Post-Traumatic Growth, Creative Marketing, And Dealing With Change with Jack Williamson

Welcome to the Creative Pen podcast. I'm Joanna Penn, thriller author and creative entrepreneur, bringing you interviews, inspiration, and information on writing, craft, and creative business. You can find the episode show notes, your free author blueprint, and lots more at the creativepen. com. And that's pen with a double N. And here's the show. Hello creatives. I'm Joanna Penn and this is episode number 851 of the podcast and it is Sunday the 22nd of February 2026 as I record this. In today's show I'm talking with Jack Williamson about post-traumatic growth, creative marketing, lessons from the music industry about advances in technology and dealing with change. It is a great discussion. So that's coming up in the interview section. in writing and publishing. Well, over on the Self-Publishing with Ally podcast, Joe Salari talks about why recipes for publishing success don't work and what to do instead. And basically, there is no get-richqu scheme around here if you didn't know that already. Joe says, "Trying to reverse engineer the exact steps of a seven-figure author is a trap because it fails to account for the luck, timing, and random early momentum that likely contributed to results. I will personally I'll always remember Lee Charles, author of Jack Reacher at Thriller Fest. So, I've been to Thriller Fest, I think, like four times. I think the first time was in 2012 and the last time was sort of 2017 or something. So, I haven't been for a while, but I heard Lee Child speak several times and I distinctly remember him sitting on the stage and he basically said, "You cannot have my career. It is impossible to replicate. You have to find your own path. " And that actually it really helped me. In one way, you could say, "Oh, it's a bit depressing, but actually it really helped me at that point. " So, I thought I'd mention it again because we all do have to find our own path and we're all at different points and everything's changing all the time and you just it's like trying to replicate what someone else has done is yeah, you can't. I mean, you can learn things from other people, but you still have to find your own path. Joe says you definitely have to have a quality book, but he said among books of reasonable quality, predicting which ones will become massive hits remains substantially unpredictable. and current bestsellers won't necessarily be bestsellers in 5 years, meaning opportunities constantly open up and new authors frequently break through. Taking multiple shots on goal increases your luck because success has a random component and is probabilistic. So, publishing a larger portfolio of quality books creates more opportunities for you to catch a wave of momentum. I would add there though that this doesn't mean tons and tons and tons of books because having hundreds of books is also not necessarily a guarantee of success. I've as you probably know if you're a regular listener I've never been a fan of the rapid release model whether that is AI powered or humanpowered. There are plenty of humanpowered rapid release models but yet just having a lot of books doesn't necessarily mean you're making a living. Joe says, "Authors must focus on building durable advantages, accumulating assets that do not depend on the algorithmic luck of a single launch. " So, yes, growing an email list, there's that one again. Deepening audience relationships, building a backlist, let's say, building a quality backlist, and improving operational efficiency are advantages that compound over time. And I wanted to mention this because I have never had a breakout success. I have over 20 years now written several books per year and I have made a good living even just if you only count my book sales alone it's a good living but it's not like wow breakout success money there's been no movie deals it's so I mean you can make a good living just by writing books year on year focusing on relationships growing your email list and yeah as Joe says the market heavily rewards strate Strategic patience. Time in the market is crucial. Authors who build a sustainable business model that can survive dry spells give themselves a much longer runway to eventually catch a random break and scale their business. So, it's always good to think more strategically about things and Joe is great at that. So, that is over on the Self-Publishing with Ally podcast wherever you're listening to this. So, that's a more strategic look at the author business, but with some very practical tips that you can action right

now if you have a book out there. Over on the novel marketing podcast, Dave Chesson talks to Thomas Mstat Jr. about why your book isn't selling and how you can use metadata to make it potentially more discoverable. Now, I know metadata is not sexy, but it is important. It's a bit like the email list. It's one of those fundamental things you have to do regardless and you also need to revisit it now and then especially if you have an old backlist as I do and I know many of you do books you published more than a decade ago that might need a refresh. So they talk about three angles on metadata. Firstly, inside the Amazon interface when you create your book on KDP, that will be your keywords, category, sales description, and of course those fields are on every uh site you publish on, Draft to Digital, Coobo, whatever, they all require those fields. Then ISBN metadata. So depending on how you're buying your ISBNs, obviously that's different per country and also if you publish like on Ingram Spark, then you can add your metadata there too. So certainly there is different metadata for if you're publishing printwide and then also how people interact with your book which affects Amazon decisions. For example, if your book does appear in search results but no one clicks it, Amazon learns it may not match what shoppers are looking for. So Dave says metadata, ISBN data, and reader behavior all work together. They go into a lot of detail in this episode. It's well worth listening to. And there is also a transcript which you can have a look at on authordia. com. One of the useful things there is the difference between BSAC categories and Amazon Kindle categories. I find newer authors don't necessarily know that there is a difference between BSAC is obviously the print side and Kindle categories are different. Audio categories too are usually much higher on the sort of granularity scale as such. They also talk about how cover design plays into things. comparison titles, genre, language, and more. That is on the novel marketing podcast wherever you're listening to this, and I will be on that podcast soon as well, talking about business for authors. So, in personal news, I'm on the fantasy writers tool shed podcast last week, as this goes out, talking about author business. It is not specifically for fantasy authors. some of my key points, including simplifying your business. Rather than trying to do everything, saying no to shiny objects and making sure your business activities like creation and marketing match your personality and lifestyle. Think about who you serve and how you can serve them with more products, leveraging AI tools around the business side of things, even if you don't want to use them for anything creative, and lots more. So, that is the Fantasy Writers Toolshed podcast. wherever you're listening to this with host Richie Billing. And of course, I have written some fantasy books. My Matt Walker series is my most fantasy, but yes, it's not really just for fantasy authors. Also, just another reminder, and I did talk about this a few weeks ago, and I'm kind of sighing. It's like if you have any kind of audience, you're most likely going to have lots of spammers and scammers using your name. So, there's been another load of emails supposedly sent from me asking for money. If you get an email from me asking for money, it is not me. [gasps] I do not randomly email authors asking for money or pitching my services. For sure, I'm going to if you're on my email list, you'll get an email from Joannapen. com saying, "I know I have a Kickstarter out or I have a book or whatever. " But some of the emails that people are forwarded from supposedly me are not from me. And there's really nothing I can do about it. This is what's so difficult with this. And actually, someone emailed me this week and threatened to report me for being a scammer, which was a bit upsetting obviously because there's nothing I can do. So, if you get emails from Gmail accounts or blogger accounts or with language and behavior that you think that doesn't really match the person. So, for example, I also got supposedly an email from author Julia Donaldson, who is a huge children's author, and it was like, "Yeah, not going to happen. " And I mean, you'll probably see this from quite a lot of authors as well as others. Apparently, this came from a Substack leak. Substack was hacked and lots of emails got leaked. So, yeah, just be careful. And obviously, it might not be from me. It might be from somebody else. And you just need to be careful. And let's just keep sort of talking about this in the community just to be careful out there. There are lots of benefits of technology and there are also some really annoying things for sure. I am busy with my masters. I've also had final edits back from Kristen and so I

