Tag Archives: The Creative Penn

HOW TO BE AN AUTHOR / ENTREPRENEUR WITH JOANNA PENN

I first met Joanna Penn of London , England, online several years ago when she’d just self-published her ARKANE series and her website TheCreativePenn.com was starting to take off. Joanna has been an invaluable source of information and encouragement to myself and many other authors.

It’s been such an inspiration to watch Joanna’s climb to being the published author of 10 fiction and 4 non-fiction books, hosting webcasts with the who’s-who in the writing and publishing world, and reaching tens of thousands through her blog, social media, and international speaking engagements.

Beyond her own achievements, Joanna is an exceptionally genuine and generous person. The success of my debut novel making the Amazon BestSeller list is directly attributed to Joanna’s promoting it on her TheCreativePenn.com podcast.

Several months ago Joanna published an excellent resource book titled Business For Authors: How To Be An Author / Entrepreneur. It’s on the business of being both an author and an entrepreneur where she candidly shares her vast experience. I got tremendous value from it and I want others to benefit as well. I contacted Joanna and she graciously allowed me to republish material from this piece on her website which originally appeared here: http://www.thecreativepenn.com/businessbook/

I highly recommend this book for all authors, regardless of the stage of your journey.

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I’m excited to share my new book, Business for Authors: How To Be An Author Entrepreneur, as it contains everything I’ve learned from 13 years of being a business consultant and 6 years of being an author.

This is not a book on creativity or the craft of writing. My aim is to take the result of your creativity into the realm of actually paying the bills and to take you from being an author to running a business as an author.

I was a business consultant for 13 years before I gave up my job in September 2011 to become a full-time author-entrepreneur. I’ve worked for large corporates and small businesses, implementing financial systems across Europe and Asia Pacific.

I’ve also started a number of my own businesses – a scuba dive charter boat in New Zealand, a customized travel website, a property investment portfolio in Australia as well as my freelance consultancy. I’ve failed a lot and learned many lessons in my entrepreneurial life and I share them all with you in this book.

In the last six years of being an author, through tempestuous changes in the publishing world, I’ve learned the business side of being a writer and I now earn a good living as an author-entrepreneur. I’m an author because it’s my passion and my joy … but also because it can be a business in this age of global and digital opportunity.

What’s in the book?

Here’s an outline of the table of contents.

Part 1: From Author To Entrepreneur

The arc of the author’s journey, definition of an author-entrepreneur, deciding on your definition of success and why it’s important as well as what you want for your life. Plus – should you start a company?

Part 2: Products and Services

How you can turn one manuscript into multiple streams of income by exploiting all the different rights, various business models for authors and how to evaluate your own information on contracts, copyright, and piracy. Plus – putting together a production plan.

Part 3: Employees, Suppliers and Contractors

The team you need to run your business and as an author-entrepreneur. Your role as author and what you’re committing to in the business, as well as co-writing. Editors, agents and publishers, translators, book designers and formatters, audiobook narrators, book-keeping and accounting, virtual assistants. Plus – how to manage your team.

Part 4: Customers

In-depth questions to help you understand who your customers are and what they want, as well as customer service options for authors.

Part 5: Sales and Distribution

How to sell through distributors and your options. The information you need to sell direct. ISBNs and publishing imprints – do you need them? Plus – your options for pricing.

Part 6: Marketing

Defining and reframing marketing so you feel more comfortable with it, as well as key overarching concepts. Book-based marketing techniques including cover, back copy, and sales pages on the distributors. Author-based marketing around building your platform and customer-based marketing around your niche audience and targeted media. This is just an overview. For a whole book on marketing, see my ‘How To Market A Book‘.

Part 7: Financials

Changing your mindset about money and assessing where you are now vs where you want to be. Revenues of the author business and how to increase that revenue. Costs of the author business and funding your startup. Banking, PayPal, accounting, reporting, tax and estate planning.

Part 8: Strategy and Planning

What is your strategy for your business and why this is important. Developing your business plan. Managing your time and developing professional habits, plus accountability systems. The long term view and the process for becoming a full-time author if you choose that route. Plus – looking after yourself.

