The Successful Author Mindset Review (Joanna Penn)

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Bottom line: A short, honest, personal handbook for the psychological side of a writing life — the parts that The Elements of Style, Bird by Bird, and The Art of Fiction don’t address because they’re too busy talking about sentences and first drafts and fictive dreams. Penn covers self-doubt, imposter syndrome, comparisonitis, fear of failure, perfectionism, writer’s block, and the specific anti-climax of publication, in short chapters that each diagnose a problem and offer something practical to do about it. At $10.99 it’s the cheapest therapy available that doesn’t require an appointment.

Scribbright rating: 4.5 out of 5

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What the other craft books don’t cover

Scribbright has reviewed a few books that touch this territory. The Elements of Style is about sentences. The Art of Fiction is about fiction. Bird by Bird is about the psychological experience of writing, it’s warm and funny and essential, and it stops roughly at the point where the writing gets published or doesn’t.

The Successful Author Mindset starts where Bird by Bird ends. It covers what happens after: the anti-climax of finishing a draft, the specific misery of a bad review, the comparison spiral that social media has made structurally inevitable for any writer who is online, the need for validation that publishing either fulfills or doesn’t and mostly doesn’t in the way you imagined, and the long-term question of what success actually means when you’ve achieved some of the things you said you aimed for and still feel like a fraud.

Penn is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling thriller author writing as J.F. Penn, and the founder of TheCreativePenn.com, which has been consistently rated among the top sites for writers and self-publishers. She’s also, by her own account in this book, someone who has experienced all of the psychological traps she writes about and has the journal entries to prove it. Several of those entries appear in this book. This is either vulnerable and useful or slightly oversharing, depending on your tolerance for it, and Penn knows this and navigates it with skill.

→ If you’re building out a writer’s bookshelf, the Scribbright reviews section covers books, planners, notebooks, and tools for the serious writing life.

The structure

Each chapter in The Successful Author Mindset is short (some are two or three pages, none very long) and follows the same pattern: here’s a problem writers have, here’s what it looks like, here’s what you can do about it. The book is organized into three sections: mindset aspects of creativity and writing, mindset aspects after publishing, and tips for success on the author journey.

This is a structure designed for non-linear reading, as that’s how most people will use it and an acknowledgment that the problems it tackles don’t arrive in neat order. You don’t read Chapter 7 on comparisonitis because you’ve finished Chapter 6 on perfectionism and worked through it. You read Chapter 7 because you just spent twenty minutes looking at another writer’s Amazon ranking and need someone to put a name to what you’re experiencing and tell you to stop.

The short chapter format makes the book more practical than a continuous argument would be, and less intellectually satisfying. But Penn isn’t trying to construct a theory of the author’s psychology. She’s trying to give you something to read the next time a specific thing happens, and the format is exactly right for that.

The topics

Penn covers the territory you’d expect and some you wouldn’t. Self-doubt and imposter syndrome are here, addressed with the honest acknowledgment that they don’t go away; the goal isn’t to eliminate them but to write anyway. Fear of failure gets a chapter. So does fear of success, which gets less airtime in most writing books and probably should get more, since it’s real and slightly embarrassing to admit. Perfectionism, procrastination, the need for validation that publication never quite satisfies: all present, all handled with the same issue-and-antidote structure.

The comparisonitis chapter is the one most writers will reach for first, possibly before they’ve finished reading the introduction. Penn’s term names something accurately: the specific misery of looking at another writer’s sales rank, book deal, or social media following and feeling the particular kind of bad that comes from measuring yourself against information that tells you almost nothing useful (for another blunt assessment of the situation, check out The Writing Life). The antidote, which is to compare yourself to your past self, focus on the work and get offline, isn’t new, but it’s right. And having it stated clearly when you’re in the middle of a spiral is more useful than having come across it once or twice in the abstract.

The second section, on mindset after publishing, is the part most writers won’t know they need until they need it. The anti-climax of publication — the specific flatness that arrives after you’ve finished a book you worked on for years and released it into the world, and the world has continued rotating on its axis without particular comment — is one of the strangest experiences in a writing life, but one of the least discussed. Penn describes it from her own experience with such honesty that writers who’ve been through it will recognize it immediately, and writers who haven’t will be less surprised when they find themselves in that situation.

A question of tone

Penn writes in a warm, direct, podcast-friendly register that sometimes shades toward the motivational. It initially bugged me, but I ascribe that to personal cynicism. “You’re not alone on the author’s journey” is a line from the book’s promotional copy, and the book itself does sometimes land in territory that feels closer to encouragement than instruction. Writers who found Bird by Bird slightly too warm will find The Successful Author Mindset warmer still in places.

