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When To Hire a Publishing Pro (and Get Serious About Your Book)

Meghan Stevenson
2 min readOct 7, 2024

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So far in 2024 — over 600 people have taken my quiz.

But only 25 people were ready to work with me — less than 5%.

Out of all our quiz takers, 63% are writing books that my team and I don’t work on*

And out of the people who do want to write a how-to, prescriptive self-help book —

Most need to build their audience first.

In the quiz, there’s a question that asks you how many people you can directly reach — and if it’s less than 50,000 you get what I call our Book Deal Bootcamp result.

When and if you get this result (as 200+ people have so far this year) — what you need to work on is your business. Specifically, your content, your audience, and your reach.

That may seem counterintuitive but a book can only grow your business — not build it.

That’s because in order for literary agents, publishers, and even pros like me to be interested in your book — you’ve got to build the audience for it first.

Cheers to your success,
— Meghan

*Like fiction, memoir, or childrens. If that’s you: Subscribe to this instead.

P.S. Thanks to Alli for submitting the question of when it’s appropriate to work with me and my team!

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Meghan Stevenson
Meghan Stevenson

Written by Meghan Stevenson

I help entrepreneurs, experts and thought leaders create book proposals that sell to major publishers. I also run marathons, save senior dogs and love the Mets.

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