Write the Damn Book Already

Elizabeth Lyons
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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 world. Through solo episodes and interviews with both traditionally published and indie authors—across fiction and nonfiction—Elizabeth brings a well-rounded, no-hype perspective to the publishing industry. Whether you’re working on memoir, nonfiction, or a novel, you’ll walk away with clearer next steps and fewer mental roadblocks.

  1. 5 hr ago

    Ep 183: Developmental Editing, Beta Readers, and Knowing When Your Book Is Actually Ready (with Allison Buehner)

    Click Here to ask your book writing and publishing questions! 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 of her ever since. Allison runs Golden Editorial out of Colorado and works mostly with indie and self-publishing authors. She started out in nonfiction and memoir before following her heart into fantasy, contemporary fiction, and, lately, a truly impressive amount of cowboy romance. We got into the things first-time authors usually find out the expensive way: Why "I'll just hire a proofreader" is the priciest shortcut in self-publishing, and what has to happen before your manuscript ever reaches an editorThe real difference between an alpha reader, a critique partner, and a beta reader, plus why handing the book to your best friend is a terrible planWhat a developmental edit actually looks like, and why it can feel like you paid a lot of money for a document that says "go do more work"What good editors will and won't do, because fixing it for you crosses into co-authoringBreaking craft rules on purpose versus breaking them because you never learned them, and roughly how many you can get away with in one bookThe want-versus-need conflict Allison has been recommending to nearly every fiction author lately, and why it makes characters feel like people instead of plot delivery devicesHow to know you're genuinely ready to hand your manuscript to a professional🧭 BACK COVER BLUEPRINT Get back cover templates for nonfiction, memoir, and fiction; real-world examples; a polishing checklist; and a guide for turning it into an optimized online description that attracts the right readers.  🔗 https://www.publishaprofitablebook.com/blueprint WONDERING EXACTLY HOW TO SELF-PUBLISH SO YOU CAN STOP GUESSING? Grab the action plan and finally feel confident you’re doing this the right way. 👉 PublishAProfitableBook.com/actionplan WANT TO SELL MORE BOOKS (WITHOUT THE SELF-PROMO CRINGE)? The Author Visibility Bundle gives you 200+ done-for-you email templates, social media graphics, and other book promo tools designed to help authors build buzz and drive sales, without feeling pushy.  👉  PublishAProfitableBook.com/visibility ✍️ 33-DAY BOOK WRITING BOOTCAMP You've Been Thinking About This Book Forever. So let's get it written (for real this time).  👉 https://www.publishaprofitablebook/writethebook Support the show ****** Write the Damn Book Already is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with authors as well as updates and insights on writing craft and the publishing industry.  Available wherever podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts Spotify YouTube Let's Connect! Instagram Website Email the show: elizabeth [at] elizabethlyons [dot] com The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. To see all the ways we can work together to get your book written and published, visit publishaprofitablebook.com/work-with-elizabeth

    Ep 183: Developmental Editing, Beta Readers, and Knowing When Your Book Is Actually Ready (with Allison Buehner)

  2. 19 Aug

    Ep 182: Laurie Notaro on Living Book to Book

    Click Here to ask your book writing and publishing questions! 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 from Little A, which is so hysterical I'll be giving it to everyone for the holidays.  Laurie walks through her essay writing process, including the structural trick she wishes she'd figured out thirty years earlier.  She's also as blunt as you'd expect about the parts nobody prints on a book jacket. Her first book, The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club, was self-published after seven years of rejections, then picked up by Random House. Her career came apart twice. She was dropped by her agent over email while she was on tour. She spent three years living on credit cards. And she was told repeatedly that nobody wants to read about middle-aged women, which is a fascinating position to take on the largest book-buying demographic in the country. We also get into why she left the Big Five for an Amazon imprint, plus her genuine affection for one-star reviews and why they may be the best free marketing a first-time author will ever receive.  If you're writing a book and trying to figure out whether traditional publishing or self-publishing is the right road, this is a candid look at both from someone who has done all of it, more than once. 🧭 BACK COVER BLUEPRINT Get back cover templates for nonfiction, memoir, and fiction; real-world examples; a polishing checklist; and a guide for turning it into an optimized online description that attracts the right readers.  🔗 https://www.publishaprofitablebook.com/blueprint WONDERING EXACTLY HOW TO SELF-PUBLISH SO YOU CAN STOP GUESSING? Grab the action plan and finally feel confident you’re doing this the right way. 👉 PublishAProfitableBook.com/actionplan WANT TO SELL MORE BOOKS (WITHOUT THE SELF-PROMO CRINGE)? The Author Visibility Bundle gives you 200+ done-for-you email templates, social media graphics, and other book promo tools designed to help authors build buzz and drive sales, without feeling pushy.  👉  PublishAProfitableBook.com/visibility ✍️ 33-DAY BOOK WRITING BOOTCAMP You've Been Thinking About This Book Forever. So let's get it written (for real this time).  👉 https://www.publishaprofitablebook/writethebook Support the show ****** Write the Damn Book Already is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with authors as well as updates and insights on writing craft and the publishing industry.  Available wherever podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts Spotify YouTube Let's Connect! Instagram Website Email the show: elizabeth [at] elizabethlyons [dot] com The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. To see all the ways we can work together to get your book written and published, visit publishaprofitablebook.com/work-with-elizabeth

