ABOUT THIS EPISODE
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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.
Roughly 250 people read it. Nearly 12,000 read it every week now, and it's been turned into a book. Receipts from the Bookshop comes out in the US on September 8, 2026 from William Morrow, after publishing in the UK in June 2026.
Keep in mind, when the publishing offer came in, her subscriber number was sitting in the low 2,000s. The numbers arrived after the deal, not before.
In this episode, Katie and I get into what actually went into the pitch, since this was her first time writing a nonfiction proposal after years of children's and YA books. Sample pages, a short introduction, and about two months of work getting the voice right.
We also talk about paid subscribers do to your Sunday-night brain. Why she keeps her best work free and prices her subscription as low as the platform allows. Why she has no website at all (and her publisher has never asked her to have one). And her honest fear going into launch, which was less about the marketing and more that this was the part where she'd find out the book isn't as good as she hopes it is.
If you've been circling Substack wondering whether it's the magic platform, or you're mid-manuscript and quietly convinced you need a bigger following before anyone will take you seriously, this episode is a great listen!
In this episode:
- Why Katie joined Substack in November 2022 and what she was actually looking for when she did
- How she splits free and paid posts so the pressure doesn't run her life
- What a nonfiction book proposal looks like when you don't have a finished book
- Why she disabled Substack's new AI detection scan (very on-trend topic, no?)
- How she defines success for this book
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WONDERING EXACTLY HOW TO SELF-PUBLISH SO YOU CAN STOP GUESSING?
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WANT TO SELL MORE BOOKS (WITHOUT THE SELF-PROMO CRINGE)?
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✍️ 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
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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.
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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
