to do when I grow up is sell tickets for trains and answer questions from tourists who are all asking the same stupid questions over and over again, and I've answered this question 500 times this week.” Having an AI handle that is going to be better.

I think it's going to be slow. I think right now we're in the phase where early adopters like us are playing with it, but right now we're building our own agents.

I think a good model to look at is the spreadsheet. So back in the 80s and 90s, we'd have Microsoft Excel, and you could build your own spreadsheet. The 2000s have all been about taking features that you could do yourself in Excel and building a whole product around it.

Now there's a website that does that thing that Excel could do, but the website is for just one purpose, for one kind of user, and it does that same sort of thing. I think we're going to see that same thing with AI because most people don't want to create their own agents.

They don't want to create their own personal AI butler. They want to buy an AI butler off the shelf that does just one thing. So don't feel like you have to learn how to build your own agents in order to use them, you'll just have to wait. Who knows, maybe Joanna Penn will build some AI agents that she can rent out in the future.

Joanna: I mean, it is interesting to think where it's going to go. I tend to put this in the general category. For example, we've just talked about updating your Goodreads pages or updating your website. Hell, I don't want to do that, so I will just get my admin agent to do that.

Right now, there isn't one particular thing that can do that. I can do it with AI, but I'll still have to drive it. Whereas, I don't know, I mean, let's talk about ads as well. Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly said that all you'll need to do on Meta—because, let's face it, Meta ads are just awful now. They're so complicated.

What he said is, you'll be able to say, “This is my book. This is the page I want to drive traffic to. Off you go. Meta will do all the creative, do everything, and here's a budget.” I don't have to do anything at all except say, “This is what I want to sell.” That will be great. I think authors will be all over that.

Most people want to do the writing, and they do not want to do the marketing, as you know. So I think there are some great use cases. I don't know how long that's going to take. I mean, Zuckerberg has said end of next year I think, 2026.

Thomas: Well, it's already here for websites, actually. So if listening to Joanna and I talk about websites stressed you out, if you get Divi from Elegant Themes, it has AI built in, and you can just tell it to build you a homepage and what you want on it, and it will just do it.

I played around with this a couple of weeks ago because I was like, can AI really build a web page? And it did. I was kind of flabbergasted. I went in and tweaked and added, and I would copy what it did and add more things to make the page longer, but it's like it's already here.

It's already here a little bit for advertising too. The Amazon auto-targeting has gotten a lot better.

Joanna: I do use that.

Thomas: Yes, and it's self-reinforcing. So if you want to understand what machine learning is, there's some really good like cartoons on YouTube you can look up, but machine learning is the computer kind of getting better on its own, like improving itself.

These ad engines are using machine learning to get better every month. So if you tried auto-targeting on Facebook or auto-targeting on Amazon a few months ago, just realize that they're now better because the machine learning is training the algorithm.

There's not some developer at meta going, click, click, click, to tweak the algorithm. The algorithm is tweaking itself. Facebook's algorithm has been tweaking itself for over a decade. For people who are against AI and they complain about it on Facebook, I hate to tell you this, but you've been using AI on Facebook.

Joanna: Or buying on Amazon or using Google.

Thomas: It's like, Facebook particularly, the entire experience is AI, start to finish. It's like, “Oh, but I don't want you to have AI. I only want this powerful Californian to have AI, not the regular people.” Like, okay, now we're getting to a class conversation. This isn't really about AI anymore.

Joanna: Well, I mean, we could talk about this forever because you and I geek out on this. There are some people who are like, seriously, how is everything changing so fast, and how are you two so relaxed about the fact that everything is changing?

So how are you staying positive and curious? Obviously, there are bad things about AI, which, you know, we try and stay on the positive side of things.

Any tips for people who need encouragement to keep going in this time of change?You know, they thought they knew the rules, and now it seems like the rules are changing yet again.

Thomas: You're not going to believe this answer, but I'm actually going to encourage you to study history, because we're not actually living in a time of rapid change compared to what our great great grandparents went through.

My great great grandfather was born in 1880, and the steam engine was new, that we were just starting to have the Industrial Revolution. When he was a child, the first car rolled into his town, a horseless carriage. Then suddenly there was electric light bulbs.

The telegraphs that had already existed when he was a kid, now there was lines that would go to people's houses, and they could actually hear a voice of somebody on the other side of town, and even the other side of the country.

It didn't stop there. Then a few years later in his life, something flew over the town that was heavier than air, and yet floating in the sky. Then before this man died, there was an American putting an American flag on the moon. That's not to mention radio, and the nuclear bomb, and like so much innovation.

Then we invented the semiconductor in the 1960s, 1970s, and then the innovation basically ended. After that, it was all of this really slow iteration where the transistors got smaller and smaller, the computers got faster and faster.

There wasn't this big, life changing technology, like what we were getting every two years in the late 1800s and early 1900s, until you have kind of critical mass of the transistors where they get cheap enough to enter people's homes. Then we have computers, and we have the internet.

We've had the internet for a long time. Like the internet's not new. It goes back to the 70s in the States. The World Wide Web was developed by a Brit in the 1980s. Then we didn't have much innovation, right? Web pages got a little bit more complicated, animation got a little bit better. Really slow evolutionary change.

Then the phones came around, and the phone was a big shift, but from a technological perspective, the phone wasn't that different than a computer. It's just smaller. So that same trend of smaller and lighter.

So in this way, AI is the first time for me to experience the kind of transformation that my great, great grandfather went through, but on a much smaller scale.

Like the tractor was unbelievably disruptive. One man in the town with the tractor could do the work of 10 men, which meant that those other nine men had to find something else to do to provide for their families. What it was doing things for the farmer, because the farmer was now making almost the same money.

So this is the flip side, the people who use AI—there's actually a report that just came out yesterday about industries where —

People are using AI, they're three times more productive and they're making 50% more money on that individual worker perspective.So just like what happened with the tractor, there's nothing new under the sun. The guys who left the farm and started doing jobs for the farmer, those jobs are actually super rewarding. It's things like being a podcaster.

Like, I could not have my job of being a podcaster if there wasn't some blessed farmer somewhere in the sun and toil on his tractor making food for me, because I can't make food. I can hardly keep my grass alive. I realize in the UK, grass just grows on its own, but in Texas, it's a fight. It wants to wither and die in the sun.

So I'm really thankful that I'm not working in the fields like my ancestors did. So, yes, there's going to be some disruption, but the history of technology shows us that technology creates more jobs than it destroys.

95% of us were working in the fields back in the day, and that was awful, awful work for little pay. It was back breaking. It killed us, literally killed us. I don't think anybody wants to go back to that.

Technology isn't good or evil. People are good or evil.So I'm not afraid of AI. I am very afraid of humans and what humans will do with AI, but I'm too much of a Texan to let those humans have AI and me not to have AI, too. The only thing that can stop a bad man with AI is a good man with AI.

Joanna: Or a good woman!

Thomas: Or a good woman.

Joanna: No, I mean, I think so too. We need to be on the side of the angels, and the more we're involved, that's the other thing. Obviously, people listening, Thomas and I are interested in the technical side, but you don't have to be super technical anymore to get involved.

The more creatives and other types of people who are getting to grips with these tools, the more they will represent the whole of humanity.

So that's why I try and encourage people. But also, you're right, it does make you more productive.

Also it's a lot of fun, so I have fun with my AIs like every day. So, yes, lots for people to think about. We're out of time, so—

Where can authors find you and everything you do online?Thomas: So my website is AuthorMedia. That's where you can find all three of my podcasts. I have a suite of over 30 AI tools that are really easy to use. They're very specific things like an About Page builder, where you answer a few questions about yourself, and it will write a very interesting about page for you.

Or you upload your book cover, and it will analyze the cover and give you tips on how to make it better. Or create a chapter summary.

I even have a tool here called “Not a Literary Agent” that can review contracts and even write a rights reversal letter based off of the contract that you signed with that publishing company 10 years ago. And creating book blurbs. There's a bunch of different tools that are there.

My hope with these tools is that they're kind of training wheels for using AI, because they're really easy. You just answer a few questions, and you push a button, and that's it. So you don't actually have to be good with AI to try using these tools.

I've gotten just incredible feedback from folks who've tried these out. One, you just upload your book, and it creates a strategy for advertising on Amazon. Like a five page strategy based off the content of your book, including who to target and how to target them.

So my hope is these will help make you more productive. They're almost all focused on marketing. So they're not going to help you write the book, they're going to help you sell the book because that's my focus. If you want to learn how to learn how to write the book, listen to Joanna Penn.

Novel marketing is more focused on getting more sales for the book you already wrote.

Joanna: So those tools, is that on AuthorMedia.com?

Thomas: Yes.

Joanna: Okay, so that's fantastic. Definitely have a listen to Thomas's podcast as well. Well, thanks so much for joining me today, Thomas. That was great.

Thomas: Thank you for having me.

The post Book Discoverability In An Age Of AI. GEO For Authors With Thomas Umstattd Jr. first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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How can you ‘cast a wider net' and reach more readers with your books? How can you embrace the best of publishing options for your work? JD Barker explains how his publishing business works.

In the intro, How Authors Measure Success [Self-Publishing Advice]; Creating through Grief [Go Creative]; Death Valley; Successful Self-Publishing, Fourth Edition; Gothic Cathedrals; AI-Assisted Artisan Author webinar.

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

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn

J.D. Barker is the New York Times and international bestselling author of thrillers and horror. He co-writes with James Patterson, as well as other authors. He's also the co-host of the Writer’s, Ink Podcast.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.

Show Notes

• Weighing up what is worth licensing, and what is worth doing as an indie author
• The importance of making connections in the publishing industry
• Why traditionally published authors are more open towards the indie framework
• Co-writing with James Patterson and others
• Writing across different genres and mediums to “cast a wider net”
• Tips for effectively pitching podcasts
• Benefits for an advanced author coming to Author Nation

You can find J.D. at JDBarker.com.

Transcript of Interview with J.D. BarkerJoanna: JD Barker is the New York Times and international bestselling author of thrillers and horror. He co-writes with James Patterson, as well as other authors. He's also the co-host of the Writer’s Ink Podcast. So welcome back to the show, JD.

JD: Hey, Joanna. It's great to be back. I was looking at the timeline, so like this was pre-COVID, I think, the last time we talked.

Joanna: Yes, I know. It's crazy. I also had look. It was 2020, which does seem like another life. So back then, we did talk about your background, so we're just going to jump straight into it today.

So the last five years, JD, how has it been like? Give us an overview. Well, not of the last five years, but—

What does your business look like now?I almost feel like five years ago you were almost relatively new on the indie author scene as such, but now you've really cemented your position.

JD: I was. So let me think, like five years ago, so that was about the same time that I called my agent and said, “I don't want you selling my English rights anymore. I'm going to do it myself.”

Joanna: Yes, basically.

JD: The publishing professionals, I think they hate me, because I tend to pull the rug out from under them quite a bit. Honestly —

I indie published my first novel, and I got a taste of what that was like. For better or worse, that was a deal breaker for me.

It's something that's always been in the back of my head, and I weigh it against every contract. At one point, I had a book coming out called A Caller's Game, and I called my agent, and like I just decided I'm going to indie publish it in English, and I'd let her go ahead and sell all the foreign territories like she usually does.

I wanted to see how that would play out. Honestly, I liked it a lot because it gave me the freedom and control that I had as an indie to get that title out there. I got the economics benefits of being an indie.

So I did that for a couple of different books, but I still ran into one particular problem. You know me well enough, I completely gloss over all the good stuff, and I just focus on the one or two things that aren't working right and that's where I tend to try and come up with some kind of solution.

I couldn't get into the big box stores. I was still having trouble getting into airports. I couldn't get into Target or Costco or Walmart. So that's something that weighed on me for a couple of years.

I guess about a year and a half ago, I sent my agent a copy of Behind a Closed Door, which was my latest thriller. We sold foreign rights on that almost immediately, and the book was going to auction with the traditional publishers—or not foreign rights, film rights.

I got a phone call from a friend of mine that worked at Harper Collins, and she said, “We're about to offer on this book, and when that comes in, you need to turn it down.”

I got a similar phone call from somebody over at Random House, and I asked why, and she said, “Well, the editor who wants your book is about to get laid off or about to cut a lot of people.” Then a week or two later, all those industry cuts that we all saw happened.

I don't know if you've ever been in a position where you've had a book at a traditional publisher where you lost your editor, but like that book can sit there in limbo forever, depending on your contract. Without somebody to champion it, it may not come out at all. So that really scared me.

So I kind of reached back to my corporate days. My last real job I had, I worked in finance, and I got a hold of some of the people that were involved in the purchase of Simon and Schuster at the private equity firm. I started some conversations, and ultimately —

I created my own imprint at Simon and Schuster, which is what I'm doing today.So I, basically, get the freedom of being an indie author. I can put out what I want, when I want, but I've got Simon and Schuster as my backbone. So they handle my print sales and distribution. So that's what I'm doing today.

Joanna: So you still upload the ebook yourself to KDP, but then you give the print to Simon and Schuster? Or does everything go through them?

JD: No. So the way I signed the contract, I've got my own LLC—well, it's an S Corp, I guess, at this point—but it's called Barker Creative. So the contract is actually between Simon and Schuster and Barker Creative.

So what that means is, when I have a book, I can pick and choose whether JD Barker is publishing it or Barker Creative is publishing it. If it's a Barker Creative book, it has to go to Simon and Schuster. If it's a JD Barker book, I can put it out on my own.

So legally, I basically created the wiggle room that I needed. So I can take that book and I can say, “I'm going to put out ebook on my own. I'm going to do audiobook through somebody else.” I can farm out those pieces. So that's kind of what I've been doing.

So I signed a contract with Recorded Books. They handle all of my audiobooks.

I just keep ebooks for myself because really there's no point in handing that off to anybody. It's so easy to do. Then I've been doing print through Simon and Schuster.Joanna: So how do you make the decision?

You said your biggest problem there was the big box stores, airports, which is why you wanted to do a kind of print deal press. How do you make a decision as to what you then keep as a JD Barker book versus a Barker Creative book?

For people listening, where is the line? Because a lot of people, let's face it, won't get the contract offers you do, but they do get offers. So I know people who get offers, maybe for a couple of thousand advance. Some are no advance, but royalties, plus maybe some marketing.

A lot of authors listening do get the chance for some kind of deal. Also, audio deals are coming up a lot.

How do people weigh up what is worth signing and licensing and what is worth doing indie?JD: I basically look at the book when it's finished, and I decide, what is going to cast the widest net?

What is going to cause this to get out in front of the largest group of people and possibly bring in more people into my reading audience? That's kind of my goal at this point.

A couple years ago, I was told that my audience was women 45 and over. So I wrote a young adult book, and started roping them in a little bit younger, and I continue to do that. One of the books I've got coming out—do you remember a movie from the 90s called Flatliners?

Joanna: Yes, you told me about this, but tell everyone else.

JD: Flatliners is one of my all-time favorite movies. It came out in 1990, and it's got this crazy cast. It had Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon, Billy Baldwin, and Oliver Platt, and all of them kind of at the start of their career. So people knew their names, but well before they became the household names that they are today.

It's about a group of medical students who kill each other one at a time, and then bring each other back to try and discover if there's any type of afterlife. I love that movie. I honestly still think it holds up today, and it's been a favorite of mine.

A few years ago, the guy who wrote it, his name is Peter Filardi, he got attached to one of my other projects. I wrote a prequel to Dracula for Bram Stoker's family, so he got attached as the screenwriter on that with Paramount.

We got to talking about Flatliners, and I told him, “Listen, I've got an idea to reboot this franchise.” At the time, he didn't have control of the rights. The studio still had those. So I just kind of planted the seed. A couple of years went by, and then I got a phone call back from him, I guess about a year and a half ago.

He said, “Listen, I just got the rights back if you still want to do something.”

So ultimately, we ended up writing a novel—which I'm literally finishing the final edits on today—to reboot this franchise. So it's going to come out as a book first, with film later. So we have this project basically done.

So going back to your original question, how do I decide who is going to get what particular book?

I could take this book, I could indie publish it, I could put it out on Simon and Schuster if I want to do that.

With a book that's got a high profile like this, I know the best possible place for this to go is one of the other traditional publishers, somebody who's willing to put a lot of marketing dollars behind it. So somebody is going to do something that I can't do on my own.

So we're going to let this book go out to auction. The film rights look like they're going to happen again very quickly. So my agent's going to hold up the book, we're going to see who bids the highest on it, and it's going to go that route. Again, this is mainly so I can get it in places that I can't on my own.

Joanna: I love that story, and I think that would be very cool. I'm very interested in in seeing that again. I remember that from the 90s.

The bigger thing here, when I was listening to you there, so there was this dude, and you met him years ago, and you connected. Then there was Bram Stoker's family that you connected with, and this guy in finance.

I remember from when you talked about your history, you were in the music industry and used to drive really famous people around. This is one of the things about you, it seems you have absolutely no fear in talking to anyone, however famous.

A lot of your bigger deals come from your connections. Is that part of your personality, or is that just something you fostered over time?I guess, for people listening, how can we be more like that?

JD: Well, it's tricky, because as writers, we're all introverted. I'm autistic, which kind of adds another whole level to this mess. I hate talking to other people, just like most authors do. I go to a conference, I want to sit in the corner and hide.

It's gotten to the point that if I go, I usually don't take my wife with me, because I would just hang out and talk to my wife the whole time. So I try to force myself out of that comfort zone.

At the same time, like, I've got a degree in business. I've spent a lot of time working in marketing.

Everything in this world, it doesn't matter if you're selling books or you're selling glasses or you're selling cars, it's all about who you know and cultivating those contacts.So every time I meet somebody, their name, what they do, who they are, all that goes into my mental Rolodex, and at some point I may call back on it. You never know when these kind of things are going to play out.

When I talk about this in front of writers groups—like, one year I was at ThrillerFest and I was in the elevator with Lee Child. So I got Lee Child standing five feet away from me. I've got 15 seconds.

I can either talk to him and possibly start up a conversation, maybe get a blurb from one of my books, or I can stand there and stare at the numbers like everybody else does. In my head, I'm thinking, well, what harm can come from making that ask?

I will always ask the question. I am a lot more afraid of the outcome of not asking the question than I am of hearing no. So I will always ask.

Joanna: Yes, but it's something I struggle with, and I know a lot of listeners struggle with as well, is that moment. So as you say, if you've only got a few minutes, can you push yourself past the uncomfort zone, as such, to at least try?

Do you think being autistic gives you more, I don't know, ability to take what others might feel as embarrassment or shame—I mean—

Is that something that you would ever feel? Like I would feel embarrassed, and then if he snubbed me, I would feel ashamed.JD: I think that's a big part of it. I don't feel a lot of those emotions the same way a, quote, unquote, “normal person” would. I'm just not afraid of it.

At the same time, somebody like Lee, Stephen King, all these different guys, like they've all stood in that same position that we are at the beginning of our career.

Everybody started somewhere. They've all been there fairly recently, and they still have memories of that. So I think when you do ask that question, as long as you can come up with a unique way to do it, I can stand out a little bit, I don't think there's any harm in doing it.

I've got plenty of people that come up to me and ask similar questions now, and I pull from that same knowledge base. I was doing this a couple of years ago, they're doing it to me now. I think in a lot of ways this, this entire author profession, we pay it forward as much as we can, and everybody does.

Joanna: Yes, and a lot of them are just—well, most people are nice, in general. I think that would be my thing.

Certainly going to ThrillerFest when I first went in like 2012, I was just starstruck by these authors who I'd been reading for years. I remember meeting Doug Preston and like Clive Cussler, and I was just a wreck.

Okay, well, here's the other thing, the indie thing. Back then in 2012, it was very early in the indie world, so I felt definitely kind of second class. Have you ever felt that? Or do you think things have changed? You network with lots of traditionally published people.

Do you think “the stigma” that some traditionally published authors used to tar us with, is that gone? Or do you come up against that anytime?JD: I don't know if it's gone.

So when I published Forsaken, my first book, it was 2014. So we were still very much in the thick of it. Because I had worked in the publishing industry for so long, I worked as a book doctor and a ghost writer for 20-some years, I knew a lot of people in the industry.

When I wasn't able to get an agent on Forsaken, I seriously considered indie publishing. I started talking to a lot of authors that I knew that were regularly on The New York Times list, and I would run it by them, you know, the whole indie versus traditional thing.

Every single one of them pushed back and said, “You don't want to go indie. If you do that, you're going to be stuck in that world forever. You're never going to get a traditional deal.” Like they completely tried to talk me out of it. I'm honestly glad that it didn't happen, that that didn't work.

Now you fast forward a little bit, like, I was just on the board for ITW, so I was working with all those names that you just mentioned, and many other ones. I can't tell you how many phone calls I've gotten over the last four or five years from big name authors who got their rights back on this title or that title, something in their back catalog.

They're like, “I really think I should try to indie publish this, but I'm not sure how to do it. Can you help me?” You know, like they are all looking at that.

What ends up happening is that title comes back, their agent gets it, their agent resells it again, typically for a lesser amount than they got the previous time. So it's a dwindling asset. Then it gets locked up for another five to seven years or so, and then they rinse and repeat.

They're seeing that they're just not making the kind of money that they used to. Every one of those deals is getting smaller. Some cases, those books aren't reselling at all. So they're ending up with all this back catalog.

Other authors, they haven't resold their back catalog at all. So books went out of print 15, 20 years ago, and they are sitting on those Word documents on their computer, not sure what to do with them. Today, 2025, they are all looking at indie publishing in one way or another.

Joanna: Well, especially if some of the publishers, like you said, Simon and Schuster, and there's quite a few people who were getting these print-only deals and having their own imprints.

It's interesting, the last time I was at ThrillerFest—I think it was 2017 the last time I was there—and I remember then people were also asking me about this. One guy said, “I used to get advances that were seven figures, and now the advances are maybe six figures,” and these are big name people.

So that almost feels to me why they're interested. The only reason is because all the money is—you know—

The long tail is where we live now.JD: Yes, they all see it, and they all feel it.

Regardless of the number of zeros in the dollar amount, it's all relative. They see that that industry is drying up. What kills me is, like, I don't see a lot of the traditional publishers making any changes.

The last book that I had traditionally published, they sent me the marketing plan. It had a substantial advance to it, so there was a marketing team behind it. The PDF document they sent me was literally the same marketing plan I saw from the same company five years earlier for a different book.

They just swapped out the cover images and a couple keywords here or there, but everything else was the same. It was this 30,000-foot view that really told me nothing as far as what they were doing.

If you step into a bookstore and look at the best-selling names that are there, the names that are out in front, on the end caps and the very first table and stuff like that, all these people are getting older.

The biggest name authors out there are all in their 70s, at this point. They're aging out.The big publishers haven't come up with a way to replenish that stock.

In the old days—and when I say old days, you know, 15 years ago—they would spend a lot of money cultivating a new author. They would find somebody who had a solid voice that knew how to write, and they would sign them to a five or six book deal.

As long as each book sold better than the previous one, they would continue to re-up that, and they would keep it going, knowing that they could turn that person into one of those big name authors one day.

In today's world, that's not happening anymore. They're signing people for one-book deals, two-book deals, and if they don't see the kind of numbers that they need to see at the end of that contract, they let you go.

Then you end up leaving one of the top five, and you go with a smaller press, or you indie publish or whatever. A lot of people don't know how to recover from that, and a lot of them are just dropping out of the industry altogether.

Joanna: Yes, funny you should say that. I saw a blog post from an author—again, you know, not mentioning any names—but it basically said, “I've seen the income go down, and I've just decided it's not worth it anymore.” This was another reasonably big name.

I was like, wow. It's very interesting if that's the way it goes. I almost feel like for a lot of indies, like myself, for example, I've never had a truly breakout book. I've just built up.

When you build up from a low number per month to a bigger number per month, you feel, I don't know, perhaps fine, compared to somebody who might have started on a massive deal for book one and then has just spiraled downwards. You know what I mean?

That feels like the difference in energy between the indies who are clawing themselves up and then the big name trad authors who are now spiraling down.JD: I think it's almost like a tortoise and hare thing.

If you come out of the gate and you have this enormous, big seller, you're going to be chasing that forever. Every book you write is going to be compared to that.

I would honestly rather be in your shoes, like a situation like you just said. Gently increase your revenue and your business model, everything just kind of raised just a little bit year after year after year. I think that's better because then it's a gradual thing.

As long as each book that you're putting out is selling better than the last one, you know, everything is constantly improving in a nice and slow and steady way. It's almost like the stock market. You're building a nice, solid base beneath you. If something goes wrong, it's not going to just fall out.

If you take somebody who has a big seller, all of a sudden they have these giant numbers that they have to try and hit every single time. Even if they have another big seller, if it doesn't hit those original numbers, it's seen as a failure. That's a tough position to be in.

I hate picking on people, but like, look at like Gillian Flynn. She had a three book deal. So her first two books did okay, but they didn't really sell that great. Then all of a sudden, Gone Girl hits. Imagine having to follow up Gone Girl. She has been at home writing the follow up to Gone Girl for years, and she hasn't put anything out.

Joanna: She wrote the screenplay. She moved into screenwriting.

JD: Yes, she she's moved onto other things. It's fantastic that she's actually got her hands in multiple pots. I think that's key, too. You talk about diversification all the time. That's something from this industry, and I think life, in general, I think a lot of people should take that away.

Joanna: I do want to just point out there, you said about the stock market and up into the right slowly. I mean, you have to zoom out. I think that would be what I would say. Nobody has that every book sells better than the last.

I mean, there's always books that come out that are just creative, and are not necessarily ones that hit the market. So if you zoom out, I think that's the point with the stock market, too. As an investor—

If you zoom out far enough over time, it does go up and to the right.JD: It does. Yes, you've got to look at the big picture, and as long as it's improving, you're in good shape.

Joanna: Exactly. So I want to come back, you mentioned there the big names, all in their 70s. Of course, one of the biggest names in the world, James Patterson. You co-write with James Patterson. Then since you've been doing that, you've also moved into his model of co-writing with other people.

You're the second name under James Patterson, but you're the first name when you're co-writing with others. So tell us about that. Why did you decide to do it? Because, frankly, I have heard from some authors who've done this that they didn't end up getting the sort of sales that they thought they would get.

What has been your experience co-writing with James Patterson?JD: Yes, so working with Patterson has been huge. I tell people it's almost like taking his Masterclass online, except he calls you and tells you everything you're doing wrong and gives you some advice.

We've had just as many phone calls on the business side of publishing as we have on writing side. He's been helping me kind of create the Patterson 2.0 with my own career.

I think I'm a lot of ways it's because he's older. He would probably do these things himself if he was in his 50s, but I think he's in a comfortable place right now. He doesn't see any reason to rock the boat, but he's getting some enjoyment out of helping me create a business model in today's world based on what he's learned.

From my standpoint, there's no way I'm going to turn down that advice. So he was largely responsible for me moving to Simon and Schuster the way that I did, the way the co-author titles are coming out, the people that I'm choosing, the countries that these books are dropping in.

He's been involved in a lot of those decisions, at least as an ear, a sounding board that I can run some of these things by. I hear you, like I know other people that have tried to do this before, and I've seen it not work, I've seen it work. In my model, it seems to be working okay.

People are buying my solo titles in a lot bigger numbers than they do the co-authored stuff. That being said, I'm pricing the co-authored stuff at a lower price point and getting it into places that my bigger titles may or may not get to.

I'm using it just like I do everything else. I'm using it to cast a wider net. I'm trying to rope in people that may not be able to afford a $10 ebook, because now they can buy a Barker book for $5.

Joanna: I like the idea of casting a wider net.

I think this is also something you do, you have deliberately not written the same thing over and over again. I mean, you do have a series, but it's not a massive series. Like, it's not a 25 book series, like some people. Well, like James Patterson has huge, long series.

How are you writing different kinds of books in order to cast a wider net?JD: Yes, I made a conscious decision at the get-go that I didn't want to write the same book but different over and over again. Being in the publishing industry, I had seen people get caught up in that.

Before you know it, they're 10 books in and they're dreading the writing process because they just don't want to have to do that same thing again. So I came out of the gate, my very first novel was horror, the next one was a thriller, then I did another horror novel. So I bounced back and forth on purpose.

This frustrated the hell out of my agents and the publishers because they weren't quite sure how to market all that. What I've been finding is it's allowing me to build brand, like people are basically seeing my name as the brand and knowing that they're going to get a particular type of book.

Not necessarily the same book, but they're going to get the same feeling, the same kind of pacing and those types of things. So when I go look for co-authors, I'm trying to find people that can add a little something to my mix that I may not be able to do on my own.

I'll give you an example. I had a book out about a year ago now, called Heavy Are the Stones, that I wrote with Christine Daigle. I think you know Christine. In real life, she's a neuropsychologist.

So I can fake my way through that in a book. I can do enough Google searches and watch documentaries, just like any other author. I can come up with something that seems realistic and plausible, but having a real neuropsychologist in the writing room is priceless. It allows us to take that to a whole other level.

So when I seek out co-authors, I'm really looking for that.

I'm trying to find people that can bring something to the table that I can't necessarily do on my own.At the same time, I take that book and I make sure the pacing matches my pacing, and make sure the language and everything is on par, the story is as compelling as any of my other titles.

So I kind of take something that they're working on and take it to another level. I dial it up a little bit so my audience will react to it. I think by combining all those different things, it seems to be working.

Joanna: Well, I can hear people in the audience who are like, “Oh, well, maybe I could pitch JD.”

Do you take pitches? And who are you looking for?JD: I do all the time. Where it honestly came from is I used to mentor a lot of authors. It was the whole pay it forward thing. I feel like helping other people really helps me recharge my batteries.

I love finding an author that was doing like 80% of the things right, but I spot like 20% that could be fixed, and I like to help them get through that. At the time, I was charging people for that, and I always felt icky about having to charge people for mentorship.

It was a good gatekeeper because it got rid of the people who weren't really serious about it. Ultimately, what I ended up doing is I flipped that when I started bringing in co-authors.

So I find somebody who, again, has about 80% of the skill set that I think they need, that needs a little help on one part or another. I bring them in and I walk them through the entire writing process. So we come up with the idea for the book, the title, the tagline, the back-of-book blurb.

I hold their hand through the outlining process. I hold their hand through the writing process. I'd make them do the bulk of the work because I want them to walk away from this a better writer.

Then in the end, I own the book, because from an accounting standpoint, it's near impossible to do co-authored stuff on a royalty split. It seems to work really well for everybody. So I'm constantly looking for co-authors. I have people that send me stuff all the time.

If somebody in your audience is into that and they want to reach out, they can find me on my website.

Joanna: To be clear, that's not brand new authors.

You're looking for people who have written books, so they actually know what they're doing.We're not talking about newbies.

JD: I mean, I get plenty of stuff from newbies too, and I'm waiting to find that gold in there. The truth is, this is just like any other profession. If you want to be a brain surgeon, they're not going to just throw you at the operating table. There's years’ worth of study and practice and things that go into play.

Writing is no different. To me, it's like a muscle. You have to work it out every day. Most people have to write maybe a half million words before they really figure out what they're doing.

So most of the people that find me that I end up signing, they've got one or two books they've written. Maybe they were with a small press, maybe they were with one of the big publishers, but it didn't work out. A lot of times that's a discoverability issue.

You could have the greatest title in the world, and Random House can put it out for you, but if the marketing plan doesn't hit just right, that book will fizzle and die. That doesn't mean the writer doesn't know what they're doing. So those are the kind of people that I'm looking for. I'm trying to find those hidden gems.

Joanna: Well, let's talk about marketing then. Of course, we've known each other years now, and I know stuff about you, but I was like, I'm just going to like Google JD to see what he's been doing recently.

This column came up in Rolling Stone and I was like, what is JD doing blogging on Rolling Stone magazine? Then I was like, oh, right, you used to kind of work tangentially in the music industry.

Why are you blogging for Rolling Stone magazine?JD: You know, I think it was just a call back to the early days. Back when I was working then in the music business, I would have loved to write for Rolling Stone. That was like the Holy Grail back then.

They approached me a couple of years ago, and they said, “Hey, would you like to do a column for us?” So it occasionally shows up in the print, most of the time it's just online, but they let me write whatever I want.

So I write two or three columns a month on whatever topic I feel like talking about, which is fun. I mean, and it's good exposure. From a marketing standpoint, it gets my name out there on a regular basis. So it seems to work out.

Joanna: Well, it's funny though, because this seems to work out. I know you do ads and stuff. With an ad, you pay for an Amazon ad or whatever, and you get some clicks, and you can tell that it's working. With the Rolling Stone, maybe online they let you have a click-through or something, but—

How do you know that it's worth it?JD: Well, it comes down to, again, this being a business and branding. So your brand, your name, needs to show up in front of people on a regular basis before they really recognize it.

So somebody may see a Rolling Stone article written by me. They may not buy my book for years, they may not buy it at all. But if they see my name once, twice, four or five, six times, just popping up in random places, all of a sudden, I'm a known commodity to them.

So they walk into a Barnes and Noble one day, and they're browsing the shelves, and all of a sudden my name jumps out at them. They recognize it. They don't quite understand why, but it speaks to them a little bit, and they pick up that book.

From a brand standpoint, anytime you can get your name out there, it's good. Try to do it as often as possible.I do Facebook ads, I do Amazon ads, I do all those different things. I also do tons of podcasts. I do tons of radio. I do tons of television. Any opportunity I have to get my name or voice out there and talk about the book process, I do it.

Joanna: Yes, I noticed that. As I said to you, your team pitched me like multiple times, and I'm like, stop it already! I thought it was interesting because they did also pitch me from different angles and different companies.

I feel like what you've said there, that some of these things are branding, and some of these things are sales. So the ads are trying to link directly to sales, and then the branding is a sort of nebulous. I haven't got a clue how this is going to work, but maybe somehow it will if it's all together.

What percentage of your time are you doing between those two things? Have you outsourced all the ad stuff as well?JD: The ad stuff I've got pretty much dialed in.

I tried outsourcing it, but then I found that the people that I talked to, like they are more than willing to take my money. They will put the ads out there, but the click-through rates that they were getting just weren't that great.

So I've done the same things that that that you have, and probably everybody in your audience has. I studied up on Facebook ads, and I post my own, and I just tweak them a little bit.

I do a lot of AB testing to figure out what images are working. I play with the text a little bit. I'm constantly changing them. I'm finding that my click-through ratios or rates are really low. Like, I get, like, between around five, six cents, sometimes. 11 cents, I think, is my average that I'm paying per ad on Facebook.

I like doing that. I think it's the autistic side of me too. Like I enjoy messing with something like that, coming up with a way to make it better. When I stumble into something that's working, I double down. I enjoy that process.

Joanna: Is your day half writing, half marketing?JD: Pretty much. I mean, I start at seven in the morning. I turn off the internet first thing, and I just knock out whatever words I'm working on for my latest projects. I do about 2000 to 3000 words.

Then I turn the internet on, that's usually about 10:30 or 11, and let my inbox fill up and just kind of deal with the business side of stuff. Afternoons, I do interviews from around noon until three, and then my quitting bell rings at three o'clock.

Joanna: Oh, okay, because you have a daughter, don't you?

JD: I do. One of the things that started happening very early on is when my book started to sell in foreign territories, I would get interview requests at crazy hours, like 11 o'clock at night, two o'clock in the morning, because you're basically dealing with their schedule. I took all of those, and I quickly started to burn out.

I was like there's no way I can sustain this. So in today's world, I just kind of force everybody into that little box, 12 o'clock to three o'clock. I've worked with tons of publicists, too, on the promo side. It's funny, you said that they contacted you a lot of different times.

I had one publicist that I had paid a huge amount to on a monthly basis, a retainer, and they hardly got anything. The publicist that actually contacted you that I've been working with recently, like I pay her for podcast that she gets.

So if she gets me a podcast, she gets a certain percentage. If she gets me a newspaper review, she gets a certain dollar amount. Everything is a la carte, and she's been hustling. So I try to find publicists that are willing to work on those terms, rather than just a flat dollar amount where there's no guaranteed results.

Joanna: Yes, I think those people are quite rare.

JD: They are, but if you keep looking, you will find them.

Joanna: Well, it's also really interesting because I've been podcasting since 2009, and for many, many years, a lot of people used to talk about the traditional media stuff. Then book blog tours was a thing for a while. Then a lot of social media.

Then what's happened, really in the last 18 months, I would say, is that I get pitched a lot every day, from a lot of traditional publishers. So all the big houses pitching, and all they do is just send a press release directly to my email and say, you know, “Opportunity to interview JD Barker,” and then just a blurb from your book.

I'm just like, will these people stop it already? Because this isn't a pitch. So for people listening—I know you have done some of these yourself, although you work with people like—what are you trying to do when you pitch whatever podcast, media, newspaper, whatever?

What are you pitching that's more than just “here's my book sales description”?JD: Well, we get them on Writer's Ink, too. So I totally get it. What kills me is when you get the ones that have absolutely nothing to do with the type of show that you do.

Joanna: Oh, yes. “Here's a credit card company.”

JD: Yes, or, “This guy is a business entrepreneur, and he can tell you all about real estate.” I'm like, that's not what our audience is looking for.

Again, I scatter shot this stuff. So I've done podcasts and interviews on autism. I've done it on the business of writing. I've done it on my latest book that's coming out.

I do all of them, because it's one of those things, like I'm honestly not sure what's working and what's not working, but I do know that that brand and name recognition is important. So the more places I get, the better.

It's funny where I get feedback from. I hear from a lot of parents that heard about me on an autism interview that have then went out and bought one of my books. So it all kind of crosses over.

I think if you talk to anybody who works in advertising, for the most part, they can't tell you what's working and what's not working, so they tend to do everything, which is sort of old school.

In today's world, I mean, you've got Facebook and Amazon ads, you can monitor metrics and you can kind of track it that way, but that only works for those types of ads.

One of the things that's always stuck with me, you know, Patterson told me this story years ago. His very first book, it was called The Thomas Berryman Number, and like, literally, nobody bought that. I don't even think he's got a copy of it.

His second book was Along Came a Spider, and the sales on that were decent at the beginning, but they weren't where he expected them to be or where he wanted them to be. So he spent $500 of his own money and created a television spot.

If you're old enough, you might remember this. It was just a graphic, and it said, “Your wait for the next Silence of the Lambs is over,” and a tiny little spider crawled down from the corner of the screen, and then it morphed into Along Came a Spider and the cover of the book.

So that was 500 bucks, but that's what actually launched that book and caused it to become a mega bestseller. He's constantly doing that, even in today's world when we've got a book coming out.

We just had one called The Writer, it debuted at number two on the New York Times list. He approved every single ad, television spot, Facebook ad, Amazon ad, whatever. Every one of them crossed his desk and he approved each one of them. I try to do the same thing.

Joanna: Well, he came from marketing, didn't he? Advertising?JD: He did, yes. He actually wrote the Toys R Us theme song.

Joanna: I love this. I really respect him, obviously, as a writer, but also as a businessman. He was just doing something with Mr. Beast, right?

JD: Yes, he called me actually right after that meeting happened, and this was, geez, maybe about two months ago. He sounded as excited as a teenager. It was crazy. He's tried to explain this to me, and I honestly didn't know who Mr. Beast was until afterwards.

So that's the thing. Like, nobody expects him to do that book. Nobody expected him to write a book with Dolly Parton or Bill Clinton.

Joanna: Dolly Parton, after doing it with Bill Clinton.

JD: Yes, but that's what keeps him going.

Think of how that expanded his audience. Dolly Parton is huge on a worldwide basis. All of a sudden they're reading James Patterson thrillers because he wrote that book.

Joanna: This is the thing, right? I mean, everyone, even if people don't “like”, in inverted commas, James Patterson's books, and I'm sure there's people listening who are like, “Oh, I'd never read a James Patterson.” It doesn't matter, because he is in his 70s, he's still hustling, he's still writing, he's still doing author business.

I mean, that is just impressive. That, to me, is very inspirational. It's interesting, because I've read bits and bobs of his over the years, you know, a book here, a book there. I don't read every one of his books. It's hard to read every one of his books because there's so many of them.

I recently read Eruption, which he did with the late Michael Crichton estate. What was so funny was I picked it up because I've read every single Michael Crichton, and I imagine a lot of other people out there did the same thing.

So this collaboration and co-writing, which you're now doing as well, is a really interesting model.

Is it marketing, or is it just a way of writing to a different market segment?JD: Well, I think ultimately, he's using the books as marketing tools. Every one of them is a business card that's reaching out to a new segment of people. That's what I'm trying to do, too.

Joanna: The difference, I guess—and I mean, obviously, you build your name bigger and bigger every year, so I'm sure you'll be in a position to co-write with an ex-American president at some point.

I've co-written a couple of books, and I found it a very difficult process. In the kind of thing you're doing and what James Patterson's done, is there's a primary and there's a secondary, right? There's like a primary name and a secondary.

What he seems to be doing is also finding other primary brands, as such. Are you looking for other brands to collaborate with, rather than just authors who were kind of secondary? Do you know what I mean?

JD: I'm using every opportunity to expand my brand. So if I can work with somebody who's going to take me into a different place. I'd love to work with a science fiction author at this point, because I could take a science fiction book and turn it into a thriller, and all of a sudden we're capturing people from both of those audiences.

That's really what a lot of this is about. I keep going back to the “casting a net” thing, but that's what you've got to do, I think, in order to become one of those household names. It's not something that happens overnight. It's done gradually over time.

Joanna: Yes, and I like that perspective, because I feel like in the indie community, we're pretty obsessed with having direct ROI. Like we have to see the ROI on the ad. So a lot of indie authors don't do the bigger brand building because it's so hard to measure. So that's a really good perspective.

I realize that we're almost out of time, but I did want to ask you about Author Nation, because you and I were on the same thriller panel last year. You're back in 2025, along with James Patterson, who is keynoting. Now, you're very successful, so why come to Author Nation as a successful author who knows what he is doing?

What are the benefits for a more advanced author coming to Author Nation?JD: Well, I roped Jim into coming, so I'll give you the same pitch that I gave him. So I have gone to all the big conferences. I've been to ThrillerFest a bunch of times, I've been to Bouchercon, and my takeaway from a lot of those is, I literally had no more takeaways.

They were helpful for me for the first year or two, when I was first getting started, but after that, there was really no new information that I could utilize anymore.

They are very good at helping people get off that diving board with their debut novel. They're fantastic at promoting the big names that are out there. But they literally had no content for the rest of us who are basically in that muddy middle of trying to get from that debut novel to the household name status.

So when I went to Author Nation, I saw something a little different. I saw people not only marketing indie titles, but using a lot of the things that I feel the traditional markets could benefit from.

Those waters are getting very muddy at this point.

I don't really think there is indie and traditional anymore. I think everybody is somewhere in the middle, or should be somewhere in the middle.They're all stealing from each other. I think indie authors look at the traditional publishers and they take what's working. Traditional publishers are doing the exact same thing. They are looking very closely at the indie market and taking what is working there.

That's why you see all these big name titles all of a sudden on BookBub and these places that they didn't do a few years ago. They're utilizing whatever they see working on the indie market.

So I see Author Nation as basically the next version of conferences. I think, properly done, they can create the content that the rest of us need to get from A to Z. To fill in that void in between and teach us how to keep their career going for the long term.

Joanna: I also feel that. As you say, I mean, there is a lot of content at Author Nation. If you're listening and you haven't written the first book, or you have written a book and you're just starting, there's a lot for those people. Then as you say, there's also a lot for us. A lot of meetings too, right?

We don't necessarily go to all the sessions. We're there for the meetings.JD: I mean, again, it's comes down to contacts. There's plenty of people you're going to meet at Author Nation, and four or five years down the road, you may be able to help them, they may be able to help you, but all those contacts come into play.

Joanna: Yes, absolutely. So we'll be there, occasionally hanging out in the public spaces, although both of us struggle with a lot of people. Well, I feel like maybe everybody does at these things. There's just a load of introverts and probably a lot of autistic people all in the same room being scared of each other,

JD: Yes, but there's also alcohol. I force myself to get out there and talk. I won't stay in my hotel room as much as I want to. I try to get out on the floor and talk to as many people as I can.

Joanna: I agree. All right.

Where can people find you and your books online?JD: Easiest place to find me is at JDBarker.com. I'm on all the social medias at @JDBarker. My latest title is called Something I Keep Upstairs, which just released on May 13.

Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, JD. That was great.

JD: Thanks for having me.

The post Casting A Wider Net: Author Brand And The Writing Business With JD Barker first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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How can creativity be expressed in both writing and music? How can you improve your creativity by being more mindful of your physical body? How can you manage anxiety when speaking or performing? Jennifer Roig-Francoli gives her thoughts in this interview.

In the intro, Taylor Swift buys back the rights to her first six albums [The Verge];
Understanding the rules of self-publishing, Becca Syme on the Bookfunnel Podcast; Multiple Income Streams for Authors, Beyond Just Book Sales [Publishing Performance];

Melania Trump's memoir audiobook using her AI voice clone with ElevenLabs, which she is selling direct from her website; my own voice clone AI-narrated thriller, Death Valley; AI narration in publishing [The New Publishing Standard];
The New York Times has struck an AI licensing deal with Amazon [The Verge].

Plus, my Fourth Edition of Successful Self-Publishing; Desecration, a British crime thriller, on special; and my AI-Assisted Artisan Author webinar;
The Geography of Belonging and Finding Home [Books and Travel].

Write and format stunning books with Atticus. Create professional print books and eBooks easily with the all-in-one book writing software. Try it out at Atticus.io

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn

Jennifer Roig-Francoli is an international prize-winning violinist and certified Alexander Technique teacher. She's also a high performance coach and the author of Make Great Music with Ease!: The Secret to Smarter Practice, Confident Performance, and Living a Happier Life.

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

• Creativity in music and writing
• Timing and readiness when approaching a book
• How perfectionism can hinder your creative process
• Tips for performing and public speaking, and tackling anxiety
• How the mind-body connection relates to both music and writing
• Dealing with physical pain as a musician or a writer (and in the intro, I recommend DeskBound by Kelly & Juliet Starrett)
• What is Alexander Technique?
• Integrating music and writing into a creative business

You can find Jennifer at artoffreedom.me.

Transcript of Interview with Jennifer Roig-FrancoliJoanna: Jennifer Roig-Francoli is an international prize-winning violinist and certified Alexander Technique teacher. She's also a high performance coach and the author of Make Great Music with Ease!: The Secret to Smarter Practice, Confident Performance, and Living a Happier Life. So welcome to the show, Jennifer.

Jennifer: Thank you so much for having me. I'm looking forward to talking with you.

Joanna: Oh, yes. I'm pretty excited about this. We were just saying before the recording, this is my first podcast that's really around music. I don't know why I've missed it so much after like 15 years of doing the show.

Jennifer: Well, I'm honored to be the first.

Joanna: Yes, indeed. I am interested because why write a book? I tend to think that people have this primary mode of creativity, and yours is clearly music.

Why write a book? (when music is your first mode of expression)Jennifer: I've wanted to write a book for a long time. My dad was an English professor, so my favorite class in school was writing. I used to keep journals. I wrote poetry and stories from the time I was really little.

I just always loved writing. It’s also been therapeutic for me as an adult, just writing for myself. So writing a book was a thing I always wanted to do.

The main thing was to get my ideas across about, specifically, the work I do with the Alexander Technique, music making, and creativity. I just have a lot of ideas, and I wanted to get them out there. So a book made sense.

Joanna: So your dad was in the literature field. Were you also encouraged into music as a child?

Again, because your primary method, I guess, is music, so writing was second. Did you do that from childhood?

Jennifer: I'm told by my mother that when I was two, I declared that I needed a violin. My parents are both musicians, so it makes sense. They would sit around our living room in the evenings when I was a baby, playing quartets with their friends.

I vaguely remember sitting in the rocking chair, listening to them and watching them. So when I was two, I fell in love with a violin. My mom is a cellist, and my dad is a violist, but I liked the violin.

When I was four years old, my mother discovered the Suzuki method and got me started. So I've been playing the violin since I was four.

Joanna: Yes, wow. It's so interesting, isn't it? I think, clearly, when you were a kid, it was fun for you, and it was all around you.

I said to you beforehand that I don't really listen to music. I think part of that is my mum likes silence, so we were never really allowed to have sound around. I'm a very quiet person as well and often wear noise-canceling headphones. So it's so weird to imagine your childhood with all this music.

Which then sort of brings me to a question about, if that's your main thing that you do—

How did you face the challenges around writing when you're used to doing something so different, something so noisy?Jennifer: Funny, I don't think of it that way at all. To be totally honest, I don't listen to much music myself either. I really enjoy making music even more than listening to it. Yes, it's pretty loud to have a violin right next to your ear.

So I don't think of it as something different, in a way. A lot of my work and what I'm most interested in is how we get inspired and how do we take that creative inspiration into ourselves? Like how do we let it flow in the mind, the body, the soul, the whole that we are? How do we take these ideas that we have and then express them?

I feel like I have these ideas, whether they are musical ideas or thought ideas, concepts.

There are ideas in my mind, and somehow they need to get out. They can be expressed through music or they can be expressed through writing. Since I've always been writing, it was actually very easy for me to start writing this book, when it was the right time. I tried three times to write this book, and the first time I attempted it was maybe 15 years ago.

I sat down to write the book one summer on vacation, and I think I probably sat down two or three times to try to write the book and realized I was not ready at all to write this book. My ideas were not ready. They were unformed. It just was really hard. So I left it for more than a decade.

Then a few years ago, I got back to it. I felt like it was time. I got further into the process, maybe three or four months. Then life events took over and prevented me from continuing. So I took another break for maybe two years or something before I said, okay, third try's the charm. I'm going to try again, and I was determined to make it work this time.

It was actually really easy to write most of the book. It just sort of flowed out of me. It's no different from making music, really.

Joanna: So that had been kind of incubating. I think that's interesting. I've had that experience with a couple of my books, particularly one called Writing the Shadow around that darker side of ourselves and expressing that. I’d thought about that for a couple of decades, really.

You said the third time you tried again. There will be people listening who may well have put off books or tried to write books. How did you know this time it was going to work? Or did you just start again with hope, and then it started working?

When do you know the right time to pick a project back up?Jennifer: Part of the reason I wrote the book, one of them, to be completely honest, is that it fit into my business plan. I run a coaching business for musicians, and it would serve a number of purposes for me from a business perspective to have a book out.

For one thing, there are so many people in the world that I feel could benefit from my services and what I teach, and yet so many people in the world can't afford my services. So one reason I wrote the book was to offer something really low cost to a much broader audience so they could benefit from the teachings.

It just felt like at this point in time, I knew clearly what I wanted to teach. My system was formulated. I had been teaching it a certain way for a number of years already. I really knew my stuff in a way I didn't before.

I went through certain life experiences too along the way that fed into the book. That's why the first time I tried writing it, I was just not ready. It wasn't the right time. Even the second time just didn’t work because of other life events that ended up giving me more material for the actual book when it was the right time.

So I can't really say other than that it just fit.

All the pieces fit at that time. It was right for my business. It was right in my life. I had gotten to a point in my business, financially, where I felt I could make my book number one for a whole year, which is what I did.

I really decided that it would be okay for me to focus mostly on the book for a whole year, and that would mean probably bringing in less income from other sources. It was seeing that I could go through this process for a year and still be okay, and not have to worry too much about working hard on other stuff, if that makes sense.

Joanna: I love that you said it was the right time in your business as well. I think what that does too, is that helps you get out of your own head and think about other people. Sometimes that's what we need.

You can get lost in so many words, and then when you think, okay, who is my audience, and who am I trying to serve?That also helped you because you knew how this fits with the people you coach, and the people who can't afford coaching can afford a book. I think that's fantastic. So often with these deep and meaningful books, we can get lost in our own heads, right?

Jennifer: Yes, I think I was completely lost in my own head the first time I tried.

Joanna: And it's making it out. So you said it took about a year. How did that year go? Was it a lot of rewriting? Or you said it kind of flowed. Was there a lot of editorial?

What was your creative process like during that time?Jennifer: I have to say, there was one piece of advice that made it possible. Without that piece of advice, there’s no way I would have finished the book in the time I did. The advice was to not edit as I was going along.

I tend to have perfectionistic tendencies. I tell my students I’m a recovering perfectionist. My old way of writing would be about the process of writing and getting it right as I’m writing. That wasn’t going to work for me because that would take way too long.

It also meant that if I started writing that way, there are a thousand different ways to say something. So if I kept finding a better way to say something or saying, “No, this isn’t quite the right word here, let me find another one,” and then I’d have another idea, and it would take me off into tangents. Pretty soon, I’d have no idea what I was writing about.

For me to censor myself and give myself a rule, you’re not allowed to edit while writing, you just write. You’re going to write this chapter today, or whatever it was. Sometimes I did a certain number of words. Sometimes I just said, okay, this is the chapter. Sometimes I didn’t even have a plan.

For the most part I would just write and not let myself edit. That saved me. That saved that book.Joanna: I totally agree with you, and that's how I do it, too. Everyone has different processes, but I think that is really important.

