Navigating Uncertainty And Fearless Persistence In A Long Term Creative Career With Adam Leipzig

Welcome to the Creative Penn 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 creativepenn. com. And that's Penn with a double N. And here's the show. Hello creatives. I'm Joanna Penn, and this is episode number 860 of the podcast, and it is Sunday, the 26th of April, 2026 as I record this. In today's show, I talk to Hollywood producer Adam Leipzig about the power of fearless persistence and how uncertainty and the long middle are essential parts of the creative process. Why distribution matters more than anything and a lot more. And Adam's film credits include Dead Poets Society, which for me and I'm sure many of you remains a truly wonderful film. So, that's coming up in the interview section. In writing and publishing, well, this is more of an author publisher business thing, but I thought it might be worth talking about and you might find this useful. So, last week I went to a workshop on Shopify, but it was actually more about the customer journey. It wasn't technical at all. It wasn't for authors, either. — And I thought that my reflections on it, which go far more than Shopify, it's more about the whole e-commerce and the business side of how we run. And of course, you have an e-commerce business if you're selling your books on Amazon or something like it. So, the company running it, bluebolt. com, b l u b o l t dot com, helps businesses with e-commerce strategy setup and marketing. So, they're not just here in Bath, but they ran a workshop here. And I had gone along to a networking event, met the CEO, and he told me about this, and so I went along. And what was so interesting and what was, I think, partly what was so rewarding about the day was that I was the only author business there. There were two fashion companies, one for high net worth men for menswear, and the other for pregnant women and postpartum women with fashion. Then there was a coffee subscription company, a health drink, kombucha, online business, a gifting business, and a homeware business doing rugs and plates and that kind of thing. And so, it was great to hear about different companies cuz I feel like sometimes we moan a bit about our businesses and we're like, "Oh, this and that and the other. " But when you actually sit with other businesses, you realize that reframing the whole thing is quite useful cuz at the end of the day, I mean, although we are the creators as well, and that bit is certainly special because I won't suddenly start writing things that are not my ideas or books that I don't love. Like, what would be the point in that? But in terms of the business side, an author publisher business is the same as anyone else's business. It doesn't matter if you're selling men's pajamas to high net worth individuals or you're selling books. We have the same business. We have customers. We have products. We have vendors. We have financial management. We have all the marketing stuff. We have to manage cash flow. We All of that stuff is the same. And for an overview, check out my book Your Author Business Plan, which goes through all the different various things. But some thoughts based on the day. Number one. I am so grateful that we do not have to run physical warehouses with physical goods. And yes, some authors are doing this now and many of them love it, but it's not my choice. And in particular, the homeware business said she is struggling with the high overheads of how many products, so SKUs, if you do physical products, you'll be using SKUs. So, how many SKUs were in the warehouse and how much the price of shipping had gone up and how she struggles with that side of things. And she's been doing it for years, but now she's having to pass on the sort of huge cost increases and her customers are not happy. So, [snorts] it just made me very grateful for of digital delivery of ebooks and audiobooks and print on demand paperbacks cuz we can still do physical product businesses, but we're not really physical product businesses if we're not warehousing and doing all that kind of thing. So, and if you are a physical product business, you do have a warehouse or you do want to get into that, then maybe just think about how it will grow and whether you actually want to stock all SKUs in the warehouse or whether you do some with print on demand and some with the warehouse. So, it really made me think about the pros and cons of

physical good businesses. Number two, the fashion businesses in particular had loads of issues with sizing in terms of the stock that they got made and high returns. And again, I was so grateful because we don't have that. Yes, we might have a few different kinds of print books, so paperback, large print, and hardback, but the doesn't relate to a physical person's body. — And I mean, even just you know, I mean, you've probably bought stuff online. Sometimes I will buy something in the sizing that I think I am and I'll get it and it will be completely different size. Or it will say it's the same size, but different sizes are different in different countries. So, again, we really don't have that. We also don't have so many returns. I mean, yes, there are some returns, and if you're doing shipping to physical stores, you might get more returns, but our returns are very, very low compared to the fashion industry since people seem to be now buying multiple things with the intention of returning many of them. So, I've heard from people and they might buy five different tops and then send back four of them because they only wanted one, but they wanted to try on different things. So, the return side of the business, I just thought, "Wow, we're so lucky that we don't really have that issue. " Number three, taste. So, taste is so interesting and the kombucha company, the health drink company, was really interesting as I looked at their site and we were giving each other feed feedback and I said, "Oh, this bright red can makes me think that this is too sweet for me. You know, I do drink kombucha sometimes, but I don't want the sweet one. " And I said just that coloring made me think kind of candy colors. And I realized, of course, we do this with book covers. And we do often shop what's in the image. And also, there was some language I didn't understand on her page and I realized that was also a an issue with us. On my Shopify [snorts] store, for example, I do refer to Book Funnel and many people who have bought multiple times know what Book Funnel is and as authors, we often know what Book Funnel is. But if you're sending traffic to your store and they're new, they might not know what it is. So, we certainly need to communicate better with our branding and our covers and the images we use and think about explaining any language that we use which might not be obvious to people. And that is, I guess, more specific for the language anyway, more specific for people who are selling on Shopify or on their websites, but even on if you're selling on Amazon or Kobo or whatever, then book covers still are super important to have a recognizable brand that your target audience will want to buy. I mean, sometimes it's just about revisiting the basics, isn't it? And looking at things through other people's eyes. And so, that is number four. Get someone else to test your store, if you have a store, or get someone else to go on your Amazon page or your author website on their phone. — Because that is how a lot of people shop now. And I tested the coffee company, so I paired up with the coffee company guy and I tested his site and he tested mine. And we found on his site that his cookie pop-up would not go away. And of course, here in Europe, we have to have a cookie pop-up. And his would just kept popping up again and again, which would lead to me clicking away. And some of his images also didn't appear even after a few seconds, but when he tested it, it was fine because his phone had cached the things he looked at. And so, you realize with just a few minutes of looking at someone else's site fresh that there are various things that might not be obvious on your site. So, try that with friends who are not authors or get somebody who's in the sort of target demographic to have a look. Or just get someone to go look at your author page on their phone. See what they think. See if there are issues. Maybe they have a Android phone. Maybe they have an iPhone. What browser do they use? I mean, there's so many things that impact how things look. I think that's actually something to give that a go. You can, in a way, replicate this by using an anonymous browser. So, on most browsers now, you can do file new incognito window or on your phone, if you're on a Google tab, you can use a little there's a sort of ghost icon and you can go incognito. And what that does is kind of remove all the cookies and all the targeting, the specific targeting. I think we forget that everything now online is really targeted to you and you're going to be seeing something different than somebody else. So, that was really interesting. And then, number five, I really appreciated the small group in person day focused on business. It was really