had a really fun afternoon yesterday getting into the print design. I dug out photos from 1999. I'll include some photos in the special edition of Bones of the Deep when I launch that. My photos are usually only in the special print editions. Very funny to look back at those. And I'm also grateful for the um image upscaling tools that we have now because the photos that we all took back in the '9s and the 80s and before that obviously are the pixels just aren't great in terms of printing. So that was quite good to do that. We're also working on the end papers, the sprayed edge design. So, yeah, I'm really excited about ordering my first proof of the print, and once I get the print, I'll be able to do things like the launch video. I still don't want to lock in dates. I like to have everything finished. I'm also going to do the audio book. I mentioned last week, I think it was the how 11 Labs has reorganized their audio book stuff. So, I'll be doing that for the audio book of Bones of the Deep with my voice clone again, which I really enjoy doing. So, yeah, my plan is to have everything done and then look at when I'm going to launch it. I don't want there to be any stress over launch. Really, there's enough stress going on right now. So, if you want to sign up to be notified when it does launch, jfpen. com/bones. But of course, you'll no doubt hear about it on here as well. But yeah, it felt like a bit of a bitty week. Lots of bits and bobs and I have started in another essay um which is really interesting and enjoying the research for that. So yeah, busy times indeed. So thanks for your emails and comments and photos this week. Alex said, "I very much enjoyed the latest podcast. In the intro, you talked about how taking a break helped you with your philosophy essay. It sounds like you were engaging your default network, what I would call my subconscious, which does all the heavy lifting in my work. There is an approachable, quick to read book that came out recently about this called The Brain at Rest: Why Doing Nothing Can Change Your Life by Joseph Jabelli. And I think it would be of interest to your podcast audience. Yes, thank you so much for that, Alex. I have seen that book around, so I will take a look. Julie said, "I'm a newly published indie author. I love listening to your podcast. I recently hiked through a remote graveyard here in Northern California, historic North Bloomfield Cemetery. " So, yes, lovely to see that. And of course, it's always quite funny for us over here in the UK. The oldest in that cemetery was someone who died in 1885. And of course, I'm here in Bath where our Roman baths are over 2,000 years old. So, it's kind of weird to think that something's being called historic when somebody died in 1885. We all have different views of what is historic. And then Kimberly sent photos. A terrible windstorm hit my hometown last summer and tore up the cemetery where my grandparents, great grandparents, etc. are buried fallen trees around the graves. And when we drove through it mid cleanup, my imagination went wild. I also agree, Kimberly. I love storms uncovering things and also climate change uncovering things I think is really interesting as well. My thriller, Valley of Dry Bones, actually opens in New Orleans after a storm opens up an ancient mission grave there. So, I totally get that. And finally, SA said on Kevin J. Anderson's episode. What Kevin said about switching between different projects and focusing at different times rather than solely focusing on one project is exactly what I've discovered works for me. I thought I was wrong because everyone said to focus on one thing and finish it. I'll put my hand up here and say that's how I need to work. But I slowed down thinking I was doing it wrong and I'm not a real writer. Then I realized it works better for me. So I gave myself permission to work on multiple projects. I've learned to embrace and accept what works for me regardless of what others say is the correct way. That's brilliant essay. Fantastic. We all need to get to know ourselves and find the best way to work. And as ever, you know, we talk about things on this show and all the other podcasts and you read all the books and we all just need to take little bits and bobs from people. Be like a magpie. Take the things that you're attracted to and make your own. Let's carry on with the metaphor. Make your own nest with all the bits and bobs because you're the only one who has to live in it. That's our metaphor for today. What are the interesting things that you like in your magpies writer's nest? Okay. Please leave a comment on the podcast show notes at the creativepen. com or on the YouTube

channel. You can email me. Send me pictures of where you're listening or your favorite cemetery, crypt, or churchyard. Joannathecreativepen. com and that is my email. So if you don't get an email from that and they are asking you for money, it's not me. I love to hear from you. It makes this more of a conversation. So today's show is sponsored by Proriting Aid because however you choose to publish, whether you go indie or you want a traditional deal, you need to make your book the best it can be. It is absolutely one of my mustuse tools in my writing process. And of course, I've been using it recently for Bones of the Deep. I use it for fiction and non-fiction. And you can actually customize that in one of the little settings what type of book it is. And I use Proriting Aid before I send my manuscript to Kristen, my human editor. I use it with Scriber, but you can also use it with other software or online. Proriting Aid knows all the rules of editing and helps you apply them. And of course, you can choose not to make the changes as you like. It helps with making your writing more active, finding repeated words, finding words and sentences you could improve, adding sensory detail, sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, typos, spacing, and more. Of course, you don't have to accept everything, but it really helps find a lot of problems. Proriting aid also now has a set of useful tools including story strengths and weaknesses, areas for improvement and other analysis and beta readers. So why use software to help you? Why don't you just learn all the grammar and writing rules and apply them yourself? Well, we all use tools to improve our process, and we're often blind to our own writing issues. It helps to have another pair of eyes, even if the eyes are software. And won't an editor do all this? Well, yes, they can. But I'd rather pay my editor to fix the things the software can't. So I use Proriting Aid as my essential editing tool before sending to my human editor. Check out the free edition or get 15% off the premium edition by using my link proritinga. com/joanna. proritinga. com/janna j o n a This type of corporate sponsorship pays for the hosting, transcription, and editing, but my time in creating the show is sponsored by my community at patreon. com/thecreativepen. Thanks to the seven new patrons who've joined over the last week. And thanks to everyone who's been supporting for months and years. If you join the community, you get access to all my backlist videos and audio on writing craft, author business, and AI tutorials. This week, I posted our monthly Q& A where I answer