エピソード

  • Writing Emotion, Discovery Writing, And Slow Sustainable Book Marketing With Roz Morris

    Writing Emotion, Discovery Writing, And Slow Sustainable Book Marketing With Roz Morris
    2026/03/09
    How do you capture something as enormous and personal as the feeling of “home” in a book? How can you navigate the chaotic discovery period in writing something new? With Roz Morris. In the intro, KU vs Wide [Written Word Media]; Podcasts Overtake Radio, book marketing implications [The New Publishing Standard]; Tips for podcast guests; The Vatican embraces AI for translation, but not for sermons [National Catholic Reporter]; NotebookLM; Self-Publishing in German; Bones of the Deep. 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 Roz Morris is an award-nominated literary fiction author, memoirist, and previously a bestselling ghostwriter. She writes writing craft books for authors under the Nail Your Novel brand, and is also an editor, speaker, and writing coach. Her latest travel memoir is Turn Right at the Rainbow: A Diary of House-Hunting, Happenstance & Home. 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 being an indie author has evolved over 15 years, from ebooks-only to special editions, multi-voice audiobooks and tools to help with everythingWhy “home” is such a powerful emotional theme and how to turn personal experiences into universal memoirPractical craft tips on show-don't-tell, writing about real people, and finding the right book titleThe chaotic discovery writing phase — why some books take seven years and why that's okayBuilding a newsletter sustainably by finding your authentic voice (and the power of a good pet story)Low-key book marketing strategies for memoir, including Roz's community-driven “home” collage campaign You can find Roz at RozMorris.org. Transcript of the interview with Roz Morris JOANNA: Roz Morris is an award-nominated literary fiction author, memoirist, and previously a bestselling ghostwriter. She writes writing craft books for authors under the Nail Your Novel brand, and is also an editor, speaker, and writing coach. Her latest travel memoir is Turn Right at the Rainbow: A Diary of House-Hunting, Happenstance & Home. Welcome back to the show, Roz. ROZ: Hi, Jo. It's so lovely to be back. I love that we managed to catch up every now and again on what we're doing. We've been doing this for so long. JOANNA: In fact, if people don't know, the first time you came on this show was 2011, which is 15 years. ROZ: I know! JOANNA: It is so crazy. I guess we should say, we do know each other in person, in real life, but realistically we mainly catch up when you come on the podcast. ROZ: Yes, we do, and by following what we're doing around the web. So I read your newsletters, you read mine. JOANNA: Exactly. So good to return. You write all kinds of different things, but let's first take a look back. The first time you were on was 2011, 15 years ago. You've spanned traditional and indie, you've seen a lot. You know a lot of people in publishing as well. What are the key things you think have shifted over the years, and why do you still choose indie for your work? ROZ: Well, lots of things have shifted. Some things are more difficult now, some things are a lot easier. We were lucky to be in right at the start and we learned the ropes and managed to make a lot of contacts with people. Now it's much more difficult to get your work out there and noticed by readers. You have to be more knowledgeable about things like marketing and promotions. But that said, there are now much better tools for doing all this. Some really smart people have put their brains to work about how authors can get their work to the right readers, and there's also a lot more understanding of how that can be done in the modern world. Everything is now much more niche-driven, isn't it? People know exactly what kind of thriller they like or what kind of memoir they like. In the old days it was probably just, “Well, you like thrillers,” and that could be absolutely loads of things. Now we can find far better who might like our work. The tools we have are astonishing. To start with, in about 2011, we could only really produce ebooks and paperbacks. That was it. Anything else, you'd have to get a print run that would be quite expensive. Now we can get amazing, beautiful special editions made. We can do audiobooks, multi-voice audiobooks. We can do ebooks with all sorts of enhancements. We can even make apps if we want to. There's absolutely loads that creators can do now that they couldn't before, so it's still a very exciting world. JOANNA: When we first met, there was still a lot of negativity ...
