The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers

What if the most transformative thing you can do for your writing craft and author business is to face what you fear? How can you can find gold in your Shadow in the year ahead? In this episode, I share chapters from Writing the Shadow: Turn Your Inner Darkness Into Words.

In the intro, curated book boxes from Bridgerton's Julia Quinn; Google's agentic shopping, and powering Apple's Siri; ChatGPT Ads; and Claude CoWork.

Balancing Certainty and Uncertainty [MoonShots with Tony Robbins]; and three trends for authors with me and Orna Ross [Self-Publishing with ALLi Podcast]; plus, Bones of the Deep, Business for Authors, and Indie Author Lab.

This show is supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

Joanna Penn writes non-fiction for authors and is an award-winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of thrillers, dark fantasy, and memoir as J.F. Penn. She’s also an award-winning podcaster, creative entrepreneur, and international professional speaker.

What is the Shadow?

The ‘creative wound' and the Shadow in writing

The Shadow in traditional publishing

The Shadow in self-publishing or being an indie author

The Shadow in work

The Shadow in money

You can find Writing the Shadow in all formats on all stores, as well as special edition, workbook and bundles at www.TheCreativePenn.com/shadowbook

Writing the Shadow: Turn Your Inner Darkness Into Words

The following chapters are excerpted from Writing the Shadow: Turn Your Inner Darkness Into Words by Joanna Penn.

Introduction. What is the Shadow?

“How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also if I am to be whole.” —C.G. Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul

We all have a Shadow side and it is the work of a lifetime to recognise what lies within and spin that base material into gold.

Think of it as a seedling in a little pot that you’re given when you’re young. It’s a bit misshapen and weird, not something you would display in your living room, so you place it in a dark corner of the basement.

You don’t look at it for years. You almost forget about it.

Then one day you notice tendrils of something wild poking up through the floorboards. They’re ugly and don’t fit with your Scandi-minimalist interior design. You chop the tendrils away and pour weedkiller on what’s left, trying to hide the fact that they were ever there.

But the creeping stems keep coming.

At some point, you know you have to go down there and face the wild thing your seedling has become.

When you eventually pluck up enough courage to go down into the basement, you discover that the plant has wound its roots deep into the foundations of your home. Its vines weave in and out of the cracks in the walls, and it has beautiful flowers and strange fruit.

It holds your world together.

Perhaps you don’t need to destroy the wild tendrils. Perhaps you can let them wind up into the light and allow their rich beauty to weave through your home. It will change the look you have so carefully cultivated, but maybe that’s just what the place needs.

The Shadow in psychology

Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychologist and the founder of analytical psychology. He described the Shadow as an unconscious aspect of the human personality, those parts of us that don’t match up to what is expected of us by family and society, or to our own ideals.

The Shadow is not necessarily evil or illegal or immoral, although of course it can be. It’s also not necessarily caused by trauma, abuse, or any other severely damaging event, although again, it can be.

It depends on the individual.

What is in your Shadow is based on your life and your experiences, as well as your culture and society, so it will be different for everyone.

Psychologist Connie Zweig, in The Inner Work of Age, explains,

“The Shadow is that part of us that lies beneath or behind the light of awareness. It contains our rejected, unacceptable traits and feelings. It contains our hidden gifts and talents that have remained unexpressed or unlived. As Jung put it, the essence of the Shadow is pure gold.”

To further illustrate the concept, Robert Bly, in A Little Book on the Human Shadow,uses the following metaphor:

“When we are young, we carry behind us an invisible bag, into which we stuff any feelings, thoughts, or behaviours that bring disapproval or loss of love—anger, tears, neediness, laziness. By the time we go to school, our bags are already a mile long.

In high school, our peer groups pressure us to stuff the bags with even more—individuality, sexuality, spontaneity, different opinions. We spend our life until we’re twenty deciding which parts of ourselves to put into the bag and we spend the rest of our lives trying to get them out again.”

As authors, we can use what’s in the ‘bag’ to enrich our writing — but only if we can access it. My intention with this book is to help you venture into your Shadow and bring some of what’s hidden into the light and into your words.

I’ll reveal aspects of my Shadow in these pages but ultimately, this book is about you. Your Shadow is unique. There may be elements we share, but much will be different.

Each chapter has questions for you to consider that may help you explore at least the edges of your Shadow, but it’s not easy. As Jung said,

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.”

But take heart, Creative. You don’t need courage when things are easy. You need it when you know what you face will be difficult, but you do it anyway.

We are authors. We know how to do hard things.

We turn ideas into books. We manifest thoughts into ink on paper.

We change lives with our writing. First, our own, then other people’s. It’s worth the effort to delve into Shadow, so I hope you will join me on the journey.

The creative wound and the Shadow in writing

“Whatever pain you can’t get rid of, make it your creative offering.” —Susan Cain, Bittersweet 

The more we long for something, the more extreme our desire, the more likely it is to have a Shadow side. For those of us who love books, the author life may well be a long-held dream and thus, it is filled with Shadow.

Books have long been objects of desire, power, and authority. They hold a mythic status in our lives. We escaped into stories as children; we studied books at school and college; we read them now for escape and entertainment, education and inspiration. We collect beautiful books to put on our shelves. We go to them for solace and answers to the deepest questions of life.

Writers are similarly held in high esteem. They shape culture, win literary prizes, give important speeches, and are quoted in the mainstream media. Their books are on the shelves in libraries and bookstores. Writers are revered, held up as rare, talented creatures made separate from us by their brilliance and insight.

For bibliophile children, books were everything and to write one was a cherished dream. To become an author? Well, that would mean we might be someone special, someone worthy.

Perhaps when you were young, you thought the dream of being a writer was possible — then you told someone about it.

That’s probably when you heard the first criticism of such a ridiculous idea, the first laughter, the first dismissal. So you abandoned the dream, pushed the idea of being a writer into the Shadow, and got on with your life.

Or if it wasn’t then, it came later, when you actually put pen to paper and someone — a parent, teacher, partner, or friend, perhaps even a literary agent or publisher, someone whose opinion you valued — told you it was worthless.

Here are some things you might have heard:

Writing is a hobby. Get a real job.

You’re not good enough. You don’t have any writing talent.

You don’t have enough education. You don’t know what you’re doing.

Your writing is derivative / unoriginal / boring / useless / doesn’t make sense.

The genre you write in is dead / worthless / unacceptable / morally wrong / frivolous / useless. 

Who do you think you are? No one would want to read what you write.

You can’t even use proper grammar, so how could you write a whole book?

You’re wasting your time. You’ll never make it as a writer.

You shouldn’t write those things (or even think about those things). Why don’t you write something nice?

Insert other derogatory comment here!

Mark Pierce describes the effect of this experience in his book The Creative Wound, which “occurs when an event, or someone’s actions or words, pierce you, causing a kind of rift in your soul. A comment—even offhand and unintentional—is enough to cause one.”

He goes on to say that such words can inflict “damage to the core of who we are as creators. It is an attack on our artistic identity, resulting in us believing that whatever we make is somehow tainted or invalid, because shame has convinced us there is something intrinsically tainted or invalid about ourselves.”

As adults, we might brush off such wounds, belittling them as unimportant in the grand scheme of things. We might even find ourselves saying the same words to other people. After all, it’s easier to criticise than to create.

But if you picture your younger self, bright eyed as you lose yourself in your favourite book, perhaps you might catch a glimpse of what you longed for before your dreams were dashed on the rocks of other people’s reality.

As Mark Pierce goes on to say,

“A Creative Wound has the power to delay our pursuits—sometimes for years—and it can even derail our lives completely… Anything that makes us feel ashamed of ourselves or our work can render us incapable of the self-expression we yearn for.”

This is certainly what happened to me, and it took decades to unwind.

Your creative wounds will differ to mine but perhaps my experience will help you explore your own. To be clear, your Shadow may not reside in elements of horror as mine do, but hopefully you can use my example to consider where your creative wounds might lie.

“You shouldn’t write things like that.”

It happened at secondary school around 1986 or 1987, so I would have been around eleven or twelve years old. English was one of my favourite subjects and the room we had our lessons in looked out onto a vibrant garden. I loved going to that class because it was all about books, and they were always my favourite things.

One day, we were asked to write a story. I can’t remember the specifics of what the teacher asked us to write, but I fictionalised a recurring nightmare.

I stood in a dark room.

On one side, my mum and my brother, Rod, were tied up next to a cauldron of boiling oil, ready to be thrown in. On the other side, my dad and my little sister, Lucy, were threatened with decapitation by men with machetes.

I had to choose who would die.

I always woke up, my heart pounding, before I had to choose.

Looking back now, it clearly represented an internal conflict about having to pick sides between the two halves of my family. Not an unexpected issue from a child of divorce.

Perhaps these days, I might have been sent to the school counsellor, but it was the eighties and I don’t think we even had such a thing. Even so, the meaning of the story isn’t the point. It was the reaction to it that left scars.

“You shouldn’t write things like that,” my teacher said, and I still remember her look of disappointment, even disgust.

Certainly judgment.

She said my writing was too dark. It wasn’t a proper story. It wasn’t appropriate for the class.

As if horrible things never happened in stories — or in life.

As if literature could not include dark tales.

As if the only acceptable writing was the kind she approved of. We were taught The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie that year, which says a lot about the type of writing considered appropriate.

Or perhaps the issue stemmed from the school motto, “So hateth she derknesse,” from Chaucer’s The Legend of Good Women: “For fear of night, so she hates the darkness.”

I had won a scholarship to a private girls’ school, and their mission was to turn us all into proper young ladies. Horror was never on the curriculum.

Perhaps if my teacher had encouraged me to write my darkness back then, my nightmares would have dissolved on the page.

Perhaps if we had studied Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or H.P. Lovecraft stories, or Bram Stoker’s Dracula, I could have embraced the darker side of literature earlier in my life.

My need to push darker thoughts into my Shadow was compounded by my (wonderful) mum’s best intentions. We were brought up on the principles of The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale and she tried to shield me and my brother from anything harmful or horrible. We weren’t allowed to watch TV much, and even the British school drama Grange Hill was deemed inappropriate.

So much of what I’ve achieved is because my mum instilled in me a “can do” attitude that anything is possible. I’m so grateful to her for that. (I love you, Mum!)

But all that happy positivity, my desire to please her, to be a good girl, to make my teachers proud, and to be acceptable to society, meant that I pushed my darker thoughts into Shadow.

They were inappropriate. They were taboo. They must be repressed, kept secret, and I must be outwardly happy and positive at all times.

You cannot hold back the darkness

“The night is dark and full of terrors.” —George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords

It turned out that horror was on the curriculum, much of it in the form of educational films we watched during lessons.

In English Literature, we watched Romeo drink poison and Juliet stab herself in Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet.

In Religious Studies, we watched Jesus beaten, tortured, and crucified in The Greatest Story Ever Told, and learned of the variety of gruesome ways that Christian saints were martyred.

In Classical Civilisation, we watched gladiators slaughter each other in Spartacus.

In Sex Education at the peak of the AIDS crisis in the mid-’80s, we were told of the many ways we could get infected and die.

In History, we studied the Holocaust with images of skeletal bodies thrown into mass graves, medical experiments on humans, and grainy videos of marching soldiers giving the Nazi salute.

One of my first overseas school field trips was to the World War I battlegrounds of Flanders Fields in Belgium, where we studied the inhuman conditions of the trenches, walked through mass graves, and read war poetry by candlelight. As John McCrae wrote:

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie, 
In Flanders fields.

Did the teachers not realise how deeply a sensitive teenager might feel the darkness of that place? Or have I always been unusual in that places of blood echo deep inside me?

And the horrors kept coming.

We lived in Bristol, England back then and I learned at school how the city had been part of the slave trade, its wealth built on the backs of people stolen from their homes, sold, and worked to death in the colonies. I had been at school for a year in Malawi, Africa and imagined the Black people I knew drowning, being beaten, and dying on those ships.

In my teenage years, the news was filled with ethnic cleansing, mass rape, and massacres during the Balkan wars, and images of bodies hacked apart during the Rwandan genocide. Evil committed by humans against other humans was not a historical aberration.

I’m lucky and I certainly acknowledge my privilege. Nothing terrible or horrifying has happened to me — but bad things certainly happen to others.

I wasn’t bullied or abused. I wasn’t raped or beaten or tortured.

But you don’t have to go through things to be afraid of them, and for your imagination to conjure the possibility of them.

My mum doesn’t read my fiction now as it gives her nightmares (Sorry, Mum!). I know she worries that somehow she’s responsible for my darkness, but I’ve had a safe and (mostly) happy life, for which I’m truly grateful.

But the world is not an entirely safe and happy place, and for a sensitive child with a vivid imagination, the world is dark and scary.

It can be brutal and violent, and bad things happen, even to good people.

No parent can shield their child from the reality of the world. They can only help them do their best to live in it, develop resilience, and find ways to deal with whatever comes.

Story has always been a way that humans have used to learn how to live and deal with difficult times. The best authors, the ones that readers adore and can’t get enough of, write their darkness into story to channel their experience, and help others who fear the same.

In an interview on writing the Shadow on The Creative Penn Podcast, Michaelbrent Collings shared how he incorporated a personally devastating experience into his writing: 

“My wife and I lost a child years back, and that became the root of one of my most terrifying books, Apparition. It’s not terrifying because it’s the greatest book of all time, but just the concept that there’s this thing out there… like a demon, and it consumes the blood and fear of the children, and then it withdraws and consumes the madness of the parents… I wrote that in large measure as a way of working through what I was experiencing.”

I’ve learned much from Michaelbrent. I’ve read many of his (excellent) books and he’s been on my podcast multiple times talking about his depression and mental health issues, as well as difficulties in his author career. Writing darkness is not in Michaelbrent’s Shadow and only he can say what lies there for him. But from his example, and from that of other authors, I too learned how to write my Shadow into my books.

Twenty-three years after that English lesson, in November 2009, I did NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, and wrote five thousand words of what eventually became Stone of Fire, my first novel.

In the initial chapter, I burned a nun alive on the ghats of Varanasi on the banks of the Ganges River. I had watched the bodies burn by night on pyres from a boat bobbing in the current a few years before, and the image was still crystal clear in my mind. The only way to deal with how it made me feel about death was to write about it — and since then, I’ve never stopped writing.

Returning to the nightmare from my school days, I’ve never had to choose between the two halves of my family, but the threat of losing them remains a theme in my fiction. In my ARKANE thriller series, Morgan Sierra will do anything to save her sister and her niece. Their safety drives her to continue to fight against evil.

Our deepest fears emerge in our writing, and that’s the safest place for them. I wish I’d been taught how to turn my nightmares into words back at school, but at least now I’ve learned to write my Shadow onto the page. I wish the same for you.

The Shadow in traditional publishing

If becoming an author is your dream, then publishing a book is deeply entwined with that. But as Mark Pierce says in The Creative Wound,

“We feel pain the most where it matters the most… Desire highlights whatever we consider to be truly significant.”

There is a lot of desire around publishing for those of us who love books!

It can give you:

Validation that your writing is good enough

Status and credibility

Acceptance by an industry held in esteem 

The potential of financial reward and critical acclaim

Support from a team of professionals who know how to make fantastic books

A sense of belonging to an elite community

Pride in achieving a long-held goal, resulting in a confidence boost and self-esteem

Although not guaranteed, traditional publishing can give you all these things and more, but as with everything, there is a potential Shadow side.

Denying it risks the potential of being disillusioned, disappointed, and even damaged. But remember, forewarned is forearmed, as the saying goes. Preparation can help you avoid potential issues and help you feel less alone if you encounter them.

The myth of success… and the reality of experience

There is a pervasive myth of success in the traditional publishing industry, perpetuated by media reporting on brand name and breakout authors, those few outliers whose experience is almost impossible to replicate.

Because of such examples, many new traditionally published authors think that their first book will hit the top of the bestseller charts or win an award, as well as make them a million dollars — or at least a big chunk of cash. They will be able to leave their job, write in a beautiful house overlooking the ocean, and swan around the world attending conferences, while writing more bestselling books. It will be a charmed life.

But that is not the reality.

Perhaps it never was.

Even so, the life of a traditionally published author represents a mythic career with the truth hidden behind a veil of obscurity.