So let's talk a bit about some of the aspects of being a musician, and you cover some of this in the book. In the subtitle is “confident performance.” I was thinking about this, now you've performed at Carnegie Hall, which is kind of one of those amazing things.

As authors, we need to become more comfortable with performing. Many of us are introverts. We just don't want to get on stage and do this.

What are some of your tips for performing our work or reading our work in a way that engages audiences?Jennifer: Oh, that's a great question. I just have to say that even though I've been performing since I was a really young child with the violin, it took me a really long time to be brave enough to speak in public.

The fact that I'm here doing podcasts and interviews and speaking from stages is just mind-blowing to me because I was an extremely shy, introverted child. Somehow, because I started performing with the violin very young, it was just a natural thing that was easy for me. That was no problem, but speaking, I really had to work on that.

The breakthrough for me was, to give you an example, I actually knew how bad I was at speaking in public. In college, I signed up for this class on public speaking, and we needed to memorize a poem for the second class. I thought, Oh, this is fine. I can memorize music, no problem. So I memorized the poem, but I freaked out. I was so terrified.

So I got to this class, and I stood up, and I think I got maybe the first two lines out, and my mind went totally blank. There was no way I could retrieve anything else from that poem. Unfortunately, I was so mortified that I dropped the class and never went back.

Long story short, I actually didn’t work on speaking intentionally, but as a result of my Alexander Technique teacher training—which takes three years, by the way, so like 1600 hours to get certified as an Alexander Technique teacher—through that process, I opened up in my whole self.

In opening up in my whole self, including speaking with other people in the class, it became much, much easier for me to expose myself and be myself in public through words. So just speaking off the cuff like we are now, I can do it now, and I find it really fun, but it was mortifying earlier. So I completely understand what you're talking about.

I do have some tips. Performance anxiety is a big thing that I help my musicians with. Through the way that I teach the Alexander Technique—which is actually called Primal Alexander—we’re really learning how to connect how we're thinking with how we're feeling in the body.

So it’s really important when you're feeling nervous or anxious, it’s really important just to notice that without judging it to begin with.

Self-observation is one of our best tools.It’s a human gift to be able to self-reflect, and for you to see yourself from outside, and observe and watch, and ask yourself, “What's going on? What’s actually happening to me right now in this moment?”

I'm doing this for myself right now, and anybody listening, I invite you to just ask yourself, “What's happening to me right now? What am I noticing?”

If you're nervous, you'll probably notice symptoms like the heart racing or sweating or shaking or shrinking, getting tight. All these things that happen in a fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response. There's a tightening, a constriction going on in the system. It's uncomfortable. We don't like that feeling.

So what we usually do is try to fix it, make it go away, or mask it somehow. None of those things really work. They can work to a point, but the best way I've found that is really foolproof—and it works for everybody I've worked with—is if you really just stop and get curious like a little kid, like you're a Martian with no idea what's going on.

Or you’re just a scientist taking observations, and you are your own science experiment. Or you’re a detective, and you want to find out. You want information. Like, what is happening to this human being right now? What's happening? “Oh, my heart is racing,” or, “Oh, I'm shaking.”

Then if we can develop the response of, “Oh, that's interesting. What else is happening?” and to keep asking “what else?” without and rush and without any judgment. Just be with the experience. That in itself is incredibly powerful.

When you really stick with it, with that attitude—and —

Attitude is everything. It’s that childlike curiosity where you’re giving yourself time to notice and be curious and not trying to change your experience. Except you don't get fixated on it, so you keep asking yourself, “Okay, interesting. What else?”

Joanna: Yes. Obviously, your Alexander Technique is a physical practice, and this idea of being in the body, I feel like so often, as authors, is different to musicians. Especially with the violin, your body is making the sound. Like you're moving with an instrument.

Writers, so much of it is in our heads, and yet, as you say, going on a stage or speaking is physical. You are a physical human in this experience. So I like that you talk about that.

I also find, because I do a lot of speaking, I always do sort of writing beforehand, and I just write “thank you that I can serve the audience.” Again, like we said at the beginning —

I'm here for them. This isn't actually about me. This is what I can help them with. Is that similar to you, as a musician, that you're really thinking about serving the people who are listening?

Jennifer: Yes, that's a beautiful way to think of it. I love how you do that before you go out.

Joanna: It just changes my perspective from being obsessed about how I feel to trying to help other people with whatever they're looking for.

Jennifer: That's really a great point. It is so good to include both. Ultimately, the way I look at it is that I want to be open and responsive to both what's going on inside me and what's going on outside of me.

Ultimately, I feel like I can best serve the world around me when I'm making sure I take care of myself first. When I'm at my best, that's when I have my best to give.So it’s interesting what you said. Also, you might be surprised because I never thought of playing the violin as a physical activity until I ended up having physical problems. I really thought of it as a mental thing.

I really had a mind-body split, where I had this false notion, first of all, that there is such a thing as a mental activity that's just mental or a physical activity that's just physical. That’s just not true.

Even as a writer, you do have an instrument because you have a pen or a pencil or a computer, and you need to use your physical body to get those ideas out of your brain. It's really not so different from a violinist who has a violin and a bow to get the ideas out.

So I actually always used to think it was a mental activity, and I had this prejudice against what I thought of as physical activities. My brother, for example, was really into sports. I liked sports when I was really little, I didn't have a mind-body split when I was really little.

The older I got, the more praise I got for being more intellectual, getting good grades in school — and all that kind of thing. The violin was included in there for me. So then I didn’t think much of sports.

There was a whole dynamic in my family too that was, in me, kind of messed me up. It caused problems down the road because if you don't recognize how you can't really separate the mind and the body, ultimately something will suffer.

Joanna: This is so funny because this is exactly the same for me. My brother also was the sporty one and played basketball. He snowboards and skateboards. In terms of physical intelligence, he is physically intelligent, in terms of just amazing physical awareness.

It took me, also, probably 25, 30 years, and then you hit 35, right, and your body starts hurting. Then you hit 40, and it gets worse. Then you have to start doing something. I ended up damaging myself and getting help for that.

You talk in the book about chronic pain and your own physical stuff that led you to the Alexander Technique. Tell us a bit about that, because—

People listening, if they're not already in pain from writing, they’re probably going to be. Jennifer: Oh, dear. Yes, so I found the Alexander Technique because I had neck pain. It wasn’t directly from playing the violin because at that time, I had young children, and had not been playing the violin seriously for a while. I had a major career that I cut short when I was 19 and got married at 20.

I stopped playing as a soloist. Then I spent quite a few years playing the violin in other capacities, but my heart wasn’t really in it. I’m just, by nature, a soloist. I loved doing that. It made me happy. It was exciting.

I stopped all of that, then I got married at 20. I started playing in orchestras and teaching violin—things I never really wanted to do—just to earn money.

It was good because I kept up my skills, but ultimately I was suffering because I didn’t have a creative outlet other than my family. Of course, having children is a beautiful creative outlet. But carrying toddlers on my hips, my alignment was completely off. It was really stressful, like I didn’t have family around to help.

I got progressively less happy. As I got less happy, I had more stress, and the physical stress of lifting my children and carrying them around. One day, I ended up with neck pain that wouldn’t go away.

I ended up going to doctors and chiropractors, and nobody could really help until I finally ended up at an Alexander Technique teacher’s studio. That completely changed my entire life. So I went for pain, but it was actually a deeper, creative kind of pain. It wasn’t about the violin, it was about blocked creativity for me.

Joanna: I guess if people don’t know—

What is the Alexander Technique?Jennifer: Sure. You mentioned earlier that it’s a physical technique, but actually I think of it as a whole-person technique. I know why you’d think that because if people look up Alexander Technique, they’ll probably find things about posture. You’ll see a practitioner touching the student gently with gentle manipulation, and moving, sitting, and standing.

It can give the impression that it’s about the physical body only, but it’s much deeper than that. I’ve been fascinated since the beginning of my Alexander journey to know what was underneath. For me, the Alexander Technique is a way to connect how you're thinking with how you're feeling, both physically and emotionally.

When you learn how to connect and integrate your whole self—your mind, body, emotions—when you are more integrated and whole, you bring that whole of you into activity, you can learn to do whatever you want to do with much more ease, much less effort, much less tension, and much more joy.

So that, to me, is what the Alexander Technique is. That’s also why I teach it with that touch, so I can empower my students to learn to think differently to get different results.

Joanna: Yes, I've definitely found—I do a lot of weight training—and I felt like I've learned so much about what the body and mind connection is, just from being much more present in my body, which I wasn't for so long as an author.

Obviously, you work with musicians who are suffering pain, and some people listening might also be musicians, but—

What are the things that people come to you with that relate to the mind and body connection or the creativity that some people listening might recognize or find useful?Jennifer: Yes, I'll just say as an aside, I'm always open to working with non-musicians. In fact, when I first started teaching Alexander technique, I wanted to work with anybody but musicians, believe it or not. I spent quite a while working with firefighters and journalists and teachers and all kinds of other people.

So I'm always open to that. Recently, I had a photographer join one of my classes. Ultimately, we're all just human. We are all working on the same things. We're working on how do you bring your whole self to whatever activity it is that you're engaged in, that you're interested in? Whether you're a musician or a writer or whatever it is that you do.

The specific things that people come to me for generally have to do with improving their skills to get better at whatever the activity is, or they have physical pain. A lot of musicians end up with tendinitis, neck pain, back pain, carpal tunnel—real physical issues where it's career threatening. If you have tendinitis, you can't play the violin or the piano. You have to stop.

There are a lot of famous musicians in the media, like recently, there have been quite a few people who have had to just take long breaks. It happens with athletes too. Ultimately, musicians are athletes. We just work with fine motor skills, and obviously what we’re producing is different. We are producing music. Athletes are producing a football game.

It really doesn't matter because we are human. We need to learn how to think in a way that—well, here's something I always come back to. It's a favorite quote of mine from Frederick Mathias Alexander, who is the originator of this technique. He said, quote, “Mine is a method for the control of human reaction.” End quote.

“Mine is a method for the control of human reaction.” We are reacting to stimuli in our lives all day long, unconsciously or consciously.For me, this process is about learning to be more conscious of how we're reacting to things. Noticing, okay, if I react to XYZ by getting tight, for instance, if I react to speaking in public by getting tight and my body's getting stiff, do I like that result?

If I don't like that result, then maybe I could examine my attitude or how I'm thinking and think differently. Alexander started all of this, the Alexander Technique originated in his performance issue of getting hoarse when he was speaking in public. He was an actor, not a musician.

So everything we're talking about is really pertinent for writers who need to speak in public too. That's what Alexander had to do. He would get hoarse, and then he wouldn't be able to recite Shakespeare, which was his love.

He went to specialists and nobody could help him. So he figured he had to either quit and not speak in public, not be an actor, and do something else, or solve the problem himself. So that’s what he did. Thanks to him, we have this method that is amazing.

Joanna: Yes, I find this so interesting. For people listening, you mentioned carpal tunnel. I know loads of writers who end up having that operation for carpal tunnel. Or people with back pain who are just on a lot of meds. I feel like people think that it can't be solved in any other way than medically.

I pretty much gave myself a shoulder injury from hunching over my keyboard and basically tore my rotator cuff from hunching.

Jennifer: Sorry. Very common, though, I'm sure.

Joanna: Exactly. I went to a specialist. I got the steroid injection to immediately stop the pain. The shoulder guy said to me—this was about six years ago, I was 44 years old—he said, if you don't sort this out with your posture, do weight training, reverse this, you will be back here and I will have to keep seeing you.

It was good. He gave me a real talking to and basically said, get out of here and sort this out. It’s so interesting to me because I know some people listening will be like, well, no, this is clearly just a physical thing that I have to fix with an operation or drugs or whatever.

Do you incorporate the medical side into your practice, or is it very much that this takes time to work on your body?Jennifer: I don't diagnose. I don't have that training. I'm not trained to diagnose anything physical like that. Alexander Technique, there's actually quite a bit of research on it. Unfortunately, it's like the best kept secret in the world. It really does help anybody with anything.

It's hard to get people to believe that. If you're saying, I can help you with anything, but that's been my experience.

Of course, thank goodness for surgeons, thank goodness for doctors, and thank goodness for drugs that are helping people and saving lives. I'm in no way saying we shouldn't have all that. However, there are so many surgeries performed that are unnecessary, in my opinion.

In my experience, I've worked with many people who were about to have surgery and then came to me as a last resort. Or they had the surgery, and it wasn't getting better, and it didn’t solve the problem. Or they had the treatment, and they had to keep going back again and again.

It's pretty clear to me that there's a purpose and reason for the medical profession. They serve a very important purpose. Yet, there's a huge aspect that's completely missing that they are not trained in, which is seeing the whole person and treating the whole person.

Of course, there are alternative practitioners and people who do that. That's great. I don't think of myself as a medical practitioner of any kind, in any way. It's remarkable that I've had many people come to me, primarily because they had pain.

I'm thinking of one person in particular that comes to mind immediately, now another one. Two people actually, who were told by their doctors they would always be in pain because the issues they had were so severe. Like from multiple car accidents, from broken vertebrae, from slipped discs.

These were very serious physical things you could see on a scan, they’re real things. Yet, through practicing the awareness etudes, those are studies, like little awareness exercises I give my students. I have them do just a few minutes every day.

I tell them, take these like they're antibiotics. Don’t skip a dose. Prioritize this. It's really easy, really simple, but you have to stick with it.

There's a kind of paradigm shift that happens when you start to look at life a little differently.You notice everything’s related. You start noticing how you react to things and get curious.

You keep observing, wondering, experimenting with thinking differently. Then your pain starts dissolving. It's amazing. I've had so many people actually use the word “miraculous.” I don't know what's going on. I do believe there are mysterious forces in the world.

It's also a very practical technique that people don't have to believe in it. They just need to be curious enough to try something different. If you keep doing the same thing, you'll get the same results.

That’s what we do when we go to the computer, for example. We open up the computer and we typically do the same things. We have the same attitude. We are not aware of the rest of the world. We shut out our peripheral vision. We forget about space behind us. We forget about the rest of our lives.

We become so narrow-minded that our bodies just follow the mind. The body becomes narrowed because it follows the narrow-mindedness and the narrow focus. We're taught that in school. It’s drilled into us that we need to focus and concentrate. The way we're taught to concentrate is to narrow how we're thinking.

The body is innocent. The body just reflects what we’re doing with the mind. That's why we end up in pain.

Joanna: Yes, and particularly, like circling back to what we were saying about what we were rewarded for as, you know, good girls who were doing well at school, and doing what we were told, and doing well on exams. I feel like I spent 30 years denying my body and what my body needed.

Then I've essentially had to change direction.

Now a lot of what I do every day is physical movement in order to help fuel my creativity and everything else. I'm much happier when I move. If I start to be in pain, I will get moving. So I love what you're doing. I think it's fascinating.

Just one last question before we go. So at the end of the book, the subtitle is “living a happier life.” I wondered, how do all these things come together for you now, with the writing and the music and your business?

Do you still have your music as a separate thing to your business?

Jennifer: I love that question. I've basically spent my whole life working on integrating everything. Actually, it is pretty integrated, I have to say. I do my own marketing, for example, for my coaching business, which entails a lot of writing.

When I first started this business and realized how much time was going to go into marketing, it was overwhelming, and the last thing I ever thought I could enjoy doing.

Selling anything was far from my artistic beliefs about life. But it's either market yourself, or have somebody else do it, or starve.So I learned how to market. I realized if I need to do this, I might as well figure out a way to enjoy it. I do love writing. So I actually have done a lot of training. I've bought courses, had coaches, and had a lot of coaching in copywriting.

My writing is definitely a part of my day every day. My music is what I write about. Even though I'm not necessarily performing much anymore these days, it's been a few years since my last real performance—I've performed live on Facebook, if that counts.

I still play my instrument, but I don't need it to feed my creativity. That’s what I realized when I was 19, honestly, that I didn't need it to be a creative person. I don't need to write, but I enjoy writing and I enjoy making music. I also enjoy going for walks in nature.

Ultimately, it's really about—and this is what I'm really working on—how can I be really myself, authentically myself, right now? Being who I am includes connecting with people. That's a form of expression, and that's creative.

If I can get out of my way and allow inspiration to guide me, that’s a really creative process. I'm doing that right now, and I hope to get better at it as I go through life. That makes me happy. That’s where the happy comes in.

Joanna: Yes, absolutely.

Where can people find you, and your book, and everything you do online?Jennifer: I have a website. It's www.artoffreedom.me. That's my website. Facebook is my main way to connect with people. I'm very accessible. People can also contact me through the website.

I have a YouTube channel. If anybody wants to hear my music, just look up my name on YouTube and you'll have plenty of music to listen to, as well as teaching videos talking about these kinds of things.

Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Jennifer. That was great.

Jennifer: Thank you so much.

The post Music, Writing, And The Mind-Body Connection With Jennifer Roig-Francoli first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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Why is creative control and owning your intellectual property so important for a long-term author career? How can AI tools help you be more creative and amplify your curiosity? Dave Morris talks about his forty-year publishing career and why he's still pushing the boundaries of what he can create.

In the intro, Writing Storybundle; Finding your voice and creative confidence [Ask ALLi]; Does ChatGPT recommend your book? [Novel Marketing Podcast]; Google IO expansion of AI search [The Verge]; Sam Altman & Jony Ive IO [The Verge]; Claude 4; my AI-Assisted Artisan Author webinars.

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.com to get started.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn

Dave Morris is an author and comic book writer, as well as a narrative and game designer, with more than 70 books and over 40 years in publishing. He is best known for interactive series such as Dragon Warriors and Fabled Lands.

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

• Keeping your IP for long-term earnings
• Working on your own projects to maintain creative control
• Benefits of AI tools for long-series authors
• AI as a research and brainstorming assistant
• How creative confidence leads to confidence in using AI tools
• Using AI to advise on marketing strategies
• The potential of AI to enhance emotional expression in writing
• The future of gaming with AI integration

You can find Dave at FabledLands.blogspot.com, patreon.com/jewelspider, realdavemorris.substack.com or whispers-beyond.space

Transcript of Interview with Dave MorrisJoanna: Dave Morris is an author and comic book writer, as well as a narrative and game designer, with more than 70 books and over 40 years in publishing. He is best known for interactive series such as Dragon Warriors and Fabled Lands. So welcome to the show, Dave.

Dave: Hi, Jo.

Joanna: It's good to have you on. So first up—

Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing originally, and how you've managed to stay in it for so long when so many have disappeared.Dave: The introduction was making me feel exhausted, because, yes, it is 40 years. I think the Dragon Warriors is having its 40th anniversary this year. So 41 years I've been publishing.

At the start of the 80s, there was kind of a craze for role playing, and those kind of choose your own adventure books, solo role playing. So part of it is kind of a luck factor, but you have to look for those opportunities.

All publishers at the time needed people who could do that, and there weren't very many of us that could do words and equations and things, and I got lucky with that.

I think the why I've stayed in it is the early choices were whether to join the big series like Dungeons and Dragons, and Fighting Fantasy was a big one in Britain, or to do your own thing.

I went with smaller publishers and kept my own IP and kept control of it.I think the difference there is, at first I thought, I wonder if this is a mistake. Like friends were making more and getting bigger checks than I was to start with, but then I noticed I was getting foreign rights checks a few years later that were really beginning to add up.

Of course, by keeping the IP, it means I'm still earning from those things 40 years on, because I still control them.

Joanna: That's really interesting. That decision, you said that was hard back then. Of course, we have seen in recent years, some of those comic book artists particularly are sort of trying to come back to the big companies saying, well, it's just not fair.

It seems a very strong decision to make back then, when being more independent was not really a thing.Dave: Well, maybe I picked that up from comics because I was a huge Marvel comics fan. You know, I was 10, 11, 12, and I was aware of the problems of Jack Kirby, and even Stan Lee. I mean, he was paid well by Marvel, but considering that he's spawned a multi-billion dollar industry, he wasn't paid that much.

So maybe I just thought about creative control. I think partly it was just that I like to have creative control. You want to go in and be able to say the cover should look like this, and pick your own artists, and really just feel that it's your work, not somebody else's.

So although I have done plenty of hack work as well for other IPs, I think I bring my best game to my own stuff.

Joanna: Hack work. That's an interesting phrase. Is that writing for hire, really?

Dave: Yes. I mean, I did the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle books, for example.

Joanna: That's awesome!

Dave: I know, it is. I was a comics fan, so they said, “We want you to do these comics.” This was the kid’s department at what's now Penguin Random, or whatever the hell they're called.

I said, “You know, they're not kid’s comics. They're very dark, indie, underground comics.” And they said, “Oh no, they're doing a complete reboot.” I was amazed, because I only knew the very violent original version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

I enjoyed writing them, and I later discovered I was the only author they trusted to come up with new stories, for some reason. So I ended up doing a bunch of new ones. Which, again, I think if they just said, “Take a TV episode and adapt it,” I wouldn't have been nearly as interested in doing that.

Although I did also do Thunderbirds and Stingray books, and that was mainly because I'd been such a huge fan of them when I was a kid that I would have done that for nothing. I didn't tell the publishers that.

Joanna: That's brilliant. How do you span all the genres and all the types of books?

Because you do game stuff, you do comics, you do book books. So how do you sort of see your projects, in terms of the work you choose to do?

Dave: That's a very good question. I actually didn't get into doing comics until about 10 or 12 years ago, and that was only after a games company I was working at had collapsed and a comic just came along. Random House was launching one, and they said, “Do you want to work on it?”

I actually discovered I really enjoyed writing comics, which shouldn't have been a surprise, but I don't know why I'd left it so long.

I think one of the things I probably bring is I always think that there's the element of writing, but because I'm a game designer as well —

There's an element to which —

I'm not just trying to create stories, but systems that create stories. I'm very interested in the world building and the means of having emergent narratives.I saw an interview with Robert Harris, and he was talking about how he did all the research for his historical books, and he said 80% or 90% of it the reader never gets to see. Of course, if you're writing a game, all the law might eventually become relevant, so you kind of have to put all that attention in.

You can't just think, “Well, they won't go around the back of the houses, so I can have a flat piece of plywood there.” You have to allow for the possibility that the story could go anywhere. I think that's how I've come at stories, basically.

Joanna: I love that. Systems that create stories.

As you said that, I was thinking this is something that authors of series really need. I mean, like I'm looking at book 14 in my ARKANE series, and I have lots of ideas, but I feel like this system that can create stories.

Would you give some tips for people who want to write long series? How would your lessons play into that?

Dave: Well, I think they're very lucky to be alive in the era of AI. I mean, I have that all the time. The VulcanVerse series, which I finished about a year ago, was three quarters of a million words long, and it was one of these choose your own adventure types.

Painting the continuity without AI—I mean, at that time, there wasn't a lot—but NotebookLM now would make that so much easier. Somebody asked me a question about the VulcanVerse books, where previously I would have had to go—

I got a French publisher said, “Is there a name for this mountain range?” I realized, looking for something that may not exist in the books, that's an open ended problem that could take all afternoon, right? But NotebookLM was able to tell me, “No, you never gave a name for those.”

When I presented it to ChatGPT, it said, “Would you like me to come up with some names based on the names in the area that you've already named?” So those things, I think they're really helpful because who wants to just wade through the text over and over again, looking for one specific detail of continuity?

It's like having a bible. Like if we do a game, we used to have to have the game bible, and for one massively multiplayer game, the bible was about 250 pages long. It had everything.

The physics of the world, the history of the world, the social cultures, how the language worked, how it's pronounced. Literally, everything that any designer on the team would need to access. Again, that now can just be put up effectively into an AI, and you can interrogate the AI for it. So those are very useful, I think.

Joanna: Well, then we'll get into it then because, of course, the other side of that you said, “We're lucky to be alive in an era of AI.”

I feel the same way, but some people would say, “Yes, but Dave, that means you don't have to write that anymore. Like, why do we need a Dave Morris when I can use ChatGPT to write a 250 page world bible?”

How are you dealing with AI, as someone who has a degree in physics and has been into this whole space for a while?Dave: I mean, the physics course 40 years ago, or 45 years ago, had AI as a tiny module. Now, probably physics is a tiny module. In fact, Nobel Prize winners can be AI specialists who happen to win the physics prize.

I do hear a lot of people saying, “Oh, well, you're just saying the AI will do the writing, or the AI will do all the artwork.” Of course, they're really speaking, I think, from a position of not having tried it, because that's not how anybody really uses it.

You don't just leave it running, go and get a cup of tea, come back and the book is written. It's little things like the research that I was talking about. I had a little bit the other day where I needed to find a historical reference, and I thought it was in this book by Jean de Joinville, The Chronicles of the Crusades.

I was going through the book from my shelf, and it's a big book, and you gradually begin to think, did I imagine it? I mean, the last time I looked at the book was 30 years ago, so maybe I'm misremembering.

Then I thought, well, he wrote it in the 13th century, so I can find it on Gutenberg, put it into an AI, have it read the whole thing and tell me if I'm hallucinating or not. It found it, and I thought, right, that could have been an afternoon wasted for a tiny point that I needed before I could move on to the next part of the writing.

It's like an incredibly diligent, fast, patient, research assistant. A discussion brainstorming assistant. I can't imagine how I managed without it, really.Joanna: It's funny you say that because I was talking to Jonathan, my husband, about this. I was like, this is one of those things a bit like Google. You know, when we all got Google, or the internet just in general.

Even my phone, you'll remember too when we had those Nokias, the little Nokias, and you're like, why would I ever need anything else? Like, I don't need that smartphone. What is this iPhone thing? Then, of course, that's all changed.

I did want to ask you then, because something I'm a little obsessed about at the moment is this idea of creative confidence. I hear you, and you and I both understand this, you said you don't just leave it running. You're driving it because you know you have taste.

You have your own taste, you have your own voice. You know what you like, you know things you're interested in. You can trust that.

What about people who are earlier on in their career? Maybe they're writing their first book, or maybe they're writing their first game, or whatever.

How can newer writers have creative confidence in working with AI tools?Dave: That is tricky, of course, because we've effectively trained our brains, our neural nets in our heads, to already do that work. We can see which bits are the heavy lifting we want the AI to do. I think people will just learn different ways of working.

I mean, every generation has new technologies that come along. I'm sure when the quill pen came in, people were going, “Oh, people won't have the valuable time spent sharpening the quill pen, which is important thinking time.”

I don't doubt, if I went forward 50 years, I'd find the way people are writing is very different from the way I do it. I mean, they would probably think how antiquated that I talk about it as like a research assistant.

In 50 years’ time, you might have a neural interface anyway, so it might actually be directly wired into the brain. I was more keen on that before Elon Musk went crazy because now I don't want Neuralink anywhere near my brain.

Joanna: I'm sure there'll be other brands.

Dave: I hope so. Maybe if Google would do one, I'd probably end up with that one anyway.

I think, yes, the patterns that people use. I mean, you look at, say, people like Trollope and Dickens, and they were building these huge worlds. When you see their notes, you think, how the hell did they have two pages of notes for a book, that if you drop it, you'd break a toe.

How did they keep all that in their head? Especially Trollope, when he's only doing it before he goes to work every day. I guess they just train their memories really well.

One argument is we get lazier. That was the argument against writing when it was invented. People will forget how to remember stuff. They'll just write it down. Well, we've only got so much brain space. We don't need to clutter it with unnecessary tasks, I think.

I do think it's going to be interesting. I'm sure I will be constantly amazed to see how younger writers are actually starting to use it.

Joanna: Yes, it's interesting. I mean, I keep coming back to just curiosity and the tug that I feel towards things. So you mentioned a book written in, what did you say, the 13th century or something? I'm like, oh, I'm interested in that too because, you know, Crusaders and that kind of thing. Yes, I'm interested in that.

Like, you talk about role playing games, I am just not interested. Not my thing. So I think people, they just have to feel that tug towards whatever they're curious about, and then let that be the guide.

These tools can generate lots and lots and lots of ideas, hundreds and hundreds of ideas, and—

You have to say, “that's the one,” or “that's not the one,” perhaps.Dave: Well, we've talked about, I'm now calling it Banjo Duel Days. It's like for the banjos in Deliverance, where they go so fast the strings break. I find the conversations where they exhaust me within minutes because it's throwing so much stuff at you.

I think a lot of it is keeping it on track because it always says things like, “Hey, do you want another example of X?” Like no, maybe let's not get into that because you'll pull me off course.

If I was going to be a devil's advocate about it, there is one thing about the old days where I'd find I needed to find something out, I'd get my nose in a book, and it might be an hour and a half later that I surfaced with the thing I wanted to find, but a bunch of other things I didn't know I wanted to find.

Now I can go straight to the thing and get on with the big picture, but there is that risk that you don't get that serendipitous discovery. I'm sure people will still read though. So it's just that what I don't want to do is end up researching for hours when I'm losing a bigger picture of the story.

I needed to find in one story a bunch of moral riddles. So not logic puzzles, but those kind of Porsches casket things that would have an emotional meaning, like Gawain and the Loathly Lady. It's a riddle, but it's more about feeling than fact, and it was for a medieval story.

So I asked Claude about it, and Claude goes straight to a bunch of 12th or 13th century medieval texts that I'd never heard of, and quickly found a whole bunch of these kinds of riddles. We could go through them, and 20 minutes later—it was only for almost a throw away scene—but it meant I had what I needed.

Otherwise I would have had to have gone into JSTOR and spent days looking for this stuff.

Joanna: Because we're interested in that, like we are interested in finding these things. I was writing earlier a freediving story, and I needed to get the exact type of fish that they would see at this particular dive spot in this particular place. It's very important to get the right thing.

I can use AI, but of course, there are hallucinations or whatever, which we like sometimes. I was like, no, I need to triple check this and everything. It's funny because we care about those, and—

Perhaps that's just part of it, the sort of trust that you will care about the things that are important to you.Dave: You might afterwards. I mean, people might say, “Oh, well, you won't spend the time just accidentally coming across stuff,” but maybe you will. I mean, having been told about it by Claude, there's nothing to stop me when I finish my story for the day thinking, “Well, it's on Gutenberg. I'll go and have a look at all that stuff.”

So they're worried in some way that it will kill curiosity, but I always wonder what kind of mindset frets about that.

You and I are so excited by it, and we don't think it's going to stop us being curious. We don't think it'll stop us being creative. Some people fear that, and I wonder where they're coming from for that to be a fear.

Joanna: Well, like I said, I think maybe it's this creative confidence that you and I have you. I mean, you have a lot longer than me, but I feel like I just lean into it. Obviously, you've mainly been in traditional publishing, small publishers—

Are you coming up against the anti-AI stuff in the work that you do in publishing, or are you seeing widespread adoption?Dave: Oh, you see a lot of opposition to it in role playing, and comics too. I mean, in the end, I couldn't continue my comic Mirabilis because it's a lot of artwork, and the artists have to work full time.

There was no way that the book advance would be able to pay them to work full time on 100 pages of comics. To pencil them, to ink them, to color them, we just couldn't have done that.

So I could now do that with AI, even if all we did was use the AI for the thumbnails, the layouts, which is quite a tradition in comics. The artist having got the basic composition of the shot, at least suggested to them, it saves 20% of the time. The coloring might be something, the inking, that the AI could do, but there's a lot of opposition.

Again, people say you're doing an artist out of a job, but I think, well, that's a case where the artist didn't get the job in the end because the economics of publishing just don't make it possible. Similarly, in a lot of small indie role playing publishing, they don't have a huge art budget.

Your choice would be no art or AI art.I'm doing a Cthulhu app later in the year, and what we decided in the end was—because I did some AI art, and the guy who's doing the coding was saying, “Oh, I don't want any AI art.” So I sent him some stuff and he goes, “Oh, but that's absolutely perfect.”

Joanna: Oh, but that's good.

Dave: I said, yeah. I just know how to coax stuff out of this. So in the end, what we decided to do was we'd get the AI to do one set of artwork, we would also pay a human artist to do some very TRON-like artwork.

So basically the choice will be— because we'll probably do it on Kickstarter—is you can choose whether you want AI doing human-style art, or human doing AI-style art.

Joanna: Nice.

Dave: So no artist was done out of a job.

Joanna: Hmm, this is interesting. You mentioned the economics of publishing then, and you mentioned you published first in the 80s. I feel like a lot of the myths around publishing and money, like, “Oh, if I sell my novel, I'm going to make seven figures,” come from the 80s and 90s, when people did seem to get these big deals.

What else have you seen with the changes in the economics of publishing and being an author? How has that changed?Dave: I was, as I say, lucky, because I was going into publishers who didn't know anything about game books and role playing and that kind of field. Consequently I could say, “Oh, this is the world I'm using, and I own it,” and I could get away with that. Whereas now they would try to own their own IP.

So if you're not a celebrity who's willing to do cozy murder, you know, if you just walk in off the street, you pretty much have to walk in with your IP already a bit established. So like The Expanse, or Hugh Howey with Wool Silo, as it is on TV, they'd already established there. Or The Martian, Andy Weir.

So they already established the IP, and then the publisher has to do a deal with them. If you walk in cold, you know, if I went back to being a 23 year old or whatever I was, walking into a publishing house now, they would be telling me, “We want you to use this IP, and we'll control it,” and they want to be able to fire you.

So you pretty much have to make sure you go in with cards in your hand, which will be an established audience of some kind.

Joanna: What are some of the other things that have changed in the industry that today's publishing myths are based upon?Dave: If I went right back, publishing used to have very long lunches with lots of wine. It was very kind of genteel. You'd go into one of these old publishing houses, and a bottle of wine would be got out of the fridge during the meeting and chit chat. It was a very different kind of setup.

I think they're much more aware, first of all, because they're always late to the party. I went around the book fair, whatever the year that the volcano went off. Remember that one?

Joanna: Eyjafjallajökull, whatever.

Dave: Yes. So suddenly they had to talk to authors because all the publishers weren't turning up from abroad.

I went around with an iPad, and I was showing them Mirabilis on the iPad and saying, “You see, you'd have apps,” which they didn't really understand, “and you could have a publishing, effectively, portal and let people know the series they're interested in. It would tell them there's a new book coming, and they could go for extra info.”

I remember the publishers looking at me and saying, “It is not our business to have a direct relationship with our customers. That is for booksellers.” Two or three years later, they were saying the future of publishing is to have a direct relationship. So you think, good Lord, you're always late with these things.

I mean, they're aware of that now, but it probably makes it harder for authors, as I say, to get established, but they're always going to need good ideas and that. I've been at many of those publishing meetings where they create their own ideas in house, and it's a rather deadening process.

Any committee creating stuff like that's always going to be horrible, so they definitely need people to just come in.

Usually what makes an IP interesting is the uniqueness of that person's mind, right? The rough edges that a committee would file off.So I think sticking to your guns would be the major takeaway now. Believe you've got something that the publisher won't bring to it.

Joanna: Yes, which comes back to creative confidence again.

Dave: Yes, absolutely.

Joanna: What about marketing?I feel like maybe again, back in the 90s, it was like, oh, you don't need to do any of that. But now that's changed.

Dave: I'm terrible at marketing, but luckily, I've never really had to do it because, as I say, owning all my own stuff, all I had to do was write to the publishers, invoking the clause that says it's out of print, I get it back. Then I can sell to 20 different publishers around the world on my own terms.

Again, AI is useful because, knowing I'm bad at publishing, I do occasionally ask the AI to advise me. It's much smarter than I am about “Oh, here's how you do a YouTube channel, and you've got to consider all these platforms,” that I've never even heard of, and it gives me links to them.

So I'm sure, again, I don't need to tell, I'm really of a generation that didn't know anything about that. So I mean, you know much more about it, I'm sure. People coming in right now will be fully up to speed with at least how to reach a wider market.

Joanna: Not that many people want to.

Dave: I mean, I was always of the opinion that I just like doing the creative stuff. I had publishers, game publishers or book publishers, who dealt with all the tedious bits. I mean, I'd have to go to meetings, but my job was to go there and be passionate about the ideas, not to explain it with a PowerPoint presentation.

So I kind of feel sorry for—well, unless people like marketing, there is always that problem that if all you are is very creative in writing terms, let's say, or art, and you're not good at marketing, there's a risk that some really great stuff will get missed because you don't know how to put it across.

Once we get the agentic AI, I hope it will clone me and go and do all the marketing on my behalf, with my face and my voice.Joanna: Well, you can pretty much do that already, and that then becomes the question. I was literally looking at this the other day. I have a voice clone, even when I saw you a few weeks ago, it hadn't happened. I now have a voice clone that's done my latest audiobook, Death Valley.

I've said for years, when I get a voice clone, I'm going to license it. I'm going to make an income stream from people using my voice. I didn't realize what would happen when I actually heard it. Now I've heard it, I'm like, I can't possibly license it because it's way too me. So this is really interesting.

Faced with AI Dave, I wonder how you might feel about it doing a YouTube channel for you, or whether you think you might change your mind a bit like I did?Dave: You see, I might. I look at a lot of old blog posts, and I think, now, of course, I couldn't just read them out as a script, because they're for the eye, not for the ear. But then, of course, I could say to the AI, “Take that blog post. Make it more chatty, conversational. Do it in my voice. Make a YouTube video.”

It's all my work, it's just slightly changed some of the text to make it work better for speech. I think I might. I don't know, would I find it weird? Maybe I'd have to get another voice. I think of it as my assistant, I don't think of it as “mirror, mirror on the wall.”

Occasionally I notice it remembers something I've told it. It'll say, you know, updating memory. Then I crack into that, and I think it's strange what it's chosen to remember of the things I've spoken to it about.

Joanna: It is very interesting. Although it's interesting because, again, we say, oh, we'll have a clone. We'll have a Dave clone or a Jo clone.

I don't want a clone. I want something that is a lot better than me at marketing.Dave: Well, I'm sure it'll be better than us. I mean, our last refuge may be the actual writing, because it won't have had human—well, I say it won't have had human experience, but that's the curious thing about the degree of grounding that it's getting just reading everything.

I mean, clearly it has got—I've got to be careful how I put it because of the consciousness claims—but it's got a model of the world embedded in its language systems.

So, I mean, I would certainly use it to write a sympathy note to a friend. I'm terrible at things like sympathy notes because I only deal with problems by trying to solve them.

I don't deal with problems by emoting with people because I always think, where's the solution? Just telling you I feel bad because you feel bad, I haven't added anything. That's my neuro atypical way of thinking, I guess.

I think the AI is perfectly happy to be just there for you. So it would be the touchy feely version of me, I guess. Better at the emotional side.Joanna: Which in itself is weird, right? People would say, “Oh, that voice is robotic,” meaning it has less feeling in it. Now, there are plenty of people who are robotic, or plenty of people who are not that interested in emotions.

It's actually funny, one of my first-use cases was with some of my writing, it was—

“Okay, take this and make it more emotional.”Dave: Yes, exactly, and sometimes because you're just feeling a bit tired. Like doing a blurb, I say, look, I kind of want to do the blurb, but wow, I've just finished the 750,000 words of the book, and there's a lot of stuff. You think, well, where do I start? I don't want to summarize everything.

So I say, “Give me a really exciting blurb in the style of Robert E Howard,” or something. It's way over the top, but it makes me think, okay, those are the bits it's picked out are as exciting. So I can work from there.

Actually thinking about it, wasn't there that movie more than 10 years ago now, the Spike Jones one, Her, where they've actually got an AI writing greetings cards and sympathy cards. So already, in that future, they imagined a future where the AI was better at that than people.

Joanna: Yes, and the people, I think, who object to that, are the people who already write emotional stuff really well.

One of the reasons I don't write romance is because, you know, that's not me. People are like, “Oh, but you must think that,” and I'm like, no, I literally don't think that.

Dave: Yes, definitely. While I was doing the VulcanVerse books, there was a bit where I had—it's a long story, but you can end up at Troy. I wanted the possibility, kind of in backstory, just hinted at, that Achilles, who'd never had a proper life, you know, he'd come there as a very young man, might be falling in love with you, as the main character.

I didn't want to make it overt, so I said to the AI, “What tiny subtextual hints might indicate that I could work into the conversation?” Then it went through all the lists. “These are the things humans do when they're hinting or when they're trying not to indicate they're falling in love with somebody.”

I thought, wow, I'm actually asking the machine, but it was very handy. Sometimes with just the 10 bullet pointed lists, you think, yes, okay, those are all good points.

Joanna: Yes, completely. I agree with that. So you've mentioned, what have you mentioned? Chat GPT. You've mentioned Claude. You've mentioned Google NotebookLM.

Are there any other tools that you use a lot?Dave: I use DeepSeek quite a bit. I've been using Gemini. They released the 2.5. I have to say, it's probably great for coding and maths, which is their real interest. I find it's pretty bad for writing.

I'll ask it for something, and it looks like it's paid by the word because it just gives you the longest way around and in quite horrible prose. Whereas I quite like the chattiness, the easy conversation you can have with Claude, or Chat GPT is good at that.

Yesterday, it started spitting out a load of things with some adjectives in Nepali and Japanese and Russian. I had to say, wait a minute, what? I don't speak this number of languages. What are you talking about? They go, “Oh, sorry. I'm probably getting mixed up in my training data.” So I'm a bit down on Gemini at the moment, but I use all the others.

Sometimes I'll set them on each other. I'll say, “Claude's just given me this, but I think there's probably some deeper insights. You'll notice them.” I'll tell Chat GPT. Of course, having been told that, it thinks I'm a very perceptive critic, and it role plays that.

So I always say to my wife, “Roz, you have to say please and thank you, for your own sake, to stay in the right mindset.” Don't treat it like just a Google search because when you talk to it in a certain way, you're getting it to lean towards a particular kind of response.

So saying at the start, “You are a really good book doctor, and you're about to tell me the flaws in this plot line,” you're much more likely to get some good flaws than if you just throw it at it cold.

Joanna: Absolutely. Although I am finding the ChatGPT o3 model just kind of extraordinary in that way, in that—

It will give me so much more than even I had thought to ask for.Dave: I used to find when I first started working with teams on games—so I'd written for five or six years solo. You know, you're alone with your blank page. Then working on teams of people, where even though I was the lead designer, there'd be other people who I'd have to trust to do bits of the story or the design of the game.

You get to a point where you've got them to understand the ethic of it, what you're trying to do with the game, to such an extent that they will come up with stuff before you've even had to think about it. So working with teams is fun like that, and working with AI will be fun.

I had a horrible OCR scan of something I'd written 30 years ago, and it was totally garbled with percentages and question marks. The OCR just couldn't make sense of the text.

So I gave it to Claude and said, “I need this cleaned up. It's full of these artifacts. If I spend the afternoon on it, I can do it, but that's what you are supposed to do. So don't change anything, just write it as the original document without all the crap in it.”

So it took that, but when it came back it said, “I noticed that it was a scenario for this role playing game, and so I've also formatted all of the stat blocks for the NPCs using the standard notation from that role play game.” That's fantastic. I didn't even have to ask it for that, it was just bonus content.

Joanna: That is amazing. I think what's interesting, when you and I have talked about this before —

We're just not threatened by something like this.I feel like o3 has been another jump in my perception of the whole thing. It’s that I'm not threatened that it's smarter than me, or comes up with things that I find interesting and take into other things.

I just don't feel that because there's always been people who are smarter than me. There's always people who are stronger than me, and know more than me, and all of this. So is that part of also feeling comfortable? You were working in a collaborative team, far more than most authors would do. So you're used to other minds, I guess.

Dave: Yes. I mean, it's not a new experience that there's another mind in the room that's smarter than I am.

Somebody said to me the other day, kids born today will never have known a world in which you can't talk to machines. I guess they'll just grow up expecting it.

I think the other thing is, every criticism that people level is just going to go out of date almost before they finished saying it, because it's such a quickly evolving field.There's this kind of absolute zero reinforcement training that they're talking about now, where the large language models will create their own content and judge their own data. More than that, that they'll create their own problems and assess their own response.

They can find the very edge of their ability so as to push themselves an extra couple of percent, and then you just leave them running because they don't need a human being anymore. They found that's working. They expected it to work for things like code, but it's also working for natural, ordinary language.

So I think we'll just get an exponential increase in those fields now. So like you say, the genie is out of the bottle, so there's no point in having people writing papyri about how genies are bad for the economy of Baghdad or whatever. They're there, so you've got to figure out how to get the good wishes out of them, not the bad ones.

Joanna: Yes, and I heard somebody use the term “the original sin” of training on copyright data, in the way that at some point something was done that a lot of people don't agree with. Whether or not it ends up being legal or whatever, that may go on for decades.

We're so way past that moment, that anyone who says, “Oh, well, once that court case is decided, all of this will go away.” I mean, you mentioned DeepSeek, actually, which is the Chinese model. I mean—

Even if all the American models disappear, that's not the end of it, is it?Dave: No. I know people don't like this analogy, but they don't like it not for the logical reason they say they don't like it, which is when I was a kid and I used to read comics, then I would think, I'll try drawing a hand like this artist does, or I see how he does faces. You'd study the style.

When I started writing—you know, thank goodness I've shaken it off—but I would try the style of HP Lovecraft, or whatever. I'd try those things out because that's how we learn. Then we gradually form our own styles.

So I don't think we should have one rule for us and one for the AI. Now, people will then say, “Oh, it doesn't learn the same way we do.” Well, it's training. It's learning patterns. We don't just learn patterns from public domain writing. Otherwise, all our writing would sound like we were Victorians. So it seems crazy.

If they aren't allowed to use anyone else's stuff —

They can have all of my stuff and train on it, because I want to be part of it. You know, in 2000 years’ time, some tiny, tiny little drop in this massive ocean of training will still be something that we wrote.Joanna: I totally agree. I'm uploading all my stuff all the times to all of the LMs. I want them to know me. Also, with book recommendations and shopping coming to generative AI, you want your stuff to be there so people can find it.

Last question because we're almost out of time. So, obviously we had a bit of a laugh about Neurolink, but you're a game guy, and even if you say they're glasses, or VR, AR, like—

What are you excited about seeing in gaming and fiction worlds coming up in the next decade or so?Dave: Oh, well, in gaming, I mean, I was thinking how about 15 years ago, I was working on a game for Microsoft, and it was like The Sims. We had thousands of lines of dialogue that were based on simple emotional and relationship states. So they were being accessed, and the characters would walk around.

If you weren't doing anything else, they would have these conversations. Some of the developers would come over to the coders, and say, “What level of AI are you using? Because I just listened to a conversation about going to the hairdresser, and it was really good.”

I said, there's literally no AI. It's just the emotional states and the relationships are calling from a massive bank of data. We're very good, as humans, at imagining there's some intelligence behind it, but now there can be. That's going to make, for example, NPCs in massively multiplayer games much richer.

There's always been this tendency to think of them as kind of monsters or to pre-script chunks of story, you know, the cut scene moments in a game. Those can be very good, things like The Last of Us or Thaumaturgy have got great writing, but they're really doing old writing. It's like movie writing, but in little chunks.

As I said before, I like the idea of stories as atomic level. Stories that are a cascade of events, I call it. Where stories emerge one step at a time, and the AI can do that. It can become the storyteller in real time. So I think that's going to completely transform massively multiplayer game.

You won't even know if the character you're talking to is a person or an AI, and so it means it's a complete world full of intelligences, as it were.

Joanna: Which is why some people say we're living in the simulation, right?

Dave: I heard a good argument by Yann LeCun the other day about why he didn't think we were in a simulation, but I can't remember the argument.

Joanna: It was so convincing!

Dave: Well, you know, it's, “I think I just wouldn't build it this way,” was pretty much the main argument.

Joanna: Whereas I think it doesn't matter.

Dave: It doesn't matter. No, it's like the zombie argument. Like, how do we know about consciousness? What if you had a philosophical zombie? And I go, well, we have no way of knowing what is going on in anyone else's head. You only know what's inside your own.

What difference does it make? They behave as if they're intelligent, that's all you require.

Joanna: Exactly. Oh, well, look, this has been a super fun conversation.

Where can people find you and everything you do online?Dave: Oh, wow. Okay, well, I've got a Patreon that's called Jewel Spider. Jewel and spider, all one word, which is a kind of role playing thing. It picks up from Dragon Warriors 40 years ago. The artwork is by my godson, who's the son of the guy who did the original artwork. So it's no AI there, that's all human art.

I've got a blog, which is on blogspot, believe it or not. FabledLands.blogspot.com. On Substack I've got a thing called Hallucinations and Confabulations, which originally started as a writing-type Substack, but increasingly starts talking about AI.

Later in the year, I've got that Cthulhu thing coming out, which is whispers-beyond.space. It's kind of Cthulhu 2050. So again, it gave me the opportunity to imagine what the world of 2050 will be like, and how AI and robotics will have shaped it.

I'm on Bluesky as well. I'm still on Twitter, but I'm kind of hoping that somebody else will buy it at this point.

Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Dave. That was great.

Dave: Thank you, Jo. Great being on here.

The post Crafting Story Worlds, Creative Control, And Leveraging AI Tools With Dave Morris first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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How can you embrace the process of change in life and author business, especially in an era of AI? How can you take control of what's possible and be more comfortable with uncertainty? How can you develop a career portfolio that future proofs you in changing times? April Rinne shares her insights into how we can flux.

In the intro, KDP royalty changes and printing costs; The Pre-Launch Checklist [Draft2Digital]; Audible opens AI narration to some traditional publishers [Publishing Perspectives]; US Copyright Office Fair Use;

Plus, join me for a live webinar on The AI-Assisted Artisan Author; Signing Death Valley at BookVault; Successful Self-Publishing 4th Edition; Egypt with Luke Richardson on Books and Travel.

This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn

April Rinne is a futurist, professional speaker, lawyer, and the international bestselling author of Flux: 8 Superpowers for Thriving in Constant Change.

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 human dimension of change
• The “flux mindset” — how individuals relate to and show up for change
• Changes we choose vs. those we don't control
• Immediate changes vs. slower societal shifts
• The benefits of being proactive with change
• Uncertainty that comes with AI and technology developments
• The concept of the portfolio career — more resources from April here.

You can find April at AprilRinne.com or FluxMindset.com.

Transcript of Interview with April RinneJoanna: April Rinne is a futurist, professional speaker, lawyer, and the international bestselling author of Flux: 8 Superpowers for Thriving in Constant Change. So welcome to the show, April.

April: Thank you so much, Jo. I'm delighted to be here.

Joanna: I'm so excited to talk about this, but first up, just—

Tell us a bit more about you and why you decided to write a book on this topic when you were already reaching so many people with your message.April: It's quite interesting because I think a lot of people today do know me as a futurist, trained as a lawyer, business strategy, all of that. We can have that conversation around the need I was seeing in the business world around, frankly, just how bad humans are at change and uncertainty and the unknown.

Just to be clear, this predates the pandemic by a long shot. So I actually started germinating the book, I would say, in about 2014. It was like a long time in coming, and the thesis continued to grow and deepen. Obviously, when the pandemic hit, people are like, “Oh, flux. Yes, world is in flux. I don't know what to do.”

So since 2020, there's been a real zeitgeist around it, but for me, it goes much, much, much deeper and much further back in history. So one piece is, just in the business world, in the work I was doing, how fraught people's relationship with change is.

Also, my entire career has been global. So I would work in different cultures, with different kinds of organizations, in different settings. I noticed this is a very universal issue as well. It's not as though one place or one people is better at change or worse at change.

All humans are really good at some kinds of changes and really not so good at others. So there was a cultural component. I really love getting into the cultures of change and what we can learn from one another, and the fact that everyone has something to contribute to this conversation, and everyone has something to learn. So there was that piece as well.

Then really, the real genesis—and I realize I'm getting pretty personal pretty fast, and we've just started this conversation, but I do want to kind of put it all out there. For many years, I didn't share much of my personal story, not that I didn't want to talk about it.

I was always an open book about it personally, but you have those filters between who am I professionally and who am I personally, and what parts of me do I show to what people, and all of that.

The fact is that my real interest in what do you do when you don't know what to do, and what do you do when your entire world is thrown in flux, is deeply, deeply personal.

So if I think, like, how did I get into writing a book? This goes back more than 25 years.

My first really big experience with change and uncertainty happened when I was 20, and I was at university, and I got the phone call that no one ever wants to get or expects to get, which was that both of my parents had died in a car crash.

Imagine? Like, there's my world totally flipped upside down. I was actually overseas. I was in the UK, and I got this phone call.

Everything changed and everything was uncertain. My family, my sense of self, my support system, my ideas about my career.20 is a very interesting age. I was old enough to know how to care for myself, day to day at university and whatnot, but really had no clue what my greater connection was to the world, if you will.

So I put all of that out there because had you asked me when I was 20, would I write a book about change and uncertainty? I would have said, of course not. I just need to survive.

It wasn't something that I was conscious of at the time, but it was absolutely where this journey began and where the process to ultimately write this book, and the research I did, and the perspective I have started.

Not just what I can contribute to the book, but the kinds of people and situations and changes that I can really relate to and hold space for and guide conversations around, that part.

Yes, the business part is important, the leadership, all of that. This personal piece is really deeply important to me as well. I love the ways in which Flux can reach a range of people and a range of different situations.

Joanna: I love that, and I think this is so important. As writers, there'll be people listening who write nonfiction, and bringing this personal aspect into nonfiction is so important.

