Transcript
Speaker: Hi everyone, a quick heads up ahead of the episode. Unfortunately, it's been brought to my attention that there is a scammer impersonating me. They've been emailing people from a faked account, posing as me, and offering paid packages to come on the podcast. To be clear, there is no payment involved for guests. I do not charge guests to come on the podcast, and obviously that means there are no packages for guests and the like.
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Speaker: Hello and welcome back to the Right and Wrong podcast. On today's episode, I am joined by a contemporary romance author and pop fiction author who also writes for Duke University and is currently serializing the release of her debut novel on Substack. It's Elizabeth Richardson. Hello.
Speaker: how are you? how are you I'm very well, thank you. How are you? I'm great. Thanks for having me. Thank you so much for coming on. Yeah. um Let's jump right in and start with the book. Yeah, absolutely. Trad, which so far you have released 27 chapters of as of as of us recording this. Yes. Tell us a little bit about the the story.
Speaker: So Trad is, um it's about a woman who pretends to be a trad wife online. um And she ends up kind of catfishing society.
Speaker: And it it kind of starts out in her mind as a joke. um But as she gets further and further into the quote unquote joke, she goes more and more viral and she gets a lot deeper into it.
Speaker: And um people start to take her more seriously. And she just gets deeper and deeper into the lie. And we learn a little bit more about her backstory as as the book goes on and learn why.
Speaker: this this subculture is this kind of calling to her. And she kind of gets into a bit of a mess when she's doing it. Yeah. um And that's kind of one of my favorite kinds of books to read is like where you're you're reading it and you're like, no, no, stop, stop, stop doing it. But at the same time you're turning the pages. Um, yeah.
Speaker: So I wanted to write a book like that. And so she does end up kind of blowing things up. That's not really a spoiler. That's how I market the book. Um, But it's the journey. It's how, it's how we get there.
Speaker: That's the fun part. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course. Of course. Yeah. And so you mentioned about why the subculture was calling out to her, the character in your book, but why, why did the, what was it about the trad wife culture that called out to you as an author?
Speaker: Yeah, so how this book got written um last year on Twitter, there was this woman, her name was, she went by Patriarchy Hannah on Twitter.
Speaker: And she was doing the exact same thing. She was pretending to be a trad wife on Twitter. um And she she was really extreme, more extreme than the Hannah and in my book.
Speaker: Um, and you know, she was like having these small groups of women and discipling them and and telling them like they needed to submit to their husbands. And she pretended she had, i think like 14 kids and,
Speaker: And then it came out that she was a a total fraud. um She you was running not only her account, she was running a fake account that was pretending to be her husband. And they were like interacting with each other online.
Speaker: it was like a whole thing. um And I was watching that happen just kind of from the sidelines of Twitter. And it was so fascinating to me. And my agent and I were texting about it.
Speaker: And we were just like, wow, this is crazy. yeah And I was like, this is a book, right? And she was like, oh, this is definitely a book. ah And so I was like, well, if I write this book, can we can we try to sell it? And she was like, sure.
Speaker: and so I wrote the book um and you know we she helped me obviously, you know gave good feedback and stuff. And and we put it on submission and ah and it didn't sell to editors. um And so that was disappointing.
Speaker: But I was still really like was like, this book is really special and people were really excited about it. So I kind of just sat on it for a while.
Speaker: and kind of tried to move on. And then i I just never moved on from it. um And so that that's when I decided to to publish it on Substack.
Speaker: put on the yeah Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Did you, i going back a little bit there, did you, so did you, other than kind of watching this bizarre internet drama unfold, on Twitter, did you know much about the kind of trad wife internet, um, phenomena or did, or did like whilst writing this, have you had to sort of immerse yourself in research that whole kind of thing?
Speaker: So I did know a lot about it. So something that has always been interesting to me and like a question that also kind of sparked this is there's been a lot of talk of like,
Speaker: And a lot of books about like the children of these influencers. And that's something that like yesteryear touched on. um And a lot of the recent Trad Wife books touch on. And I think that's a super important conversation. um Like how are these children growing up? And like we're getting a lot information.