    続きを読む 一部表示
    1 時間 16 分
  • Creative Confidence, Portfolio Careers, And Making Without Permission with Alicia Jo Rabins

    Creative Confidence, Portfolio Careers, And Making Without Permission with Alicia Jo Rabins
    2026/03/02
    How do you build a creative life that spans music, writing, film, and spiritual practice? Alicia Jo Rabins talks about weaving multiple creative strands into a sustainable career and why the best advice for any creator might simply be: just make the thing. In the intro, backlist promotion strategy [Written Word Media]; Successful author business [Novel Marketing Podcast]; Alliance of Independent Authors Indie Author Bookstore; Bones of the Deep – J.F. Penn 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 Alicia Jo Rabins is an award-winning writer, musician, performer, as well as a Torah teacher and ritualist. She's the creator of Girls In Trouble, a feminist indie-folk song cycle about biblical women, and the award-winning film, A Kaddish for Bernie Madoff. Her latest book is a memoir, When We Are Born We Forget Everything. 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 Building a sustainable multi-disciplinary creative career through teaching, performance, grants, and donationsTrusting instinct in the early generative stages of creativity and separating generation from editingAdapting and reimagining religious and cultural source material through music, writing, and performanceThe challenges of transitioning from poetry to long-form prose memoir, including choosing a lens for your storyMaking an independent film on a shoestring budget without waiting for Hollywood's permissionFinding your creative voice and building confidence by leaning into vulnerability and returning to the practice of making You can find Alicia at AliciaJo.com. Transcript of the interview with Alicia Jo Rabins Joanna: Alicia Jo Rabins is an award-winning writer, musician, performer, as well as a Torah teacher and ritualist. She's the creator of Girls In Trouble, a feminist indie-folk song cycle about biblical women, and the award-winning film, A Kaddish for Bernie Madoff. Her latest book is a memoir, When We Are Born We Forget Everything. So welcome to the show, Alicia. Alicia: Thank you so much. I'm delighted to be here. Joanna: There is so much we could talk about. But first up— Tell us a bit more about you and how you've woven so many strands of creativity into your life and career. Alicia: Yes, well, I am a maximalist. What happened in terms of my early life is that I started writing on my own, just extremely young. I'm one of those people who always loved writing, always processed the world and managed my emotions and came to understand myself through writing. So from a very young age, I felt really committed to writing. Then I had the good fortune that my mother saw a talk show about the Suzuki method of learning violin—when you start really young and learn by ear, which is modelled after language learning. It's so much less intellectual and much more instinctual, learning by copying. She was like, that looks like a cool thing. I was three years old at the time and she found out that there was a little local branch of our music conservatory that had a Suzuki violin programme. So when I was three and a half, getting close to four, she took me down and I started playing an extremely tiny violin. Joanna: Oh, cute! Alicia: Yes, and because it was part of this conservatory that was downtown, and we were just starting at the suburban branch where we lived, there was this path that I was able to follow. As I got more and more interested in violin, I could continue basically up through the conservatory level during high school. So I had a really fantastic music education without any pressure, without any expectations or professional goals. I just kept taking these classes and one thing led to another. I grew up being very immersed in both creative writing and music, and I think just having the gift of those two parts of my brain trained and stimulated and delighted so young really changed my brain in some ways. I'll always see the world through this creative lens, which I think I'm also just set up to do personally. Then the last step of my multi-practice career is that in college I got very interested in Jewish spirituality. I'm Jewish, but I didn't grow up very religious. I didn't grow up in a Jewish community really. So I knew some basics, but not a ton. In college I started to study it and also informally learned from other people I met. I ended up going on a pretty intense spiritual quest, going to Jerusalem and immersing myself after college for two years in traditional Jewish study and practice. So that became the third strand of the braid that had already been started with music and writing. Torah study, ...