ChatGPT can write a book on change, but no one can write YOUR book on change and flux.Then your personal experience, I mean, obviously terrible and awful situation, but you have grown from that and help people every day. I did want to ask specifically here, because the word “flux”, and you talk about, we need to learn how to flux in a world in flux, and you use it kind of as a verb as well.

Your parents, that situation that happened, that was like an immediate, you have to change, you have to adapt right now. Whereas I feel like what a lot of people feel at the moment in the world is almost like a slow train crash. These changes that we see coming and that are happening, but they're not that immediate phone call.

What are the different kinds of flux and change, and how can we learn how to flux?April: Yes, I love this, Jo. This is wonderful.

Also, just as a big picture—not caveat, but framing—I realize that my story, I mean, it's tragic, it's a bit extreme, it's mine. I wouldn't talk about it if I didn't really welcome having conversations about it.

What I have found, and just as a little context going back to what we're talking about earlier, is that while I had that trepidation about, like, “What will people think of me if I share this? I'm supposed to be the business person,” whatever.

Guess what? So I say this for fiction and nonfiction writers, the moment I shared that story, it was like the doors blew off. People were like, that's what we want to talk about. Because, guess what? That's what affects our ability to show up at work and in business.

It's not about what do we do, it's how are we relating to this? It's fascinating, because for me, from that point forward, it's all been about the human dimension of change. Not the change management process or framework or checklist, but like, how are we showing up for this?

So that's a really good segue to this question as well. I mean, I have to say, honestly, there are more filters on change and ways that we can parse through the different kinds of change and so forth, than even this conversation will allow for.

It gets broad and deep really fast, but let me share a couple different ways we might see change, a couple things I found extremely helpful for most people. So you are absolutely right that I hear from people pretty much every day, “I love change. It's amazing.” “I hate change. It's horrible.” You know, all of this.

I have heard from a lot of people in recent years around—you know, look at the pandemic. Look at how much we changed, look at how much we adapted and grew and what we knew.

I always have to give the caveat of, yes, because our backs were against the wall and we were forced to change. It was a global health crisis. We had no choice. Of course, we changed.

Guess what? After the immediate emergency and aftermath, did we regress in some of those habits? Did we kind of forget what we learned? You bet.

Humans are great at change or great at adaptation when it's a life or death situation.We're not that good at opting into changes, even ones we know would be good for us, because we have this preference for stasis. We have this preference for like, well, if I'm still alive, things should be okay. I don't want to create difficulty for myself. I don't want to do the work. I don't want to make myself uncomfortable.

Yet, guess what? In times of—and I'm not going to call it peace, I'm not going to call it stasis—but as you described —

When we can see change out on the horizon, we know things are coming, and we still have the opportunity to make a choice as to whether and how we show up for it better.That is the best time of all to do the work that my research and Flux focuses on. The pain comes when we don't do it, and we wait for that train crash to happen, and then we're like, oh no. It's not just more painful and more fraught, but we actually have fewer choices.

So very big picture, I just kind of want to put this framing out there because it relates not just to day-to-day change. I know we'll talk a little bit about AI. It's all kinds of changes, right?

This idea that—and I realize I'm speaking in generalizations, and so I apologize for that, I'll give kind of a caveat—but just observations and patterns I see around the world, across demographics, it's not unique to one person or one place, but there is this sense that for a lot of people, if we followed the rules and did x, y and z, that the world would look in a certain way.

Whether that's with your career, whether that's technology, whether that's relationships, happiness, satisfaction, whatever.

A lot of people are waking up and looking around and saying, the world that I was raised to believe I would inhabit looks very different than the world as it is today, and I don't like that.I'm angry about that. That's not fair.

You kind of have to have this conversation and say none of this was ever promised to us. Yes, there are all kinds of things that we were led to believe we control, that we actually don't. No single human controls, no single event controls.

Yet, at the very same time, there were a lot of things we were led to believe we don't control that we actually do. A lot of this gets into personal agency. It gets into what are those practices and skills, and I call them superpowers, that you do have control over that can help make you better adept, more aware and more ready for the changes that come our way.

I think that's what we really need to focus on because social media has done a wonderful job of kind of outsourcing our beliefs around our responsibility for how we cope with change. It's more like, “just go install this app and it'll take care of change for you.” What? It doesn't, right?

Or, “Just go buy this thing. Watch this, and your problems will be solved.” We're really talking about doing the work and getting into it. I realize I'm going on a little bit here, but I do want to kind of drill down on one of the big ones, and maybe this is where we can pull the thread a little bit more.

Back to the whole like, what changes do we love and what changes do we hate, and how do we look at this better? One of the biggest, easiest filters you can think about is on the whole, though —

Humans tend to love or enjoy the changes we choose, the changes we opt into.That can be a new relationship, a new role, a new book to write, a new restaurant, to try, you name it.

The changes we struggle with are the ones we don't control, the ones we didn't see coming.Here's where it gets interesting. It doesn't mean that the changes we choose work out. I always use the example of like that haircut you got a few years ago, right? You picked it, right?

Yet we see those changes differently, and we appreciate them because we had a say in creating them. So I think that's one place we could just start. You start pulling on that.

I think we see that again with career choices. We see that with new technologies. We see that with all kinds of disruption. For people to just pay attention to like, is there a pattern in how they feel around the changes that they do and don't control?

Joanna: Yes, that's great. It's interesting, so you really mentioned there, choice and control. You also mentioned AI, so we're going to have to talk about that.

This is one of the biggest things in the author community, and I'm sure you're seeing this in the work community, the business community, is —

For most people with AI, they feel like there is no choice and there is no control. That these technologies are doing things that impinge, let's say, or feel like they're coming for something that we thought was sacred and human only. This is difficult, right?

One of the things that I loved in the book is you say, “We can radically reshape our relationship to uncertainty,” and that you have this chapter on getting lost rather than knowing exactly what's going to happen. So maybe you could speak to that because—

We cannot necessarily choose, and we cannot control, so how do we reshape this?

April: So I love this. I'm already coming up on at least three of the eight we could talk about here. Some of it around humanity, some around technology. This question, how you framed it, is just really rich and robust. So thank you for that.

So the book, and in particular the introduction, this concept of a flux mindset that I really am trying to open a new series of conversations around how we show up for change, how we relate to change, how we obviously manage change, and what we do about it.

As I mentioned and alluded to earlier, it's less about traditional change management and like, “give me my checklist.” The implication of change management is that if something changes, I will put it into my framework, these six steps or checklists, whatever.

At the end, the implication is that the change will be quote, unquote, “managed, done, finished, we can move on.” You look around and you go, is that really how change works? Pretty much everyone today is like, no, of course not.

So we're looking at, what's the missing piece? The missing piece is this human dimension. It is this relationship to change. So acknowledging that how you show up for change, how you feel about it, how you see it, how you see what you are and aren't in control of, really matters, and we can all get better at it.

So again, back to some of the changes. There will be all kinds of changes, actually more and more and more changes. I know this will make some people listening in not so happy, but there are more changes that we don't control ahead, not fewer.

There are more sources of uncertainty, not fewer.That's not something that anyone controls. We don't know if there's more change today than in the past. There's always been change. There's always been a lot of it. You can as far back in human history, there's always been change, but the awareness of how much is changing is off the charts.

That's not really how human brains are designed to digest all of that. So the fact is, there's going to be more and more and more things in the outside world that we can't control, we can't predict, we don't get to decide whether or not they come to pass.

The more that happens, the more we have to be aware and harness and leverage all of the ways that we do control how we respond, and what we do, and how we feel, and how we think, and who we reach out to, and all of that. All of those things are 100% in our control.

We've never needed to harness those skills more than today, and it helps kind of reshape the relative balance between those things that we do and don't control.

So AI, just as one example, what I think is really rattling people about AI—yes, obviously, in a community of authors, just the AI itself is very daunting and very threatening—but —

More fundamentally, it's the uncertainty that AI represents. It's the uncertainty of we just don't know.There are aspects of it that could be amazing for authors.

There are aspects that could be extremely dangerous and foreboding for authors. It's all of these things at once.

So having the conversation around, what is it about AI that feels so threatening? For a lot of people, it's just the uncertainty.

So, there you have to say —

Okay, if I can't control the fact that AI exists, what can I control in terms of how I relate to it, and what I stand for, and what I do, and what I advocate for, and how I use it, or how I don't? Those are all choices we make. So there's nothing that's a foregone conclusion here, unless we decide to do nothing.

I think that too, it's kind of this risk of complacency. It's not that that AI is going to take someone's job. It's that someone who understands how AI works and can work effectively with it might take some of what you do, kind of thing.

I do think, and the other piece to this, there's this sense of getting lost, and just really what that superpower is about is getting comfortable in that space of not knowing. The goal of getting lost isn't to stay lost forever. It's to be comfortable in that in between, in that messy middle that's neither here nor there.

We know things are changing, but we don't yet know what comes next. That the people who do that well are the ones that understand that that messy middle in that space of not knowing is actually the point of transformation.

That's where the new insights happen. That's where the new models come about. That's the place we need to be good at being, because if we just try to race through it, we never get to the new that's truly better.

So there's that piece, and then there's also—I just want to make a quick shout out to another superpower, which is “be all the more human.”

I do think, you mentioned it already, in the world of AI, where AI can write books just like that, the irony, the maybe counterintuitive, but the beauty also is that the more bombarded our lives are by technology of all kinds, the more valuable humanity, the human touch, the human script, the human authorship, the more valuable that becomes.

The more boiler plate the AI, the more distinctive, the more valuable the individual human touch. So I just want to put that out there as well.

Joanna: Yes, and I talk about double down on being human.

At the end of the day, it's not our ability to produce thousands of words, like producing words is not the point, it's the connection with another person that is the important thing. I think that's what I try to talk about.

I want to come back to something, you were talking there about the sort of the fact that it exists, you know, that AI exists, or whatever change is going on.

I wondered, you see so many organizations and so many people who are dealing with different kinds of change, and one of the aspects I struggle with in the community are the people who just say, “Look, this will go away. We will go back to how things were. The OpenAI court case with the New York Times will be resolved, and they'll just cancel all this stuff. It will all go.”

I almost feel like this is the most concerning attitude, that we can go back. So I guess my bigger question is, can things ever go back?

How do you help organizations and individuals who are hitting this brick wall and are unable to accept change and move on?April: Well, I'm afraid that my answer here is probably going to be on the one hand, unsurprising, and on the other hand, maybe a little dissatisfying. That is simply, you're right. Unsurprising in that things aren't going back. There's never been a point at which we just go back to some sort of stasis that was before.

The pendulum swings, for sure. So you can go from one extreme to another. We've had lots of swinging back and forth, even in recent years, on many metrics. So it's not like it goes back, but it's not like the course of change is inevitable in one direction. I think that's the way to put it.

It will zig and zag and go upwards and downwards and sideways and all of that, but it doesn't really go back.

What I do think we find are sometimes when we go in one direction to an extreme, we're like, oops, let's not forget that some of this other stuff that we used to remember is also helpful.

Silly case in point, but the more addicted, I could say, we are to apps and technology and GPS, right? Running joke of like, just because we have GPS doesn't mean you shouldn't know how to get from point A to point B, just of your own reconnaissance.

So there's this sense of, it's a wonderful tool to have, let's not forget the human element of knowing how to orient yourself. So is that going back, going forward? It's combining both. So there's a lot of the combining of both, which is you can have a change, but not forget what came before it.

That doesn't mean simply going back to what came before, it's more of a blending and an emergence, a combination that creates new realities, new futures altogether.The piece about what do we do when we just feel like we're hitting a brick wall, I will say—and I'm sorry to not give a better answer—there are so many people, so many organizations, struggling with flux, struggling with change. Exactly what you're describing.

I am at a point in my career, in the development of Flux, where if that is a situation that I'm dealt with, there are so many people who recognize that the world is changing, that flux is a thing, and they want to lean into it and get help, that for me, what you've just described isn't a place where I invest too much of my energy these days.

It's a brick wall, and I know that ultimately they're going to have to change. Those will be the people who are more like that train wreck, that at some point down the road, are in a much greater point of pain.

What I'm looking at are so many people, so many organizations, who do understand that things are changing.

They do have the humility to recognize that they need help, that they can improve, and they want to lean in.So, for me, that that lower hanging fruit of where there's heat and energy, and we might not have figured it all out, and we might have some rough edges that we need to work on, but we're here and we're willing to try. That's a far better place to start a conversation around flux.

I know it sounds a bit harsh, but for me, if people aren't ready to do the work, I'm not someone who can necessarily make them ready. What I do know is that everyone, in some capacity, whether it's personal, professional, organizational, societal, is going to run into that kind of change.

I don't know exactly what it is, but it's going to happen, that is that wake up call where they say I can't just keep pretending that this isn't changing, or that this isn't an issue, or that if I just do nothing, it will go away.

At some point that will come back to kind of, not haunt you, but—well, haunt you sometimes—that will come back to bite you even worse than you thought. So it pains my heart a little bit to say that, but I do have to put it out there because I've seen that pattern play out too many times.

I know where the benefit and the value of flux work can happen. I also know that if people aren't ready or open to even the idea of improving their relationship to change or that there's anything wrong with what they're currently doing, that that's the work they need to do before my work can be really that impactful.

Joanna: That's actually very helpful. More than you know!

I do want to come to another thing that you talk about, which is the idea of the portfolio career. Again, as old business models are changing, and even old ways of marketing—for example, book marketing has changed.

How can we, as authors and writers, embrace this idea of the portfolio career and protect ourselves?April: So this one, and I love that it's authors. In my experience, there's already a more natural congruence to someone who's been just like going for climbing the career ladder. There's a different conversation.

Obviously, there are some authors that that's all they've ever done, but for most authors, in my experience, they have a broader palette that they're drawing from. They have a deep, rich, diverse, professional and personal history.

So very briefly, let me just describe the superpower itself. It's unique amongst the eight because it's the only one that focuses exclusively on kind of professional change, career change, that sort of thing. The others expand, I think, a bit further beyond.

This is really about, how do you design and own a career that is fit for a future of work in flux.

I've been working on the scene for more than 20 years, I have a portfolio career, career portfolio. We can use those terms interchangeably. Just for the record, some people like portfolio career as a tagline. Other people like this idea of a career portfolio.

We're getting at the same general gist of the shape of the career of the future. It no longer looks like a ladder you're going to climb or a path you're going to pursue in one direction, which is up.

It's something that's much more holistic, much more diverse, and much more uniquely you.So it's interesting because I've been working on this for a while. It's not a brand new concept. It predates AI by decades, and yet what's fascinating is as AI becomes more and more present in the workplace, it's actually giving more and more fodder to this idea of the portfolio.

So what we're really getting at is, when you think about the shape of our career, historically, the metaphor of a ladder is something linear, something in one direction. Do A, then B, then C, and then somehow success is at the top or at the end. That's been really lodged in our heads.

That comes from the first industrial revolution, by the way. So it's only 250 years old. You might think that after 250 years we could use an update. Much of the workplace has moved on, but somehow we still have this metaphor of a ladder in our heads.

Yet, you look around and you go, is this ladder working? I want to be really careful to say, like the ladder metaphor, the ladder shape, there's nothing inherently wrong with it. It's not bad. It works, but it works for fewer and fewer people. It's becoming a smaller and smaller piece of a much bigger pie.

The fact is, today, there has never been more ways to work, to earn income, to contribute to society, than there are now. So the ladder is just one, but like there are a jillion other ways that you can have and create a successful, rewarding career.

So the portfolio is really this new shape to accommodate these other ways of working.

I think of your portfolio as everything, absolutely everything you can do, that adds value to society. So the point here is that it's way more than your resume, way more than your CV.

When you start looking at your career capabilities in this more holistic way—and I'll come back to that in a minute—you start to be able to connect a lot more dots, you start to be able to pursue a lot more opportunities, and you start to see your career development in a much more kind of multi-dimensional way.

Let me just share a couple examples, because when you think about what's on your resume or your CV, it's a very select, identifiable set of skills. There's a form for it, right?

What's fascinating to me is that when you think about it, and when I think about the people that I admire and who are really successful at what they do—and again, success however you want to define it—many of their most valuable skills aren't the skills I even find on their resume.

They're human capabilities. They're the things that AI can't eliminate. The fact is that your resume, your CV, only contains a fraction of who you are and what you can do. So sometimes, not even the most interesting parts.

Probably my favorite example is—and I'm guessing there will be at least a few parents that are tuning in—parenting skills. Okay, parenting skills are super skills for time management, conflict negotiation, empathy. Parenting skills help us do so much in the world, and yet we're not supposed to put them on our CV.

Like, not only that, we might get dinged for it. Why? I cannot figure that out, because the kinds of skills you learn when parenting are the kinds of skills that are invaluable in the workplace that employers miss out on completely if they don't know this about you.

So that's a really good example. It's not on a resume, but that would be at the core of your portfolio. In my case, I lost my parents young. I'm really good at holding space for grief and loss. Again, you're not going to find that on my resume, a traditional resume, but it's at the heart of my portfolio, and it fuels what I do. \

So I think authors are drawing constantly from a well of different experiences, perspectives, research, you name it.

Many authors also do more than only write. So already, as I like to say, everyone already has a portfolio. We often just don't realize it. We haven't called it that. We haven't seen our career in that way.

When we do, it's kind of like a trap door opens up, and all of a sudden you just see this new universe of how you could pursue your career, and how you could combine those skills, and the kinds of roles you might be interested in pursuing, the kinds of things you might be interested in creating, and so on from there.

Just the final point is that, again, I've been working on career portfolios for more than 20 years, but we do find that for all of this, it's about what are the skills we need to thrive in a world in flux, and that portfolios are just naturally more inclined to be helpful and help you thrive in times of uncertainty.

If you've been on a ladder your whole life, and for whatever reason, change comes and that next rung on the ladder isn't there, it's really hard not to fall. It's really hard not to have a kind of career crisis or identity crisis.

Versus —

A portfolio is something you create. It's something that's uniquely yours. It's something you have agency over. So even if career change happens, you have much more agency and control over those next steps.

Joanna: That's so interesting. We're almost out of time, but just quickly on that, I have a clarifying question. So most people, when they think about portfolio careers, it's like, well, “April is an author, speaker, consultant.” You know, the words that mean other jobs. If you say something like “time management because of parenting” or “holding room for grief”—

How do we practically turn that into money coming in? Like you said, value for society?April: So there are lots of ways, and each person is unique. What I want to do right now is tell people like, “I want you to read these two articles and listen to this interview,” because this could be an entire hour-long conversation.

Joanna: We can do that in the show notes.

[Here's April's Portfolio Career articles and other podcast episodes.]

April: Perfect, because I do want to keep this relatively brief. So there are different ways you can think about it. So if you have these skills, some people who are, I would say the more entrepreneurial end of things, where they're like, “I want to go build a business, this is what I do.”

So you think about that, whether it's time management, whether it's grief and loss, there are all kinds of needs in society where this could fit an actual service-based offering venture.

It also can affect the things you write about, and the features that you write, and the things that you want to get placed, and the things you want to get paid for, and all of the rest.

It also, though, expands if you're looking at roles within an organization for many people. Again, if you look at their resume, maybe they're qualified in marketing, or maybe they're qualified in finance and strategy.

Those things are super important, but what you will find sometimes is that when you have these skills, all of a sudden you start realizing, I would be really good at a job that probably lands more—and I'm just going to say one example—in HR. It's the human dimension. It's hiring and retaining people.

I mean, organizations across the board, I will say right now, not just with portfolios, but with flux more broadly, are realizing that many of their hiring processes are not fit for a world in flux because they're not capturing the people who are actually good at change.

They don't have a way to filter for someone's, what I call, fluxiness. Their ability at navigating change well.So there are opportunities within organizations where you're like, I would have only thought of myself for a marketing job, but in fact, I might be really good over in this other department, this other function, because you've looked at yourself from that portfolio lens and realized you're a lot more qualified to do jobs that go beyond just your resume.

Now one important piece, and again, we'll put this in the show notes, I hear from people often that are like, “Well, great. I know I'm capable of more, but my resume still says I can only do X, Y and Z. How do I change that?”

There's an important connecting piece here, and it's what I call your portfolio narrative. So the fact is, you might know that you have all these skills. You might be able to draw your portfolio, cast it all out, all of that.

It is up to you to connect those dots, to tell your story as to what is on your portfolio that's not on your resume. How did you come to those skills, etc.? I say this because you can't expect other people to know that about you unless you share it.

When you share it, though, you have the opportunity, the agency, to put that narrative in the light that makes sense to you. Where this comes up the most is people who have had many different jobs.

One narrative could say, “Oh, that person looks really distracted, scattered. They're not sure what they want to do. They've done these 10 different things. We're not going to hire them because they look disconnected.”

Another—same exact person—another scenario, though, is someone who looks at that person and is like, “Oh, my gosh. This is 10 people in one. This is amazing. No person typically has this much exposure or experience. We've got to hire them straight away.”

The difference between those two scenarios is that person's ability to tell their narrative, and that idea of, like, “I did this job because I thought I was going to really enjoy it. Turned out I didn't enjoy it, but it led me over here, where I learned this other skill. Then that opened this door that I didn't expect.”

So you see how that story kind of cascades and flows. I just want to put that out there because it's an important piece of the puzzle. When you tell people that they actually get to tell their own story, that usually makes people feel pretty encouraged as well.

Joanna: Brilliant.

Where can people find you and your book online?April: So I have two websites. One is for all things me, like what do I do, and what's my story, and where do I come from, and that sort of thing. That's AprilRinne.com, so April, like the month, R-I-N-N-E.com.

Then for all things Flux, you can go to FluxMindset.com. There's all kinds of things there on the flux mindset, the superpowers.

I also do have a page there with lots and lots of other—not just podcast interviews, but I've done podcasts just on career portfolios, for example—but a lot of things that I've written. Articles, shorter reads, things like that that are also easy to share with others. So those are the two places to go.

Joanna: Well, thanks so much for your time, April. That was great.

April: Absolutely. My pleasure. Thank you all for being here.

The post Embracing Change: How To Flux with April Rinne first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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What can prose writers learn from poets about language, line breaks, and punctuation? How can we help people engage with our work in different ways? Abi Pollokoff talks about her advice from poetry.

In the intro, how to reframe success as a writer [Ink in Your Veins]; How I Write Podcast with Dean Koontz; Direct selling [SelfPublishing Advice]; Successful Self-Publishing 4th Edition; ElevenReader publishing.

This episode is sponsored by Publisher Rocket, which will help you get your book in front of more Amazon readers so you can spend less time marketing and more time writing. I use Publisher Rocket for researching book titles, categories, and keywords — for new books and for updating my backlist. Check it out at www.PublisherRocket.com

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn

Abi Pollokoff is an award-winning poet, editor, and book artist. Her debut poetry collection is night myths • • before the body.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.

Show Notes

• What makes a good poem?
• Balancing academic and fun elements in poetry
• Judging poetry on its purpose and impact, rather than on personal tastes
• Relevance of poetry techniques in prose writing
• The significance of punctuation in both poetry and prose
• The importance of page layout in poetry
• Tips for performance and spoken word poetry
• Creating and marketing a poetry collection
• Commercial realities and opportunities for poets

Find out more about Abi at AbiPollokoff.com or on Instagram @AbiPollokoff.

Transcript of Interview with Abi PollokoffJoanna: Abi Pollokoff is an award-winning poet, editor, and book artist. Her debut poetry collection is night myths • • before the body. So welcome to the show, Abi.

Abi: Thank you so much, Jo. I'm so excited to be here.

Joanna: Yes. So lots to talk about today, but first up—

Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing poetry, as well as making it part of your job, as well as your passion.Abi: In terms of how I got started, really, I started with books. I always loved reading, and reading is such a big part of living a literary life for me. I read poetry when I was young, you know, Dr Seuss, Shel Silverstein. So I found myself reading language and story that just had fun in it.

I had always loved creative writing assignments in school, and I connected with poems. I think when I really first found my way into my current understanding and relationship to poetry was in my last year of university.

I studied at Tulane University in New Orleans, and in my last year, I took a series of classes that coalesced all around the same time period of study. So I was taking a class on the French avant-garde movements of the first half of the 1900s. We were reading a lot of Dada and Surrealism.

At the same time, I was taking a poetry workshop from the poet Andy Stallings, and we used a primary course text that covered around the same time period. So I was immersed in this area of literature that was concerned with the possibilities of language, of language without self-censorship, of linguistic freedom.

It was a time when I really needed that permission to play and to explore and to trust myself. So I gave myself that permission, and it's transformed where I am today.

In terms of my job, I think I really believe deeply in the value of reciprocity. So I knew that if I wanted to have a book in the world one day to take up space on a shelf or in a mind, I wanted to be able to make space for other books to exist and for other writers to see their names in print.

I just wanted to give back into the community, as well as being a part of it.

Joanna: Oh, so much there. I'm really interested in this juxtaposition there of this academic side of poetry, and you studying it and studying literature. Then you also mentioned the word “fun,” which I thought was interesting, and also permission, and trying to get rid of that self-censorship.

I feel like poetry, in particular, has a real difficulty with academic snobbery around what is an acceptable poem. So I wondered, I mean, I know it's a matter of opinion, but—

What makes a good poem? How do you balance the academic side with the fun side and letting loose?Abi: I'm so grateful for this question because I think you're right. I feel like for such a long time, Poetry with a capital P had very specific expectations and a very specific origin story. I don't think that an academic poem is the only kind of a good poem.

Of course, everyone's allowed to have taste and preference. One person might like chocolate ice cream and one person might like vanilla, and each flavor is equally valid.

For me, I believe —

A good poem is one that makes you feel something, full stop. In your body, a good poem is one that comes alive off the page. So that can be a sonnet with the perfect volta, that turns, that twists just the perfect amount and it gives your knees a little quiver.

It can also be a five line meditation on Instagram that makes your heart stop just for a moment. Or a slam poem that just touches your pulse and makes it beat a little bit faster.

So I think, for me, that breaking out of an academic understanding of poetry is so important to acknowledge the diversity, the cultural diversity, and all of the different possibilities that make poetry beautiful and accessible and exciting for readers who themselves have varying tastes and preferences.

Joanna: How do you manage that as an editor, and kind of, like you said, making space for other writers?

It's very hard to be an editor, in general, but I would think with poetry, it would be even harder. Of course, like you said about taste, you're going to be reading a lot in your work that is not to your taste. I guess this is the thing—

How do you judge what makes a good poem if it's not to your taste?Abi: That's a great question. I think if I were thinking of this from an editor's perspective, when I'm approaching a poem as an editor, for me, the goal is to see if the poem is accomplishing its goals, rather than my goals.

So I try to actually take my taste out of it and think, well, what is the poem trying to do? Is it trying to deliver an image? Is it trying to create a metaphor or play with a specific form? If it's part of a formal lineage, how is it accomplishing that?

Think about it from the goal of the poem and the reader's experience of the poem, rather than whether I like it or not, because like can be so subjective from person to person.

So if I'm looking at it as an editor, I'm thinking about, what is the poem itself trying to do? What is the poem trying to tell me, and is it successful? If we're playing with an image, does the image land in the ways that it needs to?

If you're playing with form, and you're breaking a form, what is the impact of that formal break? How does that change the meaning of the overall message of the poem? So if you're a reader out there who is trying to experience poetry, but maybe not sure of what to make of it, I would say almost take yourself out of the equation.

Certainly consider whether you like the language, whether you like how it feels, the rhythm, but also think about, well —

What is the poem trying to do? What is the poem trying to tell me? See if that gives it the space to do that.Joanna: I just want to mention that we can hear your lovely cat in the background with the little bell. So I just thought I'd point that out to the listeners. I'm a cat person, so totally understanding. I just wanted to point that out.

Abi: That little bell is a brand new cat to my home, and he is exploring today.

Joanna: I love it. It's a nice little backdrop. Well, let's talk about this because a lot of people—I mean, I wrote some poetry. I even had a poem published back in the day, but mainly in my younger years of angst.

Like you say, about university and those teenage years, lots of very bad poetry, but it did what it needed to do at the time. Now, I and most of the listeners, we write prose.

What elements from poetry can be useful for writers of fiction, nonfiction, memoir, all of that?Abi: I love this question because I feel like prose and poetry are both playing with language. Whether you're writing fiction, or whether you're writing nonfiction, or whether you're writing poems, you're using language to communicate something.

Whether it's a story, or a feeling, or a moment, or a scene, those tools appear in all genres. So I would really think about, for prose readers and prose listeners who are out there but interested in what poetry can do, I think a really interesting tool that you might want to pay attention to or focus on is the line break.

The line break in a poem offers breath, and it gives breath and space and pivot. It gives the opportunity for a change in a poem. So even if you're writing in a prose sentence, you too have moments where you can think about, what is this pause or this break doing?

So in prose, you can do that with commas, you can do that with em dashes. You can think about how one sentence pivots from one to the next, or how a paragraph evolves from one to the next.

In a poem, you have that too, it's just in a micro level.

So thinking about, how does the line break activate thought? How does punctuation activate thought and change what the reader is experiencing? You might be able to expand that onto the macro level in a prose piece and see if those tools can kind of go back and forth across the genres.

Joanna: Yes, line breaks are really interesting. Again, coming back to literature, I think older literature has a lot to answer for with huge, dense paragraphs with no line breaks, because I presume the cost of printing or whatever.

I feel like modern—I'm thinking particularly of James Patterson, who certainly won't be to everyone's taste—but it's the master of the line break.

Pretty much every sentence in his faster paced sections, every sentence is a new line break. It's a new paragraph, basically, for every line, and it moves you much faster through the text.

As a thriller writer, I pay more attention to that, but I certainly didn't know about that as a newer writer.

What are some of the other things from poetry that might be useful?Abi: Yes, I think James Patterson is a great example of speed and digging into the line a little bit more. In poetry, you have long lines and short lines. So you might think, oh, a long line will give you an extended thought, it'll keep momentum.

I would actually say, from a poet perspective, that a short line will actually force the breath to break and give you a lot of speed. So I think there are some great parallels there between James Patterson moving from one sentence paragraph to the next, similar to a very short line moving to the next in a poem.

In terms of other tools, I would also say—to kind of drill into this even more and get even more micro with the line, and as an editor, this is also one of my favorite things to play with—but it's punctuation.

Punctuation is absolute magic in both poetry and prose.It gives you the tools as a conductor to make your lines a symphony, to build that metaphor. You can use punctuation to your advantage to build speed, to build rhythm, to build drama.

In a poem or in a piece of prose, the intentionality with which you're using specific punctuation is going to give the reader a different experience. Think about how an em dash will cut off a thought. At its core, an interruption. Or how a semicolon will kind of give you this lulling legato way of connecting one line to the next in a description.

So maybe not in the first draft, but as you're revising a piece of prose, don't just think about the nuance of the words you're using, but think about how the punctuation is connecting your ideas and how changing it will develop a different texture to the piece that you're working on.

Joanna: I love that you're geeking out around punctuation.Abi: Oh my gosh, the best!

Joanna: Which I think is hilarious, and it possibly shows you as an editor, more than anything else. I mean, there are some poets who have zero punctuation. They don't even use capital letters.

Abi: Oh, for sure.

Joanna: So there is freedom in that. The other thing I was going to mention is—and I find this very annoying because I use a lot of em dashes, always have—

There's this thing at the moment saying, if there are any dashes of any kind, M dashes etc, then it's clearly written by AI. I don't know if you've seen this?

Abi: I haven't, but I also have big feelings about it.

Joanna: Yes, I have big feelings because I use them. I do work with some AI tools, but I'm like, no, that doesn't mean it's AI. I mean that is just something that we use.

I feel like the people who are maybe spreading that kind of thing—apparently, there's this whole thing on TikTok about dashes, if anyone's using a dash of any kind. I'm like, no, no, no. I think you just don't know enough about this.

Abi: Oh my gosh. Oh, so many feelings. I'm so glad you mentioned this. I find this so interesting that the internet is claiming em dashes as an AI signature.

I would also maybe push on that and say, while I don't know, of course, everything that has gone into training the language learning models that AI uses, but I know that there have been big conversations about how certain AI tools have mined literature for their uses of language.

Perhaps AI is using all these em dashes because humans have been doing it first, and thoroughly.Joanna: Exactly.

Abi: So I think I disagree about this conversation on TikTok, but I'm not on TikTok, so I don't know what everyone is saying.

Joanna: I only reacted to it, a bit like you, because it's one of my favorite forms of punctuation, which, in itself, is kind of funny. I do want to ask you, so coming back to things like punctuation, line breaks, these things, to me, are part of the way words are laid out on a page.

So I do buy poetry books. Laying things out and using words in different ways, sometimes they're made into kind of sculptures on a page, right, in a poetry book. There's that. So maybe talk about that.

How important is page layout for poetry? Abi: This is something that I think every poet will do differently, and so I don't think there's a right or a wrong answer here. I will say that I am definitely a poet who plays with the page and plays with space on the page.

If any readers out there are interested, you'll see this a lot in my book, where I'm using the page to capture different elements of the story. I think that space on the page is so important because it gives the reader breath, and it also gives the reader pause and silence.

In my thoughts, I'm a bit of a maximalist, but on the page, you have the opportunity to give the reader a moment of what's not there. To have a poem expanded in a way that makes the poem ask, and hopefully inspires the reader to ask, “Well, this is what's being said, but what is not being said?”

What is the expanse of the page, and the page's landscape, and the magnitude and difference between the quantity of words and the quantity of space, what is that doing for the overall argument of the poem?

For me, I like to use the page in different ways to indicate different speakers. So for me, placing a poem in one section of a page might help develop polyvocality, where I have multiple threads of conversations happening over the course of a project.

On the line, again, it's about breath. It's about space. It's about giving the poem room to breathe and to find its way into the thought as the reader is also reading their way into the thought as well.

Joanna: Yes, it is interesting. I will open poetry books, and I have quite a lot of poetry books, and I will open them, and sometimes I will be drawn to something shorter or something laid out in a way that attracts me even before I read the words. So I find that important as somebody who primarily reads poetry.

The other side of this is the power of spoken word. You mentioned slam poems earlier. I have been to a couple of slam nights, and that is completely different. Sometimes it's kind of more almost like rap kind of poetry.

It's certainly a lot of performance. It's just a completely different form of using your words. So what are your thoughts on that?

Does a poet who loves the words laid out on a page also do slam poetry, or are these different kinds of poets?Abi: I would say yes and no.

I mean, there's certainly poets who are drawn to a more capital P Poetry, academic style that we were talking about. There are also poets who are really going to be invested in the performance and in the live experience of poetry.

I love that you've been to some slams and have explored that because I think for a long time, there's been a very strong division between what counts as “poetry” and how is slam a part of that.

For me, I think slam is an incredibly important part of the richness of the poetry landscape. I am not a slam poet, but I have been to many slams in the past, and I think they're incredible.

Slam poetry and performance poetry, in that sense, takes an entirely different kind of craft and structure to deliver feeling to a listener.I think the translation of a performance piece onto the page is so difficult because of the rawness and the humanity and the performance of it. I think that there are some presses that actually do a really great job of bringing slam into the page, and the one that I'm thinking of most is Button Poetry.

They have a very great YouTube channel where they have many slam videos, and they are a great tool and resource for slam poets, and all poets, but they do a great job of bringing slam poets into book form.

Sometimes that takes revision, and sometimes that's just a matter of translating, but I think that it's all part of the experience of poetry.

Prose readers out there, you might be listening and say, “Every time I've encountered poetry, I don't get it. It's not for me. I don't see it. I don't understand it.” Maybe an experience in school made you not like it, which is, of course, very understandable.

Joanna: Very common.

Abi: So common, yes. Maybe it's just because you haven't found the right type of poetry. Slam might be the poetry that gets you.

Joanna: Yes, and I mean, I guess the word slam is a kind of more violent word. Then there's, as you say, performance poets. It's a continuum, right? I'm thinking of a British poet, Kae Tempest. I don't know if you've heard of her. She even does sort of epic, long epics.

Abi: Amazing.

Joanna: A lot of these performance poets memorize their work, it feels. So they're not really reading from the page. This is something that totally freaks me out, by the way, and I have barely ever read any of my work in public, even on a podcast. I find it extremely difficult. So as a poet yourself—

What are your tips for doing reading or performance?Abi: So, I'm so excited to check out this writer that you mentioned, and hopefully our conversation will inspire you to share one of your poems on a future podcast. That would be a challenge—

Joanna: Very unlikely!

Abi: Something to think about, maybe for the future. It is difficult. I think so many writers are introverts. I'm an introvert, but I still have to get up there and talk to people.

Something that I love about reading poems out loud is that I feel like a poem, it exists on the page, but going back to what we were talking about earlier, about what makes a good poem, a poem comes alive in the body.

I think reading a poem out loud is a great tool for revision, so you can feel where you stumble when you're reading it out loud, or where your breath speeds up. Prose writers too, when you're revising a paragraph, read it out loud. See how it feels, see how it lives out in the air.

Then stepping in front of an audience and doing that is a whole other level. It's a whole other piece of the puzzle. I have maybe two ways of thinking about it.

The first is to give myself permission to take a deep breath and to just sink into the poem. To not necessarily focus on the people who might be staring at me, but to think about the poem itself, its texture, and by diving deeper into the poem, letting it come out and reach an audience.

The other tool I have, very practically, is a tool that I have read about in terms of, if you're ever giving a job interview, this is helpful. I saw this happen on an episode of Grey's Anatomy, if anyone is a Grey's Anatomy water.

Joanna: I am. Yes.

Abi: Love it amazing. Okay, do you remember the episode where Amelia Shepherd was going to do the very intense brain surgery on another doctor, and she and her resident at the time did the super the Superman pose?

Joanna: Oh, the Superman pose. Yes, the strong pose.

Abi: Exactly. It's where you're standing, your feet are shoulder width apart, your hands are on your hips. You're looking up into the sky as if you're a superhero about to save a city.

It's actually scientifically proven that it gives you, I don't know if it's adrenaline or just subliminal confidence, but it's a tool that gives you the ability to back yourself.

So if you're giving a reading, or giving a performance, or going into a job interview, or preparing for a hard conversation, take five seconds to stand with your hands on your hips, or sit with very good posture, and take a couple of deep breaths, and then begin. This might not work for everybody, but sometimes it's helpful for me.

Joanna: Yes, and there's actually a talk on that, a TED talk. I think it's Amy Cuddy who did a talk on that, and it definitely sort of went around.

Again, I think for introverts, it's whatever helps you get started. I often find that I'm most nervous just before I go on stage, and still, as a professional speaker, I still get very nervous, get like a bad stomach and all of that kind of thing. I think it's also just a case of acknowledging this is just a human thing, but—

If we want to get our words out there, then it just has to be done.Abi: Absolutely. It's human. Whether you are delivering a poem or having a conversation, nerves are human. If you weren't nervous, it's you wouldn't care, right? So I think it's a beautiful sign to be a little nervous.

Something that I was always told when I was young was to slow down because when I get nervous, I talk fast. So slow down, enunciate, give yourself a deep breath, and let yourself be human and be vulnerable. Say, “I'm nervous.” Right before we started talking, I said, “Jo, I'm a little nervous.”

So it's okay to be vulnerable. I think in today's world, vulnerability is a really beautiful tool for connecting with people. So let yourself be human, and don't force yourself to be someone that you're not.

Joanna: Yes. So let's get back to the collection. I'm thinking of doing a short story collection, so obviously a little bit different, but I was wondering about how did you choose the poems that went into the collection?

Did you come up with the theme and then write to it, or did the collection emerge from what you already had?Abi: I'm so excited about your short story collection, so I definitely want to hear more about that.

For me, the collection, it started out kind of as a surprise, actually. I've been in a couple of writing groups for a few years now, and around the same time, two of my writing groups wanted to swap manuscripts instead of individual poems.

So everyone at the time had these projects that were clear projects, and I thought I just had some poems. I wasn't quite sure if they were anything, but I pulled them into a file, and I realized that I had 50 pages, which is on track for a full length book.

For poetry, you often need 48 to 60 pages as a minimum, and so I was in that ballpark. I used this opportunity to get feedback from my writing groups because a set of 50 pages isn't necessarily a “book”, but I was able to use these tools to identify the key themes at the heart of the project.

Then that set me down the path of writing and revising into the work that had already emerged. So for me, it kind of took my community to say, “No, this actually is on its way to being something. It has legs.”

Then once we were able to say, oh, well, I'm thinking about womanhood. I'm thinking about societal expectations. I'm thinking about self-actualization. Then I was able to go in and say, well, what are the holes in the story? Because even a poetry collection can have a narrative arc from poem to poem.

So what are the holes in the story? What images are popping up consistently that I might want to do a little bit more work with? From there, I was able to set on a path to revision into the book itself. So, for me, I kind of sidestepped my way in.

I'm curious for you, have you identified a theme first? Or are you just starting to look at a bigger set of short stories you've already been working on?

Joanna: Well, the main reason is because all of my short stories are in ebook and audio, and I really want to do a special print edition. A lot of us now use Kickstarter to do really gorgeous editions.

So I guess I'm more looking for a theme. I am thinking of writing a couple of extra ones that will be exclusive that are around the theme that has emerged.

What was really useful for me was to put all of them into NotebookLM—I don't if you've heard of Notebook LM, Google's notebook—and say, “What are the themes across these stories?” It was able to pull stuff out of my work that it's really hard to see in your own work.

Like you said, you had a community do it. I'm not very good at groups, to be honest.

Abi: That's fair. I mean, I think it takes sometimes extra eyes. It's always harder to edit yourself than it is to edit other people. It's harder to write marketing text for yourself than it is to write it for someone else, because when you're doing it for yourself—it sounds like you may have experienced this too—you're too close.

It's too personal to be able to say, what is this actually doing? What does this actually mean? So I love it. If you're not a person who writes with writing groups, which is, of course, a completely valid experience of being a writer, use the tools that are out there.

I think that AI can be a starting place for so many things. I'm a pretty firm believer that it shouldn't necessarily be the ending place, but I think if you're using it to start and say, “Well, what are the themes that I'm I've naturally gravitated towards?” Use that as your 10,000 foot view.

Then you can go back in and say, oh, I see that happening here, but I want to expand it. Or I think this part of this theme is missing, so that's what I'm going to write my way into.

I think that's a great use of a tool that's becoming very widespread and accessible for many folks who might not have a built in writing community, or choose not to have a group of people to have that feedback from.

Joanna: It came up with some great titles as well. This is the other thing, right? Doing a title of a collection, you could just say, “Poems about womanhood,” like you said. I mean, that's just not good enough.

How did you come up with your title for the collection?Abi: This was one of the last things that I found for my book. I went through many other titles before I landed on this one. What I did was, I actually wrote out on a piece of paper every single title of all of my poems, and I circled the words that came up and the themes that came up and the phrases.

So I kind of jigsaw puzzled my way into my book's title. So if anyone out there picks it up, which I hope you do, the title of my book is night myths • • before the body.

So my challenge or my puzzle will be, when you're diving into the book, where do you see these words popping up? Where do they come from? And how does that extraction into the book's title reflect back on the body of the book itself?

Joanna: Yes, titles are tough at the best of times. Although I would say, just to be clear, like with poetry books, especially, I couldn't tell you the title of most poetry books that I've bought from people.

One of my favorite poets is Ben Okri. He's Nigerian-British, and I couldn't tell you most of his book titles, but I remember his poems, and I know his name. So I think that's probably more useful, right?

People remember your name and they like your poetry.Abi: Absolutely, and that you're remembering the poems. That's clear that it's a poem that stuck with you, and you know who wrote it. I hope if Ben's out here listening—

Joanna: Very unlikely.

Abi: You never know. That's beautiful because we're doing this work, and we're putting ourselves on the page, and the goal, the dream, is that our work impacts someone, and it resonates with them. It's the piece of writing that they needed to read that day for whatever reason, for whatever is going on in their lives.

It's clear that you read Ben's poem at a time when it just hit you, you needed it. I think that's the biggest gift of all.

So everybody is going to have a different mind, and you might be a person who has total photographic recall. You can see the book cover in your mind. You can see the book title. You might be able to read a poem once and memorize it. Many of us are not like that, and so if you can remember the poems and the writer, that's gold.

Joanna: Well, on that, as you were talking there, I was thinking about Ben Okri, and I've seen him read his poetry a number of times. The particular occasion was back in 1999 and I didn't know what to do with my life, and I heard him read some of his poems, and it really helped me make a change in my life.

It's interesting because I have all of his poetry books in print, but it was actually hearing him in person and listening to his voice that made it resonate. So I just wanted to say that to encourage people, which is—

You don't know how you impact people's lives when you put your poems out there.Abi: That's beautiful. I love that. I love that it took, again, a human experience of being in a room and hearing a voice. I think that, of anything, is maybe the call to action of finding a reading in your local community. Maybe at the library folks are having a reading, or maybe at a bookstore.

I think right now, the literary community is in in such need of support. I would say, especially in the US, where it's important to go out and support your local businesses, to support your readers and your writers.

So go to a reading, even if you don't know the writers, because you never know what's going to impact you and how you're going to feel about it.

Joanna: Well, all of this is absolutely wonderful, and we obviously want people to write poetry for whatever reason, but I do have to tackle the sort of commercial side of it.

You work in the industry as a business as well. You work for a company, and you publish books, and people have to make money from books. Poets have to make money somehow, even though most of them don't make money from poetry, obviously, but some poets are doing absolutely incredibly well.

I think Rupi Kaur, one of the sort of original Insta poets, her Milk and Honey collection, it's everywhere. In the indie author community, we have Pierre Jeanty, who's been on this show. Haitian-American, sells on Shopify. Both of these are seven figure poets, which is just incredible. They make far more money than I do!

What is the commercial reality for most poets, and what are some ways that they can perhaps make some more income from their poetry?Abi: This is a great question, and it's a hard one to answer because the commercial reality is not great. I would say that that Rupi and Pierre are incredible exceptions.

I love that their work has brought them commercial success and financial success because it's also brought more awareness and more attention into the poetry landscape.

Prose books are so visible and so prominent, and poetry is visible, but it's not quite as financially viable as prose. So it's just not a great money maker most of the time.

That said, I would say that there are some ways that you can engage with poetry and find a form of supplementing your income if that's something that is necessary for you. More and more journals are offering poets money for publishing poems, which is so important and beautiful.

So you might see a journal offering $50 for a poem, or $100. I'm not quite sure in the UK what that would translate into in terms of pounds, but I believe that there are some UK journals as well who say, “When we accept your poem, we'll offer you some financial remuneration.” That's on the poem level, the individual poem level.

Of course, when you're publishing a book, there are a couple of avenues. You may receive in advance, which is an upfront financial sum that then when you sell books, you kind of don't earn anything until you've made that money back.

Or royalties, which is where when somebody buys your book, a percentage of that goes back to you as the author.

Presses also have to balance their budgets, because the cost of paper has changed, the ink has changed, printing costs, the team for the press itself. So there's a very tight budget when it comes to the publishing landscape in general, and I would say, especially for poetry.

There's just less money exchanging hands, except in the case of maybe Rupi and Pierre, who have incredible breakthroughs, and they've done a lot, I think, to really change that landscape. They've made a big difference.

The best way to encourage presses to keep publishing and to be able to keep paying their authors is really to be buying books.So if you're a writer out there, even if you're not making that money back by buying a book, buy the authors books because it lets the press keep going, and it lets the press continue to offer the funds to their writers. That's maybe the biggest tip, I would say.

I think we live in a really creative economy world right now. We have people having multiple side hustles, or being able to monetize so many different aspects of their writing.

Get creative. If you have an idea and you haven't seen it done, give it a try. I think there's so many ways that folks can change their financial picture.

I think Pierre using Shopify is a great example of that, and Rupi on Instagram. So many different ways of getting that visibility that then can translate into financial success.

Joanna: Yes, I guess it goes back to what you were saying at the beginning around the permission to play.

It has to be the permission to play with the possibilities of the business, as well as the possibilities of the art — because I guess we create also because we want to share that with the world.

We do have more opportunity than ever to put our work out there. I guess the final question for you is, with night myths, what are you doing to get your work out there? Obviously, you're pitching some podcasts, but you know—

What's your plan for marketing?Abi: Oh, that's great. Here I am. I'm talking to you. Everybody is going to be different, and I would say, when it comes to marketing, whether it's a poetry book or a prose book, there are so many ways to do it.

There's no one right way because the right way is the way that's going to work best for you, for your network, for your community, for the energy that you have, and the time, So many writers have other day jobs, have maybe their parents, have other commitments that take time out of your day.

So what I would say is —

If you are thinking about marketing a book, think about what your strengths are and what your time is. Follow that thread because there's never going to be an end date and nothing is ever going to be enough. So figure out what the right thing is for you, and then lean into that.

For me, I started by making a website so people know where to find me online. I think a website is a great place to start if you don't really know where to begin. It can be simple. It can have a photo of you, a short bio, if you've published anything, links to those, and ideally a contact email or form.

This way, it gives you kind of a literary home base on the internet. There are great tools like Squarespace or Wix that have templates that are really easy to replicate and personalize. So don't start off fancy, but give yourself a virtual presence and use that as your foundation to build.

So I started with my website, and I also have been thinking about a couple of different avenues that balance my skill set and then also my time. So I have been posting on Instagram. I would encourage poets to choose maybe one platform where they feel comfortable.

Social media can pose its own challenges, so it doesn't have to be one or the other. It can be Substack. It can be Bluesky. It doesn't have to be everything.

If you're not a big social media person, start with one and just start being visible, because that's going to be a way for people to get to know you as a writer, as a human. Especially if you're an introvert, putting yourself out there in a way that gives you a little bit of breathing room.

So start with social media, and if you're not comfortable talking about yourself, it's a great opportunity to shout out other people, to talk about what you're reading, who has an event that you're going to, what book have you read recently. By building a community of readers, you'll get people who are excited about your work.

So that is a tool that I've been leveraging. For me, as I shift into marketing my own book, I am working on setting up readings. So if there are any listeners in the US especially, I don't have any plans to come to the UK yet, but the future is bright.

So set up readings wherever you like to shop for books. In your local bookstore, go to them say, “Hey, I have a book coming out,” or, “I'm a poet, I'd love to be a part of an event.” That's a great way to very tangibly connect with people.

I'm also reaching out to the other networks of communities that I have. So, school affiliations, alumni groups, professional orgs.

I'm thinking about the ecosystem of like-minded people who might be interested in my work. That could be practically, it could be thematically, those are great ways to talk about why you're doing what you're doing.

So with you, Jo, I was so excited to talk with you, because I love how you have this balance of writers talking about craft and also talking about the publishing arm and the business of being a writer.

I loved how that connected for me with my work as an editor, and working a lot with prose, actually, but writing poems on my own time. So I thought, thematically, I really wanted to speak with you. So thinking about what's out there in the world, doing research.

AI is a great tool for this too, actually. To be able to say, “Hey, AI, give me a list of 30 podcasts that are centered around feminism,” or whatever your themes are, and then reaching out. The worst that can happen is they say no, and that's okay. It's a numbers game.

Joanna: It is a numbers game, except that when you pitched me, like you found things we had in common, and so your pitch was effective. So I would say to people, it's better to take those 30, then go and investigate those 30, have a listen, and then only pitch the five that actually resonate with you.

Every day now, I don't know what happened, but I guess a year or so ago, traditional publishing discovered podcasting. I get five to ten pitches a day now, from most of which are completely inappropriate.

Then I got your pitch, and I'd never heard of you, and I was like, this is perfect. I accepted you really quickly. I was like, yes, I want to talk about this. So a good pitch where you feel something in common with the host is so effective. I've really loved talking to you. So let's tell people—

Where can they find you and your book online?Abi: Amazing. Thank you. This has been such a fun conversation, and I'm just so honored. As you said, we didn't know each other before this, so it was so beautiful to get to know you and your work, and I'm so appreciative of it. I've loved getting to really dive in and listen even more to your podcast.

As for me, I am findable on Instagram. It's going to be @AbiPollokoff, just my name. You can also, I would please encourage you to find my book out there in the world. It's called night myths • • before the body.

It's an eco-feminist look at womanhood, and the body, and self-empowerment. So I hope it will resonate. Find them from your local bookstore. If a book is too much, which, of course, I understand, you've got to balance your budget, please follow me on Instagram.

I also have some poems available on the web, which you can find on my website, which is AbiPollokoff.com.

Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Abi. That was great.

Abi: Thank you so much, Jo. It's such an honor and a treat to be here and talk with you today.

The post Language, Line Breaks, And Punctuation. Poetry With Abi Pollokoff first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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How can you explore the edges of your creativity to find your next becoming? How can you turn the evolution of your life into art? Pia Leichter talks about her creative courage, different ways to rest, and intuitive book marketing in this interview.

In the intro, Lessons from Six Years Writing Full-time [Sacha Black]; Reflections on big shifts in life, creativity, and mindset; Spotify Transitions Select Audiobook Distribution Services to INaudio [FindawayVoices]; Death Valley fulfilment; and Successful Self-Publishing Fourth Edition; Writing memoir and non-fiction — I'm on the Writers Ink Podcast; plus Lindisfarne on Books and Travel.

