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 584 of the podcast. And it is Friday the 5th of November 2021 as I record this.

In today's show, I'm talking to Chrissy Metch about pitching your project to studios based on her many years of experience in the film and TV industry.

We discuss what kinds of projects to consider pitching and what to include in a pitch, as well as how the money might work, whether you want to be involved and attitudes to independent creators, which was a question I really wanted to ask, as well as balancing multiple streams of income and time across multiple projects. So that's coming up in the interview section.

In publishing and book marketing news,

a very interesting development in big publishing

as the US Justice Department is suing to block

the $2.2 billion publishing deal

of Penguin Random House

buying Simon & Schuster,

saying consolidation would hurt authors

and ultimately readers.

As reported in The Guardian,

the deal would let Penguin Random House

exert outsized influence

over which books are published in the United States

and how much authors are

paid for their work. If the world's largest book publisher is permitted to acquire one of its

biggest rivals, it will have unprecedented control over this important industry. American authors

...