Indie Author Lab, London

Jo Penn at the Indie Author Lab, London

I have no good reason to go to literary events, except that I just love them!

I love meeting other writers and buying their books. I love learning about emerging technologies and literary trends… And I love listening to how the most profitable writers run their business. 

Joanna Penn is one of my favourites. I’ve never read her fiction books, but her podcast is super interesting. Here are some key takeaways from her talk this week:

1. What do you really, actually want [from your writing]? 

2. What do you need to do to get that? 

3. What are you doing instead? 

4. Stop doing that! 

In other words, (talking to myself here), are you SURE you want to run an author business? Because if so, you’ll need to do a million things you don’t really want to do. Namely, build an email list, grow social media, implement a marketing and promotions strategy and on and on and on until the end of time.

Or, you could just write books for the love of it. Because it’s fun.

xo, L