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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.

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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

Continue Reading

I was having lunch with an old friend recently and reminisced about the days when I used to clock-watch at the day job I hated. Every minute crawled past.

Now the year turns again and time disappears so fast and my main concern is how to make more of it all, how to write all the stories in my head, how to help and empower more authors, how to travel and see more amazing places, how to read, watch, listen, and experience more.

It’s been another amazing year, and I continue to be grateful every day that I can make a living with my writing.

Thank you so much for being part of my journey through buying my books and courses, using my affiliate links on the site, supporting the podcast on Patreon, coming to my events, and through spreading the word about the site. I hope to continue being a part of YOUR author journey as we move into 2018!

Here are my goals from 1 Jan 2017 so you can compare my plans with the reality! I'm going to consider some of the over-arching themes first and then I’ll get into my specific goals and whether I met them, or why I fell short.

The rise and rise of collaboration

I’ve co-written before – Risen Gods with J. Thorn in 2015, and our (meta) non-fiction book on Co-Writing a Book. It felt experimental a few years back, but in 2017, collaboration and co-writing has really come of age. Indies are doing short-term projects, but also longer-term collaborations within new worlds or non-fiction series.

Johnny, Sean and Dave at Sterling & Stone blazed an early trail with collaboration, and now Michael Anderle is leading a merry band of writers in his Kurtherian universe. Michael also set up the 20BooksTo50K Facebook group, which did its first live event in Las Vegas in Nov, and I’ll be at their London event in February 2018.

Two of the major problems of co-writing have also been solved, so it’s easier to co-write these days. BundleRabbit now has a collaboration engine for payment splitting, instead of one of the authors having to do the accounting. BookFunnel allows the management of ARCs and side-loading of ebooks so authors can basically focus on the writing and the marketing.

I’ve taking collaboration to a new level too and this year I co-wrote five books, and four of those were not even in my 2017 goals!

The Healthy Writer with Dr Euan Lawson, American Demon Hunters: Sacrifice with J. Thorn, Zach Bohannon, and Lindsay Buroker; and three Summerfield Village sweet romance novels with my Mum under Penny Appleton (more on these below).

I’ve learned a LOT from editing other people’s work and also about writing more with other people’s opinions and ideas in mind. I’ve learned to let stuff go and relax a bit, to not be such a control freak.

Perhaps even to be a bit gentler with others, and myself.

I’ve never been good at celebrating my successes and publishing a book now is a bit of a non-event – I’m always excited about the next one I want to start writing 🙂 But through co-writing, I’ve been able to celebrate with my co-authors, and seeing the delight on my Mum’s face when we put a new book out rekindles my own excitement at another addition to my body of work.

Collaborative projects are common in other industries – music, gaming, film & TV in particular – and we all collaborate when we work with professional editors and cover designers, but I think we’re going to see more and more collaboration and co-writing in the indie community in 2018.

The indie author business model stabilizes – at least in the mature digital markets of US, UK, AU, CA

I did a big show on this back in November but I want to call back to it here for the sake of a round-up since I revisit these posts over time. You can read/listen to the whole article here in podcast episode #347.

I talk about how we have everything we need to run a global, digital, scalable online business as author entrepreneurs with a business model that is working for more and more authors.

But this stabilization means that everyone is a publisher now and there are more creators out there and more coming. We should celebrate this because every person who writes a book will read far more books than they will ever produce, so we can become a self-sustaining industry 🙂

So the mature markets feel a little crowded in some genres, and we’re in this phase before mobile and digital take off in developing digital markets.

It feels like a calm period before the next big shift, a time to bed down your processes, grow your backlist by writing more, build relationships, make sure you have sustainable health and creative practices, make the most of your IP by expanding into other products like print, and look to position yourself for the next phase of growth.

This levelling out is reflected in the stabilisation of my own business model, but as I am a change junkie, I’ll need to mix it up in 2018 or I will get bored. I'm feeling the itch already!

It’s also good to remember that companies that don’t change with the times find themselves dying off, so we can’t become complacent. There will continue to be shake-ups within publishing as we are now essentially a tech industry, and the reinvention never stops. Fun times, indeed!

The changing entertainment environment

I wrote an article last month about how I read and how I buy books, and how that has changed over the years. I’ve also been reflecting on my entertainment preferences over the holiday period, looking back over the year for what has stood out for me, and what I have raved about to others.

I’ve been raving about The Crown, especially season 2, because of the masterful way the creative team told the family drama, weaving memoir and history with storytelling, character development, and foreshadowing what I see ahead based on my knowledge of the Royal family.

