There are a lot of conferences for writers and publishers at the beginning of the year that many of us can’t get to for different reasons. Dan Blank has been to Writer’s Digest, Digital BookWorld and Columbia University Social Media weekend during January 2012. In this interview, he shares some of the information, trends and opinions from the publishing industry.

Dan Blank is the founder of WeGrowMedia.com, which provides writers and publishers the strategy and tactics they need to impact their communities and build their legacies. He has worked with more than 500 writers, a wide range of publishers, and regularly speaks at conferences about branding, content strategy, social media, and marketing.

Here’s the audio if you prefer: DanBlankConferences.mp3

In the video, we discuss:

• Writer’s Digest Conference. Last year platform was just coming into the scene. It was still a controversial topic. This year, because of the rise of self-publishing and ebooks, 50% of the conference was marketing focused and also business focused. This is based on the disruption in the publishing world and the success of indies that is being discussed openly.

• Barry Eisler was the keynote and as a hybrid author, he openly shared his views around the responsibility of writers to take charge of their own career. It shows the shift that is happening. Dan did a session on author-entrepreneur – the author as a business which is critical.

• It is hard to sell books – this was even demonstrated by the fact that the line for Barry’s book signing wasn’t that long. Engaging people and selling books is still difficult, even if you have a platform.

• I used PixelOfInk.com for paid advertising for the Prophecy launch. It was used by Darcie Chan for The Mill River Recluse which sold over 400,000 copies. This targets Kindle readers specifically. Obviously Amazon have an amazing eco-system but it is a closed eco-system, so it’s important to be aware of this and be sure to collect email addresses of your fans. You do need to develop your own platform so if the rules change, you’re not dependent on one channel. Authors, build your list – read this to get started!

• Pitch Slam at Writer’s Digest. It’s always popular and it’s very intense. Dan spoke to writers about this and preparing your book for this is challenging but also rewarding. There’s a  huge value in putting yourself out there and you can get over the emotional stuff. It starts the iteration process to improve your pitch. So definitely try it if you go to these conferences.

• Digital Book World. A huge publishing conference aimed at the publishing industry. Writers are allowed but the price is often prohibitive. It’s business focused on the trends in publishing. We mention Barnes & Noble not stocking Amazon books but this isn’t so much the core of the publishing industry. There’s a lot of smart, passionate people in publishing with lots of ideas. They get the change is there but it’s trying to get the publishing industry to move. It’s not an agile market and it’s hard to know how to move the huge ship.

• There was a great panel on what’s working with romance and how it can apply to others. Romance imprints have been particularly forward thinking and have been into ebooks and direct sales for years before everyone else. Also a great panel on self-publishing with Bob Mayer and Bella Andre which showed an author can be a business.

• Columbia University Social Media weekend. A big focus on return on investment. Marketing teams don’t have any more resources so they have to look at scaling and what works. Looking at process and methodology which is the only way we can effectively scale if we have multiple books to sell, which is what publishing is trying to do.

• With all these conferences, it’s interesting to gauge where people are and where the opportunity is. For example, the ‘apps are dead’ argument means there is clearly an opportunity for other companies. It hasn’t been an immediate hit but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. It’s a time of experimentation. What are the trends saying about the opportunities between the trends?

• The supposed “slowdown” in the ebook space. The market is stabilizing. In the self-publishing market, 2011 was a boom time but now it’s stabilizing. The big jump in sales can’t be linked to anything specific, but there are forces at work that are bigger than individual authors. There will be a lot more shifts this year. Any market that changes fast will have difficult times. Just focus on building your platform and your market and weather the storm. You also have to experiment with different tactics as we just don’t know.

• Has the stigma of self-publishing gone away yet? Quality is an issue throughout all publishing at this point. It depends on the type of career you are creating. Do you want ugly, cheap and lots of books sold to make money? Or do you want books that last over time? Increasing quality across the board is important. Investing the time in the process is important to create a great book. Barry Eisler talked about the freedom and control for his own career with the hybrid model. It’s up to the writers about the stigma of self-publishing. Do people really want traditional deals? These different types of deals will the future.

You can find Dan at his very useful site, WeGrowMedia.com and on twitter @DanBlank

Did you go to any of these, or other, conferences? Do you have any lessons to share from them?

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Happy New Year! I love the start of the year and I am extremely excited about 2012. It’s the best time to be a writer and we have many opportunities to take advantage of in a world where we can reach customers directly.

Someone asked me what my hobbies were the other day. I realized that writing and blogging have been my hobbies for the last 4 years but now this is my business as well as my passion. So I need to step it up in 2012.

I also don’t like resolutions. The word sounds like something you kind of aim for and quite often fail to achieve. I like goal setting in a specific manner so we can easily measure success by the end of the year. So these are my writing and business goals for 2012. I’d love to hear about yours in the comments.

Fiction Writing

• Write 2 novels and a novella. At least one of these will be in the ARKANE series but I have a lot of other ideas right now.
• Sell 50,000 copies of my fiction books by September.
• Go on a weekend writing course/ invest in expanding my fiction skills. I have already booked a Guardian Masterclass for Feb and I fancy the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in July

The Creative Penn, my business

I am committing to improving the blog in 2012. You will continue to get the latest in writing, publishing and book marketing information that I can find. I already have interviews booked until March so more podcasts & videos to come. I also commit to sharing my own journey honestly in order that transparency can help us all. I hope you will continue to comment on the posts and email me questions as well as spreading the word if you find it useful.

