While non-fiction books don't have to be related to a business, if you have an existing client base, or speaking platform, or you want to build one, a book can be a great way to build authority, bring in new work, and even generate income.
I was interviewed by Liz Scully on The Biz Book Broadcast about How to Write Non-Fiction and you can listen below or on your favourite podcast player. The show notes and transcript are below.
The Second Edition of How to Write Non-Fiction: Turn Your Knowledge Into Words is out now.
Show notes:
- If you're struggling to start writing, use your existing assets and expertise, such as slide decks, talks, or podcasts, as a foundation for your first book.
- You can also use dictation or ask ChatGPT or Claude to generate questions or prompts about your topic and build from transcripts or notes as you answer each question
- Focus on serving your target audience, solving their problems
- Consider multiple shorter, focused books rather than trying to include everything.
- Books can establish authority, serve as a marketing tool, and generate significant revenue, especially in print and audio formats
- Non-fiction books can be priced higher and sell well over time, benefiting from a long-tail income model
- Readers value personal stories and unique perspectives—elements AI cannot replicate effectively so your book will stand out
- The long game of publishing: Think beyond the first month’s sales and consider how a book can continually bring in income and opportunities over years.
- Reader engagement: Use compelling calls to action in your book, such as offering valuable, updated content to grow your email list and audience.
Transcript:
Liz: Hello and welcome to The Biz Book Broadcast. If you've got a business and you love books, then you, my lovely book nerd chum, are in exactly the right place. And have we got a show for you today? Woo hoo. It's gonna be great. I'm Liz Scully, I'm a business strategist, and today I have Joanna Penn with me. Hello. Please say hello to the lovely listener.
Jo: Hello, Liz. Hello everyone. I'm excited to be here.
Liz: Exactly. Now for you, lovely listener. This is part of our December daily sessions. I know doing this without a net, my friends. It is also part of our Biz Book series, meaning that you should really write a book for your business.
It'll do it the world of good. Now, if you have been listening carefully and why would you not be? Then you'll know that this whole series is really a thinly veiled attempt for me to get extra coaching about my book, Think Like a Film Crew, out soon. That's all I'm willing to commit to at this point.
Let me tell you a bit more about Joanna Penn because she is something of a phenomena. She is a prolific author of many genres of fiction [as J.F. Penn]. She has written many, many helpful nonfiction books, mostly advice for authors. She's a successful podcaster. She's a speaker, she's a futurist, and she's a delight.
How lovely is that? I'm so glad you're here, Joanna.
Jo: Thanks, this is a great topic as well. I love talking about books. I am total book nerd as you are!
Liz: Superb. Now you may have heard Joanna Penn's name before on this show where we did a show about her book Audio for Authors with the lovely Kathryn Goldman. Do go back and check that that was mostly about the legal side of things, but you'll want to listen to that.
Today we are discussing her book, How to Write Nonfiction, Turn Your Knowledge into Words, and we all want that. We all want that. It covers all the bases from first principles all the way to launch.
It's super clear. It's a really solid handbook. Truly, if you only read one book on the topic, this could do you very well —
and it's a really good first place to start.
And if you've been thinking, you know, maybe 2025 is the year I write that book. This could be a fabulous starting place. And the holidays, most of us are on holiday. This is quite a good time to really dig on that. We've even got an episode coming during this daily series on writer's blog.
So if you read Joanna's book and then you get started and you get stuck. Look for that. Joanna, you must speak to thousands of authors and they are presumably by the time they're speaking to you, they're interested in writing a book.
Where do people start if they want to write a book?
Jo: I think the biggest thing is actually starting, and when we're talking about writing a book, we are actually talking about writing words on a page.
But I think what is wonderful about these days of technology, and I know a lot of business people, for example, might be speakers. They might have loads of slide decks, or they might have talks they've done, they might have podcast interviews like this. They might have just lots of things that they might have recorded in audio or video. You can start with a transcript.
In fact, the [first edition of the] book, How to Write Non-Fiction, started with transcripts of a course I taught.
This is a big tip for nonfiction writers because especially if you've never written a book before, 'cause it can be so daunting to think, how do I get everything into a final form? Well, you don't. That's not the step you take.
