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After more than a decade of releasing this show on Mondays, I’m moving it to Wednesdays, and this is the first episode of the new time slot.
On the one hand, this might sound like nothing at all, but it’s also a big deal, for you and for me, and in this episode, I explain why I'm making the change, and past guests give some tips on sustainable creativity for the long term.
Joanna Penn is an award-winning New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of thrillers, dark fantasy, short stories and travel memoir under J.F. Penn and also writes non-fiction for authors and hosts The Creative Penn Podcast.
- Why the podcast is moving to Wednesdays
- (1) Take time out to question what you’re doing
- (2) Learn to pivot if you want to keep going long term
(3) Set a sustainable pace, and don’t build reader expectations you can’t deliver on - (4) Don’t try to do it all, and try to identify the fear that might be driving your choices
- (5) Question what still serves you, especially as things continue to change
(6) Consider different approaches to creativity. It doesn’t have to be every day, or every week
(7) Creative humans evolve. Build a body of work for the long term.
You can find the backlist episodes at TheCreativePenn.com/podcast, just click into the episode to find the transcript.
Why The Podcast Is Moving To Wednesdays, And 7 Tips for Sustainable Creativity
Here’s my big news! After more than a decade of releasing this show on Mondays, I’m moving it to Wednesdays, and this is the first episode of the new time slot.
On the one hand, this might sound like nothing at all, but it’s also a big deal, for you and for me!
I know many of you have a routine of listening to the show during a certain thing on a Monday, so I’m sorry to have to disrupt that, and I hope I don’t lose you along the way — although I guess you could just save the episode for Monday!
For me, it’s a much bigger deal, because a Monday show has meant I have often recorded the intro and edited and scheduled the episode over the weekend.
The main reason is that I need to record in the mornings when I have energy and when the house is less noisy, since Jonathan is often on the phone since he works from home as well. So I would prepare the episode on Fridays, and I type out this intro before reading it, and source the news and my thoughts and all that — and then I’d record it Saturday morning, or Sunday morning if Saturday was busy — and so recently, I have felt like something has to change.
Moving the show to a Wednesday means that I can prep on Monday and Tuesday, which is perfect.
Its so funny because I agonised over this, in the same way I agonised over changing the theme tune a few years back. Some of you may remember that — and it also turned out to not be a big deal at all. We build things up in our minds and then sometimes the problem can be solved in a different way.
So instead of going to ad hoc episodes, or once every two weeks, I hope that moving to Wednesday makes the show more sustainable again, because let’s face it, there’s a lot going on, and if I did a show every 2 weeks, I might have to make them longer to get through everything!
So, same show, just on Wednesdays from now on.
And this change underscores what today’s episode is about: sustainable creativity over the long term.
How do you keep writing, and publishing, and podcasting — and creating for years — and I am now at two decades — without burning out, and without becoming a slave to the algorithm, or the market, or even your own audience’s expectations?
The goal is not to just survive this year’s release schedule, or to keep feeding the machine until you crumble under the speed of it all.
The goal is to still be creating, and still be enjoying it, next month, next year, in five years, in 10 years, in 20, in 30. Who knows how many years we all have left — but for sure, we are NOT machines, we are not AI — and we cannot churn it out – and what is the point of that anyway?
So in today’s show, I’ll share some thoughts and tips from me and also other authors from the show on this topic, and you can find the full episodes in the backlist, and links as ever in the show notes on TheCreativePenn.com/podcast
(1) Take time out to question what you’re doing
In early 2024, The Tim Ferriss Show, one of the biggest podcasts in the world, hit its ten-year anniversary with over a billion downloads and over 750 episodes, and Tim decided to take a sabbatical.
He paused the show for four months and seriously questioned whether to continue. Not because it was failing, it was hugely profitable and he enjoyed talking to people, but because the landscape had changed.
Podcasting had gone from a wide-open space in 2014 to a saturated market, and his question wasn’t “can I keep competing?” It was “is this still the game I want to play?”
Just a little note here, I started The Creative Penn Podcast in 2009 when there were even fewer shows so I know a lot about a changing podcast market!
After four months, Tim came back from what he called a sabbatical with a blog post on My New Rules for Podcasting — To Keep Things Interesting.
He starts with the sheer number of podcasts, saying,
“Having a good show is no longer good enough. Having a great show is no longer good enough. If you want to survive in the mindshare of listeners, you need differentiation.”
I think this is true for us as authors as well as podcasters, or YouTubers, or social media, or anything. But the good news is that your differentiation can be you.
