Why Authors Can Stop Competing with Ruchika Malhotra
If you’re trying to land a traditional nonfiction book deal by “doing it all yourself,” you’re quietly making the process longer, lonelier, and less successful than it needs to be. The fastest, sanest path to a deal is learning to uncompete — to build your book and your platform through collaboration, generosity, and the right professional support.
In this episode of Kind of a Big Book Deal, host and traditional publishing expert Meghan Stevenson talks with author and inclusion strategist Ruchika Tulshyan (author of Inclusion on Purpose and Uncompete) about what it really takes to land a traditional nonfiction deal and write a successful book.
Their central message: you get a deal not by hoarding ideas, doing everything alone, or elbowing other authors out of the way — but by:
Developing a clear, needed idea (your book’s “why now” and “why you”).
Building an audience through service and generosity, not transactional “grabby” tactics.
Creating a strong proposal that sells your book as a business case, not just a passion project.
Leaning on community, agents, and collaborators like Meghan Stevenson so you don’t have to navigate the process solo.
And underneath all of that is the mindset Ruchika calls uncompete: rejecting scarcity and zero‑sum thinking in favor of equity, abundance, collaboration, and radical generosity — even, and especially, in publishing.
Why “Doing It Alone” Quietly Hurts Your Chances
Ruchika admits she spent years believing that “real success” meant building everything herself — no help, no collaboration, just pure solo hustle.
She describes how that mindset shows up for entrepreneurs and authors:
You believe hiring help or investing in expertise somehow takes away from your future success.
You equate “needing support” with weakness or fraudulence, especially if you come from underestimated communities (women, people of color, immigrants).
You worry that working with a collaborator, book coach, or ghostwriter will diminish your identity as “a real writer.”
Ironically, she was writing Uncompete — a book about collaboration and shared credit — while struggling with whether reaching out to Meghan for help would make her “less of an author.”
The book’s core tenet: you can’t do it alone, and trying to will make you less successful and more exhausted than necessary.
Publishing As A Scarcity System: Gatekeeping, Crabs In A Barrel, And How To Reject It
Traditional publishing is structurally scarce: limited lists, finite slots per season, constrained budgets. That scarcity fuels a “crabs in the barrel” dynamic among authors where everyone is afraid that if someone else climbs out, they’ll be pulled back down.
Ruchika and Meghan see this play out as:
Established authors refusing to share agents’ names, proposals, or lessons because they fear losing their own spot.
Editors telling Ruchika, for Inclusion on Purpose, that they already had “their one diversity book” or “their one woman of color author,” implying the table couldn’t be widened.
Aspiring authors — especially from marginalized communities — counting themselves out and assuming self‑publishing is the only option, even in years when publishers actively wanted more diverse voices.
Ruchika’s response is radically different:
She regularly introduces promising authors (especially in her community) to her agent, Miley Beale at Aevitas/ARC Literary, knowing only a fraction will be signed — but refusing to gatekeep access herself.
She has shared her own successful proposals, especially for Inclusion on Purpose, with trusted peers so they can learn from what worked instead of reinventing everything in isolation.
She sees a strategic upside to more voices in her lane: when multiple books prove there’s an audience, it gets easier for everyone to sell adjacent projects like Uncompete.
Meghan backs this up: she actively invites clients to send referrals, then applies her 3P Framework™ to help those authors either level up or move toward a deal when they’re ready.
How Uncompete Helps You Grow The Audience You Need For A Deal
Most of Meghan’s listeners want prescriptive nonfiction and issue books — exactly the kinds of projects Ruchika writes — so audience growth is non‑negotiable.
To build that audience in an uncompete way, Ruchika recommends:
Use social platforms to test ideas, not just promote yourself. She’s been talking about the concepts behind Uncompete on Twitter (back when it was healthier), LinkedIn, and Instagram for years before the book existed.
Run generosity-driven campaigns. Every July, she hosts Amplify July, where people in her community apply to share something they’re working on — books, podcasts, art, nonprofits, coaching offers. Every weekday, she spotlights someone else’s work to her 50,000+ combined audience.
Share others’ research, wins, and content. Her highest engagement often comes when she highlights other people’s work, not her own, because it builds a community of goodwill and reciprocity.
This is how you uncompete daily as an aspiring author:
Feature colleagues, adjacent experts, and even “competitors” whose work you genuinely believe in.
Refer out clients who aren’t a fit yet or whose needs are better served by someone else; many will come back later precisely because you treated them with care.
Build ecosystems like Seattle’s F-Bomb Breakfast Club, where women and women-identifying entrepreneurs gather, support one another, and, in Ruchika’s case, even host her book events.
From a publisher’s perspective, this kind of generous, engaged ecosystem is a huge asset: it signals that when your book comes out, you won’t just shout into the void — you’ll have a community ready to amplify it.
Collaboration With Agents And Arc Literary: An Uncompete Model Inside Publishing
Even within literary agencies, traditional culture can be competitive — each agent guarding “their” authors and deals. Uncompete shows another way.
When Ruchika brought the idea for Uncompete to her agency, ARC Literary:
All the agents jumped onto a Zoom call to hear her pitch and offer ideas.
They collectively helped shape the concept and positioning before deciding which agent would formally represent her.
The process modeled the very collaborative, non‑scarcity ethos the book advocates.
For aspiring authors, this matters because:
It proves there are agents and agencies who are interested in doing business differently — sharing knowledge instead of hoarding it.
