The Psychology of Becoming a Published Author with Anna Sproul-Latimer
Publishing is vulnerable enough to make even experienced professionals question themselves. The path to a traditional nonfiction book deal is not a checklist you can flawlessly complete — it is a long-term act of empathy, relationship-building, creative discernment, and learning how to work with the right people.
How to Get a Traditional Nonfiction Book Deal
Traditional publishing often gets framed as a simple formula: write a great proposal, build a big social-media following, find an agent, get a deal.
But the reality is both harder and more hopeful.
A traditional nonfiction book deal comes from creating a clear, valuable book for a specific audience — and proving you have an authentic path to reach that audience. That proof is your author platform. But platform is not just Instagram followers, press mentions, or a rushed attempt to go viral. It is the accumulated trust, expertise, community, professional network, and real-world access you have built over time.
Literary agent Anna Sproul Latimer, founding partner and president of Neon Literary, offers a more useful way to think about it: platform is not temporary scaffolding. It is a mountain.
You cannot usually build a mountain in two days. But you may already be standing on one.
To get a traditional nonfiction book deal, develop a book concept that serves a defined reader need, create a compelling nonfiction proposal, demonstrate a credible platform or audience pathway, and find a literary agent whose expertise and working style are a true fit for you.
For entrepreneurs, experts, and creators writing prescriptive nonfiction — such as business, self-help, how-to, health, leadership, parenting, or personal-development books — the book is not just about what you want to say. It is about what a particular reader is actively looking for and why they will trust you to help.
The strongest nonfiction projects are acts of radical empathy.
They begin with questions such as:
Who is this book for?
What problem, desire, confusion, fear, or aspiration does that reader have?
What have they already tried?
What language do they use to describe their struggle?
What does your book help them understand, do, change, or become?
Why are you the person to guide them?
A book proposal can have polished pages, a smart idea, and a credible author behind it — but if it is primarily focused on the author’s need to be seen, validated, or recognized, it is unlikely to connect. Readers do not buy books simply because an author wants to tell their story. They buy books because they want help, insight, connection, relief, entertainment, understanding, or transformation.
The best books make readers feel seen.
Start With the Reader, Not Yourself
A book becomes more commercially viable when it solves a recognizable problem for a defined audience.
That does not mean your book must be dry, generic, or stripped of personality. In fact, voice matters enormously. But the voice needs to be in service of the reader.
A useful test is this: Can you clearly explain the problem your book solves and the outcome it helps create?
For example, a leadership consultant may be tempted to pitch a broad book about leadership. But if her work helps managers communicate more effectively during organizational change — and she has trained tens of thousands of professionals through her consulting practice — she has a far stronger foundation for a book. The platform is not hypothetical. The business is already proving that people need the work, organizations will pay for it, and there is an existing channel through which the book can reach readers.
That is what publishers want to see: not merely an audience number, but evidence of demand.
Your Platform May Be Bigger Than You Think
Many aspiring authors underestimate their platform because they define it too narrowly.
A platform is not limited to social media. It can include:
A consulting business with recurring clients.
Corporate-training programs.
Professional associations and industry networks.
A newsletter with a loyal readership.
A podcast or YouTube channel where audiences have a genuine relationship with you.
An alumni community.
A speaking career.
A membership organization.
A niche professional reputation.
Media relationships.
Partnerships with organizations that could buy, recommend, or distribute the book.
An existing product, service, course, workshop, or business-development channel.
If your work already reaches people, helps people, or generates trust, you may have what Meghan calls a “secret platform.”
The question is not only, “How many followers do I have?”
It is also:
How many people do I reach through my work each year?
Who already trusts me?
Which organizations have an incentive to recommend or buy my book?
What communities would care about this topic?
Where does my expertise already have credibility?
How will the book fit naturally into my existing business or body of work?
For a prescriptive nonfiction author, a book that complements an existing business can be especially compelling. If you can credibly show that clients, workshop attendees, customers, members, or partner organizations will buy and share the book, you are demonstrating a concrete sales pathway.