    Ep 182: Laurie Notaro on Living Book to Book

  3. 12 Aug

    Ep 181: Joyce Maynard on Storytelling, Permission, and Who Gets to Tell the Truth

    Click Here to ask your book writing and publishing questions! 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 piece of land, which now serves as a retreat center where she's hosted well over a thousand women for memoir workshops. The question she gets there, every single time, from women only: How do I tell an honest story about my life without hurting the people in it?  Other things we covered: Why she doesn't consider writing to be therapy, and what she thinks needs to happen before your story is ready for the pageThe difference between resilience and reinvention (she has a great analogy involving an inflatable clown)Going back to Yale at sixty-five, and the D- on a French exam that led to a diagnosis at an age when nobody in her generation got oneHer approach to writing as making a movie that plays inside the reader's head, and why she refuses to over-explainWrite what you know, and also the case for writing what you don't know🧭 BACK COVER BLUEPRINT Get back cover templates for nonfiction, memoir, and fiction; real-world examples; a polishing checklist; and a guide for turning it into an optimized online description that attracts the right readers.  🔗 https://www.publishaprofitablebook.com/blueprint WONDERING EXACTLY HOW TO SELF-PUBLISH SO YOU CAN STOP GUESSING? Grab the action plan and finally feel confident you’re doing this the right way. 👉 PublishAProfitableBook.com/actionplan WANT TO SELL MORE BOOKS (WITHOUT THE SELF-PROMO CRINGE)? The Author Visibility Bundle gives you 200+ done-for-you email templates, social media graphics, and other book promo tools designed to help authors build buzz and drive sales, without feeling pushy.  👉  PublishAProfitableBook.com/visibility ✍️ 33-DAY BOOK WRITING BOOTCAMP You've Been Thinking About This Book Forever. So let's get it written (for real this time).  👉 https://www.publishaprofitablebook/writethebook Support the show ****** Write the Damn Book Already is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with authors as well as updates and insights on writing craft and the publishing industry.  Available wherever podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts Spotify YouTube Let's Connect! Instagram Website Email the show: elizabeth [at] elizabethlyons [dot] com The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. To see all the ways we can work together to get your book written and published, visit publishaprofitablebook.com/work-with-elizabeth

    Ep 181: Joyce Maynard on Storytelling, Permission, and Who Gets to Tell the Truth

  4. 5 Aug

    Ep 180: What First-Time Authors Need to Hear Before Querying an Agent (with Eli McCann)

    Click Here to ask your book writing and publishing questions! 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. We talk about the year Eli spent building a storytelling following before he had a book to sell, the agent who warned him publishing has a bias problem against older women (and how unfortunately correct she turned out to be), why he refused to rewrite his book into something it wasn't just to land a deal, and what it was actually like to narrate his own audiobook, complete with dialogue-heavy scenes from multiple distinct voices. 🧭 BACK COVER BLUEPRINT Get back cover templates for nonfiction, memoir, and fiction; real-world examples; a polishing checklist; and a guide for turning it into an optimized online description that attracts the right readers.  🔗 https://www.publishaprofitablebook.com/blueprint WONDERING EXACTLY HOW TO SELF-PUBLISH SO YOU CAN STOP GUESSING? Grab the action plan and finally feel confident you’re doing this the right way. 👉 PublishAProfitableBook.com/actionplan WANT TO SELL MORE BOOKS (WITHOUT THE SELF-PROMO CRINGE)? The Author Visibility Bundle gives you 200+ done-for-you email templates, social media graphics, and other book promo tools designed to help authors build buzz and drive sales, without feeling pushy.  👉  PublishAProfitableBook.com/visibility ✍️ 33-DAY BOOK WRITING BOOTCAMP You've Been Thinking About This Book Forever. So let's get it written (for real this time).  👉 https://www.publishaprofitablebook/writethebook Support the show ****** Write the Damn Book Already is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with authors as well as updates and insights on writing craft and the publishing industry.  Available wherever podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts Spotify YouTube Let's Connect! Instagram Website Email the show: elizabeth [at] elizabethlyons [dot] com The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. To see all the ways we can work together to get your book written and published, visit publishaprofitablebook.com/work-with-elizabeth