patron questions. And one patron, Julia, said, "I pay to hear Joanna Penn think out loud. " I love that comment as that is exactly what the Q& A and the live office hours are about. I try and share everything that people need and ask about and indeed think out loud. The Patreon is a monthly subscription, the equivalent of buying me a black coffee a month or a couple of coffees if you're feeling generous. So, if you get value from the show and you want more, come on over and join us at patreon. com. P a tre. com/thecreative pen. Right, let's get into the interview. Jack Williamson is a psychotherapist, coach, and best-selling author who spent nearly two decades as a music industry executive. He's the founder of Music and You. His latest non-fiction book is Maybe You're the Problem, and he also writes romance under AB Jackson. So, welcome to the show, Jack. — Oh, thank you so much for having me, Jonah. It's a real honor to be on your podcast after listening all of these years. — Yeah. And I'm excited to talk to you. We have a lot to get into. But first up, tell us a bit more about you and why get into writing books after years of working in music. — Yeah. I began my career at the turn of the millennium basically. And I worked for George Michael and Mariah Care's publicist, which I'm sure you can imagine was quite the introduction to the corporate world. So from there I kind of went on to do domestic and international marketing for a load of massive artists at Sony and Universal. So the equivalent of the top five publishers in the publishing world that we all work in. And then from there I had a bit of a challenge. So in December 2015 I lost my brother unfortunately to suicide. And for any listener or any person that's gone through a traumatic event, it can really make you reassess everything, make you question life, make you question your purpose. And so when I went through that, I was kind of thinking, well, what do I want to do? out of life? And so I went on this journey for practically the next 10 years and I retrained to be a psychotherapist. I created a bucket list. So I created a list of all the things that I thought maybe my brother

would have wanted to do but didn't do. So one of the things was scatter his ashes at the seven wonders of the world. And then one of the lists on my bucket list was to write a book. And so the pandemic hit. It was a challenge for all of us as you've spoken about so much on this wonderful podcast and I thought well why not write this book that I've wanted to write but didn't know when I was going to do it cuz I was always so busy and you know the pandemic happened and so I wrote a book and then from there listening to your wonderful podcast I've learned so much and been to so many conferences and learned along the way and so now I've written five books and released three. Yeah, I think that's fantastic. And I mean, regular listeners to the show know that I talk about death and grief and all of this kind of thing. And it's interesting that you took your brother's ashes to the seven wonders of the world. And death can obviously be a very bad negative thing for those left behind. But it seems like you were able to reframe your brother's experience and turn that into something more positive for your life rather than spiraling into something bad. So if people listening are feeling like something happens, whether it's that or other things, how can we reframe these seemingly life-ending situations in a more positive way? — Yeah, it's very hard and there's no one way to do it. And I think as you always say, it's I never want to tell people what to do or what to think. I want to show them how to think and how they can approach things differently or from a different perspective. And so I think for me, I can only speak from my journey, but we call it in therapeutic language post-traumatic growth. So it's how do you define it so it doesn't define you? Because often when you have a bereavement of a loved one, a family member, it can be very traumatic. But how can you take meaning and find meaning in it? And there's a beautiful book called Man's Search for Meaning. And the name of the author escapes me right now. But he says, — Victor, Victor Frankle. — Yes. It's such a and everyone quotes it as one of their favorite books. And one of my favorite lines is man can take everything away from you apart from the ability to choose one thought over the other. And I think it's so true because we can make that choice to choose what to think. And so in those moments when we're feeling bad, when we're feeling down, we want to honor our feelings, but we don't necessarily want to become them. And so we want to process that, work through, get the support system that we need. But again, try to find meaning, try to find purpose, try to understand what is going on, and then pay it forward. Irrespective of your belief system. We all yearn for purpose. being connected to something bigger than ourselves. And if we can find that through bereiement maybe or through a traumatic incident, then hopefully we can come through the other side and have that post-traumatic growth. — Yeah, I love that phrase post-traumatic growth. That's so good. I think cuz obviously people think about post-traumatic anything as like PTSD. People immediately think a sort of stress disorder like it's something that makes things even worse. but reframing it in that way and obviously I think the other thing is you took specific action so you didn't just think about it you traveled you retrained you wrote books so I think also it's not just thinking in fact thinking about things can sometimes make it worse if you think for too long whereas like taking an action I think can be very strong as well — yeah I mean ultimately we are human beings as opposed to human doings but actually being a human doing from time to time can be really helpful and actually taking steps forward, doing things differently, using it as a platform to move forward and to do things that maybe you didn't before because when you're confronted with death, it can actually then make you question your own mortality and actually question, am I just coasting along? Am I stuck in a rut? Could I be doing something differently? And so when one of the things that bereiement I find does is it holds a mirror up to ourselves and it makes us question well what do we want from our lives? Are we here to procreate? make a difference? Some of us can't procreate or some of us choose not to procreate but we can all make a difference and it's how do we do that? Where When do we do that? — Yeah, that's interesting. I was thinking today about service and gratitude and I'm doing this mast's and I was reading some theology stuff today and service and gratitude I think if you are within a religious tradition are a normal part of that kind of religious life whether it's service to God and gratitude to God or service and gratitude to others and I was thinking that these two things service and gratitude can actually really help reframe things as well like who can we serve and as authors we're serving our readers and

