Looking for some reading recommendations?

Many clients published books in 2024, and some have done so even more recently. I’ve been fortunate enough to work on projects in a variety of genres, but memoirs in particular have been more and more popular over the past few years.

Why do I enjoy working on memoirs and self-help books? Because the authors very much want to help readers. They want to share their pain, their triumphs, their lessons learned, so that others can benefit from that hard-won expertise. While ALL books can be helpful (nothing fills my heart with more joy than curling up with a glass of wine and a good book!), these brave authors really put themselves out there, and the insight they share with readers is so valuable.

I try not to choose favorites, but here are the recently-published books by some clients I have enjoyed working with in particular!

​Jet Lag Junkie: Unfiltered Tales of a Compulsive Wanderer by Jeff Johns

2025 Feathered Quill Award Finalist - Best Memoir

Jeff, an overweight and insecure college student on the verge of dropping out, follows an uncontrollable urge ending up alone nearly 10,000 miles from home weeks after the 2004 Tsunami in Southeast Asia. Desperate to chase every experience possible, Jet Lag Junkie is the vulnerable and raw journey behind one man's quest to find meaning, belonging, and love amidst an ever-changing backdrop of the most unique places on Earth.
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Through deeply personal struggles with severe ADHD, imposter syndrome, anxiety, body image, and burnout, Jeff’s two-decade journey through nearly 100 countries reveals issues seldom discussed in a world that worships perfection and happiness on every screen. Brought to life through adventures from Mount Everest Base Camp in Nepal, being held at gunpoint in Malaysia, being impossibly lost in Bangladesh and detained by military police in Tajikistan, Jet Lag Junkie inspires readers to experience life more deeply, and to get a bit uncomfortable while doing it.
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Often humorous, always intimate, Jet Lag Junkie reveals the compulsive search and painful struggles of growing up. Testing the limits of what Jeff is capable of, how much he is willing to sacrifice before stopping long enough to find someone to enjoy it all with?

​Jumpseat: Jet Setting in the 1970s by Dianna Bennett

When a 20-year-old college student stumbles on her way to marriage, she finds solace in a new life of travel and intrigue. In 1969, with the Viet Nam War raging and the youth of America on fire, Dianna runs away from the pain of rejection and the embarrassment of an engagement gone wrong. As she searches for meaning, two strangers steer her into the arms of Trans World Airlines and the "Jet Set" age of travel. With each new assignment, especially on the Boeing 747, she soon forgets about the life she left behind. Open eyed, yet naive, she earns her wings as she maneuvers through the new and exciting minefields of international travel.

​A Real Nobody a Fake Somebody and Me: A Memoir of Forced and Closed Adoption by Sherry Bridgette Healey:

In her haunting memoir, A Real Nobody A Fake Somebody and Me, Sherry Bridgette Healey unveils a lifetime of secrets buried beneath layers of deception. Born into anonymity, Sherry Bridgette’s existence was erased by a government mandate, and from the moment she took her first breath, she was condemned to a life of invisibility, and forced to become ‘Sherry.’ But behind this facade of non-existence lies a tale of resilience, redemption, and the relentless pursuit of truth as the true identity of Bridgette, voices her story.
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From the depths of abandonment to the heights of self-discovery, her journey is a testament to the power of the human spirit. As she unravels the tangled web of lies that shroud her past, she confronts the ghosts of her childhood, navigating a treacherous landscape of psychological abuse and emotional neglect. But amidst the darkness, glimmers of hope emerge as Bridgette discovers the power of embracing her fractured identity and reclaiming her stolen heritage.
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As she unveils the layers of her fragmented self, she invites readers to explore the secret underbelly of institutionalized adoption practices, drawing chilling parallels to the darkest chapters of history. But A Real Nobody A Fake Somebody and Me is more than a memoir – it’s a rallying cry for justice, and a roadmap for healing and transformation to all who have felt the pain of rejection and the trauma of lost identity and the ongoing injustices and violations against our basic human rights. With raw honesty, poignant insights, and practical wisdom, Bridgette shares her journey from victim to victor, inviting readers to join her on an expedition of healing and transformation, inspiring hope in the hearts of those who dare to reclaim their true selves.

