Kind Of A Big Book Deal
"Kind of a Big Book Deal" is the go-to podcast for entrepreneurs eager to dive into the world of traditional publishing. Hosted by Meghan Stevenson, a seasoned editor with deep roots in the publishing industry, this podcast is perfect for anyone dreaming of topping the bestseller lists. Meghan shares her wealth of experience, including securing over $5 million in book deals for her clients from giants like Penguin and Harper Collins. Each episode is packed with insider tips on snagging a book deal, building a compelling author platform, and the realities of the publishing journey.
Meghan's approachable style and candid discussions make learning about the often-intimidating publishing process enjoyable and relatable. She brings on successful authors to share their stories, offers straightforward advice, and answers listener questions, all while keeping things light and engaging. "Kind of a Big Book Deal" isn't just informative—it's like sitting down with a good friend who knows the ins and outs of the publishing world.
The podcast airs new episodes every other Friday, providing fresh insights and ongoing support for both budding and seasoned entrepreneurs. Whether you're just starting out or you're looking to expand your reach in the literary world, Meghan's guidance and the vibrant community she fosters can help you navigate your way to publishing success with confidence and a few laughs along the way.
Kind Of A Big Book Deal
Episode 23 - How to Build an Author Platform With—or Without—Social Media Followers
Most entrepreneurs dream of writing a book but few realize what really catches a publisher’s eye. In this episode of Kind of a Big Book Deal, host Meghan Stevenson reveals the missing piece behind most failed book pitches: intellectual property that’s uniquely yours. She explains why having your own framework, language, and approach isn’t just nice, it’s non-negotiable if you want to stand out to agents and publishers.
Meghan also breaks down what a strong author platform actually looks like today, from building genuine social media engagement (not fake followers) to diversifying your reach through podcasts, speaking gigs, and media features. You’ll hear a real-world example from “Chazz,” a coach who’s doing almost everything right but still missing the secret sauce.
If you’re serious about landing a major book deal and turning your ideas into impact, this episode shows exactly where to focus your time and energy
Episode Highlights:
(0:00) Intro
(1:22) Chazz’s question on building author credibility
(2:05) The real value of social media for book deals
(4:37) Why buying followers backfires
(5:04) Diversifying your author platform
(6:11) The danger of sounding like everyone else
(7:42) Example: Melody Wilding’s “Sensitive Strivers” niche
(8:40) Social proof vs. sales power
(10:02) How to leverage your past book for your next deal
(10:56) Final thoughts and how to submit your question
(10:58) Outro
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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.
Many entrepreneurs in general do not have unique intellectual property. You lack your own frameworks, you lack your own approaches, you lack your own way of talking about the problem and helping your ideal client with the solution. That is such a big deal because intellectual property is key to building an author platform because it helps you be known for something. 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. 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 say 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. Alright, everybody, today we've got a great question that came in from Chaz. I'm gonna let him take it away.
Speaker 1:Hi, Meghan. My question is related to building a credible author platform. So aside from having a substantial amount of social media following, what are the most effective ways an author can build credibility and demonstrate a strong author platform to successfully secure a book deal with a major publisher? So that's my question.
Speaker:This is a really great question. So thank you, Chaz. Unfortunately, the answer is hard to address in a podcast because it's gonna be unique to every single one of you listening. That said, I'm gonna share some tips that will hopefully help all of you, and then I'm gonna walk through what I found when I did my usual Googling a bro approach on Chaz specifically. So let's start with the tips, shall we? The truth is that your social media following is important and it's maybe even crucial for your book deal, but not maybe for the reasons you think. Social is powerful within traditional publishing for two main reasons. First, it's a direct audience that you as the author mostly control. I say mostly because entrepreneurs who have been online for more than a minute know that your audience on social media is dependent on the platforms themselves, meaning that Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, whatever platform you're on, and the company or even the individual who owns that platform ultimately owns and controls your audience. More specifically, that company owns your ability to reach those people. So if you get blocked or the algorithm changes, how often and how effectively you interact with the audience you've built could also be impacted. However, even considering all of that, social media is a great way to test ideas, connect with your potential clients, and build influence online. That's why entrepreneurs love it and most use it as a primary marketing and sales channel. Publishers also know how effective social media can be in creating awareness and generating sales, which is why publishers want to leverage social media too, and why they have insisted on everyone having a strong online presence for the last 20 years. So that's number one, right? Uh social media is a great way to reach your audience. Number two is that social media platforms are public. Anyone can see what you're up to, and there's very little shadiness. In theory, you could lie about your email list, you could lie about your connections, you could lie about your revenue, you could even lie about your business overall. But your following and your engagement on social media is obvious to anyone with an internet connection. Let's go to Tangent Town for a brief story. I have a client who has over 500,000 followers across social platforms. When her book proposal landed with publishers, there was actually a question about her low engagement and whether she had bought followers. Now, she hadn't, right? But we did figure out that she was using a strategy that involves exchanging likes and shares with other creators to collectively grow audiences. We were able to explain that strategy to the publisher and alleviate their concerns. My client ended up getting a deal in the end, but the point of this particular tangent town is that publishers were paying attention to engagement and digging into all