My more specific goals are:

• Update TheCreativePenn.com to reflect the business side in terms of courses and education. One of my favorite blogs is Copyblogger.com for their practical business help on copywriting. This year they changed their design to reflect that they are a business powered by a blog. This is where I’m heading in 2012.

• Rewrite and relaunch the Author 2.0 Blueprint. It has had little updates but it needs a full revamp.
• Release 3 new multi-media mini-courses including  “How to launch your book online”

• Seriously study copy-writing and direct marketing from Copyblogger & other resources. I think I have the hang of brand marketing but now I need to focus on the direct side.

• Financially, the income from the business (including fiction) needs to match my husband’s salary by the end of 2012. No need for figures here but suffice to say, I need to work smarter My income streams will be 80% scalable from book sales and online sales of courses. 20% will be based on my time – speaking and consulting.

Non-Fiction Writing

I always wanted to be a self-help author and it’s time to revisit that in 2012.

• Revise and re-release “From Idea to Book” with material from the blog and my experience
• Revise and re-release “From Book to Market” with material from the blog and my experience
• Write Change Career Slowly, a development from my first book, How to Enjoy Your Job… Or Find A New One

Fitness and Personal Growth

I have lots of other personal goals, both individual and with my husband but I’m sharing these two because they also spill into my creative life.

• Writing and blogging are highly sedentary. I’ve tried a stand-up desk but that didn’t last long. I’ve also put on 3kgs since I went full-time author-entrepreneur. That isn’t sustainable. No, this isn’t a weight-loss blog, but we must keep physically healthy in order to have a successful, long-lived creative life. So, I am putting it in writing this year (aarghh!) My goal is 63kg and you should see the difference in my cheekbones on the videos! See you on the treadmill!

• Go on a silent retreat. I’ve been wanting to do this for years so this year, I will make it happen. If you have done this, please do let me know any recommendations for venues.

Ok, that’s me.

What are your goals for 2012? Please share them in the comments below and we can revisit them at the end of the year.

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I’m one of those people who thrives on goal-setting and measurement. I’m always setting new goals and although I often change direction, I tend to achieve more than if I set none at all.

It is important to celebrate achievements so this is my annual round-up. It’s not meant to be horn-tooting, more of a record of the year.

I hope you have learned a lot from The Creative Penn in 2011 and I look forward to serving you further in 2012. I’d also love to know if you achieved your goals this year before we all set new ones in the coming days.

Fiction Writing

Pentecost, my first novel, was published in Feb 2011 and has now sold 16,034 copies.

Prophecy, the 2nd in the ARKANE series was published yesterday on the Kindle. Print, Nook & other versions to come in Jan but I still got it out in 2011! I won’t be officially launching it until January 20th but it is available on the Kindle store if you’d like to purchase!

I’m pretty excited about the future of fiction with digital publishing. I’ll be exploring more in this arena in 2012 and onwards. I have so many creative ideas I want to explore.

I have also started a blog for my fiction fans, JoannaPenn.com where I will be adding information about my research and more.

The Creative Penn

This blog has now reached it’s 3rd birthday (hoorah!) It has won the Top 10 Blogs for Writers for the 2nd year running (as one of the Top 10 after 2100 nominations and comments). I’m really pleased with that so thank you if you nominated me.

In terms of growth and online platform, I shall record figures here for posterity as it’s good to revisit these regularly and this has become my annual checkup.

There are currently 3162 subscribers to this blog on Feedburner, 6585 subscribers to the newsletter, 23,279 followers on Twitter, 2418 on Facebook/TheCreativePenn and 1034 on Google+. Considering I’ve only been on Google+ for a few weeks, I’m interested to see how fast that is growing and the engagement over there. I may well give up Facebook in 2012! (but never Twitter!)

The Creative Penn podcast has now reached 113 episodes. There have been 41,358 downloads, at around 3400 per month in the last few months. The top listening countries are US (53%), China (12%), UK (10%) and Australia (7.4%).

In light of all this, I may be looking for some sponsorship for the podcast in 2012! If you’re interested, please do email me direct.

The most popular podcast has been On Changing Your Life, Writing and Marketing a Book which just happens to be an interview with me! You can download the backlist here – there’s over 60 hours of free information on writing, publishing and book marketing with more every week.

My YouTube channel The Creative Penn has 395 subscribers and has had 63,997 views of 122 videos. The top videos have been Tips for Publishing on the Kindle (3690 views) followed by Pentecost Book Trailer (2544 views). The top countries are US, UK, Australia and Canada. Demographics: 51.4% male, 48.6% female. Over 50% in the 45-54 age bracket. Although this isn’t spectacular, I will continue to invest in video as I think it is a growing market and the more I do, the more I enjoy it!

Transition to full-time author-entrepreneur

This wasn’t even something I thought would happen this year but a combination of circumstances have made it so.

I left my consulting job of 13 years for the more precarious, but rewarding, life of an author-entrepreneur. I have also moved hemispheres from Brisbane, Australia to London, England.

For the full story, read “I am creative, I am an author. From affirmation to reality.”

For this transition, I primarily thank Amazon Kindle for the KDP publishing platform, and WordPress for enabling this blog as well as Twitter for my network. Together, those services have changed my life!

