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6.
AOTW: What kinds of books do you represent? Is one category easier or more difficult to sell
than another? Do you see that this has changed? Does this vary according to trends in the
marketplace?
Loretta Barrett:
I represent a variety of books, including serious nonfiction such as Ann Douglas’s
TERRIBLE HONESTY, Ray Kurzweil’s THE AGE OF SPIRITUAL MACHINES, George
Weigel’s WITNESS TO HOPE, and THE BETTY FORD CENTER BOOK OF ANSWERS. I
love working in the area of psychological/spiritual projects such as Wayne Muller’s
SABBATH and LEGACY OF THE HEART. I represent about 65% nonfiction and 35% fiction.
I’m not sure which category is more difficult to sell than another. It seems to
shift by season and by year in publishing, and is affected to a certain extent by the trends
in the marketplace. I think it’s more important to know what editors want to buy
and add to their list; the difficulty comes in finding the right editor to buy the book, more
than finding the right category.
Amy Berkower:
I'm best known for representing children's books and women's fiction. Early on in my
career, I helped establish the market for middle grade and teen series, like CHOOSE YOUR
OWN ADVENTURE, SWEET VALLEY HIGH and THE BABY-SITTERS CLUB. These books were
much easier to sell then than they are now for a variety of reasons. Twenty years ago,
paperback publishers had just started publishing originals and were looking for books to fill their
lists. Unlike hardcover publishers, they needed books on a monthly basis. Library budgets
were being cut, mall stores where kids could buy make-up, cd's and books in the same place
were proliferating, and there was nothing on television targeted to the teen audience.
Today there's a lot more competition for the teenager's time and money and there's been a
radical change in paperback distribution. In addition to high grossing feature films
targeted to the teen audience, there's an entire network devoted to teen programming. The
wholesale market has consolidated, many mall stores have closed, and retailers are looking
for higher priced books to increase their profit margins making it very difficult to sell
and establish new series. So, yes, trends do affect a book's saleability.
Laura Blake Peterson:
I represent a wide range of fiction, nonfiction and books for children. I don't
specialize in one area as some agents do. Like everyone else in this industry, I like
well-written books, be it a short story collection, a biography, a cookbook or a thriller.
In that regard, the projects I'm interested in have remained unchanged. That said, as in
any other industry, there are trends that come and go. The trick is to make sure the books
you represent will hold up regardless of the natural ebb and flow.
Stuart
Krichevsky: As a result of my work with Sebastian Junger,
Linda Greenlaw and Nathaniel Philbrick, I have become best known
for narrative non-fiction, and in particular "adventure"
books and books about the sea. CNN
went so far as to suggest that I must wear a life preserver to the
office every day. (In fact, I only wear it on casual Fridays; click
here for "lifering" photo). I use the term adventure
provisionally because none of the people these authors wrote about
would have considered themselves adventurers. Fishermen, ocean rescue
personnel, 19th century whalers --- all faced incredible
danger in the course of their work, but they were not out there
seeking thrills or adventure --- they were trying to earn a living.
Still, the industry needs ways to describe and market books, and
the reader goes on a great adventure when reading a tale of survival,
so a wide variety of books are marketed this way. If THEODYSSEY
(or EXODUS for that matter) was published today, it would probably
be billed as adventure. I’ve also taken pains to point out
that "adventure" is not a newgenre, though some journalists
talk about it is something that began in 1997. In that year, Junger
published THE PERFECT STORM and Jon Krakauer published INTO THIN
AIR, two wonderful books that both were part of a long literary
tradition. Readers who enjoyed them went looking for more, and publishers
have been signing up titles that might appeal to the same readers
ever since. The same thing happened a few years earlier with the
memoir, and more recently with books about WWII.
So yes, trends like this do make related work easier to sell. Many editors have told me
that when a work of narrative non-fiction comes from this agency, they are pre-disposed to
take it seriously. I’ve seen that phenomenon before on the fiction side, where I
represent a large number of mystery and suspense writers. Publishers know who you
represent, and have a certain expectation that something new you show them will be of
similar quality. This does make a sale easier, and I’ve worked hard to be selective
in the writers I take on, and careful about comparisons. The expectation of good quality
is valuable, but it can disappear very quickly. The mystery field, incidentally, is one
that has become more difficult for writers and agents in the last couple of years. So many
houses expanded their crime lists in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and have been forced to
cut back the less successful series. This means you have to work twice as hard to launch a
new author, and even established authors have to work hard to distinguish themselves from
the group. One has done this by reinventing herself under a pseudonym, and has a
"first" novel going out next winter in bigger numbers than she’d ever seen
for her mysteries.
Jane Dystel:
I have a very eclectic list. I do general fiction and nonfiction, from literary to
commercial novels, to self-help and how-to, to cookbooks, to issues-driven narrative
nonfiction, you name it. The way I choose the projects I represent is that I have an
immediate appreciation for the subject, the author’s writing ability, or the need I
see for the book in the marketplace. In all cases I have to be enormously enthusiastic
about the project in order to take it on.
Trends, by definition, come and go. Some years, thrillers are all the rage, at other times
you couldn’t sell the next Tom Clancy. Self-help and how-to are perennially steady
categories because these books fill a specific need for consumers. But, in my experience,
any book that is well written (and in the case of nonfiction, well researched) can be
sold. And I’m a sucker for good writing.
Maria Carvainis:
Of the thirty plus writers I represent, some 65% are fiction writers ranging from
commercial to such serious fiction writers as David Bottoms and Charlie Smith. I have
represented Sandra Brown for fifteen years, whose career totals 44 New York Times
bestsellers to date. The agency also represents Mary Balogh and Samantha James, each of
whom have achieved New York Times bestselling status as well as appearances on
other prestigious lists. As for non-fiction, I have sold numerous business books,
including those of Joseph and Jimmie Boyett, the biography of Dean Rusk, THE OXFORD SONG
THESAURUS and BIG BLUE, an exposé of IBM. There are always buying trends in the
marketplace but these trends are made by writers not publishers and not readers. Provided
I feel myself to be an enthusiastic fan of the author and his/her projects, I am eager to
explore exciting possibilities.
Linda Mead:
We represent most everything among the five of us: non-fiction and fiction of a wide
variety; Andrea Brown is the person who reps children's books but she also handles some
adult trade non-fiction.
Lisa Swayne:
I handle business and technology-related titles, branded projects and narrative
nonfiction. For me, whether a project sells or not seems to depend more on the strength of
the author's platform than the topic of the book. There are certain topics --- like
internet titles or personal finance --- that definitely come in and out of vogue, but even
these topics can be successful if focused the right way.
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