Meghan Quinn is the bestselling romance author of dozens of trope-filled, spice-loaded books devoured by readers all over the world, including a beloved Christmas series inspired by favorite holiday classics. In addition to being a prolific author—publishing at least three novels a year—she’s also an exceedingly skilled social media marketer. With over a half a million followers across her platforms, Meghan Quinn is a wealth of knowledge for any author who knows they need to “build a platform”, but has no idea where to start. Trust us, you’ll want to dive into this interview packed with insight, tips and her trademark sense of humor.
She Writes: Let’s start by talking about Christmas Staycation. This is your third book in a series drawing from classic holiday stories. Tell us a little about the book and what you pulled from Christmas Vacation that you had fun with.
Meghan Quinn: Christmas Staycation is Taran’s story, and Taran is Storee’s sister from How My Neighbor Stole Christmas. I didn’t initially think I was going to be writing her story at all. I didn’t think this series would get to where it is.
When the third book came around, I realized I didn’t have anyone to write about besides Taran, but I initially had her already in a relationship and getting married to a man named Guy. There was just nothing appealing to me about him.
If you’ve watched Christmas Vacation, there really isn’t much of a plot to that movie. It’s a bunch of comedy bits strung together with a whole bunch of chaos. So I thought, okay, I can do that. I can make this chaotic.
Basically, Taran and Guy are broken up, but nobody knows, and everyone’s coming into town for Christmas. They decide to pretend they’re still together and everything is fine so they don’t ruin Christmas. But when their family comes into town, they’re like, “Surprise! We’re going to throw you a Christmas wedding.”
They’re thinking, “Oh my God, what are we going to do?” They decide they won’t get a marriage certificate or anything. They’ll just pretend they’re getting married.
Guy’s mom calls Guy’s brother, Nolan, and tells him his brother is getting married and he needs to come into town. Nolan was the one who met Taran first, and he’s the reason Taran and Guy got together. He’s thinking there’s no way these two belong together. He doesn’t believe it.
He comes into town in his RV and finds out from Taran that it’s all a farce and they’re not actually getting married. He’s like, “Well, now it’s my time.” He takes it upon himself to make his move, which he’s been wanting to make for four years.
It’s an ex-fiancé’s brother trope, which I’ve never done before. There are a few nods to Christmas Vacation, like the RV, obviously. There’s a whole bunch of chaos. There’s a mention of the “Jelly of the Month Club”. Just little things here and there.
I think it’s fun, chaotic, and ridiculous, just like Christmas Vacation.
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She Writes: You’ve done one holiday novel inspired by The Grinch and one by Home Alone. What do you love about drawing from source material that isn’t inherently romantic?
Meghan Quinn: Not romantic in the slightest.
When I was asked by my publisher to write a Christmas rom-com, my initial thought was, what am I going to do that’s different from a Hallmark movie? Because that’s kind of what we all froth for when the holiday season comes around. We’re looking at the lineup and deciding what we’re watching.
One, spice, obviously. That’s majorly different.
But I also really wanted to dive back into the nostalgia of Christmas when I was growing up. A big part of that was these movies we watched every single year, religiously. I wanted to bring that comfortable, nostalgic feeling to readers. Hopefully, I did that.
She Writes: Do you feel like writing a holiday rom-com is different from writing a regular rom-com? Do you approach it differently, or is it just throwing in all the fun of the holidays?
Meghan Quinn: It’s definitely different. You have to keep the tone and mood in mind.
You’re constantly thinking, okay, I’m writing this scene, they’re kissing, but what’s around them that’s Christmassy? How can I move this into the Christmas feel rather than just a regular kissing scene?
Apparently, I also like to use Christmas goodies in spicy scenes, which is very different. I don’t do that with any of my other rom-coms. It’s Christmas, and apparently I think food!
It comes down to thinking about how you can immerse that Christmas feeling into the rom-com and make sure that, with every page, people are still thinking about the holidays.
She Writes: Obviously, we get your holiday books around the holidays, but I’m sure you don’t write them during the holidays. Is there anything you do to put yourself in that headspace?
Meghan Quinn: Usually, I’ll turn on Christmas music and have that going while I’m writing.
Christmas Staycation was a little different. My mom passed away in May, and she was very ill while I was writing this book. I wasn’t in my normal holly-jolly, listening-to-Christmas-music mood. I don’t even think I listened to any Christmas music. I was just trying to get through it.
Normally, I would put on Christmas music and write during the winter-ish season. February is still kind of cold and snowy, and you get days where it’s dreary. That helps with the feeling of everything.
