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I love the New Year! It really is my favorite time of the year and I kick up a notch in terms of getting new projects started as well as finishing up anything left over from last year. 2020 also feels special because it's the start of a new decade and I am truly excited about the opportunities ahead.

In this episode, I'll share my goals for the year ahead in the hope that it will help you decide on how to shape your year.

 

(1) Operation Evergreen

I'm 45 this year, and The Creative Penn business and website have been the core of my last decade. I left my consulting job in 2011 so the business has made it through the tough initial years to a point of maturation. It's time to take things to the next level as well as make sure the fundamentals remain intact so the business can continue successfully.

After a decade in any career, things can stagnate, so you have to change things up over time. You also have to set things in place for long-term success so you can see options for the future. Like any job, you have to put money away for the future, invest and make sure you have choices. Because change is inevitable.

Most of the people I have met along the creative journey so far have disappeared down other paths. There are few of us still going after more than a decade — and most of us have multiple streams of income. For some people that means a day job; for others, it means a huge backlist of books spread across multiple genres; and for me, it's making sure that no single company controls the income for my business.

I'm diversified in my income streams and also in my investments, plus I have an eye on the future in terms of what disruption lies ahead. I have managed to thrive in the last decade of upheaval to the indie author business model, and I intend to surf the wave, rather than drown in it in the years to come.

So, I've decided to make Operation Evergreen my main focus for 2020 because long-term thinking brings a perspective to my day to day work and impacts what I choose to spend my time on. (More on that in Productivity for Authors, which is mostly about choosing what is really important!)

Physical health:

Even after improving my working practices over the last decade and co-writing The Healthy Writer, I still managed to end up with chronic pain in my shoulder in 2019. The specialist told me it was postural, a result of 20+ years hunched over and I had to retrain my back muscles in order to avoid it happening again. I started working with a personal trainer twice a week and am now pain-free, as well as changing my diet to reduce inflammation (low sugar, low GI). I'm lifting weights and I love my workouts. I am a strong woman in my mid-40s and getting stronger!

I'm really happy with the results and it's only the beginning of this shift. I'm stronger and feel fantastic, and I want to be away from my desk a lot more, which can only be healthier for the long-term. That glimpse of chronic pain was enough to scare me into making health my #1 priority. It is the most evergreen thing I can focus on for long-term sustainability, so in 2020, I will continue with my personal trainer, and in my 45th year, I intend to be in the best physical shape of my life. I have booked to do the 100km Race to the Stones in July, so that will be a good comparison to when I did it in 2016. [Yes, I know I swore I'd never do it again, but it's a very good test of strength and stamina, so why not!]

ACTION: Continue 2 x weekly strength sessions + train for the Race to the Stones with longer walks + eat low GI. Pain-free and strong in 2020!

Creativity:

Evergreen creativity is all about filling the creative well, plus scheduling enough rest and recovery so you can keep producing for the long-term. I've been close to burn out several times in the last decade, but I have never subscribed to the ‘write fast' model, preferring my multiple streams of income approach, which is more suitable for the multi-passionate personality type.

ACTION: Schedule more time off. Block out time in the calendar for rest and holiday for its own sake, not just book research or work conferences and speaking.

Financials:

When I left my job in 2011, I couldn't even see how I could make enough for us to live on, let alone have enough to invest in my future. But in 2015, when my husband, Jonathan, joined the company as Director of Strategy, he made me set aside money for our pension/superannuation as well as other tax-advantaged investments. [The various tools available for you will depend on your country, but we have SIPPs and ISAs in the UK.] We have been investing since then, but I want to take investing up a notch. I intend to be writing for the next half of my life and never ‘retire' but I also want to make sure I have choices in the future.

ACTION: Consistently invest in ISA and SIPP monthly and increase monthly payments in 2020 by at least 10%

[If you want to learn about money and investing, check out my recommended money books here.]