    続きを読む 一部表示
    56 分
  • Post-Traumatic Growth, Creative Marketing, And Dealing With Change with Jack Williamson

    Post-Traumatic Growth, Creative Marketing, And Dealing With Change with Jack Williamson
    2026/02/23
    How can trauma become a catalyst for creative transformation? What lessons can indie authors learn from the music industry's turbulent journey through technological disruption? With Jack Williamson. In the intro, Why recipes for publishing success don’t work and what to do instead [Self-Publishing with ALLi Podcast]; Why your book isn’t selling: metadata [Novel Marketing Podcast]; Creating a successful author business [Fantasy Writers Toolshed Podcast]; Bones of the Deep – J.F. Penn. 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 Jack Williamson is a psychotherapist, coach, and bestselling author who spent nearly two decades as a music industry executive. He's the founder of Music & You, his latest nonfiction book is Maybe You're The Problem, and he also writes romance under A.B. Jackson. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes Finding post-traumatic growth and meaning after bereavement, and using tragedy as a catalyst for creative transformationWhy your superpower can also be your Achilles heel, and how indie authors can overcome shiny object syndromeThree key lessons from the music industry: embracing change, thinking creatively about marketing, and managing pressure for better creativityThe A, B, C technique for PR interviews and why marketing is storytelling through different mediumsHow to deal with judgment and shame around AI in the author community by understanding where people sit on the opinion-belief-conviction continuumThree AI developments coming from music to publishing: training clauses in contracts, one-click genre adaptation, and licensed AI-generated video adaptations You can find Jack at JackWilliamson.co.uk and his fiction work at ABJackson.com. Transcript of the interview with Jack Williamson Jo: Jack Williamson is a psychotherapist, coach, and bestselling author who spent nearly two decades as a music industry executive. He's the founder of Music & You, his latest nonfiction book is Maybe You're The Problem, and he also writes romance under A.B. Jackson. Welcome to the show. Jack: Thank you so much for having me, Jo. It's a real honour to be on your podcast after listening all of these years. Jo: I'm excited to talk to you. We have a lot to get into, but first up— Tell us a bit more about you and why get into writing books after years of working in music. Jack: I began my career at the turn of the millennium, basically, and I worked for George Michael and Mariah Carey's publicist, which I'm sure you can imagine was quite the introduction to the corporate world. From there I went on to do domestic and international marketing for a load of massive artists at Universal, so the equivalent of the top five publishers in the publishing world that we all work in. Then from there I had a bit of a challenge. In December 2015, I lost my brother, unfortunately to suicide. For any listener or any person that's gone through a traumatic event, it can really make you reassess everything, make you question life, make you question your purpose. When I went through that, I was thinking, well, what do I want to do? What do I want out of life? So I went on this journey for practically the next ten years. I retrained to be a psychotherapist. I created a bucket list—a list of all the things that I thought maybe my brother would've wanted to do but didn't do. One of the things was scatter his ashes at the Seven Wonders of the world. Then one of the items on my bucket list was to write a book. The pandemic hit. It was a challenge for all of us, as you've spoken about so much on this wonderful podcast. I thought, well, why not? Why not write this book that I've wanted to write? I didn't know when I was going to do it because I was always so busy, and then the pandemic happened and so I wrote a book. From there, listening to your wonderful podcast, I've learned so much and been to so many conferences and learned along the way. So now I've written five books and released three. Jo: That's fantastic. I mean, regular listeners to the show know that I talk about death and grief and all of this kind of thing, and it's interesting that you took your brother's ashes to the Seven Wonders of the world. Death can obviously be a very bad, negative thing for those left behind, but it seems like you were able to reframe your brother's experience and turn that into something more positive for your life rather than spiralling into ...
    続きを読む 一部表示
    1 時間 9 分
  • Audacious Artistry: Reclaiming Your Creative Identity And Thriving In A Saturated World With Lara Bianca Pilcher

    Audacious Artistry: Reclaiming Your Creative Identity And Thriving In A Saturated World With Lara Bianca Pilcher
    2026/02/16
    How do you stay audacious in a world that's noisier and more saturated than ever? How might the idea of creative rhythm change the way you write? Lara Bianca Pilcher gives her tips from a multi-passionate creative career. In the intro, becoming a better writer by being a better reader [The Indy Author]; How indie authors can market literary fiction [Self-Publishing with ALLi]; Viktor Wynd’s Museum of Curiosities; Seneca’s On the Shortness of Life; All Men are Mortal – Simone de Beauvoir; Surface Detail — Iain M. Banks; Bones of the Deep – J.F. Penn. 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 Lara Bianca Pilcher is the author of Audacious Artistry: Reclaim Your Creative Identity and Thrive in a Saturated World. She's also a performing artist and actor, life and creativity coach, and the host of the Healthy Wealthy Wise Artist 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 Why self-doubt is a normal biological response — and how audacity means showing up anywayThe difference between creative rhythm and rigid discipline, and why it matters for writersHow to navigate a saturated world with intentional presence on social mediaPractical strategies for building a platform as a nonfiction author, including batch content creationThe concept of a “parallel career” and why designing your life around your art beats waiting for a big breakGetting your creative rhythm back after crisis or burnout through small, gentle steps You can find Lara at LaraBiancaPilcher.com. Transcript of the interview with Lara Bianca Pilcher Lara Bianca Pilcher is the author of Audacious Artistry: Reclaim Your Creative Identity and Thrive in a Saturated World. She's also a performing artist and actor, life and creativity coach, and the host of the Healthy Wealthy Wise Artist podcast. Welcome, Lara. Lara: Thank you for having