If you’d like to invest further in your education, I now have the following products available for sale, with a focus on mini-modules, not full-blown courses:

• Blogging for authors and writers $39.99
• Social networking for authors and writers $39.99
• Ebook Publishing $39.99
• How to write a novel (with author of 11 novels Roz Morris) $99
• How to write a fight scene masterclass (with martial arts instructor and author Alan Baxter) $20
• Consulting 1:1 with me on your author platform and more $99 – $197

I shall be expanding this digital product range in 2012 and rewriting the Author 2.0 Blueprint and modules in order to update everything to this ever-changing market.

How did I do against my goals for 2011?

Here are my New Year’s resolutions from Jan 2011.

• Publish Pentecost – achieved.

• Go to ThrillerFest in New York in July & pitch a publisher. I cancelled this trip as we moved from Australia to London in May which changed the budget somewhat. I would still love to go to ThrillerFest and the flight would be cheaper from London. I’m not so bothered about pitching to an agent now though. I am very happy being indie at the moment. I do have a goal of 50,000 book sales and then I may decide to approach an agent.

• Finish Prophecy – achieved.

• Launch a new blog for mystery & thriller lovers. I did launch MysteryThriller.tv but to be honest, I have now stopped doing reviews on video and am just reviewing books I like on Amazon & Goodreads. I don’t have the bandwidth for more reviews in general. The aim was to get some advertising revenue from the blog but it wasn’t justifying itself in terms of time and effort. I can make more income from writing fiction and this blog, so I won’t be continuing with that. So yes, I achieved it, but it was a misplaced goal. You can follow my reviews on Goodreads here.

• Enjoy 1 day unplugged a month. Hmm, I don’t think I achieved this … I continue to be a driven person who isn’t very good at stopping. My husband says I am like a Ferrari with no fuel gauge. I only stop when it all falls apart. This is my natural rhythm. I have tried meditation again this year but it stops after a few days. I continue to journal a lot though, which is a kind of meditation. I definitely do unplug, but not regularly enough.

• Learn more about grammar, language and the craft of words. I have specifically read prize-winning literature and poetry in order to glean more about language. I continue to listen to podcasts and do training as well as read books and of course, interview people. I also learn A LOT from having my own work edited. If you read Pentecost and then Prophecy, I hope you can see improvements in my writing. So, achieved.

• Continue to expand The Creative Penn. I’ve definitely achieved this but it’s not a stretch goal. It’s more of a maintenance activity now. I LOVE this blog, it brings me so much enjoyment to be useful to you and to share the journey. So please do keep commenting and keep emailing me with your questions.

Tomorrow I will be sharing my goals for 2012.

How did you do with your goals for 2011? Please do share your achievements and how it went. Let’s keep each other honest!

[Images: istockphoto or my own]

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This is a guest post from Cynthia Kocialski, from The Start Up Entrepreneur’s Blog. I am a firm believer that authors need to be entrepreneurs, running their own business and creating multiple streams of income so this post is definitely relevant. We can spend so much time dreaming that we forget the commercial reality of making a living!

Having spent 15 years working with technology start-up companies – and knowing more than just a few of the key ideas required to get fledgling businesses on the right path – something struck me. Authors are also entrepreneurs, but few of them actually realize that, or take advantage of the same skills and techniques.
What brought about this revelation was the writing, publishing and marketing of my first book. It suddenly occurred to me that authors were creating a product, just like any other start-up business. Authors aren’t founding the next corporate giant, but a much smaller start-up.

Your First Idea Won’t Always be Your Best

Many people who try to start a business are certain that their first idea is going to make them an overnight success, that they don’t think about one of the first basic rules of the start-up: your first idea is probably rubbish. A start-up often succeeds with its second or third product.
You may have heard of the global phenomena called Groupon; in fact, you may be one of the millions of people who buy from them on a regular basis, but did you realize that this wasn’t their first idea? It took them a while to become an ‘overnight success’; the same thing happens with authors, too.
Few authors have bestsellers with their very first book; it takes time, and the first book, like a first idea, can often be a stepping-stone to greatness; a way of learning what works, and what is just going straight to the bargain bin.

To Self-Publish, or not to Self-publish; that is the Question?

Most entrepreneurs quickly discover having a clever idea isn’t going to have investors throwing money in their direction; there’s a lot of hard work to be done before they can get to that stage, and the same is true for authors, and their books.

Investors are far more interested in an already up and running company, one with a number of orders, paying customers, and projections for the future – and can demonstrate a product. Investors do not want to build the company from nothing. They need to know that there is already something of substance.
That process is similar for new authors who are looking to get their first book published in the traditional way. You have to give publishers a reason to sign you, and just having a good book idea is not always enough. Self-publishing doesn’t need all of that. Authors are just going out and doing it. Many entrepreneurs self-fund their companies in order to get the proof of concept investors require.

Getting Over the Marketing Hurdle

Most people with a technical skill – engineering, programming, or writing – dread marketing. The best products are not going to sell themselves. Investors aren’t interested in start-ups that do not know how, where and to whom to sell their products. A rule of start-ups is to start marketing as soon as possible, even before the product is ready.  Why? Because people buy what is most familiar to them and familiarity doesn’t happen overnight.
Marketing creates demand for the product. A book, like any other product, will thrive or languish by the skills of the marketer, and the time and money put into letting people know that it’s out there (or coming), and just waiting for them to buy it.

When it comes to marketing for a start-up, it takes two to three times more effort to do that, than to create the product in the first place; quite a sobering thought, isn’t it? The cost of a full service self-publishing can be expensive, but promoting and marketing a book has the same factorization as a start-up.