time out to think about the business and not do the busy work and I guess mostly I now do the sort of big multi-day conferences where a lot of it is about networking, a lot of ideas as opposed to going deep on one idea. And it made me remember that these things are super useful. I also loved the venue. It was at this venue in Bath called House of St. John's. It's a co-working venue, sort of a private co-working venue, but they do events and it was great. So, I am thinking once more of running an in-person day here in Bath. The last one I did, I think, was maybe 3 years ago now and it was great, but it was in the Hilton and it was not such a good room and this would be smaller and yeah, so I'm getting quotes for that venue, something I'm thinking about. It would definitely be a business for authors day, probably September. I'm thinking about that. If that sounds like something you're interested in and it would be here in Bath. — So, it's certainly not for international people. Unless you're planning on being here, it is a wonderful city. It is a world heritage site. But yes, email me, Joanna@thecreativepen. com, if you think that sounds like it's for you. There's just there's so many things that make it a higher potential cost than doing something like a webinar, but also I found it so valuable, I just thought I need to do more of these things. And then six, the final thing, there is always a difficult side to marketing. You just have to choose your kind of difficult. So, firstly, no one else there had a personal brand, no one else. They were all commercial brands in some way. There were three other businesses who were one-person businesses, but they ran 100% of inbound marketing with paid ads. They had some email marketing, but not much. And so, there was a discussion of what would happen to your business if the ads stopped working and everyone said it would pretty much be over. Like, it would be done. And while some of them had email lists and obviously they had emails from people who'd bought things, they just didn't have a very effective email marketing flow. They all used multiple ad channels, they did different kinds of ads, but the people from the company companies were not the founders, they were employees of those companies. So, that's always interesting, too, because we, generally as independent authors, do everything. So, I found that fascinating. So, I wanted to reiterate the double-edged sword of a personal brand, which is what many authors build and a couple of the people in the room said to me, "Wow, you're so lucky that you don't have to run ads to run a business. " And I said, "Well, I am lucky in inverted commas, but I have spent almost 20 years building an audience and I own my company and you have weekends off and evenings off and I don't. " — So, I said I was it was really interesting discussing with people what is good about personal brand business and what is bad. So, if you build up an email list or an audience through a podcast, a YouTube channel, social media, people who actually buy from you and you do have a personal brand, yes, you can make money without ads. So, I do 95 or more percent of my business is not based on advertising. I rarely run ads and when I do, they're for specific, sporadic campaigns. But you will always pay. You either pay with your time or you pay with your money. And over the years, I have paid with my time. If you pay with your time, it is also potentially under threat because you're burned out, you decide to pivot, you take a break, you get sick, you die. That eventually happens. A personal brands die with that creator. You can rarely sell a personal brand business. You can't you can outsource some of it, but not tons of it and you have to work consistently for years. So, for me, it's this weekly podcast, it's my Patreon, it's email marketing. It used to be social media, which is not really for me anymore. But those authors who say, "Oh, no, I don't run ads," then you find they're actually spending their time and it might be social media, it might be running groups. They're spending their time, not their money, necessarily. Then I also know authors who don't do much as a personal brands. They might be faceless, they might not do any of this, they might just write a lot of books, but they need to do ads. They're often the KU high-volume fiction plus ads. And there's no right or wrong in any of this, it's just I want to reiterate again, having been in a room with other

business people, that it is one or the other. It can be a bit of both and that's maybe what I need to start doing, but the reality of business is you have to do some kind of marketing. You have to reach readers somehow. You get to choose how you do it. the good side and the bad side. You get to choose your pain. You get to choose whether to spend time or money, but it has to be done if you want to sell books. And so often people will say, "Oh, I'm not selling any books. " And I'm like, "Well, how are you doing marketing? " And they're like, "Oh, I don't do any marketing. " And well, there you go. — You learn a lot when you market as to actually whether anyone wants what you have to offer. — But yes, back to the workshop. When I was talking about this with some people, they were like, "Oh, you're so lucky. " And I was like, "Actually, I am really lucky and I do love doing this. I love doing the podcast. I love doing my books. I love the Patreon. I love most of the in-person things, although as you know, as an introvert, I often just have to run away. I really enjoy my Kickstarters now. I don't want to change these things. It is good for my business, but it's also rewarding in all the human ways. I love being connected to you in some ways. I mean, with my Patreon now, I do office hours. We had office hours this week and I [snorts] used to resist that because I was worried about it. I thought, "Oh, it'll just be I don't know if I'll be able to give people value. " But it turns out it's really a great time. Useful for people, interesting and yeah, I find it good for connection. And this is a lifestyle business, so it has to be a lifestyle I enjoy. If I stop enjoying all this, it's over. I might as well get a normal day job where I get weekends and evenings off and paid leave and a pension plan like Jonathan. — Ah, so it has really helped me reflect on the kinds of businesses that we create. And this is also something for you to think about in terms of how the years compound. So, the other reason I can do this without ads is because I've been doing this for so many years. It has compounded and trust compounds and brand compounds and email list compound and all of this stuff. And so, if you want to spend time, it has to be over a long time and that is how many authors do this as a long-term business. But there are ways to start a company and run ads to it tomorrow and start making revenue. So, it's