I also loved The Handmaid’s Tale, Game of Thrones, American Gods, Stranger Things 2, Jessica Jones, and Bright (which only came out last week but was awesome!). These are mostly dark fantasy stories that I can sink into and also share an experience with my husband.

Where once I knew when pre-orders were coming onto my Kindle or when one of my favourite authors was releasing a novel, I now know when my favorite series boxset is dropping on Netflix or Amazon Prime.

I can either be ashamed to admit this or embrace it as part of the change in the entertainment environment.

This is going to shape my 2018 because I am returning to the idea of adapting my stories into screenplays so that perhaps they can reach more audiences. More on this in my 2018 goals tomorrow.

Of course, I have read a lot too – my novel of the year is The Power by Naomi Alderman, another dark, dystopian genre novel that also won a literary prize and tapped into the #metoo zeitgeist. I loved the Grisha trilogy by Leigh Bardugo, Change Agent by Daniel Suarez – a techno-thriller about altering DNA in living humans (which is now almost a reality), Dogs of War by Jonathan Maberry, and Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor. If you want to get my fiction book recommendations every month, I share them in my JF Penn newsletter which you will receive if you sign up here for Day of the Vikings.

I have also bought a lot of print non-fiction books, and listened to non-fiction audiobooks.

How have you consumed content in 2017? How is that different to previous years?

So how did I do with my specific 2017 goals?

The Creative Penn website and podcast

The Creative Penn podcast is now heading towards episode 360 and I’ve even done a few in-between-isodes that have focused more on the author business side of things. The audience continues to grow and we’re now at over 2.2 million downloads.

Thanks for all the Patreon support, and in addition, we have corporate sponsors in Kobo Writing Life, Ingram Spark, and Draft2Digital – all companies I use myself and recommend.

Once again, I committed to redesign and revamp this site in 2017. I tried out a few other themes in a test environment but after almost 10 years, it is such a huge piece of work that I backed away, preferring to keep creating new things, rather than revamp the old.

We added an ‘old post warning’ to articles over 3 years old, as well as focusing on doing more landing pages, using scheduling tool MeetEdgar to send traffic to those evergreen articles. We have done quite a bit on branding and colors and are revamping the YouTube channel and older posts to make it clearer.

As technology moves on, we all have to review the tools we use as new providers emerge offering better functionality.

We’ve just moved email providers to ConvertKit, which has the best options for both new authors and established businesses. I show you how to set up your website and email list in a new set of tutorial videos here – https://www.thecreativepenn.com/authorwebsite/

This change will make email easier to manage going forward. If you want to be on my email list, just sign up for the Author 2.0 Blueprint here.

I did cut down my speaking in 2017, but still managed to speak in Australia and New Zealand, Scotland, London, and Oregon. I'll be cutting down even more in 2018 to focus on creation.

Curl Up Press

We set up Curl Up Press, a small press for the print publishing side of things.

It’s not open for submissions as I still have no intention of publishing other people right now – except those I co-write with.

We moved to Ingram Spark and set up most of the existing books for extended distribution. Plus, we added new formats like workbooks and Large Print for romance.

We have a new website www.CurlUpPress.com. Jonathan did some courses on intellectual property rights so we understand that a lot more, just for education and awareness more than anything, so now we can be more confident around IP rights.

For more on Ingram Spark, check out this interview and article on selling more books in print.

Non-fiction books as Joanna Penn

How to Market a Book Third Edition turned out to be a bigger job than expected, with quite a bit changing and indeed, my own thoughts on marketing changing as well. I think I budgeted about a month to do it and it took 3x as long! It’s available in ebook, print and audiobook.

Audiobook editions of The Successful Author Mindset and How to Make a Living with your Writing were produced professionally so these only took my time in proofing the audio. A classic case of making the most of intellectual property rights and turning one book into multiple streams of income!

Based on my experience this year, I won’t be doing any more fiction audio but I will be doubling down on non-fiction audio. Fiction listeners are price and length sensitive and are used to professional actors narrating fiction which means the quality needs to be extremely high. Non-fiction listeners just want useful information and (generally) aren’t price or length sensitive. Shorter audiobooks are cheaper to produce, so you can make your money back faster.

The Healthy Writer is out now, co-written with Dr Euan Lawson. I’m very proud of it as I think it will help a lot of people. It’s helped me a great deal as well since I’ve focused more on my own health as a result of writing. I’ve been far more healthy this year than last and will continue my health journey in 2018.

