We were lucky to catch up with Lisa Steinke and  Liz Fenton recently and have shared our conversation below.

Lisa & Liz, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Do you manage your own social media?

We manage our own social media for many reasons. We have fun doing it! We love to share snafus we get into in our everyday lives, ridiculous things that happen to us on vacation and snippets from our worlds behind our computer monitors. And, of course, we also enjoy including our readers in our book publishing adventures: the good, the bad and the ugly. Another reason we handle our own social media platforms is because the way we frame our stories is part of our brand. We also have a podcast called, We Fight So You Don’t Have To where we share the truth about A LOT of what we go through in publishing as well as in our own lives. We like to lean into the mistakes we make and the things that go wrong as much as, if not more than, the straightforward publishing accomplishments. And in order to do that, we need to be posting our own content which has worked for us. People love when we’re honest and real about arguing or feeling rejected in publishing as much as they enjoy our take on an airline that bumps us off a flight and doesn’t reimburse our ticket. Like many people probably have, we have learned our lesson trying to present something as a rosy picture when it actually wasn’t. Our best advice is to be yourself online. People relate to that!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

We are Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke, best friends, podcast hosts and co-authors of eight novels. Our most recent book, FOREVER HOLD YOUR PEACE has been called Father of the Bride meets Bride Wars with a little Mama Mia thrown in. Our friendship started over thirty years ago when we met in high school. We decided to start writing books together about fifteen years ago. Our novels range from magical realism to suspense to rom-com. We write what we love to read and we have fun while doing it. Because we are best friends and co-authors/business partners, we have had many arguments over the years. On our podcast, WE FIGHT SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO, we share the lessons we’ve learned from this longterm friendship. We hope that through our stories, others can learn a little something about themselves. We don’t hold back on social media or on the podcast when it comes to owning our feelings, mistakes and insecurities. We hope our books entertain people as much as make them think!

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

We met in high school! As fourteen year old freshman, we had no idea that we’d one day be business partners and co-authors but we forged a friendship that became the foundation for us to do so. After high school, we went to the same college where we were roommates and joined the same sorority. There was a lot of together time! When we graduated, we took a little break to embark on our respective careers. Liz entered the sales arena and Lisa went into television. After we established ourselves in our fields we started discussing writing a book together. One thing led to another and now we have eight published novels.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

2020 was a tough year for everyone, including us. On top of Covid-19, we also published our seventh novel, HOW TO SAVE A LIFE. Ironically, it was about a man who keeps reliving the same day over and over. Unfortunately, that book did not do well. We parted ways with our literary agent and publisher. We were beyond devastated and worried that our careers were over. After some wallowing, we decided to talk about our experience on our podcast. (Check out our rejection series.) Our first episode went viral and we received a ton of messages, emails and calls from other authors who had gone through similar experiences in their careers but didn’t think they could talk about them. They said they were inspired to tell their stories too. We interviewed several of these authors on our podcast. (Check out the Struggle Bus series.)

Contact Info:

• Website: www.lizandlisa.com
• Instagram: @lisandliz
• Facebook: @Lizfentonandlisasteinke
• Linkedin: Liz Fenton, Lisa Steinke
• Youtube: @LizFentonandLisaSteinke
• Threads: https://www.threads.net/@lisaandliz