me, Jo. Jo: It's exciting to talk to you today. First up— Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing. Lara: I'm going to call myself a greedy creative, because I started as a dancer, singer, and actress in musical theatre, which ultimately led me to London, the West End, and I was pursuing that in highly competitive performance circles. A lot of my future works come from that kind of place. But when I moved to America—which I did after my season in London and a little stint back in Australia, then to Atlanta, Georgia—I had a visa problem where I couldn't work legally, and it went on for about six months. Because I feel this urge to create, as so many of your listeners probably relate to, I was not okay with that. So that's actually where I started writing, in the quietness, with the limits and the restrictions. I've got two children and a husband, and they would go off to school and work and I'd be home thinking, ha. In that quietness, I just began to write. I love thinking of creativity as a mansion with many rooms, and you get to pick your rooms. I decided, okay, well the dance, acting, singing door is shut right now—I'm going to go into the writing room. So I did. Jo: I have had a few physical creatives on the show. Obviously one of your big rooms in your mansion is a physical room where you are actually performing and moving your body. I feel like this is something that those of us whose biggest area of creativity is writing really struggle with—the physical side. How do you think that physical practice of creativity has helped you in writing, which can be quite constrictive in that way? Lara: It's so good that you asked this because I feel what it trained me to do is ignore noise and show up. I don't like the word discipline—most of us get a bit uncomfortable with it, it's not a nice word. What being a dancer did was teach me the practice of what I like to call a rhythm, a creative rhythm, rather than a discipline, because rhythm ebbs and flows and works more with who we are as creatives, with the way creativity works in our body. That taught me: go to the barre over and over again—at the ballet barre, I'm talking about, not the pub. Go there over and over again. Warm up, do the work, show up when you don't feel like it. thaT naturally pivoted over to writing, so they're incredibly linked in the way that creativity works in our body. Jo: Do you find that you need to do physical practice still in order to get your creativity moving? I'm not a dancer. I do like to shake it around a bit, I guess. But I mainly walk. If I need to get my creativity going, I ...
    続きを読む 一部表示
    1 時間 5 分
  • Managing Multiple Projects And The Art of the Long-Term Author Career with Kevin J. Anderson

    Managing Multiple Projects And The Art of the Long-Term Author Career with Kevin J. Anderson
    2026/02/09
    How do you juggle multiple book projects, a university teaching role, Kickstarter campaigns, and rock albums—all without burning out? What does it take to build a writing career that spans decades, through industry upheavals and personal setbacks? Kevin J. Anderson shares hard-won lessons from his 40+ year career writing over 190 books. In the intro, Draft2Digital partners with Bookshop.org for ebooks; Spotify announces PageMatch and print partnership with Bookshop.org; Eleven Audiobooks; Indie author non-fiction books Kickstarter; Bones of the Deep – J.F. Penn 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 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 Managing multiple projects at different stages to maximise productivity without burning outBuilding financial buffers and multiple income streams for a sustainable long-term careerAdapting when life disrupts your creative process, from illness to injuryLessons learned from transitioning between traditional publishing, indie, and KickstarterWhy realistic expectations and continuously reinventing yourself are essential for longevityThe hands-on publishing master's program at Western Colorado University You can find Kevin at WordFire.com and buy his books direct at WordFireShop.com. Transcript of Interview with Kevin J. Anderson Jo: 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, a rock album lyricist, and he's co-written Dune books and worked on the recent Dune movies and TV show. Welcome back to the show, Kevin. Kevin: Well, thanks, Joanna. I always love being on the show. Jo: And we're probably on like 200 books and like 50 million copies in print. I mean, how hard is it to keep up with all that? Kevin: Well, it was one of those where we actually did have to do a list because my wife was like, we really should know the exact number. And I said, well, who can keep track because that one went out of print and that's an omnibus. So does it count as something else? Well, she counted them. But that was a while ago and I didn't keep track, so… Jo: Right. Kevin: I'm busy and I like to write. That's how I've had a long-term career. It's because I don't hate what I'm doing. I've got the best job in the world. I love it. Jo: So that is where I wanted to start. You've been on the show multiple times. People can go back and have a listen to some of the other things we've talked about. I did want to talk to you today about managing multiple priorities. You are a director of publishing at Western Colorado University. I am currently doing a full-time master's degree as well as writing a novel, doing this podcast, my Patreon, all the admin of running a business, and I feel like I'm busy. Then I look at what you do and I'm like, this is crazy. People listening are also busy. We're all busy, right. But I feel like it can't just be writing and one job—you do so much. So how do you manage your time, juggle priorities, your calendar, and all that? Kevin: I do it brilliantly. Is that the answer you want? I do it brilliantly. It is all different things. If I were just working on one project at a time, like, okay, I'm going to start a new novel today and I've got nothing else on my plate. Well, that would take me however long to do the research and the plot. I'm a full-on plotter outliner, so it would take me all the while to do—say it's a medieval fantasy set during the Crusades. Well, then I'd have to spend months reading about the Crusades and researching them and maybe doing some travel. Then get to the point where I know the characters enough that I can outline the book and then I start writing the book, and then I start editing the book, which is a part that I hate. I love doing the writing, I hate doing the editing. Then you edit a whole bunch. To me, there are parts of that that are like going to the dentist—I don't like it—and other parts of it are fun. So by having numerous...
