Write the Damn Book Already
Want to write, publish, and market your book, but feel overwhelmed by where to start?Write the Damn Book Already breaks down the writing process, self-publishing, and traditional publishing so you can move from idea to finished book with clarity and confidence.Hosted by Elizabeth Lyons—author, book writing coach, book editor, and self-publishing expert—this show untangles the often-confusing world of writing and publishing. From first draft to finished manuscript, indie publishing to traditional publishing, Amazon strategy to long-term book visibility, you’ll get practical guidance and honest conversations about what it really takes to get a book into the wo...
Ep 190: Novel Writing for People Who Hate Self-Promo (with Anna Dorn)
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Anna Dorn’s debut novel, Vagablonde, came out in May 2020, which was a spectacular moment to launch a book (hear the sarcasm). Her tour was obviously cancelled, which she was fine with since she prefers doing things online anyway.
The paperback version came out October 6, 2026 from Simon & Schuster—six years later, which is not the typical order of operations and also a decent reminder that even traditional publishing doesn’t always follow the script people assume it does.
The main character, Prue, is a 30-y...
Ep 189: 120 Rejections and Two Agents Later | Jane Bitomsky on Her Debut, Death by Misadventure
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Jane Bitomsky’s debut novel, Death by Misadventure, came out October 1, 2026 from Lake Union. It opens in the 1500s with a naked dead man found under a waterwheel, missing a certain piece of his anatomy, and a coroner who has to work out whether it was an accident or something considerably worse.
Jane has a PhD in early modern English history. Her dissertation covered pregnancy and crime, which means part of it dealt with women pleading their bellies to delay execution. She assumed that background me...
Ep 188: Forget About 30 Under 30 (with Beth Weinhouse and David Galef)
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I have a complicated relationship with 30 Under 30 lists. I'm genuinely happy for everyone on them, and I'm also in my fifties and have not done most of those things, so there's a part of me that reads those lists and feels like I missed the boat and the train.
Turns out, David Galef and Beth Weinhouse had the same reaction back in their late thirties when they saw an anthology titled 30 Under 30. So they created 20 Over 40 instead, and when the call went out, writers wrote i...
Ep 187: A Former Random House Editor on Why She Stopped Checking Her Own Sales (with Anna Pitoniak)
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Anna Pitoniak spent years as a senior editor at Random House, wrote her first two novels in the hours before and after work, and has now published five books of her own. Her newest, The Swiss Agent, comes out December 1, 2026 from Simon & Schuster. It showed up on my doorstep and I got unreasonably excited, because I am fully in my espionage era right now.
Anna is one of the few authors I've spoken with who has sat on both sides of this business at the...
Ep 186: Cassie Miller on Marketing, Publicity, and Meet Me on Mistletoe Lane
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She's back! Cassie Miller joined me last spring to talk about her debut, Meet Me Under the Lights, and now she's here with book two, Meet Me on Mistletoe Lane, out October 6, 2026 from Penguin Teen. I somehow have three copies, one of which is the finished edition with glitter on the cover. Cassie, the actual author, has not yet seen the glitter. I felt terrible about this for almost a full minute.
This time we talked marketing, because I've been in a lot of marketing...
Ep 185: Kim Purcell on Writing a Novel in 100 Days
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After writing 6 nonfiction books, I'm working on my first novel, which everyone who listens to this show is painfully aware of by now. So when Kim Purcell reached out about her new book, Write a Novel in 100 Days, the timing felt less like coincidence and more like the universe smacking me on the head.
Kim is the author of Trafficked and This Is Not a Love Letter; she has an MFA; she's been teaching novel writing to kids, teens, and adults for about as long a...
Ep 184: How a Weekly Substack Post Turned Into a Book Deal, with Katie Clapham
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Katie Clapham didn't set out to build an author platform. (Anyone else tired of that word?) She had a week where she had nothing ready to publish, she was working her usual shift at the bookshop she runs with her mom, and she opened a draft and started writing down the day as it happened. She called it Receipt from the Bookshop, numbered it one on the off chance she'd do it again, and sent it to a couple hundred subscribers at the end of her shift.<...
