What Happens When You Get a Book Deal

What if getting a book deal is not the finish line, but the start of a real business partnership?

In this episode, Megan Stevenson pulls back the curtain on what actually happens after you land a traditional publishing deal. She explains why a publisher is not a magic solution, but a strategic partner investing in your book and your success. Megan walks through the full editorial process, from drafting and revisions to copyedits and proof pages, and shows how that work often overlaps with the publisher’s internal meetings around positioning, marketing, sales, and launch strategy.

This episode is especially helpful for entrepreneurs, experts, and creators who want to write a prescriptive nonfiction book and better understand how traditional publishing works behind the scenes. Megan also clears up why publishing moves slowly, why pub dates are more strategic than most people realize, and how authors benefit from the time, support, insight, and leverage that come with a traditional deal.

If you have ever wondered what really happens after the contract is signed, this episode gives you a clearer, more grounded picture of the road ahead.

If you’re writing something other than prescriptive nonfiction — memoir, children’s books, narrative nonfiction about an issue or historical event — check out this list for resources.

Episode 4: The Basics: Three Ps Every Author Needs to Get a Book Deal

Episode 5: The Basics: Is Your Book Idea Ready for Traditional Publishing?

Episode 6: The Basics: Why Publishers Want Author Platforms

Episode 7: The Basics: Book Proposals 101

Episode Highlights:
(0:00) Intro
(1:24) What happens after you get a deal
(1:53) This advice is for prescriptive nonfiction
(2:41) The three P’s still matter
(3:29) A book deal is a license
(4:21) Your agent negotiates the deal
(4:55) The four editorial stages explained
(6:37) Publishing process happens alongside editing
(7:18) Why pub dates are strategic
(8:52) Internal meetings shape your book launch
(10:35) Sales conference determines major decisions
(11:36) Why publishing starts months early
(12:48) Why traditional publishing helps authors most
(13:39) The time, money, and support advantages
(14:17) Megan invites listener questions and feedback
(15:06) 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