Regular listeners will know that I have questioned ending the show over the years, worried that I was no longer useful, or that my voice no longer mattered when there are so many podcasts on similar topics. But after your wonderful feedback, and the fact that the show still gets a lot of downloads every week, and the growth in my Patreon Community, I don’t worry about that anymore. It’s unlikely that any of us will have a podcast as big as Tim Ferriss’s or sell as many books as The Four Hour Work Week, but that’s OK, because we are not Tim.
I am Jo Penn and you’re here because you find my take on the publishing industry is still useful in some way. When it’s not anymore, you will go elsewhere, and I find myself at peace with that.
Back to Tim’s article — he asks some questions of himself, including:
If I get to do this for another decade, or had to do this for another decade, what new rules might I create to keep it interesting?
Of course, we all have different ideas of what this means for us. And I have already implemented one of these rules, which is that I interview people on topics I find interesting. I frequently get pitched by more famous authors and bigger names, but most of the time I turn them down, and choose to talk to people who are not famous but are more interested in serving you, my audience, because that is the point of this show.
I also have people on that I enjoy talking to, because checking in with my friends while you listen in, can be useful too, since my friends are often authors who’ve been in the industry a while now. I have to make the interviews time that I find interesting or useful or fulfilling as well.
But the point is to stop and take time to consider what might need to change, even if you are really successful. You cannot be a slave to the algorithm, to the media, to your audience, for the long term. You have to put some circuit breakers in sometimes.
It’s the old adage about the small business. You have to work ON in the business, not just IN the business, which means you need to step away.
This does sometimes mean that you have to get away physically. I had this realisation while we were in Bruges in Belgium talking to Jonathan about what changes I could make because I just felt a lack of freedom — and freedom is my highest value, so I really need to honour that.
So, the first question for you is: If you feel like you need a change, if your routines are becoming too much, or your workload is too much, or you are eating into time you need for rest and recovery or family or whatever you need, can you schedule time out to have a think about what you need and how things can change?
You don’t need to burn it all down. You might find the answer is just moving the show from a Monday to a Wednesday!
(2) Learn to pivot if you want to keep going long term
I love talking to authors who have been doing this career for a long time, and in December 2025 in episode 839, I talked to Jennifer Probst, the New York Times bestselling romance author of more than sixty books, about why some authors build decades-long careers while others vanish after one breakout.
Jennifer has been through the indie gold rush, the fallout, traditional deals, Kickstarter, all of it, and I asked her how she thinks about how everything keeps changing, and we start with marketing but it goes much further than that.
***
Jo: In terms of how we do marketing, TikTok is still a thing, and we can see maybe generative AI search coming on the horizon and agentic buying. A decade ago it might have been different, more Facebook ads or whatever. Then before that it might have been something else. So there’s always things changing along the way.
Jennifer: Yes, there definitely is. It is a very oversaturated market. They talk about, I don’t know, 2010 to 2016 maybe, as the gold rush, because that was where you could make a lot of money as an indie. Then we saw the total fallout of so many different things.
I feel like I’ve gone through so many ups and downs in the industry. I do love it because the longer you’re around, the more you learn how to pivot. If you want this career, you learn how to write differently or do whatever you need to do to keep going, in different aspects, with the changes.
To me, that makes the industry exciting. Again, perspective is a big thing. But I have had to take a year to kind of rebuild when I was out of contract with a lot of things. I’ve had to say, “Okay, what do you see on the horizon now? Where is the new foundation? Where do you wanna restart?”
Sometimes it takes a year or two of, “Maybe I won’t be making big income and I cut back,” but then you’re back in it, because it takes a while to write a few new books, or write under a pen name, or however you want to pivot your way back into the industry.
Or, like you were saying, diversifying. I did a lot of non-fiction stuff because that’s a big calling for me, so I put that into the primary for a while.
I think it’s important for authors to maybe not just have one thing. When that one thing goes away, you’re scrambling. It’s good to have a couple of different things like, “Well, okay, this genre is dead or this thing is dead or this isn’t making money. Let me go to this for a little while until I see new things on the horizon.”
***
I love that from Jennifer, because there are always new things on the horizon, and we try new things and we pivot, and we bring in other streams of income as some drop off, and we go again and we keep creating. Authors with longevity are authors who pivot over their careers. They may lament the end of one era, but they don’t stop, they find a new way forward.
(3) Set a sustainable pace, and don’t build reader expectations you can’t deliver on
Kevin J. Anderson is one of the most productive writers alive, with hundreds of books, most of which he writes with dictation while out hiking, and he has been on this show many times.