Ep 183: Developmental Editing, Beta Readers, and Knowing When Your Book Is Actually Ready (with Allison Buehner)
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I have been quietly fangirling over Allison Buehner's editing tips on Instagram for months. I have so many of them saved that at this point she deserves her own folder. So I finally asked her to come on the show, and then discovered we had already sort of met years ago, when she emailed me to suggest I talk to another editor she admired. No pitch. Nothing in her it for herself. In twenty years of doing this, nobody had ever done that, and I've thought highly...
Ep 182: Laurie Notaro on Living Book to Book
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Laurie Notaro has hit the New York Times bestseller list more times than she can pin down. She's also written so many books she can't tell you the number without checking. And she drives a 2008 Mini Cooper, lives in a 1,500 square foot house, and has earned out on exactly one of those books. If you've ever wondered what a long career in publishing actually looks like from the inside, start here.
We talk about I've Got a New Complaint, her new essay collection out September 8...
Ep 181: Joyce Maynard on Storytelling, Permission, and Who Gets to Tell the Truth
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Joyce Maynard has been publishing books for fifty-three years. In Wonderland is her fourteenth novel, and it came out eight days before we recorded this. She still does not outline. She sits down knowing exactly who her characters are, what they want, what they're afraid of, what they can't stop thinking about, and then she lets them take her somewhere she didn't plan on going.
We talked about the year she rented a little house on the shores of Lake Atitlán, and then bought a...
Ep 180: What First-Time Authors Need to Hear Before Querying an Agent (with Eli McCann)
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Eli McCann never planned to write a novel. He wrote one chapter kind of, maybe, to prove to himself he couldn't. But when he handed it to his husband, who both laughed and cried reading it, his curiosity and determination grew.
That chapter became Stitched, his debut novel about competitive quilting, unlikely friendships, and found family. The story of how it got published is required listening for any first-time author who's ever been told to change their book to make it more marketable.
...
Ep 179: Meg Mitchell Moore on Messy First Drafts and Why Nobody Has Publishing Figured Out
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Ten books in, Meg Mitchell Moore still doesn't know what her plot is going to be when she starts writing.
Meg Mitchell Moore has published ten novels. And she still starts most of them with no idea what's going to happen. No outline, no plot, sometimes not even a reason her characters are in the room together. She figures it out as she goes, often with her agent's or editor's help.
If that sounds like it shouldn't w...
Ep 178: What If You Already Found Yourself? Angela Brown on Fiction, Fear, and Saying No
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This episode quickly got personal because I'm elbow-deep in my first novel after six nonfiction books, and Angela Brown writes the kind of fiction that makes one feel quite seen.
Angela is the author of Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time, Some Other Time, and her newest, Ways to Find Yourself. And I will fully admit I read the prologue the night before we recorded and had a moment. Not a cute moment. A "why am I like t...
Ep 177: There Are No Rules (Except the Oxford Comma) -- with Eric Garcia
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TV writer, screenwriter, and author Eric Garcia has published six books (so far). He sold three of them to Hollywood and somehow still managed to write his latest novel entirely by accident. He set out to write a short story. Then it got longer. Then it was a novella. Then it was 80,000 words and he had to admit he'd written a whole book, mostly at night, while still juggling film and TV work.
We also talk about what's changed in publishing since his Random House da...
Ep 176: How to Publish A Children's Book with Erin Thorburn
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In this episode, I chat with children's book author and illustrator Erin Thorburn. (She also happens to be my best friend.) We wax not so poetic on book writing, publishing, marketing children's books (her lane, not mine), and navigating the creative industry with humor and properly set expectations.
CONVERSATION HIGHLIGHTS:
Challenges of publishing (and marketing) children's booksMarketing strategies for authorsThe myths (and, of course, truths) of our experiences building both confidence and communityHow to navigate industry egos and rejection without making it m...Ep 175: How Consistency Fuels Creativity (with Nadia Hashimi)
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Nadia Hashimi's newest novel (her seventh published book), City of Widows (William Morrow), releases in July 2026.
