Kind Of A Big Book Deal

Episode 12: How To Understand Your Author Platform Right Now

• Meghan Stevenson

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What shows up when someone Googles your name? 

If you’re dreaming of landing a traditional book deal, that search result matters more than you think. In this punchy and insightful episode, publishing expert Meghan Stevenson breaks down why your author platform is just as important as your book idea, and how a quick Google search is the first litmus test agents and editors use to decide if you're worth a call.

Meghan explains why most aspiring authors aren’t ready to pitch, the three common business models that shape successful platforms, and how to build yours in a way that aligns with your brand. Whether you’re an influencer, a service-based entrepreneur, or a corporate consultant, this episode will help you understand what publishers are really looking for—and how to show up strong online.

Have a great idea for a book but don't know where to start? MeghanStevenson.com/quiz

Book a consultation with Meghan: https://calendly.com/meghanstevenson/paid-consultation-with-meghan-stevenson-books

Find Vivian Tu’s story here: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DHlbMJcu-yn/?igsh=MTMzZWo2cDY4NnAzbQ%3D%3D

Episode Highlights:
(0:00) Intro
(1:27) The harsh truth about author platforms
(4:26) What agents look for online
(5:32) How to check your own platform
(7:48) When Google fails: hidden audiences
(11:03) The 3 models of author platforms
(14:29) The value of speaking engagements
(15:53) No magic number, but more is better
(16:35) Quiz and closing advice for aspiring authors
(17:26) Outro


Follow Meghan:

  • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/megstevenson
  • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/megstevenson
  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meghanstevenson/
  • TikTok: @meghan.stevenson.books
  • Website: https://www.meghanstevenson.com/


Have a great idea for a book but don't know where to start?MeghanStevenson.com/quiz


Traditional publishing expert Meghan Stevenson blasts open the gates of the “Big 5” – Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Hachette, and Macmillan – to share what every entrepreneur and expert needs to know about landing a book deal.

In episodes released every other Monday, Meghan shares wisdom and stories from 20+ years in publishing as well as interviews with authors, literary agents, and editors. She also answers questions from listeners like you.

Whether you are an experienced entrepreneur with an empire, or are just starting out – this podcast will help you understand what you need to do in order to turn your dream of being a bestselling author into real life.

Speaker 1:

Recently, someone I didn't know reached out to me and requested a meeting, and y'all. The first thing that I'm going to do is the exact same thing literary agents or editors would do in that same situation, and that is to Google a bitch. Welcome to the Kind of a Big Book Deal podcast where entrepreneurs come to learn about traditional publishing. I'm your host, Meghan Stevenson. After working as an editor for two of the biggest traditional publishers, I started my own business helping entrepreneurs become authors. To date, my clients have earned over $5 million from publishers like Penguin, random House, simon Schuster and HarperCollins.

Speaker 1:

In these podcast episodes, I blast open the well-kept gates to traditional publishing. I'll explain what every entrepreneur needs to know about landing a book deal without losing your mind. I'm going to share stories, answer your questions, interview the successful authors I've worked with and probably save platform more than a tech bro. So if you dream of landing on a bestseller list but have no idea how, this is the podcast for you, and I am so, so glad you're here. I recognize the language there is a bit crass, but I'm hoping that it makes it really easy for you to remember. Right, google a bitch, google a bro, because that lesson that I'm going to share in this episode, which is about you and, more specifically, your author platform, is super important. It is like the number one thing you need to know about what's going to happen when you approach someone like me, a professional collaborator, someone like an agent and certainly definitely a publisher or an editor at a publishing house. People are going to google you and so you want to know what's on the other side of that search. So let's talk about that, okay. So someone reaches out to me and in that situation, what I'm going to do every single time is google a google bro. So, based on that particular google search, I already knew that person wasn't ready to work with me, and you might think me Meghan, that's an assumption. How do you know that? Right, and it's because I knew from Googling that she didn't have a big enough author platform, just like you probably don't. The reason I say that is because I've got a lot of data. So in 2024, 90% of the people who took the quiz on my website I'll include the link in the show notes needed to grow their audience and author platform before I would even consider talking to them about writing a book proposal, because of the things we talked about in earlier episodes.

Speaker 1:

And remember, I'm not saying no to meeting with all of you to be bitchy right, not saying no to meeting with all of you to be bitchy right. It is seriously a numbers game. And because I know that your proposal will go absolutely fucking nowhere If you don't have an author platform, it's just. I'm not going to send it to an agent because I know the agents going to kick it back to us, agents not going to bring it to a publisher because they're going to kick it back to them. So, rather than have it be kicked around, right, let's have you develop your author platform first, um, or pick a different way to publish, right, but that's just the reality. So, rather than have that conversation and you can probably hear how fired up I am rather than have that conversation 200 fucking times a year, I'm doing this podcast. So you're welcome, okay, you're welcome.

