How to Have a New York Times Bestselling Book

What if the reason you haven’t hit a bestseller list has less to do with talent and more to do with timing, platform, and perspective?

In this episode of the Kind of a Big Book Deal, host Meghan Stevenson pulls back the curtain on what it really takes to become a bestselling author. Using client examples like Vivian Tu, she explains that bestseller status isn’t random and it’s not always about raw sales either. The New York Times list is curated, while USA Today rankings are based on actual sales data. That difference matters.

But the real takeaway goes deeper. Meghan shares two consistent traits she sees in bestselling authors: a willingness to build for years without guarantees, and a bigger vision that goes beyond just “having a book.” Platform, audience, credibility, and lived experience all come first. The book becomes an extension, not the starting point.

If you’re an entrepreneur, expert, or creator dreaming of a book deal, this episode will help you reset expectations, focus on what’s in your control, and ask yourself the right questions before chasing the list.

Episode Highlights:
(0:00) Intro
(1:14) Vivian Tu’s bestseller example
(2:23) How the New York Times list works
(3:47) USA Today vs New York Times differences
(4:26) Why USA Today is more achievable
(5:21) Two traits of bestselling authors
(6:13) Building platform before the book
(8:45) Bigger vision beyond publishing
(10:09) Two questions to ask yourself
(11:44) Outro

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 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. 