Time to Build a Team

Too many people think they can create a start-up company on their own; then wonder why they have no time with their family, and the company eventually falls apart. You need a team behind you.

There are two key people in the team of any new company: a marketing person, and a product developer. If you want to make a success of your venture – whether it’s as an author or another form of entrepreneurship – you need other people to help and who know what they’re doing. If you were to try to learn it all yourself, you’d never get the book or product launched, and these aren’t areas that you’ll really want to dedicate your time to, anyway.

Developing Your Business Model

All businesses have a business model – how do you make money – and the same thing should be true for authors. While you may not realize it, most start-ups have multiple revenue streams. The most obvious is simply selling the product to customers, or in the case of authors, selling a book to readers.
But what about those other ways to bring in revenue? Authors can get public speaking engagements at events and conferences. There is advertising on your own website. If you’re writing non-fiction, there are seminars and classes to offer, perhaps even consulting or one-on-one coaching.  This is a lot to keep in mind, and arranging for all of this is one big reason you need a team.

Building Relationships

Most entrepreneurs are great at innovations, they focus on the technology, but they neglect to build relationships that can help them be a success. It takes a while to make the right contacts – getting to know the owners of local bookshops, or finding the perfect set of service providers such as editors, illustrators, book promoters, or public relation firms.

For any new company starting out, the quest is quite simple: provide a solution to a problem. For many with the entrepreneurship bug, it could be a product to make life easier; when it comes to an author, it could be to inform, educate, or just plain entertain.

Now can you see why authorship and entrepreneurship have so much in common?

Cynthia Kocialski is the author of ‘Startup from the Ground Up: Practical insights for entrepreneurs on how to go from an idea to starting a new business’.

Top image: iStockPhoto. Licensed.

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I’m not (yet) a Kindle millionaire but sales of Pentecost have now gone over the 10,000 mark which for me is significant, so I am sharing the figures and also what they mean for the next in the series, Prophecy. Hopefully you will find this interesting as it changes my personal publishing strategy considerably.

• I did the figures on 19 August 2011 and total ebook and print sales through Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk = 10,025
• I sold so few through other ebook platforms that I am not even counting the sales. Because I am not a US citizen I cannot use PubIt for the Nook so everything is through Smashwords. I have just realized that the price was set to $2.99 though, so I have now changed this to 99 cents. Perhaps it will make a difference to the next batch of sales but I have sold very few through other channels.
• Some people will ask about the money – you can work it out from the 99c price point, but as I have written before, this book is about getting readers involved with my series, not about income. Read about my 99c price point decision here.

• Over 98% of these sales were ebook sales on the Kindle. This is huge for me because there is more cost and hassle to a print book than an ebook. I also priced the print books as low as possible to maximize those sales so I made more money on the ebooks. These sales figures make print books a vanity option for me i.e. I would only do a print book again if I wanted to have something to give my Mum or as a keepsake. I love print books but buy 99% on my Kindle now so I am also happy to target those kind of readers. I found the print book option difficult because it’s harder to fix typos and problems which I fixed on the Kindle immediately. In conclusion, I will move to Kindle only for the next book, and potentially look at print books much later on.

• This experience also makes me more interested in a print book deal. I enjoy every part of the process except the print side which I would gladly give to someone else. But I would like to keep the digital rights – and I’m not sure that would happen in this current publishing market! I have also been told that 10,000 sales is a good point to approach publishers as it demonstrates there is a market, but I’m not ready for that yet. I need one or two more books in the series and then I might consider other options.

• 87% of sales were from Amazon.com which is predominantly a US market (with some from other countries) but the sales on .co.uk are growing. I think this is based on the fact that the UK is still a print market, where there is no VAT on print books but there is on ebooks, and ebooks are about 18 months behind the US. I discuss the differences for ebooks between countries here. But the sales in the UK have been growing every month so I see that as a source of more sales in the future.

• Sales were low during launch month. This is fascinating to me as so much focus is put on the launch itself but actually those sales are pretty small. The sales grew over time which must be related to the number of reviews and the Amazon algorithms kicking in. I am currently putting together a mini-course on How to Launch Your Book Online which will include everything to do with the launch but also the longer term things that have an effect like reviews and your Amazon sales page. I’ll let you know when it’s available.

• Sales are bigger than my ‘platform’. I have spent years growing my online platform and brand but I absolutely realize that many of the readers of this blog are not interested in my fiction. That is the nature of having a writer’s blog. We don’t like to read the same books, which is absolutely fine. We can still talk about the aspects of writing, publishing and book marketing that are common to us all, but we just don’t like the same books. In light of this, and also what I have learned from John Locke, I am starting a new blog for me as a fiction author that will hopefully appeal to my readers. Again, I’ll let you know when that launches.

• It is possible to make a full-time living as an indie author. I drank the Kool-Aid a while back but this is the first time I can actually see a future reality for my own writing life. Locke, Konrath, Hocking et al inspire us with stories of success, but I can now see that having multiple books selling thousands per month does add up. So I will be stepping up the book writing and production process. I’m still aiming to have Prophecy out by Christmas and there are currently 7 books planned in the ARKANE series. I also have an idea for a stand-alone novel that will not leave me alone so I will have to start writing that too. As we know, it’s not about the ideas which are two a penny, it’s about the execution… and that starts now!

I know 10,000 sales are nothing to more developed authors, but what have you learned from your own book sales? Have your publishing goals changed?

