Josh Kaufman may be the smartest business-minded author alive today. His first two books—Personal MBA and  The First 20 Hours—have been enormous successes, and not only at launch but over time. His track record for consistent and persistent book sales along with a growing reputation as a systems and skill "hacker" make him among the brightest minds to learn from and emulate. In this action-packed, insight-rich talk, Josh and I delve into the fields of adjacent opportunity ripe for many authors (including audio books, AUX, lean platform systems, etc.) as well as fringe skills—like programming skills—for authors that may be the greatest new emergent opportunity yet! If you like this episode, please say so with an iTunes comment for this show. It really helps and I'd appreciate it greatly!

This is a special edition of the AuthorMBA podcast made possible by Yi Shun Lai of the Whidbey Master of Fine Arts program at the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts. Today, I’m honored to welcome a panel of three exceptionally brilliant professionals to join in a fun conversation about the future of publishing, writing careers, and what happens at the intersection of creative/literary skills and business/publishing skills. Joining me are Jane Friedman, Christina Katz, and Wayne Ude. This episode will leave you tingling with ideas to advance your author career.

Pam Slim's remarkable career as a writer, author, speaker, and business coach emerged from a successful enterprise career. What she soon discovered—and shares in her new book, Body of Work—is that single projects or books aren't enough to build a thriving, sustainable career. The modern author, replete with many creative influences and entrepreneurial aspirations—needs to concentrate on building a complete, holistic body of work. Pam joins the show to share how she did that with her author career, and how you can do it too.

Jason Fried is one of my favorite authors and entrepreneurs. Not only is he the NYT best-selling author of REWORK—my all-time fave business book—but he's also the founder of 37signals, one of the coolest and most influential startup companies on the planet. Suffice to say, Jason knows a ton about writing popular books that support really imaginative businesses. And with his new book, REMOTE, Jason takes the argument for compelling and slightly controversial books even further. I hope you have as much fun listening to this episode as I did recording it.

Dan Pink—NYT best-selling author and one of my heroes—joins me to talk about the business imperatives that face today's authors. Dan starts by sharing why he left is promising political career as a speech writer to pursue a career in books as well as what his business priorities were at that time. Dan explains how to select a subject for a commercially-viable book that is also fulfilling to research and write. And he'll give candid accounts of what it's like to be a best-selling author experimenting with new training programs and other business models. Sound awesome enough? Enjoy!

CJ Lyons is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of 20 novels. She writes fictional “thrillers with heart,” which her fans love to the tune of 100,000+ copies sold every month! CJ joins AuthorMBA to share lessons learned from various publishing relationships—traditional and non—how the business-side of fiction works, and what career expectations new authors should have as they start out.

As editor-in-chief of 99U, Jocelyn K. Glei specializes in collaborating with top-tier writers on amazing work. From this vantage point, she leads the creative effort to develop 99U's successful new book series, which already contains two popular books. Jocelyn joins the show to share how the team positions these books within their larger business plan, what she learned working with Amazon Publishing, and how best-selling authors make their own luck for their careers.

Bob Mayer—a NYT best-selling author and micro-publisher—discusses the forces at play in publishing today such as building your own team, keeping your rights, profiting from audio books, and more. Bob also talks about how he's bootstrapping his micro-publishing startup—Cool Gus Publishing—from the incredible revenue generated from his backlist of popular scifi series like Area 51. Oh, and Bob's a former Green Beret, so he's not messing around with the advice he gives. Listen up!

Clive Thompson knows a lot about how technology is impacting the way we think, write, publish books, and grow audiences. An accomplished journalist and avid learner, Clive joins the show to discuss how new technologies are making us smarter and better equipped to create and share compelling books. He also reveals how his own thinking has evolved about the pros/cons of technology in our professional lives, along with a few dangers to be cognizant of as we adopt new innovations.