You don't go from brain to finished product immediately. You have to start somewhere.
I'm a discovery writer. Some people are plotters or planners. You don't have to design the book from the bottom up or the top down. You can just as I do — have a kind of chaotic process of material, which you then shape into a book over time.
But in terms of starting, it really is just write something or record something. One of the tips I have now —
With AI, with ChatGPT, you can say, ask me 30 questions on this topic.
For example, I'm thinking of a book about money for creative people. So give me 30 questions about money for creative people, and then I can take those questions, I can then record myself talking about them.
I can get those transcribed, start there. So I think that that would probably be the easiest way. Just get something down and go from there.
Liz: I love that idea of going to ChatGPT for questions, not for your content, listener. No, not for the content. Please don't do that. I think we'll be reading a lot of, or avoiding a lot of books that are written like that.
But the questions, I think that's a really solid place to start. Maybe we need to actually move back a step before the starting writing.
So you are an expert, you've got a business, you know you want to write a book of some sort.
How do you choose your exact subject?
Because I think a lot of first time writers sort of put everything into that first book and, and please don't do that. How do you choose which bit?
Jo: Yes, I think you're right. And I mean, you can write your magnum opus, but it'll take a long time and it might not find a market.
For me, I think the main thing is —
Focus on who are you trying to serve in terms of your target market.
And this doesn't have to be hard because if you have a business already, you already have a target market.
They are your clients and your customers and, and for me, writing my first books around helping authors was because I'm an author and it was like, ‘oh, this is what I've learned.'
So the first book you write could be something you've learned that you know your audience need. And most people are running a business based on their own experience.
I would say, for example, my money book. It's just an idea, it would be, okay, what are the struggles I've had around money? How can I turn that into something that will help others? So that would be the, the first thing is like —
What do my existing clients have problems with?
And then can you then kind of chunk that down into different things.
Because you can have a series of shorter books, which can help.
For example, I have How to Write Non-Fiction, How to Write a Novel, Audio for Authors, I have lots of these different things about the job of being an author. And again, that can be a way for people to look at the different aspects and their different clients and aim towards serving them.
Liz: I like that. I'm a great believer in very short books as well. I would encourage everyone to keep things short.
And I think I've been reading for, for this show, I've been reading books that are even just maybe 10 years old, and there's a definite drift from those longer nine or 10 hours in the audio book to books that are about five hours long.
I think more of us want a quick read that is going to upload a whole stack of information for us.
And that's where your books really do well because you have a book for every problem. I like that.
Jo: That although you say that the, this book, How to Write Non-Fiction is 60,000 words.
You can change up how long it feels by having short, well organized chapters.
Each, chapter answers a specific question.
And then people, and especially I'm an audio listener, I know you are as well, on Spotify particularly, you can just go in and you can just listen to a chapter on something. You don't even have to get the whole audio book anymore.
I kind of think that way. And also when I get an audiobook, I might delve into the table of contents and go find the answer to that problem. So I think that's the way to think about it. Even if, 'cause I wanted to serve the entire market with this book, so it is longer. I do have shorter books.
Sometimes a book does need to be a bit longer, so I wouldn't constrain yourself at least at the beginning.
Then obviously if it's over-filled with stuff, then maybe you don't need it. But I do think there's room for books of different lengths.
Liz: Absolutely. I'm slightly resistant to very long books, but yes, you are right.
So we've talked about starting now, obviously as you know —
I think of a book as a tool, as a strategy, as a way to fill the constellation of information around you and your business and to draw more people to you.
I'm writing my book specifically as a strategy, but just before we started recording, you pointed out that the book itself could actually be a decent source of revenue.
I'm only currently just beginning to get to grips with this. 'cause it sort of never occurred to me. Not that people would read it, but like, oh yeah, a lot of people might buy it. It's a new thought.
Jo: And I think this is really important because I do think —
You should design a book to make money, and that will mean that you get revenue from it as well as the revenue from the other things.
And personally, most of my revenue does come from books. So that is something I think you have to decide.
You are never going have significant revenue really with one book. But if you're someone who writes that book and you're like, oh, actually I got the writing bug, and that's what happened to me.
I wrote my first one called Career Change, and I was like ‘oh, I think I might just write books for a living.'