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This is podcast number 100 and it’s just over 2 years since I started podcasting. At the time, I had one non-fiction book out with pretty much zero sales and I was living in Australia. Self publishing had a huge stigma and I wasn’t even on Twitter!

How things have changed. I now have an Amazon bestselling thriller novel that has sold over 7500 copies and 3 non-fiction books behind me, I have a pretty big social network now and I’m living in London. I knew nothing when I started and this morning I did a webinar on how to podcast!

In the last 2 years, self-publishing has morphed into indie, John Locke has sold over 1 million Kindle books as an indie author, big names are going indie and Amanda Hocking got a massive book deal from indie success. Oh, and JK Rowling has left her publisher to self-publish her own ebooks and start Pottermore direct to fans. So I was part of a fringe movement 2 years ago that is now solidly mainstream especially with layoffs in publishing and bookstores close – Borders has just gone under as I speak today. It is a very different time and most people agree that there has never been a better time to be an author taking charge of your own destiny!

Today I am discussing some of my lessons learned from the process of podcasting and also from some of the stand out interviews for me:

First up, the state of the podcast in July 2011 is that there are around 2500 downloads per month of new and old episodes. 60% of the listeners are in the US, with 15% in China and 14% in UK and the rest spread between Australia, Germany, Canada and some other countries. It’s truly a global show! Thanks to everyone for tuning in and I’m so glad you enjoy the show. I’m always keen to hear from you – email: joanna AT TheCreativePenn.com

Here are some of my lessons learned in general from podcasting:

Just start, even if you don’t know what you are doing. My first interview was with 4 Ingredients author Rachael Bermingham who is HUGE in Australia, self, published and has sold millions of books now. I did it on the landline phone, I held a recorder next to it. I edited in Audacity and loaded the file to my very new and pretty ugly blog (which has since been redesigned). I didn’t know about mics, or Skype or Pamela/ecamm or hosting or anything. Things have changed and here’s how I do it now.

Fear and nerves will always be there. Just do it anyway. I am still nervous before phoning anyone. I have to force myself every time. My heart races, my mouth is dry and I go to the bathroom three times before starting. I also do public speaking and its the same thing with that. But we need to get our ‘breadcrumbs’ of content out there, so it has to be done.

I credit the podcast with the growing success of The Creative Penn because of my ability to network and offer something that many blogs don’t offer i.e. multi-media interviews. I get requests all the time and other people promote the blog because of it. All the people I interview link back to their show so the incoming links have helped my SEO ranking. I have connected with you as listeners – you have heard my voice and laugh and mannerisms and annoying tics for years now. I know some of you have bought my books for which I am very grateful. I am also personally fulfilled by being useful and I feel this is useful to people, so I love to do it. I love to get emails from people who have found the information helpful.

You can learn from everybody. Podcasting is a great way to learn about writing, publishing and book marketing. It’s also an amazing way to network. The people I have had on the podcast I have connected with and got to know more. There is a widening circle of mutual support. I also firmly believe in no snobbery – you can learn from everyone. It doesn’t matter what they have written or done, you can’t underestimate anyone’s experience. You also never know where they will end up.

Stand out episodes for me

I learn something with every podcast but these are particular ones where something clicked and my own life changed.

JC Hutchins on transmedia. This was an early interview and a big influence for me. JC had the 7th Son podcast, a book deal and is now transmedia guru and he was generous with his time. He had just spoken to the NY Times or something and is generally the nicest, loveliest man. He gave me a chance which I appreciated greatly. He also got a book deal from his podcast success. I saw how he was doing marketing with internet based and fan based methods and realized you could basically ditch mainstream media. He sparked my massive interest in online marketing which I credit with all my book sales now. Pivotal moment! I had just done national TV in Australia and multiple newspapers and got no sales at all, so it was great to just stop all that work and focus on online methods. Here’s the interview with JC on transmedia. Here’s the interview on writing thrillers.

Tom Evans on writer’s block. I have been scared about writing fiction for many years as I always held up Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose as the way you had to write. Prize winning literature as Eco is an academic although that book still had mainstream success. We discussed this block and Tom basically helped me get over it during this episode. All I needed was a kick in the pants. I have continued to interview Tom about this work – he is a brilliant guy especially if you are into the more esoteric world of thought and consciousness. Here’s the interview with Tom Evans on beating writer’s block. 
Here’s the latest interview we did on lightbulb moments.

Mur Lafferty – It’s ok to suck. After speaking with  Tom, I decided to do Nanowrimo in 2009 and get into some fiction. I’ve been listening to Mur’s I should be writing podcast for a while and asked her on to the show to discuss one of her mantras which is “it’s ok to suck”. Basically your first draft is going to be bad. This is also said by Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird “shitty first drafts”. IT’S OK! This released me from more fear and I wrote 20,000 words of crap during Nanowrimo BUT that turned into the seed idea for Pentecost which has now sold over 7500 copies and is still in the Amazon bestseller lists for Action-Adventure and Religious Fiction. I am now 20,000 words into Prophecy and I see myself as a fiction writer. This is a HUGE turnaround for me. HUGE. I mean my life has changed and I am thrilled and overjoyed to be here! Here’s the podcast with Mur Lafferty.