Plus, AI can be used in films that could win Oscars [The Week]; and Executive Order to advance artificial intelligence education in the USA [White House].

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

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn

Pia Leichter is an award-winning creative director and coach, founder of the Kollektiv Studio, and the author of Welcome to the Creative Club: Make Life Your Biggest Art Project.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.

Show Notes

• What does a creative director do?
• Overcoming the fear of writing a book
• How to take control and not let life just happen
• Tapping into your next becoming
• Type 1 fun vs. type 2 fun
• The necessity of rest for creativity
• Marrying artistic expression and commercial objectives
• Changing the scarcity script around books and money

You can find Pia at kollektiv.studio.

Transcript of Interview with Pia LeichterJoanna: Pia Leichter is an award-winning creative director and coach, founder of the Kollektiv Studio and the author of Welcome to the Creative Club: Make Life Your Biggest Art Project. So welcome to the show, Pia.

Pia: Thanks so much, Jo, for having me on. I'm excited to be here.

Joanna: Oh, yes. So first up, tell us a bit more about you.

What is a creative director, anyway? What part does writing play in your business?Pia: A creative director typically can work in different creative fields, such as advertising, film, fashion, you name it. I came from the world of marketing and advertising, so in that landscape, a creative director oversees the creative vision for different brands and different projects in the studio.

They marry artistic expression with commercial objectives. They also manage a creative team and kind of blends magic and logic, strategy and creativity, to create an impact in our clients’ lives and the lives of their consumers.

Joanna: That sounds pretty cool.

Pia: It was pretty cool. It was good. It was really good. It's where I spent well over a decade. So it was very rewarding work. I mean, as a creative director, at least in that world, you can have either a design background or a writing background. So I was like the copywriting background.

Joanna: Okay, and what is it you do now then?

Pia: Now I work as a creative partner, working with— Well, I think the simplest way of putting it is, I help people create. I help people create brands, businesses, dreams, art, what they're being called to create. People who do things differently to make a difference, those are generally the people I work with.

I call it sort of a creative midwife. So I help people at different sticky junctures in life, often when we're at this creative evolution point, when what we used to create was successful wonderful, whether it's a business or a creative venture, but it's just not floating our boat anymore.

We're just being called to do something different, and that can be both thrilling and terrifying at the same time, because it's like —

What is going to come next? What is my next becoming? What is my next creation? I often partner with creatives that are at that point.Then what's great about it is I have different tools at my disposal. I'm also a certified coach, so I bring together coaching and creativity in the form of narrative development, storytelling, brand strategy, to actually help bring whatever it is they're looking to bring to life into the world.

So I get to combine both of those things, depending on where people are in their journey.

Joanna: Why this book, then? Because it sounds like you've got lots of different strands to your business and your creative life.

Why write this book? What part does that play?Pia: That's a fantastic question. When I left my agency, the last agency I worked for, I think it was 2021, my mother passed away suddenly. She gave me the passing gift of courage and a reminder that this life is finite and we just got one, as far as we know.

I had been flirting with the idea of channeling my creativity into building my own business for a long time, but I was comfortable. Things were good, good enough. Good enough. So I think I was scared too, of like what would that next thing be? What would I even do? How would I survive? What does it look like?

So that kind of kept me stuck, speaking of creative evolutions. So when she passed, it was like, hey, what am I waiting for? If it's not now, then when? So I left that job, and I launched Kollektiv Studio.

That was an epiphany moment for me, like, wow, I don't just get to create other people's dreams, I get to create my own. Then from there, it was just a wild and wonderful and weird journey into entrepreneurship.

Then the second epiphany with the book came from getting a call from my hybrid publisher, the founder, also great salesman and great writer. He asked, you know, have you ever thought of writing a book?

I believe everyone has a book in them, but I definitely have thought about it. I had a conversation with him, and he shared a stat like, 90-something percent of people that say no now to writing a book will actually never write that book because if not now, when?

So I had my second big light bulb moment of, “Wow, I don't only get to channel my creativity into commercial endeavors. I actually get to channel it just to make art, to make things, to write a book that feels important or meaningful to me.” A whole new path opened up to me.

So that's what led me to write the book, and I'm really glad I did. It was a really transformative process. It took me places I never thought I would go, I couldn't even imagine going. That wasn't necessarily the intention, but it was definitely a growth opportunity, and still continues to be.

Joanna: Yes, because it's definitely a combination of self-help and memoir. I've also written a memoir, Pilgrimage, and it was also one of the, I guess, hardest books that I've written, and transformative, as you say.

For people who feel like they want to write something so personal, but they're holding back because it is work in many ways, and it's a journey, and as you say, transformative—

How can you encourage people to write their book? How can they get over the fear of everything that could happen because of it, both internally and externally?Pia: Well, asking a really powerful question is, what happens if I don't write it? What does life look like? What then? What happens if I don't write it today, or in a year, or three years?

It could be writing a book, and it could also just be doing that thing that's really calling you. Then what? Then you keep doing exactly what you're doing. At some point, the desire to create that book, to write that book, to create whatever that thing might be, becomes stronger than the fear. That would be one thing.

The second thing is remembering that you don't have to do it alone. I think what held me back was this thought, this myth of the lone genius writer in a cabin in the woods. Creating it all and their typewriter, and it's just all of the words just flowing out.

I thought, oh my gosh, I don't know if I'm going to be able to just do that, like just spit out a book. It turns out, just like creativity is collaboration, I didn't have to. There are wonderful editors and people along the way that help us create a book, create anything. We don't have to do it alone, and we often don't do it alone. So there's that.

Then the third thing that helped me was remembering that —

We all have a hidden expiration date. Nothing's guaranteed. So we got this one life, we might as well live it in the way that feels most fulfilling, and whatever makes you feel most alive.

Often, what makes at least me feel most alive is also a little frightening but thrilling. I feel like, gosh, I'm doing it, I'm here, I'm living this thing. That feels really important. So those are three potential motivators for starting to write something deeply personal or vulnerable to you.

Joanna: I guess another reason is kind of taking control of things, looking back and kind of taking control of the narrative. As you say, you work with people in the narrative coaching side.

In the book, there was a line that said, “I used to think life was happening to me.” I feel like a lot of people feel that right now. There's some big political things going on, big historical things. There's AI going on. It feels like history is happening to us. So if people are feeling that—

How can people take control and not just let life happen?Pia: Well, it's remembering that we're always at choice. Even when it might not feel like we have a choice in the direction of our lives, we do. We get to choose. We get to choose what we want to do next at every point. I think that's easy to forget in the overwhelm of information and the current political climate.

With all of the really fast paced changes that are occurring in the world, it can feel really overwhelming. I think just remembering that you get to choose. You also get to choose to not listen to the news in the morning, if that feels like sensory overload or too much.

You get to choose to pick up a pen, and you get to choose how you want to direct your next scene. You get to decide. I don't know, for me, that feels like creative agency. That feels like creative power, knowing that you are creating your experience, that you are an active protagonist main player in this game called life.

I think taking some kind of action. First —

Get clear on what it is that you might really want to do — and that can be something small or large, right? Then actually taking action to make it real is a way of creating evidence for yourself.

Like, yes, I get to choose. I can take a day off of work tomorrow and go finally see that art exhibit and eat that cardamon bun I've been dying to eat. I can do these things. That can feel like beautiful pockets of freedom. I think the more that we practice that creative director of our lives muscle, the stronger it gets.

Joanna: Yes, because, as you say, you can do small things. It doesn't have to be changing everything. I do actually want to come back, because you said earlier about this sort of question, what is my next becoming? Then you just said you need to get clear on what you want to do. These are really, really big questions.

I recently turned 50. It was one of those moments like everyone has. I've been a writer now for nearly 20 years, and this sort of, “what is my next becoming?” is something that I've been thinking about. I know people listening, because the way the author life and the author industry is really changing, like—

‘What is the next becoming?' How do we tap into that question? How do we explore that question?Pia: Well, I think we get closer to what feels like fun. Sometimes these questions can feel so big, and it feels weighty and meaty and important, and yes, of course they are, but also we get to move towards what feels really fun, like what lights us up. It could be anything.

I feel like they're insights into our own becoming within that, within the things that we gravitate towards that make us feel alive, or make us feel joyful. It can be either small or big, but just getting curious about what really feels like fun.

When was the last time you really had fun making something, doing something? Is there a red thread? Is there a pattern that you might be able to notice? I feel like there's something in that.

For me, recently, I've been having a lot of fun working where there was like synchronicity. I started working with someone who actually read the book, who we became friends, who's a fantastic musician and producer.

We decided to take the poems out from my book and create a spoken word album, and he's creating tracks for each poem. That feels like so much fun. I don't know, maybe the next becoming is just allowing myself to create what is lighting me up, and what makes me smile, and what feels good, what feels warm.

It's like, ooh! It might not make the Billboard Top 100 list, but it's really great to be able to co-create with someone who can take your work in a completely different direction, and the process of doing it makes it into something else. Like the poems now become something else.

So I don't know, it's just a small example of what feels like fun, and it was a nice reminder that, yes, move towards that. That feels fulfilling, and then let's figure out what the next thing might feel like. Instead of sort of this big, definitive answer, like, what will the next 50 years of my life look like?

I think we are fluid, changeable beings. We will change, luckily. That's the beauty. So maybe just reconnecting to what feels joyful right now can be a first step. I'm also turning 50 next month, so I feel you.

Joanna: Well, there we go. Well, I guess I find the word “fun” quite difficult, I must say. I think it's my upbringing, but there are things that I enjoy. It's interesting with writing. I don't know if you've heard of type 1 fun and type 2 fun. Have you heard of this?

Pia: No, tell me, please.

Joanna: Okay, so type 1 fun is, like you said, it's kind of joyful. You know, like having a drink with friends, having a dance. It's fun. Type 2 fun is you do something that might be pretty painful at the time, like I walked these pilgrimages, and maybe at the time it's not what you call fun, but you look back and go, yes, that was worth doing.

That's like type 2 fun, and you smile as you remember it, but it was hard. I feel like writing books is type 2 fun. It is not necessarily a joyful process.

Was writing this book a ‘fun' thing? or fulfilling?Pia: Well, before I answer that, I just want to point something out. I think what I'm hearing you say is fulfillment because what feels fulfilling doesn't always feel fun at the time. I really agree and align with that.

We could use the word joyful too, whatever word resonates most. Fulfilling, what feels like fulfillment is important because that means it's connected to something that has really deep meaning for you.

Whether it's your values or what feels like your purpose that you're actually living and expressing. It feels really fulfilling when you're living in alignment with what you value most. So the book was definitely fulfilling.

There were pockets of fun, but they were pockets. It was also challenging, definitely, but it felt really fulfilling. It felt like, yes, this is exactly where I'm supposed to be and what I'm supposed to be doing. It just felt that way, and that kept me going.

I think that keeps us going when we're doing any kind of creative project that requires a long commitment, it's when it's connected to our big fat why, or what feels fulfilling, or what has meaning.

I think it's really important to create from that place because it's our light in the dark. It's like those moments where you're like, okay, I'm done here. It kept me going, you know, a reminder of why I was doing this in the first place.

Joanna: There's another challenge in the book. It's a provocative question that will trigger all the workaholics listening. You say, “What if my creative genius, and yours, lives on the other side of rest?”

I read this, and I was like, rest?! Who do you think we are?

Why is rest so hard for us, and yet so necessary for creativity?Pia: I think, at least in Western culture, we're geared to connect and believe that our value is based on what we produce, and hard work and work ethic is really prioritized. It's just something that's very important culturally.

Like, “you got to work hard,” and, “blood, sweat, and tears,” and, “give it everything you got,” and that there's meaning in that.

I'm not saying there's not, there's space and place for passionate, focused work, but there's also room, and it's very important, for rest and ease. There's a place for doing, and there's a place where we get to also be because we are human beings.

There are a lot of insights to be discovered and dots that connect and eureka moments to be had in this daydreamy, restful, ease-filled place where we're not so focused on a task or getting something done.

Neuroscience shows that this is also how our brain functions. We have the default mode network, which is also called our imagination network, which is really closely correlated with creativity. It's the thinking that happens when we're not consciously thinking.

The dots that connect in those moments, the illumination that happens when we're just allowing things to marinate and just be and process, kind of percolating like coffee. It's really, really important for our creativity and for ideas to be able to have that time as well.

So it's not an either/or. Both the default mode network and the control network work together.

So creativity also requires that analytical mind, like the research and evaluation, but incubation and illumination are equally important. Yet in our society or culture, we tend to prioritize that which can be quantified.

You know, like, “Well, I have done this amount of research, so therefore I've been productive,” and —

What if productivity was also based on allowing ideas to a bubble to the surface and emerge?That's just as valuable as focused, task-based activity.

Just to say, I'm a recovering speed queen. I grew up in New York City, so I'm not a Zen Buddha person. I am practicing. I am practicing slowing down.

I'm finding that when I do, when I catch myself when I'm rushing for no reason, or when I'm overdoing the doing, there's a wealth of information and insight that emerges when I just give things space. Sometimes nothing emerges, but I feel my energy shift and different, and then I show up to the work differently.

It's dangerous to start getting into the sort of equation of, well, I'll rest so that I can be more productive. No, that's not what I'm saying. We can get into that way of thinking, and it's just the same way of thinking applied to rest.

So, no, not necessarily, but I find it incredibly important for the creative process and also just that energy of being alive. We also get to just be, and our just being, there's value in us just being who we are. It might sound counter cultural, but that's what I believe.

Joanna: Yes, I like the term active rest, obviously, because I find that exhaustion is when I'm kind of watching Netflix or whatever, and that doesn't help my creative. Well, it probably does in some level. It helps my creative side because there's a lot of story, there's a lot of storytelling in great TV.

I walk a lot, get outside and go for really long walks, and I find that helps. It's the resting the brain kind of thing. I don't want people to think that we just mean rest means lying on the sofa or like going to bed, although sometimes that is a good thing.

Also for me, I guess the filling the creative well. Which for me, involves travel and reading and all of that kind of thing.

What kinds of things do you include in rest?Pia: I love that you're pointing that out, Jo. There's this wonderful article—and I can't remember her name, you can put it in the show notes [Dr Saundra Dalton-Smith]—she writes about seven different types of rest, because often we just equate rest with laying on the couch and it's not.

There are all different ways that that we can rest and regenerate. Some of them could even be like light socials and regenerate through relationships. It really depends on the person, on the individual. What makes you feel refueled and recharged?

I do feel that for most of us, daydreaming, and just allowing, just being, is an important part of the rest portfolio, if you will.

For me, to answer your question, rest looks like meditation, movement, and believe it or not, in a way, journaling—like just free writing—feels restful to me in the sense of, I'm just allowing thoughts to pour out and just kind of be rather than trying to write coherently, or make sense, or add value, or whatever the words are.

That's really helpful, and movement, also. Even though I'm not resting, just moving creates a different space for ideas to bubble up. I often get strange thoughts, good strange thoughts when I'm moving my body. Also while I'm meditating, even though I'm able to see the thoughts that are passing by, I'm like, oh, interesting.

So I think it's about finding what feels good to you, but it's about also honoring that part of you that is not doing and working to produce something all the time. There's a place for that, but there's also a place for seven different types of rest, we can call it that.

Joanna: Yes, indeed. It's interesting because there are some people in the writing community who say, “Oh, you must write every day.” I always say, no, I don't write every day.

I'm a full-time author entrepreneur, but I don't write every day.I call myself a binge writer. So I do the book, and then I do the project, and then I launch the book. Like, right now as we're recording this, I am in launch phase for my book, Death Valley. I'm not writing. I'm in the sort of restful, kind of exhausted, kind of like, oh my goodness, I'm never going to have another idea again.

But even this morning, I actually felt a little twitch. I felt that twitch of interest in other things. So that's when I start going, oh, okay, maybe my brain is getting ready again. So, yes, this kind of going in and out, I guess, of the output phase. Input phase, output phase, rest phase.

Pia: Yes, cycles, just like seasons. We're cyclical, you know, and things have cycles. I can really relate with, you know, after I wrote the book in December, now I'm still in launch mode. Launch mode lasts a year at least, which is interesting to me.

What's great is it's activating different aspects of my creativity. So it feels like there are different parts of my creativity that I'm applying in the launch phase. I think that's interesting, and it also gives the book writing creative space some air, which I also need. So I can relate to that.

Also, self-doubt creeps in some time where it's like, oh, I have a newsletter. It's like, oh, I can't possibly think of anything. Everything is so busy. What am I going to write about? I don't know.

The minute doubt creeps in, just like you said, then the next day it's like, oh, I'm going to write about doubt. It's like an idea pops up, and it's just trusting that you have a wealth of ideas within you, and when you give it some space and you trust that they're there, they will emerge. That, I'm sure of.

Joanna: Yes, absolutely. So coming back, right at the beginning you said about artistic expression and commercial objectives, marrying those two as part of being a creative director. So that sort of brings us to this. You mentioned there, launch mode happening for a whole year.

So you're now on the commercial side of this book. So tell us about that and about—

What kinds of things are a challenge around the commercial side of the book?Pia: Well, as you mentioned earlier, Jo, that writing the memoir was one of the toughest—I don't want to put words in your mouth—I think you said one of the hardest ones?

Joanna: Something like that.

Pia: Something like that, yes. Well, I think marketing this book feels a little bit more vulnerable because I'm sharing very personal stories, in service of the reader and the book, within its pages.

So I am learning how to step deeper into the arena and be vulnerable and show up and ask and tell like, “Hey, I have a book. This is what I'm doing,” and to ask more people to get involved as I go through this launch process. So that feels vulnerable to me, and sometimes really challenging.

Getting reviews is challenging, especially when it's about my life. So I feel like I'm building really important muscles for my creativity so that I can more freely express myself.

At the end of the day, people are going to experience my work and myself however they experience it. That's their experience, and they should have whatever experience they want to have. Just like Mel Robbins says, “let them.” Let people have their own experience. It's not mine, it's theirs.

It's that separation that is really important, I think, when you are showing up and sharing something that feels vulnerable and powerful and important, but vulnerable. So I'm learning. I'm learning to stand for my work, and also, in this case, it also means standing for my story.

I think that's sort of the extra component that makes it more like the growth opportunity I mentioned earlier. So it's been a wild ride, because even though I come from this world, I've never marketed a book before. So there is just so much to learn.

There's actually so many things that you could be doing as an author when you market your book, and a lot of money you could be spending on it. So, to me—

It's about finding what activities or actions I can take that feel most aligned and that would have the biggest impact for the book. I'm still sort of figuring out what that looks like. I had a pre-sale community that was incredibly important to the success of this book, and I'm really, really grateful I had a pre-sale. It allowed me to build community, and it helped strengthen that asking muscle.

Like, “Hey, I've written the draft, but I'm not done yet, but I need your help to take the book to print,” and reaching out to almost everyone I knew to ask. That was a huge muscle builder. So now it's reaching out into the wider world to share the story and to explore different avenues.

Next up, Amazon ads. Let's see what happens. You know, reviewers. It's just finding different avenues. I'm sure you have a lot of insight around this to bring the book into the world.

Joanna: You're exactly right, there are so many things you could do. I actually love that you've talked about launch mode for a year because in the kind of indie author community that I'm part of, we tend to just move onto the next book.

We're not so interested in launching. We're just loving writing so much that we move on to the next book. I think having that commitment to pushing the book for longer is actually really good.

Especially with an evergreen book like this, it's not going to go out of style. It's not based on the news, it's not political. So you can basically market this forever, which I think is great.

You talk there about aligned and impact. So, and I mean, then you mentioned Amazon ads, which is interesting. I would be interested how you feel that goes.

You are doing a lot of podcast interviews. How has that gone? How have you been pitching for those?Obviously, you pitched me, and I was interested. So is that going well?

Pia: Yay! I'm so glad you were. Yes, it is going well. Here's the thing, I think creativity can feel very uncertain, right? We don't know what we're going to create when we set out to create anything.

I think podcasts and showing up and sharing our stories is also uncertain. You haven't met me before, I haven't met you. That's also the beauty because we don't know what we're going to co-create together in our conversation and what that could be like.

So I find it, again, it's that combination of nerve-cited. You know, nervous and exciting, and thrilling and terrifying. I feel like, as we move further, I like to call it as Brene Brown says, like the arena.

That quote from Roosevelt: As we move further into the arena, it's we make ourselves more visible, and we get bruised, and we get ripped and cut. People will see us more and have something to say, but at least we're out there, like living. You know, we're doing the things.

I think that requires courage and belief in what it is that you're creating and in yourself, I suppose. Also I'm going to say the word you don't like again, fun. For me, sometimes we forget that we also get to make it joyous, like it can be a fun experience.

So far, this is fun. I'm getting to know you, and we're having a conversation, and hopefully connecting with your audience and people to share stories. So I don't know, it feels good.

I was on social media for my business, very heavily for quite a number of years, actually. I was on X building a pretty large community for a while, and then not to get deep into politics, but with certain recent shifts in the social media landscape, it just didn't feel aligned anymore.

Even though it was really counterintuitive, like, oh, really? I'm going to build my business and keep launching my book without it? Like, really? But it felt right. I was like, nope, it's not feeling good for me. It doesn't feel like this is my path.

People sold books and built businesses before social media. We can do it again. We can keep doing that. So I'm currently exploring that, and that's led me to podcasts. That's led me to reach out to build and strengthen community, have more meetings one-on-one, exploring events.

What are different ways that I can meet people and share this story and hear their stories? That feels exciting, even though it's a bit daunting, because it's like, oh, I haven't really seen how this is done before. So that's what I mean by aligned, just to further unfold that.

Impact is, well, this feels like impact. Being able to have a conversation, being able to connect, and hopefully with other people. So impact is not only sales or reviews, which are, of course, very important in the life of a book, but also human impact, reaching people.

Joanna: Yes. I mean, I am having fun having a conversation with you. I think, and you talk about intuition in the book as well, I try to have an intuitive—you know, obviously I prepared and I sent you questions—but I feel like the conversation becomes quite intuitive, and we get into things as they come up. That's what I enjoy as part of being a being a podcaster.

I did want to come back on the commercial side because I'm obviously making money from my books, and many of the listeners are, or they want to. You have a section in the book where you talk about this. You talk about your money wound and also your scarcity script.

I wondered how you think that appears for writers and authors? Because let's face it, you have to sell a lot of books to make decent money.

How can authors change their script around books and money?Pia: That's a great question. Well, how we do one thing is how we approach everything. So it's how you approach books and money, it's also life, how you approach money and life generally.

The same speaks to ideas. Like scarcity could be, of course, scarcity of fun, scarcity of opportunities, but scarcity of ideas. Where am I ever going to get another idea? There's not enough ideas. What am I going to do? Then that sort of becomes a block, or could be a self-fulfilling prophecy. So how do we start to shift?

Well, it's trusting that there is an abundance of ideas within us. There's proof of that. Like, look, Jo, you've written, did you say 45 books?

Joanna: Yes. Something like that.

Pia: If that's not abundance, honey, I don't know what is. I find that helpful to anchor into trust and into the process of actually creating. So I didn't write the book from a place of “if I don't make this book a financial success, I won't survive.” I think that's a difficult premise to write a book from, given the state of the industry.

I wrote the book from a place of “I want to share something that has meaning, and I want to give it the best chance at succeeding in the world and reaching people.”

The scarcity, I don't know, when it comes to writing books, what I really think about more than money, is I think about trusting that you have the book within you, that you have the ideas within you.

Then the money part is releasing, hopefully, that you're in a position that you can release the expectation of what it needs to deliver financially and just do your best to get it into the world and have different income streams. That's been very important for me and my creativity.

So not having my only income stream be this book. That would feel very tight for my creativity, that would like start to strangle it, I think. Having multiple ways of creating income feels like abundance to me. Like, look, I can do this, I can do that.

It could also be this book, that maybe the income the book generates is not just through sales. There are other doors that it opens that become really interesting and fascinating.

I kind of try to detach from expectation and outcome, however hard that might be. That, to me, sometimes can feel like scarcity. Like, if I don't get this, then what? It's more like, well, I trust that I'm going to get the opportunities that I need, and then I'm going to receive what I need, and I'm going to do this for the love of doing it.

However utopian or whatever that may sound, it feels important to me and to creativity. I don't know if I fully answered your question, but that's what comes up for me, as you asked it.

Joanna: Yes, and I am absolutely into multiple streams of income and abundance of ideas. In fact, only this last week, I learned something new from someone that I'm implementing right now, and having another stream of income from that. It's like, new ideas appear every day.

I actually love that you said about people sold books before social media, and so they can still now. I think that's so important, because people are like, “Oh, well, if I can't use this,” or, “I left this platform and went here, and there's nobody here, and what do I do?” I'm like—

There are literally thousands of other ways to sell books other than social media.Pia: Absolutely, and that's where we can apply our creativity. If you're writing a book— you are creative whether you write a book or not—but especially if you're writing a book, then you acknowledge your own creativity.

So imagine just applying that in different ways. Like, hmm, what are different ways I could get this book into the world? So that's what I'm playing with. There's some that I might be able to see, and others I might not, and other ways people might help me see.

They go, “Oh, have you thought of that?” “No, actually, that's really interesting.” I think people come into your life also to show you. I heard something, actually, it was from a tarot reader, full disclosure, but she's wonderful. She said that the affirmation or the thought is, “allow me to recognize the opportunities.”

That shifted something from me. I really loved it, talking about scarcity and abundance. Like allow me to recognize the opportunities. Hey, wait a minute. That means the opportunities are already here. Oh, how cool. That's like game changing for me. They're already here. I just need to recognize them.

Sometimes if we get hooked to what something has to be. Like it has to wear this specific Yves Saint Laurent outfit, and if it's not wearing that, then it's not the opportunity.

Letting go of what it has to look like or exactly what it has to do or be, kind of frees us up to see, “Oh my god, look. It's wearing a vintage Dior dress from the 70s. Wow, look at that opportunity.”

Sometimes opportunities can come to us in a lot of different shapes and forms, but we need to kind of release the grip a little bit and trust that they're here. It's available to us. We just need to recognize them. So that was something I found very helpful on my journey.

So it's like, I don't know what this will be. Let's see. Let's see what opportunities I might be able to recognize as I go journey through the process of marketing this book.

Joanna: Well, it is a great book. Welcome to the Creative Club. So tell us—

Where can people find you and the book online?Pia: All the usual places. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, bookshop.org, are the three main ones. I am at Kollektiv Studio. So that's Kollektiv spelled actually in Danish because I currently live in Copenhagen. I lived in London before I moved here, and before that, many other countries. So Kollektiv.studio.

Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Pia. That was great.

Pia: Thank you so much for having me, Jo. It was a wild ride. I really enjoyed it.

The post Make Life Your Biggest Art Project: Pia Leichter On Writing, Creative Courage, And Changing Your Narrative first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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How can you implement ‘See, Do, Repeat' in your writing and author business? How can you embrace optimism as a creative entrepreneur and move past fear of judgment to publish your book? Dr Rebecca White shares her journey and tips.

In the intro, Short form audio opportunities and tips [Self Publishing Advice]; Wiley's guidelines for AI usage; Collective licensing for UK authors [The Guardian]; Entrepreneurship and writing, I'm on The En Factor Podcast;

Plus, Successful Self-Publishing Fourth Edition on pre-order, and I’m on the El Camino de Santiago Pilgrim Podcast talking about my walk along the Portuguese coastal route.

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.com to get started.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn

Dr. Rebecca White is an award-winning entrepreneur, executive board member, professor, and the author of See, Do, Repeat: The Practice of Entrepreneurship. She's also the host of the En Factor Podcast.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.

Show Notes

• Rebecca's entrepreneurial journey and background
• Actionable steps to embrace the entrepreneurial mindset
• The “See, Do, Repeat” framework
• Applying the “See, Do, Repeat” framework to author entrepreneurship
• The role of optimism in entrepreneurship
• Transitioning from academic writing to popular books
• Overcoming fear of judgement by peers

You can find Rebecca at DrRebeccaWhite.com.

Transcript of Interview with Dr. Rebecca WhiteJoanna: Dr. Rebecca White is an award-winning entrepreneur, executive board member, professor, and the author of See, Do, Repeat: The Practice of Entrepreneurship. She's also the host of the En Factor Podcast. So welcome to the show, Rebecca.

Rebecca: Thank you, Joanna. I am honored to be here. I love your podcast, and I'm excited. I am reading your book Pilgrimage, and I just love everything that you've done. So it's really great to be here and have this conversation today.

Joanna: Oh, well, thanks so much. So first up—

Tell us a bit more about you and what drives your interest in entrepreneurship.Rebecca: I grew up in this small town in West Virginia. I don't know if you've ever been there, but it's quite rural. I always had these dreams and interests of doing other things rather than being in a small town.

I had a wonderful mother. Her name was Betty White. So great name, maybe not the Betty White most people think of. She had an entrepreneurial mindset back before we even had the words to put with it, and so I learned about this whole mindset from her as a child.

It's really driven everything I've done. It's kind of like it grabbed me, and I had to hold on. So I've really applied an entrepreneurial mindset in everything that I've done, from being an educator to a book author to a podcaster to even a corporate board member.

You mentioned all those slashes in my career, I think that's part of being an entrepreneur as well, this whole idea that there's always something new and a new opportunity to explore. So it's really just been a part of my life, and everything that I've done, I think because I learned it from her.

Joanna: That's cool. When you said West Virginia, I just had that song playing, “Take Me Home, Country Road.”

Rebecca: Yes, everybody knows that.

Joanna: Yes, that's the only thing. I've never been there, but that's what it brought to mind, which was quite funny.

So you were in the small town and you had this mindset, but how did you get out of the small town and get into work? How did you make it out of there?

I know some people listening, it might just be a life situation they're trapped in, or a job. Many people are in a job, and they might want to be more entrepreneurial, but they didn't have the mindset that your mom gave you.

How did you get out of that small town? How can other people get out if they feel trapped?Rebecca: That's a really great question. For me, it was education, and I just kept going. My parents valued education. My mom was very curious, and she was way ahead of her time, the way she approached life and saw things.

She had her own business. She was a florist. When I graduated with my undergraduate degree, she invited me to come back and take over the business, and that's like the last thing I wanted to do. I had worked in that business all my years growing up.

It was great for her. It was a great opportunity for our family. It afforded my brother and I the opportunity to get an education. Once I left and went to college—and I didn't go that far away at first—but once I went to college, I just knew that I wasn't going to go back.

There wasn't a lot there, and fortunately, my parents didn't expect it. So for me, I was young, and so it was through taking my first job and then going back to school. There's all kinds of stories in there that I could share, but really—

It was just taking one step at a time and having parents that supported that. At a young age, I just had sort of a wanderlust, I guess. I felt like there were always opportunities out there that I wanted to check out and try.

I also got married in the process, later divorced. I went to graduate school, I got my masters, and then I got a job teaching with my masters and found that I did well with that. So I went back to get a doctorate, and after I got my doctorate, I accepted a teaching position in Cincinnati, Ohio.

I was actually educated in Virginia at Virginia Tech, and then went to Cincinnati, Ohio. By this time, I had two small children and I was divorced. It was quite a challenging time for me. I managed to write a dissertation with two small children as a single parent, it wasn't easy.

Then I took that job in Cincinnati and started building programs and really became part of a movement in entrepreneurship education. Actually, my PhD is not in entrepreneurship, but that's because they really didn't have that kind of degree back then.

So I got a PhD in strategic management, and took my first job. There weren't any entrepreneurship courses offered at that time. So I was very fortunate, I had a dean at the time that was very supportive and allowed me to pursue this interest in offering an entrepreneurship course.

We offered a course, and it was something the university had never offered, so I had to create it. I explored the field, the discipline, the few people that were out there doing this. I did my research and created this course.

Then we raised money. So just like any entrepreneurial adventure, we had to raise enough money to start a program. So I went through all the steps, really, of a startup to build an entrepreneurship program at this university in Cincinnati, Ohio.

In doing so, I really kind of launched my career as sort of the second tier pioneering group in entrepreneurship education. Since then, I've just had so many opportunities to work with programs and work with students around the world in this space of entrepreneurship education.

So really it was education that, for me—it's not for everybody—but for me, it was the way that I was able to get out and build this career.

Joanna: If you don't mind, you referred a few times to the past—

Can you tell people how old you are so that they get some sense of how long this period has been?Rebecca: Yes, I'm in my 60s now. So I've been teaching and doing this entrepreneurship gig for almost four decades. It's been a long time.

What I thought by now, Jo, would be that I would be retired, or at least close to retiring, but the opportunities just still come along, and they keep getting bigger, it seems like.

Joanna: Also, I wonder whether entrepreneurs ever retire!

Rebecca: I don't think so.

Joanna: No, exactly. You want to start something else, right? Let's get into the book.

What is the “See, Do, Repeat” framework, and why is it useful for authors to consider?Rebecca: Teaching all those years as an entrepreneur, I saw a lot of change in our field. So when I first started teaching, it was all about starting a business. In fact, in the earliest years, it was more about small business.

Everything was taking what we had studied in business school, which was primarily around corporate business, and applying it in a miniature way, if you will. It really didn't work, and so the field started to develop its own body of literature and research around entrepreneurship.

That direction was really interesting because although it started in this whole area of creating new companies and running small businesses, it really morphed, I would say, into a focus on the mindset of entrepreneurship and how it applies in almost virtually any context.

I started out my description of my background by just saying that I've applied it everywhere, and so that became really interesting to me. I've always been fascinated by the way people think and by the stories.

You mentioned my podcast, and it's why I love my podcast. I just love to ask people lots of questions and find out about them and the way they think.

So this whole book is really, I would say, 20 years of research that I had been doing trying to understand what this entrepreneurial mindset was. We talked about it a lot, but it didn't have a whole lot of definition. People always seemed to know it when they saw it, but they didn't really know exactly how to describe it.

Entrepreneurship education became much more than just starting a business. It's applying it in so many other contexts. We've had students come through that have been interested in starting not for profits. They've started churches.

They've developed new products that then they licensed. They didn't even start a company around them. I found I was always drawn to the creative students, and I think you and your audience would appreciate this, because I saw over the years that most creatives had to have some of these entrepreneurial mindset skills.

They were going to be in a position where they were taking advantage of opportunities, and they were going to have to raise money, or at least find a way to pursue their craft. That included maybe some marketing. It included maybe raising money from donors and investors.

So I became very interested very early on, for entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial mindset for students who are not studying business. So that's been a lot of the focus of why this book was written.

I spent a lot of years trying to understand an entrepreneurial mindset. So this book was really an effort to bring all this academic literature to a popular audience and share the idea of a mindset in a very, very simple and easy to remember and understand framework.

So that, “see, do, repeat,” it's based also in what we call competencies. A lot of fields, like nursing and healthcare, have used competencies for a long time to find a way to measure tasks that are challenging to define and measure.

So it's identifying three competencies of an entrepreneurial mindset. Over the years, these are the three competencies, and then associated with each of them are multiple skills that I found have been repeated among all entrepreneurs.

It's the ability to recognize opportunities, that's the “see” part. The willingness to take action that's “do.” Then the perseverance and resilience to execute past failure because failure is definitely a part of every success journey.

Along the way, the people who are not successful as entrepreneurs tend to get stopped. They may recognize an opportunity. Multiple times a day, I have people reaching out to me with, “I have an idea. What do you think?” The difference is, do you take action on that, and then do you keep going and execute past failure?

So there are a lot of things we could talk about with that, but that's the principles of the book. It's really to take all this academic research of an entrepreneurial mindset and make it something simple and something that people can apply.

Joanna: Can you give us a concrete example of the “See, Do, Repeat” in the author entrepreneur space?Rebecca: Sure, absolutely. I'll use my own example if that's okay. So what happened with me, I've been writing for a long time, academic writing, and it's a completely different animal. I've also been a writer for, you know, always.

I write for fun, and I write for therapy. I know you've talked about The Morning Pages by Julia Cameron. My mom gave me that book many years ago because she was an artist. So I've written for therapy. I love writing.

This particular book, I was approached by a pretty well-known book publisher in the academic world write books, not for textbooks, but for faculty. Those books are much more academic and they combine research. So I was approached by a book publisher to write a book on entrepreneurial mindset for that audience.

So that was pre-pandemic, and so I started exploring that. I had conversations with an editor that was assigned to me, and so we were getting started on that whole process when the pandemic happened. So my editor lost her job, and I was assigned to somebody else, and we didn't have a great fit.

So I stepped back from that, and I thought about it, and I said —

Am I really that interested in continuing to write for other academics? Because what I'm really interested in is how I can make this book different.So the opportunity started to emerge for me, and I started to recognize in my world that there was probably an opportunity out there for people to learn more about this. So I think for any book author, it's paying attention to the world around you.

I talk about this in my book, about how we recognize opportunities.

Really, curiosity is a big part of it, anybody who's curious, paying attention, and then connecting the dots. That's a big part of the creative process.

So for me, a lot of it was there were messages coming from outside that maybe I had the expertise and the credentials to do this. There were also messages coming to me from other people that I was working with, or people that I was surrounded with, or things that I read that led me to believe there was an opportunity to write for a different audience.

So that opportunity came. The taking action, that was a really tough one because I started down this path, like so many others, without a clue about what it would take to write a more popular press book. So there's a lot of lessons I learned there.

I had to overcome a lot of my own personal beliefs that I didn't have the skills to write a book that would be successful and popular.The more I learned about what it meant to get published by a traditional publisher, which was pretty much all I knew at that time, I just saw that it was going to be a monumental hurdle to overcome. So I just started doing my research and started taking action.

I could have stopped there. I could have gone back to writing what I was comfortable with or knew, but I didn't. I continued to persevere, and I had lots of failures along the way.

In fact, this book was first published by, I wouldn't say a traditional publisher, but an intermediary publisher, let's just say that. I don't want to say too much about them because it wasn't a great experience, but I learned a lot along that process.

While I don't necessarily think that publishing this book was a huge failure, it wasn't the success that I had hoped— or that it maybe could have been, and I had lots of failures along the way.

In fact, not getting paid royalties for a long time, and a lot of other things that just didn't work out.

Also, not understanding, quite frankly, that I had to really put a lot of effort into marketing. That was probably my biggest lack of understanding.I've never been an absolutely huge fan of social media, although I do more of it now, and I have people that help me. Students are great with that, by the way. I made a lot of mistakes along the way, and I feel like the “See, Do, Repeat,” it's played out in everything that I've done.

I think for any book author—back to your original question, long answer—it's really about once you see that opportunity, putting it out there and testing it, and then educating yourself as to what it takes to make it happen, and then continuing to persevere.

The repeat of the “See, Do, Repeat” model is sometimes the hardest one for people to understand because I am not suggesting that you never change course, I'm not suggesting that every idea that you have is truly an opportunity that should be acted on.

So it's not that, but it's about really recognizing that if you remain optimistic and you recognize the problem that you're trying to solve, and you stay focused on that problem rather than the solution you had in mind, you will come to an outcome that will be favorable.

Out of the process, along the same time that I was writing this book, I was launching my podcast. What happened was —

My podcast really became research for my book. I was able to take my research out of my office, so to speak, and make it available so everybody could hear the stories.

So as I was writing the book, I was able to use stories that I was capturing as I was doing the podcast. So it all came together.

I never could have envisioned that exactly. I knew where I was headed. I knew what the opportunity was that I thought was there, but I had to stay focused on the problem I was trying to solve. So that got me to where I needed to be.

Joanna: Yes, and I think what's also interesting is some people—like you said you had a difficult time with the publisher that you had originally used—some people would have just given up on that book and maybe written another book or something.

You also clearly chose to keep focused on making this book more of a success. So presumably—

You went and got the rights back, and then got on with the publishing process yourself.Rebecca: Yes. In fact, I'm an indie publisher now, and in large part thanks to you and what I've learned from you. So I published this book in '21, and I still believe in it. I still believe it's an important book, and I intend to continue to market it and sell it and use it in the model, because I still believe in it.

I've gotten a lot of positive feedback about it, but I also decided that I wanted to have more control over it. I needed to walk the talk what I was teaching my students to do.

So I was Googling around, trying to find out how to get back the rights to my book, and I came across a podcast that you did a couple of years ago. I know you've got about 800 now, so it was in the 600s.

Joanna: This one would have been with Katlyn Duncan, probably. She's got a book called Take Back Your Book.

[Check out the interview with Katlyn here.]

Rebecca: I think that's probably right. It was a few years back, and I listened to that. Interestingly, I have a husband who's an attorney, but in spite of that, this is a very specific kind of thing I wanted to do.

Getting out there and hearing your podcast was the beginning point for me. Then I started listening to more of them, and I still enjoy them.

I have really embraced this idea of being an indie publisher, and I love it.I have other books I want to write. In fact, some fiction books I'd love to write, but that's a whole other story.

Joanna: I love that. I think what you've done there is great. A lot of nonfiction authors who have—like, this is your whole career. This book is one of the magnum opus style books. It really does encapsulate a lot of your body of work.

So, of course, you're going to keep promoting that, keep marketing that, keep doing other work around it. I think that's really important to say, in the indie community, we often focus on having more books, writing more books, putting more out there, which is one way.

There's also a lot of people, especially in nonfiction, who have one sort of key book, even if you're going to write more. Then that's the sort of focus of their talks and their career side. So I think that's completely valid.

You did mention the word optimistic, which I wanted to come back on, because you have a whole chapter on optimism. I'm, by default, an optimist. I'm also a techno-optimist. I think humans will figure things out.

As we talk now, it's April 2025, and we're not going to get into politics and the world, but it is an uncertain time. With AI and all of this, authors can feel not quite so optimistic.

How can we choose optimism and foster optimism?Rebecca: I love that question. I saw this modeled in my mom and my grandfather, in particular. I'm like you, I'm optimistic as well. I think every entrepreneur has to have some level of optimism because otherwise, why would you do it?

If you don't believe that you have agency, if you don't believe that you have some control over your future, if you don't have some hope for the future, why would you do all the work that's required? So it's really, in my mind, optimism is about creating your own destiny through choice and action.

That, to me, is a big part of what an entrepreneurial mindset is all about. Optimism also sees opportunities instead of difficulties. I'll give you an example.

When the pandemic caused us to have to go online with all of our classes and teaching, we had some graduate students at our university that were quite upset over the experience.

I understand everybody was upset. It was a very scary time, and you're right, we still have a lot of uncertainty. I did a little video for them to talk to them about how that period in time was very special, and it was a unique opportunity for them to find opportunity.

It resonated with some of them. Some of them continued to be angry about the experience because, quite honestly, we have a beautiful facility on our campus for entrepreneurship, and they had signed up to be able to take advantage of all the events and programs and things that we run in person there.

The idea that they weren't going to get that, they felt cheated, and I understand that. We did our best to create alternative opportunities for them, but at the end of the day, as we look back on it, I think we can all think of many examples of things that came out of the pandemic which were positive outcomes and opportunities.

Certainly many were not, but that optimism, I think, is something that is critical for entrepreneurs. I talk about it in my book, there are dangers of being overly optimistic, and there's plenty of research that shown that, especially if you're overly optimistic about your financial situation, that can be kind of dangerous.

Most psychologists agree that optimism can be learned.So it's not a static thing. It really has to do with the way you look at the world. Whether you personalize things, or whether you recognize that everything in the world is not about you. The pervasiveness of things and the permanence of things.

So you can really, if you feel like maybe, anybody that's listening, that you would like to be more optimistic, there is something called learned optimism. There's books out there and plenty of things that you can do.

I think it's critical to have that trust in ourselves. What's the alternative, really, Jo? Do we just stop and sit and complain? You know, that's not much fun.

Joanna: No. I think that is a really good point. I'm sure there is a default level of optimism that people have, and I think obviously you and I have that. As you said, it can be learned.

I think one of the things I've discovered for myself as well. In the beginning of the pandemic—and in fact, I look at my photos, I took a lot of screenshots—in the first few months in 2020, from the January, because I was on Twitter looking at what was coming out of China and then Italy and all of this.

I took so many screenshots, evidence of my doom scrolling. I thought I was going to write a book on a pandemic, as many of us did at that time. Then I obviously realized that this wasn't helpful.

My photos—I take a lot of photos and screenshots and stuff—but my photos change to pictures of flowers and the outdoors and walking a lot more, and I've avoided the TV news.

I haven't watched the news on TV for over a decade, probably more like two decades.I do read the news on some apps on my phone, but I don't watch TV news. This is a challenge for people listening, like one of the things I think makes me more optimistic is just curating what goes into my head and being quite careful.

Some people think that's denying what's going on, but I'm very aware of what's going on. I just don't do it in an overly emotional way.

What are some of the practices you think foster optimism?Rebecca: Well, I love that. Making that choice. I mentioned that it's really about choice and agency. There's a lot we can't control. That's just the bottom line, I've learned that, but there's a lot we can control. That's exactly what you're talking about. You can control how much of that you let into your head.

It can be hard. I'm married to a news junkie, and it can be really hard because I want to know what's going on in the world, and I'm like you, I tend to read it more than watch it on TV.

I also choose, for example, during the pandemic, I don't know if it was the same in the UK, but for a while, every night, there would be this thing on the news about how many people had died that day. I'm like, I am not going to bed thinking about how many people died today.

I mean, there are plenty of people that, sadly, die every day, no matter what's going on in the world.

Joanna: It's life. People die.

Rebecca: That's right, that's right. There were people being born as well. So I made that choice. It sounds really weird, but when I made the choice to stop all of that, I remember I had this really vivid dream, and it was in color. I mean, this is going to sound so weird, but I had this dream that I was flying.

It was like I was leaving all that behind, and I was going to accept that whatever happened happened, and I could control what I could control, and that was it. I would suggest that it's about taking control of what we let into our head, just like you said. Choice and action and agency.

Recognizing that there's only so many things we could control, but within what we can control, we have so much power.

Joanna: Yes, in what we can control. Yes—

If I get too miserable, I will get off the computer, off my phone, and go for a walk in nature.Rebecca: Nature is great, yes.

Joanna: It just gives you that perspective. I was thinking, because at the moment here in Bath, the sun is out, spring is here, things are growing again. Things in my garden that I seriously thought were dead have started sprouting and growing leaves. It's another one of those, you know, this too shall pass, and the seasons will turn again.

That just makes me feel more positive and happy. It's been a very long winter here. I imagine some people listening, it might still be winter by the time they hear this. I feel like that also makes me more optimistic is seeing how nature recovers every year. Things always get better.

Rebecca: Absolutely. I think I mentioned it in the book too, gratitude. That was something that my mom always believed in. I think gratitude, and just joy. I have to say, I always enjoy your podcast because you are always so joyful in the way you communicate with people. I just think that is very special.

We have that choice to be kind and to bring joy to what we're doing. It's so amazing when I meet people that I know are struggling, but they're still able to be kind and thoughtful to the people around them.

Taking, I guess, that pressure off by not focusing so much on ourselves and what's missing, but opening up to the fact that there are other people in the world, and we can bring joy to them and ourselves at the same time.

Joanna: Well, coming back to the book, because you did say earlier that you've written a lot of academic writing as part of your job, and that this was your sort of trying to write something more popular. What I would say is that it is incredibly well researched and has a lot of references.

It is, I would say, more of a crossover to academic books. It's certainly not a pop sort of book where there's no references at all or maybe only a couple in the appendix. For example, the kind of things I've written. I wondered what your thoughts were.

So there are people listening who will be academic writers, and they will struggle with, I think, a lot of the relaxing that has to go into writing a more popular book.

Any tips for those who want to cross over from academic writing to more popular books?Rebecca: Yes, thank you for that question. That was a struggle for me, and a lot of it has to do with how you're trained, I guess, or prepped for whatever the opportunity is that you're going to pursue with your writing.

For me, I had been living in this world where everything I had written, before it was published, it was going to be peer reviewed, and it was going to be evaluated for accuracy and legitimacy and reliability and credibility. So the idea that I could just write something, I could say it was totally, totally different for me.

I think you're right. I mean, I worried a little bit about whether this book would be readable, but I felt like I really changed my writing style a lot.

Joanna: It's definitely readable, just to be clear for everyone. This is a popular book, but I can also sense the amount of research, and you're very meticulous about that. So I think you have managed both, but it is hard, I know.

Rebecca: Well, thank you for that. I really appreciate that. That's a very high form of compliment for me because I think that fits with who I am and my background.

It was challenging because I wanted it to be readable. The name, as an example, coming up with that “See, Do, Repeat” name, I practiced what I write about in the book.

One of the techniques that I recommend to help get your creative juices flowing is to do something that takes your mind completely off of everything that you're doing. It's called the incubation period.

So I work out a lot, and I've been a runner. So I was working with my editor and publisher on the name, and we had gone through all these names. I went out for a run one day, and I was just really pushing it. I had all this research in my head that we'd been doing, and all of a sudden it came to me.

I'm like, what word—and I'm fascinated by words, I love words, but I guess every author is—but I said, what words would convey this in the simplest form? So that's how I came up with “See, Do, Repeat.”

The whole book is really kind of taking my academic writing and reframing it and trying to think about it from a very practical, applied way. I think one of the things that helped me most was to really focus on storytelling.

It was easy, again, because I was in the midst of my podcast. Although not every story comes from my podcast, most of them come from entrepreneurs that I have interviewed, either in my classroom or for my podcast, or that I've spent time working with.

I think that's how I made that transition. I was able to reference books and other research that supported what I was talking about, and I tried to keep that, but only on a smaller scale, and then supplement that with stories. I thought that would make it more relatable.

Joanna: Did you have any fear of judgment by other academics?Just that feeling, I imagine, would have been quite different doing this book compared to writing an academic paper.

Rebecca: Oh, my gosh. Yes. Did I have fear of judgment? Yes, on every count. That's probably been the thing, if I were going to advise anybody about writing, it's that you got to get over that. I had that very early on with my academic writing. I would hold on to things far too long.

I think this book would have been published many years earlier if I had allowed myself to get beyond that. So, yes. I mean, I had to let go of that.

I went to a conference, it was at Notre Dame University, and I had just published this book. I was among many of my peers that I had worked with for many years, and it was very scary to have my book there.

What's interesting, for that conference now, ever since that—you know, I had books there, and I actually had a little table and sold some of them, not many, quite honestly—but ever since that time, the organizers of the conference have been buying my book for everybody that attends.

Even though it scared me to death to put it out there in front of my colleagues, they're sharing it with other educators.

So it's not the audience I initially intended it for, but I'm grateful that they're doing that. I just had to overcome that fear of judgment, which it's always out there if you're doing something creative.

Joanna: Yes, absolutely. So we are out of time.

Where can people find you, and your book, and everything you do online?Rebecca: Oh, well, thank you for asking that, Joanna. I just have to say I'm working on a new book now. It's called Choose Yourself, and it's tied to the very last chapter of my book. I'm pre-selling that book on my website in a very different way, and I'm sharing parts of it as I go through writing it.

So it's really a model to help people take that “do” step. So if you could visit my website, it's DrRebeccaWhite.com. I'm also available on LinkedIn, same handle, @DrRebeccaWhite. Then on Instagram and on Facebook, @DrRebeccaJWhite. So I'd love for you to visit me there.

I have a new community which I've started, and I'm writing this new book. Again, it's all to help anyone who wants to do something entrepreneurial or make a big transition in their life, pursue a passion. I'd love to help.

That's kind of my legacy, to help as many people as I can have the joy of an entrepreneurial mindset as they go through their lives.

Joanna: Just also mention your podcast.

Rebecca: Oh, yes, my podcast. I'm sorry. It's the En Factor Podcast, and you'll be happy to know that I have the infamous Joanna Penn coming on the podcast. I think by the time this is aired, it should be available. It's called the En Factor. It's all about entrepreneurial mindset. So yes, please check out the En Factor Podcast and all my other resources on my website.

Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Rebecca. That was great.

Rebecca: Joanna, thank you. It's been an honor and such a pleasure.

The post See, Do, Repeat: The Practice of Creative Entrepreneurship With Dr Rebecca White first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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How can you shift your writing and publishing process to focus on YouTube and podcasting as a primary audiobook focus? How can you use AI tools to help you create, publish, and translate your books? Derek Slaton goes into his indie author process.

Inspired by Derek, you can now find my audiobooks on YouTube: Books for Authors on YouTube @thecreativepenn; and my fiction, short stories, and memoir on YouTube @jfpennauthor.

In the intro, Spotify has expanded audiobooks into Germany, Austria. Switzerland and Liechtenstein, and Publisher Rocket has introduced more country stores;
Second Edition of The Business of Being a Writer by Jane Friedman;
T. Thorn Coyle on the MidList Indie Author [Wish I’d Known Then Podcast];
What if AI replaces me? [Claire Taylor What If Podcast]; plus, my Successful Self-Publishing Fourth Edition is underway, coming June/July!

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.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn

Derek Slaton is the author of the Dead America epic zombie series, with more than 100 books in the main series and many more spin-off stories. I heard Derek on the Brave New Bookshelf Podcast and wanted to ask him some more questions.

