Award winning and New York Times & USA Today best-selling author, Joanna Penn, is a prolific writer of nonfiction, thrillers, dark fantasy, and memoirs.
Her latest book, the second edition of How to Write Non-Fiction, is available now for pre-order.
She joined us this week to talk about publishing a non-fiction book, including:
When to publish a new edition versus updating an existing edition
The types of nonfiction books
The challenges and benefits of writing a memoir
Changes and Predictions in the publishing industry
Nonfiction business models
Common mistakes nonfiction authors make
And more!
The session is packed with valuable tips for both established and aspiring authors looking to enhance their craft and navigate the changing publishing environment.
Click anywhere within this unedited transcript to jump directly to that part of the training.
📚 Welcome and Introduction to Joanna Penn
Hello and welcome to this week's Apex Authors live training. I am excited to introduce you to Joanna Penn. She writes nonfiction and business books for Authors and is also an award-winning and New York Times and USA today bestselling author for thrillers, dark fantasy and memoir as J.F. Penn. Jo is also the host of the Creative Penn podcast, which I started listening to probably 10 plus years ago at this point. And, I finally got to meet her in person last year at the Final 20 Books Vegas event. Her latest book is now available for pre-order. We were just talking about that before we got started and is the second edition of how to Write nonfiction, which is the very topic we've invited her to join us on to, to talk about this week. So let me welcome you Jo to Apex Authors.
Oh, thanks for having me. I'm thrilled to be here and happy to talk about whatever is most useful for your community.
📚 Deciding to Publish a New Edition
Yeah, so this is the second edition of the book. And, I remember reading the initial one back in 2018 when it first came out, and it's pretty clear that you've completely rewritten the book. So let's start off just talking about how do you decide when it's time to publish a new edition, and whether you should rewrite the book or just add or remove or update content. What goes into that sort of a decision?
I think it's such a big question with nonfiction in particular, and I'm sure some of the listeners, are writing that because to be honest, little updates are fine in that you can just upload new files to KDP to all the websites. It's not even that big a deal to update. So if it is just updates for up to around 10% of content, that's something a lot of us do. Not even a big deal. But what happened for me with this, how to write nonfiction, the, biggest thing personally is that I wrote a memoir in the last, it was like between 2020 and 2022. I wrote a memoir, pilgrimage, and. What I wanted to do with the second edition was include memoir. So although it's called How to Write Nonfiction, I didn't wanna do forward slash and or memoir, but it is also about that. And so one of the reasons that anyone would decide to write a second edition is if you have substantially changed as well as the material substantially changing. And what I felt had changed so much about my craft was that original edition of how to Write nonfiction. I was still very much in the more self-helpy, very prescriptive how to mode of writing, which is all very well, and is useful, but in these days of generative AI, that can be done by a machine. And so when I looked at it, I was like, I want to add in all this stuff about memoir, but I also wanna rewrite the chapters to bring in more personal experience because that is what brings our books alive. So that's a couple of reasons. And then the other, let's do the financial reason. 'cause I know you do business, at Apex. And the other reason was this is one of my top three bestselling nonfiction books. It makes me really good money every month. It's got a good SEO title. And it was getting to the point where I was like, uhm-uhm! I don't really wanna advertise it because I feel like it's not right enough. I needed to remove some of the old stuff. Obviously some things have changed. Names, companies have been bought, things have disappeared. My affiliate links have changed in some situations, so I wanted it to continue making money and I wanted to make sure one of my primary assets was everything I needed it to be. And also, as I mentioned before we started recording, I'm recording the audio book and that 2018 version had a different person reading the audio book. And now I feel like at the time I was outsourcing that I wasn't confident in myON. And now I am. And again, that is another form of income around our books that I wanted to include. So I guess all those things together, when I looked at it, I was like, I really need to do this. But because it, what it is, a complete rewrite, as you said. I also rejigged a lot of the business side of things. Stuff like direct sales has come along since then and all of this. So it was both a craft decision and a business decision. But what I'd say to anyone really thinking about this is. Do you really want to do this for craft reason and a business reason? Because it is a lot of work and some people would say, just write another book. but yes, for me it, it is worth it for sure.
📚 Types of Nonfiction Books
Piggybacking on that, you'd mentioned the first version was a lot more prescriptive and self helpy, so, what are some of the different kinds of nonfiction books and, do you have any advice for how somebody can choose what's gonna be appropriate for their next book?
Yeah, I think nonfiction does have a real spectrum. I mean, obviously there's different categories. You can find the different categories on Amazon under nonfiction, but in my mind, on the one side, you've got the real academic, the sort of, then you've got bibliography, you've, bib biography, I mean biography. It's late here in the UK. History books, the books that you will buy more of passive consumption, you wanna read them for information. But then in the middle, there's this sort of self-help transformation book, which might be hobbies. My writing books fit here. And then you've got memoir towards the opposite end of the scale, which is very much a sort of personal journey and a transformation, type of thing. So if people are trying to decide what type of book am I writing? Hopefully the genre for nonfiction is quite obvious because they are very much around topics. But then within the sort of topics, for example, a. Let's say, weight loss since we're coming into January, it's the weight loss season. A how to book, how to lose weight, written by a doctor who has never had a weight problem but is an expert on say, hormones, is a completely different book to the book written by somebody who's lost like a hundred pounds and is not a medical expert, but has the experience. So that those would be two completely different books written from completely different perspectives. And one of those would be like a health, medical book. And the other one might be a memoir, self-help kind of book. so similar topic, different way of doing it, but what I would say to people is, so who are you? Is one big question. Are you a medical expert? In which case you could write that book. If you, and then who is your target market? So again, even if you are a medical expert, Are you writing a book for the medical expert community or are you writing a book that is kind of pop. Pop medical. So actually there's a good example, not that of course I read a ton of these types of book, but, there's a book called The Obesity Code by Dr. Jason Fung. And if anyone's seen Dr. Jason Fung, he doesn't have any weight problems, but it's a, he, it's a really interesting book. So he is a doctor, he's writing for a pop audience. And then also have a look at where your book will fit in the ecosystem. So go onto Amazon and say, okay, is my book like the Obesity Code by Jason Fung, or is it, more like one of these, you know how I gave up sugar, books, by, a memoir? And then you can scroll down on Amazon and you can see where the book is shelved in the categories and that will also help you. But this understanding your comparison titles. Is so important. Like it's, it really is one of the top things you need to understand in order to figure out what you are writing, what kind of book you're writing, but also where it fits in the ecosystem.
