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 thecreativepen.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 771 of the podcast,

and it is Friday the 13th of September 24 as I record this. In today's show, I'm talking about pivoting

genres and growing an author business with Sasha Black, also writing as Ruby Row. Success as an author

comes with challenges around managing money, setting boundaries and living sustainably without burning out.

Sasha talks about her lessons learned after five years as a full-time author entrepreneur,

and we compare notes on what it takes to grow an author business and still love the writing.

So that's coming up in the interview section. In publishing things,

Bookbub has an article on content marketing for authors, which they define as attracting an audience to

your books and brand by creating and sharing original content online. It's a long game, with an end goal of enticing some of that audience to take an action

that's good for your author business, like signing up for your newsletter or buying your books

or other products.

Now, content marketing is basically how I have built my business.

For example, this podcast is content marketing, although it's also an income stream separately,

I guess, through sponsorship and Patreon support.

And for my fiction, I have content marketing through my free ebook at jfpen.com forward slash free.

And many authors do that.

And I guess we also put free first in series

like Stone of Fire for example has been free first in series for many years now. So there's ways

...