Can you really make a living from writing. What changes when you start treating your books as a business? In this episode of Talking Tech with Creatives, I talk with award-winning crime author and indie publisher Biba Pearce about the business behind a writing career. Biba writes across crime, thriller and romance, publishes through traditional and independent routes, and runs her own imprint, Mortlake Press. She shares how she moved from experimenting with self-publishing to building multiple series, working with publishers including Joffe Books and Liquid Mind Media, and developing a publishing model designed to generate long-term income. We talk about writing five or six books a year, building a backlist, Kindle Unlimited, rapid release, advertising, translations and international markets — as well as the growing role of AI. Biba also explains how she uses technology and AI within her publishing business while protecting the part she considers uniquely human: her authorial voice. We explore: • how Biba moved from a technology career into full-time authorship • traditional, independent and hybrid publishing • why backlist and read-through matter • whether authors can genuinely make money from books • KDP, Kindle Unlimited and international publishing • AI-assisted translation and audiobook possibilities • what happens to editors, designers and narrators as AI develops • why human voice may become even more valuable • using AI for research, analysis and publishing workflows • GEO and how AI is changing online search • how writers can prepare for a publishing industry that is changing fast This is a wide-ranging conversation about creativity, technology, publishing and what it takes to build a sustainable career around your work. Find Biba Pearce via her website and social channels. Website: https://bibapearce.com/ Instagram: @author_bibapearce Facebook: @authorbibapearce TikTok: @authorbibapearce Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bibapearce Subscribe to Talking Tech with Creatives for conversations about how technology is changing the way creative people work, build and create. Stella Oni — Author | Speaker | Lecturer | Podcast Host 🌐 Website: StellaOni.com 🎤 Speaking: Speaking engagements 💼 LinkedIn: [Stella Oni on LinkedIn] 📸 Instagram: [@stellaoni_official] 🎵 TikTok: [@stellaoni_official] X: [@soni_official2] TRANSCRIPT STELLA: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech with Creatives, a podcast where we talk about creativity, technology, culture and all the different ways technology connects with creative work. Thank you so much for listening consistently. Every time I post, you listen, and I really appreciate that. If you’ve been listening regularly, or if you’re new, remember to subscribe wherever you’re listening or watching. I have an exciting conversation for you today, especially for authors. My guest is Biba Pearce, and she is a powerhouse when it comes to writing, publishing and the business of being an author. I’ve wanted to have her on the podcast for a long time, and we’ve finally made it. Biba, welcome to Talking Tech with Creatives. BIBA: Thank you so much for having me on, Stella. It’s a pleasure to be here. STELLA: I’m so happy we finally got you here. For those listening, this is going to be particularly interesting if you’re a writer or author and you want to understand the business of publishing, marketing and building a sustainable career. Biba, I want people to know a little bit about your background first. Give us your origin story. How did you start? BIBA: I started like most writers, I think, reading everything I could get my hands on as a child. I loved genre fiction right from the beginning: romance, crime and fantasy. When I grew up, I did a couple of writing courses, and it was during those courses that I realised I loved the process and that writing was something I wanted to do one day. It took a while to get to that point, but I kept learning, writing, practising, doing courses and building my craft. Eventually, when COVID hit and I wasn’t working anymore, I was able to concentrate full-time on being an author. That was when I really got my opportunity. STELLA: Fantastic. I’m going to dig a little deeper. I detect an accent, so let’s start there. You’re South African. You write across thrillers, crime thriller series and romance, so you have quite a broad spectrum of experience. That doesn’t come from nowhere. What were your influences growing up? BIBA: I think growing up in Africa is a very particular experience. There are a lot of contradictions. Things are rarely black and white. There are positives and negatives. It’s stunningly beautiful. It’s wild. It can be dangerous. All those things have influenced my subconscious over the years, and I think they come out in my writing. I’ve also travelled a lot. South Africa is quite far away from the rest of the world, so when we travel, we tend to travel quite far. I’ve always had a curiosity about the rest of the world. When I travel, I observe, learn and take notes, and everything I’ve seen or experienced over the years somehow filters into the writing process. I’m sure that’s the same for a lot of writers. Your experiences shape the writer you become. When I started writing, South Africa wasn’t as advanced in publishing as it is now. Self-publishing wasn’t really a thing. Agents were few and far between. We didn’t have access to the courses, information and resources that we have today. I felt quite limited in what I could do. It was only when I moved to London in my twenties that that world really opened up to me. Suddenly I had access to more information, courses and knowledge, and I was able to travel more too. STELLA: When you were growing up, did you know you wanted to write? Were you good at literature and English? Where did it begin for you? BIBA: English was probably my strongest subject at school, which is no surprise now. I loved it, and I think that was the difference. I actually enjoyed it more than my other school subjects. But I didn’t know then that I wanted to be a writer because, growing up, it wasn’t really a career option we thought about. I was more concerned with getting a proper job, making money and then raising my child. Writing wasn’t really on my radar as a career until I got older and realised that I was spending a lot of time outside my other jobs writing. Gradually, I was trying to write more and work less. I was prepared to make that sacrifice and take the financial cut because that was where my passion lay, but I wasn’t ready to give up working completely because I still had to support myself. It was really only when COVID hit, and I had already self-published a couple of novels, that I made the switch to full-time writing. By then, I had been following a lot of indie authors online who were doing it for themselves because Kindle had become established. There were groups appearing on social media where you could learn from other authors. I was seeing all these people making it work and thought, if they can do it, what’s stopping me? I used to work in tech. I had good knowledge of websites and platforms, so I realised I had a skill set I could transfer into publishing, particularly indie publishing. I started doing more and more of that until eventually I made it my full-time job. STELLA: You said you had already self-published some books. Did you try traditional publishing first, or did you intentionally decide to self-publish? BIBA: When Kindle came out and the first indie authors started appearing, I decided to experiment. I had written a romantic suspense novel. It probably wasn’t very good, but I thought, let me see if I can get it onto KDP, the Kindle Direct Publishing platform. I wanted to understand the process and learn how the product page worked. I managed to publish it. It didn’t do much, to be honest, but I didn’t really know what I was doing at that point. I wasn’t aware of promotion, advertising, networking or community. It was simply an experiment, but the important thing was that I did it and learnt from the process. A couple of years later, when I had another book, I approached it more seriously and more effectively. It was a slow process, but while I was still working full-time, I continued learning on the side. So by the time lockdown came around, I felt ready. I felt I had enough knowledge to do it properly. STELLA: What year did you first self-publish? BIBA: A long time ago! It must have been around 2006. STELLA: The reason I ask is because I follow Joanna Penn, The Creative Penn, and groups like 20BooksTo50K. Everybody thinks differently, but you made the decision that this could eventually replace your full-time job. How did you make that transition? BIBA: It was because I was seeing other people do it. In groups like 20BooksTo50K, there were people making five or six figures a year. Some were making that in a month. Some had fewer books than I had written. Some were earlier in their journey than I was. Some had fewer technological skills than I had. So I think there was a little bit of FOMO. I was sitting in a day job that I didn’t want to be in, browsing these groups and thinking, what are these people doing that I’m not doing? How are they getting this right? I started paying very close attention. At the end of the day, I think it came down to self-belief. You reach a point where you think, there’s nothing stopping me from doing this. I have the skills. I just need to do it. STELLA: I’m quite cautious by nature, so I’m interested in when you knew you could really do it successfully. You were also able to write quickly and produce books consistently. There was a period when rapid release was talked about a lot. Authors would write several books a