We talk about that with both fiction and nonfiction. maybe even especially more important in nonfiction than in fiction because you've got such a variety of types of book about the same topics. this book, it's, my Kindle, so it's not anything exciting, but this book, by the way, for the, our audience, it falls a little bit in the middle. It's definitely a help book, but it really has, more of you in it than some of the previous books that I've, nonfiction, books I've read of yours. and it, I honestly, it's very touching in some places. It gotta the point where I was almost feeling emotional in some places, but still really, really, helpful… Useful, information that we can take away as Authors and use. So for, those of you guys who are wondering where this book we're talking about today falls on the line, it's a little bit in the middle, and I love that. And, it showed that you've been, through a journey of your memoir, in this book. And of course you talk about it in the book. how did you make the leap? I know you went on the pilgrimage and that was a big part of the transformation, but how did you make the leap in terms of writing sort of those more prescription prescriptive? although of course you say in the book you're not, some kind of expert who specifically studied publishing or something of that nature. You came at it from experience. Then how'd you make the leap from writing? more, step by step or more help books. And how did you leap into writing your memoir?
📚 Writing a Memoir: Challenges and Tips
And then do you also, do you have any information, any advice for our listeners on, a number of our listeners, they'd like to write, books to help people, but they may struggle a little bit in how to put themselves into it. So I know those are two questions, but.
I think it is difficult, but, how to put it, you have to write a lot of words, I think for memoir because so much of it is so personal and you have to really be much more open on the page. Now that doesn't mean you have to publish it. So there are words that I did not put into pilgrimage. People can probably tell it, it does have some religious aspects, some, but I'm not a Christian. It did have, aspects of faith in, but there were things, for example, about my mental health, which I did talk about, but there were things about some of my family that I decided to leave out. So when we're talking about putting yourself on the page, we're still talking about having boundaries around. People you love and things that, or maybe that you are still angry about or that maybe you should see a therapist about or whatever. But for me it was, I thought for many years I wanted to write a memoir. I just didn't know what that would be. And so when I started writing pilgrimage, it was gonna be more like a travel log, like a solo walking self-help book, which it also has aspects of. But how I really got to this point, I think it just takes a lot of years of putting yourself out there. And I ended up with around a hundred thousand words for that book. And what's published is under 40,000. So it was a huge amount of work and culling and editing and reediting and really trying to figure out what the transformation is because a memoir really is a transformation from one place to another place. And I like to use the example of, Wild by Cheryl Strayed, which many people will have heard of or read or seen the movie with Reese Witherspoon. And that, her subtitle is something like From Lost to Found along the Pacific Coast Trail, or whatever it is. And that from Lost to Found. It is not just physically lost to found, it's kind of mentally and in life from lost to found. And. I think that's what we have to consider with memoir is where's the transformation? And for me, for two and a half years, there was no transformation or I wasn't through it yet. And I think you really only recognize that your memoir is ready when you've come to the end of a story arc, your own character story arc, a particularly small arc in your longer life arc, and then you realize, oh, that happened and now that episode is finished and now I can write that as an episode. And so that's what it turned out to me. For me, what's interesting is it then really unlocked my. Ability to write in this more personal way. And then I went on to do my book Writing the Shadow, which is, based on the Jungian idea of the shadow, that darker side of ourselves. And I don't think I could have written that book without writing pilgrimage. And that's also now what's in how to write nonfiction. My writing has completely changed. So what I would say to people is it's hard to write memoir. I think it's possibly one of the hardest genres to write, but it's so important if you, if something is stirring in you, there is that there is a personal story you, need to tell in some way. I think respecting that. Calling in some form, even though it might take you years to write. I think it's very valuable. And that book, even though it's like a very niche book, it touches people. And as I said, I think my writing has transformed and that also helps, I guess. So that's a few things. Did I answer both questions? I can't remember the second one bit.
You definitely answered the question about, how to transition in a memoir. I was gonna also ask, which you already answered. How do you know when you have something that is, a, memoir story, but you answered that as far as recognizing that you have been through a transformation and that you're on the other side of it. And that's where there's a memoir.
📚 Truth in Memoir and Mixing Fiction with Nonfiction
We have a follow up question that kind of, Sort of tips a little bit into what I, my first question, which, and, so I'm gonna read it and, hopefully you can have some advice for her. She, so Edith has found some old letters, written by someone. She isn't giving us any information on who the someone is. Obviously there are many in info gaps, histor in some historical, it's relatively easy to fill in those gaps. But how do you take something like that and, add the emotional aspects? is there, is it possible to mix some fiction with nonfiction? how far can we go to unvent she says, or interpret, from what we have? Are there rules or frameworks or is it just whatever you, however you feel like putting it together?
