In this week’s episode, we take a look at lessons indie authors can learn from the successes and failures of the Disney Corporation.
This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Ghost in the Ashes, Book #7 in The Ghosts series, (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store:
FALLASHES
The coupon code is valid through October 26, 2026. So if you need a new audiobook this fall, we’ve got you covered!
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates
Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 324 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is October 9th, 2026 and today I am discussing six things that indie writers can learn from the Disney Corporation, both good and bad. Before we get to that, we will have Coupon of the Week and a progress update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects.
This week’s coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Ghost in the Ashes, Book #7 in The Ghosts series (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store. That coupon code is FALLASHES. As always, you can get the coupon code and the link to my Payhip store in the show notes for this episode. That coupon code will be valid through October 26th, 2026, so if you need a new audiobook as we head into fall, we have got you covered.
Now let’s have an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. I am pleased to report the rough draft of Elven-Warlock is finished. That will be the seventh book in the Rivah Half-Elven Thief series. I’ve also finished the bonus story that I will release with it called Paladin and Commander. Newsletter subscribers will get a free ebook copy of Paladin and Commander when Elven-Warlock comes out. So I should mention this is an excellent time to subscribe to my new release newsletter since I give away free short stories quite a bit. If all goes well, I am hoping to have the book out before the end of the month. I am going to start editing immediately after I finish recording this episode, so hopefully that won’t take too long.
My next project once Elven-Warlock is finished will be Blade of Rifts, the seventh book in the Blades of Ruin epic fantasy series. I’m currently 10,000 words into that and I’m very much hoping to have that out before American Thanksgiving, which is at the end of November, but we will see how the rest of October and November go.
Quite a bit of audiobook news this week because it seems that ACX has sped up their quality assurance process. So Cloak of Summoning (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) is out and you can now get it at all the audiobook stores, I believe- Audible, Amazon, Apple, Google Play, Kobo, Chirp, Storytel, Spotify, the works. It’s 13 hours long, so it should be a good nice listen if you wanted to listen to it.
Also Ghost Armor Omnibus Two is now in audiobook as well. That is again narrated by Hollis McCarthy and that combines Ghost in the Assembly, Ghost in the Corruption, and Ghost in the Siege into one 37-hour audiobook bundle. So if you get it today, it should be able to tide you over for the week and you get that at Audible, Amazon, and Apple.
So that is where I’m at with my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects.
00:02:42 Main Topic: 6 Things Writers Can Learn From The Disney Corporation
So now let’s smoothly segue over to our main topic. Our main topic this week is six things writers can learn from the Disney Corporation. I have to admit, whenever someone mentions Disney to me, the first thing that pops into my mind is not Mickey Mouse, it’s not Disneyland, it’s not Marvel, it’s not cartoons. It’s a warning against the dangers of corporate consolidation. However, all that corporate consolidation means that Disney is the largest company in the theme park industry and one of the largest in the entertainment industry, which means there’s a lot to learn about the actions of the Disney Corporation, both good and bad, especially since they have gone through some public controversies in the 2020s.
Since writing is part of the entertainment industry, it’s wise to learn from the successes, struggles, and outright failures of a large organization like the Disney company and apply it to our own writing careers. So today I think we will talk about six specific things that writers can learn from the successes and the failures of the Disney Corporation.
#1: Be fair to the customer (or to put it more cynically, don’t nickel and dime the customer).
One of the things that Disney has gotten a lot of criticism for and negative publicity in the past few years for is the massive price increases to its theme parks and the Disney+ streaming service, which is at a time of, as we all know, economic turmoil when many people can’t afford extras like entertainment or travel. Doing it now is especially tone deaf. Many people feel like a Disney vacation is no longer attainable or they take on a frightening amount of debt to go to Disneyland. There is a recent online phenomenon of people going to thrift stores to stock up on physical copies of their favorite Disney movies and shows to avoid the cost of paying for streaming with recent Disney+ hikes/increases.
What can the indie author learn from this? Raising prices too quickly or citing prices beyond the industry standard will leave people to feel cheated. As a writer, you can make sure that your pricing is appropriate for your categories. You can also put your books into Kobo Plus or Kindle Unlimited to reach people who have a book subscription service, but don’t feel like they have extra money to buy books individually. You can also make it easier for people to sample your work by saying the first book in a series is permafree or at a discounted price.