The Creative Penn Website:

For the last decade, content marketing was about creating lots of great content (text, audio, video) around specific keywords in a niche, but the Google BERT algorithm change in October 2019 made a clear shift. It is now about creating the best content to serve the search intent of the consumer and it has got a whole lot more granular with natural language processing. Content needs to be highly specific and basically, be the best answer to someone's search query in a certain context. With the rise of voice search, featured snippets will be more important but also people search differently with voice, so long-tail keywords are changing.

I've spent over a decade creating articles, video, and audio around keywords in the self-publishing niche, mainly as a natural extension to my own author journey, rather than a concerted SEO play, but the BERT update impacted my traffic. I've been blogging and podcasting since 2008 so there are many thousands of posts and pages. I've never done any clean-up so the site is pretty confusing to navigate and focuses on a lot of different things. It's time for an overhaul and a simplification of content so I can answer specific questions more quickly.

The podcast will remain the same structure — although I will do extra shows on specific questions — but I am doing a lot of work around cleaning years of content in order to streamline the site and surface content pages that answer questions. [If you also have an older site, check out the Content Audit that Todd Tresidder recommends, and also how authors, in particular, can reverse engineer content to bring people to their books.]

There will also be a redesign at some point in 2020, but I will still use a Studiopress theme. TheCreativePenn will no longer accept guest posts, although we will finish the ones we have in the queue so that will run until mid-year. Basically, I am future-proofing The Creative Penn and getting it ready for the rise of voice search, and also simplifying so I can better serve the author community.

This overhaul is well overdue as a lot of my older articles are out of date, so archiving them is a good idea.

ACTION: Finish content audit, simplification, and redesign of TheCreativePenn.com

Since most authors don't have sites as extensive and long-running as mine, it won't make much difference, so don't worry about BERT unless you have over a decade of content and thousands of articles on your site!

However, it has made me think about how the Amazon algorithm tends to follow Google over time. So, consider this for the long-term.

What if ‘lots of content' is no longer the most important thing? What if the Amazon algorithm changes so recency is less important and publishing more and faster is not the answer?

What if people's search behavior changes and Amazon finds a way to consider search intent, context, and the quality of the result? (in terms of how it serves the customer, not in terms of ‘quality' of literature). What impact would an Amazon ‘BERT' style change mean for indie authors?

Personally, I think it means overhauling content to make sure it is top quality and up-to-date (as I am doing with my backlist), making sure customers have access to whatever format they prefer, making it easy to navigate through the backlist (clear series and linking), and updating blurbs to include more long-tail descriptive keywords based on search intent. I'm not sure what that looks like for me yet, but it's something I am thinking a lot about! Let me know what you think in the comments.

(2) I create and maintain intellectual property assets

Operation Evergreen is about practices in my daily creative life, but I also want to reframe my goals around self-definition.

Yes, I'm an author and I write books — but the mindset shift around this sentence is important. An intellectual property asset is intangible (i.e. it might not exist in physical form like a house) but it produces value for the owner. Copyright is an intellectual property asset.

The books I have in mind for 2020 are:

• Audio for Authors: Audiobooks, Podcasting, and Voice Technologies — on pre-order for 6 March 2020
• Map of the Impossible, Mapwalker #3 — the first draft is started, so I expect to finish this in Q1. I'll also do a boxset later in the year for the full trilogy, and get the audiobooks sorted with a pro narrator.
• ARKANE #11, no working title as yet — research started around the Portuguese empire, so I have some ideas for the book.
• How to Write a Novel — I have a 90,000-word draft. I just need to wrangle it!
• Non-fiction travel book under J.F.Penn to go on Books and Travel — I have ideas for this but nothing concrete as yet
• In terms of the maintenance of assets, I am still working through the backlist and getting it into various formats. So I need to do more non-fiction in audio and more versions of the books in Large Print and Hardback editions.

ACTION: Schedule and block out time to write. I already do this most weekdays but I also need to manage bigger blocks of clear time as I get more fiction, in particular, done when I have fewer meetings. Get calendar organized so I do all meetings and interviews in alternate months.

