The Publishing Performance Show

Joanna Penn - Multiple Income Streams for Authors: Beyond Just Book Sales - The Creative Penn

• Teddy Smith • Episode 94

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Joanna Penn is an award-winning author, New York Times and USA Today bestseller, and host of The Creative Penn podcast. With experience spanning both fiction (under J.F. Penn) and non-fiction, Joanna has built a sustainable writing business over nearly two decades. After leaving her IT consultant career in 2011, she's created multiple income streams from her writing and writing-adjacent activities while publishing over 50 books. Her latest fiction release is "Death Valley," and she's currently working on the 4th edition of "Successful Self-Publishing."

In this episode:

  • Joanna's journey from IT consultant to full-time author
  • How her definition of success evolved over time
  • Multiple income streams for both fiction and non-fiction authors
  • Strategies for making a living with writing beyond just book sales
  • The importance of building an email list from day one
  • Her "50 books by 50" milestone and creating a body of work
  • Discovery writing vs. plotting approaches
  • Using AI tools to enhance creativity and productivity
  • The "great splintering" of indie publishing business models
  • Creating premium products like special editions for higher income


Resources mentioned:


Book Recommendations:

  • "Successful Self-Publishing" (4th Edition coming soon): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F66QLTL9?&linkCode=ll1&tag=pubperf-20&linkId=400c65572fa1761b41f901ed6233057c&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl
  • "Death Valley" - Her latest thriller: https://jfpenn.com/deathvalley
  • "How to Write a Novel" : https://www.amazon.com/dp/1915425093?&linkCode=ll1&tag=pubperf-20&linkId=400c65572fa1761b41f901ed6233057c&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl


Connect with Joanna Penn:

  • Fiction website: https://jfpenn.com/
  • Non-fiction website: https://www.thecreativepenn.com/
  • The Creative Penn Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-creative-penn-podcast-for-writers/id309426367
  • Books and Travel Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/books-and-travel/id1454367912


Connect with Teddy Smith:

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[00:00:00] Teddy Smith: Hi everyone and welcome to The Publishing Performance Show today. Today I'm really delighted to be joined by Joanna Penn, who I finally got to come onto the show. Joanna doesn't really need too much of introduction, but she's a writer. She's wr written nonfiction books. she writes under her own name and she's award-winning New York Times, Vice Britain author, USA today bestselling author. 

[00:00:24] Basically, all of the things that you can get she's done in the publishing world. So thank you very much for joining me, Joanna. 

[00:00:29] Joanna Penn: Thanks for having me, Teddy. 

[00:00:31] Teddy Smith: So I love your podcast, so it really is an honor for coming on. So thank you so much for coming to join us. 

[00:00:37] Joanna Penn: Thank you. It's always good to have different angles and different voices and everything. 

[00:00:41] I know we've had a few of the same guests we have. 

[00:00:45] Teddy Smith: We go in the same circles, but what I want to talk about today was mostly about the business of writing. 'cause that's mostly what my podcast is about. I, I try to speak to people essentially about how they can make more money from publishing books and writing and that sort of thing. 

[00:00:58] So you've written a book obviously called How to Make A Living With Your Writing, and in that book you talk about defining success. So I wanted to talk a little bit about how you define success for you. 

[00:01:09] Joanna Penn: Hmm. Well, I should say that, as we are discussing this, that book is on its third edition and it's a few years old, so I might even do another one. 

[00:01:18] So that would probably be the first thing to say is that things change a lot and I'm coming up to 20 years in this industry. So, the how, how you make a living and, and what is success of also changes. So I think that's really important to say upfront and depending on. How long people have been in this things change. 

[00:01:39] So just going back to what I used to do, I used to implement accounts payable systems into large corporates. Back in the day, I was an IT consultant and I was really miserable in that job. Like it paid really well. I was making great money, but I was really miserable. And so I wanted to change what I did with my life, but I also liked earning good money. 

[00:02:03] So, and I was a IT contractor, so I ran my own business as a contractor. Then I also ran some other businesses, scuba diving business. Property investment. So I was well used to running my own businesses, and so my first definition of success with writing was I wanted to leave my job. I mean, after getting a book out, it was then, oh, I actually like doing this, so I want to leave my job and become. 

[00:02:32] A writer. And that was the first thing. And that was quite urgent 'cause I was seriously miserable. but then it was to, so I, and so I started writing seriously in around 2006, published my first book in two, 2007, eight, started my podcast in 2009. In 2011, I left my job, so I left that contracting job, but I took a massive pay cut. 

[00:02:58] Massive. and I said to my husband, give me six months and if I don't make a dent then I'll go back. and haven't been back. But it did take another few years. 2015 was the first year I hit what I was earning before, so my definition of success over those years kind of changed from. You know, just writing a book to getting out and making a little bit of money and then increasing what I earned. 

[00:03:26] And then from about 2015, so as we record this a decade now, my income has been, you know, pretty, solid every year. Has certainly never gone back to what it, it was at the beginning. And so my definition of success becomes creating a body of work I'm proud of. So I keep. Kind of pushing my creative boundaries. 