For myself, for the last five years or so, the default price for my new ebook novels (so long as it’s novel length) has been $4.99. I started that with Dragonskull in 2021 and I’ve carried that on ever since and it’s worked out pretty well. I have at times contemplated raising the price of backlist stuff to $5.99. I noticed that if you publish on Kobo now, that’s their default suggested price for a novel is $5.99 USD. I want to resist doing that for as long as possible. I do have quite a few free or low cost entertainment options. Quite a few of my first books in the series are free. The second book is usually $0.99. So that’s like two entire novels you can get for $0.99 to decide if you want to read the rest of the series. Half-Elven Thief is in Kindle Unlimited, so if you have a Kindle Unlimited subscription, you can read that for the cost of your subscription.
All my books on Kobo are in Kobo Plus as well, so if you have a Kobo Plus subscription, you can make use of that. I know a lot of people do because something like three quarters of my Kobo revenue for the year comes from Kobo Plus and not direct book sales on the platform. I do regularly run sales to things such as Coupon of the Week (or BookBub when I can get it). It’s a good idea to try and make things as affordable for possible as for many people as possible, especially in this economic climate.
#2: Story over message (or if you want to send a message, use Western Union)
That quote is famously attributed to media executive Samuel Goldwyn, though it seems to have been misattributed to him and many other people have been quoted as saying it.
Disney and Pixar have been criticized in the past few years (especially in the 2020s) for movies that have often been called overly preachy or movies that come across as having a political agenda. Instead of adding to the endless Internet discourse on that topic, I want to share an excerpt from an interview with Christopher Nolan that might speak to the problem Disney is facing in some of their storytelling. The following quote has been attributed to Tom Schone’s book, The Nolan Variations.
The quote is:
“I’ve had conversations with friends of mine and they all ask about why I don’t make a film about the things I care about politically, and I always say, ‘Well, because it doesn’t work.’ You can’t use narrative to tell people what to think. It never works. People just react against it. You have to be purer about it. You have to be truer to the principles of narrative and telling a story, and that means risking misinterpretation. It doesn’t mean you don’t care about something, or that it doesn’t mean anything to you, but you have to be neutral or objective in your approach. You can’t tell people what to think, you can only invite them to feel something. I always think of the great moment in Gladiator, where he chops off his head and then turns to the audience and asks them, ‘Are you not entertained?’ Whatever it is, you’ve got to entertain.”
If you saw some of the discussion around The Odyssey this summer where people were endlessly arguing about what this moment or that moment in the movie actually means, you can see that he followed that principle pretty well. Given that The Odyssey made $1.7 billion dollars, there might be something to that. I think that’s a very good idea, especially in frankly, contentious political times where we live in like right now where if you make a political statement, it’s so easily misinterpreted.
If you look back through the past several decades and even less contentious times, the most successful entertainers generally kept their political opinions to themselves and then tried to create art that was open to listeners’ or the viewers’ or the readers’ interpretations.
One thing I have noticed among writers who tend to get very political on their social media and very political in their books is that they’re always shocked when they start getting attacked for it. Say if they come out in favor of a certain position or a certain politician or whatever, at first they’ll get a lot of claps from people who approve of that, but then they will get a lot of attacks from people who don’t approve of that. The thing to understand about being political on the Internet, especially on the Internet, is if you do that, there’s a significant number of people who will see you as a legitimate target to come after. So if you really want to be an entertainer, in this case, being an indie writer, it’s best to keep a lot of your opinions to yourself, especially on the Internet. There’s a time and place for activism. There’s a time and place to support what you believe in politically, but novels and your fiction is probably not the place to do it. As Christopher Nolan said, narrative is not the place to do it because if you tried to do that in narrative, you’re not doing narrative, you’re essentially making propaganda and no one likes propaganda.