But intellectual property assets are not just books. My podcasts are a part of my body of work, and they definitely generate income. So I am committing to continuing both shows in 2020: The Creative Penn Podcast and the Books and Travel Podcast.

This goal also impacts my behavior and my daily choices. For example, I want to spend less time on social media because it is a great way to connect but it does not feed into my goal of creating intellectual property assets.

(3) I license intellectual property assets

I dipped my toe into a number of different things in 2019, but I just don't have the time to do everything, so I need to get ruthless around what I want to achieve.

I will license books in translation. As much as I found the process of publishing 3 books for authors in German interesting, it took much more time than I expected and it's frustrating when you don't understand the language. So I will focus on licensing books in translation, and have a tentative plan to attend Frankfurt Book Fair as an exhibitor in 2020 as well as pitching foreign publishers with a catalog from Curl Up Press.

I will hire narrators and/ or license fiction audiobooks. I will continue to narrate my own non-fiction audiobooks, but fiction requires different skills. I've also discovered that my J.F.Penn persona is quiet. When I go to my audio booth, I just can't get into my J.F.Penn headspace, possibly because I do so much podcasting and non-fiction in there. So I will continue to work with pro fiction narrators and keep my time for narrating non-fiction and podcasting.

I will license for film/TV/gaming/other subsidiary rights. Yes, I know we all want this and it's impossible to make a definite plan to achieve it, as so much is out of our control. But you have to aim high 🙂

ACTION: Optimize Curl Up Press and pitch appropriate places with books, series, and ideas. Like many introvert writers, I'd prefer it if rights deals came to me, and some have over the years. But the authors who get more deals are the ones actively pitching. After all, publishers and agents are not just sitting around with nothing to do. They are dealing with pitches. Rejection is inevitable but the more you pitch, the more you learn.

(4) Embrace curiosity about the future of creativity

One of the things I've enjoyed the most in the last few years is delving into the realm of the ‘adjacent possible,' the possibilities that could occur if technology continues on its present trajectory.

The 2010s brought us mainstream digital publishing, podcasting, mobile and internet business, and all the tools to thrive as independent creatives. It has been a disruptive decade in many ways but the 2020s will be even more so.

Those of us who have done well in the last ten years have embraced the tools of the moment to expand our businesses, reach more readers, and make more money. In the last year, I've talked about how AI might impact authors and publishing, as well as the rise of voice-first, and I intend to continue learning more and sharing the journey with you.

ACTION: Attend events in AI and tech niches and continue to read books and listen to podcasts and audiobooks that are tangential for authors and the publishing industry. Share what I learn on The Creative Penn Podcast and also start a separate section on the site for AI-related topics.

OK, that's enough from me! Let me know what your goals are for 2020 in the comments or tweet me @thecreativepenn. Let's keep each other accountable in the year ahead.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 39:14 — 32.2MB)

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Every year, I set creative, financial and health goals and share them on the blog and the podcast. It helps keep me accountable and focused, although, inevitably things change over the year. 2019 is no different!

You can read my 2019 goals here and whether I achieved them — and why I changed direction — below.

 

(1) Be a better publisher. Make more of what I already have.

It was my priority this year to go wide with audio and create more editions of my existing work, as well as writing and publishing new books. Once you create intellectual property assets, you have to manage them and that means maintaining the editions as well as marketing in order to sell more for the long-term.

I have definitely achieved this goal with new editions of older books, and also making sure that my new books are released in multiple editions simultaneously.