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

• Zombie book tropes and settings
• Utilizing AI audio tools to efficiently output audiobooks
• Finding keywords and creating thumbnails for YouTube audiobooks
• Manualling adding ads to monetize your audiobook on YouTube
• YouTube audience vs. Audible audience
• Publishing audiobooks on podcast platforms
• Using AI tools to overcome the cost barrier of production

You can find Derek at his YouTube Channel @DerekSlatonHorrorAuthor.

Transcript of Interview with Derek SlatonJoanna: Derek Slaton is the author of the Dead America epic zombie series, with more than 100 books in the main series and many more spin-off stories. So welcome to the show, Derek.

Derek: Thank you. It's good to be here.

Joanna: I'm excited to talk to you, but first up—

Tell us a bit more about you, and how you got into writing, and why you love zombies so much.Derek: So I started writing many, many years ago. When I was in high school, I rented Dawn of the Dead on VHS, and the movie itself didn't really scare me, but it was when I went to bed that night and started thinking about, “Hey, what would I do in a zombie apocalypse?” It was like a light switch was flipped.

So it's like I had to start writing down what I would do, and over the years and decades, it just sort of grew from there.

I used to be a photographer. I was a concert photographer traveling the country with bands, and then I moved over to commercial real estate. When I was on the road, I would have my laptop so I would just write.

Over about four or five years, I built it up enough that I could go full time. I went full time with it in January of '24, so I'm a little more than a year into it.

Joanna: Brilliant. Then I want to come back on the zombie books, the tropes of the zombie books. So I read some zombie, like Jonathan Maberry. I'm sure you've read some of Jonathan Mabery's stuff, but he says, “It's not about the monsters, it's about the people who fight the monsters.”

I wondered if you could talk about the tropes of zombie books and why you just have an unending number of zombie stories in you?!Derek: The great thing about the zombie apocalypse, is that it's happening to everybody everywhere, and everybody has their own story. So there's a million stories that can be told in the zombie apocalypse.

It's not just the strong military type fighting. It's the waitress having to deal with zombified customers, and the high school students having to deal with classmates, and just on down the line.

There's just so many different scenarios. I'm three and a half million words into my series, and I still have another hundred stories plotted out that aren't really repeats of what I've already done.

Joanna: So you're writing about America, but obviously it's very, very big.

Are you writing about places you've been to or you know yourself?Or are you putting in different places? Because place makes a difference, doesn't it? Like it's different whether you're in the Florida Everglades versus up in the mountains?

Derek: It's a combination. I have been all over, but a lot of the places I haven't been, Google Maps of all things, has really helped me out. I'll look at the town, and then I'll drop myself into street view and just kind of walk around the area and see what my characters would be seeing and write it from that perspective.

Also it comes directly from places I've been. I had to make the drive from El Paso back to San Antonio, which is about nine straight hours of driving through nothing. That spawned the idea for the “El Paso: Creeping Death” series, just a million zombies marching towards them.

So it's been a nice mixture of both, and just about every single story has been set in America. I have done one story set in London that's only on YouTube at the moment, but it'll eventually be released in print. Something I want to explore more as the series goes on is how it's impacting other countries around the world.

Joanna: Then I guess I have a question about worldbuilding because with that many words, I mean, I barely remember what I was writing last week.

Do you have a world document where you keep all the rules of your world, all the characters, or is it just out of control?Derek: It's a combination. I have the rules for my zombie universe, how the zombies are formed, what they do, their timeline and all that. Thankfully, I mean, it's very simple. So if I drop in on a story a week into it, I know how the zombies are, so I'm able to just jump right into it.

I have a have a story bible for the main series, but all of these side stories that are mostly one-offs, I don't really worry about as much because half the time nobody lives through them, anyway.

Joanna: The benefits of horror! I think that's really interesting because when I was thinking about your different places—

People in your position sometimes open up their world to other people to write in. Is that something you're thinking about?Derek: No, just because I have so many stories that are in the pipeline, and just have stories I want to tell. I produce them so fast, I mean, I'm releasing a story of a week.

Even if I had somebody else writing stories, I really wouldn't have a place in the schedule to release them. An hour and a half to three hour story every week is, I think, about as much as my fans can handle.

Joanna: So let's go into your process then. So you said a story a week for an hour and a half, which is funny because most people talk in terms of word count, but you talk in terms of time.

Tell us about your story process for creation and publishing.Derek: So it really changed about a year and a half ago, when I started focusing more on YouTube. I changed how I write because it used to just be free flowing, the word count's the word count, the chapters are however long they need to be.

With YouTube being ad-based, I had to change to almost a television mindset of, okay, I need a break every 12 to 15 minutes, which turns out to be about 2000 words.

So I started writing 2000-word chapters, which really, really helped with the speed of the writing because I knew the beginning and end of each chapter. So if I was short on the word count, now I can go back and just add a little bit of banter, then bam, we're there.

As far as the week to week process goes, half the time I'll know what I'm writing the next week on Friday, so I'll plot it out. Sometimes I'll have just a great idea for a story on Sunday night and completely change track and wake up Monday and just dive right in and see where it goes.

Generally speaking, I'll spend two to three days writing out the story, refining it a little bit, and then going straight into the audio, which is where I do the final edit. I'll edit it as I'm producing the audio. So at the end of the day, I'll do the video, upload it to YouTube, and move on to the next one.

Joanna: Okay, well, we have to get into that in more detail. So I heard you on the Brave New Bookshelf podcast, and you really inspired me about YouTube.

For people who might not understand the AI audio piece, how are you doing those audiobooks so quickly?Derek: I use a software called PlayHT. It's pretty much the direct rival with Eleven Labs, which is the big AI audio. The biggest difference is that PlayHT offers an unlimited plan. If you're producing as much audio as I am, that's vital, mainly because I need to keep a roof over my head.

I'll produce it chapter by chapter. So I'll paste it into their studio thing, render it, and then listen to it, then make whatever changes I need to make because you can re-render by line. So if I don't like the inflection, I can change a word. It's just quick click, and 30 seconds later that has a new audio generation.

Once I have the finished audio, because I export it by chapter, I'll pull it over in the Final Cut Pro. I'll drop in motion background, so I know where the chapter breaks are when I'm putting it in the ads and YouTube, and export it. Then it's just straight to YouTube and on the schedule.

Joanna: Okay, so a few questions there. For people who haven't done audio with AI—I know what you mean by make some changes—but what are some of the most common issues that you found with using AI voices. I think we're calling it “producing” now.

When you produce the audio, are you having to change specific things regularly? Or is it quite a quick process?Derek: Honestly, it's gotten better as time goes along. I just produced eight chapters this morning, so it was a full hour and a half book. Nine times out of ten when I have to redo a line, it's a glitch in the software or it mispronounces a name. Other than that, the instances are few and far between.

So it took me three hours to produce an hour and a half worth of audio content today. So it goes really quickly.

Joanna: Well, that's good, though, because that's still twice as long. I think some people think you just upload the file and you hit output and that's it. Like yourself, I also listen to the audio as I go through, so that is an important part of the process.

So let's say it's this hour and a half book. You then upload it to YouTube. I've been trying to model you, although my channel has lots of different things on it. So when I upload it to YouTube, I've got a description field, I've got the title field, I've got a thumbnail, I've got some other things.

What are the most important things that you need to put into those YouTube fields?Derek: I mean, really the most important thing are the keywords for people to search and just having a thumbnail that grabs people's attention.

This went back to the winter of December of 2023 when I was switching over to AI audio, I decided to throw up an AI thumbnail, just a random zombie scene.

I put it up there in place of my book cover, and my views doubled overnight. So just having that dynamic thumbnail is bigger than really anything else because that's the first thing people see.

They don't look at your title, they don't look at your description, if they don't click on the thumbnail. If they don't click on the thumbnail, they're never going to see anything else.

Joanna: That is a really good point. I put up my Mapwalker series, my Mapwalker trilogy, which is three books. I did actually make character thumbnails and I put them up, but because the rest of my channel isn't the same, they just look really weird. So I've replaced them with the book covers again. Now your channel, if people go to it— Just tell people where your YouTube channel is.

Derek: Just type in my name in the YouTube search. It’s Derek Slaton. It's the first channel that pops up. It's just “Derek Slaton Horror Book Author” or something along those lines. Just below the channel will be about 40 different zombie story thumbnails you can click on.

Joanna: They're all very consistent. I think that's what's interesting about your channel, it really is super consistent. So I feel like there's two different authors who are listening—well, more than that—but people like me who've had a YouTube channel for ages, and it's full of a lot of different stuff.

Then people who want to do something like you, where it's something very consistent in look and feel. So I feel like your thumbnails are clear, your genre is clear, and you've done all the things that you're meant to do, which is fantastic. You did mention keywords there—

Are you using any specific tool to find the keywords specifically for YouTube?Derek: Yes, I subscribe to something called TubeBuddy, which is all one word. It's actually integrated with YouTube, they're an official partner.

It'll analyze your thumbnail. It'll provide keywords for your type of video. It'll help you pick out shorts, and a whole host of other things. For $3 a month, it's worth every penny.

Joanna: I'm definitely going to get that. That's very helpful. Then you also mentioned putting ad breaks on. So my fiction channel at JF Penn Author is not monetized. As we record this, I'm desperately trying to get it there.

My Creative Penn channel is monetized, and I just click the box that says “yes to ads,” and I've never done anything manually.

What's the difference between just letting it do its own thing and doing it manually?Derek: It is very important to you and anybody who is listening, make sure you manually put in ads where you want them, and to turn off automated ad placement.

Especially now, because they are updating their system to automatically analyze your video and put ads where they think it should go.

Especially if you're using AI audio because there will be occasional pauses in there between lines, and YouTube will read that as, “Oh, that's a natural break. Let's throw an ad in there.”

I checked it on one of my videos, and it went from eight ads that I had placed to about 75. That's not going to work.

Joanna: Okay, that's a lot. Okay, so that's something to do for that longer form content. Okay, so in that one and a half hour book—coming back to this one that you've done today—you'd expect to have seven ad breaks in that?

Derek: Yes, this book was eight chapters, and I do an ad between every chapter and one at the end. So it'd be eight ads altogether.

Joanna: Okay. Obviously, this is hard to know, but—

Approximately how much revenue do you expect to make for that kind of length book?Derek: I mean, generally speaking, you make your most money in the first two to three weeks because that's when it's popular, and that's when you get the most views.

The way I view a video being a success, an hour and a half video, is if it makes $100 and gets an extra 25 to 35 subscribers in that first week. That's about where it typically falls. I mean, I know $100 for a video doesn't sound like a lot, but it's just in that initial week, and then it continues making money essentially forever.

Having that fresh content bringing in new subscribers, new viewers to the channel, they'll click on the playlist like, “Oh, there's 350 hours of stuff here. Let's go listen to older stories.”

So after a while, it just snowballs. So just having that fresh baseline, $100 and 25 to 35 subscribers in a week, that's what I deem to be a success.

Joanna: So is there anything else you do? So you do the TubeBuddy, but—

Do you do any other form of marketing for the channel? Do you do paid ads or anything else?Derek: I do absolutely no advertising, period. Everything I have across every platform is just natural growth. I have done ads in the past. I stopped in January of last year because I wanted to try it out to see how it would go.

I was releasing weekly content across everywhere, Kindle, podcasting, YouTube. With just that constant stream of fresh content, it's like, okay, I know because I write in a niche, I have a limited amount of fans that are out there.

Sooner or later, if I keep putting content out there, they're going to discover me naturally.I was at a point financially where it's like, okay, I'm well above where I need to be to be comfortable. So rather than focusing hours upon hours each week on trying to tweak ads and spend a bunch on that, I'm just like, I'm just going to let it build naturally.

So far, I mean, it's worked great. Last year was my most profitable year, and I didn't spend a dime on advertising.

Joanna: That's why I got excited when I heard you on the Brave New Bookshelf, and people definitely have a listen to that too. It covers a slightly different angle to this episode.

I've always been a fan of content marketing, always. It's how I've built my business. This is another form of content marketing, but it's also revenue, because people can listen for free.

Obviously, I've heard it before, and people listening are like, okay, but indies have been talking about putting audiobooks on YouTube for years. So why now?

I was thinking about this, why I was so resistant to it, and I think it's that I thought that YouTube audiobooks would cannibalize my audiobook revenue elsewhere. So what do you think about that?

Is it just an entirely different audience? Or do you also put your stuff elsewhere?

Derek: I mean, honestly, it's a completely different audience. Because I switched over to AI a year and a half ago, I haven't released anything on Audible or Findaway Voices because for the longest time, they haven't accepted anything but their own AI voices.

So, I mean, my Audible sales were kind of flat lined before I made the jump to YouTube, and they've remained at that level ever since.

What I'm finding is the people who buy audiobooks are one audience, the people who listen on YouTube is a completely different audience, and the people who listen to audiobooks via podcasts are yet another completely different audience.

Joanna: Yes, after hearing you, I was like, of course they're a different audience. I mean, even with my husband, my husband does YouTube, and I don't watch YouTube myself. Yet, he also watches videos.

He doesn't listen to audiobooks on YouTube, but I know other people who do. So I was like, this is crazy. What was stopping me?

So if people listening are feeling like nothing's happening — or I will say, so my channel, JFPennAuthor, is not monetized. So right now, lots of people are listening to the audiobooks, and I am not getting paid.

Any tips for people who want to get into that monetized bracket?Derek: Honestly, just have consistent uploads. It'll keep you in the algorithm, and it feeds back on itself.

Recently, I think maybe within the last year, YouTube changed how they promote their videos, what they deem to be a good thing to promote. It went from number of views to how long people listen, and more importantly, how long your subscribers listen.

So last week, my story was three hours long, and my average listen time was right at about an hour, which fed back to it being promoted to new people. So just having those long stories that your fans will listen to.

One thing that helps me is I release my stories every week at the same time. Noon Eastern Time on Saturdays. So within the first hour, I have 400 or 500 people tuning in, and it boosts the algorithm.

Joanna: Which is great. You've become a habit. I mean, this show is a habit for people. It goes out at 7:30am UK time on a Monday, and the same thing happens. So I completely get the habit.

It's just not something I can see happening for my fiction at the moment. Although, it's so funny, because you've definitely inspired me around thinking about all this stuff.

I also wanted to ask you about the podcast thing because, again, I have two podcasts. They're mainly interviews, solo shows, that kind of thing. They are not fiction or audiobooks.

Tell us about how you do audiobooks for the fiction.Derek: It's really the same thing that I'm doing on YouTube, only just in pure audio form. So there's no video attached.

I just take an mp3 file of the audiobook, and because I write in novella format, most of the episodes are an hour and a half, two hours long. That seems to be the perfect length for a podcast, so I just release a book as an episode.

I tried it on a whim, and within a month, I was monetized. It's grown over the last year and a half now, and it's grown to the point where, financially, it's just a slight step down from what I'm making on YouTube. So it's just another revenue stream for the same content that I already have.

Joanna: What service are you using for that?

Derek: I use a company called RedCircle. They're a podcast distributor. They distribute to Spotify and all these other places. What's great about them is that they have a sales team that will go out and find the ads that will populate within your podcast.

So just like YouTube, I go in, I set where I want the ads to go, and whenever somebody downloads it, if they download it for later, the ads are already inserted into the podcast. So I get credit for all those.

Joanna: Is it one podcast feed with all the stories on it? Or is it a separate feed per book?Derek: It's all one podcast feed. So there's just a new story every week.

Joanna: Okay, right. So that is also called Derek Slaton, is it? Or is it called like Dead America, or something?

Derek: It's called Dead America.

Joanna: Okay, so it's called Dead America. So let's take my Mapwalker trilogy, so it's about 20 hours of audio in total, across three books. I would make that a podcast feed for that series, for example?

Derek: Right. You could break it up into two hour chunks or hour-long stories, however you want to do it, and just have them as weekly releases. Let it build up. The great thing is, once it's out there, once it's monetized, people will come across it, listen to it, and more income.

Joanna: Okay, and can you schedule them? So if I did that, let's say I split them into two hour chunks or whatever—

Can I schedule them all at once?So it's almost like a piece of work to upload all the files, schedule it, do the ad breaks, and then I just let it go.

Derek: Absolutely. I mean, I have the next three months' worth of podcasts already scheduled. So I sit down one day a quarter and just upload 20 – 30 books to it, and place the ads, and let the auto scheduler do its thing.

Joanna: That is cool. Again, it's so funny the kind of blocks we have in our minds. Of course, again, I'm very aware of fiction podcasting. I just didn't think about that from the case of putting an audiobook up.

I always feel like fiction podcasts have multi-cast and they're very full of actors and pro narrators and stuff like that. So I guess we should tackle that.

Are you getting any kickback around the use of AI?Derek: When I started doing AI on YouTube, I had the initial string of protest. I was very open and honest with them, with my fans. Like, here's why I'm using AI, because if I use humans, I could release a story every three to four months. Using AI, I can keep doing it weekly. Almost immediately, everybody bought in.

I've had a fraction of that level of kickback on podcasting, but I was honest with them, responded to their comments with what I just said, and for the most part, it's been smooth sailing.

I even released two shorts back to back. One was human narrated, one was AI-narrated. Despite having the negative AI comments on the AI episode, I actually had 20% more views on the AI episode.

Joanna: Are you using different voices?So do you use a variety of men and women and accents and stuff, or do you just use one narrator?

Derek: I have one narrator for all of them. The only time I changed narrator with the AI was when I did the story in London. I used a narrator with a British accent, just because it felt right.

I played around with doing multiple voices, and even polled my subscribers on YouTube. In about a three to one margin, people were like, no, we like the one voice.

People care more about the story than having multiple voices talking to them.Joanna: Yes, and this is another thing.

To me, when I listen to audiobooks, I want the content. It's not about the voice. In fact, I'd rather the voice disappeared. I think the voice disappearing is when people get used to the voice, so that, I think, is what your listeners are saying, which is that we're after the story.

The fact that they're listening to it rather than reading it doesn't make any difference.

You're also publishing those as ebooks—on Kindle only, or elsewhere?Derek: Just Kindle. I'm in Kindle Unlimited because with the size of my series, nobody's going to buy all the books.

Joanna: Do you use AI covers as well?

Derek: Yes, I started using AI covers with releases that started coming out like last summer. Mostly, they've been well received.

Joanna: I've been using a lot of AI imagery for the last couple of years. Again, a lot of people listening are just scared. You know, when you upload a book to Kindle, you have to click the box that says, “How did you use AI?” I'm like, it's not a problem. You just click the box and you say you're using it.

Do you have any issues at all about using any of the AI stuff?

Derek: Oh, no.

It's been life changing for me. That was a big reason why I was able to go full time last year, just because it cut my costs down by about 99%.Joanna: I love that. I love that. This is, again, why I encourage people to listen to the Brave New Bookshelf podcast, in general, because I think everyone who goes on that show is also AI positive, as you are. They find it just amplifies their creativity. You're a story machine. It's incredible.

Derek: One of the big things anti-AI people say is like, “oh, it's killing creativity,” and it's actually the opposite, at least it has been for me. If I wanted to do a new story, a new plot line, do anything before AI, I would have had to have risked thousands of dollars for the editing, the audio, and advertising for it.

With AI, I essentially have no cost barriers. So I can write whatever I want without fear, without worrying about, okay, if this fails, I'm going to lose thousands of dollars.

With having a built in audience, as long as it's in the horror/sci-fi/action genre, I know I'm going to make money. It might not be a lot of money, but I know I'm going to make money and not lose money.

It has really opened up creativity and allowed me to tell stories I otherwise wouldn't have been able to tell.Joanna: I totally agree. It's such a spark for me when I have a creative session with AI. If I'm just thinking about a new book—like yesterday I was thinking about something—and I just get on Chat or on Claude, and I'm going backwards and forwards, and it's sparking ideas.

Like you, I feel like it makes me more creative, and it just gives me bigger horizons for what's possible.

Derek: Absolutely, and especially with Claude with the new 3.7 Projects, I can upload one of my previous stories, and it's like, “This is how I want the story to sound. This is what I want you to emulate,” and I can go back and forth with it.

It's like having a writing partner, basically. It's speeding up my process. I bounce ideas off of it and stuff. It's like talking to myself, but a more intelligent version.

Joanna: Exactly. I also feel like the word “co-writing” is becoming more and more true, because it is a sort of true collaborative creative process. Although I've worked with co-writers before, and I'm actually a terrible co-writer because I'm so controlling.

So with Claude, [co-writing] actually works a lot better. How about you?Derek: Yes. If it does something I don't like, I can be like, “No, don't do that.”

“Okay, sorry.”

Joanna: Yes, and it's very helpful.

I think you're also using AI for translations. Is that right? What's your process?Derek: I am. I use ScribeShadow, which is AI translations tailored towards fiction. I was one of the early adopters of it. When it first came out, I was like, sure, let's give it a shot, see what happens.

They had like six languages, mostly European languages. It's like, okay, let's throw it up there and see what happens. Italian and Spanish were kind of like, eh, okay, but Germany just took off immediately.

I was just putting up a handful of stories, no advertising still. My first book even got a KDP All Star bonus in German. I've never even had that in America.

Joanna: You didn't have any proofreading? You just went straight from ScribeShadow?

Derek: I went straight from ScribeShadow because at the time, that was before they had partnered with a human translation service that gives them a heavily discounted rate to check everything.

By the time that came along, I had probably 40 books out in German. I went and looked at my ratings and reviews, and I think I had like a 4.3, 4.4 out of five, across all the books.

Then I went and looked at my American versions, and it's like, huh, the German versions are actually higher. So it's like, whatever problem people have, it doesn't appear to be the translations. So I just kept that up because it seems to be working okay.

Joanna: I realize some people listening are just going, “No, no, don't do it!” I have used ScribeShadow, but then I also paid for the proofreading and all of that kind of stuff, but I've only done it for some nonfiction. Oh, I did a short story as well.

I haven't jumped in because, of course, when you pay for all of the other stuff, the costs add up. As you were saying, you wouldn't be able to release at the pace you release, like in German, if you were paying for all of that.

Derek: Right.

I grew up loving B horror movies. So, low budget. They had the creativity, but they didn't have the budget to pull off everything they wanted. I latched onto that mentality.So releasing in German, with the way that I am not paying for the extra translation or editing, like just embracing that B movie mindset. Get it out there. As long as it's entertaining, you'll find an audience.

I know full well I'm leaving 15, 20% of my potential audience on the table who don't like the AI translations, but it's not worth the extra time and money that I would have to spend in order to potentially get them.

I seem to have a regular audience that tunes into my books every week in German because, I mean, I'm profitable within seconds of releasing. So it's like if they're happy, I'm happy.

Joanna: I love that. You mentioned there the 20% you're leaving on the table. I literally wrote down before you said that, 80/20 rule, because that is what you're doing. You're doing the 80/20 rule pretty much for everything. That attitude of like the B movie, which, of course, people love.

I think this is what's so interesting. Listening to you, I feel the freedom. I feel the sort of indie vibe in you, which I just love. I was saying to my husband, listening to you, I caught almost like a flame, I feel. That's why I wanted to talk to you and just say thank you.

I feel like sometimes I get bogged down by so many expectations because I've been doing this a long time. I've been doing this since 2007, 2008, and I lose track of that flame. So I wanted to say thank you to you for kind of lighting that again. I mean, you're like a proper indie, Derek!

Derek: Well, I'm a huge Iron Maiden fan, and one of the things that struck me interviewing Bruce Dickinson, the lead singer years ago, he's like, “We've never gone for radio play. We play music that we like to listen to. We do what we like, and we found an audience.” They're one of the biggest bands in the world.

Like that B movie mindset, like them, it's like, you know what? I'm going to write something that I would want to read. I've just kept pushing it out, and it's taken a little while, but I have an audience, and I'm enjoying every moment of it.

Joanna: Well, great. I think maybe there's some more of your audience coming over.

Tell people where they can find you and your Dead America books online.Derek: The best place to find me is on YouTube and on Spotify as well, The Dead America Zombie Podcast. My books are available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited, not only in America, but Germany, Italy, and Spain.

Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Derek. That was great.

Derek: Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

The post Expanding Audiobook Revenue Through YouTube And Podcasting With Derek Slaton first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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When is it worth writing a Second Edition of a book that already sells well? How might elements of memoir impact non-fiction self-help books?

What are the challenges and opportunities of a second edition, as well as practical tips? I discuss these things and more with Matty Dalrymple on The Indy Author Podcast, a fantastic show that covers the craft of writing and author business.

You can get How to Write Non-Fiction, Second Edition in all formats, on all stores now.

You can watch the video below, or here on YouTube, or listen to The Indy Author Podcast on your favourite podcast app.

Show notes: Joanna shares insights into the changes in nonfiction writing, especially the inclusion of personal elements influenced by her memoir writing. The conversation delves into the challenges and benefits of creating a new edition versus updating an existing one, the impact of technology, including AI, on the writing and publishing industry, and the importance of storytelling in nonfiction. Joanna also discusses practical strategies for updating nonfiction books and shares her experiences in podcasting and book marketing.

• 00:00 Introduction and Initial Thoughts on Writing
• 01:06 Joanna Penn's Background and Achievements
• 01:56 The Evolution of Nonfiction Writing
• 02:40 Personal Elements in Nonfiction
• 04:41 Business Perspective on Writing
• 06:27 Restructuring and Craft Changes
• 07:51 Memoir and Personal Insights
• 10:02 Challenges and Considerations in Updating Books
• 15:49 The Role of AI in Writing and Publishing
• 26:25 Stratification of Audio Rights
• 27:47 Current Audio Platforms and AI Narration
• 29:10 Selling Direct and Revenue Models
• 30:28 Blogging and Alternative Platforms
• 40:20 Podcasting as a Marketing Tool
• 42:31 Second Editions vs. Updates
• 49:20 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Transcript: Matty: Hello fellow Creative Voyagers. This week on The Indy Author Podcast, I talked with Joanna Penn about the evolving author and second editions, including the release of the second edition of Joanna's book, How to Write Non-Fiction.

Joanna discusses the changes in her nonfiction writing, including the importance of storytelling, which led her to apply some of the personal elements and insights she's used in her memoir into this new edition.

We delve into the challenges and benefits of putting out a new edition versus updating an existing one, the evolving landscape of self-publishing and the impact of new technologies on the writing business. And now let's hear from Joanna Penn about the evolving author and second editions.

Hello and welcome to the Indie Author Podcast today my guest is Joanna Penn. Hey, Joanna, how are you doing?

Joanna: Hi, Matty. I'm great. Lovely to be here.

Matty: It is lovely to have you here and for anyone who's may be very new to the indie author space. To give our listeners and viewers a little bit of background on you, Joanna Penn writes Nonfiction for Authors and is an award-winning New York Times and USA today bestselling author of Thrillers, Dark Fantasy, and Memoir as J.F. Penn.

She's also an award-winning podcaster of the wonderful The Creative Penn Podcast, a creative entrepreneur and an international professional speaker. Joanne was last on the podcast in episode way back in episode 54. Futurist Trends we can prepare for now, and that was in November of 2020. And so I'm gonna go back and re-listen to that, see how that turned out.

The futurist things are always fun to look back on, you know? Yeah. Then sometimes quite embarrassing. Obviously I, I doubt it will be embarrassing. I suspect it will be very prophetic of what we talked about back then. But Joanna came back on the podcast. We're gonna be talking about sort of two things.

One is writing nonfiction because Joanna's second edition of the How to Write Nonfiction is going to be out right around the time this airs. And also talking about her thinking behind doing a second edition. So Joanna, the first How to Write nonfiction came out in 2018, I think, right?

Joanna: Yes. I know. It seems like another world at this point.

Matty: Yeah, well it was sort of surprising until, you know, you announced that you were gonna have a second edition and I started thinking about it. But writing nonfiction, I think at a glance would be one of those like, how much can it change? Um, so I'm just, uh, curious to hear from you, what did change —

What changed so much that made you feel like a second edition was something you wanted to put out?Joanna: Well, this question is so great because I actually think the biggest thing that is important in nonfiction is how much personal stuff we put in it.

Because let's face it, AI can write generic nonfiction. And so when I was thinking about a second edition, and there's various reasons, but the main one was I've written a memoir since then.

My book Pilgrimage, which is a travel memoir / midlife memoir. And that changed the way I write so much. And memoir of course is a form of nonfiction.

Pilgrimage, my first limited edition hardback with color photos insideSo I wanted to include all my thoughts and experiences of writing memoir into this book. I decided not to change the title to How to Write Nonfiction and or Memoir 'cause that just would've been a bit much. So that was one of the biggest changes.

I have changed, and my writing craft has changed. I wanted to include all this craft stuff I'd learned around writing memoir. So that's one of the biggest additions and changes to the book, but also to myself. And I could not have written in that before. And I was very struck when I read the first edition, you know, as I was sort of preparing for the second one was like, ‘oh my goodness, my writing has changed so much.'

I think sometimes we have periods, you know, it's not a linear up and to the right. As we get better over time, if we keep practicing and keep publishing, it's more that there are these books that sometimes we write that make such a big difference to us, and Pilgrimage did that for me.

And then also Writing the Shadow, which I wrote directly after Pilgrimage. So I actually feel like two of the most significant books in my creative career were written in the last couple of years and the pandemic obviously made a big difference to our mental health. And I put a lot more of that in there.

Joanna Penn with gold foil edition of Writing the Shadow (Kickstarter only)I feel like the mindset stuff has changed. All that to say that, the writing craft was actually one of the reasons I wanted to address it.

From the business perspective, 'cause you cover both on this show as well, from the business perspective —

How to Write Non-Fiction is one of my top sellers.How to Write a Novel, How to Write Non-Fiction and How to Make a Living with Your Writing. Those three books, they are my 20% with the 80/20 rule, which I know you know about. It's like the 20% of books which make 80% of the money.

And so I was looking at my business thinking, hmm, I'm getting to the point where I'm a little bit less happy about promoting it as the first edition because there's a lot that has changed in our business.

As well, even down to things like I wanted to change the publishing and the marketing tips and thoughts and make them more evergreen, change some of the affiliate links and of course also add in AI.

I have added in AI prompts in different parts of the book to help people use AI tools in an ethical and practical way.And then finally, is the audiobook. So this is both business and craft, is that in 2018, I paid a narrator to do the audio book. Of course one of our double down on being human and being a voice brand, you are a voice brand as well, is that people do like to hear the voice of the author.

I wanted to record the audio book myself and in looking at it, it was like, okay, no, I need to do a new edition in order to record the audio book.

So that's like loads of reasons why, I guess.

Matty: You talked specifically about the fact that you wanted to add in memoir. If you look across other differences between the first and second edition, are there areas where the subject matter was the same, but the approach you used had differed based on some of these experiences that you're describing?

Like where were the biggest changes, do you feel?

Joanna: Yeah, so I guess the first thing is —

I restructured the book. Just a sort of practical tip for people. I exported the addition from Vellum, so, which is a formatting tool if people don't know. And then imported that into a new Scrivener project.

So I did start with practically the first edition. I didn't start from scratch and the first thing I did was reorder things. That was really strange. I was like, Ooh, why is that in that order? And I felt that even my creative process had changed. In that sense, I also, there were I think five parts in the old one.

And now there's only three parts in terms of before you write and then the actual writing and editing process. And then the business of nonfiction.

It's interesting 'cause originally I had split kind of publishing marketing business and now I just feel like that's all one thing. And so I amalgamated some of those things the other.

The other big shift I sort of feel is that —

I don't wanna write specific how-to things that people can get from other places. It needs to be more personal.So I kind of mush together a lot of the publishing stuff in order to write a more evergreen approach. And sort of again, the more mindset side, the more emotional side, the more feeling side that people can't necessarily get from something else.

So that was a big shift, is that reorganization and then . Obviously, as I said, adding in more personal elements, I put more of the personal side around writing memoir. And also I think when I first wrote the book, I was mainly writing more prescriptive self-help. And so it was practical for me to say, this is how you structure a non-fiction book.

And these are, you know, you can use subheadings and you know, you write nonfiction too. It's some, sometimes it's like, okay, just write, I'm writing this chapter and you just write it.

Whereas with memoir, it can just take a lot longer. So I think I include a lot more allowance for self-doubt and for experimentation, and I've also really embraced being a discovery writer since 2018, being an intuitive writer, things that I was slightly maybe embarrassed about in the past.

My own creative confidence is stronger and that comes through. I pretty much rewrote almost every single sentence in the book, even though if people have the first edition, the topics, I mean, like you said, how much changes in that way. You still do a lot of the same things. But I do feel like to me it is a very, very different book.

And I'm actually narrating the audio book [as we record this].

[Note from Jo — The audiobook is out now, along with all the other editions, of How to Write Non-Fiction, narrated by me.]

As I'm reading it, I'm like, oh, this sounds a lot more like me than the 2018 version of me. I mean, you have your Writing Short book that's a few years old now. Do you ever have a sense of I should rewrite anything 'cause you've got more experience?

Matty: Yeah, for sure. One of the things is that I've spoken on that topic a lot, and so I have a better sense of the things that I can see an audience responds to or the questions they ask. Also there was just a certain amount, like Mark and I tried to keep it fairly evergreen, so we tried to limit references to particular services or particular platforms, but you can't really write a book on nonfiction without mentioning some of those.

And some of those, like, some of the names of the platforms have changed. I think probably at least one of the platforms has gone away. So yeah, that is definitely, it's definitely on my list. It's been on my list to re-look at for a while, but it just hasn't bubbled to the top because of some other nonfiction work that I've been looking at.

Joanna: Yeah. Well, I was gonna say on that because there are other books that are older of mine, like Career Change.

Some people have asked me for new versions of my other books. The last time I rewrote Career Change, that was 2012, or Business for Authors, which was 2014, even like How to Market a Book. But these are books I don't want to touch, at least at the moment.

I'm not interested in revisiting those topics, at least at the moment. But also, like I said about the money side, as authors, we have to consider —

Do I spend the time reworking this older book, or do I spend the time writing a new book? There has to be a really valid business reason to do it.And as you say, if it's just that Twitter is now X or you know, different sites of changed, you know, Smashwords got bought by Draft2Digital, and you know, these are the types of things that happen that date books.

But as a nonfiction reader, and I know you read a lot as well, it's like some things make a difference and other things don't.

And so it's where's the balance. But I would say to people listening, if you are feeling like, desperately feeling like it's not me anymore, that's kind of what I was feeling. That book doesn't represent me and it sells enough copies that I need it to. That's kind of why I made that decision.

Matty: I think that idea of what is your goal for the book is really important because I don't know that I went into writing, Taking the Short Tack with this goal, but my evolved goal is that it's really a calling card for me to pitch myself as a speaker on the topic of short fiction, and I've definitely made more money from speaking engagements than I have through the book.

And so that book is gonna be out there as my calling card forever. And so I don't have the same impetus as if I were saying to myself, oh, I really have a whole different perspective on short fiction. I really have a whole different bunch of different things to say about short fiction. So yeah, what the book is doing for you is an important consideration for sure.

When you realized that you wanted to incorporate a memoir as part of your offerings to people in the nonfiction area —

Did you think about doing a book specific to memoir?I did. And it may come up at some other point in my life. When I did Pilgrimage as part of the Kickstarter for it, I had a stretch goal, which was that I would write a little book on writing memoir, and that was, it's about 10,000 words, so it was about an hour of audio narration, which I did for backers.

And so I had that material and I had thought I could expand that. So for about a year I sat on that thinking I would expand it into how to write memoir. And then I looked at the other books on memoir and I thought, I don't have the chops for this. You know, I really did just think, no, there are some already.

You must feel the same way too. Because our books, there are other books on, like both of us have books on public speaking. Right, right. We both have completely valid things to say and neither of us, you know, have any issue with the other one having a book on it. Right. And neither of us feel bad about that.

But when I looked at some of these other memoir books, I was like, I'm not even on the same level as those people because they've been doing it for so long. Like professional speaking. Both of us have been doing that for more than a decade, like probably two at this point. And so we know that topic.

And with nonfiction, you know, I've written what 15, 17 nonfiction books or whatever it is. So I feel like I can do that with memoir. I've only written the one and although it was probably one of the most difficult books I've ever done, I don't feel like I had enough experience.

But it's such a great question because originally back in the day, if I learn, as soon as I learned something, I would write a book on it, but it's almost like —

Memoir is this very particular thing that is so emotional and can be so life changing for people that it takes a lot more work— and I almost feel like it might be something I do later in my life, but I think I need to write some more memoir first. I don't know. What do you think about memoir? Because you, you know, nonfiction is such a big category.

Matty: I am realizing like memoirs, the kind of thing that when I'm thinking of nonfiction categories, I don't think of it because I think of memoirs like its own thing. It's not, it's not fiction, but I don't really categorize it as nonfiction either.

And honestly, I'm not a big memoir reader and most of my exposure to memoir has been talking with people to an extent for the podcast, but also I have a video series called What I Learned, where I asked people what they learned from their latest book that they'd like to share with their fellow readers and what they learned that they would like to share with their fellow writers.

And a number of the people I interviewed for that were Memoirists. And I almost felt as if the, the impetus for people writing a memoir was much more personal than either with nonfiction or for fiction.

I mean, I think a lot of people dive into fiction because they think, oh, I really wanna explore this idea of, uh, somebody coming of age in a certain era and they face this certain challenge or whatever it might be, whatever sort of drives the plot or drives the characters or whatever the impetus is.

But I think that all the memoirists that I spoke with were writing from a very personal perspective, like it was triggered by a personal event or triggered by a personal revelation or something like that.

And I thought, man, if I were to try to look for the commonality, like if I were providing advice, I don't know what I'd provide because that really would be kind of a mindset book and, and it would almost be like a psychology book in a way.

Joanna: Yeah. Well, and that's why I think there's a lot more in there, but I also think that's why I've very much emphasized the personal element. But I think it's also important for us in our more general nonfiction books, as I, as I said —

One of the things that generative AI, ChatGPT etc, are very, very good at is providing generic advice.

That is completely fine. And there's a sort of rising number of people who are using these tools as coaches, you know, to answer questions about how to live and how to date and how to cook.

I use it quite a lot for that and all these things that, so when I was revisiting this, and also just on your point on memoir, it, it, you are having to face this challenge of how much do I share about my struggles?

How much do I share about my life? So in the book, and this chapter was actually in the first edition. You know, I talk about how a nonfiction book changed my life and it was a memoir, Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. And in the first, in the first edition, I had not written a memoir. And then obviously now I have and I can almost —

I appreciate so much more how important it is to share those personal moments in our nonfiction work. So even with our, with our public speaking, for example, in my book I share the physical things that happen when you're about to go on stage and you're like, you know, having to go to the toilet for the 10th time. And, you know, and the real gut stuff that people assume is just them, but is actually, most people have these reactions.

And so being more, talking more about physical sensations, about mental things, I think these are just so important for making our books stand out and for this idea of doubling down on being human and just connecting on a much more personal level. So I'd urge people listening —

Please, if you're writing nonfiction, even if it is more self-helpy or not memoir, try and include aspects of yourself and your life and your personal thoughts into your books.And sometimes that can be journal entries.

I often use journal entries, which, you know, I mine my own journals in the past for things that I can put in that helps or doing a survey. And asking for people's permission to use quotes from real people. It, 'cause then you get more different voices into the book.

So anything we can do to bring all material alive with more human content, I think,

Matty: yeah, I think that that idea of the importance of storytelling in, even in kind of instructional nonfiction, obviously in memoir.

I'm thinking back to some of the advice that Michael and I shared in From Page to Platform, and part of that was definitely the importance of incorporating stories into presentations.

I just got off a call with Mark because he and I are gonna be co-authoring a book on, it's called The Podcast Guest Playbook, and we were talking about the, yeah, yeah. We could send it to all our podcast guests. We were talking about the importance of story. So it would be cool. Here's a book idea, just the idea of how best to tell stories.

I mean, I know that this, this won't be a new book, but a new take on it, especially in the context of ai, the importance of telling stories in all these ways, telling stories and making them personal, and having that be the way we double down on being human.

Joanna: That book on being a podcast guest is great because I spend a lot of time, I'm sure you do, educating people on how to be a good podcast guest, but here is a tip with ai, which I found super, super useful, is you can —

Use AI tools to do research on podcast hosts, and then you can also get ChatGPT or Claude to write you a pitch email directly targeting that particular host.You can, even, if you are happy to upload your book and say, What are the 20 podcasts I should pitch for this book? Write me a pitch to the host of The Indy Author so this would fit her show. And part of me is like, oh no, that means we'll get a ton more pitches.

But part of me is like, yes, please, because the number of terrible pitches we get, and I'm sure you do as well. It's like, I would really like some better pitches. So I'm excited about your book.

Matty: Oh, good. Good. I'll let you notice it too. And it's out there. Yeah. I think my, one of my biggest gripes in that area is people who pitch, who should really be pitching a book tour type of podcast, you know, who just wanna come on and talk about their latest book, not a sort of share more give tips, And not give tips.

More general information for, so I'm going to, I wanna use that discussion about AI because I was looking through your, your catalog of books and . Some of them just based on the title and based on me having read them, seem very evergreen. I think in general there's sort of historically a recommendation that the more evergreen you can make the book, the less often you have to think about revisiting it for factual reasons as opposed to personal mindset reasons.

But one of them, which I imagine is, is the most time-bound one, is Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, and Virtual Worlds. Assuming that you'd have to go back to frequently to update, did you do it just as like a snapshot in time and figured it would, that's what it would be. What is your thought about future editions of that book?

Joanna: Well, what is classic, because I am usually five years early, so that book, that must have been what I came on last time to talk about in 2020.

That came out in November, 2020, and is only now coming true. So it's actually right now it's incredibly correct. At the time the interviews I were doing, people were saying, you are completely mad and what are you talking about?

But actually it's, it's starting to come true. For example, data licensing deals for our work. This is now finally starting to happen. Only a couple of months ago, or even perhaps a month ago, the Author's Guild said they are gonna work with Created by Humans to do data licensing. And of course we've got tons of companies signing data, licensing deals.

I think Harper Collins, As well as some of the other big publishers like Time Magazine and all of this signing deals. News Corp certainly did that. So also in there things like blockchain technology and we don't need to go into that, but that is now really having a resurgence.

Generative ai, certainly around nonfiction. I talked about AI for voice and that is also now going mainstream. So amusingly, that book is exactly now on time almost. Well, that's four years later.

People could read that book now and they'd be like, oh, that's exactly what's going on. It's not futurist at all. (But it's 5 years old)So I think what's interesting, the virtual world hasn't happened so much.

I was, you know, looking at the early days of metaverse, but I think that is gonna come with some of the world building AIs, which are starting to develop now. So we saw in the last week the release of OpenAI's, sora.com, which is generative video. And there's a lot of these ones where it will generate a world as you move through it.

That's what we need for metaverse. A lot of these technologies are only now just starting to happen. So if I was to write another one like that, it would be another sort of futurist look forward into where we might be in another five years. But to be honest, I think that where we are, even just now, we've got enough to be working on. I'm not planning on updating that.

I think one of the biggest shifts for authors is going to be audio books with AI voices. Now, you and I have practiced, you know, obviously professional speaking, but also we've both been podcasting for a long time, and so we are more happy with voice and we've had a lot of practice and I've done voice training for narration and all of this.

I also want to narrate my books, but most people are not in our situation. And so most people want to get their book into audio. I would love to have my books in lots of different voices as well, accents and languages. And that is only possible with AI.

No one can afford to have their audio books in every language, in every accent, in every country in the world. It's impossible without AI. And yet what we have is in the West, in English, we have this total dominant world, whereas in some countries, they have nothing because there's no audiobook market.

So if we want people to be able to listen to audiobooks in their own language or their own dialect, then we need AI to help us leverage that with translation and with AI narration. So I think all of those things are super exciting.

I actually think that even just using our, the existing AI technologies we have today, we have a lot more to do over the next five years.

Matty: I think AI audio is such an interesting topic and I am just waiting. I keep checking in with, you know, platforms like ElevenLabs and things like that, and seeing how things are going there because I would love to be able to make AI generated, audio trained on my own voice.

And as for my co-authored books with Michael LaRonn and Mark Leslie Lefebvre, we all have plenty of audio that an AI could be trained on to, you know, it would be fun for short t There were certainly chapters that Mark contribute to more, and some that I contributed to more.

It would be super cool to have each of us read the chapters that we were more driving. And even for like my dream scenario for my fiction, I also just keep checking in and seeing how it's doing on fiction. I'm like, yeah, I'm still not there yet.

We actually have, like Michael and I have AI generated audio, Google Play generated audio for From Page to Platform, but I keep checking back in on fiction and it's not quite there yet, but the woman who narrates my fiction, which who I love, she doesn't really do this as a full-time gig anymore.

She's just kind of fitting me in as a favor. And so there's often many months between the time and ebook and a print book go become available and when the audio becomes available.

I think the dream scenario for all of us would be she trains AI on her voice and we do some kind of royalty split — or I pay her some amount for the benefit of using a voice that sounds consistent with my other books and brings all the things that I love about her.

And so, uh, that's another thing I'm waiting for.

Joanna: Yeah. Well, just on that audio again, in that 2020 book, one of the things I said is —

We need stratification of audio rights — for the reason you just said is that, um, at the moment when people license their audio, they're licensing the whole book. It's just like audiobook rights, It's just one thing and that's designed for an old world now where there's one voice or multicast reading one book, so it might be audio book in English or whatever.

But what we need is like you said, you might pay your human narrator a particular thing, and we might sell that at a higher price, human narrated audio.

Then we might have AI generated audio where we can license that separately, maybe to an auto translation narration app for different languages and then maybe we have multicast.

And what I also think is a kind of hybrid model where on a multicast audio, let's say there are two main characters, Matty and Jo, and we are human, but there are 20 minor characters that we can then use AI for.

And then we stitch those together into a multicast human AI audio experience, which I think is very, very, very cool and will save time and money and enable more production to go ahead. So that's, that's just on one thing on the platforms.

Where we are right now with AI audio is — — and you are in the US and you always get the best things. So what we do have is Amazon actually do have their own audio, and that's still in a private beta. It's in the US only. It's invitation only.

So there are quite a lot of mainly romance authors doing AI audio through Amazon, not through ACX, but through Amazon audio. Then we've got Google Play Audio, which you can do if you have an ebook wide. You can then do Google narration.

And then we've got ElevenLabs. I mean, there's a whole load of them, but ElevenLabs really is the sort of best in class, and a number of traditional publishers are now doing deals with them to do the different translation and narration type ideas With Spotify and FindawayVoices.

At the moment, they still only allow Google, but there are rumors that they will allow something like ElevenLabs files in the future if they can sort out the verification of the ownership of the IP. That's the main issue.

It's not the quality of the AI narration that is the issue, it's the ownership of the IP.So I think where we are in 2025 is we're going to see — the dams will be broken and this will all start happening and be much more open.

But for authors, what we have to remember, and this is why this stratification thing I think is important, the revenue model of audio has shifted dramatically and one of the very good things now with selling direct, which is another thing that's really kind of come of age over the last five years is that —

Selling audio direct is much more profitable. If somebody listening decides to buy How to Write Non-Fiction, second edition from me at CreativePennBooks.com, with me narrating, I get a much higher profit than I do if you get it on your Audible subscription or on Spotify or whatever.

Now I'm happy for people to get it wherever, but for authors to have revenue and for narrators to have revenue, we need these different stratification of rights and the different ways of selling.

So that's just to encourage people to think wide is not just not Amazon. It's also things like selling audio, selling bundle deals.

People pay decent money for an audio bundle because, you know, nonfiction, particularly people love audio. I listened to tons of audio nonfiction, so there's a few things to consider.

Matty: Yeah, I'm definitely someone who likes to read words on a page when I'm reading fiction, but I like to hear it when I'm absorbing nonfiction.

I dunno why my brain works in different ways in that way, but for people who do like nonfiction, reading words on a page, nonfiction, I'm wondering about other platforms like, blog sounds so old fashioned, but, you know, sharing, especially mindset driven nonfiction on things like Medium or Substack or something like that.

Is blogging on SubStack or Medium something you considered as an outlet for what you're sharing for nonfiction?Joanna: It's interesting. I used to blog as in, I used to put articles on my own website and I used to do guest articles for other people's websites. Then what happened probably about five years ago, maybe, maybe a bit longer.

The Alliance of Independent Authors, of which we are both members and advisors. And your campaign manager I think. Yeah. So the Alliance of Independent Authors SelfPublishingAdvice.org blog started I think around then, anyway, that was one of the reasons I stopped blogging. Also, Kindlepreneur and a whole load of other sites where there were more than one writer involved.

And so I just felt like I cannot compete with article writing in a world where there are multiple people writing very good articles, I guess Medium and Substack maybe came around the same time, and I felt like, how do I compete in this space for a long time?

I started so early in self-publishing. I started in 2008. My website was one of the very first. I didn't have to compete then because there were very few people doing that, and then things started to change. So then I went really hard into audio-first.

So mainly the only articles now on my website is the transcription of the podcasts. I'll sometimes do extra ones, but I do share articles in my Patreon, which is behind a paywall.

So that is something I do still do articles on. But in terms of Substack and Medium and all that, I also felt like I didn't want to be part of the kind of mass article making machine that I felt almost was a big thing between 2008 to 2018 maybe.

So it was like a decade there of blogging, like you said, we called it blogging and people did blog tours and redid all this, and now I feel like things have shifted. That's how I feel. I don't know. I mean, how do you feel about this?

Matty: Well, it's not something that I pursued because I do sort of feel as if I have a certain number of words in my head to share. And if I'm gonna expend them, I'm gonna expend them on my own books. Certainly not on other people's blogs.

But I just don't think in a way that I think would lend itself to platforms like Substack and Medium, I don't read those things myself. And so I always think venturing into something that you don't enjoy as a consumer is tricky. You know —

Trying to create things that are in a style you don't consume yourself is tricky.And it is interesting because I think all those informational sort of, you know, do I need an ISBN kind of questions, those are becoming so easy to answer with ai. And I have started just always tacking on at the end of my ChatGPT questions, please give me links to all your source material to make sure that that it's right.

But those things that are just sharing information, I've gotta believe, are eventually gonna start going away. Because if people can get it easily through something like Chat, GPT or Claude or whatever, then there's gonna be less impetus for that. But then I think it goes back to what you were saying before about leaning into our humanity and sharing stories and being personal because.

Those are the things that people are gonna be going to an individual person for. And I kind of feel like the people I've spoken to on the podcast who ha, who are active on Substack or Medium or outlets like that are doing it because they feel like they themselves have a particular perspective that they want to share with people.

Not that they're sort of educating people, they're like connecting with people through those platforms.

Jo: And in that sense, if it's personal, then that's great. And I do read a few of them. I guess. I also come from the old school of —

Don't build your platform on rented land. And so when I saw Medium that's just blogging on someone else's platform, and Substack is building an email newsletter on someone else's platform.

And so why would I do that when I already have my own website and I already have my own email list? So I think that's the other thing. And I know that's, people have changed their minds a lot on that, but I certainly haven't, I've been paying for hosting since day one for the podcast and for the website.

And I mean, when I came into this, it was when there was still, friends reunited and you know, there was still these really early social media things, MySpace. People forget that these things disappear.

Let's say you build and build and build on one of these platforms and then it goes away, how does that affect your backlist?

I guess so, yeah. I mean, it is, it's very, it is an interesting situation. Some people will say, oh yeah, but you can download your list from Substack or whatever. So you still own it. To me, I guess I have this old school view that if you are not paying for something, then you are the product .

Matty: Yeah, I guess it would depend, and this is totally a question 'cause I have no opinion to the extent that people go on those kinds of platforms saying, oh, I'm going to, I'm gonna use this as a discovery method for finding everybody who's writing about authoring nonfiction, or everybody who's writing poetry or everybody who's whatever.

If they're doing that, then that could be a benefit to going to a platform rather than on your own website. But the comparable thing I'm thinking of is that —

I wouldn't ever have thought of Kickstarter as being a book discovery platform, but it's clearly becoming that. And so, I always just thought of Kickstarter as being, it's a way of tapping into your existing pool of, uh, fans in a different, more direct way.

I've spoken to a number of people who say, no. People go on Kickstarter and they're just like looking for a book to read, and that's how they're finding their books now. I was like, well, that's pretty cool. I would've never seen that coming.

Jo: Oh, yeah. I buy a lot of things on Kickstarter. I mean, you and I both write short stories.

I buy a lot of short story anthologies on Kickstarter. I think it's actually a great discovery platform for these kind of weird end of the niches. And let's face it, short story anthologies and collections. They're not super, super mainstream in in anybody's book, but just just on the kind of subset. I don't want anyone to think that I'm kind of saying it's a bad idea.

I think in, in a way, it's similar to social media in that you are putting stuff out on someone else's platform.

The most important thing is that you're bringing people back to somewhere. Whether that is to sign up for your email newsletter, or to buy a book. At the end of the day, we're authors, we want people to buy a book.

So Kickstarter people discover you, and they buy a book. So it is a very short journey from being interested. Are you interested? Yes or no? And then there's a button to press and you spend some money.

And, TikTok, for example, is done this very well. It's very much a shopping channel, basically. A shopping channel, which is why people do so well.

