In this solo episode, I talk about my lessons learned from 13 years as a full-time author entrepreneur. You can read/listen to previous updates at TheCreativePenn.com/timeline.

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Joanna Penn writes non-fiction for authors and is an award-winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling thriller, dark fantasy, horror, crime, and memoir 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.

• It takes time to pivot your author brand — and your mindset, but my dark horse is (finally) running!





• Let your dark horse run — an excerpt from Writing the Shadow by Joanna Penn





• It takes time to change your creative and business processes





• Having a (tiny) paywall makes all the difference to my happiness and mental health





• I love making beautiful books, and I love BookVault and Kickstarter for helping me make them and sell them direct





• My physical health is more important than ever, and I am now giving it more time

Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn. 

Sign up for my free Author Blueprint at TheCreativePenn.com/blueprint 

Buy my books for authors at www.CreativePennBooks.com and my fiction and memoir at www.JFPennBooks.com.

Sign up for my new Kickstarter: www.JFPenn.com/bloodvintage 

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Lessons learned from 13 years as a full-time author entrepreneur

Thirteen years ago, in Sept 2011, I left my day job to become a full-time author-entrepreneur. Every year since I have reflected on the journey and what I learn along the way.

My challenges change and grow along with the business and you will likely be at a different stage, but I hope you find my lessons learned useful along your own author path.

You can read all my lessons learned from previous years on my timeline so far – and remember, just like everyone else, I started out by writing my first book with no audience!

But with time and continued effort, everything is possible.

(1) It takes time to pivot your author brand — and your mindset, but my dark horse is (finally) running!

Back in December 2023, over 8 months ago now, I announced I would be making a slow pivot to focus more on my J.F. Penn books. 

Writing the Shadow: Turn Your Inner Darkness Into Words was decades in the making, and felt like my last word on the craft of writing — at least for now! I want to do more with that book as this strange time in history means examining our darker sides is more important than ever, but for now, I need to express my own shadow into my books.

I have so many stories and ideas and other types of books that are waiting to emerge from J.F. Penn brand. I have a folder in my Books drive with 22 different projects, some just initial ideas, others with research. These are stand-alones and short stories, and other books in series, and there are non-fiction books there too. 

I have another folder in my Things app with nearly a thousand notes and links and things to investigate, snippets and thoughts and quotes that might become part of a story or a book. That's enough to keep me going for years, and I keep adding to these as I learn more and research and travel and think and read. 

But as much as I wanted to make the shift into J.F. Penn, I struggled in the first half of the year. I started out by rewriting my Author Blueprint, which was more work than expected, so after announcing that I wasn’t doing any more books as Joanna Penn, I went and did essentially another one! 

But then I got into Spear of Destiny, and started to relax a little — but it wasn’t until July when I went to the DO Lectures in West Wales that I noticed things were changing. 

In the past, when people asked what I did at events or social things, I would say, ‘I’m Joanna Penn and I’m an author and podcaster, and I have a site helping writers, TheCreativePenn.’ I always talked about the self-help angle first, and I might mention I wrote fiction, but it wasn’t the first thing I talked about. 

Perhaps, as I have talked about in Writing the Shadow, my fear of judgment stopped me as people certainly judge fiction writers more harshly. 

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But at the DO Lectures, I introduced myself as Jo and said ‘I’m an author, I write thrillers and horror, crime and dark fantasy, and some self-help.’ I flipped my script and it felt natural and right to do so.

I really started to feel like I was shifting into being J.F. Penn and that is such a relief. My dark horse is (finally) running!

If you’re read Writing the Shadow, you will know what I mean by this — but I’m going to include the short chapter here as a reminder. Your dark horse is not the same as mine, but the challenge is the same — Is your dark horse running? How can you let it run? 

Let your dark horse run — from Writing the Shadow by Joanna Penn

Although much has changed over the last two thousand years, human nature remains the same. Around 370 BC, the Greek philosopher Plato composed The Phaedrus, which includes an allegory of a chariot that has helped me frame the Shadow. Perhaps it will help you, too.

Imagine a Roman chariot drawn by two horses — a white horse and a dark horse. I am the Charioteer, and I am in the race of my life.

The white horse represents my rational self, the one society sees. My good behaviour, my industry, my hard work, my productivity, my scrubbed-clean, well-mannered good girl self. 

She helps others. She’s a peacemaker. She doesn’t like conflict. She says the right things, reads the right books. She needs to be liked.

My white horse trots delicately along paved roads, aware of the fences and boundaries, never needing to cross them, remaining within the lines drawn by others.

My dark horse is a wild animal, wreathed in smoke and ash and flame. 

She gallops across wide open spaces, leaps obstacles, smashes through fences, and avoids the paved and cornered world. 

She runs free and will destroy herself, rather than be caged.

If both horses run together in the same direction, I can fly along, whooping in delight at the speed and power. But if they become unbalanced, the chariot begins to