In April 2023, The Bookseller in the UK reported that

“more than half of authors (54%) responding to a survey on their experiences of publishing their debut book have said the process negatively affected their mental health. Though views were mixed, just 22%… described a positive experience overall… Among the majority who said they had a negative experience of debut publication, anxiety, stress, depression and ‘lowered’ self-esteem were cited, with lack of support, guidance or clear and professional communication from their publisher among the factors that contributed.”

Many authors who have negative experiences around publishing will push them into the Shadow with denial or self-blame, preferring to keep the dream alive. They won’t talk about things in public as this may negatively affect their careers, but private discussions are often held in the corners of writing conferences or social media groups online.

Some of the issues are as follows:

Repeated rejection by agents and publishers may lead to the author thinking they are not good enough as a writer, which can lead to feeling unworthy as a person. If an author gets a deal, the amount of advance and the name and status of the publisher compared to others create a hierarchy that impacts self-esteem.

A deal for a book may be much lower than an author might have been expecting, with low or no advance, and the resulting experience with the publisher beneath expectations.

The launch process may be disappointing, and the book may appear without fanfare, with few sales and no bestseller chart position.

In The Bookseller report, one author described her launch day as

“a total wasteland… You have expectations about what publication day will be like, but in reality, nothing really happens.”

The book may receive negative reviews by critics or readers or more publicly on social media, which can make an author feel attacked.

The book might not sell as well as expected, and the author may feel like it’s their fault. Commercial success can sometimes feel tied to self-worth and an author can’t help but compare their sales to others, with resulting embarrassment or shame.

The communication from the publisher may be less than expected. One author in The Bookseller report said,

“I was shocked by the lack of clarity and shared information and the cynicism that underlies the superficial charm of this industry.”

There is often more of a focus on debut authors in publishing houses, so those who have been writing and publishing in the midlist for years can feel ignored and undervalued.

In The Bookseller report, 48 percent of authors reported “their publisher supported them for less than a year,” with one saying,

“I got no support and felt like a commodity, like the team had moved on completely to the next book.”

If an author is not successful enough, the next deal may be lower than the last, less effort is made with marketing, and they may be let go.

In The Bookseller report, “six authors—debut and otherwise—cited being dropped by their publisher, some with no explanation.”

Even if everything goes well and an author is considered successful by others, they may experience imposter syndrome, feeling like a fraud when speaking at conferences or doing book signings.

And the list goes on …

All these things can lead to feelings of shame, inadequacy, and embarrassment; loss of status in the eyes of peers; and a sense of failure if a publishing career is not successful enough.

The author feels like it’s their fault, like they weren’t good enough — although, of course, the reality is that the conditions were not right at the time. A failure of a book is not a failure of the person, but it can certainly feel like it!

When you acknowledge the Shadow, it loses its power

Despite all the potential negatives of traditional publishing, if you know what could happen, you can mitigate them. You can prepare yourself for various scenarios and protect yourself from potential fall-out.

It’s clear from The Bookseller report that too many authors have unrealistic expectations of the industry.

But publishers are businesses, not charities.

It’s not their job to make you feel good as an author. It’s their job to sell books and pay you. The best thing they can do is to continue to be a viable business so they can keep putting books on the shelves and keep paying authors, staff, and company shareholders.

When you license your creative work to a publisher, you’re giving up control of your intellectual property in exchange for money and status.

Bring your fears and issues out of the Shadow, acknowledge them, and deal with them early, so they do not get pushed down and re-emerge later in blame and bitterness.

Educate yourself on the business of publishing. Be clear on what you want to achieve with any deal. Empower yourself as an author, take responsibility for your career, and you will have a much better experience.

The Shadow in self-publishing or being an indie author

Self-publishing, or being an independent (indie) author, can be a fantastic, pro-active choice for getting your book into the world. Holding your first book in your hand and saying “I made this” is pretty exciting, and even after more than forty books, I still get excited about seeing ideas in my head turn into a physical product in the world.

Self-publishing can give an author:

Creative control over what to write, editorial and cover design choices, when and how often to publish, and how to market

Empowerment over your author career and the ability to make choices that impact success without asking for permission

Ownership and control of intellectual property assets, resulting in increased opportunity around licensing and new markets

Independence and the potential for recurring income for the long term

Autonomy and flexibility around timelines, publishing options, and the ability to easily pivot into new genres and business models

Validation based on positive reader reviews and money earned

Personal growth and learning through the acquisition of new skills, resulting in a boost in confidence and self-esteem

A sense of belonging to an active and vibrant community of indie authors around the world

Being an indie author can give you all this and more, but once again, there is a Shadow side and preparation can help you navigate potential issues.

The myth of success… and the reality of experience

As with traditional publishing, the indie author world has perpetuated a myth of success in the example of the breakout indie author like E.L. James with Fifty Shades of Grey, Hugh Howey with Wool, or Andy Weir with The Martian.

The emphasis on financial success is also fuelled online by authors who share screenshots showing six-figure months or seven-figure years, without sharing marketing costs and other outgoings, or the amount of time spent on the business.

Yes, these can inspire some, but it can also make others feel inadequate and potentially lead to bad choices about how to publish and market based on comparison.

The indie author world is full of just as much ego and a desire for status and money as traditional publishing.

This is not a surprise!

Most authors, regardless of publishing choices, are a mix of massive ego and chronic self-doubt. We are human, so the same issues will re-occur. A different publishing method doesn’t cure all ills.

Some of the issues are as follows:

You learn everything you need to know about writing and editing, only to find that you need to learn a whole new set of skills in order to self-publish and market your book. This can take a lot of time and effort you did not expect, and things change all the time so you have to keep learning.

Being in control of every aspect of the publishing process, from writing to cover design to marketing, can be overwhelming, leading to indecision, perfectionism, stress, and even burnout as you try to do all the things.

You try to find people to help, but building your team is a challenge, and working with others has its own difficulties.

People say negative things about self-publishing that may arouse feelings of embarrassment or shame. These might be little niggles, but they needle you, nonetheless. You wonder whether you made the right choice.

You struggle with self-doubt and if you go to an event with traditional published authors, you compare yourself to them and feel like an imposter.

Are you good enough to be an author if a traditional publisher hasn’t chosen you?

Is it just vanity to self-publish?

Are your books unworthy?

Even though you worked with a professional editor, you still get one-star reviews and you hate criticism from readers. You wonder whether you’re wasting your time.

You might be ripped off by an author services company who promise the world, only to leave you with a pile of printed books in your garage and no way to sell them.

When you finally publish your book, it languishes at the bottom of the charts while other authors hit the top of the list over and over, raking in the cash while you are left out of pocket.

You don’t admit to over-spending on marketing as it makes you ashamed.

You resist book marketing and make critical comments about writers who embrace it. You believe that quality rises to the top and if a book is good enough, people will buy it anyway. This can lead to disappointment and disillusionment when you launch your book and it doesn’t sell many copies because nobody knows about it.

You try to do what everyone advises, but you still can’t make decent money as an author.

You’re jealous of other authors’ success and put it down to them ‘selling out’ or writing things you can’t or ‘using AI’ or ‘using a ghostwriter’ or having a specific business model you consider impossible to replicate.

And the list goes on…

When you acknowledge the Shadow, it loses its power

Being in control of your books and your author career is a double-edged sword.

Traditionally published authors can criticise their publishers or agents or the marketing team or the bookstores or the media, but indie authors have to take responsibility for it all.

Sure, we can blame ‘the algorithms’ or social media platforms, or criticise other authors for having more experience or more money to invest in marketing, or attribute their success to writing in a more popular genre — but we also know there are always people who do well regardless of the challenges.

Once more, we’re back to acknowledging and integrating the Shadow side of our choices. We are flawed humans. There will always be good times and bad, and difficulties to offset the high points. This too shall pass, as the old saying goes.

I know that being an indie author has plenty of Shadow. I’ve been doing this since 2008 and despite the hard times, I’m still here.

I’m still writing. I’m still publishing.

This life is not for everyone, but it’s my choice. You must make yours.

The Shadow in work

You work hard. You make a living.

Nothing wrong with that attitude, right?

It’s what we’re taught from an early age and, like so much of life, it’s not a problem until it goes to extremes.

Not achieving what you want to? Work harder. Can’t get ahead? Work harder. Not making a good enough living? Work harder.

People who don’t work hard are lazy. They don’t deserve handouts or benefits. People who don’t work hard aren’t useful, so they are not valued members of our culture and community.

But what about the old or the sick, the mentally ill, or those with disabilities? What about children?

What about the unemployed? The under-employed?

What about those who are — or will be — displaced by technology, those called “the useless class” by historian Yuval Noah Harari in his book Homo Deus?

What if we become one of these in the future?

Who am I if I cannot work?

The Shadow side of my attitude to work became clear when I caught COVID in the summer of 2021.

I was the sickest I’d ever been. I spent two weeks in bed unable to even think properly, and six weeks after that, I was barely able to work more than an hour a day before lying in the dark and waiting for my energy to return. I was limited in what I could do for another six months after that. At times, I wondered if I would ever get better.

Jonathan kept urging me to be patient and rest.

But I don’t know how to rest. I know how to work and how to sleep.

I can do ‘active rest,’ which usually involves walking a long way or traveling somewhere interesting, but those require a stronger mind and body than I had during those months.

It struck me that even if I recovered from the virus, I had glimpsed my future self.

One day, I will be weak in body and mind.

If I’m lucky, that will be many years away and hopefully for a short time before I die — but it will happen.

I am an animal. I will die. My body and mind will pass on and I will be no more.

Before then I will be weak.

Before then, I will be useless.

Before then, I will be a burden.

I will not be able to work… But who am I if I cannot work? What is the point of me?

I can’t answer these questions right now, because although I recognise them as part of my Shadow, I’ve not progressed far enough to have dealt with them entirely.

My months of COVID gave me some much-needed empathy for those who cannot work, even if they want to. We need to reframe what work is as a society, and value humans for different things, especially as technology changes what work even means. That starts with each of us.

“Illness, affliction of body and soul, can be life-altering. It has the potential to reveal the most fundamental conflict of the human condition: the tension between our infinite, glorious dreams and desires and our limited, vulnerable, decaying physicality.” —Connie Zweig, The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul

The Shadow in money

In the Greek myth, King Midas was a wealthy ruler who loved gold above all else. His palace was adorned with golden sculptures and furniture, and he took immense pleasure in his riches. Yet, despite his vast wealth, he yearned for more.

After doing a favour for Dionysus, the god of wine and revelry, Midas was granted a single wish. Intoxicated by greed, he wished that everything he touched would turn to gold — and it was so.

At first, it was a lot of fun.

Midas turned everything else in his palace to gold, even the trees and stones of his estate. After a morning of turning things to gold, he fancied a spot of lunch.

But when he tried to eat, the food and drink turned to gold in his mouth. He became thirsty and hungry — and increasingly desperate.

As he sat in despair on his golden throne, his beloved young daughter ran to comfort him. For a moment, he forgot his wish — and as she wrapped her arms around him and kissed his cheek, she turned into a golden statue, frozen in precious metal.

King Midas cried out to the gods to forgive him, to reverse the wish.

He renounced his greed and gave away all his wealth, and his daughter was returned to life.

The moral of the story: Wealth and greed are bad.

In Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge is described as a “squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner.” He’s wealthy but does not share, considering Christmas spending to be frivolous and giving to charity to be worthless. He’s saved by a confrontation with his lonely future and becomes a generous man and benefactor of the poor.

Wealth is good if you share it with others.

The gospel of Matthew, chapter 25: 14-30, tells the parable of the bags of gold, in which a rich man goes on a journey and entrusts his servants with varying amounts of gold. On his return, the servants who multiplied the gold through their efforts and investments are rewarded, while the one who merely returned the gold with no interest is punished:

“For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.”

Making money is good, making more money is even better. If you can’t make any money, you don’t deserve to have any.

Within the same gospel, in Matthew 19:24, Jesus encounters a wealthy man and tells him to sell all his possessions and give the money to the poor, which the man is unable to do. Jesus says,

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Wealth is bad. Give it all away and you’ll go to heaven.

With all these contradictory messages, no wonder we’re so conflicted about money!

How do you think and feel about money?

While money is mostly tied to our work, it’s far more than just a transactional object for most people. It’s loaded with complex symbolism and judgment handed down by family, religion, and culture.

You are likely to find elements of Shadow by examining your attitudes around money.

Consider which of the following statements resonate with you or write your own.

Money stresses me out. I don’t want to talk about it or think about it.

Some people hoard money, so there is inequality. Rich people are bad and we should take away their wealth and give it to the poor. 

I can never make enough money to pay the bills, or to give my family what I want to provide.

Money doesn’t grow on trees. 

It’s wasteful to spend money as you might need it later, so I’m frugal and don’t spend money unless absolutely necessary.

It is better and more ethical to be poor than to be rich.

I want more money. I read books and watch TV shows about rich people because I want to live like that. Sometimes I spend too much on things for a glimpse of what that might be like. 

I buy lottery tickets and dream of winning all that money. 

I’m jealous of people who have money. I want more of it and I resent those who have it.

I’m no good with money. I don’t like to look at my bank statement or credit card statement. I live off my overdraft and I’m in debt. I will never earn enough to get out of debt and start saving, so I don’t think too much about it.

I don’t know enough about money. Talking about it makes me feel stupid, so I just ignore it. People like me aren’t educated about money. 

I need to make more money. If I can make lots of money, then people will look up to me. If I make lots of money, I will be secure, nothing can touch me, I will be safe. 

I never want to be poor. I would be ashamed to be poor. I will never go on benefits. My net worth is my self worth.

Money is good. We have the best standard of living in history because of the increase in wealth over time. Even the richest kings of the past didn’t have what many middle-class people have today in terms of access to food, water, technology, healthcare, education, and more.

The richest people give the most money to the poor through taxation and charity, as well as through building companies that employ people and invent new things. The very richest give away much of their fortunes. They provide far more benefit to the world than the poor. 

I love money. Money loves me. Money comes easily and quickly to me. I attract money in multiple streams of income. It flows to me in so many ways. I spend money. I invest money. I give money. I’m happy and grateful for all that I receive.

The Shadow around money for authors in particular

Many writers and other creatives have issues around money and wealth. How often have you heard the following, and which do you agree with?

You can’t make money with your writing. You’ll be a poor author in a garret, a starving artist. 

You can’t write ‘good quality’ books and make money.

If you make money writing, you’re a hack, you’re selling out. You are less worthy than someone who writes only for the Muse. Your books are commercial, not artistic.

If you spend money on marketing, then your books are clearly not good enough to sell on their own.

My agent / publisher / accountant / partner deals with the money side. I like to focus on the creative side of things.

My money story

Note: This is not financial or investment advice. Please talk to a professional about your situation.

I’ve had money issues over the years — haven’t we all! But I have been through a (long) process to bring money out of my Shadow and into the light. There will always be more to discover, but hopefully my money story will help you, or at least give you an opportunity to reflect.

Like most people, I didn’t grow up with a lot of money. My parents started out as teachers, but later my mum — who I lived with, along with my brother — became a change management consultant, moving to the USA and earning a lot more. I’m grateful that she moved into business because her example changed the way I saw money and provided some valuable lessons.

(1) You can change your circumstances by learning more and then applying that to leverage opportunity into a new job or career

Mum taught English at a school in Bristol when we moved back from Malawi, Africa, in the mid ’80s but I remember how stressful it was for her, and how little money she made. She wanted a better future for us all, so she took a year out to do a master’s degree in management.

In the same way, when I wanted to change careers and leave consulting to become an author, I spent time and money learning about the writing craft and the business of publishing. I still invest a considerable chunk on continuous learning, as this industry changes all the time.

(2) You might have to downsize in order to leap forward

The year my mum did her degree, we lived in the attic of another family’s house; we ate a lot of one-pot casserole and our treat was having a Yorkie bar on the walk back from the museum.

We wore hand-me-down clothes, and I remember one day at school when another girl said I was wearing her dress. I denied it, of course, but there in back of the dress was her name tag. I still remember her name and I can still feel that flush of shame and embarrassment. I was determined to never feel like that again. But what I didn’t realize at the time was that I was also learning the power of downsizing.