    続きを読む 一部表示
    1 時間 3 分
  • Research Like An Academic, Write Like an Indie With Melissa Addey

    Research Like An Academic, Write Like an Indie With Melissa Addey
    2026/02/02
    How can indie authors raise their game through academic-style rigour? How might AI tools fit into a thoughtful research process without replacing the joy of discovery? Melissa Addey explores the intersection of scholarly discipline, creative writing, and the practical realities of building an author career. In the intro, mystery and thriller tropes [Wish I'd Known Then]; The differences between trad and indie in 2026 [Productive Indie Fiction Writer]; Five phases of an author business [Becca Syme]; Bones of the Deep – J.F. Penn; Today's show is sponsored by Bookfunnel, the essential tool for your author business. Whether it’s delivering your reader magnet, sending out advanced copies of your book, handing out ebooks at a conference, or fulfilling your digital sales to readers, BookFunnel does it all. Check it out at bookfunnel.com/thecreativepenn This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Melissa Addey is an award-winning historical fiction author with a PhD in creative writing from the University of Surrey. She was the Leverhulme Trust Writer in Residence at the British Library, and now works as campaigns lead for the Alliance of Independent Authors. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes Making the leap from a corporate career to full-time writing with a young familyWhy Melissa pursued a PhD in creative writing and how it fuelled her author businessWhat indie authors can learn from academic rigour when researching historical fictionThe problems with academic publishing—pricing, accessibility, and creative restrictionsOrganising research notes, avoiding accidental plagiarism, and knowing when to stop researchingUsing AI tools effectively as part of the research process without losing your unique voice You can find Melissa at MelissaAddey.com. Transcript of the interview with Melissa Addey JOANNA: Melissa Addey is an award-winning historical fiction author with a PhD in creative writing from the University of Surrey. She was the Leverhulme Trust Writer in Residence at the British Library, and now works as campaigns lead for the Alliance of Independent Authors. Welcome back to the show, Melissa. MELISSA: Hello. Thank you for having me. JOANNA: It's great to have you back. You were on almost a decade ago, in December 2016, talking about merchandising for authors. That is really a long time ago. So tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and self-publishing. MELISSA: I had a regular job in business and I was writing on the side. I did a couple of writing courses, and then I started trying to get published, and that took seven years of jumping through hoops. There didn't seem to be much progress. At some point, I very nearly had a small publisher, but we clashed over the cover because there was a really quite hideous suggestion that was not going to work. I think by that point I was really tired of jumping through hoops, really trying to play the game traditional publishing-wise. I just went, you know what? I've had enough now. I've done everything that was asked of me and it's still not working. I'll just go my own way. I think at the time that would've been 2015-ish. Suddenly, self-publishing was around more. I could see people and hear people talking about it, and I thought, okay, let's read everything there is to know about this. I had a little baby at the time and I would literally print off stuff during the day to read—probably loads of your stuff—and read it at two o'clock in the morning breastfeeding babies. Then I'd go, okay, I think I understand that bit now, I'll understand the next bit, and so on. So I got into self-publishing and I really, really enjoyed it. I've been doing it ever since. I'm now up to 20 books in the last 10 or 11 years. As you say, I did the creative writing PhD along the way, working with ALLi and doing workshops for others—mixing and matching lots of different things. I really enjoy it. JOANNA: You mentioned you had a job before in business. Are you full-time in all these roles that you're doing now, or do you still have that job? MELISSA: No, I'm full-time now. I only do writing-related things. I left that in 2015, so I took a jump. I was on maternity leave and I started applying for jobs to go back to, and I suddenly felt like, oh, I really don't want to. I want to do the writing. I thought, I've got about one year's worth of savings. I could try and do the jump. I remember saying to my husband, “Do you think it would be possible if I tried to do the jump? Would that be okay?” There was this very long pause while he thought about it. But the longer the pause went on, the more I was thinking, ooh, he didn't say no, that is out of the question, financially we can't do that. I thought, ooh, it's going to work. So I did the jump. JOANNA: That's great. I did ...