They're selling books. Selling all kinds of things. Whereas some of the other platforms haven't got a real direct link between chatting and social and selling. It's like that wasn't the culture. And I feel like Substack and, Medium and some of those platforms, they're not really designed to sell books.

They do have this subscription model where you can, you know, subscribe to someone's SubStack. But I think like many of these things like books in general, or we said the 80:20 rule, most people in most areas are not gonna make a ton of money from subscriptions on these email platforms. So I think the main thing for authors to feel is —

You can't do everything. You and I have chosen not to do Medium or Substack. We have chosen to podcast, and both of us know that this is, this takes time, this takes investment. This is our chosen platform that we spend time on and effort on. I have stuck with X.

I don't do TikTok, I rarely do any other social media, but —

We've got this splintering. It used to be that there was a pathway to being an author and doing marketing, and now there's so many options that authors have to decide — okay, what am I going to do? You have to do something. But it could be Substack, it could be TikTok. It could be podcasting, but probably not all three.

Matty: Oh, yes. Yeah, for sure. I always like the, for everything you pick, you choose to do, you're defacto choosing something you're not going to do.

And also the idea that don't do things that you, you don't like as a consumer. So when TikTok came out, I spent like 35 seconds on TikTok just looking at it, and I was like, I, I just can't even stand looking at this as a user. So never gonna be good at providing content to this as a creator.

Jo: That's exactly right. And hence both of us listen to podcasts, listen to audio books. We're kind of audio, almost audio first.

And again, I guess with this book. For my book for book marketing, you know, I said, can I come on people's podcasts?

Hence I'm on your show and yeah, so I'm doing maybe —

In the old days people did a blog tour and now those of us who like doing podcasts to do more like a podcast tour— or not so much a tour, but just try and talk about books and podcasts certainly sell books. So for people listening, you don't have to have your own podcast, but you can certainly pitch to be on podcasts and you can buy Matty and Mark's new book when it comes out.

Matty: And another idea specific to podcasts that I actually didn't think about until I was co-presenting a presentation at International Thriller Writers Craft Fest with Jerry Williams, who's the host of the FBI Retired Case File Review podcast.

We were doing a presentation on podcasting as content marketing, and we were working on the slides and we were talking about the pros and cons.

Like if people were thinking of starting a podcast, you know what, what would be a sign that they should, what might be a sign that they shouldn't? Uh, jury said, well, of course it doesn't have to be forever. Like maybe you just go out there with a six episode podcast around the topic of your book, for example, your nonfiction book.

You know, another alternative would be you just decide to do a six episode thing on writing nonfiction. And for people who are writing nonfiction, I think that would be a pretty cool, uh, way to sell some books and make a short-term commitment.

Jo: Yeah, I absolutely agree. And I keep thinking of ideas for other podcasts, but I'm just like, oh, how, like you said about the number of words we have and how much energy you have in a week.

I do sometimes think about that, about how could I do a short podcast series. I did have another podcast called Books and Travel, which is still there. It's about 90 episodes. I love that show and I think about it all the time and I'm like, oh, I would love to pick that up again.

Books and Travel is coming back! I think there's a lot to weigh up, but as we said, definitely go with what you enjoy consuming as as a person rather than kind of faking it.

Matty: Well, I had one quick question, and this was specific to the second edition of How to Write Non-Fiction.

And I think it's a good tie into that idea of you only have so many hours in the day, what are you gonna spend them on? And can you just talk a little bit about —

What are the pros and cons of putting out a second edition of a book versus just continuing to update the book you already have out there?Jo: To me, it has to be that under 10% thing.

So for example, back matter is something that people update. I have gone back in and removed. You know, in their long career as an author, things happen and you think, oh, I'm not sure I want that quote by that person anymore. So you go back in and you might remove something small like that. So updating.

I am thinking, so for example, Audio for Authors, part of me knows that it could, it could use a new edition, but I'm not going to do that. I will. Uh, but what I definitely want to add is Hindenburg narrator. Here's a tip for everyone listening. The software,

Hindenburg Narrator has a one click button to master the files for ACX. It's going to save you hundreds of dollars per book.Just the one button for mastering for ACX, and it's like, okay, that has to go in there. But that's an update. That's like a paragraph that I need to put in the book and it's on my list. But to, so it's really, in terms of updating it, updating versus a whole new edition, it really has to be how much is going to change.

And sometimes you might not know, 'cause you might remember things in a certain way. I do think also if people have got their rights back from a traditional publisher, this is happening quite a lot. You know, people are like, they've got a book back and people, people say, I get these emails.

People are like, oh, I wrote it 15 years ago. It was published 10 years ago. And I'm like, you need to reread that. So for example, gender is something that in 15 years, the terms around gender have changed a lot. Right. If you read a book from 15 years ago, it's something that can really date the the book.

So I think that's an interesting, and I'm not saying that's everything, I'm just saying that's one example of things that change and you might find whatever your topic, that your examples are dated or that kind of thing. And also, of course, as I mentioned, you have changed. So I think the main thing is how much needs to change.

How can you market it in a way that people are going to be interested in the next edition? So like I've said, for me the big edition is memoir, which I didn't, I don't think I even mentioned it in the first edition, or I might have mentioned it as a type of nonfiction. But until you write, sometimes, until you write something, you don't really know what you don't know.

I suppose so those would be a few tips. Also, I feel like just sometimes you just get this overwhelming sense that it needs to be done. And in that case, have a listen, listen to that intuition.

Matty: And it is like putting out a new book. I mean, the, the pro is that you can, you know, do a, do a podcast tour. Talk about it in the same way you would talk about a first edition book.

I guess that the downsides to me have always felt like having to change, ISBNs, having to lose your reviews, and I guess in some cases you can sort of appeal and have them brought forward if you work with the platform manually. I don't think so.

Jo: No. Okay. Not, not for a new edition. In my mind, the new edition is a completely new book. Yeah. So it must have new ISBNs, a new Kindle page, no reviews because it is a new book. It can't be both. It's either one or the other, and so a second edition, or I've got third editions of some of my books. This is a new, completely new book.

So yeah, with updates, as you say, you don't need to change anything. You can upload a new file and there's not even a problem. The keeping your reviews, I just think is not necessary. And also on the podcast tour type thing. I think it is harder to get press on a second edition, so that would probably be a challenge.

This is an evergreen book in my business and it gets marketed all the time. I do Amazon auto ads on it, so I know that it's not about a launch, it's about the kind of maybe the next 6, 8, 10 years before I might decide it needs another go.

Matty: Well, I also think, especially after having this conversation about the importance of how important mindset was, this was not just an update of factoids.

In fact in, in the books I'm working on with Michael and Mark, the things that seem really time bound, we usually put in a publicly available appendix, which is kind of a nice giveaway too.

You know, we'll have the page up on our websites for the book. And then we'll have a downloadable attachment saying, you know, these are the, these, this is the podcast technology we would recommend today.

And it might not be the podcast technology that we would recommend tomorrow, but what I like about that mindset thing is that, it's beyond just the facts. It is a new look. And then I think ultimately it's, would people who got the first edition benefit from getting the second edition? And based on all the things that we've talked about.

I own the first edition. I will be happy to sign up for the second edition too, because I recognize that the changes that have been made make it a valid addition to my library.Jo: Thank you. Well, on that and on that, I obviously agree, I think it is useful, but what I am doing, and I certainly, this doesn't have to be done, but for people who have bought direct from me in the last six months, the old edition, I am happy to, you know, I'm gonna email them and say, would you like a free ebook or audiobook of the new edition?

Because I feel slightly guilty. But we all know that people put out new editions and the timing of the day that you withdraw the old edition is really hard, so you obviously have to unpublish the old editions and that, that you can do that quite quickly with eBooks. Well, for some platforms, with audiobooks, with print, but with print books never go away.

Right? There's always secondhand editions out there. What I have done is change the color of the, the title, so it's above me there on the video. It's, it is now a teal. Color as opposed to a red color. So I've tried, you know, and it's got second edition on, so I've tried to make it really obvious, but I think communicating with people is important.

Like you say, you want people to want another edition. You don't want them to feel like, oh, well, you know, I thought I could get everything from the first. So yeah, this is one of the challenges I think, of doing second editions. But again, I feel like it's been a real worthwhile thing. And yeah, I hope it's useful for people.

Matty: Great. Well Joe, it was always lovely to talk to you. Let's not let four years go by until our next conversation. But thank you so much for coming back to the podcast and please let everyone know where you, they can go to find out more about you and everything you do online.

Jo: Yeah, sure. So TheCreativePenn.com with the double n.com and my podcast is The Creative Penn Podcast and you can get books everywhere.

And my store is CreativePennBooks.com. Great. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me, Matty.

The post The Evolving Author And Second Editions. Joanna Penn On The Indy Author Podcast first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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How can you use short stories to improve your writing craft across different genres? How can you make money from licensing your short stories in different ways? How do you structure a short story collection? Douglas Smith shares his tips.

In the intro, S&S imprint says that authors no longer need to get blurbs for their books [The Guardian]; James Patterson will be headlining Author Nation 2025; How to sell books from a table [Novel Marketing Podcast]; My lessons learned about screenwriting; Death Valley, a Thriller.

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

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn

Douglas Smith is a multi-award-winning Canadian author of novels, short stories and nonfiction, with over 200 short fiction publications in 36 countries and 27 languages. He's also the author of Playing the Short Game: How to Market and Sell Short Fiction, now out in its second edition.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.

Show Notes

• How beginner writers can use short fiction to improve their writing craft
• Overview of the different short story markets
• First rights and second rights for selling short stories
• Financial expectations for traditionally published short stories
• Tips for self-publishing a collection
• Benefits of exclusive short stories
• Using Spotify playlists as a discoverability mechanism – here's a playlist of my short stories on Spotify
• How to market a second edition

You can find Doug at SmithWriter.com.

Transcript of Interview with Douglas SmithJoanna: Douglas Smith is a multi-award-winning Canadian author of novels, short stories and nonfiction, with over 200 short fiction publications in 36 countries and 27 languages. He's also the author of Playing the Short Game: How to Market and Sell Short Fiction, now out in its second edition. So welcome back to the show, Doug.

Douglas: Oh, thank you, Joanna. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me back.

Joanna: Oh, yes. So first up­—

Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and short stories, in particular.Douglas: Well, I guess I did a fair bit of writing in high school and a bit in university. Then I just drifted away from it, pursuing a business career and raising a family, etc. I always told myself I would go back and chase the writing dream someday.

I remember, I was in my early 40s, and I came back from a family vacation, and one of the first things I read was the obituary for one of my all-time favorite writers, Roger Zelazny. He was the American science fiction fantasy writer, and he had died far too early at, I think, 56 from cancer.

That just drove home the fact that none of us are guaranteed of a someday. So I started writing that summer and turned out about eight short stories. I joined a writing group to get feedback on my writing.

Then about a year and a half later, it was actually on New Year's Eve of the following year, I got my first acceptance letter. So that was a great way to end a year and start a new one. So that's how I started. I started with short fiction. I started because one of my favorite writers died far too young.

Joanna: What was your previous career?

Douglas: I was an IT executive. Just in case people are wondering, I remained an IT executive. I did not give up the day job, so writing was done in spare time. Especially when I started with short fiction, it's very hard to live and raise a family on the proceeds of short stories.

Joanna: I think that's a really important thing to say. I suspected you were going to say that. Then just with perspective—

So what year was it that you did that first sale?

Douglas: That story came out in '97, so a long time ago. That story actually ended up winning an award. So, yes, it was a good start, but I stayed with writing short fiction for about 10 years.

Part of that was inertia, and part of it was just writing a novel at that time seemed kind of daunting. I finally did decide that I needed, for the same someday issue, that I wanted to move into novels, and I better not wait any longer.

Joanna: Yes. I mean, obviously the publishing industry is quite different from 1997, and we'll come back to some of the other markets. What have you noticed with short fiction in particular, or in general with the indie author community, and things changing? I mean—

This book, Playing the Short Game, you self-published this, right?Douglas: Yes, I did, and my novels as well. My collections, which were the first things I put out, they came out from traditional publishers that are small press publishers, one in the UK and one in Canada.

When it came to the point where I was ready to publish my first novel, for me, I saw no upside in trying to go a traditional publishing route.

Ironically, my advice is quite different for short fiction. One, I think writers should start with short fiction and that they should pursue the traditional short story markets that are, if anything, far more numerous now than when I started.

Thanks to the option of a lot of these short fiction magazines or anthologies, they put out ebook editions, so it's a lot easier. You don't have to worry about the physical distribution, physical production of the magazines.

There's still a lot of print magazines around, still a lot of print anthologies, but you'll find there's a lot of options for selling short fiction. Much more than when I started.

Joanna: So let's get to some of the pros and cons, I guess. So you said there you do think fiction authors should start with short stories. Why do you recommend that?

Why write short stories? What is fun about it? What are the good craft reasons?Douglas: Yes, it is fun. I mean, if you do not like short fiction as a reader, it's going to be difficult for you to be successful as a writer. So that would be the first thing. The standard advice for any writer is you've got to be a reader.

If you don't read, you're not going to be a writer.

Why short fiction to start with? My main, strongest argument is that it helps you learn your craft. It teaches you how to be a writer.

There are far too many indie novels out there that are, quite frankly, terrible.

The good thing with short fiction is that it gives you a method where you can try out a lot of different types of stories, types of story structure. You can basically build your toolbox as a writer, and many of those tools are the same ones you're going to need if you move onto novels.

The other thing is it gives you a benchmark. If you're writing short stories and sending them out to professional markets—and I assume we'll get into that—you get a wonderful little measuring stick for when you've become a professional writer.

Or in other words, when your writing has become good enough that someone out there wants to pay you money to publish it, in the hopes that they will make money from what they publish.

So if you don't do that, if you just jump into indie and send your stories out into the world, put them up on retail sites, quite frankly, it's probably not going to be a very good piece of writing. It's hard to develop a craft.

One of the complaints I have with a lot of the indie writers out there is, and you see it if you go to convention, all they focus on is, “I've written a book. Now, how can I market it? Please tell me the secret to beating an algorithm.”

There are good marketing approaches. The problem is, if you come up with a good marketing approach for your novel, your first novel, it's probably going to do you more harm than good. Because if you get a lot of people to read it, and they read it and say, this is not very good, they're never going to come back to your writing.

As opposed to if you've taught yourself the craft of writing, and you become a competent writer, and you get to the point where professional publishers are willing to give you money for your short stories, your writing has reached that point.

So when you move to a novel, it's going to be a different beast than short stories, but you're going to have a lot of the skills already in place that you've honed over the time you've been writing short fiction.

So that's my main argument for writing short stories, is that it teaches you how to be a writer.One more thing is, the example I love to give is, you can try a lot more points of view: first person, third person. Different story structures, things you want to try. Genres: horror, science fiction, fantasy, mainstream.

You can try more of those over 25,000-word short stories than you can in one 100,000-word novel.

You've written the same number of words, but you're going to come out at the end of those 20 short stories being much more knowledgeable and a better writer than writing that first 100,000 word novel.

Joanna: I mean, I totally agree with you there in terms of the potential for doing shorter stories. I mean, you said 5000 words.

What is a short story range, in terms of word count?Because people often get obsessed with this.

Douglas: Yes, and the definitions I'll give are from the Science Fiction Fantasy Writers Association. So a short story is anything up to, I think it's 7500 words. Then a novelette is above that, up to 17,750 or 17,500, I can't remember which.

Then a novella is above that, up to 40,000 words. Then flash, it varies. Anything typically up to 1000 words is called flash.

Your typical short story, if you look at markets out there, they will want something in the range of 3000 to 5000 words. If you write above that, the other tip I'll give is, the longer the story is, the harder it will be to sell.

If you've got a 10,000-word story, and an editor loves your story, but they also love two 5000-word stories from two other writers, they're probably going to buy those two stories as opposed to your one big one. They're taking a bigger chance on your single story.

Joanna: Okay, well, let's talk about those markets then, because you mentioned the traditional short story markets, but that there are a lot more of them these days.

Give us an overview of what you mean by short story markets.Obviously, just so everyone knows, in the book you go through this extensively. So I highly recommend people get the book for more detail, but just give us an overview.

Douglas: Well, generally speaking, your markets for any story that you write—and we're going to have to get into the rights that you'll be dealing with when you're trying to market a short story—but simply, it's a magazine.

There are lots of magazine markets out there, and those are ones that come up with a different issue—not too many do it monthly anymore—but four times a year, three times a year. They are either in print format and/or electronic edition. So they're called serial publications.

Then the other main market is an anthology, the anthology markets. Those are books that contain stories from different authors. So those are your two main options.

Anthologies typically are themed, so they have the advantage of, if you've got a very strange story, you may luck out and find that there is an anthology coming out of radioactive chickens from space or something. You haven't been able to sell that story of yours, and now you probably have a higher probability.

So anthologies and magazines. The other major market would be audio markets.

Again, there can be audio anthologies or audio zines as well, and they will be producing essentially a podcast version of your story. They will have a narrator that will read your story and dramatize it. That's the third type.

Joanna: Let's talk about the different rights.

Because it is quite different, isn't it, to long form fiction and nonfiction.

Douglas: In many ways, it's very similar. The main thing that if you're going to start writing at all is understand that you have rights.

As soon as you finished a story or a novel, you have rights associated with that creation.So for short stories, when a publisher that you've submitted to comes back to you and says, “Hey, I love this story, I want to publish it,” we typically say, “Hey, I sold a short story.” You actually haven't sold anything. What you're going to be doing is licensing a very particular set of rights to that publisher.

They're going to have a number of dimensions. The first dimension I deal with in the book is, I call it the Media Dimension, and we just talked about the three different types of markets.

So if you're selling to a print magazine, they're going to want to license print rights. If they're only in electronic format, then they'll want electronic rights. If they're an audiobook publisher, they'll want audio rights.

So there's that, there's the three dimensions of types of media, and that's combined with whether they're an anthologist or a magazine. So for example, if I sold a story to a magazine that only has print editions, they would want to license serial print rights.

Serial means they're a magazine, and they need print rights to legally publish my story, because that's the format they're in. If they also have an ebook edition, then they'd ask for print and electronic serial rights.

The other dimension is language. So, I mean, most of your listeners are going to be writing in English.

Then the other dimension is geography. Some publishers, short fiction publishers, are still restricted to a particular geography, and that is usually only for print publishers. So if a magazine publishes in Canada only, and distributes in Canada only, for example, they would ask for first Canadian print serial rights.

So all these things in English, all these things, as you see, get combined into a collection of rights that they'll be licensing from you.

Joanna: You mentioned first serial rights there, and this is what's quite different.

With short stories, you might have first rights and then reprint rights.Douglas: I call them old currents rights. The very first time you sell a story, they will be licensing first rights from you. It'll be first—whatever those other rights were—first print rights, first audio rights, etc.

After that, there's a time period associated with rights, and it's called the reversion period. After your story has been published, the rights will revert to you. Meaning that the publisher will say, “Hey, the story is yours again. You can do whatever you want with it.”

Typically, if it's a magazine, they will ask for a reversion period that will be somewhere around where the following issue comes out. So if they publish four times a year, they'll probably ask for about a six-month reversion period, and that's very fair.

Anthologists will ask for anything from a year to two years after the publication date.

So let's say that reversion period has passed, the rights come back to you. Those rights come back as second rights, not first rights. You only get to sell license first rights once.

When you do have those rights come back to you though, you can now, what we call, sell a reprint. In other words, you can market to another publication that accepts reprints and sell the story over and over and over again. No matter how many times you sell a reprint, you're always licensing second right.

So there's no such thing as third rights or fourth rights or anything. It's one time for first rights, and after that, you can license second rights as many times as you can find a market who wants to publish your reprint.

Joanna: I feel like that is one of the big differences with rights for a novel. I mean, I see a lot of authors getting term of copyright contracts, or really, really long time limits. Whereas, as you say with shorts, they're maybe six months or up to two years, but then you can keep selling it over and over again. I'm sure you have sold some of your shorts multiple times over decades.

Douglas: Yes, for sure. I've got stories that I've sold 30-plus times.

Joanna: Wow. So, well, then for people listening, 30-plus times—

How much money can writers expect to get for a short story for the premium traditional markets?Douglas: So that's a good question, and it leads into what my strategy is for short fiction that I recommend to writers. It's that you're only going to get the top rates from a short fiction market if it's a pro market.

Pro markets only license first rights, they don't take reprints.

So I'll eventually answer your question, but the main point I want to make is my strong recommendation is that when you're sending your stories out, when you try to sell them for the first time, you only submit to the top professional markets.

That's the only time you'll ever get a chance to get into an Asimov, or a Fantasy and Science Fiction, or a Lightspeed, etc, because once you've sold that story, they're never going to be interested in it.

So you need to, as I say in the book, start at the top. Start at your most desired markets, the ones that have the most cachet. Those are also the ones that pay the top pro rates, and also the ones that get the most awards, press, and nods, etc.

After you get the rights back from that, you can market it to any market that takes a reprint. You'll find anything. You'll find markets that will simply publish your story and not give you any money.

You can find markets that will pay you up to five, six cents a word for a reprint. Whereas pro rates, I think, they're still at eight cents a word for SFWA. So it really ranges. So how much money you can make from a story kind of depends on what you want to sell your reprint at.

I personally warn authors that if you sell a story anytime, it's going to involve work and time on your part. So you should set sort of a minimum dollar amount that you're willing to accept to pay you for your time to work with the editor, go over the print copy before it's published, etc.

Joanna: So on that, eight cents a word, it'd be around $400 then for a 5000-word story at premium market.

Douglas: Yes. At US dollar rates, yes.

Joanna: US dollar rates. Then, let's say, in six months, you get that story back, and then you can do what you like with it. As you said, you can license it over and over again.

It's so interesting. I've written now a few short stories and have been in a few anthologies, but basically, I've never submitted to any traditional markets. Mainly because of my lack of patience and the fact that, I guess, I know that if I publish it myself and put it out right now, then I'm going to get some money.

Especially if I'm selling direct, I'm going to make more than that $400 from my own audience. So it's a very different definition of success, I guess, in terms of cachet and awards versus money in your pocket now.

I noticed that you also sell direct. How do you balance that side as well?Douglas: Sure, so one comment on that. I mean, you have a name, and you have a huge audience and platform, so it's more conceivable that you're going to be able to indie publish a piece of short fiction and get more money than a beginner.

So my comments are focused at the beginning writer, and if you want to get the most mileage out of your short story that comes from selling it to a top pro market. It helps you build your resume. You can also build up a backlist.

You can attract fans and subscribers to a newsletter, using some of your short stories as reader magnets, etc. So it helps you build up your own network. So, you know, you're in a position where you already have that. If I'm a beginning writer, my advice to them is I would still start with short fiction.

So, yes, probably about two dozen of my early short stories are available in ebook format. So those are all stories that I sold first rights for to a traditional market. So in other words, when I did an ebook for those stories, the rights had already reverted back to me. The story had been out.

A lot of them were award winners or award finalists. I did it at the time because I was sort of just getting into looking at indie publishing. I didn't have any novels, so I thought I'd try just putting out some of my short stories as individual ebooks, use them as reader magnets, etc.

I got a great artist who gave me a great deal on producing covers for them, so they all have the same cover. It was a price that made it sensible to try that experiment.

So, yes, if you go to Amazon, any of the retailers, if you go to the bookstore on my website, you'll be able to buy my short stories individually. That's not how I started, and I would never put out a new short story that way. I'd still go to a traditional market for it.

Joanna: Okay, I think that's really interesting. I do want to point out to everyone that I grew my audience, and that everyone has to grow their own audience over a long, long time.

You've obviously done the same thing, I think starting at different times. I started a decade after you, so 2007 was my first book that I self-published. So it's kind of interesting how things change over time.

I do want to just ask about collections because, obviously, you have collections. Here I'm saying a collection as a single author, as opposed to an anthology with multiple authors with shorts.

What are your tips around doing a collection, since I am thinking of doing this myself?Douglas: The first step is to make sure that you have enough quality stories. So enough means, you know, minimum 80,000 words. I think a dozen stories that is at least that length would be reasonable.

The main point is that those stories all have to be good. A collection, it's like a chain is strong as the weakest length. It's going to be judged on the worst story in the book. So as soon as the reader hits a weak one, sadly, they're probably going to remember that one.

So you really need your 12, whatever, best stories. So you need to have written more than 12 stories because probably the 12 that you've written aren't the best. They all should have appeared in a top market because that is one of the ways you can tell it's a good story. Someone paid you pro rates for it.

If you have any award winners or award finalists or stories that appeared in annual best of anthologies, they go in as well. So that's the main thing. They have to be quality stories because this collection is going to be a calling card for you.

After that, it depends. The next piece, let's say you've picked your great stories that you want to put in the collection, he next thing is, what order do you put them in? The rule for doing collections or anthologies pretty much has stayed the same since I started writing, anyway.

Figure out what your best three or four stories are. You put the best one first, and another really good one last, and you put another strong one second. So the idea is you want to pull the reader in with two really good stories and then leave them with a positive memory the collection when they read the last one.

If you have another really good one, you should put it in the middle as sort of a tent pole in case things are flagging. So that's the quality criteria for sorting through what order you want to put your stories in.

After that, it comes down to, as I say in the book, trying to craft a reader experience. You have to sit down and think, “Okay, they just finished this story. What should come next?” There's so many ways to do that.

I write in science fiction, and fantasy, and horror, and some Slipstream, etc. So do I mix all those? Do I put one section for all my science fiction? Do I put one section for my fantasy, etc.? The questions I put out, I alternate, but I also look at the tone. You have to look at the length too.

By tone, I mean, if you have a really, really downer story, you might want to follow that with something more upbeat. The reverse is true too.

If you have a couple that are like novel at length, you probably don't want to put them back to back. You want to have a shorter story following a long story.

It's crafting the reader experience.Joanna: I read a lot of short story collections and anthologies, and it's more that I dip in, and I never, ever read them in order. I usually only read like one story at a time. It's something I do before I go to sleep, like just before bed.

So it's very weird because I feel like different readers have different experiences. So we can try our best, but readers might just decide to do what the hell they want. I do have two other points on this.

What about including exclusive short stories?So I'm going to do a Kickstarter for my collection, and I'm thinking of including a couple of short stories that have not been seen anywhere else, so they're real exclusives.

Then also, I was wondering about extra material. So I always do an author's note as to what inspired the story. I was thinking of expanding those sort of into interstitial pieces. So any thoughts on those two things?

Douglas: Yes, both good points. One is if you have a story that has not been published anywhere else, you should include one of those.

One, it's a bit of a teaser. If you have a fan who's a completist and they just want to read everything that you write, the only way they're going to be able to read that story is if they buy the collection. So it is a good policy to include one previously unpublished short story in a collection.

The additional material, the author notes around stories, I personally love, and I'd recommend it. I mentioned Roger Zelazny is one of my favorite writers, and he had a lot of collections.

What I enjoyed about his collections were his either forwards or afterwards where he talks about the story and how the idea arrived, and maybe how it ties into other stories he'd written, etc. I love that.

I know I had a couple of comments on my collections where people were saying they didn't like it. They just want to read the short stories. So, I mean, you can't please everybody.

I would say, in general, most of the feedback I've received on my short stories, my collections, has been that the reader enjoys learning more about the story. Either how you wrote it, or why you wrote it, or whatever. So I'd recommend putting that in.

Sometimes I've done it as forwards, sometimes afterwards. Depends if there's any spoilers. Sometimes both.

Joanna: Yes, I think that's really good. I mean, I'm thinking in my special edition for the Kickstarter, I'll include photos if I can, as to some of the things that sparked the idea or a thing to make it a special, special collection. Which I feel is possible now with the print possibilities we can do.

I also wondered just on the audio, so at the moment, I narrate my own short stories and just release them as individuals. With a collection, again, I will narrate the whole thing and release that separately.

I wondered if you had any thoughts on audiobook collections for short stories?Douglas: Interesting. I'm not sure I have the patience to do my own narration, so I think it's a personal thing. I certainly don't have the expertise to talk about producing audiobooks. I've had a lot of my short stories produced as audio plays, but that's because I've submitted them to audio markets.

There are good productions and bad productions. I've sort of found the ones that I absolutely love and who will actually cast a story, and they'll have different voice actors for the different characters. I find that just so awesome.

I think if you're an indie writer and you're thinking of doing your audiobooks, I know I would say, first of all, am I willing to invest in the necessary audio setup? Do I have the patience to do the narration and do the editing, etc.? I think it's a personal choice. Audio is a growing market.

Joanna: Yes, and it's really interesting because I talked to Spotify at Author Nation last year, and they said what they're often now doing is audio that's under an hour.

Generally, an hour of audio is about 9000 words, so pretty much all short stories are going to be under their range of an hour. So they're kind of serving those in their discovery thing for people's commute because that's the average commute.

So just a tip for people listening, creating playlists on Spotify of short story collections or anthologies, just with other people. You don't have to publish them. You can just link to them in a playlist.

[Here's a playlist of my short stories on Spotify, most narrated by me.]

I think that's actually a really good discoverability mechanism for things like Spotify, which is now trying to get more and more people into audio fiction and audio nonfiction.

Douglas: Yes, especially if it leads listeners to your other work.

Joanna: Yes, exactly. You can do cross promotion that way. So I can link one of my horror short stories, to one of yours, to one of Mark Leslie Lefebvre’s. So we can make these playlists mixing stories that we like, just as a more discoverability mechanism, as I mentioned.

So I think that's something new that's really only emerged in the last couple of years. Anything else on short stories? Because I do have one other question before we finish.

Douglas: I'm making notes here because that's going to go into the next edition, in terms of audio versions and Spotify.

I mean, there's so much to talk about. One of the reasons I put out the second edition is, well, one, it had been 10 years since the first one. Then, two, when I looked at my notes, there had been so many things that had changed over the past decade.

Joanna: Well, that is my last question. I've also just done a second edition of my How To Write Non-Fiction, which now includes memoir and all of this. I know a second edition can be a right pain.

So I wondered if you had any thoughts for nonfiction authors who are listening—

When do you do another edition? When is it worth it for you? Also, what is the difference in marketing it?Since many people, including me, also have your first edition.

Douglas: What I did when I put out the first one, my email is in the back, and people would get in touch with me via the website. I encouraged writers to reach out to me because it was sort of my way of paying forward to new writers to write that book.

If they had any questions interpreting what I'd written, or something I didn't cover, I encouraged them to please reach out to me, and a lot of writers did. Sometimes it was just clarifying what I had in the book.

Other times it was, “Wow, that's a really good question. I didn't think of that scenario,” and I would just start to keep a file of things to add to the second edition.

So when I realized it had been a decade, and I started coming across things like Ralland.com, which was my go to market list, and he stopped updating his website. So I realized that there's probably a lot of other changes. I looked at that file and said, yup, there's ever so much I can put into a new edition. So it was that.

When is the right time? I think when you start to look at the first version and say, “Wow, no, that's actually not right anymore,” or, “I should say more about that particular topic.”

Joanna: What about the challenges marketing a second edition?Douglas: I'm not big on marketing, I guess. I don't do a lot around that, and probably should do more. For this one, I told my newsletter subscribers. Most of them are readers, not writers, but there is some overlap.

The retailer sites help because the first edition sold pretty, pretty consistently. So, now if you go to Amazon and look for this, you're only going to find the second edition. So linking the first edition to, “Hey, there's a new edition,” things like that, but honestly, that was it.

Joanna: Well, I must say, you didn't pitch me for this. I pitched you because I saw it in, I think it was a StoryBundle last year.

Douglas: Yes, by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. She will do these wonderful reader bundles. She does at least one a year, etc.

I communicate with Kris and Dean fairly regularly, and she reached out to me and said, “I see you're putting out a second edition. I've got a StoryBundle that's coming out in two months. Would you have an ebook edition ready for that time frame?”

I said, “Yes, sure. Can you write a new introduction for it?”

Joanna: So I think that's important because —

People think marketing is just like paying for Facebook ads, but it's also your network, and you've been growing your network for a really long time.Obviously, Kris is an amazing writer. She was also an editor in short story markets and all that.

So that's part of your network giving you opportunities, which is just as important.

Douglas: Yes, for sure. I know Jason, who runs StoryBundle, so it all helps. There's different ways to market.

I know Kris and Dean because I went to their workshop a couple of decades ago. The first one I went to was How to Write Short Fiction.

Joanna: Amazing.

Douglas: Led by Kris and Gardner Dozois, the late Gardner Dozois. I think Kris is the only person who beat Gardner for a Hugo for Best Editor.

Joanna: Wow. I've been on Dean and Kris's workshops and things like that, and that's kind of how I've ended up discovering your work. So just for people listening, again, sometimes these things take decades to come around, but that's okay.

Where can people find you, and your books, and your stories online?Douglas: Sure. The best starting point is my website, which is SmithWriter.com. You can find links to my own bookstore or to all the retailer sites.

I just completed an urban fantasy trilogy called The Dream Rider Saga, and the books are The Hollow Boys, The Crystal Key and The Lost Expedition. The Hollow Boys won two awards when it came out. The third book, The Lost Expedition, just came out last year, and I had an earlier novel as well.

You can find links to those and all my collections on the website.

Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Doug. That was great.

Douglas: Okay, thanks for having me on again, Joanna.

The post Writing And Selling Short Stories With Douglas Smith first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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While non-fiction books don't have to be related to a business, if you have an existing client base, or speaking platform, or you want to build one, a book can be a great way to build authority, bring in new work, and even generate income.

I was interviewed by Liz Scully on The Biz Book Broadcast about How to Write Non-Fiction and you can listen below or on your favourite podcast player. The show notes and transcript are below.

The Second Edition of How to Write Non-Fiction: Turn Your Knowledge Into Words is out now.

Click here to find out more or buy nowShow notes: * If you're struggling to start writing, use your existing assets and expertise, such as slide decks, talks, or podcasts, as a foundation for your first book. * You can also use dictation or ask ChatGPT or Claude to generate questions or prompts about your topic and build from transcripts or notes as you answer each question * Focus on serving your target audience, solving their problems * Consider multiple shorter, focused books rather than trying to include everything. * Books can establish authority, serve as a marketing tool, and generate significant revenue, especially in print and audio formats * Non-fiction books can be priced higher and sell well over time, benefiting from a long-tail income model * Readers value personal stories and unique perspectives—elements AI cannot replicate effectively so your book will stand out * The long game of publishing: Think beyond the first month’s sales and consider how a book can continually bring in income and opportunities over years. * Reader engagement: Use compelling calls to action in your book, such as offering valuable, updated content to grow your email list and audience.

Transcript: Liz: Hello and welcome to The Biz Book Broadcast. If you've got a business and you love books, then you, my lovely book nerd chum, are in exactly the right place. And have we got a show for you today? Woo hoo. It's gonna be great. I'm Liz Scully, I'm a business strategist, and today I have Joanna Penn with me. Hello. Please say hello to the lovely listener.

Jo: Hello, Liz. Hello everyone. I'm excited to be here.

Liz: Exactly. Now for you, lovely listener. This is part of our December daily sessions. I know doing this without a net, my friends. It is also part of our Biz Book series, meaning that you should really write a book for your business.

It'll do it the world of good. Now, if you have been listening carefully and why would you not be? Then you'll know that this whole series is really a thinly veiled attempt for me to get extra coaching about my book, Think Like a Film Crew, out soon. That's all I'm willing to commit to at this point.

Let me tell you a bit more about Joanna Penn because she is something of a phenomena. She is a prolific author of many genres of fiction [as J.F. Penn]. She has written many, many helpful nonfiction books, mostly advice for authors. She's a successful podcaster. She's a speaker, she's a futurist, and she's a delight.

How lovely is that? I'm so glad you're here, Joanna.

Jo: Thanks, this is a great topic as well. I love talking about books. I am total book nerd as you are!

Liz: Superb. Now you may have heard Joanna Penn's name before on this show where we did a show about her book Audio for Authors with the lovely Kathryn Goldman. Do go back and check that that was mostly about the legal side of things, but you'll want to listen to that.

Today we are discussing her book, How to Write Nonfiction, Turn Your Knowledge into Words, and we all want that. We all want that. It covers all the bases from first principles all the way to launch.

It's super clear. It's a really solid handbook. Truly, if you only read one book on the topic, this could do you very well — and it's a really good first place to start.

And if you've been thinking, you know, maybe 2025 is the year I write that book. This could be a fabulous starting place. And the holidays, most of us are on holiday. This is quite a good time to really dig on that. We've even got an episode coming during this daily series on writer's blog.

So if you read Joanna's book and then you get started and you get stuck. Look for that. Joanna, you must speak to thousands of authors and they are presumably by the time they're speaking to you, they're interested in writing a book.

Where do people start if they want to write a book?Jo: I think the biggest thing is actually starting, and when we're talking about writing a book, we are actually talking about writing words on a page.

But I think what is wonderful about these days of technology, and I know a lot of business people, for example, might be speakers. They might have loads of slide decks, or they might have talks they've done, they might have podcast interviews like this. They might have just lots of things that they might have recorded in audio or video. You can start with a transcript.

In fact, the [first edition of the] book, How to Write Non-Fiction, started with transcripts of a course I taught.

This is a big tip for nonfiction writers because especially if you've never written a book before, 'cause it can be so daunting to think, how do I get everything into a final form? Well, you don't. That's not the step you take.

You don't go from brain to finished product immediately. You have to start somewhere.I'm a discovery writer. Some people are plotters or planners. You don't have to design the book from the bottom up or the top down. You can just as I do — have a kind of chaotic process of material, which you then shape into a book over time.

But in terms of starting, it really is just write something or record something. One of the tips I have now —

With AI, with ChatGPT, you can say, ask me 30 questions on this topic. For example, I'm thinking of a book about money for creative people. So give me 30 questions about money for creative people, and then I can take those questions, I can then record myself talking about them.

I can get those transcribed, start there. So I think that that would probably be the easiest way. Just get something down and go from there.

Liz: I love that idea of going to ChatGPT for questions, not for your content, listener. No, not for the content. Please don't do that. I think we'll be reading a lot of, or avoiding a lot of books that are written like that.

But the questions, I think that's a really solid place to start. Maybe we need to actually move back a step before the starting writing.

So you are an expert, you've got a business, you know you want to write a book of some sort.

How do you choose your exact subject? Because I think a lot of first time writers sort of put everything into that first book and, and please don't do that. How do you choose which bit?

Jo: Yes, I think you're right. And I mean, you can write your magnum opus, but it'll take a long time and it might not find a market.

For me, I think the main thing is —

Focus on who are you trying to serve in terms of your target market. And this doesn't have to be hard because if you have a business already, you already have a target market.

They are your clients and your customers and, and for me, writing my first books around helping authors was because I'm an author and it was like, ‘oh, this is what I've learned.'

So the first book you write could be something you've learned that you know your audience need. And most people are running a business based on their own experience.

I would say, for example, my money book. It's just an idea, it would be, okay, what are the struggles I've had around money? How can I turn that into something that will help others? So that would be the, the first thing is like —

What do my existing clients have problems with? And then can you then kind of chunk that down into different things.

Because you can have a series of shorter books, which can help.

For example, I have How to Write Non-Fiction, How to Write a Novel, Audio for Authors, I have lots of these different things about the job of being an author. And again, that can be a way for people to look at the different aspects and their different clients and aim towards serving them.

Liz: I like that. I'm a great believer in very short books as well. I would encourage everyone to keep things short.

And I think I've been reading for, for this show, I've been reading books that are even just maybe 10 years old, and there's a definite drift from those longer nine or 10 hours in the audio book to books that are about five hours long.

I think more of us want a quick read that is going to upload a whole stack of information for us. And that's where your books really do well because you have a book for every problem. I like that.

Jo: That although you say that the, this book, How to Write Non-Fiction is 60,000 words.

You can change up how long it feels by having short, well organized chapters.Each, chapter answers a specific question.

And then people, and especially I'm an audio listener, I know you are as well, on Spotify particularly, you can just go in and you can just listen to a chapter on something. You don't even have to get the whole audio book anymore.

I kind of think that way. And also when I get an audiobook, I might delve into the table of contents and go find the answer to that problem. So I think that's the way to think about it. Even if, 'cause I wanted to serve the entire market with this book, so it is longer. I do have shorter books.

Sometimes a book does need to be a bit longer, so I wouldn't constrain yourself at least at the beginning. Then obviously if it's over-filled with stuff, then maybe you don't need it. But I do think there's room for books of different lengths.

Liz: Absolutely. I'm slightly resistant to very long books, but yes, you are right.

So we've talked about starting now, obviously as you know —

I think of a book as a tool, as a strategy, as a way to fill the constellation of information around you and your business and to draw more people to you.I'm writing my book specifically as a strategy, but just before we started recording, you pointed out that the book itself could actually be a decent source of revenue.

I'm only currently just beginning to get to grips with this. 'cause it sort of never occurred to me. Not that people would read it, but like, oh yeah, a lot of people might buy it. It's a new thought.

Jo: And I think this is really important because I do think —

You should design a book to make money, and that will mean that you get revenue from it as well as the revenue from the other things. And personally, most of my revenue does come from books. So that is something I think you have to decide.

You are never going have significant revenue really with one book. But if you're someone who writes that book and you're like, oh, actually I got the writing bug, and that's what happened to me.

I wrote my first one called Career Change, and I was like ‘oh, I think I might just write books for a living.'

But I think with nonfiction books in particular, firstly —

People pay more money for nonfiction books, so you can price a nonfiction book at the highest rate — Like 9.99 on amazon.com if you're self-publishing to get 70% royalty.

Nonfiction, self-help audio books are huge. I make most of my audiobook revenue from nonfiction.

As you said, they're shorter, so they're cheaper to produce because each audio hour is about 9,000 words so you can make money from Audible and Spotify and all these places from people who want to listen to your audio, that of course they might go on and buy other things. But I do think people should consider that.

Also as a speaker, you can do back of the room sales. You can do print runs, you can make good money on print books and doing them as part of those talks.

Or for example, I have a Shopify store, CreativePennBooks.com, I make good money selling print books, bundles. You can do workbooks, you can do all kinds of things that are book related that are not passive for sure, but they might be a lot more passive income than doing client facing work.

Liz: Interesting because I know in my mind that most people only sell, what, a couple hundred books at most. That's your average mid-list. Sales are very low, and I'm making the book as readable and delightful as possible, but I'm just becoming aware that it could be more than just a calling card.

It could be more than just to get me on the big stages. So this is really inspiring.

Jo: And also this is really important too. Maybe you sell 200 in the first week or month, but I've been doing this since 2008. I put my first book out and there are some of my books that may have only sold 200 copies a month for like 15 years and therefore you end up making a lot more money.

The most important thing with book income is you are not thinking about it as revenue only in month one. You are thinking about it on that long, long tail. And of course, as we've discussed, non-fiction books in January, woohoo. The new new start, new January nonfiction books sell a ton.

Over the summer it might drop off and fiction rises, but this is where, what you've gotta think is the book, once it's done, once you've done the very best job, you can pay for an editor, pay for cover design, get it out there.

Publishing is not difficult. Marketing is, but —

Once it's out there, then you can keep selling that book for a very, very long time.Liz: That's a really good point. How many books have you written?

Jo: I have over 40 books now across fiction and nonfiction, plus short stories. Some of those are short, some of those are longer, some of those are series.

But I love writing and like I said, I've been doing this since 2008, was my first book that I put out there and also I run my own publishing company. So as a business person, as everyone listening is —

When I looked at the publishing industry and saw the margins and where the money went, I was like, oh, I guess I'll just start another company.'cause I ran my own company at the time. So I have my own publishing house, which is why I make more money with my book sales than someone who might use a publisher.

Obviously there's pros and cons. We're not talking necessarily talking about publishing, but I think that is part of the money angle, and what you want to achieve with the book. What is your definition of success? But please don't write off the money!

Liz: No, no, I feel rather foolish now. One of the big things that is important to me is that people will read the book and will hopefully enter my world in some manner.

The most obvious way I would love lovely readers to do is to give me their email so that we can start a conversation. Obviously what is much more likely is they might seek out this radio show and then hopefully do it that way.

But I think you must have seen this too, people, we all are much less keen to hand over an email for the most interesting opt-in. I mean, I still think, do I really want that though?

You must have seen this shift. 'cause it used to be, oh, slap any old PDF together and people will want it. How do you entice people now?

Jo: From day one, I've had the same call to action, which is what I call my Author Blueprint, which is about mindset, self-publishing, marketing, writing.

It's like everything, bits of my entire knowledge, and I update that every six months.

That's the call to action in the back of every single nonfiction book, every episode of my podcast. It's on my social media. It's on everything. And so I actually haven't seen a drop off. I've seen that pretty much consistently for all the years, and as I said, I rewrite it every six months and then I send it out because the publishing industry changes, I change, but then I'll send it out to my existing list and they'll be like, oh yeah, I haven't read that for a couple of years, and they'll read it again.

It's like a 50 page book. It's a short book. It actually is in paperback because some people wanted it in paperback, but it's a free ebook. So that is what I do.

What I would say is you can give away the farm in your freebie and in your books and people still want more. I think what's interesting for your business and your book, Think Like a Film Crew is what ties the book to the clients that you want to attract into your ecosystem that links the two. For me it was quite obvious.

And so that would be my advice for people is —

When you're thinking about an email list growth strategy, what is the thing that those people do want? Mine is obvious. After you write a nonfiction book, you want know more about publishing, marketing, that kind of thing, but as you say, listening to a podcast is also good. But many people listening won't want to start their own podcast like you and I.

Liz: True. So actually what I've been planning, and I'd love your thoughts on this.

What I've been planning is I know that audio books are really helpful. I would love to have an audiobook of my own, because I know how valuable it is. Trouble is, I'm dyslexic and I read like a somewhat stilted 12-year-old.

I go from this perfectly normal flowing adult to this rather stilted reading. So the way I thought to get rounds that was to, there's lots of very short chapters in my book, was to pick 10 of the more interesting and also short chapters that I would read and to create a show like this.

I would read a tiny part of it, the first chapter, and then we would discuss it with an expert and I would make maybe 10 of those. Five of them I would broadcast, but you could only get the other five if you opted in.

Jo: I quite like that. But, first of all —

I do think you should record your own audio book because you are an audio person. You are the voice brand. It doesn't matter because when we write nonfiction books, they should be written in our ‘voice.'

I believe in editing for audio. So I often, when I'm reading my books, narrating them and I have an audio thing in my house right next to me here so that I can mess up as much as I like because it is hard to read one.

But if you are a voice talent, then people want your voice. It doesn't matter what you think.

It's not about you, it's about your audience. What do they want?So that is my challenge to you.

But also in terms of your reader magnet being audio, then yes, but you want people to buy your book. So, if people are reading in ebook or print —

Print is huge for nonfiction. It is massive. Most people are going to buy it in print or they're going to get the audiobook, or they do both. I quite listen quite often, will listen to an audio book and buy the hard copy.

Liz: Me too.

Jo: So I think you want something else. I would consider doing something like even just a 20 lessons learned from … for you because there must be some gossip in here. Keep some gossip behind the scenes.

People want the personal stuff or some real juicy thing that people want to know more about you behind the scenes.

This is another tip for nonfiction authors —

You have to get personal. We cannot have emotionless person-less books that do just lists of how to because AI can do that. And that to me now reads like an AI book. It can do self-help. What it can't do is you, it can't do your experience —

and well, it can do your voice actually. But I do think that like you'll giggle and you know my laugh and I mean, I say to my audience, look, I will tell you when it's AI Jo. And it isn't AI Joe at the moment, this is me.

Think about what the audience might want the most rather than what you would prefer to create. Is that too much of a challenge?

Liz: No, that's fair. To be fair, I have a whole strategy. Obviously I'm a strategist. I have a whole strategy for where I wish to funnel people afterwards.

You've got me thinking, I have to say. You've got me thinking. It's good. It's my job and my plan for my book is that people will read it, want more in my world, and eventually they will join a mastermind. So I have a whole structure to move people towards that.

I hear you about the dyslexia. Okay. Okay. You've convinced me.

Now I know that one of the things that we, that may well be top of mind for our lovely listener is that yes, they want to write a book. Yes, they've got a business. Yes, they can see how it all fits together. But a lot of people, including you, they've written a lot of books, which is fine. Lovely for you. But what about the rest of us?

Is it okay to just write one book and leave it at that?Jo: Yes, absolutely. And this is where it comes down to what's your definition of success.

If it is purely to drive business into other parts of your business, then often those people do only write one book. Sometimes one book really does take off, you know, James Clear with Atomic Habits. I think he has another book now, but I mean, that just went stratospheric.

So one book can do incredibly well. It can give you keynote talks. It can do a lot.

But as I said earlier, this kind of bug of ‘I really enjoy writing and I want to do more.' I think everyone has a default mode of trying to help, and some people might feel like this is it for them, basically. And then I would encourage you to do more because, I think it's wonderfully fulfilling to help people through your books.

You can help a lot of people through a podcast, but there's a whole different audience out there for your books.Liz: That's very true. So when you wrote your first book, did you have any idea it was going be your thing?

Jo: No. My first book was called Career Change, and it was because I was so miserable in my day job.

I was an IT consultant, I was crying at work. I hated it. I needed to get out. And I was like, how do I do this? I know, I'll try and figure it out by writing a self-help book, get a book deal, and be famous and make millions — and that didn't happen surprisingly but —

The book you write can change your life. It may not be in the way you think— and it wasn't for me because that book didn't do very well. It never did very well. You know, it sells a little bit all the time. But I discovered I didn't want to talk about career change. I didn't want to be that consultant person. I didn't want to speak on that topic.

I did want to write more books. I did want to write fiction and it's completely changed my life.

That's another thing I would say to people. If you start writing something and it turns into something else, trust your intuition.

Because yes, you can aim for it to grow your business or whatever, but in the process of writing, you might actually be transformed and you may discover something about your new direction that you didn't know before, and that might be the thing that changes your life.

Liz: Interesting, interesting. How long did your first book take you to write?

Jo: Probably about 18 months, but I'll give you another one. My book Pilgrimage took around four years. That's a kind of memoir/solo walking book.

And my book Writing The Shadow, which is about the Jungian shadow side, the writing took decades.

Liz: I feel better about that.

Jo: I mean, I've written books in six weeks, but it really depends on how deep you go, how much meaning there is to you.

Is it a ‘this is what you need to do' type of book and that is fine. That is all good. Those books are great. But if it's a book where you are sharing a lot more personal stories, mining your subconscious and your memories and you're trying to do a transformational journey — like my book, Pilgrimage is a transformational journey — It can take a lot longer if you have to do research. Again, let it be what it is.

Liz: Right. Oh, I like that. Do you have a favorite book? Of all of them. With so many, is there one that stands out?

Jo: That's really hard. In terms of my nonfiction, I do think Writing the Shadow feels like almost my last word on the craft. The subtitle is Turn Your Inner Darkness Into Words. It's all about the darker side of us. And I know your other business understands a lot about that.

Some of the things we repress are the things that can actually change our lives. I feel like that book helped transform me, and helps my fiction so much. So I really think that it's an interesting thing to consider these longer works. Also, I didn't feel ready, so this is another tip.

If you don't feel ready to write this massive thing that you want to maybe try and write that short 20,000 word tips book, like 20 tips can be very valuable. And then think about those deeper works maybe over the longer term.

Liz: I. That is great. And actually, interestingly enough, I do have other books planned, hopefully, if I could ever get this word outta the system. But I think of as a thinker, these are my ideas, this is how it helps.

But I am planning two books afterwards, which are on How to Run Masterminds, and exactly as you're saying, to keep them short, I'm thinking How to Sell a Mastermind as one book and How to Run a Mastermind is the other.

Jo: Oh, great. That's fantastic.

Liz: I would like them to be as short as possible 'cause I dunno about you. Maybe you have a higher tolerance, but for me, if I'm listening to an audio book and they're just rambling on, I'd just like to throttle the author. I,

Jo: I put it on 1.5 speed.

Liz: I listen at 2.3 as my standard and I still find myself thinking, oh, this has been going on forever.

Jo: Well, this is another tip around the chapters.

On an audio book player, the chapters should have a decent title, so I know where to skip on to. I think that's actually really important.

Liz: Yes, that is true, and I find it slightly shameful that not everything is published like that at the moment because really, oh, I know, we're in the modern world. People, give it a proper name.

Now we are nearly at the end of our time together, but Joanna has set us up beautifully for two things. First of all, that her favorite book is the book that we are going to talk about next time. I'm very excited about that. Thank you so much.

But also, I want to leave you listener with a big idea.

The big thing that I think I have taken away from this conversation is that use ChatGPT to find those questions about your topic. Such a good idea. So I suggest that if you're thinking of writing a book, do what Joanna said. In fact, actually I'll just suggest that anyway.

Do what Joanna says is a fairly good plan for life, I suspect. In the meantime, where can people find out more about you and your world?

Jo: Yeah, come on over to The Creative Penn Podcast since you are listening to this and you can find everything I do at TheCreativePenn.com.