our community and what can we be grateful about and that's often our readers and our community as well. So I don't know that helped me today sort of thinking about how we can reframe things especially in the world we're in now where there's a lot of anger and grief and all kinds of things. — Yeah. And I think that's what we've got to look at. It's we are here to serve. And again that can take different shapes, different forms. Some of us work in the service industry. I provide a service as a psychotherapist. You serve your listeners with knowledge and information that you gather and dispense through the research you do or the guests you have on. We serve readers of the different genres that we write in. It's what ways can we serve? How can we serve? Because again, I think we all if we can and when we can should pay it forward because someone said this to me once in the music industry, it's be careful who you meet on the way up and how you treat them because invariably you'll meet down. And so if you can pay forward that kindness, if you can be kind, considerate, and treat people how you want to be treated, that is going to pay dividends in the long run. It may come may not come off straight away but invariably it will come back to you in some way, shape or form in a different way. — Yeah. I've often talked about social karma and karma in the Hindu sense. the things that you do come back to you in some other form — possibly in another life which I don't believe but in terms of I guess you didn't know what was going to happen to your brother and so you make the most of the life that we have at the moment because things change and you just you don't know how things are going to change and I guess you talk about this in your book maybe you're the problem which is quite a confronting title so maybe just talk about that book and why you wrote that and I putting it into context with the author community and why that might be useful. — Yeah. So, thank you for flagging my book and I intentionally crossed out maybe on the merchandise I did as well because in essence we are our own problem. We can get in the way and it's what happened to us when we grew up wasn't our fault, but what we do with it is our responsibility. So, we may have grown up in a certain period or a climate. We didn't necessarily choose to do that, but what we do with that as a result is up to us. So, we can stay in our victimhood and we can blame our parents or we can blame the generation we're in city, the location. However, that is relinquishing your power. That is staying in a victim mindset rather than a survivor or a thrivver mindset. And so it's about how can we look at the different areas in our life. Whether that is conflict, whether that is imposter syndrome, whether that is the generation we're born into and understand how that has shaped us and how we may be getting in our own way to stop us from growing, expanding, and to see where our blind spots are, our limitations are, and how that may impact us. Because there's so much going on in the moment in the world. Whether that is in the digital realm, geoclimate that we're in at the moment and it's again that's going to bring up a lot for us and in some ways how can we find solutions to those problems for us so that we continue to move forward rather than be restricted and hindered by them. [snorts] — All right, let's get into some more specifics. I mean, you have been in the author community now for a while and you go to conferences and you're in the podcast community and all this kind of thing. So what specific issues have you seen in the author community maybe around some of the things you've mentioned or other things and how might we be able to deal with those? — Yeah. So with authors I think it is such a wonderful and unique industry that I have an honor and privilege of being a part of now. And one of the main things I've learned is just how creative people are. But coming from a creative industry like the music industry, there is a lot of neurode divergence in the creative industries and in the author community and so whether that is autism, whether that is ADHD and that is a real asset to have as a superpower but it can be an Achilles heel and so it's understanding and I know that there is an overexposure of people labeling themselves as ADHD but on the flip side to that it's how can we look at what's going on for us. So for ADHD for example, there's a thing called shiny object syndrome and you've talked about this in the past Joanna where it's like a new thing comes along. Be it Tik Tok, be it Substack, be it Bespoke Books, be it Shopify, etc. And it's like we can rush and quickly be like, "Oh, let me do this, let me do that, let me do that before we actually take the time to realize, is this right for me? Does this fit my author business? Does this fit where I'm at in my author journey? " And I think sometimes as authors, we need to not cave or kind of mander to that shiny object syndrome and take a step back and think to ourselves, how does this serve me? my career? How

me? How does this serve my career? How does this work for me? If I'm looking at this as a career, if you're looking at as a hobby, obviously it's a different lens to look through, but that's something that I would often make sure that we look at. And I think and one of the other things that really comes up is that in order for any of us to address our fears and anxieties, we need to make sure that we feel psychologically safe and to put ourselves in spaces and places where we feel seen, heard, and understood, which can help some address some of the issues that I've just mentioned. So being in that emotionally regulated state when we're with someone we know and trust. So taking someone to a conference, space or a place where you feel that you can be seen, heard, and understood can help us and allow us to embrace things that we perceive to be scary. And that may be finding a author group, finding a online space where you can actually air and share your thoughts, your feelings with where you don't feel that you're being judged because often it can be quite a judgmental space and place in the online world. So it's just finding your tribe and finding places where you can actually lean into that. So there would be two things. — Yeah. I like the idea of the superpower and the Achilles heel because I also feel this can be when we're writing fiction, our characters have strengths, but your fatal flaw is often related to your strength. — So for example, I know I am independent. I mean, one of the reasons I'm an independent author is because I'm super independent. But one of my greatest fears is being dependent. And so, I do lots of things to avoid being dependent on other people, which can lead me to almost damage myself by not asking for help or by trying to make sure that I control everything so I never have to ask anyone else to do something. And I'm coming to terms with this as I get older. I feel like this is something we start to hit. I mean, as a woman after menopause is this feeling of I might have to be dependent on people when I'm older. And it's so interesting thinking about this and thinking, but my independence is my strength. How can it also be my weakness? So, what do you think about that? You're going to psychotherapist me now. — Yeah. No, I definitely won't. But it's interesting. It's but just talking about that we all have wounds and we all have the shadow as you've even written about in one of your books and it's how that can come from a childhood wound where it's like we seek help and it's not given to us and so we create a belief system where I have to do everything myself because no one will help me or we may have rejection sensitivity so we reject ourselves before others can reject us and so it's actually about trying where we can to honor our truths honor that We may want to be independent, for example, but then realizing that success leaves clues. And so I always say that if you are independent, and I definitely align 100% with you, Joanna, and I've had to work really hard myself in personal therapy and in business and life to realize that no human is an island, and we can't all do this on our own. And yes, it's amazing with the AI agents now that can help us in a business capacity. But having those relationships that we can tap into, like you mentioned with Ora and all of the other people that you tap into, it's so important to have those. And I think if we can lean into those people, I mean, I always say that it's important to have three mentors. One person that's ahead of you. So for me, that would be Katie Cross because she's someone that I find that is an amazing author and we speak at least once a month. people that are at the same level as you that you can go on the journey together with and I have an author group for that and then someone that is perceived to be behind you or in a younger generation than you because you can learn as much from them as you as they can learn from you. And so I think if you can actually tap into those people whilst honoring your independence, then it feels like that journey, you can still go on your own journey, but you can tap in and tap out as and when needed because Sasha Black will give you amazing insights. Other people like Ona insights, but you can also provide that for them. So there's that safety of being able to do it on your own. But on the flip side, you still have those people that you can tap into as and when necessary, as a sounding board, as information on how they were successful and go from there. — No, I like that. And if you're new to the show, Sasha Black and Honor Ross have been on the show and they are indeed some of my best friends. So I appreciate that. And yeah, I really like the idea of the three mentor idea. I just want to add to that because I do think people misunderstand the word mentor sometimes um in that you mentioned you speak to Katie Cross, but