[00:03:49] I know you don't wanna talk about craft, but at the end of the day, I do this because I love writing books. I love I, I just love it. I love writing stories. I love writing all kinds of things. So that is one definition of successes. I just want to keep writing. I want to keep doing this. With my life and I've got on my wall. 

[00:04:11] If you're on the video, I've got measure your life by what you create. That's what's on my wall. And so creating things. All the time. Time is kind of what I love the most with the caveat that I'm making enough money to be able to keep doing that. Yeah, so that, I guess that's the sort of how things have changed over time. 

[00:04:33] Teddy Smith: I love that. So your definition of success is basically not having to go back and get a job, which is Yeah. Well, 

[00:04:39] Joanna Penn: let, let's say though, there are obviously things because I've, from day one, I've been a, an indie author back before it was even called Indie Author. And because I knew how to run a business, so, but a lot of this is a job. 

[00:04:53] So I think that's really important to say to people if you do want to make money with your writing, you have to treat it as a job. So, and I work, I probably work now, I definitely work more hours as a writer than I ever did in a day job. And I think that's really important too. It is much, much easier to make money doing other things other than writing. 

[00:05:13] So the only people who do this long term and are happy are those who really, really love writing. 

[00:05:20] Teddy Smith: Yeah. I think that's really important. I mean, one of the running themes I've got from interviewing loads of people on this podcast is that if you are just doing the writing, it's, it is quite hard to make a, make a living simply just from selling books just by themselves. 

[00:05:36] Which is why I think you talk a lot about multiple streams of income and how you can build those out. So when you started out, obviously you, you just wanted to be doing the writing and that was the main thing that was driving you. But what were the strategies that you. To try and diversify your income and maybe bring in those multiple streams of income when you first started? 

[00:05:57] Joanna Penn: Well, you definitely can make a living just from selling books, but it can't be one book and it can't be, you know, just. Yeah, just that's the thing. People think, oh, you write one book and then you are making a living. But that's not true. So you can make multiple streams of income from books, which is multiple books, multiple genres, multiple pen names, multiple platforms, you know, multiple versions. 

[00:06:20] Like for example, you know, your Kindle ebook versus your Kickstarter special edition. Again, you can see some of my foiled special editions behind me here, and you know, they sell for a lot more money than a Kindle ebook, for example. So you can. And do multiple streams of income just from books, you know, bundling or translations. 

[00:06:40] I mean, there's so many ways to make multiple streams of income from books. So I, I think that's really important, especially with fiction. if you're writing books in a series. I mean the, the most successful richest authors in the world are fiction authors, James Patterson being a big one, who is a proper business person. 

[00:07:04] So yeah, let's be clear. You can make a living just writing books as long as you do it in a kind of strategic way. But in terms of where I started, because I've never been a. Rapid release person. I've never been a data. I know you are a data person. I'm just not. I'm very intuitive. I have a lot of ideas and then I kind of write what. 

[00:07:25] Feels good. Yeah. So that's how I've run things. So I, especially at the beginning when I came into this, I realized how long it would take to build up a backlist. So I started with professional speaking. I upskilled in professional speaking and was paid a lot more back, back in the day to speak. I don't do so much speaking now 'cause I'm an introvert. 

[00:07:46] I find it very, very tiring. But yeah, I was paid speaking. I still do workshops and stuff like that. So live speaking. Live events, later on that kind of, you know, as webinars and online events sort of happened, I did a lot more of that. I've done, well, I used to do a lot more online courses, so I've had online courses since 2008. 

[00:08:06] I only stopped doing those a couple of years ago. But now I have, Patreon community because the courses were just too big. I wanted to go to kind of micro content for my community. So that's my Patreon, which is a sort of monthly recurring. Payment is only a cup of coffee a month, but a lot of people paying for coffee, kind of adds up, affiliate revenue from companies who I use and recommend. 

[00:08:35] So, for example, I've written more than 45 books using Scrivener, and I'm an affiliate of Scrivener have been for years. And so that's a company I happily recommend and get. A tiny bit of money from, or most authors can start with Amazon affiliates. So if you use any Amazon link, you can get just a tiny payment there. 

[00:08:56] It all adds up. And I think this is probably my other point, I don't get massive chunks of money in one go, but I have a lot of payments coming from all these different places. What else? Oh, the podcast, because I have. Probably the, well one, certainly the oldest indie author podcast and one of the oldest podcasts in general that's been running since 2009. 

[00:09:24] I've got, you know, a big audience, so I have podcasts, sponsors, so basically have advertising revenue from the podcast. And then. What else do I do? I do some consulting, which I usually do with my Kickstarters. Not very many. A couple a year really. Yeah, I mean, those, those are some of the main things that all come together, but they're all writing adjacent. 

[00:09:50] I think Kevin J. Anderson uses that term writing adjacent. Yeah, which I like. Without my books, none of it would work. 

[00:09:58] Teddy Smith: Of course, I guess that's the reason anyone trusts you in the first place is that you are successful author first and then they trust you to promote their services in those other ways. 

