How to Land a Big 5 Book Deal with April Snow
A traditional nonfiction book deal does not start when you finish writing a manuscript. It starts much earlier — when you begin creating content, paying attention to what resonates, and building an audience around the message you want to share.
If you want a traditional book deal, start now. Let your work be messy, vulnerable, imperfect, and useful. The content you create today can help you understand your audience, develop your book idea, build your author platform, and eventually become material for the book itself.
To get a traditional nonfiction book deal, you need a book idea with potential, a platform that shows you can reach readers, and a strong book proposal.
Meghan Stevenson teaches this as the 3P Framework™: potential, platform, and proposal.
Potential means your book has a clear premise, speaks to a defined audience, and addresses a problem, desire, or question people genuinely care about. Publishers need to understand why the book matters and why readers will want it.
Platform means you have a visible body of work and an audience that trusts you. This does not necessarily mean you need millions of followers. It means you can show that people engage with your ideas, seek your guidance, and care about the subject you want to write about.
Proposal means creating the professional document used to present a nonfiction book to literary agents and publishers. A proposal explains the book, the reader, the author, the market, the marketing plan, and the material itself.
A book deal is not only about having a good idea or being a strong writer. You also need to show that you understand your readers, that you can reach them, and that the book fits into a larger body of work.
The most important advice in this episode is simple: start writing and creating content now.
Do not wait until you have the perfect book idea. Do not wait until your audience is bigger. Do not wait until you feel completely confident, polished, or ready to be visible.
Start creating. Let it be imperfect.
Content is one of the best ways to learn what resonates with your audience — and, in some cases, to discover who your audience really is. When you post, write, teach, speak, host conversations, or send emails, you are learning in real time.
You can begin to see:
What topics people respond to most strongly
What posts get shared, saved, clicked, or replied to
What questions people keep asking
What language your audience uses to describe their problems
What ideas are clear and compelling
What parts of your message need refinement
What readers may need from your eventual book
That is valuable information. Instead of guessing what readers want, you can learn directly from the people you hope to serve.
For April Snow, creating a podcast became an important source of insight as she developed Big Feelings, Big Joy. She interviewed highly sensitive people from different backgrounds and locations, asking them about their discovery stories and experiences.
As she reviewed those conversations, she could identify repeated themes. Many people shared that they had felt different from a very young age. The recurring words, stories, concerns, and experiences in those conversations helped shape what needed to be included in the book.
Your content can become research. Your audience can help you develop a more useful, specific, and resonant book.
Build a platform that fits your audience
You do not need to become someone else to build an author platform. But you do need to become more visible, more consistent, and more intentional about how you show up.
April started primarily with Instagram and a blog. As she prepared to pursue a larger book deal, she expanded into additional formats and places where she could serve her audience. She built a podcast, community, YouTube presence, TikTok presence, workshops, and other ways for people to connect with her work.
The purpose was not simply to be on every platform. It was to create more ways for the right people to find her, learn from her, and stay in conversation with her message.
Your platform might include:
Social-media content
An email list
A blog or newsletter
A podcast
YouTube videos
Workshops or speaking engagements
Consulting or client work
A membership or community
Media appearances or guest podcast interviews
Partnerships with people and organizations that serve your audience
The best platform is not necessarily the loudest one. It is the one that helps you reach and serve your people consistently.
April and her social media manager experimented with different approaches and paid attention to the data. They found that trends and humor were not especially effective for her audience. Her audience wanted validating, educational content that helped them feel understood.
That discovery allowed her to stop forcing strategies that did not fit and double down on the type of content that mattered to the people she served.
This is why tracking data matters. Look at your email performance. Notice what people click. Pay attention to what prompts unsubscribes. Review what gets engagement on social media. Track the topics people return to again and again.
You do not need to create content based only on instinct. You can use the response from your audience to guide your message.
You can promote your book without feeling inauthentic
Every author has to help sell their book. You are the primary advocate for your work.
That does not mean you need to use tactics that feel fake, overly sales-focused, manipulative, or out of alignment with your personality. You can build a platform and promote a book in a way that feels genuine.
April spoke about the importance of showing up in alignment with the highly sensitive people she serves. Because she is part of her own audience in many ways, she understands that people can sense when someone is using tactics that feel overly salesy or disconnected from the actual mission.
That is a useful lesson for any author.
You can be visible without being performative. You can market your book without becoming someone you are not. You can sell with integrity.
The goal is to help the right readers understand that your work is for them.
Let your content shape the book
Content creation and book development do not need to be separate processes. In fact, your platform can make your book better.
When you consistently create content, you test ideas in public. You learn which messages people understand immediately, which questions require more explanation, and which topics make people feel seen.
April’s book changed significantly over the course of the process.
An earlier version focused more heavily on educational material at the beginning, with more practical guidance coming later. As the book developed, it became clear that readers needed practical, prescriptive support throughout the book — not only after several chapters of context and explanation.
The final framework became relax, nurture, and connect.
The book begins with foundational practices such as sleep, downtime, and daydreaming. It then moves into the inner world of overthinking, emotions, and self-compassion. Finally, it reaches outward into relationships, work, boundaries, and community.
Each chapter offers specific strategies, takeaways, and activities from the start.
That is an important lesson for nonfiction authors: readers want insight, but they also want help. They want to understand the problem, but they also want practical ways to move forward.
A platform does not need to be massive
You do not need a huge platform to get a traditional book deal. But you do need evidence that your work reaches and matters to real people.