    続きを読む 一部表示
    1 時間 2 分
  • Selling Books Live On Social Media With Adam Beswick

    Selling Books Live On Social Media With Adam Beswick
    2026/01/26
    Could live selling be the next big opportunity for indie authors? Adam Beswick shares how organic marketing, live streaming, and direct sales are transforming his author career—and how other writers can do the same. In the intro, book marketing principles [Self-Publishing with ALLi]; Interview with Tobi Lutke, the CEO and co-founder of Shopify [David Senra]; The Writer's Mind Survey; Bones of the Deep – J.F. Penn; Alliance of Independent Authors Indie Author Lab. 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 Adam Beswick is a bestselling fantasy author and an expert in TikTok marketing for authors, as well as a former NHS mental health nurse. Adam went full-time as an indie author in 2023 and now runs AP Beswick Publications. 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 Adam scaled from garden office to warehouse, with his wife leaving her engineering career to join the businessWhy organic marketing (free video content) beats paid ads for testing what resonates with readersThe power of live selling: earning £3,500 in one Christmas live stream through TikTok shopMystery book bags: a gamified approach to selling that keeps customers coming backBuilding an email list of actual buyers through direct sales versus relying on platform algorithmsWhy human connection matters more than ever in the age of AI-generated content You can find Adam at APBeswickPublications.com and on TikTok as @a.p_beswick_publications. Transcript of interview with Adam Beswick Jo: Adam Beswick is a bestselling fantasy author and an expert in TikTok marketing for authors, as well as a former NHS mental health nurse. Adam went full-time as an indie author in 2023 and now runs AP Beswick Publications. Welcome back to the show, Adam. Adam: Hi there, and thank you for having me back. Jo: Oh, I'm super excited to talk to you today. Now, you were last on the show in May 2024, so just under two years, and you had gone full-time as an author the year before that. So just tell us— What's changed for you in the last couple of years? What does your author business look like now? Adam: That is terrifying to hear that it was that long ago, because it genuinely feels like it was a couple of months ago. Things have certainly been turbocharged since we last spoke. Last time we spoke I had a big focus on going into direct sales, and I think if I recall correctly, we were just about to release a book by Alexis Brooke, which was the first book in a series that we had worked with another author on, which was the first time we were doing that. Since then, we now have six authors on our books, with a range of full agreements or print-only deals. With that focus of direct selling, we have expanded our TikTok shop. In 2024, I stepped back from TikTok shop just because of constraints around my own time. We took TikTok shop seriously again in 2025 and scaled up to a six-figure revenue stream throughout 2025, effectively starting from scratch. That means we have had to go from having an office pod in the garden, to my wife now has left her career as a structural engineer to join the business because there was too much for me to manage. We went from this small office space, to now we have the biggest office space in our office block because we organise our own print runs and do all our distribution worldwide from what we call “AP HQ.” Jo: And you don't print books, but you have a warehouse. Adam: Yes, we have a warehouse. We work with different printers to order books in. We print quite large scale—well, large scale to me—volumes of books. Then we have them ordered to here, and then we will sign them all and distribute everything from here. Jo: Sarah, your wife, being a structural engineer—it seems like she would be a real help in organising a business of warehousing and all of that. Has that been great [working with your wife]? Because I worked with my husband for a while and we decided to stop doing that. Adam: Well, we're still married, so I'm taking that as a win! And funnily enough, we don't actually fall out so much at work. When we do, it's more about me being quite chaotic with how I work, but also I can at times be quite inflexible about how I want things to be done. But what Sarah's fantastic at is the organisation, the analytics. She runs all the logistical side of things. When we moved into the bigger office space, she insisted on us having different ...