Part 9: Next Steps

Questions from the book to help you work out everything to do with your business. Plus – encouragement for your next steps.

Appendices, Workbook, and Bonus Downloads

There’s also a download page that accompanies the book includes a downloadable workbook with questions in from each chapter. There’s a business plan template as well as hyperlinked lists of tools and resources to help you further. The Appendices also include bonus interviews on money and how it relates to creativity, writing and life, as well as my own lessons learned over the last years as a full-time author-entrepreneur.

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Thanks so much to Joanna Penn for sharing this piece. I hope this helps DyingWords followers, as well as all aspiring writers, on their journey as authors and business entrepreneurs.

I highly recommend Business For Authors – How To Be An Author Entrepreneur

You’ll get a wealth of material on writing, marketing, and business entrepreneurial-ship by reading this book and by visiting Joanna’s website at www.TheCreativePenn.com

Joanna also writes and promotes her thrillers with a supernatural edge under the name JF Penn. Visit her author site at www.JFPenn.com

Like Joanna Penn on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/TheCreativePenn

Follow her on Twitter @TheCreativePenn

Get your FREE EBook titled Author 2.0. It’s a blueprint for your online author platform.

And watch Joanna’s invitational video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yafRdLZ9iPc

HOW TO MARKET A BOOK

Who is Joanna Penn and what does she know about marketing books?

I’ve never met Joanna in person, but I consider her a good friend. An internet friend. A modern day version of the old Penn-Pal, only without stamps.

Joanna is the reason I can brag about being an Amazon Top 10 BestSelling writer. I wrote a good book, which is job #1 for all authors, but it was Joanna who taught me how to market it. And without good marketing, my good book would never have made the good list.

Joanna is the London, England, based creator of www.TheCreativePenn.com; consistently rated a Top 10 internet site for writers. For five years she’s led the pack in giving back her hard-earned knowledge to the international writing community and she’s got one hell of a loyal following.

Joanna is also one hell of a good thriller writer and I’m honored to work with her as a technical resource and Beta-Reader, but what I really want to brag about is her new release… How To Market A Book.

So what is ‘Marketing’ – Really?

Joanna says “Marketing is about sharing what you love with people who truly value hearing about it.”

So how do you go about doing that?

**Well, How To Market A Book covers an extensive range of marketing principles, strategies, and tactics:**

Part 1: Marketing Principles

**Includes myths, how to balance your time, ‘co-opetition’, and generosity.**

Part 2: Prerequisites for Success

Understand yourself and your target market, professional editing and cover design, your book page on the retailer websites, pricing, and the use of free.

Part 3: No Platform Needed – Short-term Marketing

How to get book reviews, paid advertising, using traditional media and tips for TV, radio, and press releases.

Part 4: The Author Platform – Long-term Marketing

What ‘platform’ is and why it’s a good thing, author branding, your website, list-building and email marketing, content marketing and blogging, audio and podcasting, video and book trailers, social networking, professional speaking, and becoming an author-entrepreneur.

Part 5: Launching Your Book

How launching has changed with the digital revolution; soft launches, launch spikes, post launch and relaunch, as well as lessons learned from some major book launches.

There are some short-term tactics for those who want to kick up immediate sales, but the focus of the book is more about instilling values and marketing principles that will help your long-term career as a writer.

Joanna goes beyond selling books. The methods in this guide will take you from being an author into professional speaking, making money from other products, and creating opportunities that you can’t even imagine yet.

How To Market A Book is just that – a How-To on what works… and what doesn’t… in social media, presentations, audio & podcasts, brand-building, and on-line relationship building. She tells you exactly what algorithms, keywords, metadata, and SEOs are, and she has a particularly juicy part ‘Meat, Hook & Format – What Really Baits a Reader’.

I’m a big Joanna Penn fan and I love bragging about the effect she’s had on me. Her on-line mentoring and personal generosity helped my debut novel open in the Top 10 on Amazon and I’ve steadily built my blogsite and social media contacts based on her teachings.