Hey fascinating sagers, welcome in. This week’s podcast I’m the guest on Michelle Adams podcast Michell Buck Books -Author Interviews for a special two part conversation. Part 1 is a ton of fun with real talk and diving into what I actually do for a living and why the labels in holistic health can feel like a word salad. From there, we get into the behind the scenes reality of juggling two very different publications, building an audience organically to vanity metrics We also talk book strategy, including the difference between DIY marketing versus hiring support, how to think like a publicist without getting scammed. And, true confession here, I was sweating in a casita with tons of stink bugs flying around and I just felt itchy!
Welcome
I want to take this opportunity to say 👋 hello and welcome to Teri Cook 🌸 and Stephanie Severson. Thank you for subscribing, honoured to have you here.
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Label To Table
We are back! Holistic Nutritionist Danni Macfarland and I meet every Wednesday Live to decode the ingredients, read the fine print on what goes on your plate, your skin, and in your space, translate the science, and help you choose with confidence so you can sage with sass and grace every day life. You can join us on my Substack
Wednesdays
9 am pacific
10 am mountain
11 am central
12pm Eastern
Just log in to your Substack app or use the link in your email on Wednesdays. Hope you can join us.
Show Notes
Quick reference: tools, apps, platforms mentioned
Substack; writing platform, publications, exports
Apple Notes; writing drafts and organizing
Pages (or WORD) copy final product in Substack and paste for a backup
Brave browser alternative to Chrome, helpful for separate sessions
When Michelle Adams introduced me on her show, she did it the way a good host does: she tried to read my bio so she wouldn’t butcher it, laughed at how many roles I carry, and then promptly labeled me “the poop queen” on the internet. Which, honestly, is accurate enough as that was my title for a long time. And now that we are in 2026— it is even more relevant today.
I’m Karen Langston. I work in holistic health and transformation. I’m a certified nutritionist, orthomolecular practitioner, somatic intuitive trainer, integrated mind body specialist, and hypnotist. I help women beyond menopause cool hot flashes, boost energy, and keep their memory intact naturally. My podcast is Go With Your Gut Beyond Menopause, and my upcoming book carries the same name. But here’s what I said in that conversation that matters more than any list of titles.
Even my mom doesn’t fully know what I do. How many mothers actually know what we do? And, I ask you this, does yours? I would love to know—hit the comment button
That’s not a joke. That’s the reality of modern wellness. The vocabulary is sprawling. The labels keep evolving. And for people outside the industry, it can sound like an alphabet soup designed to confuse them into submission. And, I do my best to make simple words out of the soup.
Michelle asked a fair question: what does “orthomolecular practitioner” even mean?
So I explained it the way I actually think about it.
Orthomolecular is about the body’s nutrient environment. It’s about identifying deficiencies, imbalances, and how the body is trying to maintain homeostasis. It’s the biochemical terrain, and what’s supporting it or draining it. It’s a lens that helps you look at why the body isn’t functioning well, not just what symptom is showing up.
And then I said the part that most people don’t realize. A lot of these titles exist because people were forced to invent them.
Holistic nutrition professionals have been targeted for using the word “nutrition,” even though the work we do often does not match what conventional dietetics covers in practice. So the industry adapted. It came up with new language that didn’t sound like “nutrition,” even though “dietitian” doesn’t exactly sound like a nutrition word either. That’s how we got terms like orthomolecular. Not as a trendy label, but as a workaround, a way to keep doing the work without constantly being challenged for naming it.
And once you start noticing that, you see it everywhere.
Integrative. Functional. Alternative. Holistic. Practitioner. Specialist. Coach.
The hospital I worked for in Mexico, also had this same debate about what to call themselves because the words carry history. “Integrative” still feels like a certain era. “Functional” has become the buzzword people recognize right now. The branding is always playing catch up with the culture. At one point I joked that maybe I should just call myself a professional homesteader.
Michelle said, like farming? And I said, you farm, I pick.
From there, the conversation shifted into something that surprised people listening. Not the wellness side of my life, but the writing side. I have two Substack publications, and I’m building books from both of them, in different ways.