just pros and cons, but you have to decide what you want to do. Amusingly, by the end of the day, I had also decided that I need to get back into doing some kind of advertising. — Mainly because I'm now using Claude code a lot more and many of you using co-work, some of you using code X, anti-gravity. So, these AI agents that can actually help us do actual work. So, I did that with Claude when I got back. I was like, "Right, I'm going to actually take an action. " And the first thing I got Claude to do was actually look at my meta setup. I was like, "I haven't looked at my meta for years. Can you just have a look to see if how the setup is? Like, have I done it wrong? " And then we set up an ad to the Kickstarter and actually having it do that and watch it set stuff up, I learned a heck of a lot more. Now, they're only running for like another week, — but that's not ideal, but I wanted to take action with a low spend and just start getting back into things. So, you might actually see some of my ads if you're in my JF Pen audience. Anyway, on that, so that workshop was excellent. I really would recommend if you are taking your e-commerce business seriously, go to a workshop that is not just for authors. I think you will come away with a lot of very interesting insights and you might feel grateful as I do for the business that I have ended up designing. So, that is good. And then if you would like to learn what I've been doing with AI, I am doing two webinars. Firstly, the AI assisted artisan author, which covers all the basics and pretty much everything you need for most author publishers. So, if you are early in your AI journey or you're early in your author business, come along to that one. And even if you came last year, my last AI workshop was September and every everything has changed. So, it's still useful. I do not teach book generation. I do teach AI assistance. So, I am an AI assisted artisan author. So, that's what I will be showing you. There are lots of people who do teach how to do book generation, not my thing. I am doing an advanced session for those who are comfortable with AI use. We will be getting into business process redesign

building skills, Claude code, or co-work for Agent KI with the intent of essentially outsourcing much of the admin, overhead, marketing kind of stuff. You can get tickets for either or both. They are Saturday 16th of May for the first one, Saturday 23rd second one. They are online. If you get the ticket, you get the replays, the slides, everything I'll be doing. And I will not be selling those separately. So if you want to come, please do get a ticket. If you can't attend live, you can get a ticket and you'll get the replay within 24 hours. There were discounts for patrons, and also discounts for those who attended my previous AI webinars. I emailed everyone, so check your email for that. Links are at thecreativepen. com/live, l i v e. Thecreativepen. com/live. — And personal news, thanks to everyone who has backed my Kickstarter for Bones of the Deep. We funded very quickly and got a project we love badge from Kickstarter. It is only running for one more week. As I've talked about before, I do these very sort of short-term campaigns. I do more of the marketing up front, I guess, telling people that it's going to happen, and then I pretty much want it done and dusted. — So by the time this goes out, next week, the podcast goes out on the 4th of May, it will be done. So if you would like the limited edition hardback or the other formats, or you'd like to join me for a discovery writing webinar, which is pancing, if you don't know what discovery writing is, many people call it pancing, as in we don't do plotting. This is how I write, so you might find that interesting. Or you'd like bundles of my other books, or just check out the campaign, see if you want to steal ideas for your own, which of course, you know, I never mind that. Just briefly about the book, She stole from the deep, a price must be paid. Bones of the deep is a thriller with teeth, set out on the open ocean, inspired by my crossing from Fiji to Vanuatu on a tall ship back in 1999. You can check out the campaign at jfpenn. com/bones. So thanks for your emails and comments and photos this week. Rob, wonderful photos from St. Louis Cemetery number 3 in New Orleans. "Aw, love it. " says, "Walking through the cemetery, this raven posed for me on the creepiest tomb. " Aw, I do love those St. Louis cemeteries and the around New Orleans. I've been on tours of many of them, so that was lovely to see. Thank you. And if you're interested, the book about that is Valley of Dry Bones. That's the one that I wrote after my trip to New Orleans. And on YouTube, Patrick O'Neal says a lot of great information on several topics to begin the episode as usual, and then very helpfully says, "If you're in a rush or just want to dive into the main topic, head on over to this particular timestamp for a high-quality how to use Kickstarter for authors successfully class from someone who has hands-on experience doing exactly that. " So Patrick, I appreciate you putting the timestamp on. I really should do that. And I think some people say on YouTube, "Oh, get to the point. " But then I also hear from many of you who often don't even listen to the interviews and come for the introduction. So it's hard to please everyone, isn't it? — So I just keep on keeping on. And long-term listeners obviously know that I always do an introduction, and then there is an interview or some other kind of content. So thank you for that. Philippa Ross, also on YouTube, said, "Thanks for a detailed resume of Kickstarter. I've made notes on what you said for my own, and your Bones of the Dead page is an epic example of what to include. I'm not keen on that genre to read, but I'm backing what you do to support authors. Thank you so much. " Yeah, absolutely. And this is the reality with fiction in particular. I know this. And in fact, I was thinking at this workshop I went to earlier in the week, I was thinking, I should do a Kickstarter for my next non-fiction book, because so much of my audience are authors. So I may actually do that for my next one. I do have a book on short stories and short story collections and all that, based on my Buried and the Drowned way of doing things, so that might happen. But yes, thank you, Philippa. So thank you so much, and please leave a comment on the podcast show notes at thecreativepen. com. You can always go to the blog link and you'll find the latest episode, or the podcast link and you'll find all the episodes. You can also go to the YouTube channel. You can email me, send me pictures of where you're listening, or your comment, or your favorite cemetery or churchyard. Joanna@thecreativepen. com. I love to hear from you. It makes this more of a conversation. And if you get an email from a Gmail account pretending to be me, it's not me. This is still happening. So my email is