    Ep 180: What First-Time Authors Need to Hear Before Querying an Agent (with Eli McCann)

  5. 29 Jul

    Ep 179: Meg Mitchell Moore on Messy First Drafts and Why Nobody Has Publishing Figured Out

    Click Here to ask your book writing and publishing questions! 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 work, that's kind of the point of this conversation. It does work. It's worked ten times! And I love how honest Meg is about the fact that her first drafts are a mess and revisions are where it all comes together.  We also get into the parts of book publishing that show up in very few highlight reels. Meg talks about learning, book by book, how much of a "big author moment" (the 10-city tour, the massive publisher push) is actually the author funding it themselves. She talks about the fear of writing a book with no contract attached to it, and how that fear doesn't necessarily go away with experience. We talk about the business-versus-art tension every working writer eventually has to make peace with, and why the current pace of the industry has authors feeling more frantic than they perhaps did fifteen years ago, even as the community itself has gotten more supportive. 🧭 BACK COVER BLUEPRINT Get back cover templates for nonfiction, memoir, and fiction; real-world examples; a polishing checklist; and a guide for turning it into an optimized online description that attracts the right readers.  🔗 https://www.publishaprofitablebook.com/blueprint WONDERING EXACTLY HOW TO SELF-PUBLISH SO YOU CAN STOP GUESSING? Grab the action plan and finally feel confident you’re doing this the right way. 👉 PublishAProfitableBook.com/actionplan WANT TO SELL MORE BOOKS (WITHOUT THE SELF-PROMO CRINGE)? The Author Visibility Bundle gives you 200+ done-for-you email templates, social media graphics, and other book promo tools designed to help authors build buzz and drive sales, without feeling pushy.  👉  PublishAProfitableBook.com/visibility ✍️ 33-DAY BOOK WRITING BOOTCAMP You've Been Thinking About This Book Forever. So let's get it written (for real this time).  👉 https://www.publishaprofitablebook/writethebook Support the show ****** Write the Damn Book Already is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with authors as well as updates and insights on writing craft and the publishing industry.  Available wherever podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts Spotify YouTube Let's Connect! Instagram Website Email the show: elizabeth [at] elizabethlyons [dot] com The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. To see all the ways we can work together to get your book written and published, visit publishaprofitablebook.com/work-with-elizabeth

    Ep 179: Meg Mitchell Moore on Messy First Drafts and Why Nobody Has Publishing Figured Out

  6. 22 Jul

    Ep 178: What If You Already Found Yourself? Angela Brown on Fiction, Fear, and Saying No

    Click Here to ask your book writing and publishing questions! 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 this" moment. So we start there, obviously.  But this conversation goes way past my feelings about her book (though we do talk about her characters, her sneaky habit of naming them after real people in her life, and the "what if" questions that kick off each of her novels). We get into the actual mess of writing fiction: how she doesn't always know where a story is headed when she starts it, the time an entire book arrived in the shower (why does all our best thinking happen there?) and she wouldn't leave her desk for two hours because she was afraid it would vanish, and the moment (mid-draft) when she realized the book wasn't broken—she was just writing from the wrong point of view. We also talk about her MFA (Was it worth it?), the myth that there's one right way to write a book, and how she's getting much better at saying one simple word: no. Oh, and stick around for the end. You'll walk away saying "no ploblem" for the rest of your week. You're welcome. 🧭 BACK COVER BLUEPRINT Get back cover templates for nonfiction, memoir, and fiction; real-world examples; a polishing checklist; and a guide for turning it into an optimized online description that attracts the right readers.  🔗 https://www.publishaprofitablebook.com/blueprint WONDERING EXACTLY HOW TO SELF-PUBLISH SO YOU CAN STOP GUESSING? Grab the action plan and finally feel confident you’re doing this the right way. 👉 PublishAProfitableBook.com/actionplan WANT TO SELL MORE BOOKS (WITHOUT THE SELF-PROMO CRINGE)? The Author Visibility Bundle gives you 200+ done-for-you email templates, social media graphics, and other book promo tools designed to help authors build buzz and drive sales, without feeling pushy.  👉  PublishAProfitableBook.com/visibility ✍️ 33-DAY BOOK WRITING BOOTCAMP You've Been Thinking About This Book Forever. So let's get it written (for real this time).  👉 https://www.publishaprofitablebook/writethebook Support the show ****** Write the Damn Book Already is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with authors as well as updates and insights on writing craft and the publishing industry.  Available wherever podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts Spotify YouTube Let's Connect! Instagram Website Email the show: elizabeth [at] elizabethlyons [dot] com The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. To see all the ways we can work together to get your book written and published, visit publishaprofitablebook.com/work-with-elizabeth