[00:10:06] Joanna Penn: Well, yeah, and also I don't promote services I don't use, so I get pitched all the time, like a lot from people who want me to promote their stuff. But the reality is, unless I'm using it, I can't. I don't feel like that is, um. Appropriate. So if I am promoting something or just saying I use this tool, or I'm using an affiliate link, it means I use the service. 

[00:10:31] I love the service, and I'm a happy author. So I, I think that to me, again, if people want a long-term career, you have to protect your reputation and you have to be trustworthy and honest and authentic. And if you are not, like people will figure it out. I mean, I. Again, having been around way too long now you there are so, so many people. 

[00:10:56] Well, most people don't last. That's the reality. Most people don't last because it's hard and so they go do something else, which is completely fine. But those of us who've, I guess been around a while now, there are some companies that last too. And a lot of them don't. So that's a sort of another thing is we just watch what emerges, wait to see what sticks, what actually becomes useful, and then others, you know, get left by the wayside. 

[00:11:27] I. 

[00:11:27] Teddy Smith: Yeah, for sure. Now, I know with non-fiction writers, often the multiple streams of income or the, making more money from your books in other ways, it's often quite self-explanatory. You know, if you're writing a, a book about, I dunno, how to become more confident, you could offer consulting sessions and things like that on how to do that sort of thing. 

[00:11:45] Hmm. As a fiction writer, what are the ways that you think would be the best places for people to start looking, to find those other. Sources of income that could be good for fiction writers more specifically. 

[00:11:58] Joanna Penn: Well, a lot of those things still count. I mean, a lot of fiction writers do courses, so, I mean, I'm obviously, I'm a fiction writer as JF Penn and I have a book called How to Write a Novel. 

[00:12:09] So fiction authors can do nonfiction and if you go to any university or writing course that it, it is full of fiction authors teaching writing. So teaching is a real standard. A pillar for anyone who does fiction. you obviously a lot of fictional also do editing or they might do other services. I don't do that kind of thing. 

[00:12:34] But mainly for fiction. I. You have to really consider, do, are you doing this to make money? So for example, some genres sell better than others. That is just a fact of life. So if you're writing genre fiction, so I mainly write thrillers, dark fantasy, horror crime. You have to write a lot of books. 

[00:12:55] You generally have to write them in a series because often you are selling the first one cheap. So my first, arcane thriller, stoner fire is a free ebook everywhere. I'm, I publish wide, so it is not exclusive on Amazon. So people can get that for free. They can get the audio book for free. and then there's 13. 

[00:13:15] Books in the series. So some people will go on to buy more. And then when I do things like my Kickstarters, and also on my Shopify store, jf pen books.com, you can buy bundles. So you can buy the bundle of the whole series in print or an ebook or audiobook. So selling like a bundle of digital audio is great. 

[00:13:33] Because the listener gets, like, I think mine's something like 65 hours of audio and it's a heck of a lot cheaper than buying each book individually. So when you, and this is another trick to it, I guess. The long, the more you write, the more books you have, the more genres you have, the more formats you have, the more you can combine things into different, elements. 

[00:13:53] So again, just sort of the Death Valley Kickstarter I just did. Um. It made, I guess around we're British, so it made around 10, 11,000 pounds, which is like 13,000 US dollars, and, and it's not even on the stores yet. So that's just from people buying the ebook, the audiobook, which I did with my AI voice clone, which we can. 

[00:14:16] Come back to, but the main product is a beautiful foil edition, sprayed edges, ribbon of the hard back, which also has color photos in from my research trips. And that is, The average order value for Kickstarter was 42 pounds. Wow. So around 50 US dollars. So if you compare that to how much you might get for a Kindle KU page read on a novel, which won't be that much at all, you can see how as a fiction author, you have to start thinking, how do you. 

[00:14:50] Make more beautiful products that people really want to buy and they'll pay more for. How can you do bundles where you can get a bigger chunk of money all at once? How do you build up a series where people will keep coming back? So it's, it's a very different mindset. You are right. Nonfiction authors. 

[00:15:08] Some do make a living with one book. Like, you know, they put out one and that's it. Forever. James 

[00:15:13] Teddy Smith: Clear. 

[00:15:14] Joanna Penn: Yeah. Yeah. James. But, but James Clear had a massive email list. Let's be Yeah. He's 

[00:15:19] Teddy Smith: cheated 

[00:15:20] Joanna Penn: and he built up that audience. Plus that is a great book. 

[00:15:23] Teddy Smith: Yeah. 

[00:15:24] Joanna Penn: So, fair enough. But most fiction authors, that won't, that won't happen. 

[00:15:30] Teddy Smith: No, for sure. It sounds, I mean, it sounds like there's a lot of things going on there, but I think, you know, it is, it is all a bit iterative. You know, when you, the main thing to take into consideration, I think, is you've got to start from the point of writing good books and getting your books out there. 

[00:15:43] Otherwise, if you just focus on the other things, you haven't got those foundations in place to. To start that business in the first place. 