Publisher Leverage In One Idea

Meghan 0:00

You, as the author, gain a shit ton of knowledge, insight, and leverage by having a traditional publisher and having all those people invested in your book and the success of your book. Because again, they're a business partner, right? They're not a fairy godmother, they're not the lottery. They're a business partner investing in your book and hopefully investing in your success. Hey everyone, Meghan here. I would love to hear what you like and don't like about the content I'm putting out, including the kind of a big book deal podcast. You can help me out by answering a few questions online. And when you submit your answers, you'll automatically be invited to an exclusive QA with me where you can ask me anything you want about traditional book publishing. To participate, all you need to do is visit Meghan Stevenson.com forward slash survey. That's M-E-G-H-A-N-S-T-E-V-E-N-S-O-N.com forward slash survey. And thank you. Cheers to your success. What's gonna happen when you get a book deal? As a professional collaborator, I've helped more than 30 authors land six-figure book deals with major publishers. And before I started my own business in 2012, I worked as an editor for two of the biggest publishers in the world, Penguin Random House and Simon Schuster. So what happens when you, as an entrepreneur, an expert, or a creator, get a book deal and become a traditionally published author? So the first thing you need to know is that I am going to talk specifically about what's known as prescriptive nonfiction, which are books that offer a prescription or advice to readers. So if you're writing something else, like a novel, like a memoir, like a children's book, even narrative nonfiction on, you know, politics or a societal issue or an event in history, you can hit stop after this very sentence and go check out the show notes for more appropriate resources because everybody in traditional publishing specializes. So you want to go ahead and do that. Now that we've said that, and I am talking to all my entrepreneurs, experts, and creators who want to write a how-to book and get a traditional book deal, it's time to offer you all some targeted guidance and advice. If you've been following me for a minute, you may know that I use a framework called the Three P's, Potential Platform Proposal. These three Ps are how you get a book deal. And y'all, there are so many resources and previous episodes that share this framework and break it down in detail that I'm not gonna go ahead and repeat that here. So go ahead and check those show notes for an episode where I go over the framework as a whole and then also each individual episode for each of those three Ps. And yep, I've got you, right? We have so many episodes on that framework for you to understand how to get a book proposal. So today, what I'm gonna do right now in this video, in this episode, is jump ahead into what you really want, which is a book deal. So what's gonna happen once you get that book deal? An aspect of traditional publishing that only insiders really know about is that a book deal is actually a license. So as an author, what you are selling is your intellectual property. And in that way, a book deal is super similar to corporate consultants who white label their programs or even coaches who offer certification programs where you know your clients can get certified in your method and then go teach a version of it to their clients. And that is all licensing, and that is actually how a book deal works legally, financially. And that's really why I encourage entrepreneurs, experts, and creators to think of traditional publishers as business partners rather than as some magic fairy god person or some star maker or queen maker, right? And that comes into play especially when you get a book deal. So when you get offered a book deal as an author, your literary agent, and yes, you're gonna get a literary agent, will negotiate the ins and outs of that deal. And that is when the machine that is a traditional publisher turns on. Now, mind you, the traditionally published machine is very, very slow, okay? It is a wheel that spins very, very slowly. It's giving dial-up internet, right? Not 5G. It's giving those like not like instant YouTube video at you know 4K speed. So when that machine turns on, your job as an author, the first job you have is to write the first full draft according to any notes that your editor gives you, right? My team and I help out with this. We're professional collaborators. That is part of our job, that is one of our offers, is helping our clients deliver their manuscripts on time, as well as managing the overall editorial process. So that editorial process has four major components. Number one, drafting the book, which takes anywhere from six to eighteen months. So, number two, editing and revising the book with your editor. So this can go fast, this can go slow, depends on a lot of factors, including how clean your manuscript first draft is, how involved your editor is, when your pub date is, all of that can factor. But once you get done with the edits and the revisions of your book, you move to copy editing, which is when someone comes in and checks your book for grammar and adhering to the house style, which is how they like, you know, to have things cited or the way they use the English language. And then the last stage, number four stage, is proof pages. And that is where they flow your copy edited manuscript into a PDF and you get to look at it in PDF form. It's a it's ready to go to the printer, right? So those are the four stages. So to recap that just really quickly, because I know I went through it quickly, you write a draft of the book, then you work with your editor to revise the book, then you have it copy edited where they fix your language and usage and your grammar and all that kind of stuff. And then you have proofs where you get to look at the interior design of the book, any graphs, any charts, any illustrations you've got, and you can actually check it before it goes to the printer. So those are the four editorial stages. But here's an important catch I want you to know about. While you're writing, revising, reviewing all those stages in the editorial process, the publishing process is often happening simultaneously. It can also happen after because everything in publishing depends on your publication date. So let's go to Tangent Town for a second. So back in 2025, I had two manuscripts that I was collaborating on that were both due to different publishers on June 1st. I'm recording this in March 2026. So at this point in 2026, one of my clients is all the way through the editorial process while the other is still waiting on copy edits. That is despite having the exact same manuscript due date, the reason these books are different and where their authors are in the editorial process is different is because they have different pub dates. My author that is all the way through, her book will be out June 2026. My author that's still waiting on her copy edits and her proofs doesn't publish her book till January 2027. So, in, you know, if you've spent any time online and seen self-publishing ads or hybrid publishing ads or Ben as part of the toxic fucking discourse on threads read it about books, you will see that people harp on, like, oh, you don't get to choose when your book