Information, inspiration and interviews on writing, self-publishing, book marketing and making a living with your writing. If you need help with writing your book, or you want to learn how to navigate the new world of publishing and book marketing, then join Joanna Penn and her guests every Monday. Also covers the business of being a writer and how to make money with your books.
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Reinvention And Lessons From The Journey. Special Podcast Episode 200
OLD POST ALERT! This is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date. Please click on Start Here on the menu bar above to find links to my most useful articles, videos and podcast. Thanks and happy writing! – Joanna PennIt's a big day!
This is episode 200 of the podcast! The first show went out in March 2009, so this also marks over 4.5 years of podcasting every couple of weeks. That has to be a milestone worth celebrating!
In the extended intro, I reflect on the last 100 episodes and how things have changed for me, and then I have an interview with Alexis Grant, who I met online when we both first started nearly 6 years ago. All the show notes are below.
This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors.
Kobo’s financial support pays for the hosting and transcription, and if you enjoy the show, you can now support my time on Patreon. Thank you!
Reflection on the last 100 podcast episodes: How my life has changed
Episode 100 was a reflection on the first one hundred episodes, so this is a reflection on episodes 101 – 199.
When I interviewed David Wood about writing action adventure thrillers in August 2011, my first novel Pentecost was out and I had sold 7500 copies. I also had my original batch of 3 non-fiction books, none of which are available anymore. As I've mentioned before, fiction doesn't age but non-fiction needs updating or retiring!
I had just moved back from Australia to London after being away for 11 years – I left in 2000 to go traveling and just didn't come back for a while. I was still working as a business consultant, implementing accounts payable systems into large corporates (deathly boring!)
At that point, the big names in self-publishing were Amanda Hocking, John Locke and JK Rowling had just launched Pottermore – her own company selling ebooks and helping fans create things in her world. Rowling had never sold her ebook rights, and rather than let the publisher sell them, she started Pottermore to sell direct – essentially, the first big name to go indie, although people always seem to forget that fact!
Now, just over 3 years on, I'm a full-time author entrepreneur, happily living in London.
I have 8 fiction books (novels, novellas and short stories) and 4 non-fiction, that are selling in 58 countries, in 4
languages and in ebook, print and audiobook formats. Right now, I have 39 separate products available from these properties – and the penny has certainly dropped around exploiting multiple rights!
I'm an international speaker, paid to talk to people all over the world, and in Feb 2014, my book,