This one was just a little different.
She Writes: Readers still get a hint of sports romance with this one, too, right? Nolan’s a baseball player?
Meghan Quinn: Just a hint! In the prologue, you meet him when he’s still in the minor leagues. It’s important to know how Taran and Nolan met, which was at a male strip club.
She’s at a bachelorette party, and because you don’t make a lot of money in the minor leagues, he’s doing this on the side to pull in cash.
That’s how they meet. She’s very rigid, and he sees her across the room and thinks, “She’s mine.” He really likes that rigidness about her.
You get a little bit of baseball, but not much. You don’t actually see him in action, besides his first job. His side hustle!
She Writes: This month, we’re talking about platforms and social media, and you have a large following across multiple channels. In general, how do you approach social media, and how has that evolved from where you started to where you are now?
Meghan Quinn: My basic rule of thumb for social media has always been the same, from the very beginning when I first started posting to where I am now. That rule is that my platforms are used for entertainment, and that’s it.
There’s a lot going on in the world, and the last thing people need is another person shoving their opinion down their throat.
My thought process is, how can I offer an escape for readers to come to and find joy, to laugh, and to escape reality?
My books do that, and my social media does that as well. That’s why you see me doing funny skits and things like that. I think it’s nice for readers to have that escape.
My posts have morphed tremendously. I’ve always kind of gone with the crowd in the sense that social media has evolved.
Think about Instagram. It used to be the picture-perfect image that you would curate. You’d mold everything around it, and the book would be the center of it all. Here’s my beautiful picture of my book. That’s what Instagram was for so long. You could curate these images and gain a following from them.
That’s obviously changed. Now reels are vital, and so are carousels. You have to think about how you can utilize those things to your advantage and apply them to what you’re trying to market.
For Christmas especially, I’m not necessarily marketing the book itself. I’m marketing the feeling you get during the holiday season. That’s what I try to go for.
I started on Facebook, and it used to be pictures with these long quotes. You could get away with that. Now you have the image, but the text goes in the caption.
Then there were the curated Instagram photos and the beauty of having everything in the same filter. I bought a filter off Etsy and used it on every picture so my grid was the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen in your entire life!
That morphed into what it is now, with reels and videos. I have an illustrator who illustrates scenes and animates videos for me. We use those to capture readers’ attention because so much short-form media is based on grabbing people’s attention for a few seconds.
It’s morphed so much, and we’re continuing to watch the trends and see how we can fit in while continuing to do the same thing.
It’s hard, though, if you’re not someone who wants to be in front of the camera. It took me quite a long time to be comfortable and to post videos without feeling like everyone in my personal circle of friends and family was judging me.
It took me a while to get over that. I would still be so embarrassed. But once you get past that, it makes it so much easier to do what you need to do.
She Writes: I think a lot of authors tend to be introverts, and putting your face out there is hard. Your personality feels so natural on social media, like this is what you show up to do all the time. It’s helpful to hear that it didn’t necessarily come naturally and that you were nervous and embarrassed. People could look at someone like you, who does social media really well, and think, “I can’t ever get there. That’s not for me.”
Meghan Quinn: It took me a long time, but my overall goal is to continue to grow. If you’re not pushing yourself, pushing your limits, and pushing your boundaries, you’re never going to grow.
At first, I didn’t want to post anything unflattering. I was very self-conscious.
Over time, I had a team around me that was saying, “You just have to keep going.” Thankfully, because of them, I felt more comfortable. I would send them videos, and they would laugh and say, “This is so great. This is so funny.”
Then I would post them, and readers would say the same thing. The encouragement from the community has been one of the main reasons I continue to do what I do.
I just did a content day with one of my team members who lives here in Colorado. She came down to my house, and we did 11 videos together so we could stock up.
That’s another thing I recommend. Have a content day. Throughout the week, if an idea comes to me, I write it on a Post-it note. Then I know I can do that video on my content day.
Do your hair, pick out a few outfits, figure out what content you’re going to do, and shoot it all. It doesn’t take that long. Change your outfits so you don’t look like you’re wearing the same thing.
Then you have content for two weeks, and you don’t have to do it again. You can just post it.
I think that’s a really good way to get it done and start feeling more comfortable. The more you do it, the more you’ll feel like you can continue doing it.
She Writes: Another thing people struggle with is not wanting to be too salesy. They’re afraid of bothering people. But at the same time, driving book sales and building readership are ultimately the goals. Do you feel like social media sells books? And how do you make sure you’re using it in a business-minded way while still keeping it engaging?
