Welcome to the Creative Pen podcast. I'm Joanna Penn, thriller author and creative entrepreneur,

bringing you interviews, inspiration and information on writing, publishing options and marketing ideas for your book.

You can find the episode show notes, your free author blueprint and lots more information at

TheCreativepen.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 552 of the podcast, and it is Friday

the 21st of May, 2021 as I record this.

In today's show, I'm talking to Patricia MacLynn about discovery writing, sometimes known as

pantsing, but let's face it, discovery writing is much cooler. I am also a discovery writer,

so we have a good chat about craft and the weird ways we write,

because not all discovery writers are the same, like not all plotters are the same, and we

definitely have a good chat about that. Also, Pat was first published in the 1990s, so she has

sustained a long-term career through traditional and then indie publishing.

And we talk about the joys of being a relatively unknown and happy six-figure author

where writing comes first, which let's face it, is a fantastic goal to have.

So that's coming up in the interview.

So in publishing news this week, some very interesting things going

on. First up, a New York Times article this week about the publishing industry had a statistic

even that shocked many. 98% of the books that publishers released in 2020 sold fewer than 5,000 copies.

And it really was our backlist that saved the day for us.

Now, this would definitely explain why there is more consolidation going on in publishing right now,

because those numbers don't make sense for the industry.

I mean, really.

...