Affiliate Marketing

How The Inventive Penn Grew to become a Million-Greenback Self-Publishing and Running a blog Enterprise


The Inventive Penn is a web site about writing and creativity. It was based by Joanna Penn in 2008, and has since change into a go-to useful resource for writers of all ranges. 

The positioning options articles on every thing from the way to get revealed to the way to overcome inventive blocks, in addition to interviews with profitable authors and business professionals.

As we speak, Joanna generates round one third of her revenue from her writing enterprise and the remaining from inventive writing instruction and running a blog. 

She began writing in 2006 and stop her company job to commit her time to writing in 2011. Now, she even employs her husband full-time to assist her handle her rising writing empire.

The positioning has over 1000+ articles and over 500+ hours of free audio and video, in addition to further downloads and bonus materials!

Let’s take a deeper look into how The Inventive Penn web site helps a multi-million-dollar self-publishing success story.

How The Inventive Penn Will get Its Visitors

The web site seems to be attracting 114k month-to-month visits. 

creative penn traffic

In response to SimilarWeb, nearly 60% of its visitors comes from natural search, with nearly all of the remaining being direct.

Creative penn traffic sources

What’s attention-grabbing about this overview is how little visitors the location will get from social media. 

creative penn social traffic

Delving deeper into the social media visitors reveals that just about 43% is from YouTube, the place The Inventive Penn channel has 47.1k subscribers. 

A lot of the 800+ movies are recordings of the weekly podcast, together with some writing tutorials.

What Kinds of Key phrases Does The Inventive Penn Goal?

The Inventive Penn web site is wanting fairly stable, however what does it take to remain secure from Google penalties? 

creative penn summary

Out of all of the key phrases, over two-thirds have informational intent. That is a great signal that the location is not only a dumping floor for cash pages masquerading as informative articles. 

There’s sufficient invaluable content material right here to maintain issues balanced and provides readers what they’re searching for. So, so long as The Inventive Penn retains up this good work, they need to be secure from any future penalties. 

creative penn top pages

That stated, among the prime performing pages on the location comprise affiliate hyperlinks. The highest performing web page after the house web page is an article about e book cowl design.

How Their ‘Cash Pages’ Look

While it is true that you simply should not choose a e book by its cowl, there is not any denying that a gorgeous cowl could be the distinction between a reader giving your e book an opportunity or passing it over altogether. 

That is NOT a process it’s best to belief to your 15-year-old nephew who’s taking an artwork class in highschool! 

cretive penn book design page 1

After a number of paragraphs encouraging you to spend money on knowledgeable e book cowl design if you wish to give your work the most effective likelihood of success, this text lists over 80 assets for e book cowl design, a lot of that are affiliate hyperlinks.

cretive penn book design page 2

Joanna lists e book cowl designers she has used personally, now and previously, in addition to those that work for fellow writers, and among the designers supply low cost codes.

Joanna’s non-fiction books for writers have lengthy been integral in funneling guests to the programs class web page, which is the third highest-performing web page on the web site. 

Her writing programs are nicely regarded throughout the business, offering writers with the instruments they should enhance their craft. 



creative penn courses

Because of this, the programs class web page is a vital a part of the web site, showcasing Joanna’s experience and serving to writers to enhance their abilities. 

Through the use of Teachable as her most well-liked platform for internet hosting her programs, Joanna may give college students a fantastic person expertise and enhance the chance they will buy once more. 

What’s Their Hyperlink Profile Like?

Joanna’s web site is doing fairly nicely, attracting hyperlinks from excessive authority web sites comparable to The Guardian, Wikipedia and the BBC.

It is doubtless that the helpful content material ‌drew these hyperlinks in, however Joanna’s lively presence as a podcast visitor most likely did not harm both. 

creative penn backlinks

It is clear that the location has been profitable in producing hyperlinks – whether or not by pure means or by lively outreach. Both method, it is clear that the location is doing one thing proper.

Sustain the nice work, Joanna!

What Does The Website Do Effectively?

The Inventive Penn is a clear, skilled wanting web site with clear navigation and simple to search out data. Joanna Penn has a background in advertising and it exhibits. The colour scheme is agreeable to the attention, and the navigation is straightforward to grasp. 

First impressions are every thing, particularly on the web. Which is why it is necessary to ensure your homepage is as much as snuff. And in terms of sign-ups, there is not any room for error. 

The signal as much as her mailing record is obvious, concise, and simple to search out. It is slightly below the fold on the house web page, so guests will not should scroll down to search out it.

She’s received a fantastic lead magnet to supply – and the buttons are crystal clear. 

creative penn lead magnet

The e-mail join can also be featured within the footer and the sidebar. So far as mailing record platforms go, she’s utilizing ConvertKit. So you understand your data will likely be in good fingers.

How Does The Inventive Penn Make Its Cash?

There are not any adverts on the location, in order that’s not the income. As a substitute, it seems to depend on affiliate hyperlinks for services that Joanna makes use of and recommends, comparable to writing software program, e book cowl design and modifying providers, and different assets. 

Along with affiliate revenue, The Inventive Penn additionally sells Joanna’s merchandise. These embrace e-books, audio books, and on-line programs. 

So How A lot Cash Does The Inventive Penn Make?

It is necessary to recollect The Inventive Penn is a part of an even bigger ecosystem. In 2021, Joanna Penn’s e book gross sales income was just a bit over six figures in GBP, however solely makes up round 1/3 of her firm revenue.

Her different streams (affiliate revenue, programs, podcast sponsorship and patronage) are pushed by The Inventive Penn web site and her podcast, so we are able to assume that she’s producing upwards of $200K per yr as soon as the e book gross sales are taken out of the equation.

And SimilarWeb estimates an annual income between $1-5 million!

What Can We Study From The Inventive Penn Web site?

The Inventive Penn is a good instance of how a well-run web site can help a million-dollar creator entrepreneur enterprise. 

The web site will get nearly all of its visitors from natural search, and its prime key phrases reveal it’s a go-to useful resource for writers of all ranges.

What’s much more spectacular is that she’s constructed all of this whereas being based mostly within the UK, the place the price of dwelling is notoriously excessive. 

So, in the event you would like to self publish a e book however really feel like your desires are out of attain, do not forget that Joanna Penn is proof that something is feasible.