I found that a lot of the mentors that I've had who are ahead of me have often been books. So we mentioned the Victor Frankle book and if people don't know he was Jewish and in the concentration camps and survived that and so it's a real survivor story but to me books have been mostly my mentors in terms of people who are ahead of me and I we don't always need to speak or be friends with I think are our mentors. I think that's important too right because so I just get emails a lot that say will you be my mentor and I don't think that's the point. Oh yeah, I 100% agree with you and I think if you don't have access to those mentors like Oprah Winfrey is one of the people that I perceive as a mentor and I listen to podcasts, I read her books, I watch interviews, there is a way to absorb and acquire that information and it doesn't have to be a direct relationship with them. It is someone that you can gain the knowledge and wisdom that they've imparted in whatever form it may consume. Which is why I think it is important to have those three levels. that one that is above you that may be out of reach in terms of a human connection but you can still access then the people at the same level as you that you can have those relationships and grow with you and again that one behind that you can help pave the way for them but also learn from them as well. So 100% agree that mentor that you're looking for that may be ahead of you doesn't necessarily need to be someone that is on a real world relationship. So, let's just circle back to your music industry experience. And I mean, you mentioned being on the sort of marketing team for some really big name big names in music. And I mean, it's just a really it's kind of a sexy job really. I mean, it just sounds pretty cool. But of course, the music industry has just as many challenges as publishing. So, what did you learn from working in the music industry that you think might be particularly useful for authors? Yeah, the perception of reality was definitely a lot different. It does look sexy and glamorous, but the reality is similar to going to conferences. It's pretty much flight, hotel, and dark rooms with terrible air conditioning you spend a lot of time in. So, yeah, sorry to burst the illusion, but I mean, it does have its moments as well, but there is so much I've learned over the years, and there's probably three things that stand out the most. And I think the first one was I entered the industry right at the height of the music industry. So in 20201 [snorts] and that was when Napster kind of really exploded and it decimated the music industry. It wiped half the value in the space of four years and then the music industry was trying to shut it down, throwing legal, throwing everything at it, but it was kind of like whack-a-ole. As soon as one went down such Snapster, 10 others popped up like kazar. And so you kind of saw that the old guard wasn't willing to embrace change. They weren't willing to adapt. They assumed that people wanted the formats of CDs, vinyls, cassettes, and that they wanted that. And they were wrong. That yes, people wanted music, but they actually wanted the music. They didn't care about the format. They just wanted the access. And so that was one of the really interesting things that I learned because I was like, you have to embrace change. You can't ignore it. You can't push it away, push it aside because it's coming whether you like it or not. And I think thankfully the music industry has learned as AI is coming because now you have to embrace it. It's again there's a lot of legal issues that have been going on at the moment with rights which you've covered about the anthropic case so on and so forth. But it's such a challenge and I just think that's the first one. So the second one I learned was back in 2018 there was an artist I worked on called Fair Ridings. And so at that time I was working in an independent record label rather than one of the big three major record labels. And she had great songs and we were up against one of the biggest periods of the year and trying to make noise. And at the time, Love Island was the biggest TV show on, and everyone wanted to be on it in terms of getting their music synced in the scenes. And we were just like, we're never going to compete. And so, we thought, we need to be clever here. We need to think differently. So, what we did is we found out what islands the show was being recorded on, and we geoargeted our ads just to that island because we knew the sync team were going to be on there. And so we just went hard as nails, advertised relentlessly, and we knew that the sink people would then see the adverts. And then as a result of that, Freya got the sink. It became the biggest song that season on Love Island back when it was popular. And as a result of that, we built from them. We were like, "Right, we can't compete with the majors. We have to think differently. We need to do things be creative. " And it wasn't an easy pathway. And that year there was only two other songs that were independent that reached the top 10. And so we ended up becoming the third and the biggest song that year. But the reason I'm saying that is we can't compete with the major publishers. But the beauty of the independent author

community is because we have smaller budgets. Most of us, not all of us, but most of us. We have to think differently. We have to make the bang for our buck go a lot further. And so it's actually how can we stay creative? How can we think differently? what can we do differently? And so that would be the second thing. And then the third main lesson that I learned, and this is more on the creative side, is that pressure can often work against you, both in a business sense, but especially creativity. And I've seen so many artists over the years have imposed deadlines on them to hand in their albums, and it's impacted the quality of their output. And so once it's handed in, the stress and the pressure is off. And then you realize that actually those artists end up creating the best material that they have and then they rush to put it on. Whether that's Mariah Care's We Belong Together, Adele with her song Hello, Taylor Swift did the same with Shake It Off. And they're just three examples. And the reason is that pressure keeps us in our beta brain wave state, which is our rational logical mind. And for those of us that are authors that are writing fiction or even if we're creating stories in our non-fiction work to then deliver a point is we need to be in that creative mindset. And so the alpha and the gamma brain wave state. And because our body works on 90minute cycles known as our circadian rhythm, we need to make sure that we honor our cycle and work with that. And actually if we go past that our creativity and our productivity is going to go down between 60% and 40% respectively. And so as authors it's important one to apply the right amount of pressure, two to work in breaks and three to know what kind of perspective are we looking at. Do we need to be rational and logical or creative and then adjust ourselves accordingly. [snorts] — That's all fantastic. I want to come back on the marketing thing first [snorts] around what you did around the strategic marketing there and those targeted ads to that island. I mean that's just genius. But I feel like a lot of us, myself included, we struggle to think creatively about marketing because it's not our natural state. And of course you've done a lot of marketing, so maybe it comes more naturally to you. But for people who [clears throat] think half the time we don't even use the word creative around marketing when you're not a marketeteer, you know what I mean? How are some ways that we can maybe break through some of our blocks around marketing and try and be more creative around that? I would challenge a lot of authors on that presumption because as authors we're in essence storytellers and to tell a story as creative and one death there's a great quote one death is a tragedy