“Success requires sustained focused effort. That is why so many do not achieve the success they desire. They don’t reach far enough, hard enough, or long enough.” Jack Canfield The Success Principles(TM)
Awhile back I had the privilege of having such a fun chat with Joanna Penn. Joanna is NY Times & USA Today Bestselling Author and she was also voted as one The Guardian UK Top 100 Creative Professionals 2013. Her blog, thecreativepenn.com was voted as one of the Top 10 Blogs for Writers 3 years running and one of the Top 10 Blogs for Self-Publishers 2012. You can find her most recent book releases at her author website, JFPenn.com. You can also connect with Joanna on Twitter or Facebook.
Watch the Video Interview Here
Interview Summary:
*Joanna Penn shares her dream of being a writer in her childhood years as well as when she went to Oxford University. While at Oxford, she studied Theology, specializing in the Psychology of Religion. Her main series of Fiction Thriller novels, the ARKANE series, stem from her studies at Oxford. Looking back she says its interesting how life is a winding process and how everything we do in life can end up in our stories.
*When Joanna finished her degree at Oxford, she was recruited into a large consulting firm to be a computer programmer. She did that for 13 years until she couldn’t stand it anymore and started trying different business ventures. She started a Scuba Diving business as well as did Property Investments, both which failed before she started her blog TheCreativePenn.com. She had been searching and didn’t know why she wasn’t happy until she realized it came down to a lack of creativity in her life. This unsettled feeling is what birthed her first book Career Change. She wrote it as her way of trying to figure out how to change her own life. For most people, the first book they write is really the book they need to write.
“The truth is: what you perceive is just a tiny piece of reality. There are unlimited possibilities. You just need to break down the mental barrier that stops you seeing them. If you can break down the walls, you will see there is a different reality out there. It just takes a mind shift.” Joanna Penn Career Change: Stop hating your job, discover what you really want to do with your life, and start doing it!
*Joanna encourages anyone who feels stuck, to instead think about the possibilities. To have a mindshift.
She also recommends that authors read the book The Success Principles(TM)
*She talks a little about the sacrifices she made to do what she loved. She gave up being the main wage earner between her and her husband, to earning 1/5th of what she used to make when she first started her blog and writing books.
As a couple they sold everything and gave up T.V. Then she went to working 4 days a week with her job and wrote the other days on her blog and writing books the other 3 days and she did that for 3 years before she went full-time as a authorpreneur.
She also tried 2 blogs which failed before she started TheCreativePenn.com. Joanna says you need to understand what it takes to be an author and that you need to take a long view of where you’re at and your goals. Keep steady and f
*Joanna shares how she started writing fiction. She had been writing on her blog and writing non-fiction books when one day she thought she should try writing fiction. When she interviewed Tom Evans on her Podcast, and they talked about creative blocks, she realized her block was that she felt she had to have a Pulitzer Prize winning book in order to write fiction. Then she did NaNoWriMo and wrote most of the book… that’s how she got her start. Her first book, Stone of Fire(An ARKANE Thriller, Book 1) was written during this time.
*She encourages fiction writers to trust emergence. When you go to a place or are inspired by something, soak it in. Then when you get ready to write, trust that the story will come to you. You might have written a book, but doubt that you’ll have enough ideas for a story to come to you again. Trust the process. Once the ideas come… just write them down. Joanna says, in her own process, she’s found that she writes the opening scene and the closing scene of where the story needs to go, then she feels like she can start writing. Then she creates 10-12 documents in Scrivener which is where she creates her different scenes.
*She talks about branding for authors as well. She says it wasn’t until she had finished her 1st two novels that she decided to switch from using Joanna Penn as her author name, to J.F. Penn. Her tagline Thrillers on the Edge is her third tagline. The first thing she says is that none of us authors have a clue… the process and your ‘voice’ comes to you over time with the words you write. The main piece of advice she gives authors, is don’t obsess about your brand. Just write some more books because by Book #5 your writing will be quite different than your first book. As far as branding your blog, ask yourself when people come to my website what do I want them to feel? Think about who are other authors who are like you – check out their websites as far as colour and tone too.
*Joanna talks about the fact that authors are entrepreneurs. By definition entrepreneur is “someone who creates value from nothing.” Authors create something entirely new in the world… it comes from our brains and we put it into words. She talks about the arc of the Indie Writer journey. First you start with “I want to write a book” … and you focus on writing. Second, when your book is finished you say “how do I get it out there?” … and you focus on marketing. Then when you have 3 to 5 books out there, that’s the point where you want to take it to running a business as an author.
*The word entrepreneur applies to authors who are running a business – authorpreneur. That means taking the income seriously and thinking about your customer… aka readers. That’s where things like branding comes in. You need to think of a production plan to best serve the readers you have. The decision to write certain books and put out specific products is more of a business decision. Think in terms of what serves your existing audience the best. Joanna says she is passionate to that you can have a great living as well as a great life as a Creative Entrepreneur.
*Joanna talks about the future for Indie Authors. She mentions her own journey. That her books are now being sold in 42 different countries and that she’s doing a 50% royalty split with the narrators who do her audio books. Now her books are being translated into spanish, italian and german and she does a 50% royalty split with the translators as well. She says another thing Indie writers need to think about is to start selling not only from places like Amazon, Kobo, ibookstore, googleplay, etc., but to also start selling direct from their own website and sell from your own email list. Think about the Global idea and being mobile. She says collaboration is also another great thing for Indie Authors. The more we understand how creative people work, the more we’ll trust working together without all the middle men.
*Being an author is really about being positive about the opportunities that come up. Trying things out and taking some risks and just giving it a go.
The biggest thing that will propel you forward, is writing more books.
Joanna encourages writers to think in Olympic time – what can you achieve every 4 years? Think about where you were at in your writing at the last Olympics, how much you’ve learned since then and brainstorm about the possibilities of where you could be for the next Olympics.
I learned so much from Joanna in this interview… I hope you did too 😉
Check out the latest book release at JFPenn.com or go to thecreativepenn.com for more information on writing, publishing and marketing your book.
What did you find helpful as listened to Joanna’s tips on writing and self-publishing? Please join share your thoughts in the comments, I’d love to hear from you.
*Photo Credit for Joanna Penn: Jason Moon Photography
*Some of the above links are affiliate links and help to support this blog
*
Bryan has written a bestselling book that has helped thousands of writers, 
*If you’re a writer/author a platform is super helpful. Bryan and I talk about an awesome writing course where we’ve learned to find our voice and build our platform called 