is being published as a traditionally published author. And while that is true, as an author, you get a lot of input because your pub date is strategic. Your pub date is going to be chosen by your publisher not only to benefit them, but to get you the most sales and opportunity for your book. So my client actually chose that January 2027 pub date. She could have chosen a sooner date, but she chose that January 2027 pub date because that was a better fit both for her business and like ramping up to promote the book, and it was great for the publishing team. It gave them tons of time to get the people inside the house excited, which I'm gonna touch upon later in this episode. So that's really, really important. It's not a bad thing that you don't get complete control over when you pub because you are making a strategic decision with your business partner, the traditional publisher, when you are a traditionally published author. Okay, enough tangent town. Let's go back to the publishing process. That is a series of meetings inside of your publisher. So a little context here in any given calendar year, publishers divide their books into three or four seasons. What goes where kind of varies publisher by publisher, but what you need to think about is that all the books published in a particular season, whether that's fall, 2026, or summer, 2027, those books all go together. They all walk in lockstep together. And they specifically go to a set of meetings where the staff at the publisher discuss all the books in that season. Now, to complicate things, the meetings vary from publisher to publisher, but in general, here are the ones that I'm familiar with that were happening when I was an editor both at Simon and Schuster and at Penguin Random House. The first one is a positioning meeting. This is where your editor and the team of their imprint, which is both a brand and a department at a publisher, for example, Harper Business and HarperCollins. It's like one smaller brand or department within this larger publisher. That is when that small team gets together and says, hey, here's how we're going to position this book. This is what we think the market is, here's what we think the audience is, here's what we think the comps are. From there, they go to a seasonal launch meeting. So that's all the people that attended that positioning meeting, your editor, you know, all the people for that imprint, plus folks who work in sales, marketing, production, subsidiary rights, which includes like foreign rights, special sales, which handles anywhere that isn't a bookstore that sells books, and publicity. Those departments tend to work for the entire publisher. You're also going to have executives at those seasonal launch meetings, kind of vibe checking what's happened in positioning and adding their two cents in. From there, they go to sales conference, and that is where everyone gets in a room, or even they used to go offsite. I don't know if they do anymore, to discuss that season's books. And that is where they talk covers, they talk about publicity and marketing campaigns, they bring in regional sales reps, which are also known as field reps, and they basically establish how many books are going to be printed. So that's a really big deal, right? That is the last like kind of Rubicon or the last stage of your book's publishing process. So again, just to recap those um different benchmarks or milestones, positioning, which is internal to your editorial team, seasonal launch where it starts to get a little bigger, and then sales conference, where everybody who will even touch your book is in that meeting, right? And while the exact timing for these meetings varies from book to book, because again, it depends on where your book is scheduled in terms of seasons. What you absolutely need to know as an author is that all of this is happening six, nine, sometimes even 12 months before your book is actually published. And the reason for that is because the publisher has to print the damn books, right? Often they're on a literal slow bloat from China, and they have to also, once they do get the printed books into their warehouse and distribution centers, now they've got to distribute them across the country, usually three or four weeks before the official on sale date. And that gives bookstore staff the time to unpack, get those books on shelves, all of that kind of thing. And honestly, as an author, it also gives you time to, you know, promote your book, get pre-sales, hopefully show proof to the booksellers and the sales reps that people want your book and so that stores should stock it. So that time is not wasted. That time is really, really valuable. And when people ask me or complain about why traditional publishing takes so long, well, that's why, right? Because all of the people who work at the publisher, from your editor to the person in special sales who figures out whether your book would be a good fit at an airput bookstore or even an anthropology, they all need time to do their jobs, right? And this investment of other people's time and honestly the publisher's money is a major reason why I believe traditional publishing can be and often is the best route for entrepreneurs, experts, and creators. Because unlike self-publishing or hybrid options, you're not on your own, right? While you as the author are still responsible or mainly responsible for promoting marketing and selling the book to your core audience, which by the way is true regardless of how you publish, you, as the author, gain a shit ton of knowledge, insight, and leverage by having a traditional publisher and having all those people invested in your book and the success of your book. Because again, they're a business partner, right? They're not a fairy godmother, they're not the lottery, they're a business partner investing in your book and hopefully investing in your success. So, as an entrepreneur, as an expert, as a creator, there's a lot of advantages. So, first, you save time not having to do and figure out everything yourself. You can save money because you actually get paid by a traditional publisher to write and promote your book in the form of advance. And lastly, you can support by partnering with a traditional publisher, which means you share the load of putting your book out in the world. Y'all, this is just a really small piece of what I know about traditional publishing, and I am really, really committed in 2026 and beyond to helping you understand this opaque gatekeep world. So if you have thoughts, if you got an amazing takeaway, or there's a question in your head from what you've heard in today's episode, I would really like for you to let me know. There's a link to send me a DM or leave me a voicemail in the show notes. And when you leave your insights or share your insights with me, I'm probably gonna incorporate that into future episodes, including maybe featuring you in an episode. How cool is that, right? I really, really want to make this podcast useful for you. And I've gotten a lot of good feedback over the year or so I've had it out. And I I just really want to co-create this with y'all, but I can only do that if you tell me what you want to know. So send me a DM, leave me a voicemail, all the resources and ways to reach out to me are in the show notes. And until next time, 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.