In January 2025, in episode 791, we talked about building a long-term author business, and how authors need to be careful about setting reader expectations around pace of releases.
Kevin: Now, again, we get back to the longevity of a career. It is exhausting to write lots of books a year, and most people can’t keep doing that for 20 years or 30 years.
That’s one of the reasons, especially indie authors, where readers expect you to write several books a year. Some indie authors I know are writing a book a month. I couldn’t do that for any long period. Well, I couldn’t do that probably for a single year.
You start building expectations, and when you fail to meet those expectations, they will leave you very quickly. That’s why you should have Plan Bs.
If you really, really can’t stand writing your steampunk vampire romance series after book number 29, well, make sure that you have some other series you’re starting and building up.
Well, Hugh Howey’s got several series that are going. Michael Anderle has all kinds of series, and Craig Martelle has all kinds of series. You don’t just put all your eggs in one basket. You need to have Plan B and Plan C, to circle around to what I started with.
***
Whatever cadence you choose, for your books, your email newsletters, or or your podcast, or your social media, choose a pace you can still be keeping up in a decade, because this is a long term career, and longevity in the market is one of the most important things. It’s better to pace yourself than burn out.
(4) Don’t try to do it all, and try to identify the fear that might be driving your choices
I couldn’t do an episode on sustainability without Becca Syme!
Becca is an author coach who has worked with thousands of writers, she is the creator of the Better-Faster Academy and the Quit books, and the QuitCast podcast — and In January 2023, in episode 668, at the end of our conversation about intuitive writing and marketing, I asked her what authors who sustain long careers have in common.
***
Joanna: So in terms of sustainability, let’s talk about that. You coach writers every day, you see writers on every spectrum of every personality type, and people who write differently and release differently and publish differently. So what do you see as your recommendations or, I guess, commonalities for authors who want this sustainable career as a writer for the long term in order not to burn out? What are you seeing in terms of the best way to be sustainable in a creative career?
Becca: Conquering the fear that we have that we’re not going to get what we want out of the career, like 100%. Because the fear is the thing that’s driving us to burn ourselves out.
The fear that if I don’t do it this way, I’m not going to make money. If I don’t do it this way, I’m not going to have a long career. I’m going to miss out on something if I don’t do absolutely everything.
And then I think the most important knowledge that we can have is that everyone in this industry who’s a nonfiction person, including me, is giving you a perspective on how author life can be done.
Every single one of us, not the perspective on how it should be done in order to have success. And if we could just change our expectations of how we look at the people who are helping us who are being good, helpful people who are very sure that their way is the correct way and who should be, again, because like all experts, they’ve had success doing what they are doing.
But the downside is from someone whose job is to sit with authors for 45 minutes at a time, all day, every day, I see the outcome of the people who have tried to “do it all,” in quotes, with capital letters, and who are burned out because they were doing everything out of a fear place.
And I think one of the best things that can happen in our — and what burnout often does is it forces us to reckon with the fact that we were doing all of this because we were afraid. My book isn’t going to sell, I’m not going to be able to do this, I have this dream that I’m holding on to and what happens if it doesn’t manifest itself.
Then we make a lot of our decisions about how much to take on based on fear, and we don’t know it.
Because we don’t realize that our brains are wired for survival, and so anytime fear kicks in, your brain is like, well, we have to do that because if you’re afraid of it, then that must mean that we need it in order to survive. And we don’t.
We will survive if our books don’t sell.
We have to calm that fear and answer the question. Like, what will happen if in five years, I have not sold more than $1,000 on every book that I am writing? Like if each of the individual books that I write have not made more than $1,000. And I have to reckon with what might happen if that happens, because if I don’t, that fear is going to drive me to burnout over and over and over and over again.
That is why we’re making so many of our decisions, including: do I pay for this class or conference? Do I pay for this book? Do I spend money on this advertising? Do I hire this expert consultant?
So many of us are making those choices out of fear and we don’t realize it. And that’s why when we do our public live coaching, and whenever I’m at a conference, I’m always listening for, “but what are you afraid is not going to happen? Or what are you afraid is going to happen?”
Because if we don’t deconstruct that part of yourself and calm your survival mechanism down, you’re going to continue over and over again to make those decisions out of fear.
Then you’re going to not listen to your intuition because you think it’s risky to listen to it. And so I really think, and some of this might include therapy for some of us, I’m just going to acknowledge some of us have trauma around not getting what we want or around not actualizing our desires, and we can’t just talk ourselves into letting the fear go.