But I think with nonfiction books in particular, firstly —
People pay more money for nonfiction books, so you can price a nonfiction book at the highest rate —
Like 9.99 on amazon.com if you're self-publishing to get 70% royalty.
Nonfiction, self-help audio books are huge. I make most of my audiobook revenue from nonfiction.
As you said, they're shorter, so they're cheaper to produce because each audio hour is about 9,000 words so you can make money from Audible and Spotify and all these places from people who want to listen to your audio, that of course they might go on and buy other things. But I do think people should consider that.
Also as a speaker, you can do back of the room sales. You can do print runs, you can make good money on print books and doing them as part of those talks.
Or for example, I have a Shopify store, CreativePennBooks.com, I make good money selling print books, bundles. You can do workbooks, you can do all kinds of things that are book related that are not passive for sure, but they might be a lot more passive income than doing client facing work.
Liz: Interesting because I know in my mind that most people only sell, what, a couple hundred books at most. That's your average mid-list. Sales are very low, and I'm making the book as readable and delightful as possible, but I'm just becoming aware that it could be more than just a calling card.
It could be more than just to get me on the big stages. So this is really inspiring.
Jo: And also this is really important too. Maybe you sell 200 in the first week or month, but I've been doing this since 2008. I put my first book out and there are some of my books that may have only sold 200 copies a month for like 15 years and therefore you end up making a lot more money.
The most important thing with book income is you are not thinking about it as revenue only in month one. You are thinking about it on that long, long tail.
And of course, as we've discussed, non-fiction books in January, woohoo. The new new start, new January nonfiction books sell a ton.
Over the summer it might drop off and fiction rises, but this is where, what you've gotta think is the book, once it's done, once you've done the very best job, you can pay for an editor, pay for cover design, get it out there.
Publishing is not difficult. Marketing is, but —
Once it's out there, then you can keep selling that book for a very, very long time.
Liz: That's a really good point. How many books have you written?
Jo: I have over 40 books now across fiction and nonfiction, plus short stories. Some of those are short, some of those are longer, some of those are series.
But I love writing and like I said, I've been doing this since 2008, was my first book that I put out there and also I run my own publishing company. So as a business person, as everyone listening is —
When I looked at the publishing industry and saw the margins and where the money went, I was like, oh, I guess I'll just start another company.
'cause I ran my own company at the time. So I have my own publishing house, which is why I make more money with my book sales than someone who might use a publisher.
Obviously there's pros and cons. We're not talking necessarily talking about publishing, but I think that is part of the money angle, and what you want to achieve with the book. What is your definition of success? But please don't write off the money!
Liz: No, no, I feel rather foolish now. One of the big things that is important to me is that people will read the book and will hopefully enter my world in some manner.
The most obvious way I would love lovely readers to do is to give me their email so that we can start a conversation. Obviously what is much more likely is they might seek out this radio show and then hopefully do it that way.
But I think you must have seen this too, people, we all are much less keen to hand over an email for the most interesting opt-in. I mean, I still think, do I really want that though?
You must have seen this shift. 'cause it used to be, oh, slap any old PDF together and people will want it. How do you entice people now?
Jo: From day one, I've had the same call to action, which is what I call my Author Blueprint, which is about mindset, self-publishing, marketing, writing.
It's like everything, bits of my entire knowledge, and I update that every six months.
That's the call to action in the back of every single nonfiction book, every episode of my podcast. It's on my social media. It's on everything.
And so I actually haven't seen a drop off. I've seen that pretty much consistently for all the years, and as I said, I rewrite it every six months and then I send it out because the publishing industry changes, I change, but then I'll send it out to my existing list and they'll be like, oh yeah, I haven't read that for a couple of years, and they'll read it again.
It's like a 50 page book. It's a short book. It actually is in paperback because some people wanted it in paperback, but it's a free ebook. So that is what I do.
What I would say is you can give away the farm in your freebie and in your books and people still want more.
I think what's interesting for your business and your book, Think Like a Film Crew is what ties the book to the clients that you want to attract into your ecosystem that links the two. For me it was quite obvious.
And so that would be my advice for people is —
When you're thinking about an email list growth strategy, what is the thing that those people do want?