Speaker: books now about the children of influencers, not just in the trad wife sphere, but in the influencer sphere, like these kids are growing up and they're like, this is what my life was like. And it was kind of insane um because I was made to perform X, Y, and Z for my mom while she was, you know, making all these videos or taking all these pictures and I was content.
Speaker: um But what I was interested in is what about the children who grew up as the children of the actual trad wives, the ones that aren't on social media, the ones who are actually living offline.
Speaker: And I grew up in a a conservative Christian environment, not in like very trad wife, not like trad wife at all.
Speaker: yeah I went to public school in high school. Like I, you know, it wasn't that extreme, but there were people in my church growing up who I would say did probably live that lifestyle. So I was adjacent to it.
Speaker: um So I did know people like that. And so my question when writing this book was what happens to the kids who maybe saw this, lived it growing up, left it, and now this lifestyle is an aesthetic.
Speaker: And now this lifestyle is something that people are glamorizing or romanticizing and they have complicated feelings about that one way or another.
Speaker: And they're kind of trying to figure out how they feel about it. Oh, I see. Yes. the The people who sort of had this upbringing this experience, this before it was like a fashionable thing before it became. Yeah.
Speaker: And so that was kind of what I was looking to explore because my thing is always like the real trad wives are not They're not online. They're not putting their kids on. They would never put their kids online. They would never take time to like set up a shot and they would never take time to like monetize an Instagram account, like because they're too busy, like running their farm and they're too busy going to church and they're too busy doing, you know, they have a lot to do.
Speaker: So I'm interested in what happens when the life that you grew up with is now an aesthetic. Okay. That's interesting. Yeah. It's not something I'd, uh, I'd considered with this whole thing. And, and obviously, of course you're so right. Cause it's the, the sort of mindset of what they're trying to promote with the trad wife movement. right So anti like the idea of being an influencer, like those two things don't seem like they would mesh at all. Exactly. And you know, there's some stuff I tied into the book that I did grow up with,
Speaker: like purity culture and evangelicalism is, is, can be quite toxic. Um, and so like, that is something I had a direct experience with that like was harmful and there are harmful things that come from that experience.
Speaker: So I think that kind of stuff is important to talk about. And it's interesting now to kind of see that, play out on Instagram, on social media, even now as things are like even shifting away from that aesthetic, it's still interesting to watch.
Speaker: in I guess then in in broad strokes, obviously religion you know religion is quite tied into the the culture of trad wife. Also, I right in thinking like homeschooling is is kind of part of that as well? Yeah, definitely.
Speaker: And then it's the idea of being sort of self-sufficient, like the the the mother stays at home and like and tends to to crops and things like that. And it's like everything you have is there and and you can provide for yourself. Yeah, exactly. Like, um, being able to do everything on your own, which like, yeah I don't necessarily at its core have a problem with, right?
Speaker: Like I have good friends who homeschool and like their kids are great and their kids are so smart and they probably socialize more than my kids who go to public school, you know? Um, and it's just, I think,
Speaker: what your ethos behind, like your intention behind. Like one of my friends who homeschools, i think her, she always tells me like, you should choose this because you're running towards something, not because you're running away from something. Like you should choose it because, not because you're scared of something. Like not because you're scared of what is going to happen in a school.
Speaker: you should do it because you think that. like you're genuinely able to give your children a better experience. Not because like, oh, I'm scared that like my kids going to get bullied or like whatever.
Speaker: Sure. I mean, that's a pretty that's a pretty proactive way to kind of approach life, i guess, as well as like always try and run towards things, not away from things. Exactly. Like, that's nice. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: Okay. Interesting stuff. it's And and it's obviously, it's such a big culture now that we, you know, there's quite a few books. You mentioned Yesteryear. It's obviously the probably the big one, but there's there's quite a few books coming out around this Tradwife thing. So it's obviously... it's It's obviously caught the cultural zeitgeist and everyone's kind of interested in it. And I think probably a bit wary of some of the darker aspects of it.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely. And i did get, i when I wrote the book, yesteryear had not come out yet. Okay.
Speaker: Yeah. i I wrote the book in 2025 and then some of the editors in their passes mentioned it.
Speaker: And that's when we started to hear about it and they were like, oh there's a big book coming out next year. And we were like, oh.
