OLD POST ALERT! This is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date. Please click on Start Here on the menu bar above to find links to my most useful articles, videos and podcast. Thanks and happy writing! – Joanna Penn
Happy Holidays everyone!
Here are some of the books I've enjoyed or found useful this year: some are useful for writers, others may change your life, then I list some of the stories I've enjoyed as well as some of the books I've published this year that you might enjoy or find useful! I'd love to hear from you about recommended books from 2014, so please add a comment at the bottom and join the conversation!
Useful for writers
This is another must read from Kris, whose business books for authors are fantastic. It will help you if you have any issues with finishing or self-doubt and will help you reflect on what READERS want, instead of what writers and editors want.
Launch: An internet millionaire's secret formula to sell almost anything online, build a business you love and live the life of your dreams – Jeff Walker
Lots of info for the newbie & the experienced internet entrepreneur. I came away with loads of notes and ideas – just ignore the over salesy bits and dig through to the gold.
This book has been recently updated in the Kindle format, and contains some fantastic insight into what you need to have longevity as a writer, based on David's 30+ years as a writer. There's also a great chapter on film rights from David's experience with Rambo, based on his book, First Blood.
Building an audience as you learn – it's how I started this site, and what Kleon recommends in this great book.
Change your life
Wise and heartbreaking, these letters and responses bring compassion in a wide breadth of human experience and emotion.
In finishing it, I'm ready to restart.
I read Tony Robbins' self-help books when I was trying to change my life in 2006/2007 and his message of empowerment is the driver behind my own optimism and pursuit of the dream. In fact, I started professional speaking because I wanted to BE the next Tony Robbins – I'd like to think I am one of the inspirational voices in the indie movement at least!
This book on money is his first book in 20+ years and his decision to research and write it was sparked by the generally inept way that governments have dealt with the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis. This is a massive book, but it will truly help you take control of your finances. I've been reading it slowly since it came out in November and intend to make a plan to implement its advice in 2015. As author-entrepreneurs, we care about money: we want to make it and use it to help our families and others as well as have a good life. This book will help. It's not an easy read despite the word ‘simple' in the title, but some of the aspects inside may have a huge impact on your future quality of life. It's worth investing the time.
Fiction I've enjoyed this year
I like my stories pretty dark, so these won't be everyone's cup of tea 🙂 For more of the fiction I enjoy reading, check my list of books I love here or check out my reading list on Goodreads.
Secret service agent Ethan Burke arrives in Wayward Pines, Idaho, with a clear mission: locate and recover two federal agents who went missing in the bucolic town one month earlier. But within minutes of his arrival, Ethan is involved in a violent accident. He comes to in a hospital, with no ID, no cell phone, and no briefcase. The medical staff seems friendly enough, but something feels…off. Each step closer to the truth takes Ethan further from the world he thought he knew, from the man he thought he was, until he must face a horrifying fact—he may never get out of Wayward Pines alive.
When the twist comes in this book, you won't be able to stop reading the rest of the series. Will soon be a TV show, so read the book before you know what happens!
An unlikely trio must form an alliance to save a kidnapped young girl and untangle a nefarious plot that reaches back decades.
Daniele Barbo, the genius webmaster and creator of Carnivia, has never let the government access his servers, and finding the missing girl is not his problem. But then secrets from Italy’s dark wartime past begin to surface—revelations that could put them all in danger. To save his own skin, Daniel must decide how far he’s willing to let them in.
Brings Venice to life from a really interesting perspective, with great characters and I love the Carnivia website world.
The Four Horsemen are at the gate in Justice, Kentucky.
Reporters Daniel “Diggs” Diggins and Erin Solomon travel to Kentucky to look into the bizarre ritual murder of one of Diggs' oldest friends. But that single death is hardly the only bizarre occurrence in Justice: soon, power outages, explosions, standoffs, and conspiracy rock the small town, and fundamentalist preacher Jesup T. Barnel claims he knows the reason for the madness: The end times are upon them, and judgment comes fast and furious as the clock winds down.
I like my thrillers with a religious edge, and Jen's books deliver this every time.
Beatrix Rose was the most dangerous assassin in an off-the-books government kill squad until her former boss betrayed her. A decade later, she emerges from the Hong Kong underworld with payback on her mind. They gunned down her husband and kidnapped her daughter, and now the debt needs to be repaid. It’s a blood feud she didn’t start but she is going to finish.
Beatrix has already crossed one name off her Kill List. Her second target is a mercenary being held hostage by Somali terrorists. Can she infiltrate the most dangerous failed state on the planet and scrub him off the List, too?
Kick ass female protagonist – need I say more!
This is not a zombie book. This is a different sort of tale. It is a story about the unfortunate, about those who did not get away. It is a human story at its rotten heart. It is the reason we can't stop obsessing about these creatures, in whom we see all too much of ourselves.