• Launched Valley of Dry Bones audiobook wide through ACX and Findaway
• Re-edited and recorded A Thousand Fiendish Angels, published wide in audiobook, updated ebook, plus added 5 x 8 paperback, Large Print, and hardback editions
• Moved as many audiobooks as possible wide to Findaway Voices: How To Market A Book, How To Make A Living With Your Writing, The Healthy Writer, and How to Write Non-Fiction. [If you signed an exclusive deal with ACX but you own the rights, you can move to a non-exclusive contract after 1 year. Just email them and ask.]
• Recorded The Dark Queen as an audiobook and published it wide on ACX and Findaway

• Edited and produced a new edition of Successful Self-Publishing – re-released in ebook and print and self-narrated the audiobook and published it wide
• Published Map of Plagues, Mapwalker 2 in ebook, paperback, large print, and hardback editions. [I'm waiting for the full trilogy before getting audiobooks done.]
• Updated and published a new edition of Public Speaking for Authors, Creatives and Other Introverts. Re-issued in all formats and narrated the audiobook.
• Published Productivity for Authors in ebook, paperback, large print, hardback, workbook — and narrated the audiobook.
• Licensed several non-fiction books in French and a new one published, Le Mindset de l'Auteur Qui Réussit 
• Produced 3 non-fiction books for authors in German

This care of the backlist tends to get forgotten by many indie authors who see speed of publishing as the main goal, but of course, once the book is out there, it is only an asset if it brings in income for the long-term. Otherwise, it is just cashflow — money for time — as it is for those traditionally published authors who sign contracts for the life of copyright. You have to look after the book. Maybe that means updating the content, or at least the back-matter, or it might mean doing new covers for a series, or revamping the blurbs, or doing a promotional campaign on an older book to bring it back to life.

Do you have an Asset Master List? Basically, just a list of your books down one side and then the formats they are available in, as well as countries, and/or languages, and/or platforms? I use mine to calculate how many products I have in the world and identify the gaps for what else I can produce. For example, I still need to finish doing audiobooks of the backlist, as well as large print and hardback editions of specific books. Right now, I have 160 separate streams of income from my 32 books (and that only counts ebooks as one stream, rather than each individual platform).

Even if you only have one book, you can start an Asset Master List as you can start to identify what you can do to increase income from your one product. If you have more books, what are you waiting for?!

Also, I have to share my updated Kobo Writing Life map as I have now sold books in 136 countries! (over the last 8 years)

(2) Write more books as J.F.Penn

I intended to write 3 novels this year, but only managed Map of Plagues. I have started Map of the Impossible (16K words) and have also started the research on ARKANE #11 which will be based around the Portuguese Empire. I'm the kind of fiction writer who loves the research process, so I am never going to finish novels at a fast pace, and that's OK, because this pace is sustainable for me and I have a very happy creative life! (Plus, look at everything else I did!)

I did re-edit and narrate The Dark Queen and A Thousand Fiendish Angels, so those are now available as audiobooks.

Plus, I launched Books and Travel as (4) below and that is under my Jo Frances (JF) Penn brand.

All this audio focus will underpin my fiction as the years progress. I have built an effective eco-system for multiple streams of income around my non-fiction as Joanna Penn, so my plan is now to do that for J.F.Penn, too, but I know it takes at least 3-5 years of work to see any significant impact on sustainable sales. Luckily, I am patient!

I love my varied creative life, and fiction plays a part in it — but only a part. I have tried a number of times to force myself into the ‘full-time fiction writer' box, but it never works. It's just not me. I will never be the type of author who only writes one kind of book, so, I will now embrace my portfolio life and continue writing novels, but alongside everything else, I love to create!

(3) Continue serving the author community through The Creative Penn

The Creative Penn Podcast hit its 10 year anniversary in March 2019 and I shared the journey in a solo episode: 3.2 Million Downloads in 215 Countries. [It's now up to over 3.9 million downloads across 222 countries]. I've also done some other significant solo episodes this year that hopefully, you have found useful:

• Exclusive vs Wide Publishing for Ebook, Print and Audio
• 9 Ways that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will Disrupt Authors and the Publishing Industry in the Next 10 Years
• Podcasting goes Mainstream. How Can Authors Benefit? Lessons Learned from Podcast Movement 2019
•  Tips for Self-Publishing in Translation: Adventures with AI and German

These solo shows take a lot of time — and also money in terms of the travel and learning that go into the prep work — so a huge thank you to my Patrons. If you'd like to support the show with just a couple of dollars a month, go to Patreon.com/thecreativepenn

I produced updated editions of Successful Self-Publishing and Public Speaking for Authors, Creatives and Other Introverts and recorded them in audio. Plus I did a mini-course on Productivity for Authors and then turned that material into a book, Productivity for Authors: Find Time to Write, Organize your Author Life and Decide What Really Matters.