Meghan Quinn: I think social media 100% sells books.
If you’re doing it the right way, you’re not just posting. You’re also interacting.
I’ll write for 20 minutes and take 10 minutes off. Part of that 10 minutes is going through social media and making sure I thank people, repost, and spend time interacting.
Especially if you’re a newbie or an indie author trying to get your name out there, it’s not about spamming other people’s posts and saying, “Read my book.”
It’s about thanking people and interacting with them.
Someone might post on TikTok about their birthday and show a book haul. I don’t know who this person is, but I’ll say, “Happy birthday! I hope it’s a great day.”
I’m not in their comments trying to sell them a book. I’m showing them that I’m part of the community and wishing them a happy birthday.
It’s not all about trying to sell, sell, sell, or just posting and leaving. You have to interact and be part of the community in a positive way, not a negative way. If you start going the negative route, good luck to you. I’m not going to have any part of that.
As far as feeling like you’re always selling, I think it’s a fine line.
If you go through my grid or my posts across all platforms, you’ll see interactive posts asking things like, “Skittles or Starburst?” People love those types of things.
There might be an old quote or an out-of-context quote that people can read and laugh about.
Then there are informative posts where I’m saying, “Hey, I haven’t updated you guys in a while. Here’s my book tour. Here are the different versions of my books and where you can find them.”
But I have fun with it.
Then there are videos that capture the feeling of the book.
We just posted a video of me at a book signing, handing books to people as they’re walking by. The audio is from Christmas Vacation, when Clark is at his job and the corporate guys are walking through the door. He’s saying, “Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas,” and then, “Kiss my ass. Kiss his ass.”
I’m doing that while handing out books.
There’s a hint of marketing and selling the book because the book is there. It’s present. You can see it. But it’s more about giving readers the feeling of what this whole marketing plan is about.
There are different ways you can market a book without constantly saying, “Buy my book, buy my book.”
She Writes: You want to sell the vibe more than the physical product itself.
Meghan Quinn: Yeah. And there are direct ways to sell the book, too. Here are the micro-tropes. Here are the trope reveals. Here’s an excerpt. Here’s an audio excerpt.
There are things you can do directly that aren’t saying, “Buy my book.” They’re saying, “Here’s a part of the book. Do you like it?”
There are ways to go about it without constantly asking people for their money.
She Writes: Do you have a particular platform that’s your favorite, or that’s maybe the best place to get started?
Meghan Quinn: I think I spend most of my time between Instagram and TikTok. They’re tied.
My TikTok doesn’t like me posting pictures, which is so annoying. It only really likes when I do videos or show my face. I don’t know why, but that’s where we get the most views. Other people can post pictures and get all the views, but apparently my audience likes to see my face.
So on TikTok, we do a lot of videos, and that’s pretty much it.
On Instagram, we can have a little more fun. We can do excerpts with images and still get a lot of traffic.
If you’re starting out as an author, I think both platforms go hand in hand. Whenever you post on one, you can post on the other. Whenever you post a story on Instagram, you can save it and post it to TikTok Stories.
You’re not necessarily doubling how much content you have to create, but you’re doubling how many people you can reach.
If I were starting out, I would do both and recycle the content.
She Writes: Publishing is obsessed with having an author platform, but there’s this chicken-and-egg problem. It’s hard to find readers before you have a book to offer them, and at least in traditional publishing, it’s hard to get publishers on board if you don’t already have readers.
Can you talk a little about your publishing journey as it relates to social media? Did your audience come after you had a certain number of books out, or were you cultivating that audience before you had the backlist you have now?
Meghan Quinn: I started as an indie author. I self-published, and I’m still hybrid today.
A lot of people say, “Oh, she’s traditionally published.” Technically, not really. I still have my ebook and audio rights, so I’m hybrid. My publisher just has my paperback rights.
It’s amazing because we work together as a team. I’ve been able to do a lot of things that help them, and they do a lot of things that help me. I think that’s the best way to do it.
I started out very small, doing everything I possibly could to reach different people.
Back then, it was a little different, but some of the best advice I got was from Marie Force, who at the time was the number-one indie author. She was just killing it.
She told me to keep writing.
She said, “The more books you have, the bigger audience you can gather. Because if you have one book, where are they going to go? But if you have three books, they can read through.”
She told me, no matter what, just keep writing.
That’s why I have around 80 books in my catalog. In the early days, I was writing over and over again so I had something for readers to read when they finished a book.
I was still working a full-time job, and I put whatever money I made from my books back into my business.