The book Hugh doesn't want you to read! This is definitely very dark – you have been warned. I don't read many zombie books but this one is more about free will, or lack of it. Will make you think – but don't read after eating too much Xmas pud.
When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike.
When Quine is found brutally murdered under bizarre circumstances, it becomes a race against time to understand the motivation of a ruthless killer, a killer unlike any Strike has encountered before…
Full of observations about the media and publishing industry, which of course, JK Rowling knows all about! I love Cormoran and his sidekick Robin, a fantastic new series.
The brilliants changed everything.
Since 1980, 1% of the world has been born with gifts we’d only dreamed of. The ability to sense a person’s most intimate secrets, or predict the stock market, or move virtually unseen. For thirty years the world has struggled with a growing divide between the exceptional…and the rest of us.
Now a terrorist network led by brilliants has crippled three cities. Supermarket shelves stand empty. 911 calls go unanswered. Fanatics are burning people alive.
Technothriller-ish with a touch of sci-fi.
Jack Sigler, Callsign: King, has been a lot of things in his life. A soldier, a father, a hero. But now he’s taking up a new title: guardian. After a life fighting billionaire madmen, terrorists and unnatural threats, he’s stuck thousands of years in the past, using his knowledge of history and modern warfare to right wrongs and stand up for those in need.
When he meets a twelve year old boy—the prince of the Babylonian Empire—who is to be sacrificed to the ancient goddess, Tiamat, by a twisted High Priest, King steps in, sword swinging. But what starts as a simple snatch and grab, quickly turns into a pitched battle against a legion of men and hideous creatures. As Tiamat rises from her ancient resting place, the fate of the world—and King’s future—is at stake.
If you want pure escapist fun, Robinson always delivers! Plus, I have a degree in Theology and studied the ancient Babylonians so this was interesting from another perspective.
Oh yes, and here are the books I've published this year, in case you'd like to try one of these!
Day of the Vikings
A ritual murder on a remote island under the shifting skies of the aurora borealis. A staff of power that can summon Ragnarok, the Viking apocalypse.
As the slaughter begins, Morgan works alongside psychic Blake Daniel to discern the past of the staff, dating back to islands invaded by the Vikings generations ago.
Can Morgan and Blake uncover the truth before Ragnarok is unleashed, consuming all in its wake?
Day of the Vikings is a fast-paced, action adventure thriller set in the British Museum, the British Library and the islands of Orkney, Lindisfarne and Iona. Set in the present day, it resonates with the history and myth of the Vikings.
Day of the Vikings features Dr. Morgan Sierra from the ARKANE thrillers, and Blake Daniel from the London Mysteries, but it is also a stand-alone novella that can be read and enjoyed separately.
Available in ebook, print or audiobook formats – details here. Or buy here on Amazon.
Delirium. London Psychic Book 2
“Those who the Gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.”
As the body count rises, and those she loves are threatened, Jamie discovers that the tendrils of conspiracy wind themselves into the very heart of the British government. Can she stop the killer before madness takes its ultimate revenge?
A thriller with an edge of the supernatural, Delirium is a story of love for family, revenge for injustice and the question of whether we all sit on the spectrum of madness somewhere.
Available in ebook, print or audiobook formats – details here. Or buy here on Amazon.
Are you ready to take the next step in your author journey?
Art for the sake of art is important. Writing for the love of it, or to create something beautiful on the page, is absolutely worthwhile and critical to expand the sum of human expression.
But I’m not here to talk about creativity or the craft of writing in this book. My aim is to take the result of your creativity into the realm of actually paying the bills.
˃˃˃ To take you from being an author to running a business as an author.
Available in ebook, print or audiobook formats – details here. Or buy here on Amazon.
Plus, thrillers in German, Spanish and Italian
Pentecost. Ein ARKANE thriller. German.
Mysteriöse Kräfte wurden 2000 Jahre lang geheim gehalten.
Eine Frau ist in Gefahr, alles zu verlieren.
Available in ebook, print or audiobook formats – details here. Or buy here on Amazon.
Un poder mantenido en secreto durante 2000 años. Una mujer que podría perderlo todo.
Available in ebook, print or audiobook formats – details here. Or buy here on Amazon.
Der Tod ist erst der Anfang!
Available in ebook, print or audiobook formats – details here. Or buy here on Amazon.
Non sempre la morte è la fine.
Available in ebook, print or audiobook formats – details here. Or buy here on Amazon.
View Comments (1)
Thanks for this great list. I LOVED your business book for authors (and will go back and re-read it to really absorb it more fully soon). Also, I wanted to thank you for the recommendation in that book to read "The Compound Effect." I'm getting so much out of this and have already recommended it to a friend.
Thanks for all you do, Joanna, for all of us authors. I hope your holidays are magnificent and the year ahead is full of happy, new adventures and much success.