I have almost finished the edits on Audio for Authors: Audiobooks, Podcasting and Voice Technologies, so that will be out 6 March 2020, available now for pre-order.

I've also been learning a lot and sharing my lessons with you along the way. I attended the WIRED conference on AI (London), London Book Fair, Podcast Movement (Orlando), Frankfurt Book Fair (Germany), and the Business Masterclass (Las Vegas). It has been a brilliant year of learning for me, made possible by the fact that I have not done any professional speaking. I needed a reboot and I certainly got that in 2019, and I hope that you have found my lessons useful along the way.

Continuous learning is critical for creatives and entrepreneurs. We need to keep filling the creative well, but also learn new skills and ideas and meet people outside our immediate niche. We cannot stay in the safety of the indie author echo chamber or we will find ourselves blindsided by changes to come.

Freedom remains my #1 value, but curiosity is a close second, and I will keep sharing what I learn as we go forward together on the author journey.

(4) Content marketing for fiction — Books and Travel

One of my biggest achievements this year was the successful launch of www.BooksAndTravel.page.

I've been posting travel articles and bi-monthly podcasts since March and have started writing my travel memoir in real-time with solo episodes, as well as interviewing lots of fascinating authors about wonderful places. It is evolving to be far more ‘memoir-y' than travel tips, focusing on the emotional resonance of places, the truth beneath the hype and the personal experience of people from different places.

I come off the phone after the interviews fired up about seeing more of the world, so the show is nurturing my creative soul. For now, that is enough, and I won't be thinking about monetization for at least another six months because I don't know what it will turn into or who the true audience is. Sometimes, a creative project is just a creative project!

Here are some of my solo shows in case you want to try them — there are also transcripts and pictures from my life.

• Lake Malawi, Jerusalem and Blue Water Sailing to Vanuatu. The 3 Trips That Changed My Life with J.F.Penn
• Escape, Reinvention, Curiosity, Challenge. Why Travel? with J.F.Penn
• Scuba Diving: The Wonder of Traveling Beneath the Waves with J.F.Penn
• Decadence, Discipline and Dreaming Spires. Oxford with J.F.Penn
• Outback Nights and City Days in the Lucky Country. Australia with J.F.Penn

I love the show — it feeds my creative soul. I don't know if I will continue doing The Creative Penn Podcast for another decade, but my evergreen love of books and travel will certainly abide!

You can subscribe to the Books and Travel podcast with the links below or just search for Books and Travel on your favorite podcast app:

(5) Focus on freedom. Outsourcing, batching and systems

I've been able to do a lot more this year because I'm not doing so much admin work and I've got a lot better at saying no (as explained in my Productivity book!). There are still days when all I do is prep work, marketing, accounting, etc but that's just part of running a business.

My team is pretty sorted these days which means most things run smoothly. Alexandra manages the blog and transcripts for both podcasts and will also be taking over my main inbox in January; Dan does podcast and audiobook edits and production; Jane does my book covers and graphic design and I have a couple of other people who help me with technical things, some freelance writing, and social media stuff.

I moved from Quickbooks to Xero for my accounting software and that has been fantastic — the integration with multiple currency PayPal accounts is brilliant and saves me so much time with reconciliations. We all have to update our systems over time as new and better options become available. I've also been looking at my various monthly recurring payments for software as a service and getting rid of things I don't really need.

A profitable business has to focus on making more revenue, but also reducing expenses where necessary and so I have made some choices to cut expenses where I think the return on investment is not worth it.

(6) The Healthy Writer and the traveling writer

It's been an interesting year for my health, a pivotal one in many ways.