Joanna@thecreativepen. com. So today's show is sponsored by Draft2Digital, who I use for wide ebook distribution to stores like Apple, Nook, and for libraries, as well as payment splitting for co-written books. I also support their recent business changes to keep AI book slop out of the stores and preserve the reputation of indie authors aiming to only publish quality books, whether AI assisted or entirely human written. So are you an indie author in need of an easy and efficient print-on-demand service backed by a world-class customer support team? Look no further than Draft2Digital Print from Draft2Digital. D2D Print is ideal for authors who've already published ebooks, but haven't yet experimented with print. With D2D Print, you can convert an ebook to a print-on-demand file with just a few clicks. Turn an ebook cover image into a full wrap-around print cover in seconds. Choose from dozens of beautiful interior layouts for that professional look. Choose from a variety of industry standard trim sizes and formatting options. Distribute your print-on-demand files worldwide. Order author copies within 32 countries and get print proofs from a variety of shipping options without the proof banner stamped on your book, which is done by another company we shall not name. You can also use free change tokens every 90 days to make updates. Print-on-demand is a game-changer for indie authors, because while brick-and-mortar bookstores can't physically stock every book, they can check for the print-on-demand availability of a book when a customer requests it. If you only publish ebooks, you could be missing out on a huge opportunity to reach more readers. Let's fix that with D2D Print. Check it out at draft2digital. com. That's draft and then number 2 digital. com. And as I'm reading this, I'm actually thinking that print-on-demand is another one of those phrases that we take for granted in the industry, but if you're new, you might not know what it means. And in fact, somebody asked that to me when they saw my store and saw how many books. They were like, "Oh my goodness, do you stock all of those books? " And I said, "Oh no, I do print-on-demand. " And she was like, "What is that? " — So print-on-demand means that if someone orders a book from you, then the order goes to a company, and then the company prints the book and sends it direct to the customer, and you don't have to even touch it. So yes, print-on-demand is wonderful and how we can do print books generally as authors. So 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 18 new patrons who've joined in 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, covering writing craft, author business, and AI tutorials. Last week we had live office hours for 90 minutes, where I demoed the new Claude design, the new ChatGPT image model, and answered questions from the live attendees, and then shared the replay with all patrons. 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 t r e o n. com/thecreativepen. Right, let's get into the interview. Adam Leipzig is a producer, former studio executive, and educator whose work spans film, media, and technology. He served as a senior executive at Walt Disney Studios, and as president of National Geographic Films, and his film credits include March of the Penguins and Dead Poets Society, with projects recognized by the Academy Awards, BAFTA, the Emmys, and Sundance. He is the author of several books on filmmaking, and his latest book is Fearless Persistence, Creative Life, Creative Work, and the 10 Laws of Culturenomics. So welcome to the show, Adam. Thank you so much for having me, Joe. Oh, I'm excited to talk to you today. Now, you have written several books, but you have worked on many more films. So I wondered, like, why do you think books still have a part to play in reaching people? And what do you love about writing books that is different to your filmmaking work? Well, you can put so much information in a book, and the beautiful thing about a book is that you can pick it up wherever you want, whenever you want, and leave it off and go back to it, and it's just waiting for you, and it's there. And it really allows me and other authors like me to share information in a different way, with more details and

more stories and more specificity. So, I kind of I love the ability to just share that information and have it always available. You don't need a device, you don't need to have a subscription, you can just go to it whenever you want. And you asked me what I love about writing. Like a lot of writers, I'm not sure I love writing, but I do love having written. And the thing about a book is that it's uh it's a very solitary exercise. A book A film is a highly collaborative exercise. You No movie gets made by one person. It's made by hundreds or sometimes thousands of people. But this book is just, [clears throat] you know, it's me and a laptop and notes and a lot of thought. So, it's a very kind of introverted, almost monkish existence while you're doing that. And then it has to go out into the world, and it's that's when it really starts to interact with people. So, there's this huge difference between being alone and being always in a collaborative environment, which is what it what happens when I'm making a movie. And many of us Most listeners will be independent authors in some way, and a lot of us do this cuz we're control freaks. Yeah. We like being the only people, and so how is that different? Like you mentioned collaboration in the film industry, but is this almost freeing to do a book for you without having I mean, obviously you have editors and publishers and stuff, but is it freeing in some creative way? It is really nice, right? Because there is not another point of view in the room, and I can just say what I feel and know that that's there. And at the same time, you're right, there you know, I have had some amazing editor help, [snorts] and I've had some great early readers that have given me feedback on it and have me make it so much better than it was when I finished the first draft. And I knew that going in, right? I always test and share what I'm doing to make sure that it lands in the way that I wanted it to land and it can be helpful for people. So, getting into the book, you have a chapter on what you do matters. And I feel like this is super hard. I mean, this is not a political show, so we're not doing politics, but there are a lot of big things going on in the world. And [clears throat] it can be very hard as writers to think, is writing my book actually going to make a difference? So, how can you encourage people? It's the hardest thing, Joe, because there is a lot going on in the world right now. Everything that's now exists because it's following a certain narrative. Uh I don't believe that narratives are not come up with cuz people look things that are happening and say, "Oh, let's just write what happened. " I think that we do things from micro experiences that we have with ourselves, our relationships, our families, to the macro experiences of politics and global situations. I believe that happens because there is a narrative that is being followed. So, what I say to all creative people is that it's our job to craft and express the narratives that matter and different narratives so that those narratives can be followed. You know, one of the points that I make in the book is that poets are not overtly really dangerous people. Poets are generally lovely people. A lot of them don't talk too much. They're kind of great to have dinner with, and they just work with words, and often not a lot of words, right? Because beautiful poetry is often concise and simple and spare. And yet there are places where poets are in jail because the narratives of those concise, spare, gorgeous, idealistic words matter so much that those voices need to be silenced, which means those narratives are dangerous sometimes. And those narratives present an alternate world, an alternate view of reality. I think it's really our job as creative people, as entrepreneurs, as people who are essentially creating narratives out of the soul of our lives and our experience, we want to express those to the world. It's really important for us to express those to the world, especially now, especially because so much is going on. And those narratives are going to become pathways that others can look at and maybe follow. I think that's really important. It's the reason why we do our work. Yeah, and I absolutely agree with you around writing the narratives that we want in the world. You know, be the change you want to see in the world and all that, but I also want to call out the fact that there are what, hundreds of thousands of books now published, and you come from the film industry, and many more people really watch films or play games than read books. So, and I've wondered about this myself. I've written a few screenplays, and sometimes it