    続きを読む 一部表示
    1 時間 6 分
  • Writing The Shadow: The Creative Wound, Publishing, And Money, With Joanna Penn

    Writing The Shadow: The Creative Wound, Publishing, And Money, With Joanna Penn
    2026/01/19
    What if the most transformative thing you can do for your writing craft and author business is to face what you fear? How can you can find gold in your Shadow in the year ahead? In this episode, I share chapters from Writing the Shadow: Turn Your Inner Darkness Into Words. In the intro, curated book boxes from Bridgerton's Julia Quinn; Google's agentic shopping, and powering Apple's Siri; ChatGPT Ads; and Claude CoWork. Balancing Certainty and Uncertainty [MoonShots with Tony Robbins]; and three trends for authors with me and Orna Ross [Self-Publishing with ALLi Podcast]; plus, Bones of the Deep, Business for Authors, and Indie Author Lab. This show is supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Joanna Penn writes non-fiction 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, creative entrepreneur, and international professional speaker. What is the Shadow?The ‘creative wound' and the Shadow in writingThe Shadow in traditional publishingThe Shadow in self-publishing or being an indie authorThe Shadow in workThe Shadow in money You can find Writing the Shadow in all formats on all stores, as well as special edition, workbook and bundles at www.TheCreativePenn.com/shadowbook Writing the Shadow: Turn Your Inner Darkness Into Words The following chapters are excerpted from Writing the Shadow: Turn Your Inner Darkness Into Words by Joanna Penn. Introduction. What is the Shadow? “How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also if I am to be whole.” —C.G. Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul We all have a Shadow side and it is the work of a lifetime to recognise what lies within and spin that base material into gold. Think of it as a seedling in a little pot that you’re given when you’re young. It’s a bit misshapen and weird, not something you would display in your living room, so you place it in a dark corner of the basement. You don’t look at it for years. You almost forget about it. Then one day you notice tendrils of something wild poking up through the floorboards. They’re ugly and don’t fit with your Scandi-minimalist interior design. You chop the tendrils away and pour weedkiller on what’s left, trying to hide the fact that they were ever there. But the creeping stems keep coming. At some point, you know you have to go down there and face the wild thing your seedling has become. When you eventually pluck up enough courage to go down into the basement, you discover that the plant has wound its roots deep into the foundations of your home. Its vines weave in and out of the cracks in the walls, and it has beautiful flowers and strange fruit. It holds your world together. Perhaps you don’t need to destroy the wild tendrils. Perhaps you can let them wind up into the light and allow their rich beauty to weave through your home. It will change the look you have so carefully cultivated, but maybe that’s just what the place needs. The Shadow in psychology Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychologist and the founder of analytical psychology. He described the Shadow as an unconscious aspect of the human personality, those parts of us that don’t match up to what is expected of us by family and society, or to our own ideals. The Shadow is not necessarily evil or illegal or immoral, although of course it can be. It’s also not necessarily caused by trauma, abuse, or any other severely damaging event, although again, it can be. It depends on the individual. What is in your Shadow is based on your life and your experiences, as well as your culture and society, so it will be different for everyone. Psychologist Connie Zweig, in The Inner Work of Age, explains, “The Shadow is that part of us that lies beneath or behind the light of awareness. It contains our rejected, unacceptable traits and feelings. It contains our hidden gifts and talents that have remained unexpressed or unlived. As Jung put it, the essence of the Shadow is pure gold.” To further illustrate the concept, Robert Bly, in A Little Book on the Human Shadow,uses the following metaphor: “When we are young, we carry behind us an invisible bag, into which we stuff any feelings, thoughts, or behaviours that bring disapproval or loss of love—anger, tears, neediness, laziness. By the time we go to school, our bags are already a mile long. In high school, our peer groups pressure us to stuff the bags with even more—individuality, sexuality, spontaneity, different opinions. We spend our life until we’re twenty deciding which parts of ourselves to put into the bag and we spend the rest of our lives trying to get them out again.” As authors, we can use what’s in the ‘bag’ to enrich our writing — but only if we can access it. My intention with this book is to help you venture into your Shadow ...
    続きを読む 一部表示
    1 時間 34 分