Speaker: so then I kind of started to think like, oh, there's going to be something big coming and
Speaker: then I was like, i want to ride that wave. When that came out, I was like, I don't want to miss out on that. I need to do something with with my book. so Yeah. Well, that wave is going to go on for a while now because I know that there was a big announcement that Anne Hathaway wants to the movie and stuff. So don't worry. The tradways are not going anywhere. There's of waves still come.
Speaker: um Let's get back onto you. And in terms of, so, so you, like we mentioned, you're releasing this serialized on Substack um and you're releasing, I'm thinking you're, you're doing two chapters a week. Yeah. Yep.
Speaker: Okay. I love that cadence. I wish, you know what I wish this is an aside, but I wish television companies and streaming platforms would try this with like television shows. Yes. You know, we, we, we can, it's video on demand, right? We don't need be stuck on a once a week cadence anymore.
Speaker: Let's, let's change things up a little bit. I wish. Yeah. Um, but, but I digress. Uh, so twice, twice a week. Yep. Have you got this all written out yet? It's all finished, right? Yeah, it's totally finished. Okay. And when you wrote it, you're not changing it from the original way that you wrote it for the kind of serialized format. So I went back and edited it again before i started putting it out just because in book form, some of the chapters were shorter, way shorter.
Speaker: So I combined some chapters just to to not draw it out as much. and it some of it just felt weird to be like, here's a chapter that's like five paragraphs.
Speaker: Right. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Obviously writing a book, probably slightly different to serializing it. Did you have a kind of rough word count that you thought would be good for posts on Substack or were you kind of just loose with it?
Speaker: I was pretty loose with it. um I wasn't actually sure. I had no idea. i I was new to Substack before this, so I didn't even really know what people had an appetite for, to be honest.
Speaker: um i have written fan fiction before, so I kind of like had an idea of what I was kind of like, that was my that was my frame of reference.
Speaker: So I was kind of taking my experience there, and I don't know if it translated, to be honest. So... Sure. No, I get that. um When you, you know, this, you tried to take this out um to do it traditional publishing, but that, you you know, couldn't find a home for it. You decided you really wanted to release it anyway. Did you think about the other indie routes before SubSec do you just want to go SubSec? What made you want to not do those then?
Speaker: Honestly, it was a lot of it was timing. ah Because like I said, i had kind of When we had exhausted all of the editors at the end of last summer, and my agent and I decided we're like, this is dead. um And really, honestly, the thing about being on submission is a lot of the time you don't hear from all the editors.
Speaker: And we heard from everyone. Oh, okay. Rejected. I still don't know if like that's a good thing or a bad thing. It's nice everyone was reading, I guess. yeah like They were excited to read it. um So it was nice to have definitively heard from everyone.
Speaker: yeah um And so I was like, I'm just going to move on. And like I have other projects. I'm just going to... like we We tried it. This was like kind of a... Not a fluke. I wouldn't call it a fluke, but like it was like a we I wrote it really fast. We put it on sub really fast. We like, it was like kind of just like a quick and dirty thing. Um, just to like, see if we could do it.
Speaker: And I was like, I'm just going to try to forget about it. And then one of my friends kept being like, you should serialize it. You should serialize it. I was like, no, I'm moving on. I'm moving on.
Speaker: Um, And then in May, she like texted me again and was like, you should serialize it. Everyone is talking about yesteryear. And I was like, okay.
Speaker: So I like started a subsac account and I, just kind of like announced on Instagram, I was going to do it. And people were really, really excited. And so i was like, okay, I have to do this now. And so really it was the timing and it was the worst time of year. I have two young kids and May is like literally one of the worst times of year.
Speaker: because it's so busy with like school letting out, There's like 10 million things you have to do like rehearsals and recitals and presentations they want you to come to school for. And then I work at a university, so it's like commencement and you know all sorts of stuff going on. My husband works in a school, so like his school is doing all this stuff as well.
Speaker: And so serializing was something that I could Like the book was written. i could just throw it up on Substack with like pretty little effort.
Speaker: I considered self-publishing, but that just seemed really daunting for something i want I needed to do right then when everyone was talking about Tradwives. Yeah. Like I just needed to get it out there at that moment. And so it just seemed like the right time and that seemed like the right medium.