This is the book’s niggling liability and is clearly intentional. Penn is writing for writers who are in the middle of the hard part, not writers who want to read about the hard part from a safe distance. The warmth is the product. Whether it works for you depends on whether you find that register comforting or slightly much, and your answer on that predicts whether you’ll find the book useful or merely pleasant.

How it compares

Bird by Bird is the better-written book. The Successful Author Mindset is the more practically specific one for writers who are past the drafting stage and dealing with the career psychology. They’re not competing — they cover different phases of the same problem — and most writers who benefit from one will benefit from the other at different points.

The Writer’s Survival Guide by Rosenbaum and Rosenbaum, also reviewed here, approaches similar psychological material from a clinical therapeutic distance. Penn is warmer and more personal. Which suits you depends on whether you want someone to analyze the problem or someone to tell you they’ve had the same problem and here’s what helped.

Pros

• Covers the psychological territory the craft books skip: post-publication, career comparison, validation, long-term definition of success
• Short chapter format designed for non-linear use; you read what you need when you need it
• Penn’s own journal entries and personal honesty give the book credibility that generic advice lacks
• Comparisonitis chapter alone may justify the purchase for any writer currently on social media
• Anti-climax of publication chapter is one of the few honest treatments of that specific experience
• Companion workbook available for writers who want to engage more actively
• $10.99 is accessible enough that there’s no reason not to have it on the shelf

Cons

• Warm, encouraging tone occasionally shades toward motivational rather than instructive
• The antidotes are sometimes familiar rather than novel; correct but not surprising
• Short chapter format sacrifices depth; topics are introduced more than explored
• Better suited to authors in or approaching the publication stage than to writers still in early drafting
• Penn’s self-publishing and entrepreneurial perspective is occasionally more relevant to indie authors than to traditional publishing writers

The verdict

The Successful Author Mindset fills a gap in the standard writing craft library that most writers don’t know exists until they fall into it. The craft books teach you to write. This one helps you survive having written. At arond ten bucks, it’s the most affordable item in our book reviews section and one of the most useful for writers who have moved past the question of how to produce work and into the more complicated question of how to keep going while producing it.

Get The Successful Author Mindset on Amazon →

Michael Semer is a writer and editor who recognized himself in approximately 80% of the chapters in this book and found the remaining 20% useful as advance warning.

→ More gear worth knowing about: Scribbright reviews writing tools, notebooks, keyboards, and desk essentials for writers who take the work seriously.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Successful Author Mindset? A handbook by Joanna Penn for the psychological side of a writing career. It covers self-doubt, imposter syndrome, fear of failure, perfectionism, writer’s block, comparisonitis, overwhelm, the anti-climax of publication, and the long-term question of how to define success as a writer. Each short chapter identifies a specific problem and offers a practical antidote. Penn is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling thriller author and founder of TheCreativePenn.com.

Who is The Successful Author Mindset for? Writers who are dealing with the career psychology of writing — the comparison spiral, the need for validation, the post-publication flatness, the fear that the last book was the last good idea — rather than writers who need help with craft mechanics. It’s most useful for writers who are approaching or past the publication stage. Early-stage writers still working on their first draft will find Bird by Bird more immediately relevant.

How does The Successful Author Mindset compare to Bird by Bird? Bird by Bird is the better-written book and covers the psychological experience of drafting and the writing process. The Successful Author Mindset is more specifically useful for the post-drafting phase: publication, career comparison, long-term sustainability. Both are reviewed on Scribbright. They cover different phases of the same problem.

What is comparisonitis? Penn’s term for the specific misery of comparing your own career, sales, or success to another writer’s visible markers. The condition is structurally inevitable on any platform where writers are visible to each other, and the chapter Penn devotes to it is one of the most practically useful in the book. The antidote — compare yourself to your past self, focus on the work, get offline — is familiar but correct.

Is The Successful Author Mindset useful for traditionally published writers? Yes, with the caveat that Penn’s perspective includes a significant self-publishing and entrepreneurial dimension that is more directly relevant to indie authors. The psychological material — self-doubt, validation, comparison, fear — applies for everyone. The specific career advice in the third section is more self-publishing oriented.

What is the companion workbook? A version of the book with additional questions and writing space so readers can engage actively with the material rather than reading passively. Available separately or as a bundle directly from Penn’s website. Suited to writers who prefer processing ideas in writing rather than reading alone.

Does The Successful Author Mindset cover writer’s block? Yes. Penn covers writer’s block as one of the psychological issues writers face, with practical suggestions for addressing it. The treatment is honest about the different forms writer’s block takes — fear, perfectionism, external pressure — rather than treating it as a single problem with a single solution.