[00:15:50] Joanna Penn: Oh yeah. I mean, like I said, this is about being, this is a writing business, so you are a writer. That's the whole, that's the whole point, of, of doing it really. But yeah, you have to, like with fiction series, you have to. 

[00:16:02] Love your characters, love your genre, and just, and read a lot. I mean, I read every day. I mean, this is, somebody said to me the other day, oh, what, so what else do you do? And I'm like, no, seriously. This is my hobby. This is my job. This is everything. These are my friends. Like this is, this is my life. 

[00:16:22] Teddy Smith: Yeah. 

[00:16:24] It's like when you go to Author Nation and places like that, you end up just speaking to authors and you actually then suddenly realize, actually this is, these are just my friends and this is what I do now. 

[00:16:32] Joanna Penn: Yeah, exactly. And that, I mean, I think that's a, for me, it's a good way to be. But I think if, if people are just starting out, I mean, obviously way back, I, I started my first novel in 2009, so I started out in nonfiction, started writing fiction. 

[00:16:48] That first novel took like a year and a half, and then. I can go a lot faster now after like 30 novels or whatever it is. But. You. It is hard to see when you start and people like me, annoying people like me say, oh yeah, you need all these books and this backlist, and so you think, well, I'll never have that. 

[00:17:09] And then you keep writing and you keep publishing and the years go by and you're still enjoying it. And then one day. You wake up and you're like, oh, I have a lot of books. And I mean, like you again, Kevin J. Anderson, who you've had on, I've had on my show, yeah. Is a friend. You know, I don't even think Kevin knows how many books he's written at this 

[00:17:27] Teddy Smith: point. 

[00:17:29] I think I did ask him and he was just like, I dunno, 

[00:17:31] Joanna Penn: I literally don't know. Well that, and that's the thing. And I think, and also it's a hard question because what about novellas? What about short stories? What about, second, third, fourth editions or whatever. So. But I think the whole point is it needs to be creating creativity first and loving what you do first. 

[00:17:52] Because as I said, I got into this 'cause I hated my job. Yeah. If I'd have stayed as an IT consultant, I could have retired earlier, I could have, you know, would done whatever, but I wouldn't have been happy. Yeah. I wasn't happy and so I changed my life and so yeah. You have to love it. 

[00:18:11] Teddy Smith: Yeah, definitely. 

[00:18:11] And my background was quite similar to, was I, was it consultant as well? And I think I remember just looking online, how can I quit my job and work online? It really was something along those lines. In the, you mentioned just before that you are actually. There's a new edition of this book coming out. 

[00:18:28] So what's changed? Not, 

[00:18:29] Joanna Penn: no, not, not this one. I am doing successful self-publishing, the fourth edition, 

[00:18:35] Teddy Smith: sorry. 

[00:18:36] Joanna Penn: which I, and I've had a successful self-publishing book for Yeah. More than a decade. And as things change, and a couple of years ago, I withdrew the last edition because I was like, things are changing. 

[00:18:49] So fast and I need to update this, but I just can't. So, but yeah, so successful self-publishing. The fourth edition has got a purple, purple font on. I changed the color of the font every time, but basically what happened is, well, one generative AI has happened yeah. In the last couple of years. So it's important to really think about. 

[00:19:11] The impact of that. But also I call it the great splintering, so the splintering of the indie author models. So when I, I, I first self-published before the Kindle, before the iPhone, and then they came on the scene. So the timing was incredible for me. So 2007, the, the Kindle launched. The iPhone launched 2008. 

[00:19:33] I first published, so, I first published online. Once these happen, and back then you could only get, as a non-American, you could only get onto these things through Smashwords, which is now owned by draft to digital. But basically in the last couple of years what's happened is the, it, it's gone from a very simple. 

[00:19:53] Business model where, you know, you wrote your book, you mainly did, you know, a Kindle edition and maybe a wide ebook and then a print on demand through a print on demand paperback through say Amazon and Ingram Spark. Like that was it. And then in the last few years what we've had is this splintering, I like to call it, because there are so many business models for authors now, and so many choices for, for self-publishing. 

[00:20:19] And so I felt like. I needed to put out a new book that kind of helped help people navigate. And what's funny is I'm writing at the moment and I was like, Hmm. I actually need a chapter up front is if you want to keep it simple, you can just do, just do an ebook on, you know, Amazon and then a print on demand, and then forget the rest. 

[00:20:40] But there is so many choices. For example, selling direct, we mentioned Kickstarter, but TikTok shop, oh my goodness, if people love TikTok, you can be selling on TikTok. Shop, which is again just completely unrecognized by most of the industry. People think TikTok just drives traffic to, you know, bookstores. 

[00:21:00] But people are actually selling direct from TikTok. YouTube audio book revenue. I. Who knew that you could actually make decent money from that. Then we've talked about the kind of beautiful, additions. The, serialized fiction, is turning into a good model for some people. Then even things like Patreon and the subscription models, there's just so many different ways now that you can successfully self-publish, that people really have to. 

