Ep 163: The Truth About Traditional Publishing Nobody Tells First-Time Authors
Write the Damn Book AlreadyShow Notes
Click Here to ask your book writing and publishing questions! 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 sh...
More from Write the Damn Book Already
Click Here to ask your book writing and publishing questions! 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 a...
Click Here to ask your book writing and publishing questions! 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 ple...
Click Here to ask your book writing and publishing questions! 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 i...
Click Here to ask your book writing and publishing questions! 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 side...
Click Here to ask your book writing and publishing questions! 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, be...