Speaker: Yeah. And so far it's been great. Yeah, I think there's there's some real pros to serializing something like this in that you give it plenty of time to sort of marinate and then spread kind of word of mouth as opposed to if you do just release you know it as one book indie publisher.
Speaker: you have to work, I think you'd probably have to work a lot harder in terms of marketing and things like that. Although that's not to say that you don't need to market and promote your, your sub stack. What kind of promotion have you done around it to kind of get the word out? Or was it really just the kind of you posted on Instagram and then you started posting it and then sort of organically grown from there?
Speaker: It really, like, Substack has been super helpful with that just because of the social feature within Substack. And I i did have an email list on my website. It wasn't very many people. It's like 60 people okay that I imported to start. So that was nice. um But mostly just Instagram and then word of mouth. people People were excited from when i had that book on sub.
Speaker: Um, and people were like, oh, I've been wanting to read this and just sharing it from there. um and so that has just like, it's just kind of spread from there.
Speaker: So that's it. I feel like if i with self-publishing, I feel like you need a lot of lead time to promote a book. Yeah. You want to kind of, or you should do a lot of lead time if you want to do it well. Um,
Speaker: And I didn't really have that if I wanted to like grab on to the moment. Yeah. So this was kind of a way for me to have like capture the moment, but then still be releasing things throughout the summer.
Speaker: And it's worked out really well. Like I've met some like amazing people through doing this. Yeah, this kind of I think any kind of, because this is indie publishing as well, it's just a different kind of way of doing it. And then whenever you do this, there's always such a sense of community with something yeah that's sort of homegrown in that way. exactly And um and it's all it's all free, right? You're not charging on the Substack for people to read it. The whole the whole thing's completely free. Yeah, people can read it for free.
Speaker: Do you have a paid tier for your Substack or is it just just the free tier? I have a paid tier and i I never turned it off when I started it because I was like, no one's going to pay for this. And then people started signing up for the paid tier. oh um So do have some paid subscribers, which is lovely.
Speaker: ah What do you, do you offer anything additionally, or is it just a sort of support the the author kind of thing? It's mostly just support every once in a while. i write ah an extra post.
Speaker: Okay. That's just like, like a behind the scenes kind of thing. Sure. Okay. And that's, that's it. It's really lovely that people want to support me like that.
Speaker: Yeah. And yeah's nice it's nice. Yeah. Yeah, because it's there's something about like, and this is, I think, why people like um indie published authors, however they go about it, is that like you're more willing to kind of part with your money if you know that it's going straight to the author yeah and that it's going to the source. But when you when you buy a book from a massive bookshop,
Speaker: I mean, some people might not know this, but if you're in publishing, you know that like such a tiny fraction of that money is actually going to the author and so much of it's getting divvied up and sent out to different companies and groups and people that were involved with that.
Speaker: um So yeah, I think you have that nice element about it. Yeah. um Just before we head over to the cabin, um, I had one more question for you, which I thought was a fun, fun thing. ah obviously trad wife is the trad wife culture is what's inspired this book trad, um, very much in the zeitgeist.
Speaker: Uh, are there any other internet trends that you think would make good inspiration for a similar story Yeah, so I'm always, i'm very online.
Speaker: and I'm always, i feel like my agent, anytime I text her, she's always just like, what now? Because I'm always just like, is this a book? Um,
Speaker: because I'm always seeing things online, like pop culture things that are like, oh my gosh, this would be a great book. um Or I'm always like watching a show and being like, this would be a great book or like picking something out. I'm really fascinated by, by so much in pop culture and so much in just like in the news. um I'm trying to think of one specifically that,
Speaker: that I can can call out because I've had so many ideas. there's um This is super random, but I have a book that we're hoping to put on sub hopefully this fall. I don't know if my agent knows that. um
Speaker: Surprise, Morgan. um My best friend, she texted me one one day and she was like, I had a dream that Travis Kelsey was at a strip club with me.
Speaker: And I was like, what? And then the next day there was like a ah news item. And it was like, Travis Kelsey was at a strip club in Miami.
Speaker: And I was like, Claire, what if your dream like predicted the future? and she's like, oh, that's weird. And so I was like, oh my gosh, that's a book. And so then I wrote a whole book about this, um about a woman who realizes that whatever she dreams, a football player, like it happens to him.