​Hip Hop x Finance: Become a Financial Gangster! Get off Debt Row and Stack your Cash Flow by Drew Boyer:

Hip Hop x Finance is a unique financial guide that blends personal finance education with the powerful influence of hip-hop culture. Written by a 20+ year veteran of the financial services industry and CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER®, author Drew Boyer takes readers on an engaging journey through the all-to-common money mistakes, lessons, and successes that shaped both his own financial journey and the world of hip-hop.
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Drawing from personal experiences of making financial missteps in his early adulthood, Drew parallels his story with the financial rise and fall of famous hip-hop artists. From the extravagant lifestyles of MC Hammer and 50 Cent to the financial wisdom of moguls like Jay-Z and Dr. Dre, Hip Hop x Finance uses real-life examples from the music industry to illustrate critical money lessons including managing debt, building cash flow, investing wisely, and avoiding common money pitfalls.
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With chapter titles inspired by iconic hip-hop tracks, clever wordplay, and excerpts of classic rhymes, the book entertains while providing practical education on how to turn financial struggles into wealth-building opportunities for Gen X, Y, and Z. Break free from the "Debt Row" trap, become an entrepreneurial hustler to stack your cash flow, and learn the basic tricks about how to build lasting financial success.

​Activate Your Future Self: The Secret to Effortlessly Becoming the Happiest, Healthiest and Wealthiest You by Mimi Bouchard

FINALLY GET EVERYTHING YOU WANT OUT OF LIFE
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​In this transformative book, Mimi Bouchard, founder of the revolutionary Activations app, offers simple but powerful strategies to shift every aspect of your life – from your health and relationships to your career and finances – and help you become the happiest, most successful, most abundant version of yourself. You’ll discover how to:

• Gain clarity on what your dream life looks like and what you really want

• Change your self-image and become your Future Self through visualization, mental rehearsal, Activations, writing prompts and more

• Maintain your Future Self frequency every day using Mimi’s unique achievement tool, the Bounce Back Rate™

You have potential inside of you that you haven’t tapped into yet. This book will show you how to achieve that potential, quickly recover from setbacks and finally become who you’ve always wanted to be. Remember: to create the life you want, you must first become the kind of person that has it.
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It’s time to activate your Future Self.

​Moving Forward with Bold Uncertainty by Lisa Rose:

How do I move forward? What will this new life hold for me?

If others can get "there," will I be able to get "there" too? What does "there" even look like for me, anyway?

Those of us dealing with separation, divorce, or significant loss face difficult questions like these. Author Lisa Rose explores answers to them, sharing raw, personal stories from her own journey through divorce and toward discovering her "there."

Life has a way of sending storms into our lives that make us face how harsh reality can be. Setbacks, mistakes, and missteps might cause us to stumble. Failures, hurdles, and disappointments might sneak up on us. Losses, rejection, and exclusion might catch us by surprise.

A retired Christian life coach, Lisa helps others find answers and shares eight pivotal lessons guiding readers in figuring out their own "there", cultivating the necessary grace and courage to let go of what once was to Moving Forward with Bold Uncertainty into a life full of hidden blessings and unexpected new beginnings. Whatever challenge we face, there are possibilities out there to claim, if we are ready and bold enough to step forward to grasp them.

​The Science of Miracles: One doctor's journey to find hope and healing beyond the broken medical system by Robin Youngson

Driven by childhood trauma, a passionate engineer turned doctor confronts the suffering within the medical system. Expecting to find compassion and care, he instead encounters a broken, inhumane and corrupt system. As his journey leads him to question his own deeply held beliefs, he uncovers an urgent need for strategies prioritizing human connection over technical fixes.

Through profound encounters with patients and wise teachers, the author discovers a new scientific reality where healing flourishes and miracles occur daily – insights with the potential to transform medical practice. After winning New Zealand's highest medical award, he makes a bold decision to leave the system and embrace his true calling as a healer and teacher.

This honest and captivating medical memoir explores how societal myths and trauma misshape our beliefs, and our innate capacity to heal. Blending cutting-edge neuroscience with extraordinary stories of compassion and healing, this book offers fresh insights and new hope by showing how challenging our assumptions can transform our lives and the world we are part of.

I hope you will take the time to check out one of these books – or even work on your own!

To you and your book!

Megan

The truth about agents, rejection, and platforms

A quick note about agents, rejection, and platforms:

Being rejected based on your platform (or lack thereof) does not mean that the literary agent thinks your career path isn’t impressive, that you’re not greatly respected in your field, that you’ve accomplished nothing, or that you do not have anything substantive to say. They likely don’t even think you are lacking in talent, that you should keep your day job, or that there is no hope for you and your book in the wide world of publishing.

