Feature One to one
able to get to one-on-one events and we take the submis- sions we receive in the office as seriously as the verbal pitches we hear at events. Not every author has an agency ‘in’ either, and you would be mad to write someone off just because they haven’t come to you via a recommendation.” Some would-be authors may worry that they should be performers too, but agents are realistic here. “It does help if you can talk about your work fluently and inter- estingly,” says Blofeld. “But that really isn’t the same as pitching—not as, say, a screenwriter would understand it. Having said that, there are well-known, bestselling authors who are famous in the business for being very dull in person, and are best kept away from festivals! What is on the page is absolutely paramount. Novelists
Agent Lucy Luck believes one-on-one pitching is “a useful exercise if only because it demystifies the image of the scary agent”
do not need to be able to pitch their work verbally, they need to be able to deliver on the page.” Ogden offers this advice: “It’s a waste of everyone’s time if an author hasn’t come fully prepared. So I expect an author to have researched a bit about my list and tastes and to come with a smart, succinct verbal pitch. It’s good to have certain questions ready to answer: What stage are you at with the manuscript? How long is it? Where do you see it siting in the market?” But if that makes any prospective author reading this feel anxious, Lucy Luck at Conville & Walsh has this final, reassuring piece of wisdom. “These meetings are a useful exercise if only because it demystifies the image of the scary agent. We really aren’t like that.” ×
A new way of reporting rights
WORDS Tom Tivnan Reported deals: the Big Four’s share
Hachette Deals 62 Share 40.0%
PRH Deals 31 Share 20.0%
Agency Top 10 agency
1 Curtis Brown 2 Authors 3 PFD
4 Conville & Walsh 5 A M Heath
6 Felicity Bryan 7 United Agents 8 Abner Stein
9 Aitken Alexander 10 Greene & Heaton
S 24
HarperCollins Deals 10 Share 6.5%
Pan Macmillan Deals 10 Share 6.5%
deals 16 8 6 5 4 4 4 3 3 3
Imprint Top 10 agency
1 Hodder 2 Headline 3 Trapeze
4 Hachette Children’s 5 Two Roads 6 Canongate 7 Hutchinson 8 Octopus 9 Sphere
10 Transworld
INCE THE BEGINNING of this year, The Bookseller has been tracking all of the rights deals it has reported in its general news coverage and Rights Report, the deal-specific email sent each Friday. The idea is to build, over time, a comprehesive picture of the acquisitions market: What are the trends? Who are the hot authors? Which publishers are buying, and who is doing the selling? Admitedly, it is early days for our tracker. Our current data only encom-
Publishers on the prowl
Anna Valentine, publishing director at Trapeze, has inked four deals for the imprint she founded in 2016, with two celebrities leading the way, snapping up UK and Commonwealth rights to British comedian Sarah Millican’s memoir (from Hannah Chambers of Chambers Management) and Caitlyn Jenner’s The Secrets of My Life (from Nicole Bond at Hachette US imprint Grand Central). It must be busy in the Trapeze office: Valentine’s colleague Sam Eades has nabbed two titles this year, too...
Bluebird publisher Carole Tonkinson, like Valentine, is the boss of a newish imprint on a spree, with The Bookseller reporting three two-book deals with authors Signe Johansen, Angel Hart and Torey Hayden. How to Hygge author Johanson signed for two further titles with Bluebird (concluded with Sarah Williams of the Sophie Hicks Agency), while Shirley Stewart, acting on behalf of Curtis Brown US, orchestrated the Hayden deal. Hart was unagented.
Agents touting about
deals 9 7 7 6 5 4 4 4 4 4
Caspian Dennis of Abner Stein has concluded a trio of deals this year, which shows off the breadth of his client list, encompassing children’s (Emily Suvada’s YA début, This Mortal Coil, went to Tig Wallace at PRH Children’s); celebs (cult indie film actress Parker Posey’s memoir went to Sarah Savitt at Virago), and a thriller (former CIA analyst Karen Cleveland’s Need to Know, and a follow-up title, were bought by Transworld’s Bill Scott-Kerr and Sarah Adams). Suvada’s book was sold in a “breakneck” pre-empt.
A trifecta of deals were struck by Curtis Brown stalwart Felicity Blunt: BBC journalist Victoria Derbyshire’s cancer memoir was signed by Valentine at Trapeze, a new Jennifer Egan went to James Garbutt at Corsair, and John Colapinto’s novel Undone was picked up by Humfrey Hunter at Silvertail. Blunt’s Curtis Brown colleague Cathryn Summerhayes also inked three deals for clients, including a pre-empt for Phoebe Locke’s thriller, The Tall Man, from Kate Stephenson at Wildfire.
passes two and a half months’ worth of deals, and the 2017 rights climate will surely come into much sharper focus aſter this London Book Fair. However, we have an interesting snap- shot thus far. For the publishing side, the overall Hachete group leads the way with 62 deals, a rather healthy 40% of the 156 we have noted. In fact, our top five imprints in acquisition terms are all from the Hachete empire. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given that it is the biggest
firm in town, Curtis Brown easily leads our agency league with a whopping 16 deals; agents Felicit Blunt and Cathryn Summerhayes combining for six of those. Interestingly, authors have conducted eight deals for their own books, most of which have been in the non-fiction sector. The Bookseller is hoping to expand its rights coverage. Any deals can be emailed to news editor Lisa Campbell or editorial assistant Francesca Pymm (both first-
name.secondname@
thebookseller.com).
15th March 2017
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