1-ON-1 WRITER CONSULTING FOR BOOKS AND SUBSTACKS
Write better.
Publish smarter.
Sell more.
Learn how to write a bestselling book or a bestselling Substack, from someone who's done both.
Your voice deserves to be heard. Your writing deserves to be read. And your bank account deserves to hear about it.
2 million books sold
40+ books published
90K+ Substack subscribers
15 minutes. No pressure. Real answers.
Karen Salmansohn
“Her smart sense of humor and unusual metaphors make changing your life not only do-able but, totally fun.”
Marie Forleo, bestselling author
Good writers get stuck all the time.
Great ones get help.
Maybe you're working on a book…
And you've been "almost done" for three years.
And you keep rewriting chapter one, because chapter two is scary.
And everyone who's read it says "I loved it!" But you're stuck on how to publish it. Agent? Proposal? Platform? Help.
Or maybe you're working on a Substack…
And you pour your heart into every post and Note, but it's growing at the speed of a sloth.
And you have free subscribers, but no paid ones, because the thought of "selling" feels icky.
And you watch other writers get the bestseller badge and wonder, "What do they know that I don't?"
Or both. Very common. Very fixable. Books and Substacks are cousins now. A good Substack can become a book, and a good book can feed a Substack for years.
And now there's a new wrinkle. AI can write a pretty good essay in four seconds. Which means "pretty good" just became the new invisible.
Hemingway didn't have to compete
with ChatGPT. You do.
Here's what I know after 40+ books and a 90K+ subscriber Substack: good writing is only one ingredient. There's also the idea. The hook. The title. The structure. The packaging. The publishing. The marketing.
Great writing gets read. Great writing, packaged well, gets paid.
I've walked lots of writers through this, from first-timers to Goldie Hawn. You're next.
HI, I'M KAREN
I won CLIOs selling other people's brands. Then I sold 2 million of my own books.
I spent over a decade as a CLIO award-winning copywriter and creative director at JWT, Y&R, McCann Erickson and Faith Popcorn's BrainReserve. My job: make people stop, look and want things. Including toothpaste.
But I had a different dream. Instead of inspiring people to try a new toothpaste, I wanted to inspire them to think in new ways.
My parents were not fans. "How can you quit when you're making so much money?!"
My logic: if I could do this well at something I didn't love, imagine what I could do with something I did. So I quit. (Sorry, Mom.)
My secret weapon? I didn't leave my ad skills behind. I packed them. The hooks. The titles. The packaging. Then I used every single one on my own books.
The result? Not one bestseller. Bestseller after bestseller after bestseller. How to Be Happy, Dammit. How to Succeed in Business Without a Penis. The Bounce Back Book. Think Happy. Prince Harming Syndrome. And more…
Decades later, I used the same playbook to build a bestselling Substack.
Now I'll teach it to you.
Karen Salmansohn
FIRST CAME THE BOOKS
2 million books sold.
40+ books, published by the biggest houses in the business. Fiction, nonfiction, humor, business, fashion, kids, gift, coffee table. If it has a spine, I've probably written one.
5x
bestselling author
40+
books published
14+
countries
I pioneered the sweary self-help book.
How to Succeed in Business Without a Penis sold 250,000+ copies, over a decade before "Badass" made it onto bookstore shelves. How to Be Happy, Dammit sold 350,000+ copies and later showed up in an Eminem video. (Yes, really.)
I also designed How to Be Happy, Dammit page by page before any publisher saw it. Result: a bidding war. Then it became Urban Outfitters' #1 bestselling book three years in a row.
Translation: I know what to do, and what NOT to do. So you can skip the years of trial, error and quietly weeping into your keyboard.
THEN CAME THE SUBSTACK
My Substack, The Stand Up Philosopher, grew to 90K+ subscribers and earned Substack's coveted bestseller badge.
It's even climbed to #6 on Substack's Rising Bestsellers in Philosophy. Not bad for someone who only joined in 2025.
90K+
Subscribers
0 → 90K
In under 2 years
#6
Rising Bestsellers in Philosophy
20K
likes on a single Note
8K
likes on a single essay
300+
comments on a single essay
My biggest essays weren't tips. They were confessions, with titles like My Therapist Said Something Brutal. It Changed My Life. Real stories, packaged with the hooks and headlines I learned in advertising. Writing people felt in their gut, then forwarded to their friends.
Plenty of people teach Substack because they're experts at selling Substack advice. I'm a writer who happens to know how the selling part works.
Behind every bestseller badge is a writer who stopped being shy about selling. Want to be next?
My two secret weapons
#1 The Singular Prong
Picture a bouquet of sharpened pencils, all points level. Bounce your palm on top. Meh. Now push one pencil up higher. Ouch.
That one pencil is your Singular Prong. For a book, it's the one-sentence hook an agent can repeat. For a Substack, it's one prong per essay and one big promise for the whole publication.
If you want your writing to be marketable, it needs to be remarkable.
"Karen Salmansohn's writing has the spirit of a stand up comedian."
Jon Stewart, Emmy Award-winning host of The Daily Show
#2 The Singular Voice
A Singular Prong tells people what makes your writing different. Your voice tells them it's YOU.
Agents and editors are always saying they want "voice." What they mean is writing that couldn't have come from anybody else. Or any robot else.
Because if anyone could have written it, everyone will scroll past it.
I'll help you spot where your writing really comes alive, where you've accidentally gone generic, what to cut and what to keep.
THERE. THAT sounds like you.
"Karen, you're brilliant and ballsy and HILARIOUS."
Jen Sincero, author of You Are a Badass