The business of books with 2x author Hannah Selinger

"Whether it’s worth it depends on how much you want to write the book."

May 03, 2026

Writing is a way for me to make sense of the world around me. It’s a way to reflect on experiences (good and bad) and better understand how they’ve shaped me. How they made me feel then and how I feel now in retrospect. For me, it’s a form of self-guided therapy, and when even just one reader says my story resonates, it makes me feel less alone in this crazy life and grateful that I could do the same for someone else.

That’s why I’m writing a memoir. Yep, I’m going for it! It’s about the experience of losing my mom to Alzheimer’s in my 30s. But what I really think it’s about is how losing her led me to find a new version of myself. That’s the gist of it, but I’m in the beginning stages of mapping it out, so don’t hold me to it yet!

Right now, I’m excited, but I’m sure that during the process, I’m going to want to rip my hair out or even quit, especially once the novelty wears off. So I’m putting it out there into the world to help me keep going. I’m “manifesting” it. Ha!

In August, I’ll begin working with 2x author, essayist, and journalist Hannah Selinger to write my non-fiction book proposal. We recently exchanged a few emails, where Hannah kindly answered some of my questions about the business of books. I’ve learned so much from her already, and since I know some of you are aspiring authors, I wanted to share it here.

And even if you’re not a writer or aspiring author, I still think it’s interesting to get a behind-the-scenes look at how some of your favorite books came to life.

Hannah Selinger (Photo by Meghan Ireland)

Alexis: What’s the difference in book publishing between fiction and non-fiction? How should they each be approached?

Hannah: Novels—fiction—are sold based on an entire manuscript. The protocol is that you would write the book first, then shop for an agent, then hope to sell it (it tends to be harder than selling nonfiction, especially in this market).

Nonfiction—memoir—is where a proposal would come in. If that’s what you’re considering instead, work toward that, but I’d just caution you to keep your expectations low. Memoir is hard to sell, particularly if you don’t have what’s known as a platform, which is a very established series of clips and/or a big media following. That’s not to say it can’t happen, but it’s probably not very likely in this climate. That said, I don’t think it’s bad to write this stuff out, but it’s worth thinking about what kind of story you want to tell.

What do you mean by a series of clips?

“Clips” are published pieces of work. That’s really part of your platform—but not all of it. Before a publisher (or an agent, as a first step) would want to take a chance on you, they would likely want to see that you have the ability to sell your work more broadly—particularly when we’re talking about nonfiction, where you’re selling an idea and not a finished product.

Realistically, can you make a living as an author without any supplemental income?

There are many components to selling books, not the least of which is money. When you get an advance, it works differently in nonfiction than it does in fiction. In nonfiction, that advance is split into either three or four parts, less than 15 percent of which your agent gets.

That means that if you sell your book for $100,000, your first payment, three months after you sign (because that is how long it takes to resolve a contract), will be about $28k. You’re meant to use that money to live off of while you write the book, but, as you know, that’s not very much money—and $100k is considered a very large advance for a memoir. You get the second third when you submit the draft, and the third installment on publication day.

For fiction, advances are typically divided into two. Since you’ve already written the book, you receive your first payment immediately after your book clears contracts. The second installment is paid out once your book is published. But novels are usually paid out at a lower rate, in the $20k–50k range for debut authors. So if you look at the math on that, it means you might make $20k per installment, if that.

These are hardly sustainable wages, which is why so many writers are doing other things while they’re also writing books. And these numbers reflect deeply established writers who have been chipping away at legacy media for years. I’m not saying this as discouragement, but it’s just important to be realistic about both the timeline and the amount of money that all of this actually realizes in the end. Success as an author is extremely limited.

Makes sense. I understand it’s a long game that may never work out. For me—at least at this point—it’s more of a goal I hope to achieve. I’m not quitting my day job. What has been most effective for you in growing your platform? I know you’ve had success with clips and the James Beard Award nomination, but what else helped? Self-promotion on social media? That part makes me cringe, but I guess if I want to build a platform, it’s mandatory.

My following was organic, and it came mostly from my published work. I had a number of pieces that went viral—most notably the one nominated for the Beard—and they made me more visible. My agents sought me out, so I was already pretty recognizable. I was in a position to leverage the editors and writers I knew to sell a book. Ultimately, that’s what a publisher wants to see: that you can help market yourself.

It’s not necessarily one thing. I’ve been in the field for 20 years, in one way or another, so I have deep connections. This helped me make a case for the book.

The essay I wrote for HuffPost about tricking my mom into assisted living after her Alzheimer’s diagnosis is, I think, what planted the seed for my desire to write more (in memoir form) about how losing her in my 30s shaped me. How it led to learning more about her and myself. I’m considering writing more about it on my Substack to build a platform/audience. Would that be a good approach?

A few things I’d offer when it comes to writing a memoir about grief.

1. Anything you intend to publish (short- or long-form) needs to stay off Substack. There are copyright issues, and no publisher will republish something that people have already seen. So, although there are merits to making yourself more visible and increasing your profile through a newsletter or other social media avenues, I would strongly discourage you from putting anything you intend to use in a book into a public forum, because you cannot use it twice.