Why “Build a Platform” Is Incomplete Advice
Authors are often told to build a platform as though there is one correct way to do it.
There is not.
A massive TikTok following may be useful for one author and irrelevant for another. A newsletter may be essential for one book and not the primary sales driver for someone else. Traditional press may create credibility but may not reliably translate into book sales. A large social following can help, especially when followers have a strong parasocial connection to the creator — but raw follower numbers alone do not guarantee that people will buy.
The relationship comes first.
Readers are more likely to buy a book when they already experience the author as someone who has given them useful ideas, made them feel understood, helped them solve a problem, or created a meaningful sense of connection.
That relationship can happen online, in person, through a business, inside a professional community, through teaching, or through years of trusted work in a niche.
Instead of asking, “What platform should I build?” ask:
What is the most natural way for me to build trust with the people this book is for?
Your answer should fit your expertise, energy, audience, business, and subject matter.
Go to the mountain already available in your life and work.
What Literary Agents Look For
A literary agent is not simply someone who submits your book proposal to publishers. The agent-author relationship involves business, money, strategy, creative work, negotiation, advocacy, and often, emotion.
Your agent may help shape your proposal, pitch your project to editors, negotiate your contract, advocate for you with the publisher, help ensure you are paid, and support you through the many uncertain moments that can arise during publication.
That means choosing an agent is not only about choosing the most impressive name or the person who makes the biggest promises.
Choose the person who makes you feel calm.
A good agent-author partnership includes professional competence, mutual respect, aligned expectations, honest communication, and the ability to disagree productively. You want an agent you can trust with your contract, your money, your work, and the inevitable disappointments or complications that can arise in publishing.
Red Flags When Choosing an Agent
Not every agent is the right agent for every author. Fit matters.
Potential red flags can include:
An agent relationship that immediately feels emotionally volatile or overly intense.
Someone who makes promises that feel too sweeping or unprompted.
A dynamic where you feel contempt for the agent’s competence or judgment.
A situation where you feel compelled to over-function, seek constant reassurance, or manage the relationship emotionally.
An agent whose communication style, taste, or vision does not align with your work.
It is better to have no agent than to sign with someone you do not trust or respect.
The goal is not to find a perfect person. The goal is to find someone with whom you can walk side by side for the long term, looking at your target audience together and making smart decisions in service of the book.
Green Flags in an Agent-Author Partnership
The strongest creative partnerships are collaborative.
A great author can take editorial feedback without merely copying it back. They listen, think, bring their own creative intelligence to the work, and make the feedback their own.
As one editor described the ideal author: you tell them a scene needs a car, and they return two weeks later with 12 Ferraris.
That is the greenest of green flags.
The best author-agent relationships are built on:
Respect for each person’s expertise.
A shared understanding of the target reader.
The ability to receive and develop edits.
A strong creative vision that does not collapse under feedback.
A willingness to disagree with mutual respect.
Curiosity, humor, professionalism, and clear boundaries.
An interest in building a lasting career, not merely landing one deal.
Why Nonfiction Proposals Matter So Much
For nonfiction, the proposal is the sales document.
A traditional publisher is buying an idea, a market opportunity, an author platform, and a plan for a future book. The proposal needs to help an editor and publishing team understand what the book is, who it is for, why it matters now, why you are qualified to write it, how it compares to other books, and how it can reach readers.
Most authors need editorial development before they are ready to submit a proposal.
That is not a sign that the idea is weak or that the author lacks talent. Even highly accomplished experts, award winners, and experienced writers benefit from a sharp editorial process. The challenge is not simply having knowledge. It is shaping that knowledge into a focused, reader-centered, saleable concept.
A good proposal does more than summarize chapters. It demonstrates that you understand your reader, your category, your competition, and your path to market.
Publishing Is Not a Formula
One of the hardest things about pursuing traditional publishing is that there is no universally correct time to query, stop querying, build a platform, give up, revise, or pivot.
Publishing can be precarious, subjective, vulnerable, and capricious. Success looks different for every author. You cannot reliably succeed by just following instructions, pleasing everyone, or doing exactly what other people tell you to do.