But some of us do just need to consistently confront the fear and make a plan for what happens and then act in spite of that fear because we are not making good decisions when we are in survival mode.
***
Becca is very wise, and also pretty hardcore! So if you feel like you are trying to do it all, and you are on the edge of burning out, can you identify the fear beneath it?
(5) Question what still serves you, especially as things continue to change
Sometimes we keep doing things the same way, even when things have changed.
What is lost if we give things up? What is gained? And what kind of game do you want to play?
In episode 845, Claire Taylor, humour and mystery author, owner of FFS Media, certified Enneagram coach, talks about how social media has changed and why she gave it up.
***
Joanna: One thing I know will have perked up people’s ears is: “I left social media.” Tell us a bit more about that.
Claire: This was a move that I could feel coming for a while. I didn’t like what social media did to my attention. Even when I wasn’t on it, there was almost a hangover from having been on it.
My attention didn’t feel as sharp and focused as it used to be, back before social media became what it is now.
So I started asking myself some questions: What is lost if I leave? What is gained if I leave? And what is social media actually doing for me today?
Because sometimes we hold on to what it used to do for us, and we keep trying to squeeze more and more of that out of it. But it has changed so much.
There are almost no places with sufficient organic reach anymore. It’s all pay-to-play, and the cost of pay-to-play keeps going up.
I looked at the numbers for my business. My Kickstarter was a great place to analyse that because they track so many traffic sources so clearly. I could see exactly how much I was getting from social media when I advertised and promoted my projects there.
Then I asked: can I let that go in order to get my attention back and make my life feel more settled? And I decided: yes, I can. That’s worth more to me.
Joanna: There are some things money can’t buy. Sometimes it really isn’t about the money. I like your question: what is lost and what is gained? You also said it’s all pay-to-play and there’s no organic reach. I do think there is some organic reach for some people who don’t pay, but those people are very good at playing the game of whatever the platform wants. So, TikTok for example—you might not have to pay money yet, but you do have to play their game. You have to pay with your time instead of money. I agree with you. I don’t think there’s anywhere you can literally just post something and know it will reliably reach the people who follow you.
Claire: Right. Exactly. TikTok currently, if you really play the game, will sometimes “pick” you, right? But that “pick me” energy is not really my jam.
And we can see the trend—this “organic” thing doesn’t last. It’s organic for now. You can play the game for now, but TikTok would be crazy not to change things so they make more money. So eventually everything becomes pay-to-play.
TikTok is fun, but for me it’s addictive. I took it off my phone years ago because I would do the infinite scroll. There’s so much candy there.
Then I’d wake up the next morning and notice my mood just wasn’t where I wanted it to be. My energy was low. I really saw a correlation between how much I scrolled and how flat I felt afterwards.
So I realised: I’m not the person to pay-to-play or to play the game here. I’m not even convinced that the pay-to-play on certain social media networks is being tracked in a reliable, accountable way anymore. Who is holding them accountable for those numbers?
You can sort of see correlation in your sales, but still, I just became more and more sceptical. In the end, it just wasn’t for me.
My life is so much better on a daily basis without it. That’s definitely a decision I have not regretted for a second.
****
To be clear, we’re not saying you should give up social media, but it’s about questioning how things make you feel, and what you can sustain and how you want to spend your time.
I did question once again whether to give up this show entirely, but it is an important part of my creative body of work, and quite frankly, I reach more people with the podcast than I do with my books, and I still love talking to people, and I learn, and it underpins my business.
I don’t do much social media though. I learn about AI things on X and I do post photos and things on Instagram but I don’t do much else. You have to decide what is right for you, but also, what is right for you might change over time. If we have a long term career, or a long term anything, things will change, and we will need to move on sometimes, or at least question whether it is still working in the way it used to.
(6) Consider different approaches to creativity. It doesn’t have to be every day, or every week.
In April 2026, in episode 858, I talked to Sara Rosett, USA Today bestselling mystery author and co-host of the Wish I’d Known Then podcast, about low-key marketing, and a more seasonal approach, or phased approach to podcasting as well as writing.
***
Jo: Although I must say I had forgotten about your Mystery Books podcast and going to seasonal. I also had my second podcast, Books and Travel, which is now on a kind of hiatus, but going to a seasonal approach is actually really interesting. Do you find that listeners come back to that podcast?
Sara: Yes, and it surprises me because I’ve always thought you have to be weekly with a podcast to gain any traction at all, which I think is the best way to do it. You can build an audience quickly then, but I just knew I couldn’t sustain that.
