Meet Elisabeth Rhoads

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Elisabeth Rhoads. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Elisabeth, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

I’ve failed. A lot. Whether it’s been in acting or writing, I’ve spent more time flat on my face than moving forward. When I was trying to break into acting, I let the failure get to me. I was tired of auditioning and getting no for an answer. I gave up.

But with writing, for whatever reason, I didn’t stop. When more than 200 literary agents rejected my novel, I decided to create my own publishing company, and publish it myself. Now I have a novel in the world.

It’s not a new concept, but I learned the hard way, that all resilience is, is getting back up.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I’m a fiction author, and probably one of the most exciting things about writing fiction is when the story takes on a life of its own. At least for me, stories begin their life as a kind of hazy concept. I usually have a rough idea of what the story is and where it’s headed.

However, the problem with concepts is that they are just that—concepts. Through the process of writing, you’re taking an unshaped idea and chiseling in the details that create the story. Usually this is a difficult process for me, but on rare occasions, the story suddenly takes a turn, seemingly on its own.

For example, I wrote a short story in third person, with the focus on the protagonist. As the story neared the end though, I suddenly found myself writing in first person, and I was shocked to find that the antagonist had taken over the narrative at the very end! It sounds strange, but it’s one of the rare, but wonderful moments that can happen to a story.

Something I’m particularly excited about now, is my dark, psychological suspense novel, coming out on July 15, 2025. The title is Haggard House, and it’s set in a fictional village in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the mid-1800s. If you like gothic fiction, remote settings, and family secrets, I think you’ll enjoy reading it.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

As far as writing itself, a wonderful author I know told me that If I wanted to be a writer I had to do two things: read and write. More specifically, she told me not to only read for pleasure, but to read with an eye towards deconstructing what the author was doing in terms of craft. This was something that did not come naturally.

I had always read for pleasure—never thinking about the structure or the techniques used to underpin it. However, as I began to write more and more, it became easier for me to analyze in terms of craft, which then helped me hone my own further.

If someone is starting their journey of writing, I would recommend the same thing that my author friend told me. Read a lot. Write a lot. And, to add my own touch—do both consistently.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

Absolutely!

Personally speaking, I’m looking to partner with a literature-loving publicity expert. Marketing and PR for a novel are long-term and never-ending, so I’d love to find someone with a passion for both, to help take some of that work off my plate, so I can focus on other things.

Speaking of other things, what I’d like to focus on (besides writing) is my new company. As mentioned earlier, in the process of sharing my book with a larger audience, I created my own publishing company, Bodger Books.

As I went through the process of book production, which meant everything learning what size a barcode needs to be, to working with a producer on an audiobook, I realized not only how many hurdles those who have small presses or are self-publishing face, but how many of those hurdles are either unnecessary or could be streamlined.

My long-term vision for Bodger Books is to partner with people who care about getting quality literature into the world. Specialties I’m looking to partner with include: systems development for Print on Demand, website and app designers, and anyone with an expertise that can help create a streamlined system from author to bookstore.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.elisabethrhoads.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elisabeth_rhoads_author/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ElisabethRhoadsAuthor
• Twitter: https://x.com/ERhoadsAuthor
• Other: Substack: https://elisabethrhoads.substack.com/