From Idea to Contract: The Inspiring Story of a First-Time Author, with Merideth Hite Estevez

Gain inspiration from the journey of a first-time author who transformed her dream of writing into a reality by taking bold action. Merideth Hite Estevez’s success story involved launching a captivating podcast and partnering with a coach (yep, that’s me!) to develop a winning strategy. Her talent and tenacity helped her build a robust platform, create a winning book proposal, secure an agent, and land a publishing deal in just a few years. Although she felt like it took an eternity, that’s fast. Follow her story and be inspired to pursue your own writing dreams with confidence! Resources Here’s the program Merideth mentions in the video (we worked together to complete her proposal and set her up for success): https://annkroeker.com/yourcompellingbookproposal/ Merideth’s website: artistsforjoy.org Merideth on Instagram: @artistsforjoy Merideth’s free resource, 3 Ways to Love Your Inner Artist Merideth’s Creative Clusters using The Artist’s Way https://youtu.be/-pe0ds60Ecc Transcript (Transcripts are reviewed and lightly edited.) Ann Kroeker I’m Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach. If you’re tuning in for the first time, welcome. If you’re a regular, welcome back. I’m sharing my best skills and strategies to help writers improve craft, pursue publishing, and achieve their writing goals. On today’s show, you’re going to get a glimpse of a first time author’s journey from idea to a signed contract with a publisher. Even better, she’s a creative coach herself, so it’s like you’re getting two coaches for one. You’re going to love meeting Dr. Merideth Hite Estevez. Merideth Hite Estevez Dr. Merideth Hite Estevez is a spiritual space-maker for artists as an oboist, writer, coach, and educator. Her podcast Artists for Joy was an Award of Excellence Winner in the 2022 Communicator Awards and is in the top 2% of podcasts worldwide. She has served thousands of artists in communal creative recovery with her popular support groups around Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and serves artists of all disciplines through her writings, workshops, and one-to-one coaching services. She holds degrees in oboe from The Juilliard School and Yale University and is a Certified Start with Heart Facilitator through Graydin. As a trained coach, she runs a thriving business helping creatives of all disciplines looking for a more joyful life. Merideth has performed with top orchestras in the US and abroad, including the MET Opera and PhillyPops and is currently the English hornist/Second Oboe of the Chamber Orchestra of NY. She has served on faculties of numerous universities and schools of music, most recently as Associate Professor of Oboe at University of Delaware. When she’s not creating or teaching, you’ll find her attempting to speak foreign languages with a southern accent while traveling with her husband Rev. Edwin Estevez, daughter Eva, and son Eli. Her first book, an inspirational guide to the creative life, is forthcoming in 2024. Merideth, welcome. We’re so glad you’re here. [00:02:03] – Merideth Hite Estevez Hi, Ann. Thanks for having me. [00:02:04] – Ann Kroeker Now, that’s an impressive bio. I’m amazed at all of the things you juggle, and in the middle of it all, you managed to land a contract to write a book. And I would love it if you could give people a simple summary of this crazy journey you’ve been on. Can you just summarize it? And then we can go into detail of what that looked like. [00:02:26.780] – Merideth Hite Estevez Absolutely. Yeah. It feels like a really, really long journey. Like many of the people listening to this, I have been writing all my life. My mother was my elementary school librarian. And so writing was something that always was around. I took a lot of creative writing classes in college. But as you heard from my bio, I always had a beeline on being a professional oboist. All my concentration and focus was on music. And so I didn’t really believe that I could be a writer. I got through college and got married and started having kids and really, especially during the pandemic, felt this new found rumbling that I needed to write. And I really felt like artists needed support, especially in that moment during the pandemic when everything shut down. I had written a small blog that nobody really read, but I had developed a little bit of a writing routine before 2020. But I remember sometime in April of 2020, I bought a microphone and I started podcasting, and it was really writing for the podcast that began my drive and started to become a reality that I wanted to write a book. [00:03:36] – Merideth Hite Estevez And so what I did was realized that I needed a coach and I needed support. I needed somebody to tell me because I felt so equipped in the world of music, but I knew that there was “insider information,” quote unquote,” that I needed to know to get it traditionally published. And so I found you, thank God. And I just looked back through my emails and it was February of 2021 that I signed up finally after hesitating at my keyboard for months and months to sign up for coaching and to purchase one of your courses on how to write a non-fiction book proposal. After that I realized that I needed to focus on having a baby, because a few months later I had my son. And that’s when I was like, “Ann, I need to pause, because I need to have a baby.” So I had a baby and all during my maternity leave, I was really thinking about the book and the thoughts about what it would be about were just sitting there while I was feeding him and up all night. Fast forward, a couple more months after maternity leave, I jumped back on the coaching wagon. [00:04:39] – Merideth Hite Estevez I went through your course, your compelling book proposal, which walked me through step by step, exactly what to do. We worked on the proposal. And that spring I started pitching to literary agents. And an amazing thing happened. All during that time, I was continuing to produce my weekly podcast. And I had a listener reach out because I finally admitted to my podcast audience that I wanted to write a book, and a couple of weeks later, one of my listeners wrote to me and said, “Hey, my husband works at one of the big five publishers. Would you like some guidance on your book proposal?” And I was like, “The more guidance, the better.” So that just goes to show that yes, writing a book proposal and finding the right teammates is really important, but it’s also important to keep writing and to publish something weekly because that person helped me. I had my book proposal ready, thanks to you. I sent a draft to that guy and he gave me some tips and he gave me some names of some people and it helped open a door or two. And I found a literary agent that summer, in August of 2022. [00:05:52] – Merideth Hite Estevez And then we decided to grow my platform a little more over the summer. And I put a lot of effort toward social media, and then we decided to pitch. The proposal was ready and we decided to pitch in October of 2022. And then, oh man. Everything slows way down at that point, at least in my opinion, because you send the emails and you’re sitting there waiting for them to tell you yes or no. And some people said no—many people said no—and a few people said yes. And so my agent and I have been in the process of going through the offers. We had multiple offers, incredibly, and we’ve been going through them. And then by the time this interview goes live, I will have signed the contract and I’ll be crazily writing the first manuscript. So, yeah, that’s it. [00:06:41] – Ann Kroeker That’s an incredible timeline. I know you said things slow way down, but what you just described…let’s just go back, you said 2020 was that spark of, “I think I want to write.” And you had the idea for the book, but it sounded like, I just want to get my words out. And that’s when you got going with the blog and then the podcast, right? Am I remembering right? It was in 2020. I mean, that’s really not that long. [00:07:03] – Merideth Hite Estevez Well, the blog I started in 2017, but it was like a slow burn. And it literally was like some weeks I would write. In 2020 was when I really started weekly producing something online. [00:07:16] – Ann Kroeker Okay, so that’s interesting to me and I think to anybody tuning in: you committed with the dream—would you say it was a dream or a goal at that point in 2020 when you started showing up every week? [00:07:30] – Merideth Hite Estevez I think it was a dream, but I knew enough about the publishing industry to know that I needed a lot more of an “audience” to prove that I could sell my book. I knew enough to be dangerous because if you listen to any interviews, they’ll be like, “You need 100,000 followers.” And so it felt like a dream instead of a goal because I was like, “How am I ever going to get there?” And by the way, I’m not there yet. [00:07:54] – Ann Kroeker And I think it’s important for people to know that you did all this. You got this. And you got it with not these wild numbers. But you did work at it and grew the numbers. [00:08:06] – Merideth Hite Estevez Sure. Absolutely. Yeah. The growth. Many people...