Transcript

Dreams Bigger Than A Book

Meghan 0:00

Your dreams have got to be bigger than a book. Every best-selling author I've ever worked with, their dreams were bigger than a book. 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 to become authors. To date, my clients have earned over $7 million from publishers including Penguin Random House, Simon ⁇ Schuster, Harper Collins, and Hay House, just to name a few. In these podcast episodes, I will blast open the well-kept gates to traditional publishing. I'm going to 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 had the pleasure to work 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. When my client Vivian 2 hit the New York Times bestseller list with her book Rich AF, I wasn't all that surprised. Partially that's because of numbers. Vivian has over 8 million followers across social media who follow her insightful, funny, and informative videos about personal finance. But as someone who has worked with hundreds of aspiring and published authors over the years, I also knew Vivian was going to succeed from the moment I met her. And the reason I knew that is because of how she showed up and everything I could see she had done before deciding to write a book. Vivian had already created a strong personal brand, a huge audience, and a dedicated following for what her book was about. By the time she showed up on a call with me, she simply needed help with writing the actual book, which my team helped her with, both for Rich AF and her second book, Well Endowed, which debuted on the New York Times bestseller list at number four back in February. After working with entrepreneurs, experts, and creators who want to become authors for years, I know that y'all want to hit a bestsellers list. So today I'm going to explain the qualities I've seen among all bestselling authors. But before we get there, I want to level set by talking about the New York Times bestseller list specifically. It might surprise you to learn that Vivian was my first New York Times bestselling author in nearly a decade. While many of the books I've worked on, most in fact, have received five-star reviews, sold thousands of copies, and ended up on the USA-to-day bestseller list, only seven of the books I've worked on in my entire career were on the New York Times bestseller list. That's not me. Instead, that is a great indicator of how the New York Times bestseller list operates. As I mentioned way back in episode 9 of this podcast, the New York Times is a curated list, meaning that someone at the Times picks their bestsellers. And because the Times is calling the shots, that list isn't always representative of what readers are buying. I actually know a literary agent who sends her clients to the New York Times bestseller list, along with sales data from book scan that's available to people within the traditional publishing industry. I have access to this data too. And though book scan sales data is not perfect, it does show over and over and over again that the New York Times bestseller list isn't real. Just because Mel Robbins or James Clear tops that list every week doesn't make their books the best-selling books in the country. In contrast, the USA Today bestseller list is based on actual sales numbers. So I wrote this podcast episode the week after Vivian's second book, Well Endowed, went on sale. As I mentioned before, she hit number four on the advice how-to and miscellaneous list, according to the New York Times. But on USA Today, her book was listed as the second best-selling book in those categories. And personally, I'm inclined to believe USA Today, which is based on actual fucking data, over the New York Times, which is subjective. And I say that with no hate to the New York Times. I'm a longtime subscriber. The difference in how those bestsellers list is put together is the reason that I often suggest to the experts, entrepreneurs, and creators I work with on their books that aiming for the USA Today bestseller list is often a more achievable and realistic goal over the New York Times list. And that is solely because the USA Today list is within your control as an author because it is based on actual sales. While I would never ever ever discourage anyone from putting New York Times bestseller on their vision board, I do think it's really helpful for everybody to know the facts so that you're not disappointed when you don't hit the bestseller list, or worse, you blame yourself for not hitting the bestseller list because that would be like blaming yourself for not getting picked first on the playground when the mean girl is in charge of picking teams. All right? So now that you understand how the bestseller lists work, we can talk about you and the qualities of best-selling authors. So what I've seen in my career, both as an editor for Simon and Schuster and Penguin and as a professional collaborator for over a decade, is that best-selling authors tend to have two things in common. First, these entrepreneurs, experts, and thought leaders are willing to do the work, often for years, sometimes decades beforehand, without a guarantee of future success or any type of payoff. So that's number one, the willingness to build what publishers expect without that being about the book specifically. So while a book might be part of your dream as an entrepreneur, expert, a creator, it's not the whole dream. And you're willing to start putting in that work of building your audience, sharing your content, making an impact, working with people, making money, like doing all those things. And a book might be one part of that, but it's not the whole thing. And second, there's almost always something in your background or your resume that offers an advantage. So Vivian's a great example of this. She worked on Wall Street and at BuzzFeed before deciding to become creator. Caitlin V, who was recently on the podcast and had her book come out and was published by Hay House, was a sex researcher who quickly learned how YouTube could be a powerful way to educate people when she went viral, which led her to, you know, create YouTube videos and online courses and build a business that makes thousands of dollars with an audience of millions and a show on HBO called Good Sex, right? Like she did all of that without really, maybe a book was always a part of that, a part of that dream, but it wasn't like, oh, I'm gonna do the book first and then build the platform. She built the platform first. Similar, my clients, Elaine and Richika, built relationships within the corporate world as consultants for years before deciding to write books. And they tested their ideas and their frameworks with actual people in their corporate consulting jobs before going on to write their books, which later became USA Today bestsellers. And in my own life, the education I've received in undergrad as a double major in communication studies and English writing comes in handy every day as a creator. What I learned about putting together speeches and the underlying rhetoric behind effective messaging helps me to feel comfortable on video and producing this podcast in a way that many are not, right? I've written professionally since college, and I was the kid in elementary school who started her own newspaper in sixth grade, right? You know, there's a lot of experiences I had, whether that was, you know, answering phones from my parents at their insurance agency or working as a cocktail waitress, managing the college radio station, all of those experiences have helped me in my roles as an editor for two of the biggest publishers on the planet. And ultimately in what I'm doing today as an entrepreneur, a collaborator, or a ghostwriter, an influencer, right? All of those unique experiences for me, for Elaine, for Rachika, for Caitlin, for Biv, and for every single author I've had the pleasure to work with over my 20 plus years in publishing, all of those experiences came to play when it was came to getting their book deal, writing their book, developing their audience, and becoming who they are. So those are the two qualities, right? Being willing to do the work and having a bigger dream that's not just the book, right? That's also the audience, that's also the business, it's also the lifestyle, that's also, you know, having people line up for two hours in the cold before your event, which happened to Vivian when I was here with her in Seattle, right? So all those things that's really, really important for you to have. And number two is like, what qualities can you bring? What experiences can you bring? What is unique about you that you're bringing to this process that's going to make you successful? That could be just being cute, y'all. It could be being unafraid to be visible, it could be being really super smart, it could be having a different opinion in your industry, it could be a million different things. But only you know those answers to those two things, right? Only you know whether you're willing to do the work, whether your dream is bigger than a book, whether what experiences you bring to the process. So, can you be a best-selling author? I honestly don't know the answer because only you do. But I can give you a couple of follow-up questions you can ask yourself, and I encourage you to journal on this, noodle on this, go for a walk and a meditation on this. Think about it really. And those two questions are related to the two qualities. Surprise, surprise. First, are you willing to do the work? And by, you know, the work, I mean showing up, being visible, developing and sharing content, building an engaged audience, and ultimately building an author platform without knowing for sure that you'll have a book someday, not knowing for sure that everything's gonna work out the way you want it to, not knowing for sure what's gonna happen, but trusting the process and going for your big dreams anyway. Because your dreams have got to be bigger than a book. Every best-selling author I've ever worked with, their dreams were bigger than a book. And second, what unique expertise or past experiences are gonna help you stand out, give you a competitive advantage, right? Me being a professional writer is a huge competitive advantage in this space. Me working at the publishers, huge competitive advantage in this space, right? Viv working on Wall Street and at BuzzFeed, huge competitive advantage in the space. Like we really need to embrace that and not forget that or not toss that aside because that is going to be what makes you successful. I've seen it over and over and over again. So, can you be a best-selling author? That is something for you to answer. So I hope you found today's episode helpful. If you want to know more, I've included a link in the show notes to sign up for weekly emails that go deeper on what entrepreneurs, experts, and creators like you need to know about traditional publishing. These emails are part of my mission to help every entrepreneur and creator who wants to become an author make informed decisions about their book. I hope you'll join me on the newsletter. But until then, cheers to your success. Thanks for tuning in to the Kind of a Big Book Deal podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, I would love it if you subscribe and also leave a review. Not only is this good for my ego and annoying for my enemies, but it also helps more entrepreneurs like ourselves find this podcast. Also, I'm pretty sure it's good karma. See you next time.