Speaker 1:

In this episode, though, what we're going to explore is the world of author platforms even more so, today, I'm going to talk to you about why literary agents, editors and professional collaborators like me use a Google search as a way to guesstimate your author platform. We're also going to talk about why Googling yourself is an immensely useful tool in understanding where you're at and also the flaws of this method and why it's not perfect and the assumptions that you can make that are wrong and, based on all of that, what you as a potential author, as a future author, may want to consider and what you might need to take action on next. So let's start with why the literary agents, editors and professional collaborators like me use Google to determine your author platform. Well, it's really easy. It is literally the easiest way.

Speaker 1:

So when I do a quick internet search on you, I can see the size of your audience. So if I'm introduced to somebody and this happens more often than you might think I noticed that the links to social media are broken on their website, or maybe their website gives me that weird like this isn't private error message, right? Or they only have a few thousand followers on Instagram, or less than a few thousand, or their account is private. I know that their author platform is likely to be small. Now, that's not always the case. I'm going to explain the exceptions to this later but those things are typically good indicators, like they just are. If you have a broken website, it's chance that you're not really, you know, using that website for much. On the flip side, if I see millions of followers on your instagram right, or hundreds of thousands, or an obvious platform with lots of amazing testimonials and a clearly intentional online presence, then now I'm interested. Now I'm booking that call Right. So how do you know what I'm going to see? Well, it's really easy.

Speaker 1:

You can open up a private browsing window and Google yourself. You can borrow a friend's phone and Google yourself. And why this can be super helpful is kind of twofold. First, you'll be able to see what other people see. When I look myself up on Google, both in my regular browser and in an incognito private window, I can see I have about 10,000 followers across social media platforms. I can see that I post regularly. I can see that I have a ton of content going back several years available online. It is very clear to me that Meghan Stevenson, the publishing expert, has posted consistently for years, and all of that is great for my platform. Similarly, I can also check out what my website and what my profiles look like to other people. Right, I can do things like check the links. I can do my own quiz. I can make sure the user experience of someone coming to my website. Coming to my Instagram is what I want that I'm directing them down the funnel in whatever way I choose.

Speaker 1:

It can also be helpful to see and notice how searchable you are. For example, the only other Meghan Stevenson that I'm even remotely concerned about is an actress, although there are lots of Meghan Stevensons out there in the world doing amazing things like writing killer articles for the Sanford Law Review and running VC firms related to economic development in Latin America. Right, I'm not the only Meghan Stevenson. I have a fairly generic name. Luckily, my mom put nature in there, right. Also, kudos to the Meghan Stevenson with an H on Instagram who friended every other Meghan Stevenson she could find on the internet, Because I love that shit. That is amazing. Good for you, girl. Good for you Because I just think that's fun and awesome and funny as hell. Okay, but anyway, like, point being, even with a pretty common generic name, I can tell by Googling myself that I own these ladies in search, right, I just do, and so that's good for me as an entrepreneur, and it would be great if I wanted to publish a book or get a book deal, uh, anytime soon, right, like that would just be great, cause if you put Meghan Stevenson, I pop Awesome.

Speaker 1:

That said, this method is not perfect. Googling a bitch, googling a bro, can be flawed. It can be really flawed. Actually, most of the time, this method totally fails for corporate consultants, for academics, for scientists, who, by the very nature of their work, will have very small numbers on social media. Right, if you're going into companies and you're consulting the C-suite, chances are you're not on Instagram sharing memes. So if the main way you would sell books is through speaking or doing in-person work with companies, it's not likely I'm going to see like your whole platform in a quick Google search and I know that, right. So that's why I'm going to ask you, either through questions on the quiz on my website Again, that link is in the show notes because that's how I qualify potential clients or when you reach out to me through like an existing client like I have a lot of existing clients who are in corporate consulting when they come to me with like a friend who's an executive coach or you know a friend who works in di work or leadership work, I'm gonna ask them like hey, what you know?

Speaker 1:

What's your platform, how do you produce your services, whatever. So that's important and, in case you're wondering, I do have to qualify, and I have to qualify really sharply because, even though I'm sure each of you are delightful individuals to talk to, the time that I spend here in my office at work is best spent on clients and creating content like this podcast that helps so many people at once. Right, if I had these conversations individually, I'd probably have like thousands of these, and I, you know, just basically wouldn't have time to actually, you know, write books proposals, get the results you all want. So, that said, I do offer individual consultations. I have a very limited number of those, but if you do really, really, really, really, really, really really want my advice from your individual situation, that link is also in today's show notes, so you can check that out, um, so let's say, though, that you're in the camp that most people are in, where you definitely need to build a bigger audience and improve your book concept at scale before talking to me at all. Right, before you can even have, you know, the conversation about writing a book proposal, you need to build your platform first. So here's what you might consider and what you might need to do next.

Speaker 1:

So platforms are really hard to give general advice for because they're so individual, right? Everyone has a unique author platform and that's why a lot of times, the advice stops at like oh, you should post on social, because publishers don't know, literary agents don't know. Most of the people in my industry hide under a proverbial rock because we get asked on the top of ski mountains how to publish books. Like, literally, like, there's just a lot of authors out there and a lot of people hungry for information. So, like, that's what? It's getting better now. There's a lot of good sub stacks and a lot of other podcasts about writing. This podcast is popping off. You know all of that, but the advice generally is really hard because everybody's so individual.