Gideon Shalwick on using video for book promotion. This interview finally changed my view on video and I had been teetering for a while. I took Gideon’s advice and got heavily into video and now I make them every week. I rank on the first page of Google for the search term “thriller novel” in text and in video. I’ve had nearly 50,000 views of my videos on YouTube and it continues to be a traffic source for me. I personally prefer audio to video and I hardly ever watch videos myself, but it’s a great way to reach new people and VERY few authors are doing video right now so it’s another way to stand out in a crowded market. Here’s the interview with Gideon Shalwick.

Scott Sigler on being a NYT bestselling author. I learned that successful authors work bloody hard. Scott is a machine, writing every day, podcasting his novels, networking, promoting and basically getting out there. He is a businessman as well as a great author. I seriously recommend his books , his latest Ancestor is a kind of Jurassic Park/ genetic engineering style thriller. I also learned that writing is a long term career, you’ve got to keep writing. Here’s the interview with Scott Sigler.

Clare Edwards on accepting criticism, being an introvert and resilience. This really helped me at a time of burnout. I have a day job and at the time I was working VERY hard and was exhausted, plus I have tried to keep the momentum with the blog, podcast, videos etc and trying to write the novel – my confidence was low and I needed the help. This podcast helped me reassess my own life and get back on track. We all need help and I am lucky to have built a great network of people who I can trust and talk to. Here’s the interview with Clare Edwards.

There have been many, many more amazing podcasts and a big thank you to all my guests and also my listeners. I look forward to the next 100 podcasts!

I would love to hear from you. I don’t get much mail from podcast listeners so I send these out into the ether and hope you enjoy them.
If you do have something to share please email me: joanna AT TheCreativePenn.com or leave a comment as I would love to know which episodes you enjoyed and which ones you learned from, or what else you would like to hear on the show.

If you haven’t yet, you can subscribe to The Creative Penn podcast in iTunes by clicking here.

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This is a guest post from ghostwriter Grant McDuling. You can also listen to an audio interview with Grant on making 6 figures as a writer here.

As a full time writer, I get asked so many times by all sorts of people what it takes to give up the day job to become a full time writer. This was a question I too had pondered long and hard years ago.

You see, I had been dabbling in writing since a school boy back in the 1960s and always felt this inner urge or compulsion to write. But as time went on and I grew up, realizing this goal became harder and harder because I found myself going down a path I didn’t want but had to pursue because commitments came along that had to be tended to. Commitments like paying the rent, buying food, paying off a car, to mention but a few.

The road to becoming a full time writer seemed to be an impossible one to follow — until I couldn’t resist the urge any longer and decided to do something positive about it.

My experience in the business world convinced me that, if I was to be serious about it, I would have to treat writing just like any other business. I was going to have to set about developing a plan of action.

This I did, but mostly by relying on non-business-like behavior; a healthy dose of enthusiasm mixed with gut feel and a liberal sprinkling of trial and error got me to the point where I at least had a system to work with. And it was a system based on business lines.

This gave me the courage to take the proverbial plunge, and I have never looked back.

So what was my system?

In simple terms, it consisted of 7 basic steps:

(1) Take control of your own future. Here I am referring to assuming responsibility for your own future. And become accountable. Have a plan to get rid of debt. You can read more about this in my Kindle book Write for a Living in 7 Easy Steps

(2) Getting into the writing profession needs the right ATTITUDE. It’s about seeing yourself as a professional writer.

(3) Become a PRACTICING writer. Just like lawyers or doctors are in private practice, so too must you be. Understand and make use of the principle of leverage to achieve more with less. Syndication is a good example here.

(4) Concentrate on sales and marketing. Understand that, as a practicing writer, you should be spending around 50% of your time on sales and marketing.

(5) Setting up and running a writing practice is very important. Understand you need a vision, a mission statement and a set of goals to succeed in this business.

(6) Get clear about what editors want. You’ll never succeed in this business if all you do is cheese off editors by missing deadlines, writing for the wrong audiences or write articles that stray from the point.

(7) Be able to cope with common problems such as the lack of motivation that is sure to set in some time, keeping focused, and avoiding procrastination or writer’s block.

Launching out on your own in business – any business – takes courage and a great deal of faith in your own abilities. But it also takes a whole lot more; money, discipline, dedication and even, some would say, madness. But there’s another absolutely important ingredient that no university, school or college teaches, and that’s ATTITUDE. You have to think of yourself as a businessperson and not a writer. You are a businessperson whose business happens to be making a profit – through selling words.

Grant McDuling is a Brisbane-based writer who has written 35 books so far. He has published two as Kindle books and says that since buying a Kindle, his reading habits have changed.

Grant is a well-known ghostwriter, having written for a range of clients all over the world, Many of his books are now international best sellers with sales in the millions.

Write for a Living in 7 Easy Steps can be found on Amazon:

Image: Flickr Creative Commons John Althouse Cohen Montmartre

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This is a guest post from Kevin Cullis, author of How to Start a Business: Mac Version , his first book completely done in iWork Pages. [Note: I moved to a Mac last year and love it so I was really interested to read of new tools I haven't discovered yet!]

So you want to be a writer or a published author? You’ve used a Windows computer most of your life and you wonder in a mostly Windows environment if can you use a Mac?
Yes!
While most people use Windows to write, Macs are just as capable to write books as their Windows counterparts, so let’s get to the meat of the Mac’s cool tools.

Writing.