feels that wouldn't it be better to try and put our words into a visual medium? A lot of authors listening will do micro video like TikTok and all of this kind of thing. So, Mhm. I don't know, this is back to this sort of question of why books and how can we change these narratives when we feel like we're drowned out by all the media? Well, I think it's great for authors to express themselves in other media. You know, I have a pretty active Instagram channel, and I love doing that. And that's but it's a really different thing. I'm talking to people in 2-minute bursts with very specific things. It's not the same and not the same details a book. But if we let our understanding of the ocean of content that is always coming to us stop us from doing anything, we wouldn't do anything. And that's also true about movies. There are probably 10,000 movies made every year. There are a few hundred that are released. And so if I if every day I thought, "Oh, the movie that I'm working on is maybe not going to be released because there's only a few a small percent of movies that are made that are released. " Or worse than that, of the all the movies that are made, you know, there's 500 different shows on Netflix and Apple and Amazon, and there's so many choices. If I thought that everything I was going to do was going to be drowned out, I wouldn't do anything. And I just don't believe that's true. I think it's our job to do things. And yeah, there's an ocean of content out there, but what we do really matters. It and it doesn't have to matter at gigantic scale. We don't know the scale that our work is going to achieve over time. You know, one of the early films that I worked on is a film called Dead Poets Society. And that film was that script was passed on by every studio at least three times. Mhm. And it's probably a film that I couldn't get made now for all kinds of reasons cuz it's not a sequel and it doesn't have superheroes or visual effects. And when we made that movie, we didn't know the [clears throat] impact it was going to have. It could have been drowned out by things, but it rose to a level that everywhere in the world I go, someone has seen that movie, including people who were not born when that movie was made. We don't know the long arc of our work and the people that it affects. Mhm. I love that movie, too. O Captain, my captain. I can hear everyone saying that behind the screens. — Yeah. Um fantastic movie. And well, this kind of comes to you to the title, fearless persistence. — Mhm. Because of course, Dead Poets Society ended up being an incredible success. But of course, not everything turns out so well. And I wondered if you could maybe talk about this persistence. So, how do you keep creating after something you perceived as a failure or perhaps all the things that didn't get made? Like why is persistence so important — Yeah. Right. Okay, so Right. So, I've been super fortunate. I've worked with amazing people on great projects, and I've made 40 films at this point, and I'm making more, and I've tried to make 400 films. I've failed at getting them made 90% of the time. And that's okay. I just keep going. When I was working at Disney and I was an executive at Walt Disney Studios for 7 years, uh there was one movie that we were opening, and we Nobody had really high expectations for it, but it opened huge on a weekend, and it beat the competition. And we were in our Monday morning meeting, and we were dancing on the tables, and we were so excited. And Jeffrey Katzenberg, who was running the studio at that time, came in, looked around the room, put his hands on his hips, and said, "Next. " We just had to move on. And I really learned the meaning of the word next about 4 months later when we had a film that we all knew was going to be hugely successful and make a lot of money and give everyone their bonuses, and it completely bombed at the box office. It was like you gave a party and nobody showed up to eat the hors d'oeuvres. And we were in the Monday morning meeting and very glum and not sure what was going to happen and whether we were going to be fired and what was going to happen. And Jeffrey walked into the room and said, "Next. " Mhm. And we just keep going. I think that's I think that is the great and defining quality of people who really have sustainable lives either as creatives or business people or entrepreneurs, we're persistent. And we're just like those little birds, so you put their beak in the water and they just keep bobbing up and keep bobbing up. We just we just keep going, and it's not about the people who are the most talented because I'm certainly not the most talented. smartest. I'm certainly not the most creative. There are people who are smarter and more talented and more creative than me all the time and I get so much energy in being able to know them and work with them. But I am super persistent.

I don't stop. Because if there's something that I really believe in, I'll just keep going. There you know, I started taking notes on this book 10 years ago. There are movies that took 12 years to get made. And you just keep going. There are times like as a producer all you're doing like the movie like everybody's fallen away. There was a director attached. There was a star attached. They all left. They did other projects. The material is no longer under option. You don't even have legal rights to it anymore, but you just keep blowing on the embers. And then eventually maybe it gets made. But that's what it's about. Do you think there's some kind of serendipity or something more than uh something is amazing that makes a book or a film? Is it timing? Is there just some chemistry that cuz you talked earlier about testing and sharing things to see if it was going to work. But as you mentioned, you would have or some films you think are going to be amazing and they bomb. Other things are slow burn. Is it How do you know? Like how do you know when to make a film if you just can't predict this stuff? Well, you can never predict it, but I think you start with do you really think about it all the time? Do you really care about it? Do It's not like you're in a meeting or you read a script or you hear an idea and you're super excited about it. But are you still excited about it tomorrow morning? And the next day and the next. And if you keep waking up every morning thinking wow, that's great. I got to get that forward. Yeah, then I think that is the first indication for me that it's going to have some staying power. And I don't think I am that different from everybody else. So if it's something that consistently excites me I feel like there's going to be at least some other people in the world that it's also going to excite. Mhm. And do you [snorts] think you have a voice I guess as a filmmaker as much as a writer as in are there things that excite you consistently that you were drawn to or do you think it's much wider as a filmmaker than a writer? I think it's a lot wider as a filmmaker. Part of it's also just my capacity right now as a writer. I think I'm I really like the writing in Fearless Persistence and I also recorded the audio book and I love listening to the audio book experience. I think the audio book experience is great. And I think it's some of the best writing I've ever done. But I have not yet found the capacity to write a novel or to write fiction in the way that other people can. So part of it's just my skill and capacity at this point in my writing career where I think I'm pretty good at expressing ideas in a non-fiction setting, but I haven't [clears throat] developed the skill set for fiction. In movies I make documentaries. I make fiction feature films and what attracts me is character. It's always like the character, the people, the journey. Are the people really interesting? Do I want to spend two year two hours of my life in a cinema with them or 10 hours of my life watching those episodes on a streaming channel. That's what That's always what starts with me. If the character is interesting, then I'll keep going. Mhm. Yeah, and I mean I think the book Fearless Persistence has a lot of your character in it and your experience. It's not just a non-fiction book of prescriptive rules. So you did bring a lot of