Yeah. This is a great question and it's something, it's so funny. I have a whole load of my podcast interviews around memoir, and every single time I'm asking, where is the truth? What's the line between capital T, Truth and small T truth? Because the truth of a transformation, is that something happened, but the ab absolute truth of what might happened in every stage along the way, our memories are false things half the time. And what you remember will be different to what your sister remembered or your husband remembered or the other person remembered. And with a letter, how often do we write an email and don't think about it later? What our words could have meant or what people do on social media, I think is actually quite similar now. It's the source of feeling of, I've put this out there, but how will someone interpret it? So letters are really interesting, but in terms of truth, capital versus small, you, I think you have to try the best you can in a situation to be factual when it's appropriate. But I. Let's say with my memoir, I concatenated several of the days into one episode, so they might have happened on different days, but I put them into one episode in order to portray the real truth of the book, which in one example was like the physical pain of walking day after day after day. I put those together into one chapter, so only you can really be the one who decides where the line is with what you make up. But certainly there are many uses for fictional tools. In memoir and or also in general nonfiction coming back to the January weight loss, many of the self-help books around that start with someone who was struggling with, medical issues and end with someone who might have recovered from diabetes or whatever it is. And so there's always this transformational, element, and I'm sorry to use that example. It just was something that's come up because it's almost January. hopefully that's not triggering anyone. But, this, so this idea of truth versus truth and also fictional elements, like I said, only you can decide, but what you also have to think from a legal perspective, and I do cover this in the book too, is how far you can go around things that you make up around real people. So I would just be very careful around where you do draw the line.
📚 Expertise and Writing Nonfiction
So even if you're not writing a memoir though, how do you, how do you address someone who feels like they may not be the expert? Like if they are writing that weight loss book or they are writing a memoir or some other type of book, what if they don't feel they have the expertise or they're not good enough to write the book, is it still even worth them putting pen to paper?
Yeah. So I think this idea of expert is such a common question. from my own perspective, I, have a degree in theology. I don't have a degree in writing or publishing or book marketing or online presenting or speaking or any of the things that make up my living now. So am I an expert? I'm an expert 'cause I've been doing this for 15, 16, 17 years. so that, I think that's the, first thing is the book you are writing. Are you claiming to have a PhD in some kind of thing that you don't, then you then, that's not what your expertise is based on. I'm here because you've considered me enough of an expert in writing nonfiction. 'cause I've written a ton of nonfiction books, and I've written this one. So I think what you have to consider is you write to the level of the expertise that you are. So I wrote my first edition of how to market a book, like back in 2009 when I had I think one book and I tried marketing it and it was really hard. So I thought, I know I'll write a book on how to market a book, and in, in writing it, I will learn how to write a book. So I think that's also a valid, side of things is that we write to learn, what we think. And I think many writers are like that. So again, in all of this, consider who is my reader and what does that reader need? Do they need someone who has life experience in this topic and who is not claiming to have any degree in it or whatever? Or do they want someone who has some kind of formal credentials? So that's what you have to assess around yourself and also around the, reader. And so often I think most people want to hear from normal people about experience, and we're talking about emotional experience here rather than the intellectual side of things. Of course, it can be a mix, but Yeah. if people are wondering are they expert enough, the question is, are you just one step ahead of someone else who needs help?
Yeah. I think a lot of times it can be a lot more approachable for somebody that's closer to your experience level than to somebody who may have. A lot more experience, but may not necessarily remember where it is to be in the trenches or just starting out in a particular subject matter.
📚 Changes in the Publishing Industry
What are the biggest changes that you've seen? So the first edition of this came out in 2018, it's been about six years. what's changed since then and what kind of changes do you think we'll see over the, next six years?
Can we split those two questions? I was thinking about this because even though you think, oh, only six years ago so much has happened, I mean, obviously we had the pandemic, if anyone remembers that now. but in terms of the biggest changes, I think for Authors and for our industry, one big shift has been obviously audio, books and subscription model. Spotify's obviously come in, even up until, find a Way. Voices only started in 2017. So just as I put this out, a CX was really the only game in town. And you probably remember this when a CX was the only game in town with audio and then find a Way, voices Now by Spotify came in and suddenly audio's gone: Boom. And so audio books are a huge deal. Selling Direct has also over the last six years has become a huge, trend with, indie Authors in particular. Kickstarter, Shopify. WooCommerce, doing that kind of selling direct, completely bypassing the, bestseller lists Amazon. All of that kind of thing. then of course the rise of generative AI has really changed a lot and is going to continue changing a lot. But, and actually this is, I didn't even mention this before. This is one of the changes in the book is I've included prompts that people can use with ChatGPT or Claude or Google Notebook, LM for example, as, and I do say, I don't think you should use it for writing publishable words, but I think it's amazing to help you, for example, do that comparison title analysis. I use it for book covers, sales descriptions, marketing, pitching podcasts. Translation, audiobook, narration. You can use it for so much. So that rise of generative ai and even the impact on things like search engine optimization. there's so much that is changing. And then also I call it the great splintering and the great splintering of business models, but also of social media. So back in 2018, for example, there was no TikTok. People can remember, there was no TikTok back then. There was Twitter, which there isn't anymore. Obviously there is X and it is a completely different platform. but what happened when Elon Musk bought X, it splintered into different communities. So the nonfiction audience, a lot of people who write nonfiction, who read nonfiction, business people are on LinkedIn. And then a lot of the publishing kind of industry, more left wing politics went to Blue Sky. Some, people just went onto Instagram, other people went into Reddit, some people stayed on X. So the, what happened was we went from a situation in 2018 when there were still clear rules, or not rules, but a clear path for how to make a living as an author. I'm an independent author, there were these particular ways that we did it. Since 2018, it, there's been this splintering in a good way in that now there are so many options. And of course we were just a, author nation in Las Vegas in November 20, 24. And, I, you could throw a stick and hit somebody who had a different business model here and someone who had a different business model. And that wasn't like that. In 2018, people were doing the same thing and now they're not. So I feel like that's some of the biggest changes over the last. Six years. Any comment on that? Do you agree?
