The One Question Every Author Must Answer to Land a Book Deal
If there were a free, simple way to know whether you can land a traditional nonfiction book deal — and what to fix if you can’t yet — you’d probably take it, right? That’s exactly what Meghan Stevenson’s author quiz is built to do: reveal, in a few targeted questions, whether your idea and platform are ready for a deal and a book that sells.
This episode of Kind of a Big Book Deal, hosted by Meghan (a professional book collaborator, ghostwriter, and editor), walks through how she designed that assessment and why the core question behind it — How many copies can you sell, and how? — is the real cheat code for experts and entrepreneurs who want traditional deals.
The single most important question for your book deal is: How many copies can you sell and how will you sell them?
Her quiz doesn’t ask that question directly. Instead, it uses a small set of targeted questions to uncover the evidence behind your answer:
What kind of book are you writing?
Do you have a business/brand that serves the same audience as your book?
Have you developed intellectual property (IP) related to your business/brand and your book?
Do you have an engaged audience?
How big is your audience?
Those answers tell her — and, ultimately, agents and publishers — whether you have:
A book type she can help with (and that traditional publishers buy).
A business that aligns with the book’s audience.
IP that people already pay for.
An audience that listens and responds.
Enough reach and conversion potential to support a viable sales projection.
Let’s break each question down.
1. What Kind Of Book Are You Writing?
Meghan starts by asking what type of book you’re working on because her expertise focuses on one lane:
Prescriptive, “how‑to” nonfiction, often labeled as self‑help, business, or practical guides.
She does not work on:
Memoir or personal narrative.
Narrative nonfiction.
Fiction or parables (she jokes: “Don’t get me started on parables like The Alchemist”).
Cookbooks, children’s books, and most other categories.
Why this matters:
Traditional publishing evaluates different categories with different criteria.
A prescriptive “how‑to” book needs a clear problem, solution, and path to action.
A pure memoir or narrative project lives in a separate market with different expectations.
She notes that many people get confused between:
A narrative book (e.g., Shoe Dog by Phil Knight — story‑driven) and
A how‑to book (e.g., How to Grow a Small Business — instruction‑driven).
If your project is prescriptive nonfiction, you’re in the lane her assessment is built to evaluate. If it’s not, you may want a different tool — or to rethink your framing if your true goal is a traditional deal in her lane.
2. Do You Have A Business Or Brand That Serves The Same Audience As Your Book?
Next, she asks whether you have a business or brand that serves the same audience as the book you want to write.
Her reasoning:
Platform — your ability to reach and influence readers — doesn’t really make sense without a business or brand behind it.
Building an entire business around a book alone is seldom wise; it’s much safer and more effective to build the book inside an existing business.
She’s seen scenarios where:
Someone tries to build a business purely based on a book idea.
That leaves no existing proof of concept, no IP, and no audience, making both the business and the book harder to sell.
The ideal pattern:
You already serve the audience your book is for through services, programs, content, or products.
Your book becomes an extension and distillation of what you’re already doing — not a total pivot or one‑off project.
If your quiz answer here is “no,” it doesn’t mean you can never get a deal, but it usually means your next step is to align or grow your business toward the audience your book will serve.
3. Have You Developed Intellectual Property (IP) Related To Your Business/Brand And Your Book?
By IP, Meghan means:
Frameworks, methodologies, processes, or signature concepts.
Courses, talks, workshops, or tools that organize and deliver your expertise.
Anything “unique to you” that your audience already buys or engages with.
She’s seen situations where:
Someone had a book idea that wasn’t connected to any IP they’d developed.
Or their book idea wasn’t related to what their existing audience knew them for.
That disconnect made it hard to convince publishers that readers would buy the book.
IP matters because:
It proves you’ve organized your ideas into something teachable and repeatable.
It shows you’ve already tested your concepts with real people.
It gives you concrete material — a structure — for both your proposal and eventual book.
If your book idea is unrelated to the IP your audience already knows and pays for, that’s a warning sign. The quiz forces you to see whether your “book brainwave” is actually an extension of your proven work — or a random side project.
4. Do You Have An Engaged Audience?
The next question shifts from who you serve and what you sell to how your audience behaves.
She asks: Do you have an engaged audience?
In today’s publishing landscape, engagement is queen.
Publishers and agents care less about raw follower counts and more about:
Comment threads full of thoughtful responses.
Email open and click‑through rates.
DMs, replies, and community interactions.
Publishers notice when an author’s audience responds, buys, shares, and shows up.
Engagement signals trust — the kind of trust that converts into book sales later.
An engaged audience proves:
People don’t just follow you; they care what you say.
They’re more likely to pre‑order, review, and recommend your book.
If your answer here is “no” or “not really,” it’s a sign that your next major focus is cultivating deeper connection and trust, not just chasing more followers.
5. How Big Is Your Audience?
Finally, Meghan asks about audience size.
She explains:
Like any product, the number of books you can sell is tied to:
Your audience size.
Your conversion rate — what percentage of that audience tends to buy things from you.
She uses a simple example:
If you have 100,000+ people in your audience and can convert 5% of them to a higher‑priced offer (which almost anything besides a book will be), that’s a strong indicator you can sell a meaningful number of books, too.
Important nuance:
Engagement still matters; a highly engaged smaller audience can sometimes outperform a bigger but passive one.
But for traditional deals, publishers do look for a baseline of reach, because they need confidence the book can realistically sell tens of thousands of copies.
This question helps Meghan:
Roughly estimate your sales potential based on past performance.
See whether your platform is at, near, or still below traditional expectations.
If your audience size is currently small, it doesn’t mean no deal ever. It means grow first, then pitch — and the quiz can nudge you toward that reality.
The Hidden Core Question: “How Many Copies Can You Sell — And How?”
Meghan eventually reveals the “spoiler” behind the quiz:
All of these questions — and your answers to them — exist to answer one underlying question:
How many copies can you sell, and how will you sell them?
This is the question traditional publishers care most about, alongside “Is the idea strong and needed?” Your answer needs to be:
Credible, based on real numbers and patterns, not wishful thinking.
Specific, showing the channels and strategies you’ll use.
Connected to past evidence, not just future hopes.
When you can demonstrate:
A clear, aligned business.
Unique IP that works.
An engaged, sizable audience.
A proven way you’ve sold other things before…
You give publishers a “quick and dirty” way to estimate:
Your likely book sales.
The risk level of investing in your project.
Alongside an excellent idea, that’s what secures the deal.
Questions Answered In This Episode
Is there a simple way to know whether I can realistically get a traditional nonfiction book deal?
What kind of book does Meghan specialize in, and which types does she not work on?
Why does having a business or brand aligned with my book’s audience matter for a deal?
What counts as intellectual property (IP) for an expert or entrepreneur author?
Why is it a problem if my book idea isn’t related to my existing audience or business?
How does audience engagement influence my chances of landing a deal?
How does audience size affect my ability to sell books and justify an advance?
What is the single most important question publishers need answered about my book?
How do my business, IP, engagement, and audience size combine to answer “How many copies can you sell?”
Why did Meghan build this assessment, and how have thousands of people used it?
How can this quiz guide my next steps even if I don’t work with Meghan directly?
What questions should I ask myself right now to get honest about my readiness for a traditional nonfiction deal?