My main publication is Hey Lady, You Are Fascinating. That’s where my health content lives, along with my work, my voice, my audience. But I also live full time in a motorcoach, and I wanted a place to write my RV travels from the beginning chronologically, without needing a publisher’s permission or a perfect plan. So I created Planes, Trains and RVing.
I didn’t invite anyone. I didn’t market it. I wanted it to be organic, and I wanted it to keep me accountable. I committed to showing up weekly and writing the story in order, start to finish, because the end goal was always a book: my first year on the road, turned into a written series, then compiled into something tangible. I wrote every week for 55 weeks, except one. And yes, I tortured myself over the one week I missed. Because the accountability part works a little too well when you’re wired like I am.
Write Your Book on Substack
That’s the part people don’t always understand about Substack. It can be a growth platform, sure. But it can also be the simplest accountability structure you’ll ever find. A place to show up and write, even if no one claps. Especially if no one claps. And, when I started on Subsack there was no one clapping but me.
Michelle and I also talked about the hidden chaos of trying to run two publications under one profile. The way Substack structures multiple publications makes it feel like it should create separate identities, but it doesn’t. And that creates a branding problem fast.
If you’re a practitioner trying to build trust with a health audience, and suddenly your Notes feed is full of landscapes and travel snapshots, it can confuse people. It can confuse the platform. And it can definitely confuse the so called gurus who insist you should “share more of yourself.”
So, I gave it a go, I kept my travel photos minimal for that exact reason. It isn’t that travel is wrong. It’s that mixing signals makes it harder for people to understand what you actually do and why they should stay. I keep my mum in mind when I am working on my business. Will she be confused by this?
Michelle shared that she tried something similar with an art focused publication, and it became maddening. The issue wasn’t creativity. It was the bouncing. The logging in and out. The way the app behaves. The way your audience reacts when they feel like they’re being dragged into a different room without warning.
I am still going to give it a go, I’m going to separate my travel publication completely, even if it’s annoying. I just want to see how I can grow it organically.
And yes, I already have a strategy to make it less annoying. I don’t use Chrome. I use Brave. And I can run different windows and sessions so I’m not constantly juggling logins on my phone. It’s not elegant, but it’s workable….in theory anyway.
Because at the end of the day, the content matters more than the platform friction.
We also went into something that genuinely surprised Michelle, and honestly surprised a lot of people: exporting your Substack content does not always give you what you think it gives you.
I don’t write my post inside Substack. I write in Notes on my MacBook, and then I edit. Then I paste into Substack. Then Substack catches things I missed. Then I edit again. After it all looks good, then I copy the final version into Pages (or Word, if you’re on PC) and save it offline.
Because if my internet goes down, if the platform glitches, if something corrupts, I’m not losing my work before it is written. If I want to start up on a different web platform I have everything all in one place to copy and paste.
Substack does let you export, but when I looked at the export, it wasn’t the clean, usable archive I expected. It felt more like code meant to be re-imported, not a true backup I could easily use.
So I built my own backup process instead and that is what I just shared. I create a folder title what my post or podcast is. In the folder is the raw video, any images I use, transcript and polished post.
And that brought us to the other theme running under the entire Part 1 conversation. The vanity metrics.The numbers that try to steal your joy. The way platforms quietly rewards some people and label others in ways that feel like public shaming.
We talked about how Substack shows “non paid subscribers,” and how that label can make people dismiss brilliant writers who simply aren’t monetized. We talked about the weird psychological pressure it creates, the way it makes money feel like legitimacy, and legitimacy feel like a status symbol.
I understand Substack is a business. I appreciate that it isn’t Facebook. I appreciate that it isn’t selling you algorithmic ads every ten seconds. But I don’t appreciate shame labels. And I don’t appreciate a system that pours attention into those who already arrived with thousands of subscribers, while the people who need the most support are left to scramble, compare, and blame themselves. Perhaps this influences some people to stop writing. And I don’t want that for anyone.
In this episode it was about names, titles, platforms, and the behind the scenes reality of building something real without letting the numbers hijack your mood.
In Part 2, the conversation shifts into strategy, publishing decisions, beta readers, and how I’m protecting my work while still writing with a voice that no one else can replicate.
Thanks for watching, listening or reading. See you soon
~Karen