Speaker 1:

However, as an entrepreneur myself, who's worked with a lot of entrepreneurs in the last 10 years of being a collaborator, what I can say is that the author platform you build should be directed by the business model that you have, right, and the business model you're using. So let's walk through a couple of those that I see often. So the first thing that I see is kind of what's known as, like, the influencer model or the content creator model. This is where you know you create content online, mostly on social media, and then leverage your audience to get you know media coverage and brand deals and paid sponsored posts and all of that. This is a lucrative business model, but it requires a ton of work. Like I would say. This is actually the most work I've ever heard in my life from influencers. So when people like neg on influencers, I'm all like yo. Those people work so hard for what they get.

Speaker 1:

So I'm going to include a story, um a link to a story from our client, vivian to, otherwise known as your rich bff, in the show notes. If you're currently using this model or interested in adapting it for your business, because she's the expert on this. I am not, but in this particular model, you want to have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of followers, because your entire author platform is that audience. So you might have a podcast, you might have media mentions, but the main draw is what you're doing and who you are able to reach on social. You heard the bird clock it is 11 am, that's when I'm taping this. So welcome to the white breasted nuthatch to our podcast. So another business model is the online entrepreneur model which I'm currently using.

Speaker 1:

These authors also build a platform through creating and sharing content, but make our money by selling products, by selling services. Many of my most successful clients have gotten book deals this way, often by selling coaching services or digital products or digital courses. So for these authors, their platform is likely email marketing, social marketing, a network of other entrepreneurs that kind of have the same business model, maybe some podcast appearances and maybe even their own podcast. Oftentimes a little bit of media mentions. Especially for online media like Forbes, entrepreneur places like that, the opportunity generally for book sales is the people who have already bought from them, their fans presumably, plus the people who haven't, because their services are more expensive than the book. So when I worked with Rachel Rogers on her proposal, this is sort of the argument that we presented, which was that, hey, at the time Rachel's lowest cost service. She has more affordable services now, but at the time, way back in 2018, she charged thousands of dollars for the first program she had, and so a lot of people couldn't afford that. She changed that to a membership model, which was more affordable, but even then, the book is more affordable. Right, her books are more affordable. They are the entry point for the rest of her funnel, and so that is the way that we positioned that book for online entrepreneurs who sell services, right Is the entry point. It is the lowest cost product in their funnel and a lot of people use this.

Speaker 1:

The last business model is the consultant or keynote speaker model. That's where you intend to sell books through virtual and in-person events right, where you would speak in a room or lead a workshop and then require either the venue or the company that you're working with, the organization that you're working with, to buy books. This is often the most obvious and appealing author platform to publishers because it's one-to-one right with all these other models. You are basically taking a megaphone out into the internet and asking people to buy and that conversion, as we know, for online products and sales is around one to two percent. For books it's a little higher. I would guess it's between three and five percent. But when you're a corporate speaker or you know you're a keynote speaker or a corporate consultant, the sales are generally more one-to-one right like meaning that if you are a keynote speaker and there are 1500 people in that venue, the organization is likely to buy 1500 books right and they're going to do in a bulk sale, which is the easiest way for publishers to sell books. That said, a publisher is going to want to see that you are talking to 20,000, 30,000 people annually because they're still going to worry about your social numbers being low, even though social media isn't the way you sell your products and services. They're just going to worry about that because, to everybody else, that's what's public facing. So just know that. That is all to say.

Speaker 1:

To recap, your author platform, remember, is your ability to sell books right, which is equally important to your ideas and any proposal or manuscript that you write. Everyone's author platform is going to be different and only you can know what your platform is or could be. So there's no magic number, unfortunately. I wish there was where publishers will say, yes, it's just not the way we work in our industry, but more tends to be better, right, and less can be a real dream killer, even at the point where you're going to work with me, like I've had to say no to awesome people with great ideas that just didn't grow their platform enough, and I don't want that for you.

Speaker 1:

However, I'm going to share my secret with you, in that a great check on where you are and how far you have to go is to Google yourself. I term this Google a bitch or Google a bro right, and it's been very effective for me. So you can also take the quiz on my website, which is a little more detailed. It's a little more detailed and it will tell you in just a handful of questions exactly where you're at and, like, if you need to grow your audience right now, right. And it might tell you too that you're ready to have a meeting with me to discuss your next steps.

Speaker 1:

Like. It can tell you everything. It can also tell you if we're even remotely the right people for you or if you should be listening to a different podcast and subscribing to a different email address. So it's good for you to take that quiz. That resource is in the show notes for today. So until next time, cheers to your success and here's to your greater author platform. Thanks for tuning into the kind of big book deal podcast. Want to see where you're at on your book journey? Check out my free quiz at meghanstevensoncom forward slash quiz. That's M E G H A N S T E V E N S O Ncom forward slash quiz. See you next time.