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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.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 49:54 — 40.7MB)

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Happy New Year! I love January. I am filled with energy at the possibilities ahead and look forward to creating, learning and sharing along the way as we head into 2019!

In this article and podcast episode, I’ll look at some of the trends that I think will be important for authors in 2019 and then outline my own creative goals. I hope you will add your goals in the comments so we can keep each other accountable as the year progresses.

Trends for authors in 2019

(1) Audio and voice technology

I’ve been talking about this for a while, but things will really start to shift in 2019.

Audiobooks continue to be the fastest growing segment in publishing, and if you haven’t signed away your audiobook rights, then definitely consider exploiting them yourself. Options for working with professional narrators include ACX, as well as Findaway Voices and Author’s Republic.

Amazon’s Alexa will continue to expand into multiple devices, which means more people will be interacting with the internet and their content by voice. Google Home and Google Duplex are the other main voice technologies, with Siri on Apple devices like the Apple Watch.

This shift towards searching and buying through voice means that voice search and discoverability will become ever more important. Natural language transcripts of podcast interviews will help, as people speak differently than they write.

There’s also evidence that the voice search uses Google snippets so making sure you have short answers to commonly asked questions may maximise search on your author website.

I've been podcasting for 10 years and most of my books are already in audio format, but I am going much further and audio will be my major focus in 2019. I'll be interviewing experts on this topic on the podcast. I'll also be getting all my backlist into audio, starting another podcast around my fiction themes, and building my own ‘voice brand' by moving into more audiobook narration myself. I've been doing voice training in recent months and am looking forward to developing a new way of storytelling and sharing my words.

In terms of audiobook publishing, I will be moving out of exclusive ACX and into a wider model. I'm excited about the possibilities for Kobo Writing Life direct audio and also Findaway Voices access to Storytel, which seems to be the major company that is challenging Audible on the global audiobook scene. 

(2) Indies will expand print market share

Indie authors have become expert at publishing and marketing ebooks, but as well as audiobooks above, 2019 will see further expansion into print.

KDP Print makes it easier to advertise print books on Amazon, Draft2Digital have expanded into print production, and IngramSpark makes it easier than ever for indies to reach bookstores, libraries, universities etc with print on demand products in paperback, Large Print, hardback and workbook editions.

This expansion into print product, the ability to advertise print books on Amazon through AMS with KDP Print, and the ever-increasing market share of print sales through online stores means that indies will start to take print market share from traditional publishers.

This will happen in specifically print-heavy niches like children's books (as discussed with children's author, Karen Inglis) as well as literary fiction, poetry and non-fiction. This is an exciting development as these genres have found it difficult to sell a lot in ebook formats, so the ability to advertise indie print books next to traditionally published bestsellers will mean they have a lot to gain in 2019 – if the authors embrace Amazon Advertising.

(3) A pay-to-play environment means more mid-list authors will drop away in indie and traditional publishing

As noted in my 2018 round-up yesterday, Amazon shifted their focus in 2018 to grow their advertising revenue and this means that it is now a pay-to-play environment, in the same way that Facebook shifted a few years back.

Indie authors will need to up-skill in marketing – either to use ads, or other means to get traffic to their books. Traditional publishers will need to do the same, and I think this change will start to trickle through to the ‘digital only’ imprints first and then the bigger traditional publishers who will see sales tail off if there is no marketing spend.

Anecdotally, as I have expanded my own AMS ads, I've only seen advertising from traditional publishers for the biggest authors and in a scatter-gun way where books appear for searches that have no relevance. If you consider how hard it is to advertise when you know your own inventory well, I can only imagine that traditional publishers will struggle to market their mid-list authors with Amazon Ads, reserving the major ad spend for big names and debuts, as they currently do with other forms of marketing.

(4) Futurist: 5G laying the foundation for 2020

Regular listeners to my podcast know that I love to keep up with the futurist angle, looking for the bigger trends that will impact us as creators over the next 5-10 years and the rise of 5G networks is such a shift.

5G is not just an incremental advance on 4G, it’s the step change that will enable a whole host of technologies that have been waiting for this to emerge. It’s 100-250x as fast as 4G with low-latency (or delay), so it will enable real-time interaction.

This will be the platform that enables self-driving cars, augmented and virtual reality for gaming, education and business, as well as AI and the Internet of Things. 

I recommended AI Superpowers by Kai-fu Lee as one of my books of the year in yesterday's roundup post, and in that book, he talks about the next development of AI as being similar to electricity. In simple terms, adding AI to something that in the past, we added electricity to. 5G will enable this shift.

Remember, as William Gibson said, “the future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed.” Some areas will see the implementation of 5G related technology faster than others, e.g. self-driving cars in China before the UK, but it's important to be aware that these changes are coming.

2020 will see 5G going mainstream, so 2019 is the year to prepare and be ready for the shift. I mention this as many authors still don’t even have mobile-optimised websites and mobile 5G promises to be 600x faster than the current 4G mobile phones. [Wired 5G Guide]

[If you need a mobile-optimized website theme, check out my author website tutorial here.]