Mum got her degree and then a new job in management in Bristol. She bought a house, and we settled for a few years. I had lots of different jobs as a teenager. My favourite was working in the delicatessen because we got a free lunch made from delicious produce. After I finished A-levels, I went to the University of Oxford, and my mum and brother moved to the USA for further opportunities.

I’ve downsized multiple times over the years, taking a step back in order to take a step forward. The biggest was in 2010 when I decided to leave consulting. Jonathan and I sold our three-bedroom house and investments in Brisbane, Australia, and rented a one-bedroom flat in London, so we could be debt-free and live on less while I built up a new career. It was a decade before we bought another house.

(3) Comparison can be deadly: there will always be people with more money than you

Oxford was an education in many ways and relevant to this chapter is how much I didn’t know about things people with money took for granted.

I learned about formal hall and wine pairings, and how to make a perfect gin and tonic. I ate smoked salmon for the first time. I learned how to fit in with people who had a lot more money than I did, and I definitely wanted to have money of my own to play with.

(4) Income is not wealth

You can earn lots but have nothing to show for it after years of working. I learned this in my first few years of IT consulting after university. I earned a great salary and then went contracting, earning even more money at a daily rate.

I had a wonderful time. I traveled, ate and drank and generally made merry, but I always had to go back to the day job when the money ran out. I couldn’t work out how I could ever stop this cycle.

Then I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, a book I still recommend, especially if you’re from a family that values academic over financial education. I learned how to escape the rat race by building and/or accumulating assets that pay even when you’re not working. It was a revelation!

The ‘poor dad’ in the book is a university professor. He knows so much about so many things, but he ends up poor as he did not educate himself about money. The ‘rich dad’ has little formal education, but he knows about money and wealth because he learned about it, as we can do at any stage in our lives.

(5) Not all investments suit every person, so find the right one for you

Once I discovered the world of investing, I read all the books and did courses and in-person events. I joined communities and I up-skilled big time.

Of course, I made mistakes and learned lots along the way.

I tried property investing and renovated a couple of houses for rental (with more practical partners and skilled contractors). But while I could see that property investing might work for some people, I did not care enough about the details to make it work for me, and it was certainly not passive income.

I tried other things.

My first husband was a boat skipper and scuba diving instructor, so we started a charter. With the variable costs of fuel, the vagaries of New Zealand weather — and our divorce — it didn’t last long!

From all these experiments, I learned I wanted to run a business, but it needed to be online and not based on a physical location, physical premises, or other people.

That was 2006, around the time that blogging started taking off and it became possible to make a living online. I could see the potential and a year later, the iPhone and the Amazon Kindle launched, which became the basis of my business as an author.

(6) Boring, automatic saving and investing works best

Between 2007 and 2011, I contracted in Australia, where they have compulsory superannuation contributions, meaning you have to save and invest a percentage of your salary or self-employed income.

I’d never done that before, because I didn’t understand it. I’d ploughed all my excess income into property or the business instead. But in Australia I didn’t notice the money going out because it was automatic. I chose a particular fund and it auto-invested every month. The pot grew pretty fast since I didn’t touch it, and years later, it’s still growing.

I discovered the power of compound interest and time in the market, both of which are super boring. This type of investing is not a get rich quick scheme. It’s a slow process of automatically putting money into boring investments and doing that month in, month out, year in, year out, automatically for decades while you get on with your life.

I still do this. I earn money as an author entrepreneur and I put a percentage of that into boring investments automatically every month. I also have a small amount which is for fun and higher risk investments, but mostly I’m a conservative, risk-averse investor planning ahead for the future.

This is not financial advice, so I’m not giving any specifics. I have a list of recommended money books at www.TheCreativePenn.com/moneybooks if you want to learn more.

Learning from the Shadow

When I look back, my Shadow side around money eventually drove me to learn more and resulted in a better outcome (so far!).

I was ashamed of being poor when I had to wear hand-me-down clothes at school. That drove a fear of not having any money, which partially explains my workaholism. I was embarrassed at Oxford because I didn’t know how to behave in certain settings, and I wanted to be like the rich people I saw there.

I spent too much money in my early years as a consultant because I wanted to experience a “rich” life and didn’t understand saving and investing would lead to better things in the future.

I invested too much in the wrong things because I didn’t know myself well enough and I was trying to get rich quick so I could leave my job and ‘be happy.’

But eventually, I discovered that I could grow my net worth with boring, long-term investments while doing a job I loved as an author entrepreneur.

My only regret is that I didn’t discover this earlier and put a percentage of my income into investments as soon as I started work. It took several decades to get started, but at least I did (eventually) start.

My money story isn’t over yet, and I keep learning new things, but hopefully my experience will help you reflect on your own and avoid the issue if it’s still in Shadow.

These chapters are excerpted from Writing the Shadow: Turn Your Inner Darkness Into Words by Joanna Penn

 
The post Writing The Shadow: The Creative Wound, Publishing, And Money, With Joanna Penn first appeared on The Creative Penn.

How can you build iconic characters that your readers want to keep coming back to? How can you be the kind of creator that readers trust, even without social media? With Claire Taylor

In the intro, Dan Brown talks writing and publishing [Tetragrammaton];
Design Rules That Make or Break a Book [Self-Publishing Advice];
Amazon’s DRM change [Kindlepreneur]; Show me the money [Rachael Herron]; AI bible translation [Wycliffe, Pope Leo tweet]. Plus, Business for Authors 24 Jan webinar, and Bones of the Deep.

Today's show is sponsored by Bookfunnel, the essential tool for your author business. Whether it’s delivering your reader magnet, sending out advanced copies of your book, handing out ebooks at a conference, or fulfilling your digital sales to readers, BookFunnel does it all. Check it out at bookfunnel.com/thecreativepenn

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn

Claire Taylor is a humour and mystery author, the owner of FFS Media, and a certified Enneagram coach. She teaches authors to write stronger stories and build sustainable careers at LiberatedWriter.com, and her book is Write Iconic Characters: Unlocking the Core Motivations that Fuel Unforgettable Stories.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights, and the full transcript is below.

Show Notes

Why Claire left social media and how she still markets her books and services

What the Enneagram is and how core fears and desires shape character motivation

Using Enneagram types (including Wednesday Addams as an example) to write iconic characters

Creating rich conflict and relationships by pairing different Enneagram types on the page

Coping with rapid change, AI, and fear in the author community in 2026

Building a trustworthy, human author brand through honesty, transparency, and vulnerability

You can find Claire at LiberatedWriter.com, FFS.media, or on Substack as The Liberated Writer.

Transcript of the interview with Claire Taylor

Joanna: Claire Taylor is a humour and mystery author, the owner of FFS Media, and a certified Enneagram coach. She teaches authors to write stronger stories and build sustainable careers at LiberatedWriter.com, and her book is Write Iconic Characters: Unlocking the Core Motivations that Fuel Unforgettable Stories.

So, welcome back to the show, Claire.

Claire: Thank you so much for having me back. I'm excited to be here.

Joanna: It's great to have you back on the show. It was March 2024 when you were last on, so almost two years now as this goes out. Give us a bit of an update.

How has your writing craft and your author business changed in that time?

Claire: One of the things I've been focusing on with my own fiction craft is deconstructing the rules of how a story “should” be. That's been a sort of hobby focus of mine.

All the story structure books aren't law, right? That's why there are so many of them. They're all suggestions, frameworks. They're all trying to quantify humans’ innate ability to understand a story.

So I'm trying to remember more that I already know what a story is, deep down. My job as an author is to keep the reader's attention from start to finish and leave them feeling the way I hope they’ll feel at the end. That’s been my focus on the craft side.

On the author business side, I've made some big shifts. I left social media earlier this year, and I've been looking more towards one-on-one coaching and networking.

I did a craft-based Kickstarter, and I’d been focusing a lot on “career, career, career”—very business-minded—and now I'm creating more content again, especially around using the Enneagram for writing craft.

So there’s been a lot of transition since 2024 for me.

Joanna: I think it's so important—and obviously we're going to get into your book in more detail—but I do think it's important for people to hear about our pivots and transitions.

I haven't spoken to you for a while, but I actually started a master's degree a few months back. I'm doing a full-time master's alongside everything else I do. So I've kind of put down book writing for the moment, and I'm doing essay writing and academic writing instead. It's quite different, as you can imagine.

It sounds like what you’re doing is different too.

One thing I know will have perked up people’s ears is: “I left social media.” Tell us a bit more about that.

Claire: This was a move that I could feel coming for a while. I didn’t like what social media did to my attention. Even when I wasn’t on it, there was almost a hangover from having been on it.

My attention didn’t feel as sharp and focused as it used to be, back before social media became what it is now.

So I started asking myself some questions:

What is lost if I leave?

What is gained if I leave?

And what is social media actually doing for me today?

Because sometimes we hold on to what it used to do for us, and we keep trying to squeeze more and more of that out of it. But it has changed so much.

There are almost no places with sufficient organic reach anymore. It’s all pay-to-play, and the cost of pay-to-play keeps going up.

I looked at the numbers for my business. My Kickstarter was a great place to analyse that because they track so many traffic sources so clearly. I could see exactly how much I was getting from social media when I advertised and promoted my projects there.

Then I asked: can I let that go in order to get my attention back and make my life feel more settled? And I decided: yes, I can. That’s worth more to me.

Joanna: There are some things money can’t buy. Sometimes it really isn’t about the money.

I like your question: what is lost and what is gained?

You also said it’s all pay-to-play and there’s no organic reach. I do think there is some organic reach for some people who don’t pay, but those people are very good at playing the game of whatever the platform wants.

So, TikTok for example—you might not have to pay money yet, but you do have to play their game. You have to pay with your time instead of money.

I agree with you. I don’t think there’s anywhere you can literally just post something and know it will reliably reach the people who follow you.

Claire: Right. Exactly. TikTok currently, if you really play the game, will sometimes “pick” you, right? But that “pick me” energy is not really my jam.

And we can see the trend—this “organic” thing doesn’t last. It's organic for now. You can play the game for now, but TikTok would be crazy not to change things so they make more money. So eventually everything becomes pay-to-play.

TikTok is fun, but for me it’s addictive. I took it off my phone years ago because I would do the infinite scroll. There’s so much candy there.

Then I’d wake up the next morning and notice my mood just wasn’t where I wanted it to be. My energy was low. I really saw a correlation between how much I scrolled and how flat I felt afterwards.

So I realised: I’m not the person to pay-to-play or to play the game here. I’m not even convinced that the pay-to-play on certain social media networks is being tracked in a reliable, accountable way anymore. Who is holding them accountable for those numbers?

You can sort of see correlation in your sales, but still, I just became more and more sceptical. In the end, it just wasn’t for me.

My life is so much better on a daily basis without it. That’s definitely a decision I have not regretted for a second.

Joanna: I’m sorry to keep on about this, but I think this is great because this is going out in January 2026, and there will be lots of people examining their relationship with social media. It’s one of those things we all examine every year, pretty much.

The other thing I’d add is that you are a very self-aware person. You spend a lot of time thinking about these things and noticing your own behaviour and energy. Stopping and thinking is such an important part of it.

But let’s tackle the big question: one of the reasons people don’t want to come off social media is that they’re afraid they don’t know how else to market.

How are you marketing if you’re not using social media?

Claire: I didn’t leave social media overnight. Over time, I’ve been adjusting and transitioning, preparing my business and myself mentally and emotionally for probably about a year.

I still market to my email list. That has always been important to my business.

I’ve also started a Substack that fits how my brain works. Substack is interesting. Some people might consider it a form of social media—it has that new reading feed—but it feels much more like blogging to me. It’s blogging where you can be discovered, which is lovely. I’ve been doing more long-form content there.

You get access to all the emails of your subscribers, which is crucial to me. I don’t want to build on something I can’t take with me.

So I’ve been doing more long-form content, and that seems to keep my core audience with me. I’ve got plenty of people subscribed; people continue to come back, work with me, and tell their friends.

Word of mouth has always been the way my business markets best, because it’s hard to describe the benefits of what I do in a quick, catchy way. It needs context. So I’m leaning even more on that.

Then I’m also shifting my fiction book selling more local.

Joanna: In person?

Claire: Yes. In person and local. Networking and just telling more people that I’m an author. Connecting more deeply with my existing email lists and communities and selling that way.

Joanna: I think at the end of the day it does come back to the email list.

I think this is one of the benefits of selling direct to people through Shopify or Payhip or whatever, or locally, because you can build your email list. Every person you bring into your own ecosystem, you get their data and you can stay in touch.

Whereas all the things we did for years to get people to go to Amazon, we didn’t get their emails and details. It’s so interesting where we are right now in the author business.

Okay, we’ll come back to some of these things, but let’s get into the book and what you do. Obviously what underpins the book is the Enneagram.

Just remind us what the Enneagram is, why you incorporate it into so much of your work, and why you find it resonates so much.

Claire: The Enneagram is a framework that describes patterns of thoughts, feelings, and actions that tend to arise from nine different core motivations. Those core motivations are made up of a fear–desire pair.

So, for instance, there’s the fear of lacking worth and the desire to be worthy. That pair is the Type Three core motivation. If you’re a Type Three, sometimes called “The Achiever,” that’s your fundamental driver.

What we fear and desire above all the other fears and desires determines where our attention goes. And attention is something authors benefit greatly from understanding.

We have to keep people’s attention, so we want to understand our own attention and how to cultivate it. The things our attention goes to build our understanding of ourselves and the world.

Being intentional about that, and paying attention to what your characters pay attention to—and what your readers are paying attention to—is hugely beneficial. It can give you a real leg up. That’s why I focus on the Enneagram. I find it very useful at that core level.

You can build a lot of other things on top of it with your characters: their backstory, personal histories, little quirks—all of that can be built off the Enneagram foundation.

Why I like the Enneagram more than other frameworks like MBTI or the Big Five is that it not only shows us how our fears are confining us—that’s really what it’s charting—but it also shows us a path towards liberation from those fears.

That’s where the Enneagram really shines: the growth path, the freedom from the confines of our own personality. It offers that to anyone who wants to study and discover it.

A lot of the authors I work with say things like, “I’m just so sick of my own stuff.” And I get it. We all get sick of running into the same patterns over and over again. We can get sick of our personality!

The Enneagram is a really good tool for figuring out what’s going on and how to try something new, because often we can’t even see that there are other options. We have this particular lens we’re looking through. That’s why I like to play with it, and why I find it so useful.

Joanna: That’s really interesting. It sounds like you have a lot of mature authors—and when I say “mature,” I mean authors with a lot of books under their belt, not necessarily age.

There are different problems at different stages of the author career, and the problem you just described—“I’m getting sick of my stuff”—sounds like a mature author issue.

What are some of the other issues you see in the community that are quite common amongst indie authors?

Claire: One that comes up a lot, especially early on, is: “Am I doing this right?”

That’s a big question. People say, “I don’t know if I’m doing this right. I’m going to mess it up. This person told me this was the way to do things, but I don’t think I can do it this way. Am I doomed?” That’s the fear.

A lot of what I help people with is seeing that there isn’t a single “right” way to do this. There’s a way that’s going to feel more aligned to you, and there are millions of ways to approach an author career because we’re all constructing it as we go.

You were there in the early days. We were all just making this up as we went along.

Joanna: Exactly. There was a time when ebooks were PDFs, there wasn’t even a Kindle, and there was no iPhone. We were literally just making it up.

Claire: Right. Exactly. That spirit of “we’re all making it up” is important.

Some of us have come up with frameworks that work for us, and then we tell other people about them—“Here’s a process; try this process”—but that doesn’t mean it’s the process.

Understanding what motivates you—those core motivations—helps you see where you’re going to bump into advice that’s not right for you, and how to start making decisions that fit your attention, your life, your desires in this author role.

Early on we do a lot of that work. Then there are the authors who started a while ago and have a bunch of books.

They hit a point where they say, “I’ve changed so much since I started writing. I need to figure out how to adjust my career.”

Joanna: Tell us more about that, because I think that’s you and me. How do we deal with that?

Claire: Well, crying helps.

Joanna: That is true! There’s always a bit of crying involved in reinvention. From my perspective, my brand has always been built around me. People are still here—I know some people listening who have been with the podcast since I started it in 2009—and I’ve always been me.

Even though I’ve done loads of different things and changed along the way, at heart I’m still me. I’m really glad I built a personal brand around who I am, rather than around one genre or a single topic.

