Can you be successful as an author across different genres and different pen names? How do traditional publishing and going indie compare? How can you diversify into multiple streams of income as an author? With Emily E.K. Murdoch.

In the intro, Planning for retirement [Self-Publishing Advice]; my list of money books; Red flags in serialised (and other) fiction contracts [Self-Published Advice]; The Author's Guild partners with Created by Humans for AI licensing; Nobel Prizes for AI-related research [The Economist]; Last chance for Blood Vintage, and where did the idea come from?; plus, what I'm working on next.

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Today's show is sponsored by ProWritingAid, writing and editing software that goes way beyond just grammar and typo checking. With its detailed reports on how to improve your writing and integration with writing software, ProWritingAid will help you improve your book before you send it to an editor, agent or publisher. Check it out for free or get 15% off the premium edition at www.ProWritingAid.com/joanna

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

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Emily E K Murdoch is the USA Today bestselling author of over 100 historical romances across medieval, western and regency, and mixed between steamy and sweet. She's also the author of nonfiction history book Regina: The Queens Who Could Have Been under Emily Murdoch Perkins.

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

• Discovery writing vs outlining — how it affects your drafting and editing speed





• How to research in-person and online





• Securing a nonfiction traditional publishing deal





• Maintaining creative autonomy with a traditional publishing contract





• Opportunities that arise from being traditionally published





• Writing under different names for different genres





• Tips for pitching blurbs for your book





• How traditional publishers help with PR





• Diversifying your author business and creating multiple streams of income

You can find Emily at EmilyEKMurdoch.com.

Transcript of Interview with Emily E K Murdoch

Joanna: Emily E K Murdoch is the USA Today bestselling author of over 100 historical romances across medieval, western and regency, and mixed between steamy and sweet. She's also the author of nonfiction history book Regina: The Queens Who Could Have Been under Emily Murdoch Perkins. So welcome to the show, Emily.

Emily: Thank you so much for having me. It's a real joy to be here.

Joanna: Oh, yes. There's so much to talk about, but first up—

Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing.

Emily: Well, I am one of those authors who very much grew up knowing that I wanted to be a writer. It's a family legend that my end of year report at five years old includes the phrase, “Emily keeps telling us she's going to be an author.”

So I very much started strong, but it was one of those things that was always going to be in the future. I was chatting about my dreams, about wanting to be an author, wanting to write, with a boyfriend as we were coming up to university graduation.

I said, “Look, I will be an author one day. It's absolutely going to happen.” You know, with all the confidence of a 21 year old. “But, obviously that is something I'll do when I'm older. I'll have to do a proper job first. So maybe in my 40s, 50s, 60s, when I've had a career, that's what I'll do.”

He looked at me and was like, “I don't understand why you've got to wait. I don't see why you can't write a book right now.” And reader, I married him! I also published for the first time two years later.

I was able to quit my job and “retire” into full time creativity before I turned 30.

Joanna: Ooh. Everyone's like, okay, okay. So first up, excellent, that you married such a supportive person. I know some people listening will be like, oh my goodness. They're jealous because I think that's quite rare for someone to say that. Let's get into this hundred books. Give us an idea how many years ago that was and how you then progressed.

Emily: My first book came out in 2013, so that's 11 years ago. It was written and finished the year before then. I thought, I'll be smart about this. I'll take it to a publisher who really understands historical romance, which was the novel. So I actually submitted to Harlequin, which is part of HarperCollins.

I'm going to be honest, I didn't understand how slow traditional publishing was. I waited six months for a reply, which to me, was an age. Eventually I got tired, and I withdrew it, and I took it elsewhere. I do wonder sometimes what might have been if I'd stuck it out.

I do actually now publish, ironically, with Harlequin HarperCollins. So I've kind of come full circle in that way. So, yes, 11 years. 11 years, and I went full time after eight. So it was very much an overnight success with an eight year slow burn.

Joanna: Tell us how you're writing so fast.

I feel like a lot of romance authors—the books are shorter, aren't they? So that is one aspect. Tell us about that.

Emily: Yes and no. Some of my historical romances are novellas. They're 30,000 to 40,000 words, so they are on the shorter end. One of my historical romance series is at least over 100,000 – 110,000 per book. So there's a real spread in terms of how long I write.

There are certain things you can teach about being a fast author. It's something that I do teach, and I do mentor and advise other authors on, but there is something I think innate. I don't want people to ever feel like they should be forcing themselves to write faster.

Having said that, I write 10,000 words a day, every working day. So that enables me to build up quite a backlog. It means that I can rapid release, whatever that looks like for you. Some of my rapid releases have been a book every three months. I've done a book every month.

I did a series once which was 12 Christmas novellas based on the 12 Days of Christmas song, and I released a novella a week for 12 weeks. October, November, December, the lead up to Christmas one year. So there's a real range there.

Joanna: I think this is so interesting because when you first said to your now husband, “I'll write it one day,” he said, “do it now,” you didn't just write one book. I feel like that's the other part of it—

If somebody wants to be a writer, it isn't just one book.

Did you meet other people along the way who were like, how are you doing this? Like, shouldn't you just