She's already published four books for adults: The Pearl that Broke Its Shell (which is an international bestseller), When the Moon in Low, A House Without Windows, and Sparks Like Stars, as well as two middle grade novels, One Half from the East and The Sky at Our Feet.
Our conversation was both fascinating and enlightening as we talked about Afghan culture, the importance of discipline in cr...
Ep 174: Writing Compelling Stories with Ann Garvin
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In this episode, Ann Garvin (who will release her 7th novel, Tell Two Friends, in September 2026 with Lake Union) discloses the often messy, unglamorous truth of how a story actually starts. For her, that's usually as some tiny thing Ann can't stop thinking about, long before it has a plot or even characters attached to it.
We talk about how to take that one nagging "kernel" of fascination and slowly build a book around it, and why your characters' flaws are usually what make readers c...
Ep 173: Publishing Hot Takes with Jordan Roter
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The woman. The myth. The legend: Jordan Roter.
She's a TV writer, screenwriter, author, and one of the funniest and most genuine people I know. I truly could talk to her for days (and I'd like to, as it would preclude the need any sort of formal abdominal workout).
Her novel, Moms Like Us (2025, Little A), was recently optioned for the screen, and she's back to give her hot takes on:
Midlife transitions (welcome, all my fellow perimenopause travelers!)Self-publishing versus traditional pu...Ep 172: Writing Memoir When Your Memories Have Disappeared (with Cinelle Barnes)
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In this heartfelt interview, author Cinelle Barnes shares her journey through writing A Way Home (Little A, June 9, 2026), a heart-wrenching memoir about remembering and rebuilding a life after everything known disappears in a flash.
Her latest memoir takes us alone with her as she recovers from a sudden ruptured brain aneurysm. But her journey was far more than physical. It's the healing of soul, of body, of identity. It's a woman/mother/daughter/immigrant/writer redrawing the map of herself. The mere existence of this b...
Ep 171: From YA to Adult: Liz Lawson's Publishing Journey
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In this episode, Elizabeth Lyons and Liz Lawson discuss Liz's journey from YA to adult fiction (It Happened One Murder, July 2026), the realities of book launches, and insights into the publishing industry. She shares personal experiences, misconceptions about launch days, and the evolving landscape of genre categories.
TOPICS INCLUDE:
- Transitioning from YA to Adult Fiction
- Understanding Reader Expectations
- The Differences in Writing YA vs. Adult
- Navigating Genre and Audience
- The Evolution of...
Ep 170: Mastering the Art of Outlining with Joan F. Smith
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In this episode, Joan F. Smith, author of Your Soulmail is Attached (her debut adult novel), shares her journey through the publishing world, her writing process, and insights into navigating multiple editors, genres, and the realities of a writing career.
TOPICS COVERED
Writing process and outlining techniquesNavigating multiple editors and genre shiftsBalancing income and writing careerHandling feedback and critique partnersPublishing industry insights and author experiences🧭 BACK COVER BLUEPRINT
Get back cover templates for nonfiction, memoir, and ficti...
Ep 169: From Short Stories to a Debut Novel (with Louise Marburg)
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Louise Marburg has spent years devoted to the short story form. So naturally, she accidentally wrote a novel. Her debut, Fancy Meeting You, features Laura Harrigan: a psychiatrist, mother of twin boys, and pathological liar who apparently had too much personality to stay confined to a short story. Louise and I talked about what it was like to finally write a character she didn't want to let go of, and why she'd actually consider a sequel (which, she says, she'd never say about anything else she's written).<...
Ep 168: How Reality TV Inspired a Debut Novel (with Amy Mass)
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If you've ever thought "I could write a book about this" while watching a reality TV show at 10pm, you're going to love this episode!
Amy Mass spent years writing for TV (you might recognize "The Goldbergs" and "Last Man Standing" from her credits), and after relocating from LA to a charming small town outside Atlanta during COVID, she channeled all of that storytelling experience into her debut novel, Reality Bites, out May 12, 2026 from Harper Perennial.
In this episode, Amy and I talk a...
Ep 167: Self-Publishing Surprises with Allie Hill
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Most authors don’t realize that publishing isn’t just about writing a book. Before long, it often becomes a full-on entrepreneurial rollercoaster.