[00:21:34] Kind of define or understand what suits them, because you literally cannot do everything. You have to make some choices as to how you want to publish, how you want to market, how you want to reach readers, how long you want to do this for. Because again, if you're doing this for just one book and it, or it's a hobby, awesome, go for it. 

[00:21:55] Versus you wanna do this for decades. Then you make different choices. So yeah, lots of things changing and that's not gonna stop, that's for sure. this is the fourth edition, but I would say it won't be the last. 

[00:22:08] Teddy Smith: Yeah, definitely. I mean, so I, I've been in this a couple years now and it stuff's changed so much, even just in that time. 

[00:22:14] Is there anything that's you, apart from obviously publishing a book on Amazon and then that. Is usually the first step for a lot of people. Mm-hmm. What's often the most impactful thing that people can start to look at within self-publishing? To try and get their book in front of more readers. 

[00:22:30] Joanna Penn: You mean for marketing? 

[00:22:32] Teddy Smith: Well, I think you talked about some of the things that have changed in the new edition and so new things that have come out to, help people to get their books in front of more readers. It could be the marketing or it could be different places to publish. Is there any ways you found that have been the most impactful you think people should look at first? 

[00:22:52] Joanna Penn: Well, this is why you have to make some decisions. Yeah. I mean, because obviously what I can do as someone who's been doing it a long time, I just send out an email to my list. Yeah. Whereas if you have no audience at all, then you have to think. What can I do there? And I mean, a lot of the times it literally is put your book in KU and do some free days and pay a hundred dollars for a free booksy. 

[00:23:18] I mean, that's a decent way to start. But even if you were just to do that, I started my email list the day I started publishing online. And I've still got that email list. I've moved services and some people have left along the way, but some people are still with me after all these years. So if you think as a writer that you are going to do this for more than a couple of books, then you, you really should be thinking ahead as to. 

[00:23:50] I need to grow my email list because even though some things have changed, some things have not changed. And one of those is the email list. If you can send out an email and sell books, whether you are selling them through TikTok shop or Kickstarter or Amazon or Cobo or wherever, then or your local bookstore or a, a market that you're going to in person, that is going to be the only way so. 

[00:24:17] The books are the most important thing followed by the email list and everything else I think is optional. Yeah, you could basically just run a business that way. 

[00:24:28] Teddy Smith: I completely agree about the news there. So I, you know, I just promoted a free event that I'm doing next week and you know, I got loads of people to sign up for it, who I don't think I'd be able to get to come to the show had I not been able to have a newsletter list where people would have been speaking to. 

[00:24:41] So I completely agree with that. Now one of the most inspiring things that I've read that you did, and I, it was on your blog and I loved it, it was your 54 50 milestone. And my favorite thing about it was you gave little scores to each of the books you did. so some of the books, you thought, oh, this is only a half book, so we'll give it half point. 

[00:24:58] So you are, you're really fair with yourself and not just saying, oh, this one is small and this counts a full book. So I'd really. Get I, I'll put links to this in the show notes so everyone can go and read it, but what was it about the 50 before 50 that made you want to set that goal? Or was it just the nice name? 

[00:25:15] Joanna Penn: Yeah, so, so I've had on my wall, I've actually cut it off now because I, I, I was there, but, 50 books by 50. but it goes with create a body of work I'm proud of. Yeah. So, and that goes back to what I was saying about when I started. So what, when I started. So let's say 2000 se 2006, 2007 when I was starting to get into this space, and then the Kindle launched, and what happened was the early authors who got. 

[00:25:45] Into the Kindle in those early days, there was an, there is still an author called Bella Andre, a guy called Joe Conrad, JA Comrad, a whole load of authors with a backlist Barbara free fee. you know, there was a whole load of them and what they did was they got their backlist from pub traditional publishers, and they self-published. 

[00:26:09] And what these authors did was essentially put. 40, 50 plus books onto the Kindle back in the day when there were like no books in the Kindle store and they were making a ton of money. And, and then also soon after that I met, met online like Kevin J. Anderson, Dean Wesley Smith, Christine Katherine, rush, authors who are in their fifties, sixties, seventies, and again, have. 

[00:26:37] Hundreds of books, which they'd been writing for decades. And again, when the technology shifted, they were able to upload them and make money. And so, because I am high futurist, if you do Clifton strengths, I'm high futurist. And so I do kind of live in the future most of the time. I was like, oh. All, all I have to do Inver commas is have a decent number of books behind me and I will be able to make a living. 

[00:27:08] And I, you know, even if I get run over by a bus, my books can keep burning and that's amazing. So I kind of understood this. I. Idea that creating intellectual property assets was the most scalable thing I could do and that every book I write, so, you know, death Valley, which is just coming out soon. I wrote that book and now it goes out there, it can just keep selling for like 50 to 70 years after I die. 

[00:27:37] Yeah, and that's just fantastic. So you do the work once and it sells. It sells ongoing. So the 50 by 50, I decided, like back when I was 35, like 15 years ago, I decided. To write 50 books by 50. Now, I also have a friend called Lindsay Barca. a lot of people might have heard of Lindsay. Lindsay is prolific, absolutely prolific author, very, super introvert. 

