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 588 of the podcast.

And it is Thursday the 18th of November 2021,

as I record this a little bit early. So in today's show, I'm talking to Alan Baxter

about how short stories can be the basis to an award-winning, long-term author career.

And how mastery of the craft, as well as patience and determination,

can make all the difference over a decade of publishing across indie and traditional markets.

So that's coming up in the interview section. In publishing and book marketing news,

well, written word media released their annual report on the

state of indie authorship in 2021. And if you don't know, written word media run sites like free

booksy, bargain booksy, new in books, red feather romance, other sites like that that focus on

paid email marketing. And some of the interesting things, indie authors who've been writing for five years have an

average of seven books.

And authors with over a decade of writing have 20 books.

And both Alan Baxter in the interview section and me, we both have over 20 books.

...