voice into it, I think. Thank you. I tried to. I tried to make it be like we're sitting down and we're talking and we're having a conversation. Mhm. Yes, so coming back to the book, a quote from the book, "Uncertainty isn't the enemy of creativity. It's its greatest ally. " And you talk about these messy and unpredictable times and I'm what we call a discovery writer. Some people say pantser and it mostly is quite [clears throat] chaotic and unpredictable. So maybe you could talk about this uncertainty and messy creativity. Yeah, one of the things I'm really trying to do in Fearless Persistence is give support to all of us in this messy, unpredictable, what I call the long middle where stuff is happening, but you're not seeing obvious results out there and you're either in the world or in your project. You're just in this you're in this mess, but that mess is kind of a beautiful place and I'm trying to give support to the fact that mess is gorgeous and it's part of the process. It's part of everybody's process. And we shouldn't feel as though we are not doing our job when we're in that long unpredictable, uncertain middle because out of that we discover what we actually like. We find It gives us a way to refine our taste and refine our direction because we are so uncertain. And then there's this moment and I don't know if you find this in your own writing, Joe. But there's

this moment where that uncertainty changes into there's no choices here at all. This is just what I have to do. I actually think that the greatest freedom is when there's no choices. Where the path is just there. But we got to get through the thicket to get to that path, right? And there's always a thicket. Yeah, I mean there's a moment where for me where and where the chaos kind of becomes more certain and I'm like, okay, that's the story. I thought it might have been something else, but now that's what it is. And then often I will have to edit and I wanted to ask you about this too because as a author with a book, I mean editing is hard for us, of course, cuz there's lots of words and we have to go through it and but editing on a film, I can't even imagine how hard the editing process is. So maybe you could talk about editing and how you cut and organize these massive projects. Yes, editing is really hard, but it's also so fun. It's like I think the it being on a set is great and it's kind of like the most fun a kid could have, but editing beginning editing room is also the most fun a kid could have because uh because you have all of the pieces and there are so many ways to do it and it actually allows you This is where a film is actually made is in the editing room. Probably the way books are made also is in the editorial process between the writer and your own brain as the editor or if you have someone who's helping you edit it. Uh editing is really interesting because it's the only meat It's the only craft that did not exist before filmmaking. Everything else existed, right? There was there were scripts, there were actors, there were costumes, there was art direction, there were production design, there were there was music, but editing was a craft that had to be invented for film. So it's a craft that's only about 120 years old. And when you make a film, the first thing that the editor does is just put all of the scenes together in a first editor's cut rough assembly. It's basically every scene that was in the script as it was shot and the editor just tries to choose the best angles, but the fastest way to do it and that generally comes out maybe a week or two after we wrap photography and that first cut could be three or four hours long because it's got everything in it. And then the process is let's take that out. You don't need this. You can move this scene here and move it there before the other scene. Uh we don't really need that shot. Okay, we get to a close-up there and you get it down down just like in writing where you kill your darlings. I actually find writing editing the most fun I have is, oh, I don't need that sentence or I can take out three words here and the sentence is better. So we go through exactly the same process in film editing and squinch it all down to the most compelling and efficient way to tell the story. I'm glad you say it's fun cuz I also like editing. I find the editing much more creatively fulfilling cuz I actually can figure out the book that way and I often have too much material as well. So but it's so funny cuz I think you I as writers, many people either love the editing or they love like the first draft, but it seems like you enjoy the whole process. Uh well, I like the editing so much more than the first draft. I feel like I had to get through the first draft. That's the that's that was my long middle. That was my uncertain period. That was the my thicket. And then my editing was, oh great. Let's cross this out. Let's change that word. Let's lose that paragraph. That was fun. That's great to hear. So let's say we can we now have a book or we have — Yes. — a film and in your book, law eight of Culturonomics is that without distribution, there is nothing. And so this is like now we have to get this out there and this is really difficult, right? So can you maybe talk about how film distribution has changed and also reflecting on how it is for writers because our distribution has changed a lot, too. Yeah, so as you mentioned Culturonomics and in the last section of the book, I I've observed over the past 30 years that when a work is both aesthetically really a really excellent and also economically viable and sustainable for the creators it always observes these 10 principles. I call them the 10 laws of Culturonomics and one of them is without distribution, there is nothing by which I mean unless your audience, your market, the people that you are seeking to share or serve with the work, unless they can get it, it doesn't really matter. It's like that tree falling in the forest and no one's around to hear it. So, I always think about my market and my distribution before I start making the movie. And I've been thinking about that as I was writing the book because I really wanted I really want it to be there to meet people where they are and

I want them to be able to get it. So, you asked about film distribution. Film distribution's changed a lot. A lot of it was because especially during the pandemic people stayed home and cinema admissions have fallen off 30% from pre-pandemic levels. So, people are going out to cinemas less and that means that fewer films are being distributed in cinemas for any kind of viable period of time. Sometimes some movies will be out there for one or two days, literally, in cinemas and then they go right to streaming. So, for a film to have a nice long juicy cinema run, it's just not where the market is that much now except for certain kinds of films. And on the streaming side, there was a glut of streaming content. There was so much. All the streaming channels over invested in streaming. There were too many shows. I don't know about your Netflix queue or your Amazon queue, but it's unnavigable. There is so much stuff and they've cut back a lot. So, they're doing just doing a lot less. We're in a situation now where anything can get out there somehow. The question is, does your market does your audience know about it? And do they want to invest the time to experience it? And one of the other laws of culturenomics is that awareness is not desire. There's a lot of things that we're aware of that we don't want to spend our time with. There was a lot of Everybody was aware of Disney's new Snow White movie. Nobody wanted to go see it. — I must say I'm not the key demographic for that. Yeah, there we go. But you knew about it. — action one? Yeah. I didn't understand those live action ones, to be honest. Maybe that's why. I I I think we are over sequelled out. Yes. — Right? Like I look at the movie business, I just think what audiences really want is something new, please. Something we haven't seen before. We