I did commit to doing a hardback premium print journal in 2017. I investigated this to the point of choosing the cover material, but what I wanted would have been really expensive. The ‘lie-flat’ aspect makes it pricey but that’s non-negotiable in a journal I like. I might have gone ahead anyway but then I discovered that journals, especially plain paper journals, are counted as stationery, not books, so attract VAT, meaning the finances would have been a real pain. So I decided against it in the end. I use and recommend Moleskine and Leuchtthurm, but I will be having Joel Friedlander, The Book Designer on in 2018 to talk about the premium journal he has just produced. It clearly can be done – but not easily.

Thriller / Dark Fantasy fiction as J.F.Penn

Possibly the biggest realisation this year came in New Orleans when Lindsay Buroker said to me, “You know you’re a fantasy author, right?”

One of the biggest issues with being an indie author writing cross-genre is not knowing the right place to put our books, and falling down the gaps between established genre. I write what I am inspired to write, and it’s always been on the edge of thriller, dark fantasy, supernatural crime, even a touch of horror.

But all my stories have aspects that aren't technically real, so perhaps that puts me more into fantasy than thriller – and let's face it, every Thrillerfest, I am added to the table with the witches and the shifters, even though I don't write that (yet!)

I’m still trying to decide whether to redo my J.F.Penn brand with a fantasy edge as opposed to a thriller vibe. Or whether I just keep writing and see what happens along the way. It’s tough to know what to do – something I will be pondering in 2018. One things for sure – I don't fit in a box 🙂 Other highlights include:

• I was a Finalist in the Thrillerfest awards: Best Ebook Original for Destroyer of Worlds. My friend and wonderful writer, James Scott Bell, won, but hey, I can now call myself an Award-nominated author 🙂 I wrote here about my conflicting thoughts on wanting to win an award. The trials of comparisonitis and the need for validation!
• I published End of Days, ARKANE #9
• I travelled on the Amtrak train from Chicago to New Orleans and co-wrote American Demon Hunters: Sacrifice with J. Thorn, Zach Bohannon, Lindsay Buroker. Pictures here!
• My short story The Dark Queen was published in the Feel the Fear anthology (and that was a paid story!)
• I published Map of Shadows, the first in the Mapwalkers dark fantasy thriller series

Because cross-genre marketing is so difficult, I also started a new site, SupernaturalThrillers.com and then decided against launching it. I returned to the idea of a genre destination site while I was in Oregon so the concept clearly won’t go away, but I keep thinking that I’d be better off writing more for now. So I’ve been adding articles that relate to my books on JFPenn.com instead, which has resulted in more traffic and more email signups.

Sweet romance fiction as Penny Appleton

Although I've been talking about co-writing with my Mum openly for some time, I haven't revealed our pseudonym until recently as I wanted to build up clean also-boughts. We now have three contemporary sweet romances and a box set. We’ve done ebook, print and Large Print editions so far, and I'll be doing a blog post on how to make Large Print books in the next month.

I’ll also be doing a big round-up in April once we’ve been writing and publishing for a year, but basically, it’s been as you would expect from a new author. I set up a new website, PennyAppleton.com and if you want something basic, you can follow along with my website and list building tutorial here.

I also set up a Facebook page and basically, all we have done is use KDP Select with free days and Facebook ads, BookBub ads and an occasional Freebooksy promo. It is not an ‘active’ brand in that we’re not doing newsletters or social media, or any other kind of promotion. I have too much going on with my two main author names!

Penny has not set the world on fire in terms of sales, but it’s only year one and it's making my Mum happy and I’m enjoying the challenge of writing in a different genre. You can check out the books here on Amazon.

Health

Writing The Healthy Writer has been a fantastic project. I often write non-fiction because I need to learn about something and this year, I have definitely progressed health-wise. Like writing, it’s a lifelong journey, not something you do once, but something you practice every day.

• I’ve maintained a consistent yoga practice and also walking lots, including 50km Cotswold Way one day in June, and a multi-day walking holiday in the Dolomites in northern Italy
• With help from a hypnotherapist, I’ve broken the back of sugar addiction, and have started working with a coach around some of my other habits so 2018 is shaping up to be even healthier!

Check out The Healthy Writer for lots of tips from me and Dr Euan Lawson!

Money and income goals

This year has shown growth in the business, but not a step change as 2016.

I’ll do a complete breakdown of income etc in my tax year end post in May, as I did this year for 2016, but for now, I continue to be grateful every day to be living at a time in history where a writer can make a multi-six-figure income online. Amazing times! Thank you for being part of my journey.

OK, that's me done! How did you do with your 2017 goals?

Let's celebrate together, or share lessons learned. Please join the conversation and leave a comment below. Be honest now – it’s just you and me!