# 3: Take the time to do it well.
One struggle that Disney often faces is rushed or completely unrealistic deadlines for finishing a movie. Frozen 2 and Moana 2 both particularly suffered from not having enough time to make necessary story revisions, resulting in movies that felt convoluted and lackluster compared to the first installments. During the earlier days of the Disney studio, it was common to cut up major parts of a movie that weren’t working or even give up entirely a movie that just wasn’t working. In the current days of merchandise manufacturing schedules and maximizing shareholder value, they’re no longer given that same freedom and the quality often suffers for it.
As indie writers, we don’t have to set strict deadlines and [can] take the time to make sure the stories get the time they need. If a series like my Caina books needs a creative rest, I have the freedom to do that instead of turning out sequels just for the sake of meeting deadlines and appeasing shareholders.
#4: It’s okay to tread on familiar ground.
One thing new writers struggle with is a self-induced pressure to create a completely new and innovative story and if they find a book that even slightly resembles their idea, they give up on frustration. In reality, originality isn’t as important as good execution. Ideas are easy, execution is hard. Disney built its empire around making movies and shows about fairytales and folk heroes. I mean to pick an example, the story of Aladdin likely originated sometime around a thousand years ago, if not earlier.
Disney built its empire in making movies and shows about fairytales and folk heroes. The stories were familiar ones, but people liked them anyway. It’s extremely difficult to correctly and legally borrow from copyrighted works, but there are things well outside of copyright that help give structure to your story. Fairytale and classic retellings remain popular, but I personally like to use real events in history for my work because history can’t be copyrighted, especially ancient history. To learn more about how I do that, be sure to check out Episode 313 of this podcast.
#5: A happy ending isn’t weak.
There was a trend for a long while of popular culture being dominated by anti-heroes who needed to be punished with an unhappy ending such as in Breaking Bad. Happy endings are seen by some as weak or uninteresting. Disney has made happy endings in stories central to its movies. One of the theme park nightly fireworks shows is literally called Happily Ever After. People respond strongly to the happy endings. In a world that very frequently feels troubled or morally confused, the certainty of things going right in fiction has begun to feel fresh again for many. People turn to Disney stories for comfort for that reason.
In terms of writing, I would argue that it’s more important to have a satisfying ending than one that is perfectly happy every single time. Maybe a beloved character dies, maybe a battle in the middle of the series is lost and that has major negative consequences. Things don’t need to end in a perfect way, but they do need to end in a way that acknowledges the journey of its protagonist and feels right to the reader. I talk about this more in Episodes 165 and 193 of this podcast if you want to hear more.
#6: Keep your most loyal fans engaged.
One thing Disney excels at is keeping the attention and excitement of its Disney Adults, a core group of passionate Disney fans. Hardly a day goes by without the release of a new limited edition pin or themed cupcake for their fans to discuss online. It’s basically an expectation at this point that a new multimillion dollar ride will open each year at one of the theme parks.
While people rightly complain about the cost of a Disney vacation, its most passionate fans are actually increasing spending at the parks and on merchandise. Disney focuses on them because even if the group is smaller than families who visited the parks a few times, they’re far more profitable than the occasional visitor. These super fans also help to build excitement for the brand with people who don’t keep up with the latest Disney happenings, but see one of their social media posts or know them in real life.
What can we learn about this as writers? Well, the first negative lesson to learn is don’t nickel and dime people. However, the main lesson is it’s a good idea to focus on staying engaged with our most loyal fans. The most common ways to do this are through social media, newsletters, and podcasts. Give people progress updates and snippets of works in progress to get them excited about upcoming books, share cover art when it’s available, and share samples from the audiobooks.
I think overall the best thing to do is to try and provide value in the form of entertainment whenever possible, whether that’s keeping your novels at a reasonable price or having interesting social media content that hopefully leads people to your novels (which are available at a reasonable price).
Your work will most likely never be turned into a theme park ride, television show, or action figure set. To be honest, if it is, congratulations, you are far beyond the scope of advice on this show. Nevertheless, it’s important to learn from a company as successful and influential as Disney and from their failures as well. Their success is not an accident and continued passion for their content and locations (even in the wake of criticism and controversies) is very often the result of some smart business choices that we can learn from. So that’s it for this week.
Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the backup episodes on https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and we’ll see you all next week.
-JM
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