I, agree. I would also say that, for newer Authors, that makes your job a little more difficult. Because now you need to research where to find your, your audience, where to find your, partners. it's a little bit, there's a bigger landscape, so there's a little bit more research involved in just getting to the door.
📚 Choosing Your Path as an Author
I do think with that, that's also a good thing because. The one way of doing things didn't suit everyone. so for example, I've, I don't write to market as such, and I never wanted to be exclusive to Amazon. I didn't particularly, it annoyed me that we didn't have any other way, say for, to get audio books into libraries. We didn't have that until fine, a way voices came along. So what I would say to people who are just starting out, or maybe traditionally published Authors getting their rights back, or people who want to look at this in a more holistic sense is, okay, let me have a look at what Authors in my niche are doing. And again, if you don't know your niche, I would ask ChatGPT. So these are, this, is all the things that my book is about. Tell me what. Genre. I probably sit in and tell me 10 books that are similar to this and then go read them or go research them on Amazon. You can seriously, it's such a help with sales and marketing. so once you've done that and you've had a look, then have a look at the Authors so you can see my business model. You don't need to read my books to figure out my business model. You can just come on my website. You can see that I have books and I have affiliate stuff and I have speaking and I have fiction and nonfiction. And you can see what I do. You can see I have a Shopify store. you can see my Kickstarters. So you can figure out what people are doing and then, it really is again about you. What do you want to do? For example, let's take audiobook narration. Is that something that you want to do? There will be people who are listening who might be interested in audiobook narration, and then probably 90% of people will not. So then you, it's an easy decision. I don't narrate my own audio books or I'm going to learn that. Same with everything else. It's like, oh, I, love the idea of Kickstarter and I buy books on Kickstarter all the time, so I'm gonna do that. or I love TikTok. I'm on TikTok every day. That's not me, by the way. I love this. So I'm gonna do TikTok. So this is the thing. Look at how your behavior is. How do you buy and read books? Maybe you only read nonfiction on Kindle, or maybe you only buy hardback nonfiction. That will help. Sorry. That will help you decide which way to go. I think the main thing here is to realize that you cannot do everything. So if you remember my; people on the video, I'm spreading my fingers out. If you think these are the, this is the splintering. You can't do it all. You have to choose a path. You cannot do it all. And if you're feeling overwhelmed, it's probably because you are trying to do it all..
In a way it's a little bit like you, you mentioned in your book that at some points, like in your researching, at some point you have to stop researching and write the book at some time. At some point in your writing and editing, you have to just be done. it's the same in terms of picking your path. You have to at some point just pick the path and go for it. You can always change it later if it doesn't work out for, if you, if it doesn't work or if you change or adjust as a writer. Like Joanna has changed as a writer over the last few years as she's written her memoir. So I, think that's; that is something I'm getting from your book is that some point you just have got to go for it.
Yeah. And as you said, one of the benefits of being an independent author is being able to jump on new things. If you own and control your intellectual property rights, you can change your mind. You can do other things. Like as soon as Findaway Voices launched, I jumped in, and that's what I do every time. Or I can narrate my audio books 'cause I own the rights to do that. so this is the other thing. It's like you can jump on new things, you can change your mind. You can unpublish, you can republish. There, there is freedom. And I think it's very difficult to see at the beginning. if you are listening and you are at the beginning of your journey, everything is about that one book. You can't see that maybe years later you'll have a ton of books if you get the bug, the writing bug as many of us do, and that you'll be able to change things and do new additions and change the covers. I mean, we all change our covers lots, particularly with fiction. I've changed my covers so many times, so I think, that's the thing to consider this whatever decision you make, it doesn't have to be the decision forever, unless it is a contract that you've signed for life of copyright, but, and you'll be dead before that runs out.
Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. And for anybody watching that isn't sure where, what direction to go in, do feel free to reach out and ask questions and we can help you suss out what works for each individual person. 'cause it is a. It is an individual choice where, to go and what's gonna work best for you. but there's certainly a lot of resources out there and even if it's things that we wouldn't necessarily do, we can probably help you find someone that, that could do that.
📚 Navigating the Future of Publishing
So now, that we've talked about where to go, over the last six years, where, do you think we're going in the next six?
Well, it's interesting 'cause I do feel like those, the things I just said will just continue being true.