a thousand deaths is a statistic and if you can create a story a compelling narrative about a death in the news it's going to pull at the heartstrings of people it's going to really resonate and get with them whereas if you're just quoting in statistics, most people switch off because they become desensitized to it. And so I think because we can tell stories and that's the essence of what we do. It's how can we tell our story through the medium of social media, how can we tell a story through our creative ads that we then put out onto Facebook or Tik Tok or whatever platform that we're putting out, BookBub, etc. How can we create a narrative that garners the attention if we're looking at local media or traditional media? How can we do that? How can we get people to buy in to what we're selling? And so, it's about having different angles. For me, with my new romance book, Stolen Moments, one of the stories I had that really has helped me get some coverage and PR is we recorded the songs Next Door to the Rolling Stones. Now that was very fortunate timing very fortunate but everyone's like oh my god you recorded next door to the Rolling Stones and so it's like well how can you bring in these creative nuggets that help you to find a story because again marketing is in essence telling a story albeit through different mediums and forms. So it's just how can you package that into a marketable product depending on the platform in which you're putting it out on. I think that's actually hilarious by the way because what you hit on there as someone with a background in marketing, your story about we recorded an album for the book near the roll next door to the Rolling Stones. It's got nothing to do with the romance. — Oh, the romance is that the pop star in the book writes and records songs. — Yeah, I realize that. But the fact is for doing things like PR, it's the story behind the story. They don't care that you've written a romance. — Yeah. Yeah, — they're far more interested in you, the author, and other things. So, I think what you just described there was a kind of a PR hook that most of us don't even

think about. — And this is a great thing that I learned in PR, which is a great thing for I mean, I'm sure a lot of authors already know this, so it's a good reminder. And if you don't, it's great. It's called the ABC technique. And when you get asked a question, you answer the question. So that's a you build a bridge and then you go to C which is covering one of your points. So whenever you get asked a question have a list of things you want to get across in an interview and then just make sure that you find that bridge between whatever the question is to cover off one of your points and that's how you can do it because yes you may be selling a story like I said about writing the songs but then you can bridge it into actually covering and promoting whatever it is you're promoting. So I think that's always quite helpful to remember. Well, that's a good tip for things like coming on podcasts as well because I've had people on who don't do what you just mentioned and will just try and kind of shoehorn things in a more deliberate fashion whereas other people as you have just done with your romance there is bring it in while answering a question that actually helps other people. So I think that that's the kind of thing we need to think about in marketing. Okay. So then let's come back to the embracing change and as you mentioned the AI stuff that's going on and I feel like there's so many stories in inverted commas around AI right now. You know there's a lot of stories being told on both sides on the positive side on the negative side that people believe and buy into and may or may not be true. There's obviously a lot of anger. others. I think grief is a big thing that people might not even realize that they have. So, can you maybe talk about how authors particularly might deal with what's coming up around the technological change around AI and any of your personal thoughts as well? — Yeah, I was thinking about this a lot recently. I mean I guess everyone is in their own ways and forms. And one of the things that came up for me is — we have genre expectations and we have generation expectations. — And so when we look at genres you will have different expectations from different genres. So for romance they want a happily ever after or happy for now. For cozy murd mystery they expect the crime to be solved. And so we as authors make sure we endeavor to meet those ex uh those expectations. But the challenge is that if we're looking at AI, we're all in our own generations. We might be in slightly different generations, but there are going to be different gener generation expectations from the alpha generation that's coming up and the beta generation that's just about to start this year or next year because they're going to come into the world where they don't know any different to AI. So they will have a different expectation than us. It will just be normal that there will be AI agents. are AI narrators. It will be normalized that AI will assist authors or assist everyone in doing their jobs. And so again, it is a grieving period because we can long for what was. We can yearn for things that work for us that no longer work for us. Whether it's Facebook groups, whether it's the Kindle rush, we can mourn the loss of that, but that's not coming back. I mean, sometimes there may be a resurgence, but essentially it's we've got to embrace the change. We've got to understand that it's coming and it's going to bring up a lot of different emotions because you may have been beholden to one thing and you may be like, "Yes, I've nailed my Tik Tok lives and then all of a sudden Tik Tok goes away. " And I know Adam when he was talking about it, he'll just find another platform. But there'll be a lot of people that are beholden to it and then they're like, "What do I do now? " And so it's again, it's never survival of the fittest, it's survival of the most adaptable. And I always use this kind of metaphor where it's like there are three people on three different boats in a storm comes. And the [clears throat] first, the optimist is like, oh, it'll pass and does nothing. The pessimist complains about the storm and does nothing. But the realist will adjust the selves and use the storm to find its way to the other side to get through. And it's not going to be easy, but they're actually taking change and making change to get to where they need to go rather than just expecting or complaining. And I get it. We're not. And I hate the expression we're all in the same boat. And I call bleep on that. I'm not going to swear. We I call bleep on that because we're not all in the same boat. We're all in the same storm, but different people are going through different things. And so for some, they can adjust and adapt really quickly like a speedboat. For others, they may be like Jack and Rose in the Titanic on that terrible prop where they're clinging to dear life and trying to get through the storm. And so, it's about how do I navigate this upcoming storm? What can I do within my control to get through the storm? And for some, it may be easier because they have the resources or for some of us that love learning, it's [clears throat] easy to

