DP&L Episode 266: Book Completion Battle Plan!
Defend, Publish & Lead Podcast
Release Date: 02/07/2026
DP&L Episode 276: Textbook and Academic Authoring Careers
Defend, Publish & Lead Podcast
In Episode 276 Christine Tulley sits down with Dr. Wendy Tietz from Kent State University and Dr. Tracie Miller from Franklin University to talk about textbook authoring careers. This is a path many academics never consider, yet one that can become a defining and decades-long creative endeavor. Both guests share how they stumbled into their first textbook deals not through deliberate planning, but through candid feedback at the right moment. Together, they explore how textbook writing differs from other scholarly genres — particularly its collaborative, audience-driven nature and the...
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DP&L Episode 275: Do One Thing Today
Defend, Publish & Lead Podcast
In Episode 275 of Defend, Publish, and Lead, Christine Tulley tackles the particular chaos of April in the academic calendar — a month packed with grading, end-of-year wrap-up, graduation requirements, and summer prep, all while writing obligations quietly fall by the wayside. Using the image of a pile of empty Easter eggs still sitting on her office floor, alongside an unpacked conference bag and two unemptied suitcases, she illustrates how small undone tasks create visual and mental background noise that compounds an already overwhelming season. Her solution is the "do one thing today"...
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DP&L Episode 274: Catch Up on What You Owe
Defend, Publish & Lead Podcast
In Episode 274, Christine Tulley addresses the familiar end-of-March crunch that faculty and graduate students face — a point in the semester when obligations to others have quietly piled up. Her solution is a "catch-up list" of everything she owes other people, which she walks through in detail: back grading for two writing classes, course substitution memos for graduating students, a tuition remission form, follow-up materials from a workshop, thank-you correspondence, outreach to struggling students at risk of failing, joining a special interest group, and posting workshop information —...
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DP&L Episode 273: How Long Does It Take You to Start Writing in a Session?
Defend, Publish & Lead Podcast
In Episode 273, host Christine Tulley looks at how long it really takes to start writing—and why it matters. She tracked her own startup time over four days. After a multi-day break, it took about 15 minutes to get back in. She reread five pages and made notes. On back-to-back days, it took as little as 2 minutes. What made the difference? Simple strategies like leaving her document open, using Word's "pick up where you left off" feature, and jotting a page number on a sticky note. Her big takeaway: track your own ramp-up time. Be honest. Some people need 30 minutes to settle in. That time...
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DP&L Episode 272: Choosing a University Press for Your Work
Defend, Publish & Lead Podcast
In this episode Christine Tulley guides academic authors through the process of selecting the right university press for their work, a high-stakes decision particularly for tenure-track faculty at research institutions. She walks through key strategies: using the Association of University Presses' subject grid (available in Excel or PDF) to identify presses active in your field, visiting press websites to assess the fit of their current lists, sending brief author query emails to gauge interest, and evaluating a press's output volume and consistency as indicators of its health and...
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DP&L Episode 271: The Next 30 Days
Defend, Publish & Lead Podcast
In Episode 271 of Defend, Publish, and Lead, host and executive writing coach Christine Tulley shares a practical productivity strategy she calls the "Next 30 Days" plan, designed to help academics avoid the common springtime trap of giving up or procrastinating as the semester winds down. Drawing from her own schedule — which includes two workshops, a final book manuscript due April 7th, and limited working days due to travel and holidays — she walks listeners through how to audit their upcoming 30 days by identifying hard deadlines, mapping out available work blocks, ruthlessly...
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DP&L Episode 270: Dissertation Rescue
Defend, Publish & Lead Podcast
In Episode 270, Christine Tulley describes dissertation support efforts at Defend, Publish and Lead this month. Resources Mentioned Sign up for our free Dissertation Rescue sessions on Sign up for a free writing coach hour to support your dissertation or dissertation writers at christine@defendpublishlead.com Check out our playlists DPL Resources Tuesday Toolbox - contact christine@defendpublishandlead.com for subscription information to get more videos like Lesson 13 Set your writing goals with us! Try us out in a free consultation. Check out our current and past...
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DP&L Episode 269: Four Reasons Your Dissertation is a Mess (Big Things)
Defend, Publish & Lead Podcast
In Episode 269, Christine Tulley walks through all four “big picture” problems that might cause a dissertation to be derailed. Episode Resources Sign up for our free Dissertation Rescue sessions on Consider attending this year’s DPL Resources Tuesday Toolbox - contact christine@defendpublishandlead.com for subscription information to get more videos like Lesson 13 Set your writing goals with us! Try us out in a free consultation. Check out our current and past workshops at Eventbrite for writing support content. A FREE webinar is posted each month. Missed a workshop?...
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DP&L Episode 268: REMIX Make Writing an Event
Defend, Publish & Lead Podcast
In this remix of an earlier episode, Christine Tulley invites you to start thinking about writing as an event—something you actually look forward to rather than squeeze in between everything else. She shares how she treats her writing sessions like a “hot date,” complete with a fancy coffee, a favorite playlist, and a trip to the library to get into the right mindset. Even when writing at home, she recreates that sense of occasion with small rituals—special drinks, lo-fi music, a quick walk, or a few minutes of freewriting—to signal that it’s time to focus. The key is building...
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DP&L Episode 267: Faculty Writers Need Love
Defend, Publish & Lead Podcast
In Episode 266, Christine Tulley walks through ways faculty developers can show faculty writers some love including programming, resources, and support strategies and how faculty writers can support themselves with free resources and writing organizations. Resources Mentioned: Get a free past webinar on us! Select PAST to view all of and select one. Email to let her know and the recording for both past free or paid events will be sent to you. “.” By Jennifer Ahern-Dodson and Christine Tulley DPL Resources: Tuesday Toolbox - contact...
info_outlineIn Episode 266, Christine Tulley walks through the process of creating a "book completion battle plan" when facing a tight deadline, sharing her real-time approach to finishing a book manuscript due March 1st with only 23 days remaining. She demonstrates how to audit your available time by identifying writing days versus non-writing days, distinguishing between "big block days" (2+ hours), smaller writing blocks (45-90 minutes), and brief time fragments, explaining that she has 15 realistic writing days to complete 15,000-25,000 words at approximately 1,600 words per day. Tulley emphasizes thinking in terms of sections and subsections rather than just word counts, strategically allocating big blocks for generating new content and structural work while reserving smaller time pockets for cleanup tasks, and she shares practical decisions like printing the full manuscript for review, hiring a coach for formatting help, planning when to hand off work for editing, and protecting key writing days. She explains that noting that this kind of strategic time mapping helps writers facing deadlines make informed decisions about whether they need to add weekend days or pull all-nighters to meet their goals.
Resources Mentioned:
- Episode 99 - Double Check Your Writing Using Penzu
- Register for the 2026 Textbook and Academic Authors Institute to work on your book
DPL Resources
- Tuesday Toolbox - contact christine@defendpublishandlead.com for subscription information to get more videos like Lesson 13
- Set your writing goals with us! Try us out in a free consultation.
- Check out our current and past workshops at Eventbrite for writing support content. A FREE webinar is posted each month. Missed a workshop? Request a workshop or webinar recording from christine@defendandpublish.com
- Don't forget about the wonderful resources at Textbook and Academic Authors Association. The organization can be found at: https://www.taaonline.net
- New to TAA? Join for just $25 using discount code DP26! You will also receive a copy of the eBook, Guide to Making Time to Write: 100+ Time & Productivity Management Tips for Textbook and Academic Authors.