Season 7: Episode 79: Toni Jordan

Mar 30, 2026

47:15

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Episode notes

Irma and Karen talk about how different platforms – Instagram, Facebook, X, Substack and author websites – help sell books (or don’t!)

Then Karen chats to Toni Jordan about how to successfully inject serious subjects with humour, the book to film process of Addition, why she structures her life to the nth degree but with writing is completely unstructured, how to approach writing as a business and why networking should be reframed, why being a skilled public speaker is important as a writer, how she has managed to make a living as a writer, the painful experience of having a book that didn’t sell well, and how that then led to her greatest career high.

About Toni

Toni Jordan is an award-winning, internationally best-selling author of 8 novels. Her debut novel Addition was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award and has recently been made into a film. Her novel Nine Days was awarded Best Fiction at the 2012 Indie Awards, and Our Tiny, Useless Hearts was longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award. Toni is a physiologist who has also completed a PhD in creative writing and she lives in Melbourne.

Show Notes

'Social Media is Dead – Old School Marketing Tactics for Creatives' by Creative Plus Business

‘Millions of Followers? For Book Sales, it’s Unreliable’ on the New York Times

‘If you get a million views on a social media post, how many books will you sell?’ on Nicola Washington’s substack post about a viral Tweet about a book event that no one showed up to.