embrace change. For others that have a fear mindset, it's like, oh, something new, it's scary. I don't want to embrace it. You're going to take longer. And so you may not be the speedboat, but at some point we are going to have to embrace that change otherwise we're going to get left behind. — And so we need to look at that. — Yeah, it's interesting. I think the storm metaphor is interesting and being in different boats. I feel I do struggle I struggle with people who suddenly seem to be discovering the storm as if and that you know I mean I've been talking about AI now since 2016. That's a decade. Yeah. — And even like Chachi BT has been around more than 3 years. So, and people come to me now and they're talking about stories that they've seen in the media that are just old now that things have moved on so much. I feel like maybe I was on my boat and I looked through my telescope and I saw the storm and I've been talking about had my own moments of being in the middle of the storm and now I definitely do struggle with people who just seem to have arrived without any knowledge of it before. Do you know what I mean? And I so I oscillate between being an optimist and a realist. I think I'm somewhere between the two probably. But I think what is driving me a little crazy in the author community right now is judgment and shame. So there's people who are judging other people and there's shame felt by AI curious or AI positive people. And so I want to help the people who feel shame in some way for trying new technology but they still feel attacked. And then and these people probably aren't even listening but those people who judge other authors for their choices to use technology. So how do you think we can deal with judgment and shame in the community which is a form of conflict I guess — of course and I think with that there's a great another great PR quote if it bleeds it leads and so especially in this digital age there's a lot of clickbait so the more polarizing the more emotion evoking the headline the more likely you're to engage with that content or whether that is reading it or whether that's posting or retweeting or whatever format you're consuming it on. And so unfortunately media has now become so much more polarizing. It's dividing us rather than uniting us. And so people are going to have more stronger positions. And I think there's so much even within this to kind of look at it's one you have to work out where people are on the continuum. Do they have an opinion on AI? Do they have a belief or conviction? Now, you're not going to move someone that has a conviction about something. So, it's not worth even engaging with them because they're immovable. It's again, like they say, you shouldn't talk about sports, politics, and religion. There are certain subjects that may not be worth talking about, especially if they have a conviction because they may not even be able to agree to disagree. They may not be willing or able to hear you. So, it's first and foremost, it's about understanding, well, where are those people sitting on the continuum of AI? Are they curious? So, do they have an opinion, but they're open to hearing other opinions? Do they have a belief that could be changed or evolved if they find more information? And that's where I think it is. It's not necessarily our jobs, even though you do an amazing job of it, Joanna, but a lot of people are undereducated on these issues or these new technologies. And so, in some cases, it's just a case of a lack of education or them being undereducated. And hopefully in time they will become more and more educated. But again it's how long is a piece of string? Will people catch up? Will they stay behind? Are they fearful? And I guess because of social media, because of the media, as they say, if you can evoke fear in people, you can control them. You can control their perspectives. minds. And so that's where we see it is there a lot of people are oper operating from a fear mindset. And so then that's when they project their vitrial in certain cases. And if people want to believe a certain thing, that's their choice. I'm not here to tell people what to think. Like I said earlier, it's more about how to think. But I would just encourage people to find people that align with you. kind of do a sense test, like a litmus test to find where they sit on the continuum and engage with those people that are open and have opinions or beliefs, but kind of shy away or just avoid people that have convictions that maybe are the polar opposite of yours. — Yeah. And it's funny, isn't it? We seem to be in a phase of history when I feel like you should be able to disagree with people and still be friends. Although as you mentioned I mean there's certain members of my family we just stay on

topics of TV shows and movies or music or what books are you reading like we don't go anywhere near politics. So I do think that might be a rule also with the AI stuff and as you said find a community and there are plenty of AI positive spaces now for people who do want to talk about this kind of stuff. I also think that I don't know whether this is a tipping point this year but certainly I know people who are in like cor big bigger corporates where the message is now you need to embrace this stuff it is now part of your job to learn how to use these tools so I and if that starts coming into people's day jobs and also people who have I don't know kids at school or people at university who are embracing this more I mean maybe it is a generational thing. — Yeah. And I think look, there were so many people that were resistant to working from home or corporations that were and then the pandemic forced it and now everyone's embraced it in some way, shape or form. I mean, there are people that don't, but the majority of people when something's forced on you, you have to adapt. And so, again, if those things are implemented in corporations, then you're going to see it. And I'm seeing so many amazing new things in AI that are being implemented in the music industry that we'll see in the publishing industry coming down the road that will scare a lot of people. But again, we have to embrace those things because they're coming and there's going to be an expectation, especially from the younger generations, that these things are available. And so again, it's not first past the post, but if you can be ahead of the wave or at least on the wave, then you are going to reap the rewards. if you're behind the wave, you're going to get left behind. So, I think it is, again, that's my opinion and I'm not trying to encourage anyone to see from my lens, but at the same time, I do think that we need to be thinking differently. We need to always embrace change where we can, as we can, at the pace that we can. — So, you [clears throat] mentioned there AI things coming down the road in the music industry and now everyone's going, "Wait, what is coming? " So, tell us, what do you see ahead that you think might also shift into the author world? — Yes. So there are three things that I've seen two that have been implemented and one that's been talked about and worked on at the moment. So the first and this will be quite scary for people is that major record labels so think the major publishers on our side they're all now putting clauses in their contracts that requires the artists that sign with them to allow their works to be trained by their own AI models. So that is something that is now actually happening in record labels and I wouldn't be surprised although I don't have insight into it if Simon Schustar, Harper Collins etc potentially doing the same with authors that sign to them. So that's going to become more standardized. And so that is kind of on the major side but then on the creative side there are two things that really excite me. So the music AIO platforms that we're hearing about, the stories that we've seen in the press, and it's the fact that with a click of a button, you can recreate a song into a different genre. And I find it so fascinating because if you think about that, like turning a pop song into a country song or a rap song into a dance song, the possibilities that we have as authors with our books, if we wish to do so, are amazing. I just think like for example with your arcane series Janna imagine clicking a button and just with one click you can take Morgan Sierra and turn her into a romantic lead in a romance book. — See I it's so funny because I personally just can't imagine that because it's not something I would write. But I guess one example in the romance genre itself is I know plenty of romance authors who write a clean and a spicy version of the same story. Right. It's it is already happening in that way. It's just not a one click. — Well, also I think but you can also look at it for another way. I think one of the most famous examples is Twilight. — Now with Twilight and Stephanie Meer, if she had the foresight, and I'm not saying she didn't, just to clarify, but fanfiction is such a massive subgenre of works. And obviously from Twilight came Fifty Shades of Gray. And imagine if she had the licensing rights like the NFTts where she could have made money off of every sale and that you could then through works that you create and give license to earn a percentage of every sale, every consumption unit of your works. There is just so many possibilities where you can create, adapt, have spin-offs that can then build out your world. Obviously, there may need to be an approval process in there for continuity and quality control because you want to make sure you're doing that. But I think that has such

