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 Penn with a double N.

And here's the show.

Hello creatives.

I'm Joanna Penn and this is episode number 596 of the podcast.

And it is Sunday the 2nd of January 2022, as I record this from Auckland in New Zealand. So happy new year. I'm very excited now. I do love January.

So in today's show, I'm talking to Dr. Anne Bartolucci about better sleep, which is something I'm focusing on for 2022, and I know many of you want to improve yours too. It has all kinds of

health and creativity and just life benefits. So that's coming up in the interview section.

In publishing and book marketing news, well, it's the time of the year when we talk about

trends, and written word media have a good article on this, and I'll just pick a couple of

things from it, and you can go and check it out. It's called the top eight publishing industry

trends for 2022. So the first thing on their list is that direct sales

will continue to grow, especially for authors who can reach their audience easily, somehow,

generally through email or things like this podcast for sure, sell my e-books and audiobooks

direct, and many of you do buy from me direct which is fantastic.

With the growth of more technological options, more authors will bypass the traditional channels

for at least some of their work and sell books and make money without giving more cash to the

incumbent booksellers. Now, to be clear, generally, this is on top of selling books

everywhere else. So, for example, for me, wide really does mean wide. And if I sell direct,

...