How about you? How do you see it?

Claire: I’m the same.

I just can’t stick with something that doesn’t feel right for me anymore. I’ll start to rebel against it.

There’s also that “good girl” part of me that wants to do things the way they’re supposed to be done and keep everybody happy. I have to keep an eye on her, because she’ll default to “this is the way it should be done,” and then I end up constricted.

As we advance through our careers, positioning around what motivates us and what we love, and allowing ourselves to understand that it’s okay to change—even though it’s painful—is crucial.

It’s actually destructive not to change over time. We end up forfeiting so many things that make life worth living if we don’t allow ourselves to grow and change. We end up in this tiny box.

People sometimes say the Enneagram is very restrictive. “It’s only nine types, you’re putting me in a box.”

It’s like: no. These are the boxes we’ve put ourselves in. Then we use the Enneagram to figure out how to get out of the box.

As we start to see the box we’ve put ourselves in with our personality—“that’s me, that’s not me”—we realise how much movement we actually have, how many options we have, while still being ourselves.

Joanna: So many options. This kind of brings us into your book, because part of the personal brand thing is being real and having different facets.

Your book is Write Iconic Characters, and presumably these are characters that people want to read more about. It uses the Enneagram to construct these better characters.

So first up—

What’s your definition of an iconic character, as opposed to any old character? And how can we use the Enneagram to construct one?

Claire: An iconic character, in my imagination, is one that really sticks with us after we've finished the story. They become a reference point.

We’ll say, “This person is kind of like that character,” or “This situation feels like that character would handle it this way.”

It could be our friends, our enemies, someone we meet on the bus—whoever it is might remind us of this character. So they really get lodged in our psyche.

An iconic character feels true to some fundamental part of the human condition, even if they’re not strictly human. So, all the alien romance people listening, don’t worry—you’re still in!

These characters take on a life of their own. With an iconic character, we may hear them talking to us after the book is done, because we’ve tapped into that essential part of them.

They can become almost archetypal—something we go back to over and over again in our minds, both as writers and as readers.

Joanna: How can we use the Enneagram to construct an iconic character?

I’m asking this as a discovery writer who struggles to construct anything beforehand. It’s more that I write stuff and then something emerges. But I have definitely not had a hit series with an iconic character, so I’m willing to give your approach a try.

Claire: It works with whatever your process is. If you’re a discovery writer, start with that spark of a character in your head.

If there’s a character who’s just a glimmer—maybe you know a few things about them—just keep writing. At some point you’ll probably recognise, “Okay, it’s time to go deeper in understanding this character and create a cohesive thread to pull all of this together.”

That’s where the Enneagram becomes useful. You can put on your armchair psychologist hat and ask: which of the nine core fears seems like it might be driving the parts of their personality that are emerging?

Thankfully, we intuitively recognise the nine types. When we start gathering bits for a new character, we tend to pull from essentially the same constellation of personality, even if we don’t realise it.

For instance, you might say, “This character is bold and adventurous,” and that’s all you know. You’re probably not going to also add, “and they’re incredibly shy,” because “bold and adventurous” plus “incredibly shy” doesn’t really fit our intuitive understanding of people. We know that instinctively.

So, you’ve got “bold and adventurous.” You write that to a certain point, and then you get to a place where you think, “I don’t really know them deeply.” That’s when you can go back to the nine core fears and start ruling some out quite quickly.

In the book, I have descriptions for each of them. You can read the character descriptions, read about the motivations, and start to say, “It’s definitely not these five types. I can rule those out.”

If they’re bold and adventurous, maybe the core fear is being trapped in deprivation and pain, or being harmed and controlled. Those correspond to Type Seven (“The Enthusiast”) and Type Eight (“The Challenger”), respectively.

So you might say, “Okay, maybe they’re a Seven or an Eight.” From there, if you can pin down a type, you can read more about it and get ideas. You can understand the next big decision point.

If they’re a Type Seven, what’s going to motivate them? They’ll do whatever keeps them from being trapped in pain and deprivation, and they’ll be seeking satisfaction or new experiences in some way, because that’s the core desire that goes with that fear.

So now, you’re asking: “How do I get them to get on the spaceship and leave Earth?” Well, you could offer them some adventure, because they’re bold and adventurous.

I have a character who’s a Seven, and she gets on a spaceship and takes off because her boyfriend just proposed—and the idea of being trapped in marriage feels like: “Nope. Whatever is on this spaceship, I’m out of here.” You can play with that once you identify a type.

You can go as deep with that type as you want, or you can just work with the core fear and the basic desire. There’s no “better or worse”—it’s whatever you feel comfortable with and whatever you need for the story.

Joanna: In the book, you go into all the Enneagram types in detail, but you also have a specific example: Wednesday Addams. She’s one of my favourites. People listening have either seen the current series or they have something in mind from the old-school Addams Family.

Can you talk about [Wednesday Addams] as an example?

Claire: Doing those deep dives was some of the most fun research for this book.

I told my husband, John, “Don’t bother me. I need to sit and binge-watch Wednesday again—with my notebook this time.”

Online, people were guessing: “Oh, she’s maybe this type, maybe that type.” As soon as I started watching properly with the Enneagram in mind, I thought: “Oh, this is a Type Eight, this is the Challenger.”

One of the first things we hear from her is that she considers emotions to be weakness. Immediately, you can cross out a bunch of types from that.

When we’re looking at weak/strong language—that lens of “strength” versus “weakness”—we tend to look towards Eights, because they often sort the world in those terms. They’re concerned about being harmed or controlled, so they feel they need to be strong and powerful. That gave me a strong hint in that direction.

If we look at the inciting incident—which is a great place to identify what really triggers a character, because it has to be powerful enough to launch the story—Wednesday finds her little brother Pugsley stuffed in a locker.

She says, “Who did this?” because she believes she’s the only one who gets to bully him. That’s a very stereotypical Type Eight thing.

The unhealthy Eight can dip into being a bit of a bully because they’re focused on power and power dynamics. But the Eight also says, “These are my people. I protect them. If you’re one of my people, you’re under my protection.” So there’s that protection/control paradox.

Then she goes and—spoiler—throws a bag of piranhas into the pool to attack the boys who hurt him. That’s like: okay, this is probably an Eight.

Then she has control wrested from her when she’s sent to the new school. That’s a big trigger for an Eight: to not have autonomy, to not have control. She acts out pretty much immediately, tries to push people away, and establishes dominance.

One of the first things she does is challenge the popular girl to a fencing match. That’s very Eight behaviour: “I’m going to go in, figure out where I sit in this power structure, and try to get into a position of power straight away.”

That’s how the story starts, and in the book I go into a lot more analysis.

At one point she’s attacked by this mysterious thing and is narrowly saved from a monster. Her reaction afterwards is: “I would have rather saved myself.” That’s another strong Eight moment. The Eight does not like to be saved by anyone else. It’s: “No, I wanted to be strong enough to do that.”

Her story arc is also very Eight-flavoured: she starts off walled-off, “I can do it myself,” which can sometimes look like the self-sufficiency of the Five, but for her it’s about always being in a power position and in control of herself.

She has to learn to rely more on other people if she wants to protect the people she cares about. Protecting the innocent and protecting “her people” is a big priority for the Eight.

Joanna: Let’s say we’ve identified our main character and protagonist.

One of the important things in any book, especially in a series, is conflict—both internal and external.

Can we use the Enneagram to work out what would be the best other character, or characters, to give us more conflict?

Claire: The character dynamics are complex, and all types are going to have both commonalities and conflict between them. That works really well for fiction. But depending on how much conflict you need, there are certain type pairings that are especially good for it.

If you have a protagonist who’s an Eight, they’re going to generate conflict everywhere because it doesn’t really bother them. They’re okay wading into conflict.

If you ask an Eight, “Do you like conflict?” they’ll often say, “Well, sometimes it’s not great,” but to everyone else it looks like they come in like a wrecking ball.

The Eight tends to go for what they want. They don’t see the point in waiting. They think, “I want it, I’m going to go and get it.” That makes them feel strong and powerful.

So it’s easy to create external and internal conflict with an Eight and other types. But the nature of the conflict is going to be different depending on who you pair them with.

Let’s say you have this Eight and you pair them with a Type One, “The Reformer,” whose core fear is being bad or corrupt, and who wants to be good and have integrity.

The Reformer wants morality. They can get a little preachy; they can become a bit of a zealot when they’re more unhealthy.

A One and an Eight will have a very particular kind of conflict because the One says, “Let’s do what’s right,” and the Eight says, “Let’s do what gets me what I want and puts me in the power position.”

They may absolutely get along if they’re taking on injustice. Ones and Eights will team up if they both see the same thing as unjust. They’ll both take it on together.

But then they may reach a point in the story where the choice is between doing the thing that is “right”—maybe self-sacrificing or moral—versus doing the thing that will exact retribution or secure a power-up. That’s where the conflict between a One and an Eight shows up.

You can grab any two types and they’ll have unique conflict. I’m actually working on a project on Kickstarter that’s all about character dynamics and relationships—Write Iconic Relationships is the next project—and I go deeper into this there.

Joanna: I was wondering about that, because I did a day-thing recently with colour palettes and interior design—which is not usually my thing—so I was really challenging myself.

We did this colour wheel, and they were talking about how the opposite colour on the wheel is the one that goes with it in an interesting way. I thought—

Maybe there’s something in the Enneagram where it’s like a wheel, and the type opposite is the one that clashes or fits in a certain way. Is that a thing?

Claire: There is a lot of that kind of contrast.

The Enneagram is usually depicted in a circle, one through nine, and there are strong contrasts between types that are right next to each other, as well as interesting lines that connect them.

For example, we’ve been talking about the Eight, and right next to Eight is Nine, “The Peacemaker.” Eights and Nines can look like opposites in certain ways. The Nine is conflict-avoidant, and the Eight tends to think you get what you want by pushing into conflict if necessary.

Then you’ve got Four, “The Individualist,” which is very emotional, artistic, heart-centred, and Five, “The Investigator,” which you’re familiar with—very head-centred and analytical, thinking-based. The Four and the Five can clash a bit: the head and the heart.

So, yes, there are interesting contrasts right next to each other on the wheel. Each type also has its own conflict style. We’re going into the weeds a bit here, but it’s fascinating to play with.

There’s one conflict style—the avoidant conflict style, sometimes called the “positive outlook” group—and it’s actually hard to get those types into an enemies-to-lovers romance because they don’t really want to be enemies. That’s Types Two, Seven, and Nine.

So depending on the trope you’re writing, some type pairings are more frictional than others. There are all these different dynamics you can explore, and I can’t wait to dig into them more for everyone in the relationships book.

Joanna: The Enneagram is just one of many tools people can use to figure out themselves as well as their characters. Maybe that’s something people want to look at this year.

You’ve got this book, you’ve got other resources that go into it, and there’s also a lot of information out there if people want to explore it more deeply.

Let’s pull back out to the bigger picture, because as this goes out in January 2026, I think there is a real fear of change in the community right now. Is that something you’ve seen?

What are your thoughts for authors on how they can navigate the year ahead?

Claire: Yes, there has been a lot of fear.

The rate of change of things online has felt very rapid. The rate of change in the broader world—politically, socially—has also felt scary to a lot of people.

It can be really helpful to look at your own personal life and anchor yourself in what hasn’t changed and what feels universal. From there you can start to say, “Okay, I can do this. I’m safe enough to be creative. I can find creative ways to work within this new environment.”

You can choose to engage with AI. You can choose to opt out. It’s totally your choice, and there is no inherent virtue in either one. I think that’s important to say.

Sometimes people who are anti-AI—not just uninterested but actively antagonistic—go after people who like it. And sometimes people who like AI can be antagonistic towards people who don’t want to use it. But actually, you get to choose what you’re comfortable with.

One of the things I see emerging for authors in 2026, regardless of what tools you’re using or how you feel about them, is this question of trustworthiness. I think there’s a big need for that.

With the increased number of images and videos that are AI-generated—which a lot of people who’ve been on the internet for a while can still recognise as AI and say, “Yeah, that’s AI”—but that may not be obvious for long. Right now some of us can tell, but a lot of people can’t, and that’s only going to get murkier.

There’s a rising mistrust of our own senses online lately. We’re starting to wonder, “Can I believe what I’m seeing and hearing?” And I think that sense of mistrust will increase.

As an author in that environment, it’s really worth focusing on: how do I build trust with my readers? That doesn’t mean you never use AI. It might simply mean you disclose, to whatever extent feels right for you, how you use it.

There are things like authenticity, honesty, vulnerability, humility, integrity, transparency, reliability—all of those are ingredients in this recipe of trustworthiness that we need to look at for ourselves.

If there’s one piece of hard inner work authors can do for 2026, I think it’s asking: “Where have I not been trustworthy to my readers?”

Then taking that hard, sometimes painful look at what comes up, and asking how you can adjust. What do you need to change? What new practices do you need to create that will increase trustworthiness?

I really think that’s the thing that’s starting to erode online. If you can work on it now, you can hold onto your readers through whatever comes next.

Joanna: What’s one concrete thing people could do in that direction [to increase trustworthiness]?

Claire: I would say disclosing if you use AI is a really good start—or at least disclosing how you use it specifically. I know that can lead to drama when you do it because people have strong opinions, but trustworthiness comes at the cost of courage and honesty.

Transparency is another ingredient we could all use more of. If transparency around AI is a hard “absolutely not” for you—if you’re thinking, “Nope, Claire, you can get lost with that”—then authenticity is another route.

Let your messy self be visible, because people still want some human in the mix. Being authentically messy and vulnerable with your audience helps. If you can’t be reliable and put the book out on time, at least share what’s going on in your life.

Staying connected in that way builds trust. Readers will think, “Okay, I see why you didn’t hit that deadline.” But if you’re always promising books—“It’s going to be out on this day,” and then, “Oh, I had to push it back,” and that happens again and again—that does erode the trustworthiness of your brand.

So, looking at those things and asking, “How am I cultivating trust, and how am I breaking it?” is hard work.

There are definitely ways I look at my own business and think, “That’s not a very trustworthy thing I’m doing.” Then I need to sit down, get real with myself, and see how I can improve that.

Joanna: Always improving is good.

Coming back to the personal brand piece, and to being vulnerable and putting ourselves out there: you and I have both got used to that over years of doing it and practising.

There are people listening who have never put their photo online, or their voice online, or done a video. They might not use their photo on the back of their book or on their website. They might use an avatar. They might use a pen name. They might be afraid of having anything about themselves online.

That’s where I think there is a concern, because as much as I love a lot of the AI stuff, I don’t love the idea of everything being hidden behind anonymous pen names and faceless brands. As you said, being vulnerable in some way and being recognisably human really matters.

I’d say: double down on being human. I think that’s really important.

Do you have any words of courage for people who feel, “I just can’t. I don’t want to put myself out there”?

Claire: There are definitely legitimate reasons some people wouldn’t want to be visible. There are safety reasons, cultural reasons, family reasons—all sorts of factors.

There are also a lot of authors who simply haven’t practised the muscle of vulnerability. You build that muscle a little bit at a time.

It does open you up to criticism, and some people are just not at a phase of life where they can cope with that. That’s okay.

If fear is the main reason—if you’re hiding because you’re scared of being judged—I do encourage you to step out, gently. This may be my personal soapbox, but I don’t think life is meant to be spent hiding. Things may happen. Not everyone will like you. That’s part of being alive.

When you invite in hiding, it doesn’t just stay in one corner. That constricted feeling tends to spread into other areas of your life.

A lot of the time, people I work with don’t want to disclose their pen names because they’re worried their parents won’t approve, and then we have to unpack that. You don’t have to do what your parents want you to do. You’re an adult now, right?

If the issue is, “They’ll cut me out of the will,” we can talk about that too. That’s a deeper, more practical conversation. But if it’s just that they won’t approve, you have more freedom than you think.

You also don’t have to plaster your picture everywhere. Even if you’re not comfortable showing your face, you can still communicate who you are and what matters to you in other ways—through your stories, through your email list, through how you talk to readers.

Let your authentic self be expressed in some way. It’s scary, but the reward is freedom.

Joanna: Absolutely. Lots to explore in 2026.

Tell people where they can find you and your books and everything you do online.