📚 Generative AI: Transforming the Industry
So if you think that, if you think, as I do that generative AI is not a fad, it's more like the beginning of a new. Ecosystem. Some people call it like electricity, so it just becomes a part of everything. and that, or that it's as transformative as the internet or perhaps even bigger. So back in the year, let's say the year 2000, way before the smartphone, we couldn't even imagine what a mobile. World was, most of us had probably gone on the internet in the year 2000. But those were back in the days of, dialup modems and all of that kind of thing. And the way that things have changed since then have, have really changed the way we do business. My career wouldn't, this wouldn't be poss, this wouldn't have been possible, right? The fact that I have a podcast, have had a podcast since 2009, meeting people like you over the internet. I mean, this is crazy. The fact that we can do print on demand globally and sell eBooks and, all of this kind of stuff. the world has changed so much. So in terms of pushing all that forward, I think the way that generative AI will underpin so much, what's so funny now is, and I'm still on XI love X, I've been on x. Twitter since 2009, so I'm not going anywhere else. but there's been a lot of meme shared, and screenshots of newspapers from the year 2000. And it's like, the internet is a fad. No one's using it. it's gonna go away. And all of this, won't and personal computers won't be on people's desks and all of this stuff. And so we always get technology kind of wrong. But I think what's gonna happen is this will change a lot of our business. This will change people's writing process, it will change our licensing, deals. I think we're gonna get contracts for licensing for AI models that's coming.
📚 The Rise of AI in Audio and Translation
I do think that AI voice for audio is gonna be transformative. For example, I'm, an English woman, and you have to listen to my audiobook in my voice, where if you buy the audiobook, because that is the only thing available. Now, what if you wanted it, if you wanted to listen to it in an American, male voice, and you've probably got an accent, Blaine, which I, don't know, but whatever your voice is. What, if you wanted to look, listen to it in Blaine's voice, or what if you wanted to listen to it in a Indian dialect? You know what, if you wanted to listen to it in Sub-Saharan Africa or whatever. And so what we're gonna get is translation and narration, AI translation and AI narration for books, which will maybe you have an app or whatever, and it just does that. Spotify is starting to do this with podcasts, automatically translate it and use the host's voice to speak in another language. I mean, that's kind of crazy, but kind of cool. That means we could be literally being dubbed into Spanish or whatever by the AI right now. And if you think about the accessibility of this, we're very lucky in the English language that we have a very developed book market in the English language. But most countries in the world, most languages do not have that. So most people are missing 99.9 9, 9 9 9% of all the knowledge because it's not in audio. so I think this is a huge thing that's going to shift now. On one hand that's exciting. On the other hand, it's kind of scary because it means those of us who got ahead in audio, you kind of lose it when there's a huge amount of audio. But that is just the way it is. And I think what we're gonna find is new ways to reach readers. So I think we'll go more digital, but also more physical.
📚 Personal Connections in a Digital World
So part of the reason for doing this with you is that this is a smaller community. I have my Patreon community, and we get to talk in a more personal way. So this is human Jo. This is not AI Jo. and that also means this is a more personal conversation. You are asking different questions. So I think there'll be more of this and perhaps that will be facilitated by technology. So for example, maybe instead of a flat screen, we'll we will be in some kind of. Metaverse space or some kind of 3D situation where we'll be more immersive with each other, I think that would be really interesting. but yes, I do think that the continued rise and rise of generative AI is really going to change the craft and the business and also the marketing side. I dunno if you've seen just in, in the last week or so, the launch of the, video from Google as well as finally Sawa from OpenAI, the text to video stuff. And I'm really excited about that because for my fiction in particular, I like to make book trailers. so that's just another example of something that we couldn't do or, cost us thousands to do, which is now basically free or 20 bucks or something. So I think all of that's just gonna continue. So if you think about the trajectory of all the splintering, I think it's just gonna. Get even bigger, essentially. So people are gonna have to be very strong about what they wanna achieve with their book and also what they wanna achieve in their career and, not get too excited about everything, which is very hard.
There are sure are lots of bells and whistles. Thankfully, most of our audience, I think, Is willing to let other people test things out first. So by, at this point, we've started doing some AI trainings. People are starting to get interested in it, but certainly we were not jump on, early, early adopters of it. We've let other people feel it out and help us out as we go. and I think most of our, Authors are in that too, but it sounds like exciting possibilities in the future. We, I know we're talking about nonfiction here today, but we do have some children's book Authors with us and I can already see some really cool opportunities in what Joanna is telling us, for, that market. So I'm excited to see what comes down the line for that.
📚 The Evolution of Technology
One of the things that Jo had shared in her Patreon was, she'd mentioned that she had put together a book trailer for one of her books, and she went through the process of how that was developed and everything. if you don't mind, I'll see if I can find that you have that on YouTube, I assume, 'cause I can put that on our replay page for people to check out too.
Yeah. That's for my private community. So, I wouldn't share that, but the tool…
Oh, I mean the book trailer itself, don't you? Is that…
Oh, yes. Yeah, that's…
I was talking about putting the book trailer on so people could see here's what you can do. Yes. Now without having that whole, graphic, design background or animation background and everything.
Yeah, and that was, I did that with midjourney, which is a text to image tool and then runway ml, which turns images into video. but yes, hopefully in 2025 with these, some of these new tools, it will thing things are just getting better and better. And I also feel like those people who are still concerned, about some of the legalities, we've even seen, I think what Harper Collins in the last couple of weeks sign a licensing deal. Lionsgate movies have signed licensing deal, so a lot of these companies are signing licensing deals, and I think it's far more important for us to also sign licensing deals and make some money from licensing because this stuff is not going away. So I think this will also kind of come together in 2025, is just the. Bedding down of what has been a diff, a rocky beginning, of it. just to be clear, no politics, but your American incoming administration is very ProTech is very accelerationist, so there is no way this is stopping. This is only going to speed up. And so for me, accelerating into the change is more important than trying to fight against it. Because, yeah, I think just accepting that business models change, accepting that the market changes, and then trying our best to join in and stay positive that, that's how I've surfed the last change. Because like I said before, when I started writing, there weren't even any eBooks. There was no iPhone. So things have changed a lot and I think things are about to change a lot again.
