My clients have earned more than $7,000,000 to date in advances from top publishers including Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Hachette Books, Macmillian, and Hay House (among others). My weekly emails share my insights on how entrepreneurs and experts can position themselves to land literary agents and six-figure book deals with traditional publishers.
3 Things You Need to Get a Traditional Book Deal
Reader —
What it takes to get a traditional book deal is pretty simple.
This example actually shows why so many celebrities write books. If a literary agent or talent manager came to me tomorrow with a reality TV star and said let’s get this person a book deal, it wouldn’t be that difficult. That person already has a platform — or an audience — that’s easy to sell to because those folks already know this person. In a lot of ways, their audience is ready to buy the book. What I would do in this situation is simply create the editorial — a concept and the actual words on the page — to match their audience, persona, and brand.
However, this isn’t the case for most authors because most people aren’t celebrities. So, when people find me — and this may be the case for you — what they have is the opposite. You may have an idea (and sometimes multiple ideas) for a book — so you have potential — but you don’t really have the platform yet. And that’s a problem because publishers won’t touch your project without a distinct audience to sell your book too. That’s why selling memoirs is so hard for the average writer, because it’s so hard to build an entire audience and platform around a personal story.
This is one of many reasons why I choose to work exclusively with entrepreneurs and experts — because y’all have another reason to build your audience and platform outside of your book. You’re selling something else to your people. It’s a lot easier to fit a book into a platform than to create a platform just to sell a book. And, from a business perspective, it’s easier to see a direct return on investment because the things we do to build a platform — like showing up consistently on social media, building an email list, and refining your content marketing — also increase the bottom line for your business.
In other words, there’s a business case for investing in your dream of becoming an author. As an entrepreneur or expert, wanting a six-figure book deal isn’t a vanity project or a waste of time and money. Instead, it’s a legacy play. When you decide to pursue this dream, your business benefits — both today and for years into the future.
Cheers to your success,
Meghan
Hi — I'm Meghan Stevenson.
My clients have earned more than $7,000,000 to date in advances from top publishers including Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Hachette Books, Macmillian, and Hay House (among others). My weekly emails share my insights on how entrepreneurs and experts can position themselves to land literary agents and six-figure book deals with traditional publishers.
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