[00:28:01] You'll never see her at events. But Lindsay was, you know, doing 10,000 words a day. An Epic fantasy book a month, and I could see that she was gonna hit 50 books way before me. So I set 50 by 50 at 35 because I thought, well, that I have to do maybe three, three-ish books a year. And you know, most of the indie authors I know are doing a heck of a lot more than that. 

[00:28:25] So. That was where it came from. And the thing is, people might think, oh my goodness, that's so many books. We all compare ourselves with other people, right? The people I compare myself with, like Lindsay and Dean Wisley Smith, you know, and these people, who have many, many books. Um. And again, some people judge quality by speed, which is just silly really, because, some of the greatest well-known books are sort of little books that were written very quickly. 

[00:28:55] Mine are all different lengths, as you mentioned. I, I get like half a point for an abella, half a point for a short story, half a point for another edition. So yeah, I mean, I've, I could have written a lot more. But yeah, I guess. The main principle behind all this is, you know, measure your life by what you create. 

[00:29:15] That's what I felt was appropriate, and it just gave me something to aim for. Now, I haven't done like a hundred by a hundred because I feel like that's kind of not necessary, but what I do feel is this sort of freedom and I know how to do this, you know, I know how to create things in the world, and that's the most exciting thing. 

[00:29:38] Teddy Smith: Yeah. And I think what you talked about just before was your first book took a year and a half, and obviously now you're a bit quicker or a lot quicker. Mm. So, 

[00:29:46] Joanna Penn: well, although I say that some books take longer than others, so, my writing the Shadow, which is up there, there's got gold oil that took. Two decades. 

[00:29:57] I started learning about the Jungian shadow, like back when I was in my teens, when I did a level psychology. And it stuck with me ever since. It was a very hard book to write. And the only reason I could write that book was that I wrote my memoir pilgrimage, which took three or four years, which is, you know, and I went on these multiple pilgrimages and it was a kind of midlife memoir. 

[00:30:20] So. And then I can write a novel in a month. Because you know, it's a, I just make it up. Yeah. So each book is different and each the point is creative challenge. What is the creative challenge with the next project? I'm not a fan of doing the same thing over and over again. That would just drive, I would be so bored. 

[00:30:43] So what I would say is you will find people who are doing much better with their business when they do focus. Yeah. I'm an example of someone, as I said earlier, I'm an intuitive. I am, I have this kind of creative freedom I write all over the shop, and that means some books sell practically zero copies and others sell lots of copies. 

[00:31:05] But, you know, that's, that's the way it rolls. 

[00:31:08] Teddy Smith: Yeah, for sure. I mean, you are right. It's, I find myself working so much better when I concentrate on one thing at once, but it works different for different people. So I would What what does your general like writing workflow look like? Do you have a, a set routine where you. 

[00:31:23] you outline a book and then you sit down and write it? Or do you have a, a particular way of working that you think other people could benefit from learning about? 

[00:31:29] Joanna Penn: So, I'm a discovery writer. So if people want, I mean, the how to write a novel goes into a lot of this in detail and also how to write nonfiction. 

[00:31:38] I have that too, but, discovery Writers, it's more, this emerges from. Your crazy brain and I don't write in order. I kind of write all over the place and then organize it later. I write in Scrivener. If people know Scrivener, you can move things around. You can just drag and drop stuff. So I basically end up, I. 

[00:31:59] Dumping loads of stuff in a Scrivener project and moving it around and, or, or sometimes I'll be reordering it sort of right up to the, just before I send it to my editor. So my brain works in that kind of chaotic way, which I really enjoy. But what I do is more project, project focus. So once I decide. 

[00:32:19] So I have a lot of ideas in progress, which I keep in a drive. And then once I commit to a project, so like Death Valley, I went to Death Valley, California in November just before Author Nation and I had the idea for what the book was gonna be before that when I got back. I did some more research and then when I sit down to do first draft, I will, I basically binge write, I call it binge writing, so I clear my calendar and I will be, either here at my desk or down at my local cafe, and I will. 

[00:32:53] Get that first draft done, and sometimes that takes a month. I mean, the memoir, memoir is very different if people want to write memoir. That is, can be a very long process. That was kind of in and out, in and out for a long time. But yeah, mostly it's binge write the first draft, and then reorganize it. 

[00:33:12] So I print out the whole book and I hand edit, put all that back into Scrivener and then I send it to, I go through pro writing aid, brilliant tool, pro writing aid. Then I work with my editor, human editor, Kristen, and then we move it forward to publication basically. So. I have published every single thing I have finished, I have rewritten many of those. 

[00:33:40] So, stone of Fire, my first novel was originally written, it was called Pentecost Pentecost by Joanna Penn is now Stone of Fire by JF Penn, and it's in its third edition. So the 2022 edition was, is the most recent 'cause I had become a lot better writer. And that's the first in series. So. So, yeah, that, that's kind of the process. 