If I made $1,000 that month, that money would go toward marketing. At the time, shirtless-guy cover photos were really expensive, so I would spend money on a cover photo because I knew it would sell a future book.
Whatever I made went right back into the business.
It wasn’t pretty in the beginning. There was a lot of uncertainty, but I was able to continue reinvesting in myself.
As I did that, I was growing the platform. I was using social media. It was different then because Facebook was really what we had. Once Instagram started to make its move, I moved over there and practiced the same thing.
I wouldn’t review other authors’ books. I would only promote and help. I would never speak negatively about anything because no one wants to hear it.
I was constantly trying to entertain.
I think by doing that and staying positive throughout my journey, I’ve been able to build the platform I have today.
She Writes: That’s such an indie mindset: just keep writing. You never know which book is going to hit, and once one does, you want readers to be able to fall back into your other books.
It seems like you’ve maintained that approach, even while working hand in hand with traditional publishing. Do you ever get the urge to slow down? Do you ever burn out, or is this just how you operate?
Meghan Quinn: This year has been a rough year. Obviously, my mom passed away. She always tried to get me to slow down a little, and I think this was that moment of her saying, “Hey, now it’s time.”
I took three months off, and my agent has gotten my schedule down a little more.
I think it’s three books next year and maybe two the following year. I don’t know how readers are going to take it because they’re so used to me writing so much.
But I don’t want to burn out.
Right now, it’s been a little rough because I took those three months off, and now I’m playing catch-up.
I don’t want to burn out, so I think my agent is slowing me down just a little bit.
But to me, the creative process is the most fun part. I’m always coming up with new ideas.
I was at a book signing in Boston, taking pictures with everybody, thanking them for coming. This girl walks up wearing a shirt, and I look at the shirt, and immediately my mind starts racing with an idea.
To the point where I stopped the line, hobbled over in my boot to my publicist, and whispered in her ear, “Write this down. I have a book idea.”
I started telling her the idea and the marketing plan for how we would market the book because it just sprang to me.
She’s writing everything down, and then she says, “Okay, is that it? Are you good?”
I said, “Yeah, I’m good to go,” and went back to taking pictures.
My mind is always firing off ideas. What if this happened? What if that happened?
I think it would be too hard for me to shut that down and say, “I’m only going to do one book a year, and that’s it.”
I think it would be too detrimental to my creative process.
I just really like to write and live in dream worlds.
She Writes: I think people look at someone who produces at the rate you do and can’t imagine not burning out. But if it’s fueling you, it’s a different experience.
Meghan Quinn: I get a lot of comments like, “She’s not actually writing a book,” and all that.
But this is a full-time job.
I can usually, casually write 5,000 words a day, do that in the morning, and then spend time doing admin.
That’s like a book a month.
That’s just my process. It’s who I am.
A lot of my books are also full of banter and dialogue, which makes it easier to write that fast because it’s just like having a conversation with yourself, apparently.
She Writes: You’ve been doing it for a long time. It’s also much more common in indie publishing than traditional publishing. People look at traditionally published authors who typically release one book a year, but in the indie space, it’s pretty common to publish multiple books a year.
Meghan Quinn: Everyone goes at their own pace. Just because someone is a little faster doesn’t mean they’re doing something different. It just means they might have more voices in their head!
She Writes: You’ve talked about doing writing sprints before. I think you mentioned getting into them when your son arrived. Do you still write in sprints? Is that your method?
Meghan Quinn: Yeah, I do.
We adopted my son, and I was fired from my job in 2016. Because of everything going on with the adoption, I couldn’t take unemployment.
I couldn’t find a new job because my wife had just started a new one, so she didn’t have any maternity leave.
I was thinking, what are we going to do?
I was writing at that point, and I thought, I’ll just make this full-time, and hopefully, if I hustle enough, it’ll become something.
I was making enough money that I was going back and forth about whether I could do this full-time. Then I was pushed right out and forced to do it.
When my son arrived, I was dealing with self-doubt, trying to prove myself, feeling sad because I’d been fired, but wanting to make something of my career.
A baby only lets you do so much.
I was thinking, how can I do this while taking care of this child the way he deserves to be taken care of?
That’s when I started writing in sprints.
He would take little naps next to me in his Boppy, and while he was sleeping, I would try to write as much as possible.
It became this thing where I learned how to write and just black out within 10 or 20 minutes.
I took that method forward.
Now I’ll write for 20 minutes and take 10 minutes off. I have a timer on my desk, and I’ll just do that.
I can write about 1,000 to 1,200 words in 20 minutes, depending on how psychotic the voices are!
