Episode Details

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If you’ve been building something online long enough to remember when a book deal and a blog following felt like the same thing, listen in for a long exhale. Writer, podcaster, and longtime reader‑advocate Laura Tremaine joins Alli for a conversation that blends honest business reflection with a genuine pep talk about what still matters.

Laura has been at this for years. She co-hosted the wildly popular Sorta Awesome podcast, launched Smartest Person in the Room and 10 Things to Tell You, and wrote two books shaped directly by her podcast community. She’s someone who has lived through all waves of online content, from early blogging to the podcast boom to the celebrity-podcast takeover, and she has real insight on it all.

This is a Smart Girl Summer conversation. Listen as two women who have been in the arena for more than fifteen years talk about what they’ve learned, what surprised them, and what they’re betting on next.

What You'll Learn in This Episode:

• Why Laura closed 10 Things to Tell You after years of success, and what it felt like to make that call
• How Spotify's audiobook addition quietly reshaped podcast listenership (especially for readers)
• What Substack is doing for long-form writing that blogging used to do, and why publishers are now paying attention to it
• The case for posting every day on Instagram, even when it feels like shouting into the void
• Why stories vs. the grid is actually a question about who you're creating for
• What both Alli and Laura see coming next, including a cultural reckoning with online life that may already be underway

Timestamps:

(03:36) - How Laura describes what she does in 2026: reader, writer, podcaster (04:51) - Is there a new book coming? Laura shares where she is in the process (06:45) - Substack as the new blogging, and why long-form writing is back 

(08:29) - Alli's Substack origin story: strategic skeptic to convert 

(09:40) - Do Substack audiences actually buy books? The data question nobody can answer yet 

(10:44) - Laura's full podcasting journey: Sorta Awesome to 10 Things to Tell You (13:47) - The book deal she couldn't get as a blogger, and how podcasting finally opened the door 

(16:01) - How the podcast ad economy changed after the pandemic 

(17:20) - Celebrity podcasts, audiobooks, and the great listenership shift

 (18:35) - Why Laura closed 10 Things to Tell You (and what she's doing instead) (19:35) - On not launching the next thing before you're ready 

(20:59) - Slow Read: Laura's new co-hosted podcast with Sarah Stewart Holland of Pantsuit Politics 

(23:00) - Secret Stuff: the placeholder name that stuck, and why it works 

(25:07) - Social media in 2026: how Laura really feels about it 

(30:59) - Stories vs. the grid, and who each one is actually for 

(33:13) - Feeling "old" in the content world, and what to do about it

 (39:08) - Experiences over content, and why in-person community is more important than ever 

Links to great things we discussed: 

• Laura's Substack
• Laura's Instagram
• Laura’s Book Recommendations: Yesteryear & Strangers

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