Mine is obvious. After you write a nonfiction book, you want know more about publishing, marketing, that kind of thing, but as you say, listening to a podcast is also good. But many people listening won't want to start their own podcast like you and I.
Liz: True. So actually what I've been planning, and I'd love your thoughts on this.
What I've been planning is I know that audio books are really helpful. I would love to have an audiobook of my own, because I know how valuable it is. Trouble is, I'm dyslexic and I read like a somewhat stilted 12-year-old.
I go from this perfectly normal flowing adult to this rather stilted reading. So the way I thought to get rounds that was to, there's lots of very short chapters in my book, was to pick 10 of the more interesting and also short chapters that I would read and to create a show like this.
I would read a tiny part of it, the first chapter, and then we would discuss it with an expert and I would make maybe 10 of those. Five of them I would broadcast, but you could only get the other five if you opted in.
Jo: I quite like that. But, first of all —
I do think you should record your own audio book because you are an audio person. You are the voice brand.
It doesn't matter because when we write nonfiction books, they should be written in our ‘voice.'
I believe in editing for audio. So I often, when I'm reading my books, narrating them and I have an audio thing in my house right next to me here so that I can mess up as much as I like because it is hard to read one.
But if you are a voice talent, then people want your voice. It doesn't matter what you think.
It's not about you, it's about your audience. What do they want?
So that is my challenge to you.
But also in terms of your reader magnet being audio, then yes, but you want people to buy your book. So, if people are reading in ebook or print —
Print is huge for nonfiction. It is massive. Most people are going to buy it in print or they're going to get the audiobook, or they do both.
I quite listen quite often, will listen to an audio book and buy the hard copy.
Liz: Me too.
Jo: So I think you want something else. I would consider doing something like even just a 20 lessons learned from … for you because there must be some gossip in here. Keep some gossip behind the scenes.
People want the personal stuff or some real juicy thing that people want to know more about you behind the scenes.
This is another tip for nonfiction authors —
You have to get personal. We cannot have emotionless person-less books that do just lists of how to because AI can do that.
And that to me now reads like an AI book. It can do self-help. What it can't do is you, it can't do your experience —
and well, it can do your voice actually. But I do think that like you'll giggle and you know my laugh and I mean, I say to my audience, look, I will tell you when it's AI Jo. And it isn't AI Joe at the moment, this is me.
Think about what the audience might want the most rather than what you would prefer to create. Is that too much of a challenge?
Liz: No, that's fair. To be fair, I have a whole strategy. Obviously I'm a strategist. I have a whole strategy for where I wish to funnel people afterwards.
You've got me thinking, I have to say. You've got me thinking. It's good. It's my job and my plan for my book is that people will read it, want more in my world, and eventually they will join a mastermind. So I have a whole structure to move people towards that.
I hear you about the dyslexia. Okay. Okay. You've convinced me.
Now I know that one of the things that we, that may well be top of mind for our lovely listener is that yes, they want to write a book. Yes, they've got a business. Yes, they can see how it all fits together. But a lot of people, including you, they've written a lot of books, which is fine. Lovely for you. But what about the rest of us?
Is it okay to just write one book and leave it at that?
Jo: Yes, absolutely. And this is where it comes down to what's your definition of success.
If it is purely to drive business into other parts of your business, then often those people do only write one book. Sometimes one book really does take off, you know, James Clear with Atomic Habits. I think he has another book now, but I mean, that just went stratospheric.
So one book can do incredibly well. It can give you keynote talks. It can do a lot.
But as I said earlier, this kind of bug of ‘I really enjoy writing and I want to do more.' I think everyone has a default mode of trying to help, and some people might feel like this is it for them, basically. And then I would encourage you to do more because, I think it's wonderfully fulfilling to help people through your books.
You can help a lot of people through a podcast, but there's a whole different audience out there for your books.
Liz: That's very true. So when you wrote your first book, did you have any idea it was going be your thing?
Jo: No. My first book was called Career Change, and it was because I was so miserable in my day job.
I was an IT consultant, I was crying at work. I hated it. I needed to get out. And I was like, how do I do this? I know, I'll try and figure it out by writing a self-help book, get a book deal, and be famous and make millions — and that didn't happen surprisingly but —
The book you write can change your life. It may not be in the way you think
— and it wasn't for me because that book didn't do very well. It never did very well. You know, it sells a little bit all the time. But I discovered I didn't want to talk about career change. I didn't want to be that consultant person. I didn't want to speak on that topic.