Yeah. It seems kind of reminiscent. You were talking about in 2000 with the all the newspaper headlines about, The internet is a fad and the.com bust and all that. And then we had the exact same thing when eBooks and digital publishing and self-publishing started becoming popular. And now it feels exactly the same. Like we're at that same point. It goes all the way back to when people, cameras came around and people were lamenting the loss of all the artists. So I think things were definitely changing, even if it's not gonna be the same and, but there's new opportunities, for sure.
For sure.
📚 Crafting Compelling Nonfiction
Alright, moving back to, writing the nonfiction, how do you, how do you create like a compelling book that someone's going to want to read and not just have, some kind of a, dry read that's just a, list of, facts or prescriptive steps? What are some of the things you can do to keep people turning the pages?
Yeah, I mean I think we, we've talked quite a lot about that, around putting in your personal stuff. But I guess just to take a step back, in terms of writing a book that people are gonna wanna read, I do think you do need to think about the title and the book cover, right up front, because that can sometimes be the thing that, that does hook people in. And certainly for my types of books, I like to use a really obvious title, obviously, how to Write Nonfiction. You should know whether or not you are interested in that book. It should be quite obvious to you. even Pilgrimage, which you know, that has a subtitle, but essentially either you like the word pilgrimage or you don't. It's a word that turns people on or off quite quickly. And I, so I actually think, even before people get into the book, you have to get them downloading it or buying it or, getting it on subscription or, however they read. So I think that's a really important point, is very much, title, subtitle, and again, I will point at ChatGPT for titles and subtitles. Put in your book ideas and say, give me 10 titles for this 10 subtitles, mix and match. I find that invaluable. Now it comes up with some things you, just wouldn't have thought of yourself. so that can be super useful. then cover design, obviously have a look at the other covers in the niche, but they don't necessarily have to look exactly the same. But I do think that also some kind of author branding. So all of my non nonfiction are sort of white with, they look quite similar. all the covers look quite similar, so they're clearly in a series. I think that's important. And then, yes, when people are coming into the book, there should be a transformation whether or not it is a memoir. So again, how to write nonfiction. You come into the book as someone who has not written nonfiction or perhaps wants to be better at it. And by the end, you hopefully will have achieved that goal. And then just, really I think. For nonfiction, good chapter titles, and this is a tip for audio if people use Spotify. Or, audible or any of the apps. Have a look at the chapter titles on nonfiction. If, the metadata hasn't been done properly, or just say things like track one, track two, and that for a nonfiction listener drives you nuts. On Spotify in particular, which is how I listen to audio books, I don't listen to necessarily whole audio books. I dip in and out of chapters in different books, and if there's no chapter title, I will probably click away. So that's what you have to think now is that audio listeners have a certain type of behavior, so make sure your chapter titles make people want to read. And then again, in the structure subheads. So really you're thinking about leading a. A reader through the text and that kind of organization can take quite a bit of editing. I certainly tend to do a lot of structural editing myself, as I, I print out my book in, in a draft for my hand edits, and a lot of it is restructuring in order to make it a proper, way through the book, a proper transformation and a, journey for the reader. So those are some of the things to think about.
Yeah, you talk about the books and how you have like the white books for all of your nonfiction and just looking at the shelf behind you, you can tell the different series that you have just from the branding of the books, even though they're kind of small and hard to read the, titles from the, on the smaller screen. So you do do a good job of that so people know exactly what they're looking at.
You can't, you can really pick out the nonfiction versus the thrillers back there on the bookshelf.
The dark. You can see the foil there. That looks quite good. But what I would say to people is that if you go back to look at my books from my first books back in 2007, they are not very good. They are not well branded. They are just not good enough. And at the time I thought they were, but as you get better at craft and that business, you learn how to improve. I would say get started wherever you are. I don't regret at all publishing at the time I published. and I've just learned over time how to do these things. I mean, even my fiction names, so I published fiction under J.F. Penn now, but I published my first three novels as Joanna Penn, and they were different titles, different covers, different author name, different everything. I've rewritten them the first three since then as well. So that's the other thing. I said it earlier, but you can change things over time. And I think that's so important because we can get so obsessed with everything being perfect. But try the best you can at this moment. Use professional editors. Use professional designers, but get the book out there and learn more and then adapt over time.
So we do have about 10 minutes until Jo needs to go. So if there are any specific questions that folks have, feel free to put those into the chat.
📚 Exploring Business Models for Nonfiction
So one of the, one of the things about nonfiction books is it does have different opportunities than you might necessarily have with a, a fiction book. So what are some of the, business models around your nonfiction that people can use and, and how do you, pick between them?