[00:34:01] But I still use Scrivener. I still work with an editor. I, I've used pro writing aid for many years. And yeah, I enjoy my kind of chaotic process. 

[00:34:12] Teddy Smith: I love hearing, other people's processes. 'cause when I speak to beginner writers, they're often like, oh, what tool should I use? What should I do with this? 

[00:34:18] And then I speak to more senior rights like you. And it's like. We're just using the same tools as you we're just actually using them rather than talking about using them. So, 

[00:34:25] Joanna Penn: yeah, and, and also I think a lot of, I spent many, many years trying to be a plotter because everyone said that's what I had to do. 

[00:34:34] And then my friend Rachel Herron, who has a great podcast as well, ink in your Veins, she said to me, but you look at all your books, your process is fine. Why do you need to change your process? And I was like. Oh yeah. Okay, great. And, Stephen King's a discovery writer. lots of people are Discovery. 

[00:34:54] Lee Charles is discovery writer with the Jack Richer book, so, you know, you can be very successful as a, a discovery writer. I. 

[00:35:02] Teddy Smith: I saw an interview with JK Rowling once. I know she's probably not a discovery writer, but No, she's a hardcore 

[00:35:07] Joanna Penn: plotter. 

[00:35:08] Teddy Smith: Yeah. But apparently the question she gets asked the most is, how do you write your books? 

[00:35:11] And she was just like, I use a Word document. So yeah, you just 

[00:35:14] Joanna Penn: gotta get out there and do it. There is, if people want, if you google the JK Rowling spreadsheet, there is a spreadsheet of her mapping all her story things, so she's super organized. Yeah, not me. 

[00:35:26] Teddy Smith: Do you use any AI tools in your workflow to try and speed up that process and how's that changed over the last couple of years? 

[00:35:33] Joanna Penn: Yeah, so, one. A couple of awesome things. So Google Notebook, LM is fantastic. So when you have books in a series, so I now have on notebook lm, you can put the links in the show notes, it's free. But for many, many years we have all struggled with this idea of a world Bible. And some people have built them, some people have paid people to build them. 

[00:35:58] But what you can do now is you can set up a notebook per series. And then, so I've got an arcane notebook and I put all the PDFs in. And then the Google Notebook, lm, which is a, it is a generative ai, but it actually just uses your source documents. So, for example, I'm gonna do a. Podcast on my show books and travel about graveyards and osser and crips and cemeteries that I use in my books. 

[00:36:22] And so I was like, oh, but I can't remember what they all are. So I can go into my notebook and I can say to Google the Google ai, make me a list of all the cemeteries, Crips, you know, graves that I use in the arcane series. And then I, it gives me the list. It can also do character lists. The character list is just fantastic when you are a chaotic. 

[00:36:43] Discovery writer like me, this is gold because you literally forget who the hell anyone is or what names you've used or any of this, and also what it can now do, which is wonderful. So I can say, you know, make me a character bio of Morgan Sierra, or then now I can say, give me 10 ideas from, you know, from what you now know about the series. 

[00:37:03] Give me 10 ideas for new books in the series. So, or tell me about. The arc of this character across 13 books. Give me some ideas for where it could go next. So that's one thing I'm using Google LM for. 

[00:37:17] Teddy Smith: That's very interesting. I've not really heard anyone talk about that at Tool at all is that could with, so could you ask, start asking questions about your, 

[00:37:23] Joanna Penn: about your books. 

[00:37:24] Books as well? Yeah. That's the point. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. So, yeah, it's amazing. And I mean, for nonfiction, what the difference between Google Notebook, lm and say chat, GBT is chat, GPT and Claude, kind of have loads of other things in their brain in inverted commas. Whereas Google Notebook, LM will use your, your. 

[00:37:43] Documents as a source. It can also use, YouTube. Files, YouTube links. So sometimes, for example, when someone recommends a show to me, I will actually just go get the YouTube link and stick it in notebook and say, give me the 10 top tips for authors out of this podcast. Wow. So there might be people doing that with this show right now. 

[00:38:05] So that's really useful. Um. Yeah, a super, super, or even like, sometimes I get asked to do these interviews and people say, I wanna interview you about, this particular book. Now, the, I mean, I've actually got it open now. The how to make a Living with your Writing, just in case I needed it for reference, but pilgrimage, for example, my midlife memoir. 

[00:38:24] I can put my own book up in Google and when they send the questions over, I can use, I can ask my own book the questions so I get some crib notes because when you've written a lot of books, you forget what the hell you said. 

[00:38:36] Teddy Smith: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:38:37] Joanna Penn: So that's really useful. Anyway, so Google Notebook, LM is super, super, super useful. 

[00:38:42] I you, I use chat GPT all the time. I use it like Google. Now it's my search engine. I. I create like a lot of marketing. So for Death Valley, the cover, a lot of my covers now are AI images. I use Midjourney and then I work with my cover designer to do, the fonts and things. But with Death Valley I did a book trailer with Midjourney Images, runway ml for video. 