Claire: LiberatedWriter.com is where all of my stuff lives, except my fiction, which I don’t think people here are necessarily as interested in. If you do want to find my fiction, FFS Media is where that lives.

Then I’m on Substack as well. I write long pieces there. If you want to subscribe, it’s The Liberated Writer on Substack.

Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Claire. That was great.

Claire: Thanks so much for having me.
The post Leaving Social Media, Writing Iconic Characters, and Building Trust With Claire Taylor first appeared on The Creative Penn.

What does 2026 hold for indie authors and the publishing industry? I give my thoughts on trends and predictions for the year ahead.

In the intro, Quitting the right stuff; how to edit your author business in 2026; Is SubStack Good for Indie Authors?; Business for Authors webinars.

If you'd like to join my community and support the show every month, you'll get access to my growing list of Patron videos and audio on all aspects of the author business — for the price of a black coffee (or two) a month. Join us at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn.

Joanna Penn writes non-fiction for authors and is an award-winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling thriller author as J.F. Penn. She’s also an award-winning podcaster, creative entrepreneur, and international professional speaker.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.

(1) More indie authors will sell direct through Shopify, Kickstarter, and local in-person events

(2) AI-powered search will start to shift elements of book discoverability

(3) The start of Agentic Commerce

(4) AI-assisted audiobook narration will go mainstream

(5) AI-assisted translation will start to take off beyond the early adopters

(6) AI video becomes ubiquitous. ‘Live selling’ becomes the next trend in social sales.

(7) AI will create, run, and optimise ads without the need for human intervention

(8) 1000 True Fans becomes more important than ever

You can find all my books as J.F. Penn and Joanna Penn on your favourite online store in all the usual formats, or order from your local library or bookstore. You can also buy direct from me at CreativePennBooks.com and JFPennBooks.com.

I'm not really active on social media, but you can always see my photos at Instagram @jfpennauthor.

2026 Trends and Predictions for Indie Authors and Book Publishing

(1) More indie authors will sell direct through Shopify, Kickstarter, and local in-person events —

and more companies like BookVault will offer even more beautiful physical books and products to support this.

This trend will not be a surprise to most of you! Selling direct has been a trend for the last few years, but in 2026, it will continue to grow as a way that independent authors become even more independent.

The recent Written Word Media survey from Dec 2025 noted that 30% of authors surveyed are selling direct already and 30% say they plan to start in 2026. Among authors earning over $10,000 per month, roughly half sell direct.

In my opinion, selling direct is an advanced author strategy, meaning that you have multiple books and you understand book marketing and have an email list already or some guaranteed way to reach readers. In fact, Kindlepreneur reports that 66% of authors selling direct have more than 5 books, and 46% have more than 10 books.

Of course, you can start with the something small, like a table at a local event with a limited number of books for sale, but if you want to consistently sell direct for years to come, you need to consider all the business aspects.

Selling direct is not a silver bullet.

It’s much harder work to sell direct than it is to just upload an ebook to Amazon, whether you choose a Kickstarter campaign, or Shopify/Payhip or other online stores, or regular in-person sales at events/conferences/fairs.

You need a business mindset and business practices, for example, you need to pay upfront for setup as well as ongoing management, and bulk printing in some cases. You need to manage taxes and cashflow. You need to be a lot more proactive about marketing, as you won’t sell anything if you don’t bring readers to your books/products.

But selling direct also brings advantages.

It sets you apart from the bulk of digital only authors who still only upload ebooks to Amazon, or maybe add a print on demand book, and in an era of AI rapid creation, that number is growing all the time.

If you sell direct, you get your customer data and you can reach those customers next time, through your email list. If you don’t know who bought your books and don’t have a guaranteed way to reach them, you will more easily be disrupted when things change — and they always change eventually.

Kindlepreneur notes that “45% of the successful direct selling authors had over 1,000 subscribers on their email lists,” with “a clear, positive correlation between email list size and monthly direct sales income — with authors having an email list of over 15,000 subscribers earning 20X more than authors with email lists under 100 subscribers.”

Selling direct means faster money, sometimes the same day or the same week in many cases, or a few weeks after a campaign finishes, as with Kickstarter.

And remember, you don’t have to sell all your formats directly. You can keep your ebooks in KU, do whatever you like with audiobooks, and just have premium print products direct, or start with a very basic Kickstarter campaign, or a table at a local fair.

Lots more tips for Shopify and Kickstarter at https://www.thecreativepenn.com/selldirectresources/

I also recommend the Novel Marketing Podcast on The Shopify Trap: Why authors keep losing money as it is a great counterpoint to my positive endorsement of selling direct on Shopify!

Among other things, Thomas notes that a fixed monthly fee for a store doesn’t match how most authors make money from books which is more in spikes, the complexity and hassle eats time and can cost more money if you pay for help, and it can reduce sales on Amazon and weaken your ranking. Basically, if you haven’t figured out marketing direct to your store, it can hurt you.

All true for some authors, for some genres, and for some people’s lifestyle.

But for authors who don’t want to be on the hamster wheel of the Amazon algorithm and who want more diversity and control in income, as well as the incredible creative benefits of what you can do selling direct, then I would say, consider your options in 2025, even if that is trying out a low-financial-goal Kickstarter campaign, or selling some print books at a local fair.

Interestingly, traditional publishers are also experimenting with direct sales. Kate Elton, the new CEO of Harper Collins notes in The Bookseller’s 2026 trend article,

“we are seeing global success with responsive, reader-driven publishing, subscription boxes and TikTok Shop and – crucially – developing strategies that are founded on a comprehensive understanding of the reader.”

She also notes,

“AI enables us to dramatically change the way we interact with and grow audiences. The opportunities are genuinely exciting – finding new ways to help readers discover books they will love, innovating in the ways we market and reach audiences, building new channels and adapting to new methods of consuming content.”

(2) AI-powered search will start to shift elements of book discoverability

From LinkedIn’s 2026 Big Ideas:

“Generative engine optimization (GEO) is set to replace search engine optimization (SEO) as the way brands get discovered in the year ahead. As consumers turn to AI chatbots, agentic workflows and answer engines, appearing prominently in generative outputs will matter more than ranking in search engines.”

Google has been rolling out AI Mode with its AI Overviews and is beginning to push it within Google.com itself in some countries, which means the start of a fundamental change in how people discover content online.

I first posted about GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) and AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation) in 2023, and it's going to change how readers find books.

For years, we've talked about the long tail of search. Now, with AI-powered search, that tail is getting even longer and more nuanced.

AI can understand complex, conversational queries that traditional search engines struggled with. Someone might ask, “What's a good thriller set in a small town with a female protagonist who's a journalist investigating a cold case?” and get highly specific recommendations.

This means your book metadata, your website content, and your online presence need to be more detailed and conversational.

AI search engines understand context in ways that go far beyond simple keywords. The authors who win in this new landscape will be those who create rich, authentic content about their books and themselves, not just promotional copy.

As economist Tyler Cowen has said,

“Consider the AIs as part of your audience. Because they are already reading your words and listening to your voice.”

We’re in the ‘organic’ traffic phase right now, where these AI engines are surfacing content for ‘free,’ but paid ads are inevitably on the way, and even rumoured to be coming this year to ChatGPT.

By the end of 2026, I expect some authors and publishers to be paying for AI traffic, rather than blocking and protesting them.

For now, I recommend checking that your author name/s and your books are surfaced when you search on ChatGPT.com as well as Google.com AI Mode (powered by Gemini). You want to make sure your work comes up in some way.

I found that Joanna Penn and J.F. Penn searches brought up my Shopify stores, my website, podcast, Instagram, LinkedIn, and even my Patreon page, but did not bring up links to Amazon. If you only have an author presence on Amazon, does it appear in AI search at all? Do you need to improve anything about what the AI search brings up?

Traditional publishers are also looking at this, with PublishersWeekly doing webinars on various aspects of AI in early 2026, including sessions on GEO and how book sales are changing, AI agents, and book marketing.

In a 2026 predictions article on The Bookseller, the CEO of Bloomsbury Publishing noted,

“The boundaries of artificial intelligence will become clearer, enabling publishers to harness its benefits while seeking to safeguard the intellectual property rights of authors, illustrators and publishers.”

“AI will be deeply embedded in our workflows, automating tasks such as metadata tagging, freeing teams to focus on creativity and strategy. Challenges will persist. Generative AI threatens traditional web traffic and ad revenue models, making metadata optimisation and SEO critical for visibility as we adjust to this new reality online.”

(3) The start of Agentic Commerce

AI researches what you want to buy and may even buy on your behalf. Plus, I predict that Amazon does a commerce deal with OpenAI for shopping within ChatGPT by the end of 2026.

In September 2025, ChatGPT launched Instant Checkout and the Agentic Commerce Protocol, which will enable bots to buy on websites in the background if authorised by the human with the credit card. VISA is getting on board with this, so is PayPal, with no doubt more payment options to come.

In the USA, ChatGPT Plus, Pro, and Free users can now buy directly from US Etsy sellers inside the chat interface, with over a million Shopify merchants coming soon.

Shopify and OpenAI have also announced a partnership to bring commerce to ChatGPT. I am insanely excited about this as it could represent the first time we have been able to more easily find and surface books in a much more nuanced way than the 7 keywords and 3 categories we have relied on for so long!

I’ve been using ChatGPT for at least the last year to find fiction and non-fiction books as I find the Amazon interface is ‘polluted’ by ads.

I’ve discovered fascinating books from authors I’ve never heard of, most in very long tail areas. For example, Slashed Beauties by A. Rushby, recommended by ChatGPT as I am interested in medical anatomy and anatomical Venuses, and The Macabre by Kosoko Jackson, recommended as I like art history and the supernatural. I don’t think I would have found either of these within a nuanced discussion with ChatGPT.

Even without these direct purchase integrations, ChatGPT now has Shopping Research, which I have found links directly to my Shopify store when I search for my books specifically.

Walmart has partnered with OpenAI to create AI-first shopping experiences, and you have to wonder what Amazon might be doing?

In Nov 2025, Amazon signed a “strategic partnership” with OpenAI, and even though it's focused on the technical side of AI, those two companies in a room together might also be working on other plans …

I’m calling it for 2026. I think Amazon will sign a commerce agreement with OpenAI sometime before the end of the year.

This will enable at least recommendation and shopping links into Amazon stores (presumably using an OpenAI affiliate link), or perhaps even Instant Checkout with ChatGPT for Amazon.

It will also enable a new marketing angle, especially if paid ads arrive in ChatGPT, perhaps even integrating with Amazon Ads in some way as part of any possible agreement, since ads are such a good revenue stream for Amazon anyway.

The line between discovery, engagement, and purchase is collapsing.

Someone could be having a conversation with an AI about what to read next, and within that same conversation, purchase a bookwithout ever leaving the chat interface. This already happens within TikTok and social commerce clearly works for many authors. It’s possible that the next development for book discoverability and sales might be within AI chats.

This will likely stratify the already fragmented book eco-system even more. Some readers will continue to live only within the Amazon ecosystem and (maybe) use their Rufus chatbot to buy, and others will be much wider in their exploration of how to find and discover books (and other products and services).

If you haven’t tried it yet, try ChatGPT.com Shopping Research for a book. You can do this on the free tier. Use the drop down in the main chat box and select Shopping Research.

It doesn't have to be for your book. It can be any book or product, for example, our microwave died just before Christmas so I used it to find a new one. But do a really nuanced search with multiple requirements. Go far beyond what you would search for on Amazon.

In the results, notice that (at the time of writing) it does not generally link to Amazon, but to independent sites and stores. As above, I think this will change by the end of 2026, as some kind of commerce deal with Amazon seems inevitable.

(4) AI-assisted audiobook narration will go mainstream

I've been talking about AI narration of audiobooks since 2019, and over the years, I’ve tried various different options.

In 2025, the technology reached a level of emotional nuance that made it much easier to create satisfying fiction audio as well as non-fiction. It also super-charges accessibility, making audio available in more languages and more accents than ever before.

Of course, human narration remains the gold standard, but the cost makes it prohibitive for many authors, and indeed many small traditional publishers, for all books. If it costs $2000 – $10,000 to create an audiobook, you have to sell a lot to make a profit, and the dominance of subscription models have made it harder to recoup the costs.

Famous narrators and voice artists who have an audience may still be worth investing in, as well as premium production, but require an even higher upfront cost and therefore higher sales and streams in return.

AI voice/audio models are continuing to improve, and even as this goes out, there are rumours on TechCrunch that OpenAI’s new device, designed by Jony Ive who designed the iPhone, will be audio first and OpenAI are improving their voice models even more in preparation for that launch.

In 2026, I think AI-narrated audio will go mainstream with far-reaching adoption across publishing and the indie author world in many different languages and accents.

This will mean a further stratification of audiobooks, with high quality, high production, high cost human narrated audio for a small percentage of books, and then mass market, affordable AI-narrated audio for the rest.

AI-narrated audiobooks will make audio ubiquitous, and just as (almost) every print book has an ebook format, in 2026, they will also have an audio format.

I straddle both these worlds, as I am still a human audiobook narrator for my own work. I human-narrated Successful Self-Publishing Fourth Edition (free audiobook) and The Buried and the Drowned, my short story collection.

I also use AI narration for some books. ElevenLabs remains my preferred service and in 2025, I used my J.F. Penn voice clone for Death Valley and also Blood Vintage, while using a male voice for Catacomb.

I clearly label my AI-narration in the sales description and also on the cover, which I think is important, although it is not always required by the various services.

You can distribute ElevenLabs narrated audiobooks on Spotify, Kobo Writing Life, YouTube, ElevenReader, and of course your own store if you use Shopify with Bookfunnel.

There are many other services springing up all the time, so make sure you check the rights you have over the finished audio, as well as where you can sell and distribute the final files. If they are just using ElevenLabs models in the back-end, then why not just do that directly? (Most services will be using someone's model in the back-end, since most companies do not train their own models.)

Of course, you can use Amazon’s own narration.

While Amazon originally launched Audible audiobooks with Virtual Voice (AVV) in November 2023, it was rolled out to more authors and territories in 2025. If your book is eligible, the option to create an audiobook will appear on your KDP dashboard. With just a few clicks, you can create an audiobook from a range of voices and accents, and publish it on Amazon and Audible.

However, the files are not yours. They are exclusive to Amazon and you cannot use them on other platforms or sell them direct yourself.

But they are also free, so of course, many authors, especially those in KU, will use this option. I have done some for my mum's sweet romance books as Penny Appleton and I will likely use them for my books in translation when the option becomes available.

Traditional publishers are experimenting with AI-assisted audiobook narration as well.

MacMillan is selling digital audiobooks read by AI directly on their store.

PublishersWeekly reports that PRH Audio “has experimented with artificial voice in specific instances, such as entrepreneur Ely Callaway’s posthumous memoir The Unconquerable Game,” when an “authorized voice replica” was created for the audiobook. The article also notes that PRH Audio “embrace artificial intelligence across business operations—my entire department [PRH Audio] is using AI for business applications.”

And while indie authors can’t use AI voices on ACX right now, Audible have over 100 voices available to selected publishing partnerships, as reported by The Guardian with “two options for publishers wishing to make use of the technology: “Audible-managed” production, or “self-service” whereby publishers produce their own audiobooks with the help of Audible’s AI technology.”

In 2026, it’s likely that more traditional publishers — as well as indie authors — will get their backlist into audio with AI narration.

(5) AI-assisted translation will start to take off beyond the early adopters

Over the years, I've done translation deals with traditional publishers in different languages (German, French, Spanish, Korean, Italian) for some fiction and non-fiction books.

But of course, to get these kinds of deals, you have to be proactive about pitching, or work with an agent for foreign rights only, and those are few and far between! There are also lots of languages and territories worldwide, and most deals are for the bigger markets, leaving a LOT of blue water for books in translation, even if you have licensed some of the bigger markets.

I did my first partially AI-translated books in 2019 when I used Deepl.com for the first draft and then worked with a German editor to do 3 non-fiction books in German. While the first draft was cheap, the editing was pretty expensive, so I stopped after only doing a couple. I have made the money back now, but it took years.

In 2025, AI Translation began to take off with ScribeShadow, GlobeScribe.ai, and more recently, in November 2025, Kindle Translate boosting the number of translated books available.