So when I set out, I started with maybe seven to ten episodes and I did them each year — each year has had a season — and I do five to ten episodes. Readers find it, and I have highlighted specific books. I think maybe they’re searching for a podcast about the Thursday Murder Club or something like that.
They find it that way, and I get downloads, just steady downloads throughout the year, and I don’t do much. I do some Pinterest pins for that, and that’s about all I do. This is one of those things — it’s the kind of low-key marketing that’s low threshold, but it does work.
I think if your readers are looking for stuff to listen to about the topic you write about, it could be a good way to do some low-cost, long-tail marketing. I love it. I keep doing it because I love it.
Jo: That just seems more sustainable to me. I didn’t like doing everything every day or every single week.
Sara: Me either. I like switching it up, and I do enjoy the different phases of writing. I like the research and then I like doing the — well, I don’t like the drafting that much, but once I get a draft done, I like the editing. And then when it comes time to promote it or do a special edition or whatever, I enjoy that part. Finding whatever I’m going to use for the interior photos and stuff — just things like that. I enjoy each phase and I like switching it out.
Jo: I think that’s really good. Some people think this writer’s life is you write new words every single day and you manage your ads every single day. That seems to be what some people do, but that’s certainly not us, is it?
Sara: No. And that’s great if you want to do that. I just don’t want to. And I think we’ve come to the point now where each person can do this as they want. Hopefully people don’t feel the pressure to meet these self-imposed deadlines or parameters that don’t exist. There’s no rules for writing or publishing. You can do whatever you want.
***
I am definitely a seasonal creator, I don’t write every day. I never have. I binge write when a book emerges, or binge create. As I record this I am working on the treatment and trailer for what is now called Cathedral Zero, a positive futurist sci-fi feature film that I am entering in the FutureVision X Prize in the next week or so, and then I will move to the next project. I also love Kickstarter launches for this reason. They feel much more sustainable because it’s such a focused marketing push.
My Books and Travel Podcast is still on hiatus, but I may still resurrect that at some point. I still feel the pull of it. And of course, this show remains weekly, but the Wednesday shift will hopefully help keep it this way. I can’t see me going seasonal with this, but never say never!
The main thing is to consider seasonality, or consider phased approaches to your work, rather than trying to do exactly the same thing week in week out.
(7) Creative humans evolve. Build a body of work for the long term.
Roz Morris first came on this podcast in 2011, and in March 2026, in episode 853 we talked about her memoir, discovery writing, and slow, sustainable book marketing. Roz is an award-nominated literary author and former bestselling ghostwriter, an editor and I always appreciate her perspective as she has been doing this far longer than I have.
****
JOANNA: Do you still actively choose indie for a particular reason?
ROZ: I do. I really like building my own body of work, and I’m now experienced enough to know what I do well, what I need advice with, and help with. I mean, we don’t do all this completely by ourselves, do we? We bring in experts who will give us the right feedback if we’re doing a new genre or a genre that’s new to us.
I choose indie because I like the control. Because I began in traditional publishing—I was making books for other people—I just learned all the trades and how to do everything to a professional standard. I love being able to apply that to my own work.
I also love the way I can decide what I’m going to write next. If I was traditionally published, I would have to do something that fitted with whatever the publisher would want of me, and that isn’t necessarily where my muse is taking me or what I’ve become interested in.
I think creative humans evolve throughout their lives. They become interested in different things, different themes, different ways of expressing themselves. I began by thinking I would just write novels, and now I’ve found myself writing memoirs as well.
That shift would have been difficult if someone else was having to make me fit into their marketing plans or what their imprint was known for. But because I’ve built my own audience, I can just bring them with me and say, “You might like this. It’s still me. I’m just doing something different.”
****
Inspiring words from Roz there —
“It’s still me, I’m just doing something different.”
And indeed, I am a very different Jo from the new author who started this podcast back in March 2009. I have evolved and this show has evolved and this is not the end, it is a new phase. It’s funny because it’s just a shift of two days, but it also breaks a habit, for you listening and for me creating. It changes a time slot, and that itself can be a way to change energy, to change direction, to shift what matters and how we do things.
So that’s what I want to leave you with today. A question around how shifting something, even something small, might make a big difference to your creative body of work, the quality of time you have for yourself or your family, and I’d love to know what you think about today’s episode and what we covered, as well as your thoughts on the Wednesday shift.
Please leave a comment on the show notes, or the YouTube channel, or email me. I will see you next Wednesday, so happy writing and I’ll see you next time!