Liz: Excellent and all that will of course be in the show notes and while you're getting things you know listener, if somehow you still haven't got my reading list, go and get it. It's best in Class books. My little mission in life with this show is to save you from reading awful books. All of those long, tedious ones, they're not on the list. It's about 12. They're fabulous. Go and get it. Once again, thank you so much for being here, Joanna.

Jo: Oh, thanks for having me, Liz.

Liz: It's been a delight and thank you listener.

The post Crafting Non-Fiction Books That Build Your Brand and Income. Joanna Penn On The Biz Book Broadcast with Liz Scully first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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Why is ‘story' more important than ‘writing'? How can you write characters that engage the reader? And how can you sell more books by connecting authentically? Douglas Vigliotti shares his tips.

In the intro, Bookshop.org will start selling ebooks [TechCrunch]; LinkedIn for Book Promotion [ALLi]; The Money Making Expert, branding and marketing [DOAC]; 24 Assets – Daniel Priestley; My J.F. Penn books by location; Death Valley, A Thriller; Copyright and Artificial Intelligence [US Copyright Office]; Superagency: What could possibly go right with our AI Future – Reid Hoffman and Greg Beato

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.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn

Douglas Vigliotti is the author of four books, a poet, and podcaster. His latest book is Aristotle for Novelists: 14 Timeless Principles on the Art of Story.

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 Aristotle?
• Creating characters that resonate with our readers — and the four important elements to keep in mind
• Why story is more important than writing
• Creating complications that make readers want to read on
• The intersection of commerce and art
• Tips for pitching podcast interviews

You can find Douglas at DouglasVigliotti.com and his latest book at AristotleForNovelists.com.

Transcript of Interview with Douglas VigliottiJoanna: Douglas Vigliotti is the author of four books, a poet, and podcaster. His latest book is Aristotle for Novelists: 14 Timeless Principles on the Art of Story. So welcome to the show, Doug.

Douglas: Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Joanna: It's great to have you on the show. So first up, just—

Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing.Douglas: My journey is long and winding, but that's probably similar to most writers. I grew up as a pretty, I would say, average or normal American childhood. Youngest of five boys, played hockey, played sports.

Believe it or not, writing and books and all of that was not even a thought in my mind until I reached probably my 20s, early 20s, mid 20s. Then kind of a light switch turned on. The first book that I ever wrote, and the first writing that I ever did publicly, was actually a derivative of my business career.

It took me following my interest, and growing as a writer and as an artist, to start exploring that more creative side of writing. Then that's how I ended up writing novels and poetry and all that good stuff.

Joanna: What was that business?

Douglas: My professional career, I started, let's see, 20 years ago. It was sales, selling.

I've sold everything from financial services, to medical devices, to payroll and tax filing, to myself.Then I wrote a business book called The Salesperson Paradox, and it was in conjunction with my sales consulting company at the time, and that was how I started into my creative career. So it was totally, totally orthogonal to where I ended up.

Joanna: Well, or not. We're going to come back to that because I love this. I love that you have a sales person background.

Just so you know, I'm actually the eldest of five children. Obviously, not all boys. So being of five siblings, I completely get, which is very cool.

Let's get into the book itself. In case people don't know—

Who was Aristotle? Why write a book based on his work?Douglas: So I think in modern day, we throw around the name Aristotle quite a bit because it's referenced a lot in pop culture. I think it's one of those things where you hear the name and you assume—I don't know what you assume. You assume smart, you assume historic, you assume legendary.

People probably don't know who he is, and that's always an interesting thing. The fact that he's lasted over 2300 years is something of a testament to itself. So he was a philosopher and a polymath, really. I think his life, it was 384 BC to 322 BC. He studied under Plato, and Plato studied under Socrates before him.

When I said he was a polymath, that's really essential to understanding who he is, because he wrote over 200 works that spanned across a plethora of topics.

From politics, to economics, to poetics, and all of these different subject matters that ended up becoming, in some cases, the foundational material for many of these disciplines in universities across the world.

So the fact that his ideas and his philosophies and concepts have stood the test of time is sort of a testament in itself, as I alluded to. One of the interesting things about those 200 works is that many of them, call it 80%, so I think we've only recovered 30-something of his works.

I mean, the number is kind of debated. I don't know how they quantify this, because if they're lost, how do we know how many we recovered? But they've only recovered 30-something of his works.

One of those is Poetics. So that is actually the nature of tragedies, but more broadly, storytelling. It's one of the major reasons why I ended up writing this book, obviously.

Joanna: You didn't say there that we're talking about Ancient Greece. So we're in Europe. I often think Americans forget that it all started over here in Europe.

Douglas: Sorry, I tend to skip over things sometimes, but you are correct. Ancient Greece.

Joanna: It's funny because we seem to be at this period in history, in literature, when people just refer a lot to, obviously, the Stoic Movement and a lot about Marcus Aurelius. Obviously, Roman emperor, but the empire that came after the Greeks. A lot of this is resurfacing, isn't it, in culture?

Do you think there's some kind of zeitgeist where this is all coming back?Douglas: So in a general sense, or in a broad sense, I think it's more comfortable for people to reference people who are already gone, so to speak. I don't think it's as easy for people to credit living legends or living thinkers as it is to credit people who are gone. So I think there's something to that.

I also think that there's something to the idea of grabbing onto something that gives people a framework to think that they know, even though they might not really know. Like foundational philosophical thinkers, they were at some of these topics first, so they have some really strong ideas around a plethora of things.

So I think when we bring them to life, to this day and age, we realize, wow, there's really—and I'm going to use a biblical quote here, not to be religious—but it's nothing new under the sun.

We are living these same issues over and over and over again, and I just think that there's a lot of resonance for that.Look, I think there's a certain thing to nostalgia that we have as a society. It's a saleable commodity.

I didn't write this book because I was trying to fill a void with Aristotle and his ideas and storytelling. To me, when I started to research story as a concept, everything started funneling back to Aristotle. Then I realized, wow, everything is there. You know, it was how I learned about story.

So the fact that Aristotle, his ideas in this book came to fruition, was more of a function of me realizing that all the theorists in modern day, or practitioners for that matter—so people in the dramatic world, like Aaron Sorkin or David Mamet or a lot of these people, they'll often reference Aristotle.

Or if you read theorists like Robert McKee, they'll often reference Aristotle. So for me, it was only natural to then double down on Aristotle, and read Poetics, and read multiple translations of Poetics, and really understand the text.

Then what I quickly realized was how resonant these ideas were in modern storytelling, on both the screen, the page, and in our lives. I think that that's one of the big things that drew Aristotle to storytelling in general was how intrinsically linked it is to living, because we live stories.

So I think that the principles that we'll talk about, or some of these ideas that we'll talk about, they are applicable to our life, as well as they are applicable on the page and on the screen.

Joanna: Yes, and of course that quote you mentioned is from the book of Ecclesiastes. I quote that in a number of my novels, actually. It's probably my favorite book of the Bible, Ecclesiastes.

I think part of that is what you're talking about, is that —

There are principles in human nature, as well as principles in story, that don't change, regardless of how many millennia go past.I was thinking as you were talking, like maybe part of the reason we're re-latching onto this now is because there's so much change in the world. With AI, and technology, and social media, and all this constant stream of stuff that there is—

Maybe we're sort of harking back to things that don't change, and that perhaps helps a little.

Douglas: I totally agree with you. I think when we're talking about stories specifically, there are a couple fundamental elements that are there in almost every story that we tell, at least in Western society.

In Western society, the stories we tell, almost all of them, even in sprawling epics or multiple storyline plots and all this stuff, they have three characteristics that are always there.

That's a protagonist who wants something, and there's obstacles standing in their way. Those obstacles come both externally and internally.I think if we zoom out and we look at our lives, Joanna Penn's life, Douglas Vigliotti's life, I'm a protagonist who wants something, and I have obstacles standing in my way that are both internal and external.

Do I overcome those obstacles?

Well, then we end up with an Aristotelian comedy. I end up better off at the end, even if it's only temporarily.

Do I succumb to those obstacles, both internal and external? Well, then we have an Aristotelian tragedy because I end up worse off.

So these ideas are baked right into our lives. You can see the framework for story everywhere as you walk through life if you understand these core components of what makes up a story. Again, like I said, at least in a Western sense.

Joanna: Yes, well, since we're on characters then. A quote from the book, you say —

“Novels should contain true characters.”

Now, I find this word ‘true' extremely difficult because fiction, you know, it's fiction. True, in general, is very hard. So what do you mean by this?

How can we create characters that resonate?Douglas: I think that you hit the nail on the head. True has multiple meanings to multiple people. I'm speaking specifically in the sense of what would Aristotle say would be true.

To Aristotle, there's four elements to characters, in general. They are goodness, so it's your characters are good if their choices are good. Appropriateness would be, are they acting appropriately? Not right or wrong, but based on who they are, are they acting truly to who they are? So are they acting appropriately?

So that directly links to this trueness of character in, are you writing characters that are true to who that character is? Not true to real life, true to who that character is. There's a big difference there. It's not about fact and fiction.

The third element is relatability. That has more to do with, are you making the character relatable? So are you giving them characteristics that embody human characteristics? The best way to do that is through imperfection.

Despite what our world wants to try to convince us every day —

We are relatable because of our imperfections —not because of our perfections. So there's this big chasm between what we see every day and what we should be depicting in our stories or on the page, and what we actually relate to.

If we sat down and had a conversation, we're probably going to relate based on some of our struggles more than we're going to relate on some of our successes.

Then the fourth piece is consistency. Even if you were to write a character, a true character, who is inconsistent, Aristotle would say, by nature, they should be consistently inconsistent.

We see this all the time in storytelling with unreliable narrators. They are consistently inconsistent. What ends up happening with those unreliable narrators is this ties into something else that Aristotle talks about or that you can observe in stories, but eventually what they say doesn't line up with what they do.

It's always what a character does, it's always what we show, it's always about action. That is the more important piece. So we can get into trouble in life or in stories if we're only listening to what characters are saying. I could say one thing and do another, and doing is more important than saying.

So to answer that question and peel back to it, those are the four characteristics that would make up a true character in an Aristotelian sense.

Joanna: Yes, I think it's an interesting way forward. I like the relatability because if you're writing, let's say sci fi, and you have aliens there, or you're writing something literary and writing from the perspective of like a plant or an animal or something—

You still have to have relatability to the human who is reading the book.That kind of comes across whatever type of character you're writing, essentially.

Douglas: 100%. Aristotle is very specific in Poetic, saying that he believes that the two reasons why storytelling began for us humans, one is because of imitation. So we learn how to imitate to live. So as young kids, we imitate the world around us, the people around us, our parents, and that's how we learn how to actually live.

So storytelling is a derivative of that. So we should be imitating what is happening in the real world. Not writing realist fiction or realist work, but we should be embracing all of human nature has to offer, because that is why, according to Aristotle, storytelling actually began.

It's what's relatable to humans, so we should be reflecting all of those qualities in our work.

For anyone who's interested, the second reason is rhythm. So he thinks we have a natural rhythm, and I tend to agree with him because even if you are writing, all writers know voice, they know pacing, they know tone.

Rhythm to your prose, just like rhythm in music, is really, really important.I think this is one of the big reasons why, as a writer, you don't even need to know grammar to be able to write. If you have rhythm, it's going to work on the page. You have editors for that stuff.

I think musicians are great examples of this because so many of them don't learn how to—you know, top level musicians, I mean, people who are iconic. In the book I talk about some examples of Billy Joel, and Bruce Springsteen, and American musicians who didn't know how to read music, and things turned out pretty well for them.

Not to say that that's the benchmark, but it's countless, the amount of “I don't know how to read music, I learned how to play the guitar.” All of that's based off of rhythm. Writing and voice on the page is no different, really. Aristotle would call that your meter, your poetic meter.

Joanna: Yes, that's interesting. Actually, you do say this in the introduction,

“Writing is not story.”

I guess there you mentioned you don't have to know grammar to write story, and this is a tension. Of course, you're a poet as well, and writers often prioritize the intricacies of language before the story.

Especially in this sort of age of AI, when word generation, however you generate words, whether you're writing them by hand or you're generating them with AI, that doesn't matter so much.

How can we prioritize story over the intricacies of writing?Douglas: So, for me, this is a really important distinction. I think oftentimes writers, at least through conversations that I have with them, we confuse writing and story.

To me, there's a very, very clear distinction, in that story is governed by what I would call principles, whereas writing is governed by style.

I really have no interest in telling someone how I think they should write their story. I don't even believe that you can. Even the best prose—and I'm using air quotes because best is so subjective—it could take me 15, 20 pages to get used to that writing or I could never get used to that writing.

Writing is that different from person to person, writer to writer. I have this funny saying, where it's, “Story is why they come, writing is why they stay.”

Writing is the tool that writers utilize to tell their story. Story is the foundational component of what you are trying to achieve.That's why you can watch movies, you can listen to audiobooks, you can engage with all these other forms of media and learn how to tell story. That doesn't mean you're going to learn how to write because writing is a different thing.

Aristotle does have some ideas on what he thinks around style, of course, and I have my own opinions on that as well.

Ultimately, what I'm trying to achieve with Aristotle for Novelists, let's say, is more of a foundational education on the principles of what makes up a story. So there is a difference between the two, at least in my view.

Joanna: So I guess one of the other things, we talked a bit about character there, but we should also talk about plot. You say,

“Novels have a complication and a resolution.”

What are complications, and how can we create those that fascinate readers and make them want to read on?Even though they may, or sometimes we feel like, maybe they've heard this before or read this before?

Douglas: So my favorite Aristotle quote is, “Many poets tie the knot well, but unravel it ill.” What he's talking about there—and when he says poets, he's talking about something much wider in scope than literally poets. The same could be said, by the way, for poetics in general.

What he meant by poetics is something much larger in scope than poetry, so for anybody who's wondering that.

What he's talking about there is the difference between a complication and a resolution. So we all know that when we come to our stories, we come because we have an idea for the complication of that story. We have a character who is put in a situation and we wind that up.

What he's saying is that it takes the truly great writers the ability to unwind that, to unravel that knot. There's so many ways that we could go wrong when we're doing that. Whether it's lack of believability, lack of cohesion, illogical, impossibility, irrationality.

There's so many different ways that we could falter as we try to resolve the complication that we depicted in the early part of our story. I find it helpful when I read books and when I watch movies—I'm a bit of a story junkie, so I do both quite a bit.

I look particularly for, when does that writer or when does that story begin to unravel the knot? Some would say, in a traditional three-act structure sense, you begin to unravel the knot—and Aristotle would say this—when that change of fortune actually happens.

So if it's at a tragedy, it would be when that character is at the ultimate high before they fall. Or if it was in a comedy, it would be at that ultimate low before they rise. You start to unravel that knot a little bit.

I find it helpful to start thinking about and answering little questions that you propose earlier in your novels, somewhere around the midway point. Never actually answering that big question, right?

You want to keep that tension for as long as possible.Then there's other people who would suggest you keep that tension as taut as possible all the way through until you get to the very, very end. So what you'll find is there's a lot of differences in how people achieve this.

I think one of the things that you will see consistently is there is a complication and there is a resolution. One of the things that Aristotle is really, really insistent about is he calls it avoiding Deus Ex Machina. So things coming from outside of your plot to solve plot problems.

I see this all the time, I'm going to be honest, in stories where it's like, solve the plot problems within the existing world that you depicted. Now, obviously you can introduce new characters and all of that stuff, but when stuff comes out of left field to solve a plot problem, you're not unraveling the knot well, so to speak.

He has a great quote, and he says,

“The solution to a plot problem should come from the story itself.” I find that to be a really informative quote, and also a benchmark to try to hit every time you write a story. Whether that story is short as a poem in five sentences, or whether it's extrapolated out to an 80,000 word novel.

Joanna: That's actually great. People are like, oh, but how do I do that? Then I'm like, well, that's why we do self-editing, because if you get to a point in your book and you finish your book, you just go back and edit in something earlier on in the process.

So I don't understand how people can't figure that out later on. As you say, you can just put in things earlier on that will help you resolve it later. That's why we edit. So I think that's quite cool.

I want to come back to something you said earlier about your previous career and your book, The Salesperson Paradox. I feel like this is a problem for most authors. So if you're a poet, you've got this book, Aristotle for Novelists, you've got other books, and you also come from sales.

So how are you marketing your books? How are you selling your books?

How can authors who care about the craft also care about sales and marketing?Douglas: I do think that they are driven by two completely different motors. I have this conversation since I have my toe in both worlds, and I have for a long time now. The creative side is run by a different engine than the business side is, at least for me.

I do think one informs the other when you start thinking about what it's like when your actual work hits the real world and becomes a commercial entity. Just because you're near and dear to it, and it's so close to you. Believe me, I write super personal stuff, so I totally, totally get it.

For anybody who's out there saying, “I'm an artist, and I write from the heart,” —

The intersection of commerce still exists if you want to sell your work to people, if you want your work to be seen.For sales, there's one thing that The Salesperson Paradox hits on, and that has been the bedrock for my success in that world. It's simply helping people get what they already want. We lose sight that there's people out there that already want what you have. You have to find them and give it to them. That's it.

It's that simple. You're never going to force somebody to want something that they don't want, but if you find the people who want the thing that you provide, you will be able to sell much more of whatever you're selling.

It's a matter of helping, not selling. You're helping somebody get what they want, not selling them a good or a service. It's face to face, over the phone, on a zoom, anywhere. That distinction is critical.

If we look at books in general, I often say that there's four elements to value, and that value framework is time, status, ease and money. So we all want things that save us time or increase the speed of things.

Apps do that, you mentioned AI before. All of that hits on time value. Time, it's a value driver, innate value driver for humans.

Ease. Am I making it easy for the person to say yes, or am I making it hard? The easier I make it for someone to say yes, the more likely they're going to say yes. You can infuse that into when you're doing outreach via email or outreach via phone.

How easy are you making it for people to say yes? Come have this conversation with me about your book or whatever. There's multiple ways that you could go about something. Are you making it easy for someone to say yes? That's a big driver for us. It's a big driver for me, and it's a big driver for most people.

Status is another huge innate human driver. We all have people we want to look good toward, and can I help that person look good towards those people? That is a huge, huge value driver.

It happens in a micro-sense when you're dealing with people on a one-off level, like a one-on-one level. So it's like, I don't know, maybe that person wants to look good to their mother. Maybe this person wants to look good to an audience. Maybe this person wants to look good to their boss.

Can you help that person look good to that individual? That's a huge innate value driver because we are all status creatures, whether we want to admit it or not.

The fourth piece is money. If you can make someone money or save them money, that's a huge value driver. So I always look at when I'm trying to sell things on a commercial aspect, how could I fit it into that value equation, whether it's on a micro sense or a macro sense.

I know that if I'm able to create some kind of value proposition around that, at least I'm going to have a story that I'm going to be able to communicate. So that's going to put me in a better position to actually sell things. I hope that's helpful.

Joanna: It's helpful as a framework. So like if someone has a thriller novel or a sci-fi novel—

How does that fit into that framework when there are lots of other thriller novels and sci-fi novels out there?Douglas: 100% agree with you. It becomes really hard when you're talking about fiction.

I have a podcast, it's called Books for Men, and when I have conversations with other men about books—because the podcast is designed to inspire men to read—the number one thing is that most of them aren't reading fiction, and they're reading nonfiction.

The reason why they're reading nonfiction is because it has a higher value proposition. So when we're looking at the bigger picture, fiction struggles to sell consistently for a lot of people because it doesn't fit into the value framework.

The only way that you're going to be able to get people to consistently buy your products is by developing your own relationship with them and creating things. Like creating a podcast, having a blog, you have to do that.

If you don't do that, you're never going to sell the thing consistently, unless you just want to roll the dice and look hope for luck. I think that in a world of AI, that personal connection as creators, writers, filmmakers, is going to be even more important.

People are going to want to buy from people that they know, like, and trust. So the more you can build that personal connection with people, the better off I think you're going to be in the long term.

So while people are all concerned about the craft element of writing a thriller novel—believe me, I'm a craft junkie, and I totally empathize with that—but —

You should also be thinking about, how am I going to create a personal connection with my readers?Do they know what Joanna Penn is about? Do they know what Douglas Vigliiotti is about? If they do, they're going to be more likely to buy from you. In an art sense, it's really the only strategy that you have moving forward.

Unless you're lucky enough where you're that one in a million shot, where your work just shoots up the charts and everything you become after that becomes saleable.

You hit on something very, very important. Fiction in art doesn't necessarily fit into that framework, and that's what makes it such a challenge to sell it.

Joanna: Yes, or you pay a ton for Amazon and Facebook ads. That's another way.

Douglas: For me, that's a tactic. It's not a strategy. Like, so that's a great tactic, but to me, tactics are endless. Like they're endless. What works for some people, might not work for somebody else.

Strategically, I think the better bet is to try to create something where people can find you being you. It goes back to that whole help people get what they already want. Do your best to create the thing and draw people that would like that thing into it. Not try to create the thing for people.

Just create the art, create the thing, and then try to build the framework around your creative career that people come in and they engage with you because they're interested in you. To me, that's like the only selling point that we're going to have as we move forward into this new world, 10, 20, 30 years.

I mean, people have a really myopic view about what is happening with AI right now. It's not meant to scare people. It's just how crowded and how cloudy the content and art and creation aspect already is, it's going to get 10 times worse.

So the only thing that I think is worth investing in, from a sales standpoint, is individuality and building something that is personally who you are, and so people can engage with that.

I know that's scary for a lot of writers, but to me, it's inevitable. It's the only thing that we have, the only selling point we have moving forward.

Joanna: Yes, I often say —

Double down on being human. Your voice, and your face, and I'd say an author's note in the back of fiction grounds your story and why you care as a person.

On this, you have a podcast, Books for Men, as you mentioned. Obviously, I have this podcast, I've had other podcasts. I think voice is a big thing. As you say, people can get to know you, like you, and trust you. So I'd say podcasting is a great way to do book marketing. Obviously, you think the same thing.

Just as tips for people listening, if people listening want to pitch a podcast, not you or me, obviously, but other podcasts—because I get terrible pitches every single day. Your pitch was very good.

What are your tips for people who want to pitch for podcast interviews around their books?Douglas: Get to the point. Not you. That's the tip.

Get to the point. The briefer you can make it, and the more pointed that you could make it, the better off you are. If I could do the email in three sentences, I would do it. If it has to be five, then I'll do it in five. If it has to be 10, then I'll do it in 10.

I want to make the email as short as I possibly need to make it so you understand why I'm emailing you, where the benefit is, and what I'm asking you to do.

Even when I had my own podcast where I was doing a lot of interviewing, I was reaching out to a lot of really big names in the space and trying to get them to come onto the show because that's how I thought I was going to be able to drive audience. Even in that sense, I was doing extremely short emails.

So most people when they email somebody, they think that telling them everything they need to know because they don't want to miss a little possible thing that could spark Joanna, or Doug, or somebody, to say, “Oh, I like that.”

The reality is, is if as soon as you get an email from somebody that is a chunk of text, you don't read any of it.

The shorter that you can make the email, the more prone that person is to actually reading it and being super, super pointed.The other rule is, if you wouldn't say it in real life, don't say it in an email. I think emails live forever, and we forget that when you press send, that email is going to sit there.

I've sent a lot of bad emails over the years to learn this lesson, and me thinking to myself, wow, how did I say that in an email?

Now one of the biggest things that I focus on, aside from brevity, is would I say this to this person face to face? If I wouldn't say it face to face, then I wouldn't put it in an email.

It turns out that those two things go hand in hand. How often do you go up to somebody and read them three pages of material about who you are, what you're doing, what your books are about? Never. What you do is you get right to the point. “Hey, I'm Doug. I'm a writer. X, Y and Z,” blah, blah, blah, whatever.

I mean, that's not what I would say in an email, but you do it short and brief, and then let the person respond.

Joanna: Just to come back there, you said, “what the benefit is,” and you said that quite quickly.

Just to be clear, it's the benefit to the podcaster, not the benefit to the author.I get so many pitches that say, “I'm blah, blah, blah author. I've written this book. When can I schedule myself onto your show for my book tour?”

Douglas: Well, here's the thing, with books specifically—you know this better than anybody, you probably get tons and tons—podcasts have almost become an adjunct of the publishing industry. A new book comes out, and now this is the best way to sell this.

It's the same method that was utilized forever, where you'd go on radio talk shows, you'd go on Johnny Carson, I don't know, like all these talk shows.

Now that there's podcasts, and because of technology there's so many of them, what the publishing industry realized is the best way to sell books is the same way it's always been to sell books, which is get people on shows and get people in front of audiences that they don't already have.

So now, people like yourself and all of these podcast hosts are getting hundreds and hundreds of pitches, especially if the show is popular, getting so many of these. So what could you do to stand out from that? Get it so someone would actually read it.

So how do people read things?

If it's short and to the point at why it would be beneficial for that person to have you on the show, then in my world, you're more prone to get through.

Again, this is not something that I've just utilized in outreach with podcast pitching. I have 20 years of sales experience where I've utilized this in other aspects too, to get in front of prospective buyers and whatnot.

It's short, and it goes back to what I was saying before. You want good guests. I don't have guests on my show anymore, but I would want good guests on my show. What I don't want is a long, extended email about all these different things.

What I do want is a short, polite, direct email of telling me why you're emailing me and why it would benefit me to have you on the show, in as short as possible. I found that people, in general, they respond well to that strategy over the span of life, not just in the podcast world.

It's because you're putting it in their world. I'm having respect for you. I'm having empathy for you.

You're reading a million emails, so how could I make it easy for you to say yes to me?Something that I was talking about before, am I saving you time? And status, am I making that person look good if they have me on the show? These are all things that a human would innately consider, even if they're not consciously considering them.

So you could sell something, yourself in this situation, via email by utilizing that value framework that I was referencing before.

Joanna: Fantastic. So lots of tips there.

Where can people find you, and your books, and everything you do online?Douglas: So it's very, very easy. For me, just go to my website, DouglasVigliotti.com. If you want to know more about the podcast, BooksForMen.org is the best place to check that out. Again, that's a podcast to inspire more men to read. Then for the book, it's AristotleForNovelists.com.

Joanna: Well, thanks so much for your time, Doug. That was great.

Douglas: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

The post Aristotle for Novelists, And A Strategy For Selling More Books With Douglas Vigliotti first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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How does generative AI relate to fair use when it comes to copyright? What are the possibilities for AI licensing? Alicia Wright shares her thoughts on generative AI for authors.

In the intro, Publishing leaders share 9 Bold Predictions for 2025 [BookBub]; OpenAI launches Operator [The Verge]; Bertelsmann (who own Penguin Random House) intends to work with OpenAI to expand and accelerate the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the media, services, and education sectors; Death Valley — A Thriller.

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

Alicia Wright is an intellectual property lawyer for a technology company, and also writes science fiction and mystery as Alicia Ellis. With two degrees in computer science and an MFA in writing popular fiction, she is expertly placed to comment on AI as it applies to writers.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.

Show Notes

• Using AI as a brainstorming partner and collaborator
• AI as fair use because it creates something transformative
• Using the right prompts to produce quality outputs from AI
• AI is the next technological change in our society
• Licensing your IP for training and AI usage — what to look for in contracts
• Training the AI systems to include your work in generative searches
• Developing your authorial voice and creative confidence
• Uitlizing AI agents in your author business

You can find Alicia at WriterAlicia.com and on social media @WriterAlicia.

Transcript of Interview with Alicia WrightJoanna: Alicia Wright is an intellectual property lawyer for a technology company, and also writes science fiction and mystery as Alicia Ellis.

With two degrees in computer science and an MFA in writing popular fiction, she is expertly placed to comment on AI as it applies to writers, which we're talking about today. So welcome to the show, Alicia.

Alicia: Thank you so much, Jo. I'm happy to be here.

Joanna: Oh, I'm excited to talk to you. So first up—

Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing, and also into AI and technology.Alicia: All right. Well, I should say that I got into AI and technology first. I was always one of those science and math people. Math was my favorite subject in school. Not a lot of people say that, but I loved math. I loved the sciences. I always was reading forward in my textbooks.

Then my mother didn't want us watching TV, so we read a lot of books. I got into writing poetry, writing song lyrics, writing short stories, and the creative side of me came out.

It never occurred to me to write something longer—because I was a math/science person—until I got into law school, and there you have to write all the time. You have to write briefs, you know, these 30 page documents.

Then it occurred to me that, hey, I'd like to write a novel. So I would say the technology interest was always there, and the creative interest, the writing, came later.

In my work as a patent attorney, I have encountered AI-related applications throughout the years, even generative AI technologies as far as 10 years back. So I had an interest in that even before it became relevant to the writing industry.

Joanna: So when did you get into writing fiction? How many years have you been writing fiction, as well as doing your incredible job?

Alicia: I have been writing fiction, specifically long form fiction, for as long as I have been a lawyer. The time is almost exact. I know this because I was in my final year of law school and sort of had this crisis. Like, I'm graduating law school, do I want to be a lawyer?

I spent time thinking about that. Just sat down for really a day and went through what I would do if it wasn't law. I decided that I did want to do law, but I also wanted to write novels.

So as soon as I graduated law school, I enrolled in some local writing courses. So I've been practicing law and writing for the same amount of time.

Joanna: Which is approximately?

Alicia: 17 years. I got into indie publishing in maybe 2013, but I've been writing for 17 and a half years.

Joanna: Brilliant. So you mentioned there that you, as a patent attorney, you look at AI applications. You did mention using a bit of generative technology there.

How do you currently use AI tools as part of your creative and business processes?Alicia: In my business work, well, I see a lot of AI technologies in what I'm writing patent applications for, and that's what I was referring to before.

In managing a patent portfolio at the cybersecurity firm where I work right now, I definitely use AI technologies to help inventors organize their thoughts when they submit to us to do analyses. Sometimes I'm dealing with a huge patent portfolio, and AI can help organize the analyses and my thoughts on that.

In my writing, I use it mostly at the planning stages as a brainstorming partner. I love AI as a brainstorming partner. I always tell it that it's my junior partner because it tends to go off on its own, and I like to reel it in to run the show, if you will.

I give it my ideas. Often I'll ask it to, say, “Give me five ideas on how to put these things together,” or, “Give me 10 ideas on how to put these things together.” Even if they're bad ideas, it helps me sort of organize my thoughts. Like, why don't I like these ideas?

So, together, we walk through what I want to do. We create a Save the Cat outline. Which I usually start it off once we have all the ideas on the table, I ask it to create the Save the Cat outline.

Usually, I have a lot of changes. We make those changes, and then we'll break it down into a scene list that follows the three act structure.

I often have it generate character sketches and setting sketches — because, honestly, I'm no good with thinking about what does this setting look like. What kind of house is this? Bricks? Facade? I don't care. So the AI is really helpful with that.

There's a lot of editing, a lot of back and forth. AI is a great partner for brainstorming and plotting.

When we get into the writing, my authorial voice is really important to me, in part, probably because I have diagnosed OCD. I have experimented with using AI in pretty much every aspect of my process, but for me, personally, the writing part I have to do. I would spend more time editing AI output than I would have just writing it myself.

I tend to use dictation and input the dictation output into ChatGPT to clean it up — — and they'll catch the dictation error, so I have a much cleaner copy going forward. Then when I'm done writing, I'll use a little AI for developmental editing.

Joanna: I love that. You sound similar to me in the way you're using it. You're using the word ‘partner', your junior partner, your collaborator. You use the word ‘we', which I really like as well because I feel that too.

Like with Claude, I feel this is almost my—not so much co-writer—but like you said, collaborator. It really is a backwards and forwards way of doing it.

I can hear the smile in your voice, and I have a smile in my voice as well, because this is fun, right? This makes it more fun for us.Alicia: It's so fun, and I feel like my work is better, that this brings out a better side of me. Connections that I hadn't made, problems that I didn't foresee. It's having a partner, so that it's improved. It's not just me, it's me plus some artificial intelligence.

Joanna: Yes. So we could geek out about how amazing it is all day, but I did want to ask you about some of the objections that authors have. You did this great talk at Author Nation, and you were so clear on it.

I don't think there are many people in our community who have degrees in computer science and law, and an MFA, and are an active indie author. I think you're the only person, right?

Alicia: Maybe.

Joanna: Maybe.

Let's start with one of the most common objections from authors, which is, “AI companies stole our work.”What are your thoughts on this, and how does it relate to fair use?

Alicia: So when I think of the word stolen, I think of an illegal taking. So I think, are we talking about copyright infringement here? I would say, in my opinion, that the work is not stolen.

The reason I phrase it that way, in my opinion, is because I'm sure a lot of folks know, there's ongoing litigation about whether the use of copyrighted works in training data is copyright infringement.

Until those are actually decided, until those cases are actually decided, I can't say definitively, but I feel pretty confident that the training of AI using copyrighted works is fair use.

Fair use is an exception to copyright infringement. Basically it says, yes, we copied copyrighted works, except we did it for a use where this exception is cut out.

Fair use exists in order to allow us to grow from existing copyrighted works, to spur creativity so that you can create based on what already exists. There's four factors in the US that courts consider for fair use, and one of the key factors is, is your use transformative?

I think that's really important to what fair use is about. Have you created something new? Have you created something that can be used in a different way?

I feel strongly that the use of copyrighted works to train AI is so transformative, and is what fair use is about.There's case law that's related to using copyrighted works, even for AI in the past, but not for generative AI in the way we're talking about now. I feel that the case law is pushing US courts towards saying that this is fair use. We will see, probably in a couple years, for sure.

I would say that I don't feel like AI is theft. I feel like it will be shown at a later date that AI is not theft, but I can't say 100%. I certainly think that it is premature to say that it is theft.

Joanna: It's interesting. I mean, I would have thought that the US would be further ahead on this. Maybe with your incoming Trump administration, those cases might get settled more quickly.

Here in the UK, our government has literally, like yesterday, come out with the AI plan, and they are almost pushing for an exception around data training in copyright, which is really interesting. We have a very different rule around this.

The argument here with the British government is that these strict things restrain innovation or restrict innovation. As you mentioned, fair use is so we can have more innovation, and we don't want to stifle that.

Alicia: Exactly.

Joanna: Another thing that I hear is that ChatGPT and all of this, they're just “plagiarism machines.”They can't create anything original. They can only spit out things that come from other people's work. What are your thoughts on that?

Alicia: Calling AI plagiarism, saying that that's all it does, reflects a basic misunderstanding of how AI works at a technical level.

These generative AI models at their core are statistical models.They've taken in—read, if you will—millions, billions of pieces of writing or images, in the case of the image generators.

Then based on basically statistics—it's much more complex than that, but I'm going to simplify it by saying it's a statistical model—it determines what token—a token could be a word or a symbol, like a period—what token comes after the previous token, and it forms output based on that, one token at a time.

The reason I want to emphasize that it's one token at a time is that you're not lifting even phrases from existing work. It's not at the phrase level. It's at the word level, just like you and I write.

You can't take a combination of words taken from millions of other works and say you plagiarized it because you took a word that was over here and a word that was over there.

It's not a logical reflection of how AI works at the technical level.

Asking, can it only create things that already exist? I would say humans also can only create things that already exist. We all learn from what exists. You're going to see cliche phrases in AI output because, statistically, you'll see words together that you often see together in writing.

So you're going to see things like, “She released the breath that she didn't know she'd been holding,” because you've seen it a lot of other works. In the same way that that's not plagiarism when you write it, it's not plagiarism when the AI writes it, either.

Joanna: I keep hearing people say —

“Oh, this is a crap book. It must have been generated by AI,” — with the assumption that only bad quality writing can be generated. So given that you and I use this a lot, our prompts are very, very different to somebody who is brand new to generative AI.

Do you think that the quality—and I know quality is a tough word—but—Is the quality of writing from generative AI when you use the right prompts?

Alicia: I think —

Prompts make a huge difference. Especially if you're using AI for the writing part, say, for a first draft or for a final draft, however you use it in the actual writing part, I think it's important to prompt it to write like your authorial voice.

The more you do that, I think it's going to be closer to you and may even be better writing, assuming that your author voice is well developed. I think if you just ask the AI—well, I've seen from experience—that if you just ask the AI to write something, it's not necessarily going to be a style that's appropriate for what you're writing.

The more specific you are about how that writing should look, or even give it samples of your writing, describe your own writing, the writing gets better. By better, I mean closer to what you as an author want it to be.

The more specific you are in your prompt, the more you learn how to talk to the AI in a way that it interprets the way you want it to.Joanna: Yes, I agree. I mean, sometimes my prompts can be like 100 words. With Claude, I'm prompting with whole sentences and beats and all kinds of things that at the beginning of my use I didn't necessarily know how to do.

Again, coming back to the co-writer idea, the collaborator idea, it's like working with another person. You mentioned you're OCD. I'm not OCD, but I'm certainly into control around my writing.

I found it very hard to work with a human co-writer, but I love working with Claude for this reason.

[My use of the AI tools] developed over time. You don't just do it from your first interaction.Alicia: Right. I 100% agree with that. I've been using AI in my work, in my planning for my writing, and bits and pieces in my actual writing since it first went mainstream the end of 2022.

My prompts are so much longer now than they were then because I've learned how they're going to respond.

Then my prompts for different AI models are different. My prompts for Claude might be different than my prompts for ChatGPT because I have a sense of how they interpret things.

My prompts have gotten more specific, and I chain my prompts together because that's something you learn. It's a skill, using generative AI as a tool.Joanna: Yes, and that is why I've been harping on about this for so long, because every month that goes past that people don't even try it for little things, they are missing out on time to learn what is essentially, what I think, it kind of underpins the next technological change in our society.

A bit like the internet changed so much, this is going to change so much. Do you feel it's that significant, as well?

Alicia: That is going to change a lot? Absolutely, and there's a lot of change that I look forward to. I'm interested in how the writing industry is going to look when these legal cases are decided. Speculate and say that it's determined that it is okay to train AI models based on copyrighted works.

I'm interested to see how those who are so anti-AI in the writing industry would respond to that. But more than that —

I'm interested in what's coming next. What's going to happen with AI next?I'm hard of hearing, and I'm really looking forward to outside of the writing industry, some sort of captions. You know, they're making smart glasses. I want smart glasses with captions. I'm just waiting for it. I'm rubbing my hands together. I can't wait. Some of this stuff is going to be life changing.

Joanna: Wow, okay. So you mean you're looking at someone while wearing the smart glasses, and as they speak, you'll see captions of what they're saying?

Alicia: That's the dream.

Joanna: That is amazing, and of course, why wouldn't you have that? That just seems very sensible. So I don't even think that's that far away, surely. Let's hope so.

Well, look, let's come to those court cases. So in the USA, and there are still these open court cases against various AI companies, but there are also now far more companies that have done intellectual property licensing deals for data training, including some publishers and media companies.

Now, as we record this in the middle of January 2025, a company called CreatedByHumans.ai has just launched, and they're partnering with the Authors Guild in the US. The aim is to help authors license their IP for training and AI usage.

Now, this is a non-exclusive thing, and authors can choose how the data is used.

What are your thoughts on the opportunities of this kind of licensing for AI and what should authors keep an eye out for in any contracts?Alicia: I think the main thing I want to say about this is, if you're being offered a licensing contract for using your work to train AI, that I would jump on that.

It may be that soon courts bring down decisions that this is fair use, and in that case, they can use your work without a license.

So someone's offering you money for it now, I would say, get into those negotiations and think about getting that locked down.

Specifically with respect to terms, I would say, know the scope and the type of model that your work is going to be used for. If it's going to be used for a general purpose that could be used to create competing works, then maybe you want to be paid more than if it's going to be used internally at law firms, for example.

So know what it's going to be used for because that tells you what the value of this license is. I would say, make sure that your terms don't include derivative works, or are very specific about what derivative works are included in what you're giving.

You don't want someone using AI to generate works that are directly based off your work, like sequels. Just make sure that that's something that's out of the scope of the license.

It would exclude anything about sub licenses, unless you're getting paid for a sub license. Ideally, put a term on it, on the licensing of your work, because this area is developing.

You don't know what's going to happen five years from now, 10 years from now. There may be whole new clauses that you want in there because of how technology has developed.

So I would, personally, try to avoid a license that's 20 years or the term of your copyright because you want to be able to develop that license as the technology develops.

I would also limit how your work is going to appear in outputs, meaning the percentage of your work that can appear in outputs.

It is unlikely that with a general purpose chat bot where millions or billions of works are used to train that a significant portion of your work would appear in the output because it wouldn't have that large an input on the statistical model that is the AI model.

However, you don't know how big the model is going to be or how many works are going to be used to train it. So I think it could be worthwhile to have a percentage, say, only 2% of my work at a time can appear in any given outbreak.

That's something that they can program as a layer above a generative AI model, so that it sort of screens that before any output gets put out to a user. So that's something that I would have in there as well.

In general, make sure your contract has remedies, so that if there's a breach, you can cancel the contract, for example. As opposed to just getting paid out, or whatever remedies you prefer, make sure they're outlined in there.

Ideally, you want a right to audit what's happening with your work in the training, so that you can take advantage of those remedies. If you can't see what's going on, then the remedies aren't doing you much good.

Joanna: Those are all really useful things. It's funny because the first thing you said was, get into this because things might change, and we might not get anything if it becomes fair use.

The other thing I thought is we almost have a burning platform on the creation of synthetic data. So I've been looking at the OpenAI's o1 model, and some people are saying that one of the reasons it was created is because it can create really good synthetic data to train the o3 models.

Alicia: Oh, wow.

Joanna: I know. I was like, wow—

If they can do really good synthetic data, they don't even need to take our data.Although I guess the original sin, as such, may still stand. I don't know. I mean, any thoughts on that?

Alicia: Well, I hadn't heard that about the o1 and the o3 model, but synthetic data, that's something that I'm excited about because I want these models to improve. I want them to use my work to train the models. Synthetic can write more like me, make my job easier.

I'm excited for more training data. I hope that more folks in the writing industry get on board and allow their works to be licensed if allowance is needed. Even if allowance is not needed, I know that folks in the AI industry are feeling the pushback from the writing industry, and it may slow them down.

I don't want them to be slowed down. I want to see this stuff develop.

Joanna: It's interesting that we both want our data in the models. Partly, I also think there's a big change in generative search, in that I mainly use ChatGPT now to do my searches.

So I've been trying to do sort of book discovery, you know, “Give me 10 books that are action adventure thrillers with a female protagonist set in this area.” Then it gives me 10, and I'm like, “Well, what about this book by JF Penn?” I'm like almost trying to train it to think of my books as well.

What do you think about generative search and people using these models for searching?If we're not there, we just won't be found.

Alicia: If we're not there, they just won't be found. What do you mean by that?

Joanna: Well, as in, the models have access to certain data and certain data that's on the internet. So a lot of the time, it can look at Goodreads, or it can look at Amazon.

I want ChatGPT and Claude to know J.F. Penn, so that if someone is searching for something to read—and a lot of the apps that go on top of things now are powered by these tools—

I want the models to know my writing so that it can promote me or recommend me if people go looking for things like I write.Alicia: Oh, for sure. I know there are anti-AI folks in the writing industry who don't want AI anywhere near their work. I'm more what you just said. I want AI to be able to find me. I want AI to be able to write more like me.

I believe strongly in my own creativity and my ability to create something that is specifically me, and because of that, I'm not concerned about AI being near my work. I want it to help me.

I'm not scared about how its use is going to impact my marketability because I know what I've got.Joanna: I love that, and I actually think the same thing.

I wonder if this is creative confidence that comes from—like both of us have been 17 years writing, and previously I was in tech as well. Not quite as deep as you, but I'm confident with tech.

So this kind of creative confidence in our own work and in our own worth that some newer writers might not have, I guess.

Is there anything you can say to newer writers who might not have as much creative confidence as you?Alicia: This may be strange coming from someone who is very fond of AI, I have a lot of fun with it, but I would say that maybe building that creative confidence means not using AI for a while.

It means discovering who you are as an author, what sort of things you like to write before bringing in a partner, be it AI or a human writer of another sort. Really find your uniqueness and your identity as a writer before you start adding tools into the mix.

Joanna: That is actually a really good point.

You and I have both already done enough books and written enough that we're confident in our voice that we found before AI.Then I just wonder if maybe people who are younger in the usage of these tools, or people younger in their journey, or just physically younger, are going to do things differently. Like you and I grew up without iPhones, and we grew up without television.

My mum was the same as your mum. We weren't allowed to watch TV until I was about 12. So I feel like maybe people will develop their voice differently now.

Alicia: That's a really good point, and I honestly don't know what that will look like, but I'm excited to see it.

Joanna: Yes, me too. Okay, so let's just circle back on copyright because another sticking point for authors in using these tools is—

They're afraid that they won't have copyright in their finished work if they use AI tools in any way. So where's the line here?How is it in the US? Because it's different in the UK.

Alicia: Right. In the US, first of all, expression that is generated by artificial intelligence, by a machine, is not copyrightable. However, your authorship is copyrightable. Thus, when you combine your authorship with an AI-generated output, then the part of that that is your creative expression is still copyrightable.

So what that means is, if there's a combination, if you're using AI as a partner, then whatever expression that you contribute to that final product is copyrightable in the US.

Thus, say someone was to copy a chapter of your book that has you in it, as opposed to telling the AI in a short paragraph to write a chapter, if you've been a part of selecting what goes in that chapter, arranging that chapter, editing words that were initially output by the AI, that's all your expression.

One cannot copy that chapter without copying that expression, which is yours.

There's still copyright eligibility when you've used AI, depending on how you use it.The Copyright Office has confirmed this. This isn't all theoretical here. The Copyright Office has handled some cases.

[Note from Jo — here are some excerpts from the US Copyright Office info, and also the UK, as they differ. Please check your jurisdiction. ]

In the UK, Section 9(3) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 around authorship and ownership of copyright states:

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.

In the US, copyright is all about ‘human authorship,’ and in March 2023, the United States Copyright Office issued guidance around the definition of human authorship in an age of generative AI. They note:

A human may select or arrange AI-generated material in a sufficiently creative way that ‘the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship.’

Importantly, they also say,

This policy does not mean that technological tools cannot be part of the creative process. Authors have long used such tools to create their works or to recast, transform, or adapt their expressive authorship.

For example, a visual artist who uses Adobe Photoshop to edit an image remains the author of the modified image, and a musical artist may use effects such as guitar pedals when creating a sound recording.

In each case, what matters is the extent to which the human had creative control over the work’s expression and ‘actually formed’ the traditional elements of authorship.

[Back to the interview]There was a semi-well known case with a graphic novel where the author had generated each image using AI, but the copyright office determined that the arrangement of those images, the selection of those images and arranging them into a story, was copyright protected.

Thus you can't just take that graphic novel and copy it and sell it, because the author's expression is in there. That's the case with cover art as well as written work.

Audiobooks with AI narration are a little different because your copyrighted expression is already in the input, and the output is just your words spoken. So you don't even have to edit that output, it already has your expression in it, and is copyright eligible in the US.

I know in the UK, there are even stronger protections for copyright eligibility of AI-generated works. I think if you direct the creation of it, it's yours.

Joanna: Yes, and I think that's probably why so many people are putting offices here. OpenAI has an office here. I mean, Runway ML, the video generator, they've got an office here, and are partnering with the UK film company. It's essentially like if a machine generates something, it belongs to the person who who directed it.

I was thinking about this, like I like the word director because, increasingly, if you think about a film director—and you know, people will have their favorite movie directors—

Movie directors direct and have a creative vision, but they are not acting every scene. They're not doing all the sets. They're not they're not doing every piece of work in a movie. They are the director. So I almost wonder if that's the direction we're going is—This much bigger role, where we can do much bigger things, with a lot more help.

Alicia: I think so. I think that there's a lot that we can do with AI to create and expand our creativity besides just writing. We can direct a little movie now ourselves with AI-generated visuals.

However, I also predict, I don't know for sure, that we're going to see copyright eligibility of AI-generated outputs that are unedited in the US. We're going to see some of that become protectable. Right now, that's really shaky ground, except with the exception of audiobooks and the like.

It's really shaky ground, say that an AI-generated image as is, would get any kind of copyright protection. I think we may see that depending on how specific your prompt is, that there may be some copyright protection based on the creativity that you put into that.

Joanna: Yes, I think so. As these models get better and better, you can have a much bigger process. So let's come to that, because we're still in these early days, like we're literally like 2001 in terms of the internet.

Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, just shared in a new blog post, Reflections, last week,

“We believe that in 2025, we may see the first AI agents join the workforce and materially change the output of companies.”I'm like, hell yes, give me some agents to do things. I'll do the stuff I love, and my little AI agents will do the rest. I mean the word ‘agent' is difficult in the publishing industry, but think about little bots or little employees doing your work.

What do you think about AI agents, and how might we use whatever they might be in the future?Alicia: I'd personally love a social media agent because I am no good at keeping up with what's going on my social media accounts. They will go dark for a month and a half, and then I'll remember that I have them and should use them. So I'd love a social media agent.

I kind of have a custom GPT, a prompt set up to help me plan my social media. I've actually tried some products that try to be social media agents that I don't love.

I feel that the writing industry is going to be reluctant to take on these agents. Just based on what I've seen about how protective the writing industry has been—some people in the writing industry—about related industries, like cover artists and voice narrators, how protective they've been wanting writers who want to use AI to hire a cover artist.

They're being very insistent about that, some anti-AI folks. They're being very insistent about hiring a human narrator for your book. I think that we may see that same protectiveness over virtual assistants.

When we're talking about these agents, like a marketing agent or a social media agent, these are things that one might hire a virtual assistant for. I think we may see some pushback from this same segment of the writing industry that's opposed to using AI-generated cover art.

We're going to see some pushback saying, hey, you should hire a virtual assistant instead.

Joanna: I totally agree, but I think that people are going to use these things anyway. Especially, coming back to creative confidence again, if you are strong in what you want, then actually using these agents.

You mentioned a chain of prompts earlier, and I just have these amazing ideas about how—

I want a chain of agents doing book marketing for me.There is absolutely no way it would be affordable to have that where humans do it.

Alicia: Absolutely. Yes, affordability is a huge issue. If you weren't going to hire someone, I don't understand the objection to passing along to AI to do it for you so that it gets done, as opposed to not getting done.

I've actually used virtual assistants in the past, and it didn't work so well because I'm so particular. First of all, I felt like a jerk wanting to tweak things all the time. I don't feel like a jerk when I talk to AI. Then it wasn't saving me time because of the amount of time I was spending tweaking things.

So for me, having an AI social media agent would be something that I wouldn't hire someone for anyway. I don't think that's a requirement for using AI, but it expands what we can do, having these agents, having AI in general. I love that.

Joanna: I mean, I think —

Marketing is probably the biggest thing that people want to use these tools for. I see that one could almost have an agent per book even, who's responsible for making sure that book gets marketed.

I mean, we've got multiple books, and I find myself marketing whichever one that catches my eye, but there's so much of a backlist I just completely ignore. So I'd really love to have things surfaced from my backlist of work. Also things like having an AI—

I've just started using the ChatGPT Tasks. Have you done that?They only just started it like yesterday, the ChatGPT Tasks.

Alicia: Tasks? Oh, I have not. I noticed it a couple days ago, and instead, I started using Projects. I recently restarted my ChatGPT Pro or Plus account. I sort of switch which AI I want to use at any given time.

So right now I'm digging into the ChatGPT projects, but digging into the Tasks is definitely on my to-do list. I'm hoping I can get it to remind me of stuff that we've generated that I need to do.

Joanna: So for people listening, this is brand new. It's very, very small, as in you ask it to do a task, and it will do something for you at a certain time. So I've just set my ChatGPT so that —

Every morning it will bring me five headlines across the boundaries of archeology, religion, architecture, and genetic engineering.Basically, I gave it a list of things I'm interested in writing for my fiction, and then it'll bring me five headlines that I can click through to that will just give me ideas. So every morning, I get this really cool message, and then I go and just have a look. It just helps me think about stuff. So that's my first task, that's what I did.

Alicia: I love that. I'm totally going to steal that.

Since I'm into near future science fiction, I make a point to read technology magazines and subscribe to them, but then I have to actively go to those sources and read them. I love the idea of having them come to me like that. So I've just stolen your idea, Jo.

Joanna: Fantastic. Well, I wanted to mention it because this is an example of something where it will do some work for you and it helps you, but it's certainly not writing your book. So for people listening, please do steal that idea. That is a ChatGPT task. So we are out of time.

Where can people find you and your books online?Alicia: As we said at the beginning, I write under the name Alicia Ellis. My website is WriterAlicia.com. My social media handle across the board, across everywhere, is @WriterAlicia.

I use Instagram the most, and BlueSky I'm just getting into. Like I said, I go dark for an extended period of time, and then remember that social media exists. So WriterAlicia.com is the main place you can find me.

Joanna: Great. Well, thanks so much for your time, Alicia. That was amazing.

Alicia: Thank you, Jo. I really appreciate you. This has been fun.

The post Fair Use, Copyright, And Licensing. AI And The Author Business With Alicia Wright first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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How can you build a long-term author career with multiple streams of income? How can you use technology for the grunt work and not the fun part of writing? Kevin J Anderson gives his tips.