    Ep 178: What If You Already Found Yourself? Angela Brown on Fiction, Fear, and Saying No

  7. 15 Jul

    Ep 177: There Are No Rules (Except the Oxford Comma) -- with Eric Garcia

    Click Here to ask your book writing and publishing questions! 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 days (Hint: mid-list used to mean stable; now everyone's terrified of it), why chasing trends is a losing game when a book takes years to reach shelves, and why there are no rules for how long a chapter should be, except the one that matters: Don't make me want to stop reading. We also bond hard over the Oxford comma as well as the correct use of "less" and "fewer." I nearly combust with joy over our shared grammar rage.  🧭 BACK COVER BLUEPRINT Get back cover templates for nonfiction, memoir, and fiction; real-world examples; a polishing checklist; and a guide for turning it into an optimized online description that attracts the right readers.  🔗 https://www.publishaprofitablebook.com/blueprint WONDERING EXACTLY HOW TO SELF-PUBLISH SO YOU CAN STOP GUESSING? Grab the action plan and finally feel confident you’re doing this the right way. 👉 PublishAProfitableBook.com/actionplan WANT TO SELL MORE BOOKS (WITHOUT THE SELF-PROMO CRINGE)? The Author Visibility Bundle gives you 200+ done-for-you email templates, social media graphics, and other book promo tools designed to help authors build buzz and drive sales, without feeling pushy.  👉  PublishAProfitableBook.com/visibility ✍️ 33-DAY BOOK WRITING BOOTCAMP You've Been Thinking About This Book Forever. So let's get it written (for real this time).  👉 https://www.publishaprofitablebook/writethebook Support the show ****** Write the Damn Book Already is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with authors as well as updates and insights on writing craft and the publishing industry.  Available wherever podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts Spotify YouTube Let's Connect! Instagram Website Email the show: elizabeth [at] elizabethlyons [dot] com The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. To see all the ways we can work together to get your book written and published, visit publishaprofitablebook.com/work-with-elizabeth

    Ep 177: There Are No Rules (Except the Oxford Comma) -- with Eric Garcia

  8. 7 Jul

    Ep 176: How to Publish A Children's Book with Erin Thorburn

    Click Here to ask your book writing and publishing questions! 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 mean you should quit (or just plain quitting) 🧭 BACK COVER BLUEPRINT Get back cover templates for nonfiction, memoir, and fiction; real-world examples; a polishing checklist; and a guide for turning it into an optimized online description that attracts the right readers.  🔗 https://www.publishaprofitablebook.com/blueprint WONDERING EXACTLY HOW TO SELF-PUBLISH SO YOU CAN STOP GUESSING? Grab the action plan and finally feel confident you’re doing this the right way. 👉 PublishAProfitableBook.com/actionplan WANT TO SELL MORE BOOKS (WITHOUT THE SELF-PROMO CRINGE)? The Author Visibility Bundle gives you 200+ done-for-you email templates, social media graphics, and other book promo tools designed to help authors build buzz and drive sales, without feeling pushy.  👉  PublishAProfitableBook.com/visibility ✍️ 33-DAY BOOK WRITING BOOTCAMP You've Been Thinking About This Book Forever. So let's get it written (for real this time).  👉 https://www.publishaprofitablebook/writethebook Support the show ****** Write the Damn Book Already is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with authors as well as updates and insights on writing craft and the publishing industry.  Available wherever podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts Spotify YouTube Let's Connect! Instagram Website Email the show: elizabeth [at] elizabethlyons [dot] com The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. To see all the ways we can work together to get your book written and published, visit publishaprofitablebook.com/work-with-elizabeth

    Ep 176: How to Publish A Children's Book with Erin Thorburn
See All (184)

About

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 world. Through solo episodes and interviews with both traditionally published and indie authors—across fiction and nonfiction—Elizabeth brings a well-rounded, no-hype perspective to the publishing industry. Whether you’re working on memoir, nonfiction, or a novel, you’ll walk away with clearer next steps and fewer mental roadblocks.

Information

  • Creator
    Elizabeth Lyons
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    184
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Elizabeth Lyons LLC
  • Show Website
    Write the Damn Book Already

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