[00:39:06] And then Canva. Canva is fantastic, for putting stuff together. Yeah. Oh, I mentioned earlier my voice clone for Death Valley, so, on 11 Labs. So I've been narrating my own audio books for years. And then with Death Valley full length novel, I've never done a full length novel and it's a lot of work. 

[00:39:25] Yeah. So I was like, now I can clone my voice on 11 labs, and that's what the audio book is, is Death Valley in my voice. Done with the voice claim. So that's very, very cool. So that's just, that's a whole load of things. But I, I use, yeah, I use a lot of ai. I consider myself an AI assisted artisan author, but not for published words. 

[00:39:53] Yes. That is very important to me. 

[00:39:57] Teddy Smith: I think so, yeah. I mean, I, I was listening to Rich Osmond's podcast about that exact topic and I, I was trying to get him to come on with my podcast to talk about it, which was a bit of a long shot, I think. Yeah, probably. But, he was exactly talking about exactly the same thing. 

[00:40:11] So yeah, I think using it for the workflow I think is really important. That Google Notebook tip is really good. I'm gonna have to, if I can't believe be getting this right now, I'd be writing down to, go and get that one out. 

[00:40:21] Joanna Penn: I also thought you could put in the show notes because a lot of authors are worried about this, but Wiley the publisher, Wiley, has just put out their guidelines. 

[00:40:30] I don't know if you've seen this, but, it's really good. I'm gonna talk about it on my show next week, which will probably be out by the time this goes out. But, that, I just got a quote here from it. It says, Wiley welcomes. The thoughtful use of AI tools and they say, as a companion to their writing process, not a replacement. 

[00:40:52] And tools that enhance rather than replace creativity. So I think this is really good. I've been saying that for years, but Wiley is a traditional publisher and they now have a massive, it's a huge, um. Sort of document on how they accept AI usage. And it's exactly how I use it and a lot of authors use it, which is to enhance, to amplify, to help us be more creative and create more in the world, not for published words. 

[00:41:29] Now, some people do use it for published words. That is their choice, and I am. AI positive in general, but everyone has to make their choice as to how they want to publish. But what's nice about being an indie author, being an independent author, is you get to choose and yeah. I, it's a broad church. Some people hate even how far I go. 

[00:41:53] but there you go. We all get to choose. 

[00:41:56] Teddy Smith: Yeah, I think that's a great, let's finish on, you know, if you're, if you're independently published, you can do what kind of whatever you want, and that's the whole benefit of it really. It's, you're not being held back by publisher, which is great. So thank you so much for coming on. 

[00:42:07] Just wanted to finish talking about your most recent book, death Valley, because that's one that we've sort of touched on a couple times this during this interview. And it's also interesting 'cause you wrote it almost with inspiration from going to Author Nation where I went last year, which I loved and I really, I was inspired by that, conference. 

[00:42:24] So can you tell us a bit about that book and what it's about? 

[00:42:27] Joanna Penn: Yeah. Well, if people like the White Lotus, do you know the White Lotus TV show? 

[00:42:32] Teddy Smith: I've, I've only seen Series one though, so no sports. 

[00:42:35] Joanna Penn: Oh, well, but, well, but basically the whole premise is amazing. Hotel in Paradise, a whole load of guests arrive and then, death and destruction occur. 

[00:42:45] And so that was kind of where I got the idea from originally. I was like, right, I need, and then I loved deserts, and then I was like, okay, I went to Death Valley. I was like, okay, I'm gonna have this. Amazing luxury hotel in Death Valley. A whole load of guests arrive, then massive sandstorm, death destruction occurs. 

[00:43:02] So the, the sort of eight lives collide. Who survives Death Valley? it is a proper thriller. No supernatural. So, it, it's a standalone. Adventure and yeah, people can find it on all the usual places. jf pen.com/death valley is where you can find it. If you wanna listen to my voice clone, you can, you can find that it's pretty plum and good. 

[00:43:28] But, and yeah, the, we also mentioned my successful self-publishing, the fourth edition, which will be out again in all the usual places. 

[00:43:36] Teddy Smith: Perfect. It's not like used to write about death and destruction. 

[00:43:39] Joanna Penn: No. Or storms. I actually have storms in most of my books. 

[00:43:45] Teddy Smith: Well, thank you so much for coming on. So to get your books again, just where's the link to get those books just one more time? 

[00:43:50] Joanna Penn: Yeah. Well, for writers The Creative Pen with a Double N or the Creative Pen Podcast, come on over and for my fiction, jf pen.com has all the links and my other podcast books and travel. 

[00:44:03] Teddy Smith: Perfect. You can just Google Joanna. She'll come up straight away, so I'm 

[00:44:07] Joanna Penn: everywhere. 

[00:44:08] Teddy Smith: We don't need your links. 

[00:44:10] Thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate you spending time to chat to me. It is, been a great conversation, so thank you very much. 

[00:44:15] Joanna Penn: Thanks so much, Teddy. 

[00:44:17] Teddy Smith: Bye bye. Thank you so much for tuning into the Publishing performance podcast. I really hope you found today's episode inspiring. I love chatting to authors, writers, and people in the publishing world. 

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