Yeah, so I think what's funny is people always say, oh, well you can make loads of money with nonfiction. They point to like, James Clear's Atomic Habits, which has sold like, I don't know, 50 million copies or something like that, and they say, well, he's only got one book. So yeah, you can't really bet on that. So really the first business model is, writing books in a series. So writing multiple books for a target market. and really just thinking, okay, this is gonna be an ecosystem, not just one book. and then thinking about selective rights licensing, so four different formats. We mentioned audio, obviously paperback, hardback, ebook, large print, doing bundles. So if you sell direct or you can do different bundles or maybe you sell bulk sale to companies, think about different languages, different countries. I've licensed rights. So for example, my nonfiction in French is mostly licensed to a French publisher, but I also now self-publish some, and I've used AI for the first draft of that, and then worked with an editor, subscription models, libraries. There's so many ways to sell and license books. Then of course for nonfiction, a lot of people do use it for lead generation, for courses, consulting, speaking software, memberships like this one. Also affiliate income where you can earn a percentage commission on the sale of other people's products and software. So for example, I'm an affiliate of ProWritingAid, which is, editing software. And then of course you can get into live events. So you can do a book and then sell, obviously speaking, but also retreats, experiences. You can basically take it into all kinds of things and, which a lot of fiction Authors don't want to do, but also, it, it does serve, the more expensive, products because books, at the end of the day, nonfiction books, you can price them at the highest level, on Amazon, but that's still only 9 99 for your ebook because of the cap on the 70% royalty. And so maybe you only make, maybe you make $7 or something like that, but you can, maybe you sell a course that's a hundred dollars or $500 dollars or consulting or something. So nonfiction Authors have a much bigger potential ecosystem, and what I'd suggest to people is that they consider. Thinking about that business model before publishing, because what you can put into your book are things like a call to action for sign up for your email list, but also maybe a call to action into a webinar or into a mini course or these types of things. So think about how else might I want to make money from this book. for example, there are affiliate links in how to write nonfiction to pro writing aids to things like vellum formatting software, other things like that. so yes, have a think about the business model you, are interested in before you publish at least so that you can make sure you put all of those into the book.
I just wanna take a second to plug for Joanna here. Now if you have not read and if you are interested in non-fiction books and you have not read any of Joanna's non-fiction books, please do because they're incredibly helpful. And not only does she have affiliate links in there, but she also has links to lots of other resources should you need them. Which I appreciate because if you put all that information in the book, there is no way I'd be able to get through the book. It'd be so big.
That's the copy!
Very good. There. She has plenty of, she has a lot of extra learning opportunities that are not maybe in the book because they might be a little bit tangential, but she, always gives you the references in case that's what you need. So please do read them.
Yep. She also touches on a lot of topics that she has entire books that flesh out that whole concept throughout and just says, oh, if you want more than this, couple of paragraphs or half a chapter, go read this book too. And it's a good way of cross-selling the other books in our series.
Oh, thank you. I've been doing this for so long now. I mean, you can really tell,
📚 Blending Fact and Fiction
Joanna, we're almost out of time, but I do see a few people are asking us specifically, they have stories they wanna tell that are based in fact or in letters or something that they've received. I've got a few on letters in here. But they don't have all of the stuff. So it, would end up being somewhere between a nonfiction and a fiction book. Do you have any advice for people who are, looking to tell a story that's half based in truth, but also significantly fictional?
Yeah, I think the reality is that you have to spend time with the material to decide what that book will be. And that's probably my overarching tip for all writing. I'm a discovery writer, so I don't necessarily plot or plan. It I figure it out as I'm writing and whatever material you have. So say it's a bunch of letters, I would sit with those letters, read them, write down your thoughts as it relates to the letters, but then you've got so many angles and this is where you have to think about yourself and the reader. So for example, Are you writing the history of the person who wrote the letters? Is it a biography of the person who wrote the letters that would be, that would need to be more historically accurate? Is it a romance that, maybe it's your grandmother's letters, your grandfather, and you wanna write the story of their romance? That could be, a novel, or it could be you remembering your grandparents, in which case it could be more like a memoir and you could include exits of the letters or, the, point is there's just so many things it could be, there is no one answer. You have to sit with the material and think about what you are interested in, what the reader's interested in, and what type of book that could be. But this is where I think it's so important. To be so personal because if I read those letters, I'm gonna think something different to someone else. I know someone who did have some letters from her grandfather who, was a tank commander or something, and she ended up doing a historical piece about tanks in World War ii. And I'm like, I am so not interested in that, you know? But that was what was interesting for her. So this is where we all have to look at what's interesting to us now. Turns out lots of other people are interested in World War II tanks, so that was a really good angle, but this is what you have to consider. yeah, sorry, there is no one answer, but if you sit with that material I bet you'll figure it out.
And I think she was also saying think about what audience you wanna write to as well. obviously there was a, an audience for those tanks, but if. Maybe that's not the audience you wanted to hit. Maybe you wanted to hit an audience that was more on the emotional side, wanted to, in which case maybe you'd have to throw in some fictionalization and it might be a totally different story that still includes the tanks and the commander and what have you. and all really, really very interesting stuff. Do we have any more last second questions for Jo before we let her go off and enjoy her evening?
📚 Common Mistakes and Final Tips
One thing I wanted to know is, what are some common mistakes that you're seeing people are making? how can they avoid the, beginner or whatev, whatever's people are doing wrong, like that is going to sideline their, book and, keep them from finishing it or keeping it from selling?
Probably, the all, again, all I think all of it really just comes back to who, are you and who are you writing for? And I think too many people don't answer those questions upfront. And then when it comes to finishing, it can be difficult because they don't really know why they're writing and when it comes to selling, they dunno who they're selling to. And they think that you just write a book and then they'll sell. and so you forget about the marketing side. So I think that it's a difficult, difficult thing though. when you are writing, you do need to be focused in your own head and on your creative process, but you also simultaneously do need to be thinking about who is the reader. And if you do that. Then you will get it out into the world and it's far more likely to sell if you've thought about that beforehand. And in fact, for nonfiction, I guess we didn't even mention, but if you are traditionally publishing, you need to write a book proposal. And I actually think that more independent Authors should write a book proposal before writing a nonfiction book because the question, and there's, a link to a template in my book, or you can find them online. But, a book proposal forces you to answer all of these questions before you commit the time. So perhaps that is a good tip we can end on is consider writing a book proposal before writing the book, however you decide to publish.