Then I’ll take 10 minutes off.
Eventually, I get so involved in the story that I don’t even have to set the timer. I’ll just write 1,000 words, stop, pause, and go again.
But if I find myself struggling, I’ll use the timer again and force myself to focus for that amount of time.
I think it’s one of the best ways to do it.
I always tell people, if you don’t think you can do 20 minutes, do 10. Try to get 200 words, and then build from there.
Twenty minutes and 1,000 words isn’t something everybody can do, so start small and grow from there.
She Writes: That can seem daunting, but what’s frequently even more daunting is thinking you have to set aside this huge block of time to write, and you don’t have that time to give.
Even if it’s 100 words in 20 minutes, that’s 100 more words than you had before.
Meghan Quinn: When I was working full-time and trying to build my writing career, I would get home, spend time with my wife, and then start writing at 10 o’clock at night.
Sometimes I’d stay up until one in the morning, working things out and trying to figure things out, then wake up at six and go to work.
There was a lot of hustle in between.
It was not an easy road. It has never been an easy road. It has been a marathon for me from the very beginning.
I think if you really want it, find a way to make it happen, even if it’s just 10 minutes.
Take 10 minutes away from scrolling social media and put those 10 minutes into something for yourself.
She Writes: At what point did you feel like, “Okay, this is working. This is my career. I’m on my way”? Was there a definitive event, or did it just roll forward into what it’s become now?
Meghan Quinn: There was a month when I brought in a certain amount of money that shocked me. I never thought I would see that kind of money, let alone within a month.
I made more money in a month than I did in my former annual salary, which wasn’t a lot, but that’s when I thought, man, I feel like I could do something with this.
That’s kind of where it grew.
And then there was hitting 10,000 followers on Instagram.
Back then, if you hit 10,000, you were able to have a link!
She Writes: What are you working on next? What are you excited about? What’s coming after Christmas Staycation?
Meghan Quinn: I’m working on a Western romance right now, doing the edits.
It’s kind of an ode to my mom.
When she passed, it happened quickly and unexpectedly because the doctors were telling us different things.
By the time we got to say goodbye, she wasn’t really verbal at all, so I didn’t get to have that last moment.
I asked my dad, “Did she leave us a note? She knew she was sick. Did she write us letters or anything like that?”
He said he didn’t see anything. There was nothing.
I was really upset about that because I wanted that last point of connection.
Maybe a few days later, my dad and I met up, and he had a picture of me and my mom in a picture frame.
He handed it to me and said, “Here’s a picture of you and your mom.”
I wasn’t in a good headspace, so I was like, “Oh, thanks.”
And he said, “No, look behind it.”
I pulled the back off the frame, and behind it was a folded-up note.
It was a poem she wrote, titled “My Daughter.”
She Writes: Oh, wow.
Meghan Quinn: I had been begging for that last connection, and the poem was all about how proud she was of me and how I was the sunshine of her life.
I took that and based the entire book around it.
It’s about a girl who lost her mom and is looking for that last bit of connection. She thinks it’s on this ranch.
It’s very funny, but it also has that really heartwarming moment to it.
That comes out in April, and it’s called Hot Ranch Summer.
After that, I’m going to start writing the third and final book in my Vancouver Agitators series that people have been wanting. It’s OC’s book, and that comes out in July.
We have a few other fun things planned, too. And then there’s the book I thought of at the signing!
She Writes: That story about your mom is such a storybook moment. It’s exactly what you would hope for, to have something like that to find afterward. I’m so sorry for your loss.
Meghan Quinn: I appreciate it.
She Writes: That’s one of the best parts about being a writer, being able to weave those things into your stories and work through them in that way.
Is this your first Western?
Meghan Quinn: It is my first one.
I wanted to write one back in 2018 or 2019.
I was looking through images for my Port Snow series, and one catalog they gave me was all cowboys.
I kept looking through them, and my mind kept spinning. I was like, “I need to write a Western.”
At the time, the people around me were saying, “Is that a good idea? Westerns aren’t selling. They’re not going to be popular.”
And I was like, “Fine.”
Now it’s exploded, and I can’t tell you how upset I am!
I could have been at the forefront of it, and now I’m on the tail end.
But I’ll be damned if I don’t give these readers a Western!
She Writes: Thank you so much for talking with me. It was really nice to meet you. We’re looking forward to continuing to share your books with our audiences, and we’d love to have you back for an interview anytime.
Meghan Quinn: Thank you. I appreciate it. It was nice talking to you.
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