A collaborative agent relationship can make your book better and your submissions stronger, long before contracts are signed.
Meghan’s role fits into this ecosystem: she leans on relationships with agents, editors, and houses to match authors with representatives who align with their goals and values, not just whoever says yes first.
What A Nonfiction Book Proposal Really Is (And Why You Need Help With It)
Ruchika’s “number one thing” about landing a deal might surprise you: a nonfiction book proposal is a sales document, not your book.
She highlights several realities:
The proposal’s job is to convince an agent and publisher that your book can make money, not just that it’s a worthy idea.
Publishers are bluntly commercial: they ask “Can we make a lot of money from this?” long before they ask “Is this important?”
Many people pour their heart into a proposal without understanding its sales function, then feel blindsided by the “crass commercialism” of traditional publishing when they go to market.
Because proposals are specialized sales tools:
Very few authors are naturally equipped to create a truly effective one without guidance — even if they’re strong writers.
You need support in articulating market size, comps, positioning, and your platform’s value — in language that resonates with industry decision-makers.
Meghan’s work often involves going through an author’s content and career to extract the strongest, most saleable version of their idea and structure.
In short: you are not failing if you don’t know how to write a killer proposal. It’s a distinct craft — and getting professional help is part of uncompeting with yourself.
Writing A Successful Book: Community, Feedback, And Boundaries
Landing the deal is only half the story; writing a successful book is another marathon. Ruchika’s advice boils down to two pillars: community and discernment.
On community:
Writing a book is one of the loneliest, hardest things she’s ever done — second only to giving birth.
Authors need a “community of practice” who understand the emotional and practical realities of authorship, not just business friends who don’t know how publishing works.
For Uncompete, she had more people she could send draft material to and ask, “What do you think?” than with prior books, and it made a huge difference.
On discernment and boundaries:
Uncompete is not an invitation to let everyone extract your energy. If your gut says someone isn’t operating from generosity, it’s okay to say no.
She’s had her generosity taken for granted and seen her ideas used without attribution; setting limits protects her ability to keep showing up for the right people.
Meghan reinforces that feedback should come from the right readers — ideal clients, aligned colleagues — not 30 random acquaintances whose conflicting notes will “wreck your life.”
A successful book-writing journey, in their view, requires:
The right kind of professional support (editor, coach, collaborator).
A small circle of trusted readers who reflect your actual audience.
Clear boundaries around who gets access to your drafts and how much of you they get.
Redefining Success In Traditional Publishing (So You Don’t Break Your Heart)
Ruchika is candid: she would love to out‑earn every advance, hit bestseller lists, and rack up traditional milestones. Those desires don’t go away.
But she’s had to redefine success so she doesn’t tie her entire self-worth to external metrics that are largely out of her control. Her current definition looks like this:
Success means writing the book only she could write — a truthful, necessary contribution she’s deeply proud of, even if it’s her last.
Success means doing her part fully — writing, revising, promoting — and then letting the universe handle the outcome, drawing on Hindu philosophy about acting without attachment to results.
Success means measuring impact: who the book helps, what conversations it changes, and how it shifts her career and community, not just how many lists it hits.
Meghan supports this with industry context:
Lists like USA Today are mostly numbers‑driven; lists like The New York Times are curated and not always aligned with raw sales. Books that “should have been” bestsellers sometimes aren’t, and vice versa.
If you tie your identity to list status or one sales number, you’re setting yourself up for a crisis because those outcomes aren’t fully within your control.
What you can own is your part: the proposal quality, the fit of your agent and editor, your platform-building, and your integrity in marketing.
Both agree: detaching from the outcome is simple in theory and brutally hard in practice — but necessary if you want a sustainable, joyful author career.
Questions Answered In This Episode
What is the core argument of Uncompete and how does it apply to entrepreneurs and authors?
Why is trying to “do it all yourself” harmful when you’re pursuing a traditional book deal?
How does scarcity and competition show up specifically in traditional publishing?
What does it look like to share agents, proposals, and resources instead of gatekeeping them?
How can authors from underestimated communities build more collaborative networks?
How did Ruchika’s relationship with ARC Literary reflect a new, collaborative agency model?
Why is a nonfiction proposal a sales tool, and what support do most authors need to create it?
How can authors find the right community and feedback without overwhelming themselves?
What boundaries are necessary to protect generosity from exploitation?
How does redefining success help authors cope with unpredictable outcomes like lists and advances?
What is the single most important lesson Ruchika wants entrepreneurs and experts to know about landing a deal and writing a successful book?
This week’s guest is Ruchika Tulshyan. Ruchika is the author of Uncompete: Rejecting Competition to Unlock Success. She is also the founder of Candour, a global inclusion strategy firm. A former business journalist, her writing appears regularly in publications such as Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, Forbes, Bloomberg, The Seattle Times, and more. She has previously held adjunct faculty positions at Seattle University and the University of Washington, where she now advises the Communication Leadership graduate program.
Ruchika is the author of Inclusion on Purpose: An Intersectional Approach to Creating a Culture of Belonging at Work, MIT Press’s top-selling book of 2022.
Find Ruchika on social
Uncompete: Rejecting Competition to Unlock Success, will be released on Nov. 4. Preorder the book here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/753092/uncompete-by-ruchika-t-malhotra/
Find upcoming events with Ruchika at https://www.ruchika.co/speaking.