In the intro, has TikTok gone dark? [AP]; BookVault is expanding printing to Australia; GPSR, the EU’s new General Product Safety Regulation [Self-Publishing Advice]; CreatedByHumans.ai launches in partnership with The Authors Guild for AI data licensing [Publishing Perspectives]; Simon & Schuster launches audio-first imprint featuring content from self-published authors [Publishers Weekly].

Plus, 7 Steps for How to Write Non-Fiction [Reedsy Live replay]; Publishing predictions for 2025 [Draft2Digital’s Self-Publishing Insiders]; Creative and life challenges with me and Orna Ross [Self-Publishing with ALLi]; Death Valley – A Thriller, coming in March!

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.com to get started.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn

Kevin J. Anderson is the multi-award-winning and internationally bestselling author of over 190 books across different genres, with over 24 million copies in print across 34 languages. He's also the director of publishing at Western Colorado University, as well as a publisher at WordFire Press, an editor and rock album lyricist, and he's co-written Dune books and worked on the recent Dune movies and TV show.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.

Show Notes

• Adapting throughout a 40-year author career
• The importance of having a Plan B when the industry changes
• Incorporating AI into your dictation process — MacWhisper
• Utilizing AI to do the grunt work, not the fun work
• Publishing timeline restrictions with traditional publishers
• Tips for running a Kickstarter in 2025
• Finding a market for short stories
• Meeting reader expectations and delivering on promises

You can find Kevin at WordFire.com and buy his books direct at WordFireShop.com.

Transcript of Interview with Kevin J. AndersonJoanna: Kevin J. Anderson is the multi-award-winning and internationally bestselling author of over 190 books across different genres, with over 24 million copies in print across 34 languages.

He's also the director of publishing at Western Colorado University, as well as a publisher at WordFire Press, an editor and rock album lyricist, and he's co-written Dune books and worked on the recent Dune movies and TV show. So welcome back to the show, Kevin.

Kevin: It's been too long, Joanna. We should do this more often.

Joanna: Oh, yes. Well, you've got so much going on. So we've gone into your background before, so we're going to jump straight in. This, being in the author business a long time, is incredible. Tell us. You just told me about a big milestone.

Kevin: It was the new year, so I was just kind of doing my year round up and everything, and I realized that my very first professional publication was in January 1985, Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. So that means —

40 years I've been a professional author.Joanna: Wow.

Kevin: So I look back, and it was 1995 when I quit my day job, and I have been a full-time ‘earning all my living by writing stuff' for 30 years. Which, I don't know if I live frugally. No you've met my wife, I don't live frugally. I've just been at it for a long time.

My gosh, it's not like doing the same thing every day, like working on a factory assembly line for 30 years —

This has required just keeping a lookout, and being adaptive, and reinventing myself over and over and over again.

The publishing world does not stay the same, and if you just keep doing the same thing, you'll be left by the wayside.Joanna: Well, let's just focus on that then.

You mentioned being adaptive and reinventing yourself, but I mean, this really takes a different kind of mindset, I think. I haven't been in it as long as you, but I've seen many authors disappear from the industry, perhaps because they couldn't adapt.

So how do you keep that sort of ever learning process, even when you're already so successful?

Kevin: Well, here's the thing, I am not interested in just one thing or one type of writing.

I've always got like five or six completely unrelated things going at a time.What happens is that something will be really hot one year, and then nobody wants it the next year, but I've got five other things going, so then we hope something else gets really hot.

If you are only writing steampunk vampire romances, great. They might be super hot this year, but 10 years from now, maybe people don't want to read steampunk vampire romances. I'm just making that up, just as an example.

For instance, let me go back. My big claim to fame, I had my first giant career boost was about 1992. So my first novel was published in 1988, and yes, listeners, I know it sounds like I'm really old, but I'm in good shape.

So 1988, my first novel was published. I published, I think, six or seven novels. This is trad days, there was no option for indie. Then I got a phone call from Lucasfilm saying, “Kevin, would you write Star Wars books for us?”

So, suddenly, instead of just being this author who wrote some books that maybe got some reviews, and you got advances in those days, and I maybe earned $4,000 on a book for working on it for six, eight months.

Then suddenly I was writing Star Wars books, and I was a New York Times bestselling author, and I was selling millions of copies. That was huge for me. So I did all these Star Wars books, and through Star Wars, I did Star Wars comics, and then I learned how to write comics.

That was a huge comics boom, so I was writing monthly comic books and doing all kinds of successful things like that. And because of Star Wars, they asked me to write X Files. I wrote all these movie tie-in books. I wrote the novels for like these science fiction movies that came out.

I was pulling up the drawbridge because people kept throwing books at me as fast as I could write them.

Then around maybe 10 or 11 years later, all of that media tie-in work just dried up.People might remember, every time a movie came out, you could walk into the grocery store or the airport and there would be a paperback novel of that movie. I mean, that was steady work.

I could pick up the phone saying, “I've got a month free. Give me a movie novelization.” Those things paid like $15,000 or so, and it took three or four weeks’ worth of work, but they just stopped doing that. It wasn't that I gave up on it, or I stopped being good at it or anything, it's just that entire part of the career dried up.

Then I'm not sure exactly the years, but like 2005 or 2006, the entire comic book industry imploded. My comic that used to sell maybe 500,000 copies an issue suddenly sold 50,000 copies an issue, just because people stopped buying comics. That's not anything that's in my control.

There's a whole lot of reasons why authors screw up their own careers.

I mean, we can talk about that for a while, but —

There are so many things that are out of your control so you have to have a Plan B and a Plan C, and as many plans as you have.I had all these things going, but I kept spinning other plates up. I would write mysteries and horror because then the science fiction dried up. Or I would write young adults with my wife, and then young adults suddenly became hot. I just kept trying all of the above.

You've noticed, in fact, I've given you a cup of my coffee, which is like five times stronger than what you ever would drink. I am fairly energetic, and I like to work all the time, and I keep going.

You can't put all your eggs in one basket because this industry is a roller coaster, and it just changes all the time.Now, there's a couple of other things. Well, first we mentioned, I'm the director of the Master's Degree Program in Publishing at Western Colorado University, and I started that about seven years ago. In fact, I had to go back to university myself and get an MFA after I had already published 150 books and had 57 bestsellers.

I had to get the degree because you can't teach creative writing unless you have a degree. So I got a master's degree. Now, in fact, we're taking applications for our seventh cohort now. So seven years, I've had this group of students.

I teach them grad-level publishing, both traditional and indie. I put them through the paces. They do their own books, they edit an anthology, they read the slush pile. I mean, it's all hands-on stuff.

The reason I'm mentioning all that, other than telling everybody to check out the program, but that is a completely different plan. Plan Z. I mean teaching at the university and teaching publishing, actually, it pays a monthly salary, which isn't bad.

I get health benefits. You're in the UK, so you don't know how desperate that is over here in the US that you need to have health insurance. So all of that is a completely different track. Like, okay, I'll spend a lot of time teaching graduate students Just try different things.

It's all writing adjacent. It's not like I'm working as an automobile mechanic in my day job. Everything is related to writing or publishing, but there's different aspects of it.

It's almost like playing Whack-a-Mole. One thing will pop up and be really successful, but then that will go away, and then something else will pop up. You need to make sure you have a lot of moles to pop up in the Whack-a-Mole room.

Joanna: That's fantastic. I mean, it is amazing. Also, yes, I still remember your coffee. I felt fantastic. I haven't been able to replicate that ever since, so I'm going to have to see you in Vegas for more coffee!

Kevin: One more thing I want to throw into that. I was at 20Books and Author Nation, and I was talking to lots of fabulously successful indie authors. They're fabulously successful this year, but they weren't last year.

The attitude that some people get is if they have a really, really good year, it's always going to be that way, and it isn't. So if you have a really, really good year, don't go out and buy a private jet like.

Sock your money away, build a nest egg, pay off your house, or whatever you can do. Build financial stability.People might remember MC Hammer, the guy who had some really big hits and that didn't have hits, and he spent all of his money. You don't want to be like that. If you're super successful right now, it doesn't mean you will always be super successful.

Joanna: Yes, absolutely. I always talk about investing and how I don't expect writing to pay my pension. I'm building a pension to pay my pension, and writing can be extra. [Check out my list of money books here.]

I do want to get into your writing process because, as you mentioned, you're energetic, you're in good shape, and you hike a lot. You dictate as you walk, and you've been on the show before talking about dictation.

Now, I noticed that you have a new edition out of On Being a Dictator with two co-writers, which is a book on dictation.

I wondered how your dictation process works now, and how it's changed with AI tools for speech to text.Kevin: Well, there's one other cautionary tale I want to throw in there. It's probably been 30, maybe even 40 years, that I've just dictated my writing. That's how my process works. I love just walking and dictating.

You know this, Joanna. It just gets your creative process going, it gets your thoughts going. I love hiking, and I'm outside. I've got myself so trained that I can't sit there and stare at the screen and be very creative. I have to be out walking and moving around. I go hiking and mountain climbing, and everything's wonderful.

A slight problem happened last August as I was climbing down a mountain pass in the rain on the rocks, and the mud was like Vaseline. I slipped and fell, and I broke my ankle. I had to limp a mile back to my car on this rocky trail on a broken ankle, and I was 12 weeks in a boot and then in an ankle brace.

No tears or anything, it healed just fine, but for those 12 weeks, I was unable to do writing the way I wanted to write. I couldn't really walk. I wasn't supposed to move around very much. So I had to just sit on the back porch with my digital recorder and stare off into the distance and dictate.

Man, that cut my productivity in half. It's not the same just sitting there as it is walking. So I guess my downside was that I was so dependent on being able to write while I walk, that when I suddenly couldn't walk for 12 weeks, I didn't have my own Plan B very well in in action.

I mean, I got my book done. I was a little late on it, but it was not as much fun to sit there and write.

So anyway, to your question, the dictation process hasn't really changed. I'm an outliner. I go through and I have my 90 chapters outlined, or whatever, for my big books. I know exactly what happens in chapter one and chapter two. Now, they might change. I might modify the outline, so it's not like I'm completely locked in.

So I'll take my notes for usually two chapters, sometimes three if I go out on a really long hike, and I just get into the zone. I know what's going to happen, and I just tell my story, and I dictate it.

I've gotten it so that if you just play my raw dictation tapes, they're pretty much like an audiobook. I'm pretty good at being consistent, not stumbling. So that's what I've done all along.

I would take those audio files and I download them, and I had a typing service. So I would upload them to my typing service. They loved working with me because the typing service usually works on like legal documents and medical reports and things like that, which are very boring.

They liked my zombie detective chapters, or they liked my epic fantasy chapters. So they would always fight over my stuff, and I'd get it turned around fairly quickly.

So it wasn't causing much problems. I would get their dictation back in Word files in two days maybe. So it's not really a problem, but it's not cheap. It was like a penny a word to get it done. So 100,000 word book was $1,000.

As of last February, one of my other dictators at Superstars Writing Seminar last February, she was so excited and came up saying, “Oh, you've got to try this AI transcription.”

She showed me how to do it and I played with it a little bit. What I use is called MacWhisper, but there are other transcription things out there.

[Note, Kevin said MacWrite, but he meant MacWhisper]

Suddenly I just feed my audio file into it, and it transcribes it. It takes a little while to teach the damn thing not to rewrite my words—

Joanna: Particularly with fantasy.

Kevin: All I use it for is to transcribe what I wrote, but I've got my AI trained right now, so that it pops out and it does all the drudgery work. So I don't have to put the paragraphs and the quote marks. It's kind of mind boggling to me how well it does.

For a while, you know me well, I'm not an anti-AI person, but I don't want to get people put out of their jobs. So I thought, “But my typing service, then I don't use the typing service. Those people depended on me.”

My friend said, “Kevin, if they're a decent typing service, don't you think they're already using this to do the first cut on your transcriptions?” And I went, “Oh, probably.”

Why should I pay somebody else to run the AI thing that I can just run myself?I come home, I get my dictation things, I load the files up, I go off and eat lunch, and I come back, and they're transcribed.

It has taken an entire chunk of the pain in the butt, time consuming work that has nothing to do with being creative. It, to me, has made things much more streamlined.

The book I wrote, probably 10 years ago, called On Being a Dictator, because I was really one of the first early adopters of walking and dictating. Everybody's always asking, “Well, how can you do that?” Well, I got tired of answering them, so I wrote it up. Now they have to pay five bucks to get my answer.

Joanna: It is a really useful book. I love the fact that, again, you're being adaptive, and you're changing the bits of the process you don't enjoy, or the drudgery side, or the overly expensive side for what it is, and you've changed that process. Your creative process remains the same.

It's not like the AI has changed your bit of the process, and I think that's really important.I love that you're adopting these different things.

Kevin: Well, the walking and dictating, that's the fun part. Why would I want AI to do that for me? That's the fun part.

Look, I'm one of these writers that really does enjoy writing. I mean, I love going out and doing my chapter and seeing the adventures unfold.

I have a humorous mystery horror series called Dan Shamble Zombie P. I. and we just did a Kickstarter for Book 11 on it. It's a bunch of dad jokes. It's like the Naked Gun meets the Addams Family. Those stories are so much fun to write, and I find myself like laughing out loud when I go out dictating those things.

My wife will say, “Kevin, you're writing a Dan Shamble book right now because you're always in a good mood.” I love going out and doing that. Why would I want an AI to do all the fun part? AI and computers are supposed to take the grunt work away, not the fun work away.

Joanna: Absolutely. Now, I also wanted to ask you about Kickstarter. So you've done seven, as we record this, Kickstarter projects across various genres.

What part does Kickstarter play in your author business?What are any of your tips for authors who want to use it in 2025?

Kevin: Well, it has entirely changed how I do things. Remember, I came out through trad, and in trad, you have to convince some other publisher that they should publish this project that I want to do.

That would always involve writing proposals up and trying to convince an editor or publisher that, yes, they should take a chance on this project or that project. Then they would pay you in advance, and that's what I would live on while I wrote the book.

Indie is entirely different. You don't get paid anything until you publish it and you start earning sales and royalties.

Well, Dan Shambles is a good example because I love this series. It was with a traditional publisher, and they did the first four books in the series. Let's just say that we didn't really see eye to eye.

I do my own marketing. As you know, I've been doing this for a long time, and I kind of know what works and what doesn't. So this is a fast and funny series. You read one in a couple of sittings, and then you want the next one.

I'm a fast writer, so they bought the first three books, and I said, “Great, let's bring them out like every six months.” Then they went, “Oh, no, we can't do that. It has to be a year and a half apart.”

Well, but this is a fast series, you don't want a year and a half. So we didn't see eye to eye on that.

So then I wrote a standalone story. Like, here's my original, just an introduction to Dan Shamble. It's a standalone mystery. So I wrote it, and I was going to publish it myself, upload it before the first novel came out. Like, here's an appetizer. You can read this free story and then get interested in the series.

So I wrote it, I was going to publish that. They got all bent out of shape, “No, no, no, we have to publish it.”

So I'm like, “Alright. I don't know that you know anything about ebooks, but okay.” So I gave them the story, but they, of course, couldn't release the story before the book was published. They released the story a year later, before Book Two was published.

This is audio, so you can hear the sound of me slapping my forehead. Then the book comes out as $15 as a trade paperback. It was $15 for an ebook and $15 for the print book. I said, “That's insane. You put the ebook at like $5, or something like that.”

They said, “Well, we don't want to cut into our print sales.” Well, it's apples and oranges. The ebook readers are going to buy the ebook, and the print book readers are going to buy the print book. So they said that their ebook sales were disappointing. Well, duh.

Joanna: That's because they're so expensive!

Kevin: So anyway, after four books of that—and I am going to answer your question about Kickstarters after all this, I promise. So they did four books, and I got the rights back.

I released a short story collection because I'd written a bunch of these other short stories, and that came out, and it did okay, and I reprinted them, and they did okay. But I'm writing Dune novels, and I'm doing these really big projects that, frankly, paid a lot.

My re-issues of the Dan Shamble books were okay, but they weren't huge hits. I really wanted to continue the series, it's just there was no real incentive to do so.

Then my friend Dean Wesley Smith, who's run a lot of Kickstarters, said, “Kevin, you should run a Kickstarter for it.” I had this attitude of, well, Kickstarters are for whiny authors that don't have any money and they're begging for money. He said, no, you got it completely wrong.

He's right. I had it completely wrong.

It's not for whiny authors begging for money. It's a way for you to connect with your fans, to give your real fans a chance to get like a backstage club. I mean, my Kickstarter people get their books three, four months before anybody else can get them.

They might get expanded editions, or they might get separate things. So, okay, I decided to try it. If anybody wants a new Dan Shamble novel, which I wanted to write, and the fans kept asking for.

So I ran a Kickstarter for another Dan Shamble novel, and bam, it funded in like 30 minutes. It ended up like 15 times what we asked for, and it raised more than triple what the trad publisher was paying. I went, oh, okay, this is pretty nice.

I had another series that I had done, the first book of it was called The Dragon Business. 47 North published it. It was sort of like The Princess Bride meets Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. It was a fun fantasy. It did okay, but not great.

47 North is Amazon's print imprint for science fiction and fantasy. Surprise, surprise, brick and mortar bookstores don't want to carry books that are published by Amazon. So the sales for that weren't as great as they expected.

I got the rights back, and I wanted to do a sequel to it because I wanted to build that into a fun fantasy series. So I thought, oh, well, why don't we see if the Kickstarter people want a sequel to that?

Again, I ran a Kickstarter for it, and again, more than triple what the trad publisher was paying. Remember, I'm already an indie author and an indie publisher. So I know how to publish a book. It's not like this is a learning experience for me.

Joanna: Just on that, just to bring you back to Kickstarter for newer authors. I mean, obviously you're talking about established series, so people might think, well, there's already readers for that. What is different about Kickstarter?

Are there things that newer authors who don't have such an extensive career could use it for?Kevin: Well, actually, it's almost the opposite answer, because this is really designed for people who do have a platform, who do have a fan base, because you can tap into them.

If you're brand new and don't have followers, you have to find some way to get people interested in your project.

Maybe it's connected to a very interesting subject. In fact, one of my grad students right now is a recovering alcoholic, and she's got a whole bunch of self-help books on how to overcome addiction.

She's not famous. Nobody really knows who she is, but she's plugged into this network of people who are trying to help one another through situations like this. So she's able to get attention for that particular subject.

I'm going to run a Kickstarter this spring with my grad students because the poetry concentration director also runs this big Writers Workshop in Montana, I think, which is for indigenous writers, and it's taught by all indigenous instructors.

There are a lot of foundations for the arts supporting them, but they never have enough money to run the workshop. So we're going to run a Kickstarter for them, and we will be tapping into a lot of people to say help support this indigenous workshop.

I haven't run it yet, so we don't know if it's successful, but I'm pretty confident it's going to be. My students are going to help promote it. Now, they're not famous, but when you have this good cause that you're promoting it for, then you can get attention that way.

If you're just, “I'm Bill, brand new indie author. Here's my short story collection. Here's my Kickstarter,” you may be starting too soon for that.

The steps of doing a successful Kickstarter, you have to have a platform and an outreach and some reason for people to want to do it.Also, you need to be able to convince your backers that you will actually deliver on what you promise.

I've supported probably 50 Kickstarter campaigns, and probably 20 of them I never got the stuff I paid for because they just don't know how to produce it.

So don't let that happen to you. Make sure you know what you're doing.

At 20Books, last year or the year before, I was talking to the head of publishing at Kickstarter. She was kind of rolling her eyes and shaking her head, saying that they've had people that ran campaigns for a fantasy book, and the campaign was successful.

Then the person wrote her and said, “Okay, my campaign was successful. Now, how do I publish a book?”

Joanna: Well, we generally say now—

You should have written your book before you do a campaign.That's the advice, I think.

Kevin: I mean, even me, everybody knows that I'm going to be reliable. I've written 190 books. If I say I'm going to write one, I'm going to do it. But I feel that you want to deliver your stuff fairly soon, while people remember that they're still waiting for it.

How many people are really still waiting for the next Game of Thrones book? I've given up on that.

Also, so I write my book before—either completely done, or at least the draft is done and I'm editing it—before I run the campaign. I want to be able to turn it over and just deliver the books within a month or two. I always under promise and over deliver.

So right now, I've got the Dan Shamble campaign that ended in the first week of November. I promised them books by March, we are sending them out this week because I got it done faster.

There are times where there are delays, especially if you're doing, say, bespoke editions that have to be shipped from China or something. Those are things you can't count on. I always really want to have everything done and ready.

The other thing is —

I plan maybe two, possibly three Kickstarter campaigns a year. I don't want to go to my backers and say, “Hey, support my next one,” if I haven't delivered the previous stuff yet. You want to be reliable. Make sure you're not doing it too soon. There are pieces you need to put in place.

Here's an example. So I'm writing Dune books and things. Those go to the trad publisher because they have a much bigger footprint in brick and mortar stores and things. Kickstarter lets me do the projects that are my passion projects, really big things that I want to do that might not fit with trad publishing.

My biggest campaign ever was last year. I've written a lot of short stories over my career, and I thought, well, I just want to collect my short stories. In fact, I ended up with a whole lot of short stories, like 150 of them or so.

I even found the very first thing that I wrote when I was eight years old. I typed it on my dad's typewriter. It was this little three-page story about a mad scientist making monsters. I found that one, and so I included that in there.

So that meant that by putting the story when I was eight years old, I could do this short story collection that covered 50 years of my career. For each one of those stories, I wrote a little intro of, here's how I wrote this one, or here's how I wrote that one.

So it was three volumes of science fiction, two volumes of fantasy, two volumes of horror/dark fantasy. 750,000 words, all told.

Joanna: Wow.

Kevin: This is a huge job just putting all these stories together. So here's the point, and yes, I do have one, and I eventually get around to it. So I put all these things together, and I went to my New York literary agent. I knew the answer, I just wanted to do it.

So I went to him, and this is the guy who sold million dollar contracts for me, and I said, “I'm going to do a seven volume collection of my reprint short stories, and I want to do them all in hardcover. Who could you sell that to?”

It was like silence on the phone. He said, “Well, nobody. Nobody would want that.

“Nobody publishes short story collections. Nobody buys them. Nobody wants them.” So I said, “Okay, thanks.” I ran a Kickstarter, and we did $80,000. So, hello, my fans do want it. With the Kickstarter, it's between creator and the reader. There aren't 25 other middlemen between it. There aren't all these other people telling you, no, you can't do it. So it's just a direct me and the readers.

I guess the point of that was, this was a project I wanted to do. Without Kickstarter, I could never, ever have done it.

I mean, it took a lot of time and a lot of work, and it was expensive to do those books. So if I didn't have the money from Kickstarter, I could not have seen that project through.

Joanna: Well, I did want to ask you about short stories. Doing short story collections was one of my reasons that I wanted you to come back on the show.

In the indie space, people think, well, why would I bother writing short stories? I mean, there are obviously still short story markets, and lots of them, if you focus on that. But many indie authors are like, why would I bother? So, thoughts on short stories?

Kevin: Getting back to the long career retrospective. When I started out, every author's career path was that you wrote a bunch of short stories, you published them in the numerous magazines, and you built up a little bit of a following, and then you graduated to writing novels. Short stories were your training ground.

That's not the case anymore because there just really aren't nearly as many short story markets, and even then, you might not get it published.

The big advantage indies have is —

If you write a short story featuring your series character, well, then you use that as a reader magnet. You put it in your newsletter, or you use it as, “Get a free story when you sign up for my mailing list,” or something like that.

So short stories have a very good purpose right now, as you use them as like carrots to get people to check out your series. Or you can use it to maybe test out a new character if you want to. Always, short stories are a great way to experiment as a writer.

I mean, it takes me a couple of days to do a short story. So if you think, well, maybe I should try dark fantasy and see how it works. Well, write a short story and see if it works, rather than writing a novel, which is going to take you however long it takes you to write a novel. So it's a training ground, and that's very good to do.

Today, I would look at short stories as an adjunct or as supplementary things, rather than your main focus. They're kind of like the garnish on a plate instead of the steak.

There are many ways to use them. You can swap short stories. With other writers that have newsletters, you give them a story and they give you a story, so then you can get their readers to read your character and maybe pick up your series. That's where I would do it.

The Kevin J. Anderson Short Fiction Library, that came from people who were already interested in my stuff. If you're brand new and you don't have a big following already, I'm not exactly sure that that would be my main focus, doing an original story collection.

Joanna: I will come back on that. One of the reasons I'm thinking of doing this on Kickstarter is because I have bought so many on Kickstarter.

I buy a lot of short story collections from people, I don't know who they are, because I like reading short story collections.So it's one of those things that when you find a tiny niche of people who are interested in a certain type of product, then there are people there. So that's actually why I was thinking of even doing one on Kickstarter, because I am part of that audience. So I guess it's a different angle.

Kevin: But you do have a following, and you do have a platform.

Joanna: That's true.

Kevin: Now for you, though, one of the interesting enticements might be to do a short story collection paired with one of your writing books. Like my grad students, we assign them your Your Author Business Plan book, and they read it every spring and build their business plan based on your book.

So you might want to do, here's my story collection and here's my—if you have a new book on writing advice or something.

Joanna: Or writing short stories. Yes, absolutely.

Kevin: If you have one on writing short stories, that would be an ideal pairing. Like, here's my short story collection and here's my book on how to write short stories. That's genius. That would work. Brilliant.

Joanna: I think that's what we think around these Kickstarter projects, is it's not like on Amazon where if you pair something and your algorithm goes horribly wrong because those readers don't normally buy that kind of thing. Whereas—

With Kickstarter campaigns, you can put all these things in and it doesn't mess up some algorithm somewhere.Kevin: Exactly. So, here's the other thing. With doing a Kickstarter and raising money that way, that is completely separate from your indie publishing.

So when I get a Dan Shamble Kickstarter, and those books go out—again, they're going out to all my Kickstarter backers in the next week or two—the official release of this book to the public is like April.

So then we put up preorders on Amazon, and then everybody else buys them.

The Kickstarter effectively gave me my book advance, like I used to get from trad publishers, and then the sales go on sale to the general public because most people don't buy their books through Kickstarter. It's a special audience.

So most people are going to wait for it to come out on Amazon. So then you basically start all over from scratch. But hey, I just got a whole bunch of extra money up front to do this project. I am clearly a convert, as you can tell.

Joanna: Absolutely. Now, we're almost out of time, but I want to come back to something you said earlier.

You said, “How do authors screw up their own careers?” Then you said, “Well, we could talk about that if you'd like.” So I was thinking that, yes, I would like to talk about that.

How might authors screw up their careers? Or, I guess, how can they avoid that?Kevin: Well, my biggest piece of advice is, don't be an asshole. Well, first off, I have a policy of I do not make political postings on any of my social media. That is a great way to get rid of half of your readers is to start spouting something.

I wasn't joking, don't be an asshole. Authors talk. Reader's talk. If you're like this total jerk, people are like, I like the books, but I can't stand the person, so I'm not going to buy anymore. So just don't do that.

Deliver your stuff when you say you're gonna deliver it.

If you promised everybody your next book is coming out in April, well, don't make it five years later. I mean, obviously there are extenuating circumstances, you can have a medical issues or some other things.

Prove to be reliable and deliver what you say you're going to deliver. I like networking, and networking works the opposite way too. If you screw somebody over, everybody else is going to know about it.

In the indie author community, just look at all the people who come to Superstars, or to Author Nation, or 20Books, or these various things. People will know if you stop being ethical and reliable.

I have a policy of I just don't ever talk smack about other authors. I was on a panel once where it was about bestselling books or something, and everybody was just bitching and whining about the Twilight books or about Hugh Howey's books. They didn't like them, or Dan Brown's.

I just went, “Guys, tens of millions of people bought them, so there was something done right. Learn from it rather than complain about it.” I think we're all colleagues. Like, Joanna, you're successful. It doesn't make me any less successful.

I like to read books too. So just because somebody's selling books, doesn't cost me anything. I believe in the rising tide lifts all boats. I like being supportive and helpful, and I do my best not to be an asshole and help other people. It's karma points. It comes back at you.

It also works the opposite way. If you're this very negative person, and you constantly screw things up, you're alienating your readers, you're alienating your fans, you're being a jerk on social media, well, that's a great career suicide.

Just look at some of the actors who have had careers that have instantly crashed and burned because of some stupid thing they did. So don't do the stupid thing.

Joanna: Well, that's really interesting. So you've basically gone for the personality as opposed to the craft, which I think is really interesting. I was kind of expecting you to say they stop writing or they stop marketing, or something like that.

Kevin: Well, obviously if you stop writing. If you do a series—and I joked earlier about Game of Thrones—I mean, there's a contract there. If you started reading this book, you invested lots of time in this series, and I don't know what it is now, 10 years, 12 years since the last one. I'm not waiting for it anymore.

I loved those books. I'm not waiting for it anymore. If you do a series and you're producing them regularly, and you just stop, the reader's attention span is not long because there are so many other things to read. Don't expect them to be like pining by the telephone, waiting for somebody to ask you out on a date.

Readers will move on if you're not producing things. Now, again, we get back to the longevity of a career. It is exhausting to write lots of books a year, and most people can't keep doing that for 20 years or 30 years.

That's one of the reasons, especially indie authors, where readers expect you to write several books a year. Some indie authors I know are writing a book a month. I couldn't do that for any long period. Well, I couldn't do that probably for a single year.

You start building expectations, and when you fail to meet those expectations, they will leave you very quickly. That's why you should have Plan Bs.

If you really, really can't stand writing your steampunk vampire romance series after book number 29, well, make sure that you have some other series you're starting and building up.

Well, Hugh Howey's got several series that are going. Michael Anderle has all kinds of series, and Craig Martelle has all kinds of series. You don't just put all your eggs in one basket. You need to have Plan B and Plan C, to circle around to what I started with.

Joanna: Well, that is fantastic.

Where can authors find you, and your books, and everything you do online?Kevin: My website is WordFire.com. My store WordFireShop.com. After COVID, I realized I needed to sell books direct, and that's doing very well for me. Facebook, just look up my name, Kevin J. Anderson. I've got a couple of different pages, and you'll find it.

Also on WordFire.com, there's a whole section about the graduate program in publishing, if anybody's interested in becoming a Master of Publishing with the piece of paper to prove it.

Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Kevin. That was great.

Kevin: Thanks, Joanna. I always love talking to you.

The post Building A Long Term Author Business, Dictation, Kickstarter, and Short Story Collections With Kevin J Anderson first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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How can you balance creativity with business in order to have a profitable, long-term author career? What were the successes and challenges of the Author Nation conference? Joe Solari shares his perspective.

In the intro, the money episode [Ink In Your Veins]; WISE for multi-currency banking; creative planning tips for 2025 [Self~Publishing Advice]; Surprising Trends Authors Can’t Ignore in 2025 [Novel Marketing Podcast]. Plus, an update on Death Valley, A Thriller, and reflections on seeing live theatre vs online & stream/subscription models.

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.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn

Joe Solari helps authors build great businesses through books, courses, and podcasting, as well as strategy and operations consulting. He's also the managing director of Author Nation, the biggest conference for indie authors in the world.

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

• Maintaining sustainable balance between writing and marketing
• Creating an author business that fulfills you
• Utilizing your time effectively in 2025
• Navigating social media and business goals
• Learning to say no and focusing on what you really want
• Author Nation 2024 Highlights
• The logisitics of running an author conference
• Catering to different experience levels at an author conference

You can find Joe at JoeSolari.com and AuthorNation.live.

Transcript of Interview with Joe SolariJoanna: Joe Solari helps authors build great businesses through books, courses, and podcasting, as well as strategy and operations consulting. He's also the managing director of Author Nation, the biggest conference for indie authors in the world. So welcome back to the show, Joe.

Joe: Thanks for having me on again. I really enjoy the time we get to spend together. It seems like we talk more on the show than we do at events that we meet each other at.

Joanna: Absolutely. Well, we're often both very busy. You've been on the show a couple of times before—and I'll link to those in the show notes—so we're just going to jump in today.

Now, as we head into 2025, authors are assessing their priorities for the year. Now, in your experience helping authors build profitable businesses—

How can we balance writing and marketing so that both are sustainable?Joe: That's such an awesome question. I think a lot of folks that are used to hearing me on your podcast or other podcasts are going to think that I'm going to go right into talking about profitability or budgeting, but I'm going to actually get a little different approach for you on this whole thing.

Let me give you some context first, and that is—

Where do you have your best ideas?Joanna: Personally, a lot of my ideas come from traveling and places, in particular. So I have to go and visit things and input in order to have ideas.

Joe: Yes, and that doesn't surprise me. I've asked the question of a lot of creatives, and what I've discovered in asking that question is there tends to be two different things that come up. Like, it's when I do something like go on walks. Or a lot of times it's things like driving or a shower.

Why that is, there's science behind this, and it's you have two distinct networks in your brain that you need to use for creativity.

One is the default mode network. That's what your body goes into when you daydream. It's when you were sitting in class and getting bored by your teacher, and it would make you go off and think into your imaginary world. That's a natural place for you to go.

The other system is your executive functioning system, which is what helps you focus and get words out and hit deadlines.

They're two distinct systems that sometimes will overlap, like in a venn diagram. When that happens, that's your flow state where you feel like the ideas are coming and you're getting them down on paper.

The interesting thing about that is that it’s completely counter to what you're told to do as an entrepreneur and hustle culture. You're just supposed to produce. You're supposed to produce words. You're supposed to sit in a chair. You're supposed to produce.

So what you do is, when you are only focused on that one side, the executive function side, you detach yourself and you distance yourself from your creative well.

So my answer to your question is that — I suggest that authors start to build into their process in 2025 more time to tap into that default mode network and spend time thinking about how they can spend some real quality time and —

Protect that creative space, because that's where all your good ideas come from.When you feel like you're being blocked, it's because you're disconnecting yourself from that default mode network. So it's sound business advice, in the sense of there's this process that's core to your business that we need to get more efficient and think about how we can improve its performance.

Joanna: I really like that, and I feel like this is something I've always done is that I separate my time into creative time and business and marketing time. I find like I can't do both in the same time period.

When I had a day job, first thing in the morning—you know, I'm a morning person—so I'd write before going to work. Then in the evening, I could do business and marketing. This podcast was started after my work, back in the day.

So perhaps that fits into what you're saying is that you have to schedule different types of time, some for input and creativity and thinking and not doing much sometimes. Then other time for business and marketing.

I feel like maybe authors sometimes try to do everything all at once, and maybe that's why it doesn't work.Joe: Absolutely, you're really getting into the core of this.

There are different systems, and they have to be honored in different ways, and you need them both. We're on The Creative Penn show, come on, we have got to talk about creativity. It's like, we forget that's the source of the product.

We get very focused on, oh, it's a business. You have this product you have to put out. You have these customers you need to serve. All that stuff, it has to be done, but what you asked was —

How do we make this sustainable process between the marketing and the writing?What I'm getting at is there's some things that we can do to make that process easier. What it means is understanding that this isn't up and to the right like a business chart of sales. It's an undulating cycle.

Let me give you another context for this. If we look at creativity as a profession, you have this natural talent as a creator. We've identified that you've got this active imagination, and you love to spend time in the story world, and it's fulfilling to you. That's no different than if we noticed some natural athletic talent.

So what would we do around that if we saw that you were a really good tennis player? Well, we would work on your endurance and your speed. We would work on racket skills. We would work on all these different things to supplement that natural talent.

One of the big things we would also do for an athlete is we would have a recovery cycle. We wouldn't just say after you finished winning Wimbledon to go play the French Open. We'd put you in an ice bath, we'd stretch you out, we'd go into some kind of a process that would get you to be ready for the next time you play.

I think that goes, again, back to that first question of yours, what could you do to make 2025 better? It's like, how do you build a recovery process?

How do you give yourself that space to let the well refill?There's a lot of things right now in the world that are really, really detrimental to you refilling the well. We're talking about this really powerful default mode network and that time where you just need to be bored to let it kick in.

What do we do? Well, we get on social media, and we doom scroll, and we do a bunch of stuff to fill in that time that really deteriorates. It does two things, right.

You lose that time that you need, and it deteriorates your capacity because you're doing really horrible things to your neuro-chemical system with these dopamine hits from scrolling.

I've been doing this research, and it's kind of scary to see what could potentially happen with this. It's destroying all this creative capacity out there that we need to have new ideas come up, whether it's a new story or the cure for some disease.

Joanna: Yes, it is tough. In fact, one of the things I do is try to be active in my open time. So you said there be bored, and being bored is really hard, as you say. So I go for a walk often, and going for a walk means I can't look at my phone while I'm out walking. I'm looking at nature.

You mentioned the shower. We cannot stay in the shower for hours at a time, but I can walk for hours at a time. Most people, wherever they are, there should be somewhere you can go and walk.

Although, perhaps not at a gym. I don't know, a gym is also very stimulating in terms of the screens. Particularly in your American gyms, there are so many screens everywhere.

This is also really hard for people, and I know there will be people saying, “but social media is how I”—not me particularly—”but how I might be selling books.”

So this is the hard part, right? This is what it comes down to. I love what you're saying, but then people are like—

“But I have to be on social media because how else do I meet my business goals?”So let's talk about that, about the business side as well.

Joe: So again, you have to put it into context. So let's use this perfect example of a bunch of folks out there that are listening that are seeing really amazing success with their strategies on TikTok. So they're going to say what you just said, “I have to be on this platform.”

It's like, yes, you do, but how are you on the platform? Are you on this platform to develop meaningful relationships with your audience? Because also this thing is about, how do you make your business fulfill you?

If it's just about hitting business goals, that gets you on that hedonic treadmill where you always have to be hitting goals to feel like something's happening. Versus like, no, I'm really trying to help an audience connect with work that's meaningful to me and will be meaningful to them.

So in that process, I need to carve out some specific time to be on TikTok, and I need to do these specific things on TikTok. That's all executive functioning kind of stuff.

Now, they may be like, “Well, I need to come up with some creative stuff for TikTok.” Well, maybe you need to spend some time in that default network space to think of those ideas.

Just sitting for an hour and a half scrolling on TikTok instead of being on a walk or doing something that gets you into that space, is going to hurt your business, not help your business. So I think that —

You have to really think through those compartments of social media and where it makes sense. Then you get into the whole other side of how social media can make us get into comparison and all kinds of other horrible things. We could talk about that for hours.

Joanna: Yes, and it's interesting because we also do have to make decisions about time. You mentioned time, and we only have limited time. You and I are older now, and time gets more and more limited, unfortunately.

When TikTok blew up, and I've looked at it several times, and every time I go, “I choose not to do this because my time doing other things is more valuable.” Like I'm doing calisthenics and practicing doing handstands. At this point in my life, practicing doing handstands is more important than TikTok!

Other people make a different decision, but I think it's very interesting. So this is one thing is we have limited time, and we have to make a choice over the time. Also, we do have to schedule downtime.

What are some of the mistakes that you see authors making?Again, back on the profitable or for business, but also the fulfillment that you mentioned?

Joe: So I think that—and again, this plays off of what you just said—is we think that we have to do it all.

Whatever comes into our feed or starts to trend with whatever place where we're getting information, it's like, “Oh, I have to do this thing now. Like, I have to do TikTok. It's obvious that I've got to do TikTok because I see these people that are making all this money at this.”

To your point, you chose to do something different. I think this is —

One of the hardest things in any business is saying no. The reality is, if you look at something like venture capital or private equity, they're in the business of saying no.

They have a process that they evaluate what they're going to invest in and what they're going to do because they know they have a finite amount of time and capital. If they don't say no to 99% of the things that come over the transom to them, they're just going to run out of money and have bad investments.

So they have to have a system where they evaluate what is the best use of time and money. The reality is that for authors, that time component is the real finite resource.

There's so many authors that have figured out how to get a business ramped up and make money with no money. Like this is the land of bootstrapping, right? Whereas a lot of other businesses, you can't even get into the business unless you have capital.

So here's one where people have figured out ways to do that, but if you're not looking at the best use of your time. What we talked about earlier is now we're saying you need to think about a chunk of that time in a different space that isn't necessarily doing businessy stuff. That means you have less time, right?

How do we best use that time in 2025?I think that you're better to pick one or two things and really invest and do them well than try to do 10 things halfheartedly.

Joanna: So how do people pick one or two things?

I remember this, back in 2009 when I started this podcast, I'd never done a podcast before. It was very, very new, actually, in podcasting era. I was like, I'm just going to try this. At the same time, I started a YouTube channel, again, quite early on in that time.

Although I still have a YouTube channel, it didn't become the thing that I enjoyed, or that actually is part of a profitable part of my business, but I didn't know that before I started.

So if people listening, they're like, okay, well, should I try TikTok? Or should I do Facebook ads? Or should I use a subscription service? How do they know, or—

How do authors pick the one or two things that might work for them and might help make their author business profitable?Joe: Again, this is where you have to kind of step back and ask yourself these questions. What is my natural curiosity leading me to? When do I feel that it's being fulfilled? So we can just use your examples.

Of course, you're going to want to try these things as they come up. You're going to see, oh, this is a new thing, but what is it that I want to get out of it? So from a personal standpoint, am I feeling energy come to me?

Am I getting something out of it? Or is it feeling like it's draining me? You have to honor that.Number two is, how does it align with your business practices? When you step into something like TikTok, there's the how-to. There's courses. There's all kinds of people that have talked on shows like mine about how to do this, but is that the audience you're looking for. Is that the kind of interaction you want to have with your audience?

Using you as an example, you've been very deliberate and said no in instances that probably have pissed some people off. It's because you understand that in the long run, it's not going to work out well for anybody because you're not going to be getting fulfilled. Is that a fair statement?

Joanna: Oh, yes, but I also annoy myself sometimes. I'm like, why can't I do video? As you say, curiosity, and also what drains you. Video drains me, and it always has. Some people say, oh, it's because you're getting older. I'm like, no, it always, always has.

Also, I don't listen to music. I don't do noise. I like silence. I like quiet. I think, as you say—

We have to tap into these things and learn to say no, otherwise you can burn out.Joe: I think when we go back to thinking about where your creative well gets filled is that them going to a coffee shop is a place of creativity. I go there and I'm eavesdropping on people's conversations, and thinking about the coffee, like it's not a place where I can do that.

So part of this idea is for you, as a listener on the show, thinking about these ideas, what is it for you? Not, what is the community saying?

There's no shortage of ideas on ways to make money as an author or to monetize your creativity, and there'll be more coming.

There's going to be a bazillion new ideas that come with innovation, you're not going to be able to do them all.You need to be really deliberate and pick the ones that do two things, in my view, and that is to connect you with the audience that you want to connect with. Because, again, if this is about making money, you need to have people that see that your creative content is worth more than the cold, hard cash in their wallet.

Then two, it fulfills you, and fulfills you in the right way.

Okay, what do I mean by that? Not that it makes you get your ego pumped up or gives you a bunch of status in fake things like rank, but that it fulfills you by like, “I am now truly in touch with my meaning.”

It helps you understand why you're on this planet. This helps you to feel like a full human being. That's the part that I think is getting lost in this whole hustle culture, is that you're going to feel good when you hit this particular monumental thing like making seven figures. No, you won't. You won't.

I know this because I've worked with so many people that have done that, and they come to me and they're like, “I've worked harder. I'm more burnt out. I have the mantle. I won the trophy. I sold a million dollars’ worth of books this year. But you know what? I can't keep this up.”

What ends up happening is —

The ones that are successful going forward find themselves in a place where they end up becoming most likely more profitable, selling less books, but doing something they love. They find that sweet spot because they've changed their focus.

They've gotten to be like, “Hey, wait a minute. If I do some things with my business, tune some things up here, I can make more money than I've ever made before. I can feel good and I can tap into things that I was missing out.”

“I can connect with my family more. I can travel more. I can feel that I can leave certain parts of my business and not think that it's all going to crash into a heap.”

Joanna: Yes, exactly. That's why we were emphasizing ‘profitable.' I know you talk about this a lot because a lot of the numbers that you can see, screenshots on various social media or whatever, are the above-the-line figures. They're not necessarily the profit figures. They're the income or the revenue, but not the profit.

So that's where we like to focus. Profitable life, I think in general, just having a happier life.

I want us to get into Author Nation now. 2024 was the first year, and I was there. It was fantastic. I bought my ticket for 2025 before I even left Vegas. So I was one of those that as you were talking about it, I went on and bought it. Let's just, first of all, from your perspective—

What went well about the Author Nation conference?From, I guess, you and from Suze and the team, but also from feedback that you got.

Joe: Oh, well, I don't even know where to start. There's so much. I think the funny thing was, so many people were like, “Oh, you have to be really stressed out. There's got to be a lot of stuff going on.” The feeling was more like being the host of a party or your wedding.

Like you have this big event that you've planned, you want to make sure everyone's having a good time, but it wasn't like there were fires to really put out.

We had been working on this thing for over a year. We have a team that really did an amazing job at putting together the programming and building a system like that. Like people don't understand this is where my creativity really was able to come out and take a business and work on it.

The show as a whole was surprising to people at the things that we focused in on. Like, we spent a lot of time with the space. We made sure that the space was open and inviting. We had rented a bunch of furniture, couches and stuff, so people had these conversation pits to hang out in.

That came out of observing other shows that tended to, in my view, make authors feel anxious and confined and claustrophobic. So we didn't want that to be the case.

We wanted to make sure that there was different facets for authors. So the folks that were really there to kind of fill their well with information, we had a lot of great sessions. Yours was a great example of that.

We also know that there's a lot of people that they never go into those sessions. They just need a place to hang out, and do deals, and talk, and network. So we had different spaces for that. We had, like I said, these conversation pits. We also had a bunch of tables around where people could sit and work together.

All of that stuff was designed to hit the needs that we kept hearing people say when we asked them about what they want out of a show. Now, the feedback we've gotten, that's the other thing—we built a system so we were able to collect reviews off of every single session and about the overall show.

So we ended up with 866 reviews of sessions. We reviewed on two things: were the objectives clear and where the objectives met? We had, on the first one, it was like a 4.6 out of 5, and the objectives met was like a 4.55.

So we had a really, really good feedback system, and we had good feedback. The great thing was, is we then—like, I'm sure you were sent your reviews.

Joanna: Yes, that was great. Yes, really good.

Joe: So it's funny, when we did that, there was some people that, again, we can all be self-conscious. It's like, no, those aren't bad reviews. You got to filter out some of this stuff.

Joanna: Yes, for sure. Actually, this would be a tip for people if they are coming, if you're using that app again, I didn't make the most of that app until towards the end of the week. Then I realized that there were slides on there from people's talks.

If you missed a talk, you could go get the slides, and you could sync it with your laptop — and all of that kind of thing, as well as doing the ratings. So, yes, that app, I think next time I'll be using that. Are you going to use that same app again?

Joe: Yes, we're going to use that again. I actually had somebody come up at the show that's a programmer, and he talked about programming something specific for us. So we're going to look at that as a potential, but the idea is having something like that.

We were really happy with the tool we used. The only thing we were hoping to add into that was better group communication, so a way for authors that are there to have a single platform to network between themselves and message each other. So that's the one thing that we're trying to figure out.

All those pieces, we spent a lot of time on. If you noticed, we have a numbering system that tells you what room something is in, what day it is, what session during the day.

That all feeds back into our system because this year what we're really working on is all the stuff that was kind of manual processes that we hand carried through the building. It's like we're automating all that stuff. We're using agents and tools that are now available to us.

So you'll see this, for folks that are submitting to speak, that starts you in a process that will eventually feed all the information into the contract we send you. Then that'll push information into our system so that our folks don't have to be typing stuff in.

Joanna: That is good. I actually did submit mine—because I knew we were talking—I was like, right, I'm going to submit my talk. So I did actually go through that process, and I noticed it was very organized, and there were all the things I could put in. So that was that was super useful.

On that, I guess you mentioned there the automations and agents and AI. There was a lot of AI sessions at Author Nation 2024. There was also a lot on direct sales. There was lots on Kickstarter and people selling on Shopify. These are some big trends that are coming or are here.

What are your thoughts on some of these big, overarching trends, like AI and direct sales? Will you continue to cover them in the show in 2025?

Joe: I think we probably had the single most comprehensive track on AI that anyone's ever put together in the creative community, while at the same time having a massive amount of information on how to be an artisan.

So the idea for us isn't to be one thing to everyone, other than the place you come to get exposed to everything.

The idea that there's one way to do this is ludicrous. This kind of gets to some of the stuff you and I have talked about—how we do things today is very different than how we've done things in the past.

As a human being, if you're going to be an author for 30 years, you're going to change. You're going to make decisions. Hopefully, you're getting to a point where you're saying there's some stuff I'm not going to do.

I think one of the best examples of all of bringing that change is we had Johnny Truant at the show, one of the co-authors of Write. Publish. Repeat.

Here is like the OG of like fast publishing doing a session on being an artisan and how his focus is now on creating meaningful relationships around his work with a small, intimate group of fans that can support him.

There's two parts of that. One is like, how does he do that? But also that bigger message of like, yes, I've matured and changed what I think is important for me to be fulfilled. So that's what we want the show to be about.

The hard part can be is if you're newer and you come in, it's like, oh my god, there's too much stuff on the buffet. That's our responsibility to try to help people manage and absorb this content.

Joanna: Yes, and on that, you have tracks, don't you, for people who haven't written a book yet. For different genres, for people like me who want the much more advanced content, but—

There's stuff for people who haven't even written a book yet, as well.Joe: Yes, it's so that if you've never written a book, you can come.

Frankly, if you haven't written a book, you're in that part of your publishing career, there isn't a better thing to do. Why is that? Well, there's more people on the planet in that one room for that five days that have done what you want to do than anywhere else.

So why not be there and ask them questions, and learn from them, and see what is their way of doing it. Because in the beginning, you just need to get that book out. Then you can start understanding some deeper things about what your business will look like.

You and I are a long way away from that first published book, but that was a massive endeavor. We forget about that sometimes of what a massive endeavor that first book is.

So once that does happen, then it's like, oh, well, that wasn't that bad. I can do that again. Now, how do I want to do that? How do I want to connect with people? There's so many different ways now, that's the other thing. It used to be, oh, well, you just have to get on Amazon.

Well, no, maybe for you, the best thing because of your writing style and the way you work is that you're building your business on Kickstarter. So we'll have people there, like we have the Kickstarter people, right?

Joanna: Yes, Oriana.

Joe: What we're doing is, now that we've gotten the first one under our belt, we're going out to folks. I had a conversation with Oriana just before the New Year for next year. Like, okay, what if in our online community, you come in and coach a cohort of people to do Kickstarters?

So instead of having a session at Author Nation that is educational, “hey, you should do Kickstarters,” you have a session where you meet with those people and talk about what worked and didn't work in those Kickstarters that you ran over the year.

That's a whole different way that we use the idea of community and a week-long show to get the support mechanism that people really need.

Sure, we can run a great show and take out our firehose and just drowned you in ideas, but —

What happens afterwards to help you implement those ideas? The first part is what we're talking about, picking the ones to implement.

Joanna: Very important.

Joe: Sitting in front of a notebook with 60 great ideas can be paralyzing. So how do we get you to the ones that are going to have the—and it's something we talked about at the show—high impact, low effort.

Joanna: Yes, and I think —

One of my tips for people is to plan in advance. So even though it's not up there yet, towards November the schedule will be around. So people can kind of see, all right, well, what do I really want to go to?

What I had in my schedule, which I planned ages in advance because I was arranging meetings and all of that kind of thing was, this is a session I have to attend, and then there might be other sessions I'm like, that will get a two, and if I'm around, I'll go to that, and if not, I'll figure it out later.

So really, planning in advance. Then, as you say, afterwards, like reviewing your list at least a week later and seeing what still resonates from what you went through.

There might be a ton of stuff you wrote down that a week later you're not so enamored with. So I think that's really useful, is putting the extra time in to do the scheduling and then do the thinking later.

Joe: Yes, and there's two things that I want to touch on that.

The first is, is one of the areas where we recognize that we can do a better job, and that is when there were lower reviews on sessions, the trend seemed to be that we didn't do a really good job at helping the audience understand that topic.

The way we did our reviews is we also asked what level you were in as an author. Then what we would see is these stratifications where it's like, oh, look at all the high reviews from these people that were beginners, and all these low reviews from people that were advanced.

We screwed up and we made this thing seem like it was for everybody. So one of the things that Chelle and I were talking about is that if you want to get your session approved, you're going to have a higher chance of doing that saying, “This is for this specific group,” than saying, “Oh no, this is for everybody.”

We really want to make sure that we're identifying the right experience level to make that work.The second thing is, if you went to the show and you were a maniac and went to a session every time there was a session open, the best you could have seen was about 23% of the content that we put together. So I mean 70% of the sessions you miss.

Now, let's put a little math on that. You're probably not going to look at all those because of, again, what level you are. So let's say you missed half of what you should have seen. Well, that's why we're doing this whole thing about the after party that starts the 11th.

It is this idea of like, hey, we're going to have all these videos in an area. You can watch the videos that you didn't see. There's a spot where you can go and put in questions. We're going to submit those questions to the presenters, and then we're going to have hour-long Q&A sessions on Zoom to get those questions answered.