the information available to them on public platforms like social media when evaluating her like an author. Let that be a lesson to you that buying followers or trying to rush success never really pays off. I'm not even that social media literate. And when I look at people, I'm like, ooh, something's off here. You know, they're telling me they earned $10 million last year and I'm seeing zero likes, I'm seeing zero comments, or I'm only seeing 26,000 followers. Something doesn't compute. So let's get back to the topic of this episode, which is how to build a credible author platform. So in addition to social media, the second thing I personally look for is diversification. And what I mean by that is that you use more than one medium to reach people, meaning that you have social and a podcast, or maybe you do speaking and have research studies to your name, or you coach and teach at a university, or that you facilitate with corporations and offer LinkedIn learning courses. So our question asker today, Chaz, is a great example of this. When I Googled him, it was easy to see that he had a ton of press interviews and media mentions on his website. He shares a speaker's reel and a bunch of topics that you can book him for, which is great. His website is well designed and all the links work. Seriously, y'all, do not underestimate the power of your technical details because I see so many broken websites when Googling potential authors, and that is the number one thing that tells me you are nowhere near ready for a book deal. So let's go back to Chaz, though. I'm gonna go off my rant and get back to Chaz. He's got a little bit of everything, right? Which is great. But, and this is a big but, I could not tell right away what makes Chaz unique as a coach, speaker, and leader. And I I'm not saying this to be critical or to single him out because this is so, so common among coaches and people in the personal growth space more generally. Therapists, I'm talking to you as well. Many entrepreneurs in general do not have unique intellectual property. You lack your own frameworks, you lack your own approaches, you lack your own way of talking about the problem and helping your ideal client with the solution. That is such a big deal because intellectual property is key to building an author platform because it helps you be known for something, specifically without the use of jargon or buzzwords. And creating that intellectual property can often be a big challenge. That's especially true for those of you who are in fields where there isn't a lot of uniqueness, like coaching and personal growth. In these realms, people tend to teach about managing your mind, choosing positive thoughts, overcoming limiting beliefs, healing trauma. I could go on, but you've likely heard it before or seen it on TikTok. That lack of uniqueness, using that same phrasing, talking about the same problems, same solution, can cause you to struggle to stand out and therefore really struggle to build an overall audience and author platform. You can be great at what you do, but still stay small, which is why intellectual property might be the thing that's missing from your platform. What I've seen be successful among my clients and other best-selling authors is either hyper-focusing on a niche within a niche or coming up with a unique framework for what you do. So, a great example of both of these things is my client, Melody Wilding. Melody works with what she calls sensitive strivers, high achievers that are also more sensitive to their emotions, the world, and the behavior of those around them. Her first book, Trust Yourself, was about how these sensitive strivers can thrive at work. And our second book, Managing Up, is about being able to communicate clearly with the folks in charge at your job. Melody is a great example of taking your expertise and packaging it into truly unique messaging that allows people to know what your brand is about from the jump. While Melody certainly teaches a lot of the same frameworks and concepts as other coaches, she's packaged it in her own unique way for a specific defined audience, which is why her author platform has worked and her books have been successful. Okay, so a credible author platform has to include a strong social media presence, but it also gets to be diversified, meaning that you get to have multiple avenues to promote yourself in your book and to create unique intellectual property to do so. We can add media credits as well, since these are great for credibility, though in today's news cycle, media is really limited. PR isn't good for much else. PR actually doesn't sell books anymore, right? It's it's we're gonna have Caitlin Koppel from Full Swing PR in an upcoming episode to explain the media landscape right now. But PR is basically good for cred, and that's about it. So we have social media, we have diversification, we have IP, but we're missing the most important aspect of any author platform, which is your ability to sell books. So something I noticed about Chaz is that he's published a book before. And a lot of y'all are coming to me in this position. Okay. So all the advice I've given about overcoming that, because having another book out is a challenge. You are actually putting something in the way between you and your deal. So you need to understand about how to overcome that or how to tell a story about that or how to sell enough copies of your first book to make this a non-issue. Okay. So all the advice I've given, particularly in episode 20, about this, applies to Chaz's situation. However, I want to add that when you do have a previous published book, you actually have an advantage because you can use that book to demonstrate how your author platform sells books. So if there's something that Chaz does within his business that sells books and hopefully gets people to work with him in more lucrative ways, then he knows what parts of his platform to really focus on growing. And when you do that, you accomplish three goals at once. Number one, you grow your author platform. Number two, you grow your previous book sales, which gets rid of a big objection from publishers and agents. And third, you grow your business, which is what we're here to do, right? Like it's really what we're here to do. Because if you're not here to grow your business, uh traditional publishing isn't probably a good spot for you. So that's the answer to your question, Chaz. And I hope you found it helpful. Now, if you have a question about how to get the book deal of your dreams, the link is in the show notes. I love answering these questions, and I really look forward to hearing from you. Until next time, cheers to your success. Thanks for tuning in to the Kind of Big Book Deal podcast. Want to see where you're at on your book journey? Check out my free quiz at MeghanStevenson.com forward slash quiz. That's M E G H A N S T E V E N S O N dot com forward slash quiz. See you next time.