Publish Not Perish

About Publish Not Perish

Publish Not Perish is the podcast for scholars who want to write more—without burning out. Host Dr. Jenn McClearen shares practical tips, honest reflections, and real stories to help you make steady, meaningful progress on your writing with more ease, clarity, and joy. www.publishnotperish.net (https://www.publishnotperish.net/s/publish-not-perish-the-podcast?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

Jenn McClearen, PhD

Category

education · education

Language

en

Explicit

Yes

First episode

22 May 2025

Latest episode

21 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

52 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   21 Sept 2026

   A GPS System for Your Writing | Ep. 52

   I often use a GPS to show me where the traffic is so I can pick the fastest route to wherever I’m going. Often, I already know several ways to get there, so it isn’t about being lost; it’s about choosing well given the conditions I’m actually in. A few well-timed turns can save me 20 minutes! For academic writers, the question becomes: what well-timed turns could get you to your draft more efficiently? This is the question we ponder in today’s episode. That question is at the heart of the 80/20 rule, also known as Pareto’s Principle, which holds that roughly 80 percent of your results come from roughly 20 percent of your effort. Think of that 20 percent as the well-timed turns: a small portion of what you do tends to drive most of your progress, just as a few smart turns can save most of the time on a drive. For those of you tackling book projects, the traffic is relentless. There is always one more article to read, one more paragraph to polish, one more email to answer, and one more piece of feedback to weigh, and many of these feel entirely defensible. The key is to focus most of your effort on the 20 percent of your work that actually makes your project publishable! (Hint: it’s not editing and re-editing sentences for the millionth time.) I close with a small exercise for the week, a kind of route check for your writing: choose one writing goal, ask what would most directly move it forward, notice what feels related but is probably lower-impact right now (the scenic detour, if you will), and consider which standard you could lower without harming the final project. I hope this conversation helps you choose your route a little more deliberately, and I’d love to hear where the GPS sends you! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.publishnotperish.net (https://www.publishnotperish.net?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

2. 

   4 Sept 2026

   How to Manage Feedback on Your Book Project | Ep. 51

   Writing a book means making thousands of decisions alone, about argument and structure and which sentence earns its place, and then one day the reader reports arrive and several other minds enter a room you thought was yours alone. Even when that feedback is generous and clearly meant to help, it can still knock you sideways, because a book is an entire architecture, and someone suggesting you rethink the structure or add an entire set of literature is much bigger than a line edit. In this episode, I talk through why that disorientation is a normal, even predictable, part of the process and why giving yourself a beat before diagnosing what the feedback means is not procrastination but genuine preparation for the work ahead. Once we’ve sat with the feeling of it, I walk through the system I actually use to make sense of a stack of reader reports: sorting comments by topic (argument, literature, evidence, methods) and then again by scale (minor, medium, major), so you can tell the difference between a bookshelf issue and a load-bearing wall. I also get into the harder, less discussed skill of deciding what not to revise, and how keeping a simple tracking document, noting the concern, your decision, and your reasoning, becomes part of the intellectual labor rather than an administrative afterthought. My hope is that this episode gives you a concrete way to hold onto your authorship even while taking feedback seriously, so you can strengthen the book without handing it over entirely to everyone else’s preferences. As a bonus for today’s episode, here’s a guide on how to think about and work through the revision process for a journal article. Even though the guide is focused on articles, you’ll see many of my major revision processes apply, whether it’s a shorter or longer form project. https://drive.google.com/file/d/167u8HSnk9-UMpGFDiV-mMeGrC-VR1ASu/view?usp=sharing (https://drive.google.com/file/d/167u8HSnk9-UMpGFDiV-mMeGrC-VR1ASu/view?usp=sharing) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.publishnotperish.net (https://www.publishnotperish.net?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

3. 

   20 Aug 2026

   Navigating Academia With the Brain You Actually Have | Ep. 50

   I signed up for a certification in neurodivergent-inclusive coaching because I wanted to understand my clients better, but I learned so much about myself in the process. Since childhood, I’ve known I was dyslexic, but the training provided me with fresh insights into the patterns of my attention, working memory, task initiation, and energy, deepening my understanding of why I resonate so strongly with my clients who have ADHD. More importantly, the course sharpened something I’ve believed since I started Publish Not Perish: a writing strategy is only useful if it works for the brain that actually has to use it, not for an imaginary academic who sleeps well every night, teaches without depletion, and can produce on command. Much of the training centered on executive function: capacities like task initiation, planning, working memory, emotional regulation, and flexible thinking. Looking at academic work through that lens makes a lot of writing trouble that seems mysterious or moral become specific and workable. Three days of avoiding a document probably doesn’t indicate laziness or poor discipline. The task may be too big, your capacity may be depleted, or the stakes may feel so high that starting becomes difficult. Each problem calls for a different response. In this episode, I talk about what this training taught me about neurodivergence, writing, and my own brain, and why you may not need another productivity system so much as a better understanding of what produces friction for your brain and what lights it up. Ps. Much of the definitional information I share in this episode comes from the course Neurodivergent Inclusive Coaching (https://www.igcompany.com/nd), which I took with the organization In Good Company (https://www.igcompany.com/home) in 2026. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.publishnotperish.net (https://www.publishnotperish.net?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

5 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 49 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

85

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

32

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Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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