While most Windows users are well aware of WordPad, the Mac’s version is TextEdit (if you enlarge the TextEdit icon, read what J. Appleseed wrote to Kate ). Beyond this simple tool, here’s a short list: iWork Pages for writing and page layout (the author’s book was completely done in Pages); MS Word for Mac for larger or collaborative works; the cross platform OpenOffice for a free MS Office-like office suite; Scrivener to research, organize, and write your content; StoryMill to write your novel; MacJournal to journal about your life; Nisus Writer Pro for a different approach to writing; Mellel for long documents, Google Docs for online collaboration, and lastly for scholars there is the powerful document processors LaTeX and Lyx which can manage complex articles with mathematics, cross-references, bibliographies, listings, etc.

Publishing.

The real question for any writer is: What will be your final output? A book, magazine, workbook for a seminar, or even a PDF to potential editors or readers? Will you use your local ink or laser printer or a professional printer for your output?

One of the simplest parts using any Mac software is exporting the document as an RTF or .doc file, or as a final PDF output. For neat professional output of books there is Createspace.com, Lulu.com, iUniverse.com, and Lightningsource.com for final output for independently published books. This author used Createspace.com for his book as the overall best for POD (Print On Demand) company in quantities of one or more. If you need better quality and larger volumes in the one to two thousand or more copies and lower price per unit costs, offset printing is the next level for authors.

Marketing.

By far the most compelling part of a published author using a Mac is its marketing tools with the applications that come in Apple’s iLife. It includes iPhoto to track and manage all of your marketing, book cover, or interior file photos, iMovie to make the book trailer you’ve been thinking about or post a YouTube interview video, Garageband to create an audio podcast or a self published audio version of your book, iDVD to send a DVD of additional or bonus material about your products, and iWeb to create a web presence about your book and content. Using GarageBand and Apple’s MobileMe account you can record IM (instant messages), audio, and videos using iChat’s built in recording software and then using GarageBand’s and iMovie’s editing capabilities to help market your book.

Don’t forget marketing your indie book through indiebound.org for small book stores and bookblogs.ning.com for getting your name among other book aficionados.

Productivity.

The iPad can be used for light content creation for writers, it is much better at hard content consumption and the Mac is still the best content creator tool.
Do not forget about the Mac’s built in software: Text to speech, Summarize, Dictionary, Grab, Text, and QuickTime Pro. For text to speech, just highlight the text and right click and select the menu Speech > Start Speaking and the Mac will give you a close approximation of what you text sounds like being read aloud. Great for a quick proofread of your content. For summarize, just highlight the text and select the Application (Pages, Word) menu > Services > Summarize and it allows one to take pages of text and reduce the word count so that with some minor editing you’ve got a quick summary instead of rewriting your piece from scratch.

Dictionary not only gives you a dictionary and a thesaurus, but connects with Wikipedia for more writing information. Grab is the print screen utility that’s great for capturing screen shots of your Mac, four different ways. Regarding Text, go to System Preferences > Language & Text > Text and let your Mac change frequently used text, such as the copyright symbol, transpose “teh” to “the,” or setting up an em dash using “(em)” instead of finding the right character keys.

Lastly, with Snow Leopard QuickTime Pro will capture a movie of actions on your Mac’s screen so you can edit in iMovie. Great for HOWTO movies for showing others a step-by-step process.

For additional scholarly writing tools, see Endnote for MS Word and iWork Pages that helps with bibliography or Bookends which helps with reference management and entails the collection, annotation, and citation of published information.
When it comes to cleaning up text there are the powerful software TextWrangler or TextSoap that can quickly clean your text or recover a corrupted files. Much better than retyping your whole document again. To save some keystrokes and time there’s Dictate speech to text software that uses the Dragon Naturally Speaking software engine for those times when your thoughts can’t stop flowing and your fingers can’t keep up.

For Windows switchers, there’s the online service of Zamzar.com which can convert Windows files to a Mac, some simply, others might require a few more steps to get them completely converted.

How about TextExpander for those frequent pieces of text to reduce keystrokes or try TypeIt4Me that is similar. Evernote.com is used for just keeping track of all of your various notes just about anywhere between your Mac and elsewhere. Not Mac specific, there’s Onelook.com for finding that one word that escapes you, to find the roots of a word there etymonline.com, and for fun Wordle.net that creates fun “word clouds” of your text.
There you have it. These are just some of the Macs cool tools that will help you as an author to write your story and to get published. Good writing and keep on typing.
Kevin Cullis is a former a USAF veteran, a business geek and now an entrepreneur and owner of MacStartup.com (formerly MacGetIT.com). He has his Masters Degree in Administration as well as 12 years of face-to-face experience selling both Macs and PCs to businesses. He loves helping entrepreneurs and small business owners integrate, utilize, and optimize the use of their Mac in their marketing, sales, and business management processes. This combination of both a business and computer perspectives makes him unique in saving and making businesses money using a Mac. How to Start a Business: Mac Version is his first book completely done in iWork Pages.

Images: Mac mouse by Rsms, apple by kyz, nano and macbook by FHKE

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In this podcast, I discuss aspects of creative entrepreneurship and content marketing with Mark McGuinness.

Click here to download Mark’s free ebook on “Freedom, Money, Time and the Key to Creative Success”

In the intro, I outline how the Queensland floods impacted me and the 100 stories for Queensland if you want to contribute. I also talk about the Pentecost book launch and the competition for 7 Feb – details here.