don't want the 95th iteration of something from the MCU or anything that these The studios because they The movies cost so much and they're so risk-averse, they talk a lot about pre-aware titles. In other words, titles that you've heard of before, so you're going to go see the movie. And it works to a certain extent, but I just think it's cinematically boring. And you could And in that world, you never could have predicted Oppenheimer. Barbie. Movies that really don't have a precedent, but they did so well because they're different and I think that audiences are craving something different right now. Mhm. It's interesting though, isn't it? Cuz I agree on one level, but then I also watch Bridgerton and watched it the latest series as soon as it came out. And they that I guess is pre-aware to a point, but I don't read historical romance, but I really like the show, I think because of Shonda Rhimes and I'm I watched Grey's Anatomy for like 20 years. Oh, how lovely. Yeah, she's great. She's so great. She's amazing. So, I kind of feel like this is why it's hard. Isn't it? It's hard to know that And as a fiction writers particularly listening, like we have very specific genre audiences and they often don't cross over into other genres. Like they love their genre fiction. — Um So, it's it is hard to balance the sort of original work that may not be more easily sold and the other stuff. And I guess that's why the studios do it, right? Because they think they can make enough money with the next Marvel movie. — Yeah, but I'm curious to know what you think about this because even within a genre, a really good genre movie or book is not the same as all the other books or films in the genre. It's like it's familiar in that it does what the genre says you have to do, but it's different. And it's got Those are the unique things that make us feel like super fans that we really love it. That it's familiar enough to fall within the genre and yeah, genres have rules that you got to follow, but then it's a something unique and different that's exciting. And that's why I say, "Hey Joe, you got to read this book. " Yeah. No, I agree with you and it's so difficult. I love that you said this, "Awareness is not desire. " This is another problem with our creative work, right? We have to do marketing. Mhm. And yet we can throw all this stuff out there and yet it may or may not work. So, how Talk about your book marketing. I mean, obviously you're on this podcast and then I presume your publicists are pitching lots of podcasts, but what are you doing to promote the book that might be different to a film release? Well, I don't have $100 million. — Surprise. Right? Like I got a few hundred dollars, so we're just doing it this way. And as you know, once upon a time legacy publishers actually did marketing. And legacy publishers barely do any marketing. You Every author has to do it

themselves. So, uh so we have to do this ourselves and it actually It's been the hardest I think it's the hardest thing we've all had to adopt ourselves that we have to do this thing where there used to be a marketing department and you just hand it over to them and we could just be be in our own little creative space, but now we got to do this also. So, we have to do it also. So, what am I doing? I've amped up my social media. I'm speaking. I am on podcasts like this. I'm sharing as much as I can and I'm asking circles of people who have been early readers of the book and I'm really grateful because I've had really enthusiastic response to it both from creatives and also some business people, which was surprising to me, but really great. Someone said this is the best business book in the past 10 years, which is really interesting, right? Because you read it Joe as an author, but she read it as someone who sits on the board of major companies. So, that was a pretty interesting response. And I'm just asking them to be advocates and share it around. And I I've like we'll just be those people who blow on the embers and let's see if we can make a fire. Yeah, and I mean we talked about the fun bits earlier. I mean, I'm enjoying our conversation, but I know that marketing [clears throat] is not necessarily in the fun bucket. But are you finding bits of the marketing you enjoy? Yeah, I love meeting the audience. people that I'm writing the book for and sharing it with. I you know, I've been fortunate enough to be asked to run a writers workshop in Greece for the past few years. And the first year I did it, it's retreat center called Rosemary's House. It's on the east coast of Greece. Dozen writers. I work with writers all the time, but I've never but like they're always writing like a thing, like a screenplay or something. This was a dozen writers all writing different things. And I'd never done that before and I had an extraordinary time. And to first year I went, I'd had all these notes for this book Fearless Persistence that I'd been compiling for some time. But there I was in the room and I was with the people that I was really intending to write the book for and that kicked me in the butt and I wrote the book. And then the next year I was back and I finished the book while we were there at the writers retreat. So, that was kind of great and I was with another group of writers. I'll be back there again in later this year and the book will be out. So, it's this fabulous continuation of be really engaging with and meeting the people that I'm seeking to serve with this book and I really enjoy encouraging and mentoring and sharing the systems that are really undergirding the creative process and then the process of how do you build a sustainable life, including all these super practical things that they don't teach you in art school or writing school or film school or even business school. Just like how do you actually build a sustainable life in this practice. Uh so, I love that. I guess that's marketing, but it's also just being with the people that you're there to serve. I love that you serve. I use the same word. I say, "Who do you serve? " And that can help people cuz I feel like creative people we're like we don't want to be marketers. kind of salesy. So, if you reframe it as service and who are you trying to help or entertain, that actually helps. But just coming out You mentioned systems and the business there and you're right, the book has a lot of business in which I love because we talk a lot about business on this show. And in one section, you say there are only four ways to monetize your creative work. Maybe you could talk a bit about those different ways. Yeah, this is And this has been true for I don't know, maybe 5,000 years because it's not about technology. It's just about how work is monetized. So, there's only four ways that any piece of work is monetized. For sale, like you have a book and you go to your favorite bookstore and you buy the book and now you own the book. So, for sale. For rent, you could rent a book from your library or like in a movie context, what you're really renting is you're renting the seat for 2 hours to watch the movie. On subscription, people have, for example, subscriptions to Kindle Unlimited or other ways that people or people have subscriptions to a streaming service. So, it's on subscription. Or free when it's ad supported. So, that's like linear television and there's ads. Or Amazon where it's where there's ads and you don't pay for it. So, for sale, for rent, on subscription, or free. Those are the only ways anything is ever transacted. And of course, when there's ads for So, for example, people some people have YouTube channels that are very successful. YouTube is free, and then YouTube is making money from the ads, and the creators are getting a tiny little slice of the ad revenue. Mhm. Well, like this podcast, I have sponsors who pay, and they're all