April described her platform as modest in comparison with the number of books she had sold. At the time of the conversation, she had approximately 36,000 Instagram followers and had continued growing her presence through a podcast, community, YouTube, TikTok, and other channels.
Her earlier workbook had sold 175,000 copies across all editions worldwide. That sales history, along with the work she had done to build her audience and develop her message, showed that people wanted what she had to offer.
Her topic was also specific. She works with highly sensitive people, a niche that may be less broadly recognized than some adjacent conversations about introversion or neurodivergence. But specificity can be a strength when you deeply understand your audience, speak to their real needs, and create a message that resonates.
You do not have to serve everyone. You need to serve your people well.
Smaller publishing opportunities can be stepping stones
Before her HarperOne deal, April had published two books with smaller publishers: a workbook and a journal for highly sensitive people.
Those books gave her the opportunity to learn how publishing works, become more familiar with writing books, develop her voice, build sales history, and better understand the industry.
Her first smaller publishing opportunity came through social media. A publisher found her work and reached out to ask whether she wanted to write a book. Another opportunity followed through a publishing relationship she had developed.
Those books were more practical, workbook-style projects. They gave her experience and helped prepare her for the larger, full-length book she wanted to write.
A smaller publishing opportunity is not automatically the right choice for every author. Sometimes saying yes makes strategic sense, and sometimes saying no makes strategic sense. But a smaller deal can be a valuable stepping stone when it supports your long-term goals.
It can help you build confidence, create a track record, learn the business, and clarify what you want from your next publishing experience.
The proposal helps you think bigger
A nonfiction book proposal is not simply a pitch for a manuscript. It is a strategic document that helps agents and publishers understand the entire opportunity around the book.
For April, the proposal process required a different kind of preparation than simply diving into the writing. It pushed her to think about the bigger picture: the audience, the marketing, the platform, the book’s positioning, and what would happen after a reader finished the final page.
The book was not meant to be the end of the relationship with readers. It was designed to lead readers into a larger ecosystem that included April’s community, podcast, and ongoing work.
That is why Meghan describes a book as part of your business or impact — not the whole thing.
Your book can help readers find your community. It can introduce them to your podcast. It can deepen their connection to your work. It can lead to speaking opportunities, consulting work, future books, and more ways of serving the people who need your message.
Your platform helps you get the book deal. Then, after publication, the platform helps readers continue their relationship with you.
Sometimes you need to wait before submitting
One important part of the process is knowing when your platform needs more time.
April and Meghan paused the proposal process for several months so that April’s platform could catch up before they went out to agents. That pause was strategic. It gave April additional time to build, experiment, gather audience data, and demonstrate the strength of the work around the book.
Going out too early can mean getting a no based on something that may have been possible to improve with more time.
A no is not always about the quality of the book idea. It can be about timing, platform, market conditions, or whether the author has yet built enough evidence that they can reach readers.
If your platform could be meaningfully stronger in six months, it may be worth making that investment before you submit.
The traditional publishing timeline is long
Traditional publishing can move quickly in certain moments, but the full process takes time.
April and Meghan began working together on her proposal in October 2023. In August 2024, April met with her literary agents. The proposal was completed shortly afterward, and she signed her agency agreement within about two weeks.
Then the book went out to publishers.
Within approximately six weeks, five publishers wanted the book. The interest led to an auction, and by the end of October 2024, April had secured a six-figure deal.
Her book, Big Feelings, Big Joy, publishes on October 6, 2026.
From the first call to the book’s release, the journey took about three years.
That is why it is so important to begin before you think you need to. Time will pass either way. Build the platform, audience, message, and body of work that can support your book when the opportunity arrives.
April Snow, LMFT is a licensed psychotherapist, author, and consultant. She specializes in working with highly sensitive people to help calm the storm of overload, guilt, and self-doubt to allow their innate sensitive strengths to shine through.
Deeply committed to changing the narrative of what it means to be highly sensitive, April supports HSPs around the world through her Sensitive Circles community, Sensitive Sessions workshops, and Sensitive Stories podcast. In addition to Big Feelings, Big Joy being published by HarperCollins in October, she has written Find Your Strength: A Workbook for the Highly Sensitive Person.
Find April on social
https://www.instagram.com/sensitivestrengths
https://www.tiktok.com/@sensitivestrengths
https://www.youtube.com/@sensitivestrengths
Buy a copy of April’s book, Big Feelings, Big Joy, at https://www.bigfeelingsbigjoy.com/book
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 are the 3Ps of getting a book deal?
What makes a nonfiction book idea attractive to publishers?
Do you need a large platform to get a Big Five book deal?
Can you get a traditional book deal with a modest author platform?
Why does platform matter to literary agents and publishers?
What should you create before you write a book?
How can social media help you develop a book idea?
How can content creation improve a nonfiction book?
What data should authors track in email and on social media?
How can you find out what content resonates with your audience?
How can podcast interviews become research for a book?
Should nonfiction books include practical exercises and takeaways?
How do you market a book without feeling salesy?
Do you have to be on every social-media platform to get a book deal?
Can a podcast help you get a traditional publishing deal?
Can smaller publishing deals lead to a Big Five book deal?
Should you accept a book deal from a smaller publisher?
What is a nonfiction book proposal?
Why might you delay submitting a proposal to agents?
How long does it take to get a traditional book deal?
How long does traditional publishing take from proposal to publication?