I seriously fell off the wagon in the first half of 2019 — we bought a house in late January and it took until May to settle and move in, so with that stress and all the moving things, my eating patterns went out the window. We've had some family health issues which have added stress and then had a (rather alcoholic) family holiday in Spain, then I had laser eye surgery, and recovery from both of those sent me further off-course.

Orlando in August was my low point. The conference hotel had barely anything I would call ‘real' food and so I lived mainly on bagels. I've had recurrent shoulder pain for a while but it seriously flared up, inflamed more than ever by the high sugar intake. My weight was too high, and I had more joint pain than I've had in a while. I had moved into chronic pain and it impacted my mood and mental health, my sleep, my marriage and my creativity. Not good.

But low points are important because they make us take action!

I saw a nutritionist on my return and started on a low inflammation way of eating — basically no (or very low) sugar and low GI. I started feeling better within days and my joints started to improve. I had a steroid shot in my shoulder to reduce the pain and inflammation and started working with a personal trainer twice a week for shoulder rehab and also building strength in my back to correct my posture.

After four months, my health has seriously turned around. I love my bi-weekly training sessions and this way of eating suits me so well. I don't find it an issue at all, and I'm down a dress size, my body fat is down by 5%, I can deadlift 50kgs and lift an Olympic bar (20kgs) overhead (both for 3 sets of 5-8 reps each) — whereas I couldn't even stretch my arm up vertically before and couldn't even lift 1kg weight. I'm 45 in March 2020 and I'm now confident I will be meeting mid-life fitter, stronger and pain-free! I have booked to do the 100km Race to the Stones again in early July 2020 (here's my report from when I did it in 2016). Those of you who were around back then will know I said I'd never do a double-ultra again (!) but I really want something to measure against and I am confident I know how to look after myself better this time.

In terms of travel, I've done a lot for my writing life. Fiction book research trips to Amsterdam (April) and Lisbon (September) for ARKANE #11, plus Orlando for Podcast Movement, and then Las Vegas for the Business Masterclass. I started the year in Australia with family, and have also been to Spain. You can always follow my pics here on Instagram @jfpennauthor

We did have a big cycle trip planned in Asia, but because of family health things, my husband Jonathan has been back and forth to New Zealand four times, and we couldn't commit to an extended period away. That is on hold until things settle down. 2020 may well be a year of family-related travel.

Financial goals

I don't have to return to a day job! Hooray! That is my main driver for this creative business.

The business income remained steady but my expenses increased, resulting in less profit. This was around virtual assistant help and also hosting costs, as well as my (extensive) international travel. I have plans to address all of those things, so 2020 should be more profitable.

It's important to increase income, but it's also critical to reduce expenses. After all, it's not about how much you make, it's about how much you keep. 

I have saved and invested, my net worth has increased, we bought a house and I have read a lot of books and listened to a lot of podcasts around the Financial Independence Retire Early movement (FIRE). I'll be having Brad from the Choose FI Podcast on the show in early January to share some of the principles — and I also recommend Playing with Fire, a documentary on financial independence and rethinking our choices to make life easier and more sustainable. If you want to learn more about money in 2020, check out my list of recommended money books here.

In conclusion …

It's been an excellent year in terms of stretching myself, learning new things and expanding my ability to create in different ways. My year of ‘no speaking' has been effective because it freed up my time to travel for learning and book research, which I've loved. I'm speaking a couple of times in 2020, but I'm determined to make it only a small part of my life going forward. It's not my Zone of Genius (as per Gay Hendricks book, The Big Leap), and I can serve the author community more effectively through the podcast anyway.

I've finished 2019 with more books, more audiobooks and podcast episodes — all of which are intellectual property assets that bring me income for the long-term. My net worth has increased as well as my physical health. I have ended the year pain-free which is probably the greatest gift! I've also learned new skills around voice and experimented with AI tools that take me into the 2020s with confidence that my business can surf the changes ahead. I'll be back on 1 Jan with my goals for 2020.

OK, over to you! Let's keep each other accountable. Please do leave a comment with how your creative year went.