In this episode, I talk with Allie Hill, author of the Girlfriend's Guide to Empty Nesting, about what really happens after you hit "publish." She reveals what surprised her, what flopped, and what secretly skyrocketed her confidence.
This episode is perfect for first-time authors, seasoned writers, or anyone curious about the gritty truth behind that glossy book cover.
(And ju...
Ep 166: Writing the Book That Scares You a Little (with Rachel Beanland)
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Rachel Beanland has written three novels (her newest, The Half Life, releases on July 14, 2026 from Simon & Schuster), and she's still surprised by how much each book teaches her.
In this episode, we talk about what it actually looks like to challenge yourself as a writer—specifically, her decision to write her latest novel, The Half-Life, in first person for the first time.
(As I've recently learned while working on my own novel, it's harder than it sounds, and Rachel has the perfect explanation as t...
Ep 165: How to Write a Memoir That Actually Lands With Rachel Weaver
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Rachel Weaver wrote her memoir Dizzy at a seven-day writing residency in Wyoming where she was, by her own description, "the depressed one in the corner the whole time." The (ultimate) result? A beautifully structured, deeply honest book about chronic illness, power dynamics, and what it takes to keep living the life you want even when your body has other plans.
In this conversation, we dig into the craft and business of writing memoir. Rachel talks about why she swore she'd never write one, what...
Ep 164: Why Your Manuscript Stalls (and What Actually Helps)
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If your book has been sitting in a half-finished state for longer than you'd like to admit, this episode is for you.
I'm in the middle of writing my seventh book — my first real attempt at fiction — and I'm not even going to pretend it's going smoothly. In this episode, I talk about what keeps stalling the manuscript, what finally got me moving again, and what happened when I locked herself in a hotel room for a weekend to try to power through it (the pool...
Ep 163: The Truth About Traditional Publishing Nobody Tells First-Time Authors
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Lori is a traditionally published author of seven books whose latest novel, Kiss, Marry, Kill, releases April 7th with HarperCollins. Last time she was on the show, we talked about her novel, Romantic Friction. This time? We get into the business of publishing — the stuff most authors don't hear about until they're already in the thick of it.
Plus, what Lori does (and questions) when it comes to her own marketing hustle, and why she goes all in every launch season even when she's not su...
Ep 162: From Academic to Fiction Author with Jennifer Brown
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Ever wonder what happens when an academic specializing in medieval women’s visions suddenly writes her first novel?
In this episode, Jennifer Brown shares her unexpected leap from dusty manuscripts to publishing with St. Martin’s Press and how a canceled conference sparked her fiction journey—without a soul telling her she should.
In this episode:
How Jennifer’s fascination with medieval women and their visions inspired her novel, The Lost Book of Elizabeth BartonThe serendipitous week in London that kickstart...Ep 161: How to Avoid Getting Banned on Amazon: 5 Essential Tips for Indie Authors
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Many indie authors lose sleep over the idea of getting banned on Amazon. Honestly? That fear makes sense. It's not possible to guarantee that your account would be suspended or deactivated, but if it is, there are steps you can take to rectify the situation.
In this episode, I'm breaking down what actually causes account suspensions (things you can absolutely control), the tactics some authors use to game visibility that end up backfiring spectacularly, and what to do if you find yourself on the wrong...
Ep 160: The Hidden Struggles of TV and Book Success with Liz Astrof
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Creative careers look glamorous from the outside. The inside is usually…a little messier.
In episode 160, I sit down with Liz Astrof, TV writer ("Stumble," "King of Queens," "Pivoting," etc.) and author of Stay-At-Work Mom, to talk about the real mechanics of building a career in entertainment and publishing. Not the highlight reel. The actual process.
Liz shares what it’s like to write for television while also stepping into the world of books. Different mediums. Different pressures. Same core truth: Good...
Ep 159: Start at the End with Emma Grey
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In this episode, I’m joined by Emma Grey, whose newest novel, Start at the End, publishes on April 7, 2026. We talk about writing brave stories and building a creative life that can withstand rejection.