Given all the futurist stuff I have been talking about for years, it feels like the foundations are being laid in 2019 for a leap forward in 2020.

Will I be doing my podcast and book launches in VR? Will I be taking you on an augmented reality walk about Southwark in London via your 5G mobile phone? Will we be selling our books from within curated virtual bookstores like the world of Ready Player One? Will there be AI driven translation so our books can be consumed in any language in any country? None of this will happen in 2019, but I want to be ready to take advantage of what is coming in the 2020s. Exciting times indeed!

Thoughts from Draft2Digital and Kobo Writing Life on what 2019 holds for authors

From Kevin Tumlinson at Draft2Digital:

From our perspective, we believe the big waves on the horizon include international sales and translations. We also think that authors, particularly US authors but generally all English-speaking authors, will start seeing the potential for foreign rights, as well as film and television rights.

In addition, in 2018 we started putting our chips on libraries and subscription services as a huge and lucrative growth area for self-published authors, and we believe that will see an uptick in 2019.

And finally, we think collaboration will be huge in 2019, with a greater number of authors working together to produce more and better work and to find and reach new readers. “Collaborative and cooperative” will become the buzzwords for 2019.

From Christine Munroe from Kobo Writing Life:

KWL direct audio uploading will be our first major platform update of 2019. We are still taking beta authors so anyone with audio files ready to go should email us at writinglife@kobo.com  I’m exceptionally excited to add to the growing number of options authors have for reaching audiobook fans around the world.

Additionally, we’re working on a big update to the KWL sales dashboard, taking into account user feedback we’ve been collecting over the past year.

Throughout 2018, we rolled out more updates than ever before, ranging from launching Walmart eBooks, partnering with Orange in France for audio, and growing Kobo Plus in the Netherlands, to fixing free download tracking, updating our payment history page and adding downloadable sales reports, opening Overdrive distribution to all users, refreshing categories for KWL authors (now over 2,000 to choose from), and increasing promo opportunities by over 15%. We have similarly lofty goals for 2019 and beyond, and we are extremely lucky and proud to be collaborating with so many incredible authors around the world.

My creative goals for 2019

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

As per my audiobook and print trends above, I will be getting my backlist into Large Print and Hardback, as well as audiobook formats in order to have all books available in all formats.

This is one of those tasks that could take all year, to be honest, as I have 28 books and counting, and most are in ebook and paperback, some are in audio, and some are in Large Print and hardback.

They are mostly on all platforms but I have yet to maximise my sales at Google Play, which I only started with on PublishDrive mid-2018. I need to get some BookBub ads on those and take advantage of more opportunities with libraries through Kobo (Overdrive), Draft2Digital and IngramSpark.

We have built a database to track all the different formats, license periods and ISBNs etc. I have been managing it all on a spreadsheet, but it’s time to move up a level in terms of intellectual property management. Even with managing this small number of books, I have some sympathy for publishers managing thousands of books and trying to find them all, let alone update them and make the most of the backlist.

I’m also intending to ‘go wide’ with audio, so I am in the process of checking all my ACX contracts and looking at working with Findaway Voices as well as Kobo Writing Life for direct audio. We are still waiting to hear what Apple Books is planning, but essentially, there will be far more audio options in 2019 so it’s time to prepare …

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

I’m a writer so of course, I will be writing more books in 2019!

I’m intending to write 3 books under J.F.Penn – the next Mapwalker dark fantasy, a stand-alone horror novel set in the South Pacific, and an ARKANE thriller possibly set in Amsterdam, as well as some short stories.

Right now, I have so much bumping around in my head, I just need to settle on the next project and get writing!

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

This blog and the podcast will continue in 2019, so that’s a commitment to continue helping you on your author journey.

There is already content scheduled out to June, so I have lots to share and lots to learn along the way!

Some of the upcoming interviews will tackle lessons for 21st-century creatives, voice technology for authors, building a company of one, business models for writers, writing horror, writing heroes and villains, an insight into traditional publishing, a different take on book marketing, reaching readers with audio, and much more.

I won’t be writing any more non-fiction books this year, but as above, I’ll be turning what I do have into audiobooks and updating some of the older books, plus I will be doing some more mini-courses, starting with Productivity for Authors in the next month or so. You can find all my courses here.

(4) Content marketing for fiction

Over the last 10 years, I have built a multi-six-figure business based on content marketing – blogging and podcasting – around my non-fiction. In the next 10 years, I intend to do the same for my fiction.

I’ll be creating a destination site that does not include my author name around the themes of my fiction. It will bring in multiple streams of income as well as marketing my books – and those of other authors.

More on this in March when I intend to launch the new site and yes, a new podcast – I must be crazy! But see below around how I will carve out the time.

Although I have no plans to slow down on The Creative Penn as yet, I need to start building for my next 10-year goal. I’m really excited about this new site, which may spin off into a new business at some point. I’ll be sharing behind the scenes development within my Content Marketing for Fiction course.

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

My number one value is freedom and it continues to shape my business as an independent author. I want to write books, travel and learn new things, and yes, I want to help more writers along the way.

But I didn’t achieve all my writing goals in 2018, and a lot of the reason why is increasing admin work and email. The unsexy side of running your own business!