massive potential in publishing if we wish to do so. Or like I said, change characters like Robert Langdon's character in Dan Brown's books, no longer being the kind of thriller, but maybe being a killer instead. Like there's so many possibilities. It's just — again, it's how to think, not what to think, but how to think differently and how we can use that. So that's the second of three. — Oh, before you move on, you did mention NFTTS and I've actually been reading about this again and so I'm usually 5 years early, right? That's what is the general rule. — I started talking about NFTTS in mid 2021 and what and obviously there was a crypto crash. It goes up and down blah blah. But forget the crypto side on the blockchain side digital originality and exactly what you said about saying like where did this originate? this is now coming back in the AI world. It could be that I really was five years early. So amusingly and I I'm going to link to it in the notes because I did a sort of why NFTTS are exciting for authors solo episode I think in 2022 and so it may be that the resurgence will happen in the next year and all those people who said I was completely wrong [gasps] this may be coming back. So yes, digital originality I think is what we're talking about there. But so okay, so what was the other thing? — So the third one is the one that I'm most excited about, but I think will be the most scary for people. So obviously consumption changes and formats change. Like I said in music, I've seen it all the time, whether it's vinyls to cassettes to CDs to downloads to streaming. And again, there's different consumption of the same format. And we see that with books as well, obviously hardbacks, paperbacks, ebooks, audio books. And now with the rise of AI, AI narration has made audio books so much more accessible for people. And I know that there's issues with certain people not wanting to do it or certain platforms not allowing AI narration to be uploaded unless it's their own. But the next step is what I'm most excited about. So, what I'm seeing now in the music industry is people licensing their image to then recreate that as music videos because music videos are so expensive. One of my friends just shot a music video for £2 million. And now, I don't think many authors would ever wish to spend that. But if you can license your image and use AI to create a threeinut music video that looks epic and just as real as humanly possible, imagine if those artists or if we go a step further, those actors license their image to then be used to adapt our books into a TV series or a film. So that then we're in a position where that is another format of consumption alongside an audio book, a paperback, an ebook, hard coverver, special edition, so on and so forth. And it potentially has the opportunity to open us up to a whole new world because yes, there are adaptations of books that we're seeing advum at the moment, but for those of us that are trying to get our content into different formats, this can be a new pathway because — and I going to make a prediction here myself, Joanna. I would say in the next 5 to 10 years there will be a platform akin to like a Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, Apple Plus where you can license the rights to an image of an actor or an actress and then with the technology and you may need people to help you adapt your book into a TV series or a film that can then be consumed. And I just think the possibilities are endless. I mean, again, I think of your character and I'm like, "Oh, what would it be if Angelina Jolie licensed her image and you could have her play the lead character in your Arcane series? " I mean, again, the possibilities potentially are endless here. — Yeah. Well, and on that, if people think this won't happen, the 1776, I don't know if you've seen this, it's just being teased at the moment. Darren Areronowski has made the American Revolutionary story all with AI and so this is being talked about at the moment as it's on YouTube at the moment. The AI video is just extraordinary already. So I totally agree with you. I think things are going to be quite weird for a while and it will take a while to get used to. But similar to you mentioned coming into the music industry in sort of 20201, I started my work before the internet and then the internet came along [clears throat] and lots of things changed and I mean anyone who's older than 40 45ish can remember what work was like without the internet and now we're moving into a time where it'll be like what was it like before AI and I think we'll look

back and go like why the hell did we do that kind of thing? So it is a changing world but yeah exciting times right I mean I think the other thing that's happening right now even to me is that things are moving so fast you can almost feel like a kind of whiplash with how much is changing so how do we deal with the fast pace of change while still trying to anchor ourselves in our writing practice and not going crazy. Yeah, I mean again it's that everything everywhere all at once. You can get lost and discombobulated. And I think I always say be the tortoise, not the hair because you don't want to fly and die. You want the pace and grace. And everyone will have a different pace. So for some marathon runners, they can run a 5minute mile, some can run an 8-minute a 12minute mile. And again, it's about finding the pace that works for you because every one of us have different commitments. Everyone ways we view the industry. some as a hobby, some as a business. And so it's about honoring your needs, your commitments. Some of us, as you've had people on the podcast, some people are carers, they have to care. Some people are parents, some people don't have those commitments, and so can devote more time, and then actually learn more, change more as a result. And so again, it's about finding your groove, finding your rhythm, honoring that, and again, showing up consistently because motivation may get you started, but it's habit and discipline that sees you through. So again, keep that discipline, keep that pace and grace, be consistent in what you can do and on a way you're at. And again, don't compare and despair because again, if you look at someone else, they may be ahead of you, but again, the race is only with yourself in the end. So you've got to just focus on where you're at and am I in a better place than I was yesterday? Am I working on my business as well as in my business? How am I doing that? When And what am I doing that for? And if you can be asking yourself those questions and making sure you're staying true to yourself and not burning out, making sure that you're honoring your other commitments, then I think you're going at the pace that feels right for you. — Brilliant. So, where can people find you and your books and everything you do online? — Oh, thank you so much for having me on, Joanna, today. You can find me on jackwillson. co. uk for all my non-fiction books and therapy work. And then for my fiction work, it's abjackson. com or abjackson author on Instagram and Tik Tok. — Well, thanks so much for your time, Jack. That was great. — Thank you so much, Joanna. — So, I hope you found the interview with Jack interesting, and I love the reframing into post-traumatic growth as well as embracing change. So, let me know what you think. Please leave a comment on the podcast show notes at the creativepen. com or on the YouTube channel or email me joanna@thecreativepen. com. Also, please send me pictures of where you're listening or your favorite cemetery or churchyard. Next week, I'm talking about creative confidence, portfolio careers, and making without permission with Alicia Joe Rayens. In the meantime, happy writing and I'll see you next time. Thanks for listening today. I hope you found it helpful. You can find the backlist episodes and show notes at the creativepen. com/mpodcast. And you can get your free author blueprint at thecreativepen. com/bloopprint. If you'd like to connect, you can find me on Facebook and X at the creative pen or on Instagram and Facebook @ JF Penauor. Happy writing and I'll see you next time.