Resource Review: The Creative Penn

3-min. listen

The Creative Penn, which is run by thriller author and self-publishing expert Joanna Penn, focuses on how to make sustainable decisions as an independent creative and features weekly interviews with guest authors. If you are interested in sustainability, entrepreneurship, creative business, self-publishing, or learning strategies, keep listening.

Important Links

Articles from The Creative Penn

Building a Creative Business for the Long Term with Natalie Sisson (Joanna Penn)

How to Reboot a Flagging Author Career with Michaelbrent Collings (Joanna Penn)

Business Mindset and Pivoting Your Author Career with Holly Worton (Joanna Penn)

Resource Recommendations from Allison Stein Consulting

Editing and Publishing Resources

Professional Promotion Resources

Transcript

Hi there. I’m Allison, a communication consultant at Allison Stein Consulting, LLC. Today I want to take a closer look at one of my favorite editing and publishing resources: The Creative Penn.

The Creative Penn, which is run by thriller author and self-publishing expert Joanna Penn, focuses on how to make sustainable decisions as an independent creative and features weekly interviews with guest authors.

If you are interested in sustainability, entrepreneurship, creative business, self-publishing, or learning strategies, keep listening.

The Creative Penn has published content on creative entrepreneurship based on lasting strategy rather than quick wins, opportunities to recognize and close gaps in understanding about the writing field in general and one’s career path in particular, and how to shift focus (or “pivot”) in the middle of a writing career without losing momentum or readers.

Let’s talk about some key episodes.

In “Building a Creative Business for the Long Term,” Joanna Penn interviews Natalie Sisson about building thought leadership as a “leading learner,” practical strategies for designing a sustainable business, the relationship between blogging and book publishing, understanding when and how to outsource some aspects of running a creative business instead of handling every task personally, and cultivating a healthy mindset about money.

In “How to Reboot a Flagging Author Career,” Joanna Penn interviews Michaelbrent Collings about assessing mistakes or missed opportunities in a writing career with honesty and objectivity, managing time between content creation and audience outreach, and viewing gaps in knowledge as opportunities for exploration rather than failures by developing a mindset geared toward (or primed for) lifelong learning.

In “Business Mindset and Pivoting Your Author Career,” Joanna Penn interviews Holly Worton about mindset problems that hold writers back from succeeding with their books and business, getting past guilt over charging money as an independent author and understanding that it is normal to expect compensation for one’s work, and how she changed the focus of her books in order to expand her brand while keeping current readers happy.

The Creative Penn is a podcast with hundreds of episodes. Readers can access the content in multiple forms, from an audio file to a summary of highlights to the transcript. In each episode, Joanna Penn discusses news in the publishing world, shares an update from her personal or professional life, and interviews a guest.

The blog focuses on Joanna’s journey as a self-employed writing professional and her recommendations for juggling multiple commitments and streams of income, such as book sales, professional fees from teaching online courses, and sponsorships for her podcast. As the author of both thrillers and nonfiction, she provides strategies for tackling both genres individually as sub-businesses and collectively under her umbrella brand The Creative Penn.

Thanks for listening! If you are interested in listening to the podcast episodes I mentioned, check out the links below. For more resource recommendations, head over to AllisonSteinConsulting.com/blog.

Thanks for listening!

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