Mark McGuinness is a business coach, trainer and consultant working with creative professionals, innovative companies and other trendsetters at the forefront of the Creative Economy. He is also a poet and runs the Creative Entrepreneur Roadmap online program. Excerpt of the interview is also posted as a video at the end of the show notes.

In the podcast, you will learn:

• Mark is a poet but it’s hard to make a living that way, so he is a coach for creative professionals. Although Mark loves the face to face work and live events, it is much more scalable to work online in terms of income and people reached. Mark coaches people on producing creative work as well as the emotional intelligence skills we need as creatives, plus he now teaches creative entrepreneurship.

• Creativity and business. Why business and marketing are not dirty words anymore. The world has changed with the internet. There’s also the realization that if you want to succeed then you need to market yourself. It’s a fundamental whatever you do. You still have sell to at least 1 person e.g. to an agent, or direct to customers. Selling with integrity, ethics and aesthetics is what Mark aims for. Also, the economy is changing and people need to look at knowledge working in order to make a living in the creative economy. Businesses are realizing they need creativity and innovation.

• Content marketing - media content that doesn’t look like advertising but functions like it. There is no hard sell. It’s more about useful, inspiring and educational content, as on our blogs. But from a marketing perspective, it has a huge impact because people want to read it. Blogging (which is basically content marketing) is a way to do this. Mark talks about his own website statistics after starting to blog which also brought him more physical business. Artists and creatives, especially writers have an advantage in this model as search engines are text hungry. People link to words so if you can craft words, there is a huge opportunity to build your brand online.

• Create, don’t compete. You’re not actually in competition for the same $, the online world is all about sharing within a niche. If you get to know other people in the same area and then share and be generous, you will receive traffic from the others as well. It’s hard to understand, but blogging is a really generous and giving community. Being generous means everyone benefits. Traffic links everyone together. Online is also really social, as well as being good for business and you can meet people all over the world. Finding a community of like-minded people online is fantastic.
• Content marketing is also about integrity and authenticity, you can express yourself and your personality in your content whether it’s written, audio or video. It’s exciting and fun to be part of. Blogging can also be a place where discussions flourish in comments and you can connect with people personally.

• Intellectual property. How much do you give away and how much do you sell? Most creatives err on the side of being too cautious for fear of being plagiarized. BUT/ most writers problem is not piracy, but obscurity. It’s only by putting yourself out there can you actually be noticed and sell books. You need to make a distinction between what you give away and what you sell, but remember you need to be noticed first.

• On balancing time between being creative and time for marketing. Content marketing does take time and effort especially at the beginning when you see little returns. But with effective time management and productivity, you can do both. Understand what is your sacred time for writing, time for engagement and time for marketing. Once you get into marketing through content, you will find distinctions blur.

• The Creative Entrepreneur’s Roadmap is an e-learning program that covers aspects of content marketing, entrepreneurship and business building as well as emotional intelligence and motivation. You can find out more by downloading Mark’s free ebook “Freedom, Money, Time and the Key To Creative Success” – click here. (yes, I’m an affiliate and really enjoyed the course!)

You can find Mark at LateralAction.com and at his poetry blog MarkMcGuinness.com and also on twitter @markmcguinness

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We write for many reasons. Money is not usually the top of the list but we would all like to be rewarded for our work and financial success is certainly a great goal.

James Patterson is the highest earning author

Forbes.com released their list of the highest paid authors earlier this year. The top 10 earners were: James Patterson, Stephenie Meyer, Stephen King, Danielle Steel, Ken Follett, Dean Koontz, Janet Evanovitch, John Grisham, Nicholas Sparks, and JK Rowling

So what can we learn from them in terms of modeling success?

• Write a lot of books. James Patterson has had 51 NY Times bestsellers and churns out almost 1 book a month now with a number of collaborators. While you may not like his writing style, he is certainly successful in understanding books are a product. Write to a formula, get them out there and people will buy them. Most of these writers are prolific with Meyer and Rowling as outliers (see the next point!)

• Write a series. All of these writers have a series of books, some of them have multiple series with protagonists that people get to know and are keen to read the next installment about. Remember, it may take you a year to write a book, but it takes a real fan about 5 hours to read it. Then they want the next one! If you can hook people into your series, you will sell the rest of them to that reader and the books will keep selling.

• Know your brand and write in a genre. Each of these names is synonymous with a genre. You know what you are getting when you pick up a Stephen King or a Danielle Steel. If they write in other genres, they use another name. These authors are brand names, instantly recognizable products. You need to decide what your brand is and where you fit on a bookshelf. Do you fit next to Patterson or Rowling or Sparks?

• Understand it takes time. Most of the top 10 have been around for decades. Only Meyer and Sparks could be considered young authors, so it is encouraging to think that plugging away for years will eventually have some success. If James Patterson or Danielle Steel had given up after 2 books, would they be where they are now?

• Write popular fiction. This may be controversial but if you want to make money, you need to write for the masses and avoid literary fiction. There is a clear difference between a best-selling author versus a best writing author. One makes money, the other wins literary acclaim and prizes. You need to be clear what you are aiming for. (That doesn’t mean bestsellers are not well written. Many of them are and we should all aim to write well. It just means they are not considered “literary” by the critics).

• Create multiple streams of income. These authors do not just have physical books. Their ideas have been turned into other products including movies, merchandise, spin-off books, audio and digital products, games and even real world experiences (think Harry Potter world!). Yes, they are big names but you can create multiple streams of income for your books too.

What do you think about these top earners? Do you buy their books? How can you model their success?

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