Emma shares how vulnerability fuels her fiction. Not for shock value, but how honest emotions earn their place on the page. We talk about how she approaches structure, how she stays grounded in character, and why the process of storytelling keeps evolving right alongside the writer.
We al...
Ep 158: Inside Alexandra Potter's Writing Process
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In this episode, I’m joined by U.K.-based bestselling author Alexandra Potter, known for Confessions of a Forty-Something F**k-Up and her newest release, So, I Met This Guy... We talk about her writing journey, the freedom (and risk) of genre versatility, and why she refuses to be boxed in (as should you!).
Alexandra shares how she develops characters with depth and momentum. A friend calls her the “cork board queen,” and once you hear her plotting process, you’ll understand why.
Ep 157: The Challenge of Anonymity in Memoir Writing
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Can you write a memoir without putting your name on it?
In this episode, I tackle two of the most common questions I hear from aspiring memoirists: Can I stay anonymous? and What makes a book successful?
I break down why selling a memoir without a personal identity attached is tough. Readers connect to people, not just stories. And when the story is personal, anonymity adds a level of friction you can’t ignore.
I also share why the best memoirs oft...
Ep 156: New Ebook Strategies for Indie Authors (2026)
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It's critical to understand the dynamics of book distribution, the advantages of ebooks, and strategies for increasing sales, especially as an indie author. So in this conversation, I discuss recent updates in the self-publishing world, focusing on distribution platforms for authors, particularly the new option for ebook distribution through Bookshop.org.
The conversation also touches on the challenges indie authors face in getting their books into physical bookstores and how I suggest indie authors best utilize various distribution platforms for maximum effectiveness.
R...
Ep 155: A Lawyer's Flawed Characters Challenge the Idea of "Happily Ever After" (with Sarah Vacchiano)
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Sarah Vacchiano’s journey from querying 100 agents to publishing with one of the industry’s top houses is a story of patience, "luck," and the power of building genuine relationships.
In this episode, Sarah shares the behind-the-scenes details of her publishing journey, including how a chance reconnection with an editor led to her debut novel’s acquisition and publication. You'll discover how her strategic persistence, timing, and a bit of serendipity turned a decade-long work into a real-life success story that defies typical timelines.
We b...
Ep 154: Cassie Miller's Path to "Meet Me Under the Lights" (YA Contemporary Romance)
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An elementary school librarian by day. A writer by night (and other spare moments). Somewhere in between, a whole book got written.
In episode 154, I’m joined by Cassie Miller, author of the upcoming young adult contemporary sports romance Meet Me Under the Lights (Viking, March 2026). We talk about how she balanced teaching, writing, and real life long enough to finish a novel—and then had the courage to send it into the traditional publishing world.
Cassie walks through her querying expe...
Ep 153: Authors: Overcoming the Fear of Failure
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Fear of failure shows up early for most authors. And despite what you may think, it doesn’t magically disappear once you’re published.
In this episode, I get honest about how fear, rejection, and unmet expectations quietly shape the writing process, especially in nonfiction and memoir. Drawing from years of editing experience (and my own hard-earned lessons), I break down why failure so often feels personal—and why that belief keeps writers stuck.
This conversation reframes failure as one thing: information. I'll challe...
Ep 152: Building Your Author Email List
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In this episode, I discuss the significance of context in the author space, emphasizing the need for transparency in marketing. I also talk about that dreaded task: building an author email list.
EPISODE CHAPTERS
01:37 - The Power of Quiet Reflection
04:09 - When Navigating the Author Space: Context Matters
10:02 - Building Your Email List: A Key to Success
15:04 - Commitment to Growth: Choosing Your Platform
🧭 BACK COVER BLUEPRINT
Get...
Ep 251: 2026: The Year of Ease, Not Hustle
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This episode starts with a question that’s been tapping me on the shoulder all year: What would it look like to choose ease without giving up momentum?
I’m reflecting on the past year in book writing and publishing, and sharing what I’m carrying forward into 2026. Less hustle-for-hustle’s-sake. More sustainable progress that feels livable.
I talk about why consistency in book sales matters more than viral spikes, and why realistic goals tend to outperform ambitiou...