Kindle Translate is (currently) only available to US authors for English into Spanish and also German into English, but in 2026, this will likely roll out to more languages and more authors, making it easier than ever to produce translations for free.

Of course, once again, the gold standard is human translation, or at least human-edited translations, but the cost is prohibitive even just for proof-reading, and if there is a cheap or even free option, like Kindle Translate, then of course, authors are going to try it. If the translation gets bad reviews, they can just un-publish.

There are many anecdotal stories of indie success in 2025 with AI-translated genre fiction sales (in series) in under-served markets like Italian, French, and Spanish, as well as more mainstream adoption in German.

I was around in the Kindle gold-rush days of 2009-2012 and the AI-translation energy right now feels like that. There are hardly any Kindle ebooks in many of these languages compared to how many there are in English, so inevitably, the rush is on to fill the void, especially in genres that are under-served by traditional publishers in those markets.

Yes, some of these AI translated books will be ‘AI-slop,' but readers are not stupid.

Those books will get bad reviews and thus will sink to the bottom of the store, never to be seen again.

The AI translation models are also improving rapidly, and Amazon's Kindle Translate may improve faster than most, for books specifically, since they will be able to get feedback in terms of page reads.

Amazon is also a major investor in Anthropic, which makes Claude.ai, widely considered the best quality for creative writing and translation, so it's likely that is used somewhere in the mix.

Some traditional publishers are also experimenting with AI-assisted translation, with Harlequin France reportedly using AI translation and human proofreaders, as reported by the European Council of Literary Translators’ Associations in December 2025.

Academic publisher Taylor and Francis is also using AI for book translation, noting:

“Following a program of rigorous testing, Taylor & Francis has announced plans to use AI translation tools to publish books that would otherwise be unavailable to English-language readers, bringing the latest knowledge to a vastly expanded readership.”

“Until now, the time and resources required to translate books has meant that the majority remained accessible only to those who could read them in the original language. Books that were translated often only became available after a significant delay. Today, with the development of sophisticated AI translation tools, it has become possible to make these important texts available to a broad readership at speed, without compromising on accuracy.”

(6) AI video becomes ubiquitous. ‘Live selling’ becomes the next trend in social sales.

In 2025, short form AI-generated video became very high quality. OpenAI released Sora 2, and YouTube announced new Shorts creation tools with Veo 3, which you can also use directly within Gemini. There are tons of different AI video apps now, including those within the social media sites themselves. There is more video than ever and it’s much easier to create.

I am not a fan of short form video! I don't make it and I don't consume it, but I do love making book trailers for my Kickstarter campaigns and for adding to my book pages and using on social media.

I made a trailer for The Buried and the Drowned using Midjourney for images and then animation of those images, and Canva to put them together along with ElevenLabs to generate the music.

But despite the AI tools getting so much easier to use, you still have to prompt them with exactly what you want. I can’t just upload my book and say, “Make a book trailer,” or “Make a short film.”

This may change with generative video ads, which are likely to become more common in 2026, as video turns specifically commercial.

Video ads may even be generated specifically for the user, with an audience of one, maybe even holding your book in their hands (using something like Cameos on Sora), in the same way that some AI-powered clothing stores do virtual try-ons.

This might also up-end the way we discover and buy things, as the AI for eCommerce and Amazon Sellers newsletter says about OpenAI’s Sora app,

“OpenAI isn't just trying to build a TikTok competitor. They're building a complete reimagining of how we discover and buy things …”

“The combination of ChatGPT's research capabilities and Sora's potential for emotional manipulation—I mean, “engagement”—could create something we've never seen before: an AI ecosystem that might eventually guide you through every type of purchase, from the most considered to the most impulsive.”

In 2026, there will be A LOT more AI-generated video, but that also leads to the human trend of more live video.

While you can use an AI avatar that looks and sounds like you using tools like HeyGen or Synthesia, live video has all the imperfect human elements that make it stand-out, plus the scarcity element which leads to the purchase decision within a countdown period.

Live video is nothing new in terms of brand building and content in general, but it seems that live events primarily for direct sales might be a thing in 2026. Kim Kardashian hosted Kimsmas Live in December 2025 with a 45 minute live shopping event with special guests, described as entertainment but designed to be a sales extravaganza.

Indie authors are doing a similar thing on TikTok with their books, so this is a trend to watch in 2026, especially if you feel that live selling might fit with your personality and author business goals. It’s certainly not for everyone, but I suspect it will suit a different kind of creator to those who prefer ‘no face’ video, or no video at all!

On other aspects of the human side of social media, Adam Mosseri the CEO of Instagram put a post on Threads called Authenticity after Abundance. He said,

“Everything that made creators matter—the ability to be real, to connect, to have a voice that couldn’t be faked—is now suddenly accessible to anyone with the right tools.”

“Deepfakes are getting better and better. AI is generating photographs and videos indistinguishable from captured media. The feeds are starting to fill up with synthetic everything. And in that world, here’s what I think happens.
Creators matter more.”

It’s a long article so just to pick a few things from it:

“We like to talk about “AI slop,” but there is a lot of amazing AI content … we are going to start to see more and more realistic AI content.”

I’ve talked to my Patreon Community about this ‘tsunami of excellence’ as these tools are just getting better and better and the word ‘slop’ can also be applied to purely human output, too. If you think that AI content is ‘worse’ than wholly human content, in 2026, you are wrong. It is now very very good, especially in the hands of people who can drive the AI tools.

Back to Adam’s post:

“Authenticity is fast becoming a scarce resource, …The creators who succeed will be those who figure out how to maintain their authenticity [even when it can be simulated] …”

“The bar is going to shift from “can you create?” to “can you make something that only you could create?”

He talks about how the personal content on Instagram now is: “unpolished; it’s blurry photos and shaky videos of people’s daily experiences … flattering imagery is cheap to produce and boring to consume. People want content that feels real… Savvy creators are going to lean into explicitly unproduced and unflattering images of themselves. In a world where everything can be perfected, imperfection becomes a signal. Rawness isn’t just aesthetic preference anymore—it’s proof. It’s defensive. A way of saying: this is real because it’s imperfect.”

While I partially love this, and I really hope it’s true, as in I hope we don’t need to look good for the camera anymore I would also challenge Adam on this, because pretty much every woman I know on social media has been sent sexual messages, and/or told they are ugly and/or fat when posting anything unflattering. I’ve certainly had both even for the same content, but I don’t expect Adam has been the target for such posting! But I get his point.

He goes on:
“Labeling content as authentic or AI-generated is only part of the solution though. We, as an industry, are going to need to surface much more context about not only the media on our platforms, but the accounts that are sharing it in order for people to be able to make informed decisions about what to believe. Where is the account? When was it created? What else have they posted?”

This is exactly what I’ve been saying for a while under my double down on being human focus. I use my Instagram @jfpennauthor as evidence of humanity, not as a sales channel. You can do both of course, but increasingly, you need to make sure your accounts at places have longevity and trust, even by the platforms themselves.

Adam finishes:

“In a world of infinite abundance and infinite doubt, the creators who can maintain trust and signal authenticity—by being real, transparent, and consistent—will stand out.”

For other marketing trends for 2026, I recommend publicist Kathleen Schmidt’s SubStack which is mostly focused on traditional publishing but still interesting for indies. In her 2026 article, she notes:

“We have reached a social media saturation point where going viral can be meaningless and should not be the goal; authenticity and creativity should.

She also says, “In-person events are important again,” and, “Social media marketing takes a nosedive… we have reached a saturation point … What publishers must figure out is how to make their social media campaigns stand out. If they remain somewhat uninspired, the money spent on social ads won’t convert into book sales.”

I think this is part of the rise of live selling as above, which can stand out above more ‘produced’ videos.

Kathleen also talks about AI usage.

“AI can help lighten the burden of publicity and marketing.”

“A lot of AI tools are coming to market to lessen the load: they can write pitches, create media lists for you, send pitches for you, and more. I know the industry is grappling with all things AI, but some of these tools are huge time savers and may help a book more than hurt it.”

On that note …

(7) AI will create, run, and optimise ads without the need for human intervention

Many authors will be very happy about this as marketing is often the bane of our author business lives!

As I noted in my 2026 goals, I would love to outsource more marketing tasks to AI. I want an “AI book marketing assistant” where I can upload a book and specify a budget and say, ‘Go market this,’ then the AI will action the marketing, without me having to cobble together workflows between systems. Of course, it will present plans for me to approve but it will do the work itself on the various platforms and monitor and optimize things for me.

I really hope 2026 is the year this becomes possible, because we are on the edge of it already in some areas.

Amazon Ads launched a new agentic AI tool in September 2025 that creates professional-quality ads.

I’ve also been working with Claude in Chrome browser to help me analyse my Amazon Ad data and suggest which keywords/products to turn off and what to put more budget into. I’ll do a Patreon video on that soon.

Meta announced it will enable AI ad creation by the end of 2026 for Facebook and Instagram.

For authors who find ad creation overwhelming or time-consuming, this could be a game-changer. Of course, you will still need a budget!

(8) 1000 True Fans becomes more important than ever

Lots of authors and publishers are moaning about the difficulty of reaching readers in an era of ‘AI slop’ but there is no shortage of excellent content created by humans, or humans using AI tools.

As ever, our competition is less about other authors, or even authors using AI-assisted creation, we’re competing against everything else that jostles for people’s attention, and the volume of that is also growing exponentially.

I’ve never been a fan of rapid release, and have said for years that you can’t keep up with the pace of the machines. So play a different game.

As Kevin Kelly wrote in 2008, If you have 1000 true fans, (also known as super fans), “you can make a living — if you are content to make a living but not a fortune.”

[Kevin Kelly was on this show in 2023 talking about Excellent Advice for Living.]

Many authors and the publishing industry are stuck in the old model of aiming to sell huge volumes of books at a low profit margin to a massive number of readers, many of them releasing ever faster to try and keep the algorithms moving. But the maths can work for the smaller audience of more invested readers and fans.

If you only make $2 profit on an ebook, you need to sell 500 ebooks to make $1000, and then do it again next month.

Or you can have a small community like my patreon.com/thecreativepenn where people pay $2 (or more) a month, so even a small revenue per person results in a better outcome over the year, as it is consistent monthly income with no advertising.

But what if you could make $20 profit per book?

That is entirely possible if you’re producing high quality hardbacks on Kickstarter, or bundle deals of audiobooks, or whole series of ebooks. You would only need to sell to 50 people to make $1000.

What about $100 profit per sale, which you can do with a small course or live event?

You only need 10 people to make $1000, and this in-person focus also amplifies trust and fosters human connection.

I’ve found the intimacy of my live Patreon Office Hours and also my webinars have been rewarding personally, but also financially, and are far more memorable — and potentially transformative — than a pre-recorded video or even another book.

From the LinkedIn 2026 Big Ideas article:

“In an AI-optimized world, intentional human connection will become the ultimate luxury.”

The 1000 True Fans model is about serving a smaller, more personal audience with higher value products (and maybe services if that’s your thing). As ever, its about niche and where you fit in the long long long long long tail.

It’s also about trust. Because there is definitely a shortage of that in so many areas, and as Adam Mosseri of Instagram has said, trust will be increasingly important.

Trust takes time to build, but if you focus on serving your audience consistently, and delivering a high quality, and being authentic, this emerges as part of being human.

In an echo of what happened when online commerce first took off, we are back to talking about trust. Back in 2010, I read Trust Agents: by Julien Smith and Chris Brogan, which clearly needs a comeback. There was a 10th anniversary edition published in 2020, so that’s worth a read/listen.

Chris Brogan was also on this show in 2017 when we talked about finding and serving your niche for the long term. That interview is still relevant, here’s a quick excerpt, where I have (lightly edited) his response to my question on this topic back in 2017:

Jo: The principle of know, like, and trust, why is that still important or perhaps even more important these days?

Chris: There are a few things that at play there, Joanna. One is that the same tools that make it so easy for any of us to start and run a business also allow certain elements to decide whether or not they want to do something dubious. And with all new technologies that come, you know, there's nothing unique about these new technologies.

In the 1800s, anyone could put anything in a bottle and sell it to you and say, this is gonna cure everything. Cancer — gone. And the bottle could have nothing in. You know, it could be Kool-Aid. And so, the idea of trying to understand what's behind the business though, one beautiful thing that's come is that we can see in much more dimensions who we're dealing with. We can understand better who's the face behind the brand.

I really want people to try their best to be a lot clearer on what they stand for or what they say. And I don't really mean a tagline. I mean, humans don't really talk like that. They don't throw some sentence out as often as they can that you remember them for that phrase.

But I would say that, we have so many media available to us — the plural of mediums — where we can be more of ourselves.

And I think that there's a great opportunity to share the ‘you’ behind the scenes, and some people get immediately terrified about this, ‘Ah, the last thing I want is for people to know more about me,’ but I think we have such an opportunity.

We have such an opportunity to voice our thoughts on something, to talk about the story that goes behind the product. We were all raised on overly produced material, but I think we don't want that anymore. We really want clarity, brevity, simplicity. We want the ability for what we feel is connection and then access.

And so I think it's vital that we connect and show people our accessibility, not so that they can pester us with strange questions, but more so that you can say, this person stands with their product and their service and this person believes these things, and I feel something when I hear them and I wanna be part of that.”

That’s from Chris Brogan’s interview here in 2017, and he is still blogging and speaking at writing at ChrisBrogan.com and I’m going to re-listen to the audiobook of Trust Agents again myself as I think it’s more relevant than ever.

The original quote comes from Bob Burg in his 1994 book, Endless Referrals,

“All things being equal, people will do business with, and refer business to, those people they know, like and trust.”

That still applies, and absolutely fits with the 1000 True Fans model of aiming to serve a smaller audience.

As Kevin Kelly says in 1000 True Fans,

“Instead of trying to reach the narrow and unlikely peaks of platinum bestseller hits, blockbusters, and celebrity status, you can aim for direct connection with a thousand true fans.”

“On your way, no matter how many fans you actually succeed in gaining, you’ll be surrounded not by faddish infatuation, but by genuine and true appreciation. It’s a much saner destiny to hope for. And you are much more likely to actually arrive there.”

In 2026, I hope that more authors (including me!) let go of ego goals and vanity metrics like ranking, gross sales (income before you take away costs), subscribers, followers, and likes, and consider important business numbers like profit (which is the money you have after costs like marketing are taken out), as well as number of true fans — and also lifestyle elements like number of weekends off, or days spent enjoying life and not just working!

OK, that’s my list of trends and predictions for 2026. Let me know what you think in the comments. Do you agree? Am I wrong? What have I missed?
The post 2026 Trends And Predictions For Indie Authors And The Book Publishing Industry with Joanna Penn first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Happy New Year 2026!

I love January and the opportunity to start afresh. I know it’s arbitrary in some ways, but I measure my life by what I create, and I also measure it in years.

At the beginning of each year, I publish an article (and podcast episode) here, which helps keep me accountable. If you’d like to share your goals, please add them in the comments below.

2026 is a transitional year as I will finish my Masters degree and continue the slow pivot that I started in December 2023 after 15 years as an author entrepreneur.

Just to recap that, it was: From digitally-focused to creating beautiful physical books; From high-volume, low cost to premium products with higher Average Order Value; From retailer-centric to direct first; and From distance to presence, and From creating alone to the AI-Assisted Artisan Author.

I’ve definitely stepped partially into all of those, and 2026 will continue in that same direction, but I also have an additional angle for Joanna Penn and The Creative Penn that I am excited about.

If you'd like to join my community and support the show every month, you'll get access to my growing list of Patron videos and audio on all aspects of the author business — for the price of a black coffee (or two) a month. Join us at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn.

Joanna Penn writes non-fiction for authors and is an award-winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling thriller author as J.F. Penn. She’s also an award-winning podcaster, creative entrepreneur, and international professional speaker.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.

Leaning into the Transformation Economy

The Creative Penn Podcast and my Patreon Community

Webinars and live events

Finish my Masters in Death, Religion, and Culture

Bones of the Deep — J.F. Penn

Add merch to CreativePennBooks.com and JFPennBooks.com

How to Write, Publish, and Market Short Stories and Short Story Collections — Joanna Penn

Other possible books

Experiment more with AI translation

Ideally outsource more marketing to AI, but do more marketing anyway

Double down on being human, health and travel

You can find all my books as J.F. Penn and Joanna Penn on your favourite online store in all the usual formats, or order from your local library or bookstore. You can also buy direct from me at CreativePennBooks.com and JFPennBooks.com.