There were periods in 2018 when I felt angry and frustrated at the amount of admin work, even as I resisted help with it because of my control freakish tendencies (a characteristic of indie authors!)

I have outsourced various tasks over the years and I have a great team of freelancers, but it’s time to take the next step. After talking to Yaro Starak in podcast episode 406, I've decided to outsource my business inbox.

It will be more about email triage, so if you write me a personal email, or if you are a Patron or a customer, I will still get it and respond personally. It’s more about dealing with the increasing amount of cold pitches, emails from people who haven’t even looked at the free material available on the website, and other admin tasks that really don't need my personal attention. This is inevitable as the website traffic continues to grow – it's over 700,000 uniques per month these days – and I have probably left it too long, so it is about time I tackled this.

By outsourcing that level of email, I will need to put some procedures in place so it’s forcing me to look at all the tasks I do that can be systematised. I finally have to write some standard operating procedures and although it’s more upfront admin, it will free up my time to create more.

I need to stop feeling like I have a day job again. This feels like the only way.

This focus on freedom also feeds into my decision to say no to all speaking opportunities in 2019 – and possibly ongoing. I will continue to do podcast interviews on other shows and this show and interact on social media etc, but I found speaking exhausting in 2018, and it’s time for new voices to emerge.

[The only exception may be if I travel to places I rarely visit and want to meet with the community locally, but those will be rare occasions.]

I managed some batching of tasks in 2018, but I need to make this even more streamlined. I need to use a calendar scheduler for podcast interviews, and also schedule more social media, as well as making sure I have creative time blocked out for the whole year in advance.

So this is a business admin task for 2019 with the aim of freeing up more time to create, travel and serve the author community in more scalable ways.

(6) The Healthy Writer and the travelling writer

I’m very happy with my yoga practice for functional movement, mental health and breathing space, but I need to up my cardio this year.

A few years ago, we cycled through south-west India and it was a fantastic, memorable trip, so we are doing another big cycle adventure, this time through Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam toward the end of 2019. This gives us time to train, so onwards with the spinning classes and weekend bike trips!

I also have more travel planned for book research purposes – and excitingly, no speaking events at all, so all my travel time is fiction-related, or family, or a combination of both.

Everything changes … and everything stays the same.

As I go through my goals for this coming year, it strikes me that every year, my goals are similar. I want to write and publish more of my own books; I want to travel, research and learn; I want to help more writers along the author journey; I want to continue living a life of creative freedom, which means I want to make good money with my writing.

These things remain true, which is great because it means I am doing the right things with my time. So the creative urge and the practice of writing stay the same regardless of the maelstrom of change around us.

But the changes come in the technology around publishing, marketing and making a living with our writing.

That's where we need to stay up to speed with developments as they arise, and that is not so much reflected in my annual goals, but in the weekly updates that I bring you through the podcast and the changes in my own processes over time.

I hope you will join me as we head into 2019. I'll be back every Monday with The Creative Penn Podcast where I share my journey, publishing updates, futurist insights, and interviews on writing, publishing, book marketing and making money writing. You can also stay up to speed by subscribing to the Author Blueprint here, which also gives you a bi-monthly newsletter.

OK, over to you! Let's keep each other accountable. Please add your thoughts on trends for authors in 2019 and also your creative goals for the year ahead in the comments.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 50:19 — 41.1MB)

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Another year turns! 2018 has been a big one for me as I reached 10 years of The Creative Penn.

Considering many new companies don't make it past 5 years, and many writers don't make it to full-time, I am pretty happy with overall progress – but as ever, there is always room for improvement.

In this article, I'll look at some of the bigger shifts for the indie publishing environment, and then review my 2018 goals (which I always post on 1 Jan), look at what I achieved, what I didn't quite hit, and lessons learned. You're welcome to leave your comments or thoughts on your own progress in the comments. Let's keep each other accountable!

In the introduction, I mention Amazon's Alexa crashing on Christmas Day [The Guardian], and how purchases through Alexa continue to grow [Venture Beat], even as the functionality available through Alexa continues to expand [Digital Trends]. Plus, for the first time in 20 years, copyrighted works will enter the public domain in the USA [The Smithsonian] and publishers are getting ready for re-releases, including The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran with an intro by Insta-poet sensation, Rupi Kaur. [New York Times]

Joanna Penn (yes, it's me on my own today!) is an award-nominated, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of thrillers under J.F.Penn and also writes non-fiction for authors. She’s also a podcaster and an award-winning creative entrepreneur. Her site, TheCreativePenn.com has been voted in the Top 100 sites for writers by Writer's Digest. Joanna was named Publishing Commentator of the Year at Digital Book World 2018.

[For more pics from my Christmas down under, check out www.instagram.com/jfpennauthor]

You can listen above or on iTunes or your favorite podcast app, read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and full transcript below.

Show Notes

• Changes in the indie publishing environment 2018 – including disruption to the status quo, technology and pay-to-play marketing
• My books of the year – broaden your mind as you consider what's coming in the next 5 years
• My 2018 creative goals – what I achieved and what I missed – and why

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