The reason that agents care so much about platform is because the editors at publishing companies do. And editors equate platform with potential book sales. This makes sense, of course – if you have X number of fans who are already interacting with your content, then you will likely have X number of fans who will actually purchase your book. And as the publishing house is making an investment in you with the advance they pay, they want to feel comfortable they will make their money back (and more). Agents and editors need to know what IS happening and what HAS happened, not what COULD happen. Even authors choosing to self-publish need to have a platform and to build awareness of their “brand”: fans = money, and if you don’t have the fans, I wouldn’t quit your day job.

It may seem outrageous that someone who has worked in a field for 30 years may not be considered a platform all-star. It may not be “right,” it may not be convenient, but that’s the world we live in and write in. If you’d like to continue to “fight the man,” go ahead. But a change of perspective may be more helpful (and fruitful!). 

The good news is, just because your platform may be in its beginning stages, or it may need a little work, does not mean it will always be that way. Platform is something that people need to constantly be working on – even Oprah is consistently finding new ways to reach out to her fans.

It’s important to remember that not all platforms are the same; it all depends on where your audience is. Some folks build their followings on Twitter or on Instagram, others through speaking engagements or a podcast. Find out where your ideal readers are going and interact with them there. You are aware already that knowing your audience makes you a better writer – after all, it’s all about them, not you – and this thought applies to building a platform, too. Do your research, try, and then try again. And yes, this can be time-consuming (I wish I could say to tweet twenty times a day and publishing success will be yours). 

It’s important to think outside the box when you’re doing this. What are your personal strengths? Look at your competition, or at peers in your field for whom you have great respect. What are they doing that seems to be working? How can you put your own spin on it and make those ideas work for you, too? If you can’t make the process fun, think of it as an inevitable, like doing your taxes, waiting in line at the DMV, or paying off your student loans.

If you’re at the beginning, don’t be discouraged. Writing a whole book seemed pretty impossible at one point, right? Nothing will happen overnight. Platform is about the long term, not the short term, even if you want to just write this one book and then wipe your hands clean of this crazy industry. Slowly but surely, you will start growing your tribe. And the people that are excited for this book will be excited for your next one, and the one after that. 

Introducing the Author’s Roadmap, a boutique service offered to authors who are ready, really ready, to realize their long-held dreams of being published.

First we’ll begin with a 60-minute call in which we’ll get to know one another. You tell me about you and your book and what your big, audacious dreams are for getting it published (and even after that). You ask me whatever questions you have and together we identify which roadblocks are keeping you from getting to your last stop.

After we meet, you’ll send me your manuscript and I’ll dive deep within it, identifying which aspects will be most attractive to publishers, literary agents, and readers – and which might need a little work (and then I’ll tell you how to fix them).

Finally, I’ll give you the steps you will need to take to get your book published, and beloved by readers everywhere. Looking for a literary agent? I’ll tell you how to get there. Self-publishing? I’ll get you there, too.

It can be hard to know which way to go, and the options can feel overwhelming.

I’m here to get you where you need to be: published.

​Are you ready to play big?

Writing a Self-Help Book 101

Do you want to help people change and improve their lives? Do you want to make a difference? I’ll bet you’re considering writing a self-help book.

I don’t blame you. It’s a beautiful thing to want to help, and there will always be a market out there for self-help – people will always want (and need) to get better, and they will always be in search of new, fresh voices to help guide them in their quests for self-improvement.

The bad news? This is also a very crowded field – according to the NPD Group, in 2019 alone, 85,253 new self-help titles were published, and 18.6 million books were sold. That’s a lot of helping!

So, what you can you do to stand out from the pack? You should always be working on your author platform, for one. Then, you need to make sure that your book is the best it can possibly be.

Before you get started, be careful about the following things:

• Choose your topic wisely – as mentioned above, self-help is a crowded marketplace, and you want your book to stand out. You also want to make sure that this is a topic you know enough about to position yourself as an expert, and that you care enough about the topic to write the book, market it, etc.

• Be specific when choosing your topic. A subject like “how to be a good mom” is too broad; “how to be a compassionate and effective parent to your adolescent daughter” is more specific.