Great.
📚 Conclusion and Farewell
Okay, everybody. So the book is How to Write Nonfiction, second edition. and by the way, the subtitle is Turn Your Knowledge Into Words. I. By Joanna Penn, and I got him right here.
It's the blue cover! The blue cover, not the red cover!
Blue cover. Excellent. do check it out if you're interested in nonfiction. she also has a book, how to Write a Novel. So if you're a novelist, go check that out please. but I will say that even though I'm not really a nonfiction writer, I am definitely more fall in the fiction category. this book still had a lot of great information for me, about, putting your emotions in there, just really being authentic in your writing. I would check it out. Regardless of what you plan to write, it's going to be useful for you no matter what you're writing. and please, so please check it out. It comes out, it's on pre-order now. When does the book come out?
It'll be 1st of January for direct from my store, creative Penn books.com and then 31st of January everywhere on all the stores in all the formats.
Great. So if you wanna right away so you can hit that, new Year's Resolution, go and purchase it from her book, from her store, creative pin books.com for those of us who are lazy, we can get it at the end of the month.
Yeah, we do have the links in the chat box for everybody and we'll have those on the replay page as well.
Yes, absolutely. Thank you Jo, so much for coming on. I really appreciated this book, and I definitely appreciate you taking the time to come and talk to us and answer some questions for our. our writers. We really appreciate it. and I'm just thrilled because frankly, we've been listening to you forever and I've never gotten to meet,
oh, I really appreciate you inviting me on and thanks very much everyone and happy writing in 2025 and yeah, happy holidays.
Yes, happy holidays.
Thanks so much.
All right!. Thank you so much. Alright everybody, thank you for joining us today. we appreciate you joining us on another Wednesday. We will be early next week. We will be, showing up on Monday, correct? Yes, at one o'clock because I'm not gonna be here on Wednesday, sorry. And I don't think Blaine is either. We'll see you next week. we appreciate it very much and, happy holidays if we don't get to see you. It'll be great, I hope. And we will announce next week. I assume we'll do the following Monday as well, but we will let you know 'cause we're not gonna probably do this on New Year's Day either, so… Alright everybody; have a great afternoon.
Edith Naaman: Suppose you have old letters written by someone. Obviously there are many info gaps, some historical – it is relatively easy to sill in the gaps. But what do you do regarding emotional aspests? Can we mix fiction with non fiction? How far can we go and “unvent” or interpret from the data we have? Are there rules or frameworks? Should we involve our impressions, too?
Edith Naaman: The grandfather that dies before my father was born, 100 years ago
Suzanne McQueen: I'm sorry if I missed this. Is she self-published, or does she have a traditional publisher?
Erin Moore: Self-published up to now.
Blaine Moore: She does have a book out on submission right now, and is NYT & USA Today bestseller for her fiction.
Suzanne McQueen: Thx!
Edith Naaman: thanx
Edith Naaman: Sounds like you are an expert on writing expertly :)
Victoria Frank-Fields: What about a true story that you would like to tell but you cannot use real name and places for legal reasons. What is you opinion of telling the story, using different names and places in order to become work of fiction?
Edith Naaman: Rule # 1 in marketing is: consider you target market, first. isn't the same with books?
Tracy Cheney: I have a cache of letters sent from the Oregon Trail in 1851 by my ancestor to his wife and kids in Ohio. I can infer what she wrote back by his reply, but he lost her letters. What about reconstructing her letters to pair with his? Then imagining what her life was like with no income contrasting with his struggle in the gold fields. Though I don't have any of her writing, it's her voice and memoir that I want to tell their story.
Suzanne McQueen: I honestly think it has to be easier now to come on as a first time author. I started my first book in 2005. To my surprise, it took me 7 years to write (non-fiction with my own stories and experiences along the way). It came out at the end of 2012. Since then, the technology has changed over and over again rapidly. I'm honestly exhausted, but starting over in many ways with a brand new website, sales pages, etc. I'm overdo for updating the book, but at the same time, I'm glad I've waited now that this election has changed so much). But the constant changes in way to publish has been discouraging. But I hang in. My work has helped a ton of women and couples since then, so it's worth it. I also started a nonprofit for the whole thing to help with the funding that is needed, especially when all of books end up being in color. My original book is 300 pages of color! But it's also what has caused the book to sell consistently and by word of mouth. Anyhow, I think easier starting now.
Suzanne McQueen: I love that she talks realistically about basically getting focused on what you want to do since there are so many choices. That's what I hearing from her anyway.
Suzanne McQueen: Yep – go with the acceleration rather than fighting it. Yes, agree.
Edith Naaman: Thank you, but I must move on…
Suzanne McQueen: Those 2007 books I'm sure were great for the time.
Suzanne McQueen: I don't have any specific questions, but I appreciate hearing this exchange. Very helpful.
Suzanne McQueen: Does she sell off her website or through as many distribution outlets as possible? Or both?
Erin Moore: She does sell through her shopify store. You can find it through her website
Blaine Moore: Her store is CreativePennBooks.com – they are also available at most retailers and libraries.
Ed W: Jo was a very enlightening speaker. Thanks for inviting her!
Suzanne McQueen: GREAT IDEA about book proposal! I'm going to stop and do that about everything I'm doing right now. Great interview – thanks so much. :) xoxo
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