I'm not really active on social media, but you can always see my photos at Instagram @jfpennauthor.

Leaning into the Transformation Economy

I’ve struggled with my identity as Joanna Penn and my Creative Penn brand for a few years now.

When I started TheCreativePenn.com in 2008, the term ‘indie author’ was new and self-publishing was considered ‘vanity press’ and a sure way to damage your author career, rather than a conscious creative and business choice.

It was the early days of the Kindle and iPhone (both launched in 2007), and podcasting and social media were also relatively new. While US authors could publish on KDP, the only option for international authors was Smashwords and the market for ebooks was tiny. Print-on-demand and digital audio were also just emerging as viable options.

While it was the early era of blogging, there were very few blogs and barely any podcasts talking about self-publishing, so when I started TheCreativePenn.com in late 2008 and the podcast in March 2009, it was a new area.

For several years, it was like howling into the wind. Barely any audience. Barely any traffic, and certainly very little income. 

But I loved the freedom and the speed at which I could learn things and put them into practice. Consume and produce. That has always been my focus. I met people on Twitter and interviewed them for my show, and over those early years I met many of the people I consider dear friends even now.

Since self-publishing was a relatively unexplored niche in those early years, I slowly found an audience and built up a reputation. I also started to make more money both as an author, and as a creative entrepreneur.

Over the years since, pretty much everything has changed for indie authors and we have had more and more opportunity every year.

I’ve shared everything I’ve learned along the way, and it’s been a wonderful time. 

But as self-publishing became more popular and more authors saw more success (which is FANTASTIC!), other voices joined the chorus and now, there are many thousands of authors of all different levels with all kinds of different experiences sharing their tips through articles, books, podcasting, and social media.

I started to wonder whether my perspective was useful anymore.

On top of the human competition, in November 2022, ChatGPT launched, and it became clear that prescriptive non-fiction and ‘how to’ information could very easily be delivered by the AI tools, with the added benefit of personalisation.

You can ask Chat or Claude or Gemini how you can self-publish your particular book and they will help you step by step through the process of any site. You can share your screen or upload screenshots and it can help with what fields to fill in (very useful with translations!), as well as writing sales descriptions, researching keywords, and offering marketing help targeted to your book and your niche, and tailored to your voice.

Once again, I questioned what value I could offer the indie author community, and I’ve pulled back over the last few years as I’ve been noodling around this.

But over the last few weeks, a penny has dropped. Here’s my thinking in case it also helps you.

Firstly, I want to be useful to people. I want to help.

In my early days of speaking professionally, from 2005-ish, I wanted to be the British (introvert) Tony Robbins, someone who inspired people to change, to achieve things they didn’t think they could. Writing a book is one of those things. Making a living from your writing is another.

So I leaned into the self-help and how-to niche. But now that is now clearly commoditised.

But recently, I realised that my message has always been one of transformation, and in the following four areas. 

From someone who doesn’t think they are creative but who desperately wants to write a book, to someone who holds their first book in their hand and proudly says, ‘I made this.’ The New Author.

From someone who has no confidence in their author voice, who wonders if they have anything to say, to someone who writes their story and transforms their own life, as well as other people’s. The Confident Author.

From an author with one or a handful of books who doesn’t know much about business, to a successful author with a growing business heading towards their first six figure year. The Author-Entrepreneur.

And finally, from a tech-phobic, fearful author who worries that AI makes it pointless to create anything and will steal all the jobs, to a confident AI-assisted creative who uses AI tools to enhance and amplify their message and their income. The AI-Assisted Artisan Author.

These are four transformations I have been through myself, and with my work as Joanna Penn/The Creative Penn, I want to help you through them as well.

So in 2026, I am repositioning myself as part of The Transformation Economy.

What does this mean?

There is a book out in February, The Transformation Economy by B. Joseph Pine II, who is also the author of The Experience Economy, which drove a lot of the last decade’s shift in business models. I have the book on pre-order, but in the meantime, I am doing the following.

I will revamp TheCreativePenn.com with ‘transformation’ as the key frame and add pathways through my extensive material, rather than just categories of how to do things.

I’ve already added navigation pages for The New Author, The Confident Author, The Author-Entrepreneur, and The AI-Assisted Artisan Author, and I will be adding to those over time.

My content is basically the same, as I have always covered these topics, but the framing is now different. The intent is different.

The Creative Penn Podcast will lean more heavily into transformation, rather than just information —

And will focus on the first three of the categories above, the more creative, mindset and business things. 

My Patreon will continue to cover all those things, and that’s also where I post most of my AI-specific content, so if you’re interested in The AI-Assisted Artisan Author transformation path, come on over to patreon.com/thecreativepenn

I have more non-fiction books for authors coming, and lots more ideas now I am leaning into this angle.

I’ll also continue to do webinars on specific topics in 2026, and also add speaking back in 2027.

It’s harder to think about transformation when it comes to fiction, but it’s also really important since fiction books in particular are highly commodified, and will become even more so with the high production speeds.

Yes, all readers have a few favourite authors but most will also read a ton of other books without knowing or caring who the author is.

Fiction can be transformational. Reader’s aren’t buying a ‘book.’ They’re buying a way to escape, to feel deeply, to experience things they never could in real life.

A book can transform a day from ‘meh’ into ‘fantastic!’

My J.F. Penn fiction is mostly inspired by places, so my stories transport you into an adventure somewhere wonderful, and they all offer a deeper side of transformative contemplation of ‘memento mori’ if you choose to read them in that way. 

They also have elements of gothic and death culture that I am going to lean into with some merch in 2026, so more of an identity thing than just book sales. I’m not quite sure what this means yet, but no doubt it will emerge.

I’ll also shape my JFPennBooks.com site into more transformative paths, rather than just genre lists, as part of this shift.

My memoir Pilgrimage always reflected a transformation, both reflecting my own midlife shift but I’ve also heard from many who it has inspired to walk alone, or to travel on pilgrimage themselves.

Of course, transformation is not just for our readers or the people we serve as part of our businesses. It’s also for us.

One of the reasons why we are writers is because this is how we think. This is how we figure out our lives. This is how we get the stories and ideas out of our heads and into the world.

Writing and creating are transformative for us, too. That is part of the point, and a great element of why we do this, and why we love this.

Which is why I don’t really understand the attraction of purely AI-generated books. There’s no fun in that for me, and there’s no transformation, either.

Of course, I LOVE using Chat and Claude and Gemini Thinking models as my brainstorming partners, my research buddies, my marketing assistants, and as daily tools to keep me sparkly.

I smiled as I wrote that (and yes, I human-wrote this!) because sparkly is how I feel when I work with these tools.

Programmers use the term ‘vibe coding’ which is going back and forth and collaborating together, sparking off each other. Perhaps that I am doing is ‘vibe creation.’

I feel it as almost an effervescence, a fun experience that has me laughing out loud sometimes. I am more creative, I am more in flow. I am more ‘me’ now I can create and think at a speed way faster than ever before. My mind has always worked at speed and my fingers are fast on the keys but working in this way makes me feel like I create in the high performance zone far more often.

I intend to lean more into that in 2026 as part of my own transformation (and of course, I share my experiences mainly in the Community at patreon.com/thecreativepenn ).

[Note, I pay for access to all models, and currently use ChatGPT 5.2 Thinking, Claude Opus 4.5, and Gemini 3 Pro).

So that’s the big shift this year, and the idea of the Transformation Economy will underpin everything else in terms of my content.

The Creative Penn Podcast and my Patreon Community

The Creative Penn Podcast continues in 2026, although I am intending to reduce my interviews to once every two weeks, with my intro and other content in between. We’ll see how that goes as I am already finding some fascinating people to talk to! 

Thank you for your comments, your pictures, and also for sharing the episodes that resonate with you with the wider community.

Your reviews are also super useful wherever you are listening to this, so please leave a review wherever you’re listening this as it helps with discovery. 

Thanks also to everyone in my Patreon Community, which I really enjoy, especially as we have doubled down on being human through more live office hours.

I will do more of those in 2026 and the first one of the year will blearily UK time so Aussies and Kiwis can come. I also share new content almost every week, either an article, a video or an audio episode around writing craft, author business, and lots on different use cases for AI tools. 

If you join the Patreon, start on the Collections tab where you will find all the backlist content to explore. It’s less than the price of a coffee a month so if you get value from the show, and you want more, come on over and join us at patreon.com/thecreativepenn

My Books and Travel Podcast is on hiatus for interviews, since the Masters is taking up the time I would have had for that. However I plan to post some solo episodes in 2026, and I also post travel articles there, like my visits to Gothic cathedrals and city breaks and things like that. Check it out at https://www.booksandtravel.page/blog/ 

Webinars and live events

Along with my Patreon office hours, I’m enjoying the immediacy and energy of live webinars and they work with my focus on transformation, as well as on ‘doubling down on being human’ in an age of AI, so I will be doing more this year.

The first is on Business for Authors, coming on 10 and 24 January, which is aimed at helping you transform your author business in 2026, or if you’re just getting started, then transform into someone who has even a small clue about business in general!
Details at TheCreativePenn.com/live and Patrons get 25% off.

In terms of live in-person events, it looks like I will be speaking at the Alliance of Independent Authors event at the London Book Fair in March, and I’ll attend the Self-Publishing Show Live in June, although I won’t be speaking. There might be other things that emerge, but in general, I’m not doing much speaking in 2026 because I need to …

Finish my Masters in Death, Religion, and Culture

This represents a lot of work as I am doing the course full-time. I should be finished in September, and much of the middle of the year will be focused on a dissertation. I’m planning on doing something around AI and death, so that will no doubt lead into some fiction at a later stage!

Talking of fiction …

Bones of the Deep — J.F. Penn

The Masters is pretty serious, as is academic research and writing in general, and I found myself desperate to write a rollicking fun story over the holiday break between terms.

I’ve talked about this ‘tall-ship’ story for a while and now I’m committing to it.

Back in 1999, I sailed on the tall-ship Soren Larsen from Fiji to Vanuatu, one of the three trips that shaped my life.

It was the first time I’d been to the South Pacific, the first time I sailed blue water (with no land in sight), and I kept a journal and drew maps of the trip. It also helped me a make a decision to leave the UK and I headed for Australia nine months later in early 2000, and ended up being away 11 years in Australia and New Zealand.

I came home to visit of course, but only moved back to the UK in 2011, so that trip was memorable and pivotal in many ways and has stuck in my mind.

The story is based on that crossing, but of course, as J.F. Penn my imagination turns it into essentially a ‘locked room,’ there is no escape out there, especially if the danger comes from the sea.

Another strand of the story comes from a recent academic essay for my Masters, when I wrote about the changes in museum ethics around human remains and medical specimens i.e. body parts in jars, and how some remains have been repatriated to the indigenous peoples they were stolen from.

I’ve also talked before about how I love ‘merfolk’ horror like Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant, All the Murmuring Bones by A.G. Slatter, and Merfolk by Jeremy Bates.

These are no smiling fantasy mermaids and mermen.

They are predators.

What might happen if the remains of a mer-saint were stolen from the deep, and what might happen to the ship that the remains are being transported in, and the people on board? 

I’m about a third in, and I am having great fun! It will actually be a thriller, with a supernatural edge, rather than horror, and it is called Bones of the Deep, and it will be out on Kickstarter in April, and everywhere by the summer. 

You can check out the Kickstarter pre-launch page with photos from my 1999 trip, the cover for the book, and the sales description at JFPenn.com/bones

Add merch to CreativePennBooks.com and JFPennBooks.com

I’ve dipped my toe into merch a number of times and then removed the products, but now I’m clear on my message of transformation, I want to revisit this.

My books remain core for both sites, but for CreativePennBooks, I also want to add other products with what are essentially affirmations — ‘Creative,’ ‘I am creative, I am an author,’ and variants of the poster I have had on my wall for years, ‘Measure your life by what you create.’

This is the affirmation I had in my wallet for years!

For JFPennBooks, the items will be gothic/memento mori/skull-related. Everything will be print-on-demand. I will not be shipping anything myself, so I’m working with my designer Jane on this and then need to order test samples, and then get them added to the store. Likely mid-year at this rate!

How to Write, Publish, and Market Short Stories and Short Story Collections — Joanna Penn

I have a draft of this already which I expanded from the transcript of a webinar I did on this topic as part of The Buried and the Drowned campaign.

It turns out I’ve learned a lot about this over the years, and also on how to make a collection, so I will get that out at some point this year. I won’t do a Kickstarter for it, but I will do direct sales for at least a month and include a special edition, workbook, and bundles on my store first before putting it wide. I will also human-narrate that audiobook.

Other possible books

I’m an intuitive creative and discovery writer, so I don’t plan out what I will write in a year. The books tend to emerge and then I pick the next one that feels the most important. After the ones above, there are a few candidates.

Crown of Thorns, ARKANE thriller #14. Regular readers and listeners will know how much I love religious relics, and it’s about time for a big one! I have a trip to Paris planned in the spring, as the Crown of Thorns is at Notre Dame, and I have some other locations to visit. My ARKANE thrillers always emerge from in-person travels, so I am looking forward to that. Maybe late 2026, maybe 2027.

AI + religion technothriller/short stories. I already have some ideas sketched out for this and my Masters thesis will be something around AI, religion, and death, so I expect something will emerge from all that study and academic writing. Not sure what, but it will be interesting!

The Gothic Cathedral Book. I have tens of thousands of words written, and lots of research and photos and thoughts. But it is still in the creative chaos phase (which I love!) and as yet has not emerged into anything coherent. Perhaps it will in 2026, and the plan is to re-focus on it after my Masters dissertation. 

I feel like the Masters study and the academic research process will make this an even better book, But I am holding my plans for this lightly, as it feels like another ‘big’ book for me, like my ‘shadow book’ (which became Writing the Shadow) and took more than a decade to write!

How to be Creative. I have also written bits and bobs on this over many years, but it feels like it is re-emerging as part of my focus on transformation. Probably unlikely for 2026 but now back on the list …

Experiment more with AI translation

AI-assisted translation has been around for years now in various forms, and I have experimented with some of the services, as well as working with human narrators and editors in different languages, as well as licensing books in translation.

But when Amazon launched Kindle Translate in November 2025, it made me think that AI-assisted translation will become a lot more popular in 2026. AI audiobook narration became good enough for many audiobooks in 2025, and it seems like AI-translation will be the same in 2026.

Yes, of course, human translation is still the gold standard, as is human narration, and that would be the primary choice for all of us — if it was affordable.

But frankly, it’s not affordable for most indie authors, and indeed many small publishers. Many books don’t get an audiobook edition and most books don’t get translated into every language.

It costs thousands per book for a human translator, and so it is a premium option. I have only ever made a small profit on the books that I paid for with human translators and it took years, and while I have a few nice translation deals on some books, I’m planning to experiment more with AI translation in 2026. More languages, more markets, more opportunities to reach readers. More on this in the next episode when I’ll cover trends for 2026.

Ideally outsource more marketing to AI, but do more marketing anyway

You have to reach readers somehow, and you have to pay for book marketing with your time and/or your money. Those authors killing it on TikTok pay with their time, and those leaning heavily on ads are paying with money. Most of us do a bit of both.

There is no passive income from books, and even a backlist has to be marketed if you want to see any return. But I, like most authors, am not excited about book marketing. I’d rather be working on new books, or thinking about the ramifications of the changes ahead and writing or talking about that in my Patreon Community or here on the podcast.

However, my book sales income remains about the same even as I (slowly) produce more books, so I need to do more book marketing in 2026. I said that last year of course, and didn’t do much more than I did in 2024, so here I am again promising to do a better job!

Every year, I hope to have my “AI book marketing assistant” up and running, and maybe this will be the year it happens. My measure is to be able to upload a book and specify a budget and say, ‘Go market this,’ and then the AI will action the marketing, without me having to cobble together workflows between systems. Of course, it will present plans for me to approve but it will do the work itself on the various platforms and monitor and optimize things for me.