• Know your audience. What are they looking for? What is their biggest pain point?

• Be aware of comparative titles. What books like yours have been super successful? What do they do well? What does your book offer that is better or different? This knowledge will help when pitching and marketing your book, and it will also help you analyze what kinds of books readers need, the best approach to take, etc.

• Choose a title AND a subtitle – the title can be catchy, and the subtitle can explain that the book is about (e.g., Fat Schmat: The Sassy Girl’s Guide to Weight Loss, Manage Sideways: The New Manager’s Guide to Change)

As you’re writing be cognizant about word count. Most self-help books are 40,000-60,000 words, and you definitely want to err on the side of brevity. Not only do most readers want to receive their answers/instructions/guides as quickly as possible, the higher the page count, the more expensive the book will be to publish. (Therefore, fewer books will be sold, which makes the prospective book less attractive to agents, editors, and readers.)

Possibly the most important tip I have for you? OUTLINE. Outline the heck out of your book. You need a map to guide you during the writing process, and to stay focused.

Structure is always important, and when you are starting out, it’s important to stick to the traditional structure as closely as possible. Here’s a good sample structure to follow:

Most books have about 12 chapters (with each chapter is usually about 5,000 words long, including 2,000 words in stories/anecdotes/case studies). Each summary should be 1-3 paragraphs, and should give an indication as to what information will be covered in each chapter and how (client success stories, quizzes/assessments, etc.).

Your book should be laid out in a clear, logical manner. Here is a general structure:

• Chapter 1 – The overview/introduction – this is where you identify/explain the problem/pain. You will likely share your story here, or another particularly powerful one – you want to connect and empathize with the reader.

• Chapter 2 – Here you help the reader identify him or herself as a person desperately needing the information you’re about to offer. You want to introduce your “solution,” and explain why it is effective (i.e., how the reader’s life will benefit).

• Chapters 3-11 – Give the reader the steps they need to follow; expound your ideas of how to solve the problem. Each chapter should build upon the one that precedes it.

• Chapter 12 – I call this the “go forth and conquer” chapter. Here you sum up what the reader will have learned, tie everything together, and end things on a powerful note. Empower the reader to take the necessary steps to change/improve their life. The reader should leave the book feeling like they too can achieve the results you presented in Chapter 1 and 2 sums up book, inspires reader to go out and change their life.

When you’re looking at the chapters themselves, you can consider following this general structure:

• Start with a quote that can set the tone for the pages that follow.

• Identify your goal for the chapter (what do you want the reader to learn?).

• Share a story or two that they can relate to/connect with.

• Make clear why they need the information you’re sharing.

• Tell them what to do next.

• Give a brief summary (this can be done in a short paragraph, or this can be down in a bulleted list of key takeaways, for example).

• Give them an action step (e.g., worksheet to fill out).

As you’re writing:

• Don’t take too much on – don’t try to do all the things. There can always be other books, and you want to make sure you don’t overwhelm the reader with information – make this as easy for them as possible.

• As Denise Duffield-Thomas says, be comfortable being a contributor, not a guru. While you should be an expert in what you are saying, you don’t have to be the expert to end all experts. People want to hear what YOU have to say.

• Do your research. Whether it’s interviewing experts, reading studies, or compiling statistics, you need to have relevant and factual information to back up your statements and claims.

• Give the reader something to do. You want the reader to have as many opportunities as possible to interact with your material. Stories allow them to interact emotionally, but activities (quizzes, worksheets, fill in the blanks) give them the option to review and apply the information they’ve just read.

After you’ve written your first draft:

• Edit (obviously). Go back to your outline and make sure you have followed it as closely as possible. As yourself if you’ve shared enough stories, given the reader enough ways to connect with the information, etc.

• Consider hiring an editor. I don’t mean this in a self-serving way, but it helps to have a person in your corner that has experience editing your type of book.

• Get an amazing book cover designed for you – people really do judge a book by it’s cover.

• Get endorsements – these make a huge difference when they’re splashed on the book’s cover!

• If you’re planning to traditionally publish, write your book proposal (this is what agents and editors will want to see before the manuscript itself).

• Keep working on your platform!

Need a little inspiration? Reedsy put together a great list of some of the best self-help books of all time: https://reedsy.com/discovery/blog/best-self-help-books

I can’t wait for your book to change readers’ lives. See you on bookshelves soon!

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