You have to develop your own genius.
That means creating work that has real value, a distinctive point of view, and a clear connection to the readers who need it. It also means tolerating uncertainty. Rejection is part of the process, but it does not automatically mean the idea is bad or that you should quit. At the same time, persistence is not always the answer. There is no mathematical formula that tells you when to keep going and when to move on.
Those decisions require judgment, self-awareness, market feedback, and an honest assessment of what you want.
What Authors Should Expect From Publishers
Traditional publishers can offer editorial expertise, distribution, sales infrastructure, institutional credibility, and access to a complex publishing ecosystem. But authors should not treat a publisher like a fairy godparent.
The most successful authors often understand that they must advocate for their own books. They build their audience, communicate with their readers, ask for help, use their networks, and invest in the book’s success.
For many authors, that may mean working with an outside publicist or marketing partner, especially if they have a dedicated budget and a clear plan. It may mean mobilizing a business, community, customer base, or professional network. It may mean treating a publisher more like an investment partner than a magical solution to every visibility challenge.
This is especially true in nonfiction, where an author’s ability to create attention and connect with readers can meaningfully shape a book’s outcome.
The book still needs to be excellent. But excellence alone is not enough. A strong book, a defined audience, a credible platform, a thoughtful proposal, and a healthy professional partnership give you the best foundation for pursuing a traditional deal.
Today’s guest is Anna Sproul-Latimer. She is a founding partner and president of Neon Literary, has over the course of her many years in book publishing sold multiple New York Times bestsellers, major book-to-film deals, and foreign translations in more than 50 languages. She represents all types of adult nonfiction — from memoir and history to pop culture, science, and parenting — as well as select literary and upmarket fiction. (For existing clients, Anna represents just about everything, but all of her clients’ careers start and primarily consist of work in one of her two focus areas.)
Anna is drawn to buzzing, bright, curious, slightly unhinged authors who are driven by enthusiasm so infectious that (inter)national audiences are already paying attention. She particularly loves books with the vibe of that one other sort-of-normal relative at the family reunion: humor, vulnerability, honesty, refuge, and relief.
A lifelong resident of the Washington, DC, area, Anna has spent her life watching power, money, and media interact to shape the line of history. Through her work as a literary agent, she hopes to take this access, experience, and privilege and lie down in traffic with it in an attempt to force it somewhere a little less depressing.
Prior to founding Neon, Anna spent nearly 15 years as a literary agent, foreign rights director, and developmental editor at DC’s Ross Yoon Agency, which has since folded into WME. A graduate of Columbia University (BA) and Oxford (masters), she lives in the DC suburbs with her family and travels to New York frequently.
Find Anna at https://neonliterary.substack.com. Anna has offered 25% off a 1-year subscription just for Kind of a Big Book Deal listeners at this link: https://neonliterary.substack.com/6beefd17.
Have a great idea for a book but don't know where to start? MeghanStevenson.com/quiz
Questions Answered in This Episode
How do you get a traditional nonfiction book deal?
What does a literary agent look for in a potential client?
What are red flags when choosing a literary agent?
What are green flags in an agent-author relationship?
How do you know whether an agent is the right fit for you?
What should you do if agents reject your nonfiction proposal?
When should you stop querying literary agents?
Why is traditional publishing emotionally difficult for authors?
What is an author platform?
Why is platform more like a mountain than scaffolding?
How do you build an author platform for a nonfiction book?
What is a “secret platform”?
Does social media help sell books?
Do you need a large Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube following to get a book deal?
What makes readers want to buy a nonfiction book?
How can entrepreneurs use their business as part of an author platform?
Why do publishers care about an author’s existing audience?
What makes a nonfiction book proposal compelling?
Why do most nonfiction authors need editorial development?
How can authors make their books more reader-centered?
What role does empathy play in writing and selling a book?
What would improve the traditional publishing industry?
Should authors expect publishers to handle all book marketing and publicity?
Why might an author hire an outside publicist or marketing firm?