We have something like that already with Amazon auto-ads, but that is specific to Amazon Advertising and only works with certain books in certain genres. I have auto-ads running for a couple of non-fiction books, but not for any fiction.

I’d also ideally like more sales on my direct stores, JFPennBooks.com and CreativePennBooks.com which means a different kind of marketing.

Perhaps this will happen through ChatGPT shopping or other AI-assisted e-commerce, which should be increasing in 2026. More on that in trends for the year to come in the next show.

Double down on being human, health and travel

I have a lot of plans for travel both for book research and also holidays with Jonathan but he has to finish his MBA and then we have some family things that take priority, so I am not sure where or when yet, but it will happen!

Paris will definitely happen as part of the research for Crown of Thorns, hopefully in the spring. I’ve been to Paris many times as it’s just across the Channel and we can go by train but it’s always wonderful to visit again.

Health-wise, I’ll continue with powerlifting and weight training twice a week as well as walking every day. It’s my happy place!

What about you?

If you’d like to share your goals for 2026, please add them in the comments below — and remember, I’m a full-time author entrepreneur so my goals are substantial. Don’t worry if yours are as simple as ‘Finish the first draft of my book,’ as that still takes a lot of work and commitment!

All the best for 2026 — let’s get into it!
The post My 2026 Creative And Business Goals With Joanna Penn first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Another year ends, and once more, it's time to reflect on our creative goals.

I hope you can take the time to review your goals and you're welcome to leave a comment below about how the year went. Did you achieve everything you wanted to? Let me know in the comments.

It's always interesting looking back at my goals from a year ago, because I don't even look at them in the months between, so sometimes it's a real surprise how much they've changed! You can read my 2025 goals here and I go through how things went below.

In the intro, Written Word Media 2025 Indie Author Survey Results, TikTok deal goes through [BBC]; 2025 review [Wish I'd Known Then; Two Authors], Kickstarter year in review; Plus, Anthropic settlement, the continued rise of AI-narrated audiobooks, and thinking/reasoning models (plus my 2019 AI disruption episode).

My Bones of the Deep thriller, pics here, and Business for Authors webinars, coming soon.

If you'd like to join my community and support the show every month, you'll get access to my growing list of Patron videos and audio on all aspects of the author business — for the price of a black coffee (or two) a month. Join us at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn.

Joanna Penn writes non-fiction for authors and is an award-winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling thriller author as J.F. Penn. She’s also an award-winning podcaster, creative entrepreneur, and international professional speaker.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.

J.F. Penn books — Death Valley, The Buried and the Drowned, Blood Vintage

Joanna Penn books — Successful Self-Publishing, 4th Edition

The Creative Penn Podcast and my community on Patreon/thecreativepenn

Unexpected addition: Masters in Death, Religion and Culture at the University of Winchester

Book marketing. Not quite a fail but definitely lacklustre.

Reflections on my 50th year

Double down on being human. Travel and health.

You can find all my books as J.F. Penn and Joanna Penn on your favourite online store in all the usual formats, or order from your local library or bookstore. You can also buy direct from me at CreativePennBooks.com and JFPennBooks.com.

I'm not really active on social media, but you can always see my photos at Instagram @jfpennauthor.

J.F. Penn — Death Valley. A Thriller.

This was my ‘desert’ book, partially inspired by visiting Death Valley, California in 2024. It’s a stand-alone, high stakes survival thriller, with no supernatural elements, although there are ancient bones and a hidden crypt, as it wouldn’t be me otherwise!

The Kickstarter campaign in April had 231 Backers pledging £10,794 (~US$14,400) and the hardback is a gorgeous foiled edition with custom end papers and research photos as well as a ribbon.

As an AI-Assisted Artisan Author, I used AI tools to help with the creative and business processes, including the background image of the cover design, the custom end papers, and the Death Valley book trailer, which I made with Midjourney and Runway ML. The audiobook is also narrated by my J.F. Penn voice clone, which took a while to get used to, but now I love it! You can listen to a sample here.

I published Death Valley wide a few months later over the summer, so it is now out on all platforms.

J.F. Penn — Blood Vintage. A Folk Horror Novel, and Catacomb audiobook

I did a Kickstarter for the hardback edition of Blood Vintage in late 2024, and then in 2025, worked with a US agent to see if we could get a deal for it.

That didn’t happen, and although there were some nice rejections, mostly it was silence, and the waiting around really was a pain in the proverbial.

So, after a year on submission, I published Blood Vintage wide, so it’s available everywhere now. My voice clone narrated the audiobook, listen to a sample here.

I also finally produced the audiobook for Catacomb, which is a stand-alone thriller inspired by the movie Taken and the legend of Beowulf set in the catacombs under Edinburgh.

I used a male voice from ElevenLabs, and you can listen to a sample here. The book is also available everywhere in all formats.

J.F. Penn — The Buried and the Drowned Short Story Collection

One of my goals for 2025 was to get my existing short stories into print, mainly because they exist only as digital ebook and audiobook files, which in a way, feels like they almost don’t exist!

Plus, I wanted to write an extra two exclusive stories and launch the special edition collection on Kickstarter Collection and then publish wide.

I wrote the two stories, The Black Church, inspired by my Iceland trip in March, and also Between Two Breaths, inspired by an experience scuba diving at the Poor Knights Islands in New Zealand almost two decades ago.

There are personal author’s notes accompanying every story, so it’s part-short story fiction, part-memoir, and I human-narrated the audiobook.

I achieved this goal with a Kickstarter in September, 2025, with 206 Backers pledging almost £8000 (~US$10,600) for the various editions. I also did my first patterned sprayed edges and I love the hardback. It has head and tail bands which make the hardback really strong, gorgeous paper, foiling, a ribbon, colour photos, and custom end papers.

The Buried and the Drowned is now out everywhere in all editions. As ever, if you enjoy the stories, a review would be much appreciated!

Joanna Penn Books for Authors

Early in the year, How to Write Non-Fiction Second Edition launched wide as I only sold it through my store in 2024, so it’s available everywhere in all formats including a special hardback and workbook at CreativePennBooks.com. While I didn't write it in 2025, I made the money on it this year, which is important!

I also unexpectedly wrote the Fourth Edition of Successful Self-Publishing, mainly because I saw so much misinformation and hype around selling direct, and I also wanted to write about how many options there are for indie authors now.

The ebook and audiobook (narrated by human me) are free on my store, CreativePennBooks.com and also available in print, in all the usual places. If you haven’t revisited options for indie authors for a while, please have a read/listen, as the industry moves fast!

All my fiction and non-fiction audiobooks are now on YouTube

After an inspiring episode with Derek Slaton, I put all my audiobooks and short stories on YouTube. Firstly, my non-fiction channel is monetised so I get some income from that. It’s not much, but it’s something.

More importantly, it’s marketing for my books, and many audiobook listeners go on to buy other editions especially non-fiction listeners who will often buy print as well. I’m one of those listeners!

It’s also doubling down on being human, since I human narrate most of my audiobooks, including almost all of my non-fiction, as well as the memoir, and short stories. This helps bring people into my ecosystem and they may listen to the podcast as well and end up buying other books or joining the Patreon.

Finally, in an age of generative AI assisted search recommendations, I want my books and content inside Gemini, which is Google’s AI. I want my books surfaced in recommendations and YouTube is owned by Google, and their AI overviews often point to videos.

Only you can decide what you want to do with your audiobooks, but if you want to listen to mine, they are on YouTube @thecreativepenn for non-fiction or YouTube @jfpennauthor for fiction and memoir.

The Creative Penn Podcast and my Patreon Community

It’s been another full year of The Creative Penn Podcast and this is episode 842, which is kind of crazy. If you don’t know the back story, I started podcasting in March 2009 on a sporadic schedule and then went to weekly about a decade ago in 2015 when I committed to making it a core part of my author business.

Thanks to our wonderful corporate sponsors for the year, all services I personally use and recommend — ProWritingAid, Draft2Digital, Kobo Writing Life, Bookfunnel, Written Word Media, Publisher Rocket and Atticus.

It’s also been a fantastic year inside my Patreon Community at patreon.com/thecreativepenn so thanks to all Patrons!

I love the community we have as I am able to share my unfiltered thoughts in a way that I have stopped doing in the wider community. Even a tiny paywall makes a big difference in keeping out the haters.

I’ve done monthly audio Q&As which are extra solo shows answering patron questions. I’ve also done several live office hours on video, and shared content every week on AI tools, writing and author business tips. Patrons also get discounts on my webinars.

I did two webinars on The AI-Assisted Artisan Author, which I am planning to run again sometime in 2026 as they were a lot of fun and so much continues to change.

If you get value from the show and you want more, come on over and join us at patreon.com/thecreativepenn We have almost 1400 paying members now which is wonderful. Thanks for being part of the Community!

Unexpected goal of the year: Masters in Death, Religion and Culture at the University of Winchester

During the summer as I did my gothic research, I realised that I was feeling quite jaded about the publishing world and sick of the drama in the author community over AI.

My top 5 Clifton Strengths are Learner, Intellection, Strategic, Input, and Futuristic — and I needed more Input and Learning. I usually get that from travel and book research, but I wasn’t getting enough of that since Jonathan is busy finishing his MBA.

So I decided to lean into the learning and asked ChatGPT to research some courses I could do that would suit me. It found the Masters in Death, Religion and Culture at the University of Winchester, which I could do full-time and online. It would be a year of reading quite different things, writing academic essays which is something I haven’t done for decades, and hanging out with a new group of people who were just as fascinated with macabre topics as I am.

I started in September and have now finished the first term, tackling topics around thanatology and death studies, hell and the afterlife in the Christian tradition, and the ethics of using human remains to inspire fiction, amongst other interesting things.

It was a challenge to get back into the style of academic essay writing, but I’m enjoying the rigour of the research and the citations, which is something that the indie author community needs more of, a topic I will revisit in 2026.

I have found the topics fascinating, and the degree is a great way to expand my mind in a new direction, and distract me from the dramas of the author community. I’ll be back into it in mid-January and will finish in September 2026.

Book marketing. Not quite a fail but definitely lacklustre.

I said I would “Do a monthly book marketing plan and organise paid ad campaigns per month for revolving first books in series and my main earners.” I didn’t do this!

I also said I would organise my Shopify stores, CreativePennBooks.com and JFPennBooks.com into more collections to make it easier for readers to find things they might want to buy.

While I did change the theme of CreativePennBooks.com over to Impulse to make it easier to find collections, I haven’t done much to reorganise or add new pathways through the books. I’m rolling this part of the goal into 2026.

I said I would reinvigorate my content marketing for JFPenn, and make more of BooksAndTravel.page with links back to my stores, and do fiction specific content marketing with the aim of surfacing more in the LLMs as generative search expands.

I did a number of episodes on Books and Travel in 2025, but once I started the Masters, I had to leave that aside, and although I have started some extra content on JFPennBooks.com, I am not overly enthusiastic about it!

I also said I would “Leverage AI tools to achieve more as a one-person business.” I use AI tools (mainly ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini) every day for different things but as ever, I am pretty scatter gun about what I do.

I lean into intuition and I love research so I am more likely to ask the AI tools to do a deep research report on south Pacific merfolk mythology, or how gothic architecture impacted sacred music, or geology and deep time, rather than asking for marketing hooks.

I intended to use more AI for book marketing, but as ever, I was too optimistic about the timeline of what might be possible. There’s lots you can do with prompting, finessing things and then posting on various platforms, but I’m not interested in spending time doing that.

My gold standard for an AI assistant is to feed it the finished book and then say, “Here’s a budget. Go market this,” and not have to connect lots of things together into some Frankenstein-workflow.

That’s not available yet. Maybe in 2026 …

Of course, I still do book marketing. I have to in order to sell any books and make money from book sales. We all have to do some kind of book marketing!

I have my Kickstarter launches which I put effort into, as well as consistent backlist sales fed by the podcast, and my email newsletter (my combined list is around 60K). I have auto campaigns running on Amazon Ads, and I have used Written Word Media campaigns as well as BookBub throughout the year. This is basically the minimum, so as usual, must do better! I’m pretty sure I’m not the only author saying this!

However, my business has multiple streams of income, and I have the podcast sponsorship revenue as well as the Patreon, plus sporadic webinars, which add to my bottom line and don’t require paid advertising at all.

Reflections on my 50th year

I woke up on my 50th birthday in March in Iceland, by the Black Church of Budir out on the Skaefellsnes peninsula. As seals played in the sea and we walked in the snow over the ancient lava field under the gaze of the volcano that inspired Jules Verne Journey to the Centre of the Earth, and my short story, The Black Church, which you can find in my collection, The Buried and the Drowned.

On that trip, we also saw the northern lights and had a memorable trip that marked a real shift for me. I’ve been told by lots of people that 50 is a ‘proper’ birthday, as in one of those that makes you stop and reconsider things, and it has indeed been that, although I have also found the last few years of perimenopause to be a large part of the change as well.

A big shift is around priorities and not caring so much what other people think, which is a relief in many ways.

Also, I don’t have the patience to do things that I don’t think are worth doing for the longer term, and I am appreciating a quieter life.

I’d rather lie in a sunbeam and read with Cashew and Noisette next to me then create marketing assets or spend time on social media. I’d rather go for a walk with Jonathan than go to a conference or networking event.

In my Pilgrimage memoir, I quote an anonymous source,

“Pilgrim, pass by that which you do not love.”

It’s a powerful message, and I take it to mean, stop listening to people who tell you what is important. Listen to yourself more and only pay attention to that which you feel drawn to explore.

On pilgrimage, it might be turning away from the supposedly important shrine of a saint to go and sit in nature and feel closer to God that way.

In our author lives, it might be turning away from the things that just feel wrong for us, and leaning into what is enjoyable, that which feels worthwhile, that which we want to keep doing for the long term. Let’s face it, as always, that is the writing, the thinking, the imagination.

As ever, I have this mantra on my wall:

“Measure your life by what you create.”

It’s the creation side of things that we love and that’s what we need to remember when everything else gets a little much.

Many authors left social media in 2025, and while I haven’t left it altogether, I don’t use it much. I post pictures proving I am human on Instagram @jfpennauthor which automatically post to Facebook. I barely check my pages on Facebook though. I’m also still on X with a carefully curated feed that I mainly use to learn new cool AI things which I share with my Patreon Community.

Double down on being human. Travel and health.

Yes, I am a human author, and yes, I continue to age! When you've been publishing a while, you need to update your author photos periodically and I finally had a photoshoot I loved with Betty Bhandari Photography, which means I can add the new pics to my websites and the back of my books. Are you up to date with your author photos? (or at least within a decade of the last photoshoot?!) Here are a few of the pictures on Instagram @jfpennauthor.

Healthwise, I gave up calisthenics as it was too much on top of the powerlifting and the amount of walking I do.

I did another British Powerlifting competition in September in the M2 category (based on age) and 63kgs category (based on weight). Deadlift: 95kgs. Squat: 60kgs. BenchPress: 37.5kgs. While this is less overall than last year, I also weigh less, so I’m actually stronger based on lift to body weight percentage. I have also done a few pull-ups in the last week with no band, which I am thrilled with!

On the travel side, Iceland was the big trip, and I also had a weekend in Berlin for the film festival, where I met up with a producer and a director around an adaptation of my Day of the Vikings thriller. That didn’t pan out, as most of these things don’t, but I certainly learned a lot about the industry — and why it doesn’t suit me! Once again, I dipped my toe into screenwriting and then ran away, as has happened multiple times over the years. When will I learn? …

Over the summer of 2025, I visited lots of gothic cathedrals including Lichfield, Rochester, Durham, York, and revisiting Canterbury, as part of my book research for the Gothic Cathedral book. I have tens of thousands of words on this project, but it isn’t ready yet, so this is carried over into 2026 as it might happen then, depending on the Masters.

I spoke at Author Nation in Las Vegas in November 2025, and before it started, I visited (Lower) Antelope Canyon, one of the places on my bucket list, and it did not disappoint. What a special place and no doubt it will appear in a story at some point!

How did your 2025 go?

I hope your 2025 had some wonderful times as well as no doubt some challenges — and that you have time for reflection as the year turns once more.

Let me know in the comments whether you achieved your creative goals and any other reflections you'd like to share.
The post Review Of My 2025 Creative And Business Goals With Joanna Penn first appeared on The Creative Penn.