2. Memoir is a tough sell these days, and the most pressing thing that publishers are looking for is that you have some kind of independent identity that would help you sell the book.

That’s not necessarily limited to social media platforms, though it can help. For me, it was journalism: people knew who I was because of my food-writing background. If you can’t sell books, it’s less likely that they’re going to take you on, because it’s a liability. That’s not to say you shouldn’t make a play for it, but I just want you to be realistic about what the process looks like.

3. The other thing about memoir is that you rarely write the book first. You write a proposal, and 1–2 sample chapters, and you send it to agents—and then, later, editors—in the hopes that they want to buy the idea. It’s the opposite of how you sell a fiction manuscript, which is sold on the entire book. So you’d have to build your architecture around the structure of a prospective book: a book that does not yet exist.

4. The marketing strategy that surrounds nonfiction has a lot to do with facts and figures, and what you think you might be able to do. Have you identified your audience? Have you figured out how you can sell this book? That’s what you should be thinking about way before you think about what the book even looks like when you approach nonfiction, as backward as that sounds.

If that kind of thing sounds like it’s for you, then you want to do a proposal, about a 50–100-page document that you’d send out that sort of outlines what your final project might look like.

Thank you for bringing me back to earth. I think like many aspiring authors, I’m probably romanticizing the whole thing... Do you have any tips for figuring out whether it’s worth it? I’m sure it’s different for everyone, but would you recommend gathering more information, doing research, and starting to put together a proposal on my own to see if I want to pursue working with a writing coach like you?

Whether it’s worth it depends on how much you want to write the book. Mathematically, I can walk you through what the numbers look like again, in more detail.

A classic book deal is divided into three payments, which you receive after your agent takes 15 percent. You receive the first third when you sign the contract (that’s usually 3–6 months after the book deal is agreed upon); the second third when your draft is accepted by the editor; and the final payment when the book is published. The typical gestation time for a book is 2–3 years, so expect these payments to be split between that timeline. Assume you’re getting an advance of $25,000, because you’re an unknown author. So that’s $21,250 after your payout to your agent, divided by three, or $7,083 per payment, which you will later have to pay taxes on.

In addition, you may have to pay out of pocket for extras like travel, meals on a book tour, and even a private publicist if you hope to promote your book effectively. (That part is up to you.)

Plus, you have to take time out of your life to write the book.

Is this resource a good example of a book proposal template?

As for a proposal template, that’s sort of what you’re looking for. You can also outsource proposals. There are proposal coaches (I am one), and there are people who ghostwrite proposals, which is more expensive.

Thank you for explaining the numbers! So I’ll be broke and a hermit. Haha. Got it. What does book proposal coaching usually entail? Does it involve connecting aspiring authors to agents and editors? Or is that a separate project?

So the liaison between the writer and the editor is handled by an agent. My coaching package includes help with query letters, and I would help you put together a list of agents, but you would send those off on your own.

If a proposal is accepted, do the agent and editor then work with the author to further shape the book (since it hasn’t been written yet)?

When you send your proposal to agents, your agent will almost certainly workshop it before sending it to editors. An editor, if he or she buys the proposal, might then also change the shape of the book, too. There are many steps involved in how a book might look before it hits the market.

Would it make sense to already have some additional chapters/pages I’ve worked on, aside from the 1–3 chapters included in the proposal (mainly for myself to make sure I can write the book), before submitting the proposal? Or does that not make sense because, upon acceptance, they could provide feedback and suggestions for the structure of the book?

As far as writing more chapters, that’s up to you. Some authors write entire books before writing a proposal, but, to me, this is extra and unnecessary work. As I see it, an editor will help shape your book regardless, and your chapter summaries, which are part of your proposal, outline how the book looks anyway, so writing an entire book before actually getting paid is work I wouldn’t necessarily do.

I agree about not doing the work ahead of time. Is there a suggested book length (number of pages) for a memoir?

A memoir is typically 75,000–85,000 words, but the sweet spot is about 80,000 words, or 300 pages. Editors work based on word count, not pages, since pages can vary and word count is standard.

I’m compiling a list of similar memoirs for research purposes to see if there’s room for my story and how it could be positioned. For this, should I look only at recently published memoirs, or can they be from any time?

When you look at comps—which are going to be part of your proposal package—you’ll want to look at books that have been published within the past two years; that are popular or that have hit the bestseller list (one good way to look for this is to search for books that have a minimum of 1,000 ratings on Goodreads); that have similar themes to yours; and that have not been written by celebrities or extremely well established authors who are likely to get big advances based on name alone.

Order Hannah’s memoir, Cellar Rat, and pre-order her debut novel, Valley of the Moms. Pre-ordering books boosts first-week sales, helps authors get on bestseller lists, encourages retailers to stock more copies, and generates early marketing buzz. Let’s show Hannah some love!

Thanks for reading! I’ll continue sharing my learnings as I get further along in writing my book proposal and discover more about the business of books. In the meantime, if you have any questions, drop them in the comments below. If I don’t have an answer, I’ll find someone who does.

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