Speaker: football player? It's like this random football player okay in Los Angeles. And so it's like a speculative romance. um And so it's, the book is like her trying to get to Los Angeles to convince him that her dreams are ruining his life.
Speaker: And then they have to figure out like how to break this curse. ah Okay. So it's just stuff like crazy stuff like that. um That I, at you know, like hear a kernel of whatever. um I've also just like, I just watched the second season of beef, which I don't know if you've seen that show. I i saw season one.
Speaker: Season two is so good. um i think it's better than the first season. But I would really like to write something that's like kind of similar in the vein of like commentary on class and wealth, but like also just like it's so unhinged.
Speaker: yeah Because you're like watching you like, yeah, this is a good show. And then like all of a sudden someone's jumping off a bridge or like getting pushed out of a car and die. You're where did that come from?
Speaker: um Like, I love just the tone of that show and I'd love to write something like that. Okay. But then you're also getting like a commentary on, you know, like class or something.
Speaker: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So it sounds like the inspiration for most of your stories comes from pop culture or like, uh, things that you've watched or things that are happening on the and things like that. Yeah. Yeah. Current events basically.
Speaker: Yep. Okay, cool. Um, so we are at the time in the episode where I ask you Elizabeth, if you were snowed in at a cozy woodland cabin in the middle of nowhere, which book would you hope to have with you?
Speaker: Okay. So I have been thinking about this a lot. Okay, good. I love like locked room mysteries. isn And so I think I would choose The Ending Writes Itself by Evelyn Clark, which is a pen name for V.E. Schwab and Cat Clark. So it's like, um it just came out. It's really good. It's about a bunch of authors, different genres who are like sent to an island off the coast of Scotland, I think.
Speaker: And they're supposed to write the ending for a book for an author, like a really famous author, like James Grisham or John Grisham or like James Patterson type author who died, but he didn't finish his book. And they're trying to find an author to finish the book.
Speaker: And so they all have like 48 hours to write the ending to the book. But then, of course, people start dying. Of course. Yeah. course. Yeah.
Speaker: And not only is it like solving the mystery, but it's also kind of a satire of publishing. okay. So that like is, it's just, it's really funny and witty and kind of dry. Yeah.
Speaker: and okay great yeah it's it's really good i've heard i've heard of it like i'm familiar with the the cover but i've i've not yeah read it but uh i absolutely should yeah yeah and i love i love a satire of publishing yeah i love it i loved yellow face so i'm ready for more yeah it also it's it's yeah it's so funny Okay, cool. So the ending writes itself, Evelyn Clark. Yeah, I will add that to my, to my, to be, to be read list, my, the an infinitely long yeah to be read list. There's never enough time. Exactly. Um, next up, we are going to chat a bit more about process, uh, schedule and publishing plans in the future. That will be in the extended episode, which you can find at patreon.com forward slash right and wrong.
Speaker: Like like i'm not just going into people's comments and being like, everyone read my sub stack. But by actually participating in the community.
Speaker: um yeah So I would say that's really important. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Cause in terms of just like, yeah, go for it is always such good advice. and Like, like with you, you know, you'd been saying that you wanted to write a book for the longest time and then it eventually were like, oh no i should actually write this book. Right. You have to just do at some point. Now you've written loads. So written so many now so yeah, easier than you thought or not perhaps. yeah Right.
Speaker: um Amazing. Well, that brings us to the end of the episode. Thank you so much, Elizabeth, for coming on and chatting with me. Yeah, this was great. Thank you for having me. It has been great. Yeah. It's been awesome hearing about your kind of adventures with Trad and everything you've been up to in publishing. And for anyone listening, if you want to find all of the chapters of Trad, which are currently available and all future chapters, you head over to Substack, look up Elizabeth Richardson books, and and it's all there for free.
Speaker: You have to pay anything. And for anyone wanting to keep up with what Elizabeth is doing, you can find her on all socials at Elizabeth Richardson books, or you can find her website, Elizabeth, richardson books.com to support this podcast, like follow and subscribe, join the Patreon for ad free extended episodes and check out my other podcasts, the chosen ones and other tropes.
Speaker: Thanks again, Elizabeth. And thanks to everyone listening. we will catch you on the next episode.