I did want to write more books. I did want to write fiction and it's completely changed my life.
That's another thing I would say to people. If you start writing something and it turns into something else, trust your intuition.
Because yes, you can aim for it to grow your business or whatever, but in the process of writing, you might actually be transformed and you may discover something about your new direction that you didn't know before, and that might be the thing that changes your life.
Liz: Interesting, interesting. How long did your first book take you to write?
Jo: Probably about 18 months, but I'll give you another one. My book Pilgrimage took around four years. That's a kind of memoir/solo walking book.
And my book Writing The Shadow, which is about the Jungian shadow side, the writing took decades.
Liz: I feel better about that.
Jo: I mean, I've written books in six weeks, but it really depends on how deep you go, how much meaning there is to you.
Is it a ‘this is what you need to do' type of book and that is fine. That is all good. Those books are great. But if it's a book where you are sharing a lot more personal stories, mining your subconscious and your memories and you're trying to do a transformational journey — like my book, Pilgrimage is a transformational journey — It can take a lot longer if you have to do research. Again, let it be what it is.
Liz: Right. Oh, I like that. Do you have a favorite book? Of all of them. With so many, is there one that stands out?
Jo: That's really hard. In terms of my nonfiction, I do think Writing the Shadow feels like almost my last word on the craft. The subtitle is Turn Your Inner Darkness Into Words. It's all about the darker side of us. And I know your other business understands a lot about that.
Some of the things we repress are the things that can actually change our lives.
I feel like that book helped transform me, and helps my fiction so much. So I really think that it's an interesting thing to consider these longer works. Also, I didn't feel ready, so this is another tip.
If you don't feel ready to write this massive thing that you want to maybe try and write that short 20,000 word tips book, like 20 tips can be very valuable. And then think about those deeper works maybe over the longer term.
Liz: I. That is great. And actually, interestingly enough, I do have other books planned, hopefully, if I could ever get this word outta the system. But I think of as a thinker, these are my ideas, this is how it helps.
But I am planning two books afterwards, which are on How to Run Masterminds, and exactly as you're saying, to keep them short, I'm thinking How to Sell a Mastermind as one book and How to Run a Mastermind is the other.
Jo: Oh, great. That's fantastic.
Liz: I would like them to be as short as possible 'cause I dunno about you. Maybe you have a higher tolerance, but for me, if I'm listening to an audio book and they're just rambling on, I'd just like to throttle the author. I,
Jo: I put it on 1.5 speed.
Liz: I listen at 2.3 as my standard and I still find myself thinking, oh, this has been going on forever.
Jo: Well, this is another tip around the chapters.
On an audio book player, the chapters should have a decent title, so I know where to skip on to.
I think that's actually really important.
Liz: Yes, that is true, and I find it slightly shameful that not everything is published like that at the moment because really, oh, I know, we're in the modern world. People, give it a proper name.
Now we are nearly at the end of our time together, but Joanna has set us up beautifully for two things. First of all, that her favorite book is the book that we are going to talk about next time. I'm very excited about that. Thank you so much.
But also, I want to leave you listener with a big idea.
The big thing that I think I have taken away from this conversation is that use ChatGPT to find those questions about your topic.
Such a good idea. So I suggest that if you're thinking of writing a book, do what Joanna said. In fact, actually I'll just suggest that anyway.
Do what Joanna says is a fairly good plan for life, I suspect. In the meantime, where can people find out more about you and your world?
Jo: Yeah, come on over to The Creative Penn Podcast since you are listening to this and you can find everything I do at TheCreativePenn.com.
Liz: Excellent and all that will of course be in the show notes and while you're getting things you know listener, if somehow you still haven't got my reading list, go and get it. It's best in Class books. My little mission in life with this show is to save you from reading awful books. All of those long, tedious ones, they're not on the list. It's about 12. They're fabulous. Go and get it. Once again, thank you so much for being here, Joanna.
Jo: Oh, thanks for having me, Liz.
Liz: It's been a delight and thank you listener.
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