related to the author industry, and they're companies that I use and work with. I personally recommend them, and that means this podcast is free. So, — Thank you, sponsors. Yeah. Thank you, sponsors. And I also have patrons, so people who subscribe to the show to support it as well. So, I guess we don't have to be in one bucket or another, right? We can have our work in different buckets. Ideally, you can have your work in every single one of them. Not always Not necessarily always at exactly the same simultaneous moment, but at a certain point, as the work gets out there into the world, as it's lived long enough, it probably will be in every bucket. And that's great, because we want our work to be as accessible to the people that we're serving in any way they want to get it. Yeah, I totally agree. And like your audiobooks, you mentioned, will be available in those different things as well. I find that especially in nonfiction audio, what I love is being able to listen to just a chapter just like chapters in a part three. Or someone could actually listen to the 10 laws of Culturnomics separately to some of the rest of the book. I love that. — Yeah, you know what was so powerful to I'd never done that before. It was so powerful to record the audiobook, because up to that moment, my relationship with this book was fingers typing, keyboards, electrons on the screen. It was a completely silent experience. And then I was in this recording booth, and I was in Los Angeles, and I started speaking the words, and I was visualizing the people that I was writing it for as I was doing it. It was so powerful, and then I listened to it, and I thought, "Wow, this is actually a really good experience. " And it was so powerful that I was then um I was recently in Paris, because I'm working on some films that are in Europe, and I decided to create a special advanced listener edition of the audiobook, where I took the chapters, I put them into individual or like grouped listening units, and in a recording studio in Paris, I recorded some prefaces and reflections on those listening units, which are now thematic. And I think that's I'm really proud of that. Mhm. That edition, it's not for everybody. The regular Audible audiobook is going to be out there, but this, which is on my website, is I think it's a really wonderful version for someone who just wants me to walk with you as you go through the experience of the book. Well, that's great. Are you selling that direct from your website? Yes, I am selling it direct on the website. Brilliant, cuz we all do that, too. So, I think And you can actually make more money selling audio direct than you do from the streaming. — Mhm. Well, yes. — [gasps] — So, these are good. Now, I realize we don't have much time left, but I need to ask you, because the film industry and publishing are in this great time of change with the advent of generative AI, and we've seen in the last week the actor Ben Affleck's his company Interpositive has been bought by Netflix, I think, or at least licensed by Netflix or something. And So, it seems like technology is disrupting a lot. So, how do you think we can navigate this time, and what are your feelings around this new wave of generative AI? It's a great tool. It's not a great writer. It's actually really a terrible writer, and you can always tell when Gen AI has written something, cuz it has a certain very annoying style. But, it's a great tool. I use it in my production. I use it I teach at the business school at UC Berkeley. We train people on how to use it for various kinds of problems and solutions. But, the important thing is that you are the architect of the machine. It's a machine. It is like a paintbrush, but it is not the hand that holds the paintbrush. So, I'm not really I am not concerned that AI is going to go make movies that we all care about, and I am not concerned that it's going to disrupt, in the largest sense, the employment picture. Although, certainly some jobs are going to be Some jobs are being lost, but new jobs are being gained. But, it's really interesting. For example, you mentioned Ben Affleck's uh company, which Netflix just partnered with. It's not making It's just It's creating a better production workflow. It's taking what is shot or what is planned in the production workflow, and just making it better and more efficient, and implementing it and adding to it. That is a really good use of AI. It's going to make It's All the creative power retains within the hands of the creative humans, but it's giving the humans more tools. Yeah, I've been reflecting on the idea of the film director, in that the film director often people know their names, and they win awards, and yet they didn't necessarily write the script. Some do, obviously, but they didn't act in it

they didn't do all the editing, different jobs, but it's their creative vision. Yeah. Is that kind of how you see us playing that part? I do. I think it's a really good analogy. And look, AI it's good, it's going to keep getting better. It still has massive error rates. So, we still have to be very careful about what we attribute to it, and what powers we give it, and what facts we believe from it. So, what are you excited about next? I mean, obviously you're promoting this book, you're doing speaking things, but are you looking to your future continuing to work across film and books? Or what are you excited about in terms of your creative projects? The big arc of my creative life is creating ecosystems where creative people can do their best work. This book is part of that. The movies that I make when I'm as a producer, I try to create the ecosystems where the people can do their best work. And I envision and I'm excited about continuing to do that, whether it is in a book, or in a workshop, or in a film that I'm making. I just want to keep doing that, and just creating these ecosystems where people can really do great work and express themselves creatively, entrepreneurially, and with a positive view of the world to come, because that is a responsibility, coming back to the first question you asked me. No, I totally agree. Brilliant. So, where can people find you and your book and everything you do online? All right. Well, you can find me at my website, which is adamleipzig. com, and that last name is spelled l e i p z i g, just like the city. adamleipzig. com. It of course is available wherever you can buy your books, and the Kindle and the audiobook are exactly where you would expect to find them. And you can also find me on Instagram at adamleipzig, and I You can find me on LinkedIn at adamleipzig, and I love interacting with people. So, yeah, come and find me. adamleipzig. com is the best place to find everything. Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Adam. That was great. Jo, thank you so much for having me. It was great talking with you. So, I hope you found Adam's interview inspiring, and I definitely have that attitude of next. Someone asked me the other day, "What was my favorite book? " And of course, it's always the next one. Once a book is done and into the world, the loop is closed in my mind. I just want to write the next story. I want to create the next nonfiction book. I want to do the next project. Uh imagination is never quiet, as you know. And that is all part of the fun. So, let me know what resonated for you from Adam's interview or the introduction today. I know it was quite a long introduction, too. Please leave a comment on the podcast show notes at the creativepen. com on Just go to the blog link or the podcast link to the specific episode, or on the YouTube channel at the creativepen. Or email me, Joanna at the creativepen. com, and send me pictures of where you're listening or your favorite cemetery or churchyard. Next Monday, I'm talking to Sky McKinnon about German translations, which I know many people are getting back into translation with AI assistance. So, 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/podcast. And you can get your free author blueprint at the creativepen. com/blueprint. If you'd like to connect, you can find me on Facebook and X at the creativepen, or on Instagram and Facebook at JFPenn author. Happy writing, and I'll see you next time.