We Wrote the Book We Wish We'd Had: Introducing Write, Revise, Publish

If you've been listening to Writers With Wrinkles for a while, you already know the drill: every episode, Beth McMullen and Lisa Schmidt sit down with an agent, editor, or fellow author and walk away with another nugget of hard-won publishing wisdom. Over five seasons and more than 150 episodes, that adds up to a lot of wisdom — the kind of insight that's genuinely useful the moment you hear it, and then, inevitably, gone the moment the episode ends.

"You listen to a podcast and you think, 'Oh, that is a really good idea. I'd like to use that in my life, in my writing, in whatever,'" Beth says, "and then you forget, because it's not — it's hard to hold onto it, right? Because it is something that you're listening to, and you're not writing it down, and then it's gone."

That's the problem Beth and Lisa set out to solve with their new book, Write, Revise, Publish: Essential Lessons from the Writers With Wrinkles Podcast, out October 6th in ebook and paperback and available for pre-order now.

A book built from 150+ conversations, not just two opinions

Rather than writing another single-perspective craft book, Beth and Lisa built this one from the ground up out of everything they've absorbed from their guests. "All of these chapters are informed by many conversations with many people," Beth explains. "So again, like a roadmap to keep you from getting lost on this journey — and it is a journey."

That roadmap covers the entire arc of a writing career: first draft through revision, then both traditional and self-publishing paths. "It's wherever you're at in your process," Lisa says. "Whether it's just beginning, or you're now looking to publish or querying — there's a spot for you in that book."

A big part of the motivation was demystifying the part of the process most writers find genuinely opaque. "So many people, they go through the hard labor of writing it, they go through the harder labor, in my humble opinion, of revising it — 'cause we all know I hate revising — and then they get to publishing, and it just feels so opaque," Beth says. "You don't know what you're supposed to do, and you start from that sense of feeling like everybody knows something that you don't."

Their real voices — and real missteps — on the page

One detail longtime listeners will love: Beth and Lisa didn't want the book to read like a faceless craft manual, so they wrote in personal asides throughout, in their own voices, the way they'd talk to you on the show. Lisa's running theme in hers? "What a walking little nightmare of publishing missteps I am," she jokes. "I hope it gives people comfort in knowing all this — just ridiculously bad decisions and things I did along the way... I didn't know enough to know how bad I was doing."

That's very much the point. As Beth puts it, learning from people who've already made the mistakes "hopefully will save you that time... so you can use that time for something better than being like, 'Oh damn, I did that thing, and I wish I hadn't.'"

Every chapter also ends with a worksheet, meant to make the book something you actually use rather than just read once and shelve. "We are always after practical knowledge — things that you can put into play immediately in your professional writing life," Beth says. Hate worksheets? Skip them. Love them? "You can do the same one 100 times if you want."

A new segment, too: the Confetti Club

The book isn't the only news. Beth and Lisa are also launching a new recurring segment called the Confetti Club — short, 20–25 minute episodes where authors with a book releasing in the next 30 days come on to pitch it directly to listeners, no interview format required. "It's just us having an author come on and celebrate their new book," Lisa says. First up: the author behind the indie paranormal mystery series Going Ghost, followed by middle-grade author Sam Sebedy and an editor spotlighting a new nonfiction release.

And if that weren't enough for one 25-minute episode, there's a third announcement — one Beth says she's "most excited for" — that the pair are saving for next month.

Want the full roadmap?

Write, Revise, Publish: Essential Lessons from the Writers With Wrinkles Podcast is up for pre-order on Amazon now, with release day set for October 6th in both ebook and paperback. If you'd rather support an indie bookstore, that works too — details will be in the show notes and on socials.

To hear the full story behind the book, the origin story of the podcast itself, and get all the details on the Confetti Club's first guests, hit play on this episode of Writers With Wrinkles.