début novelist Niamh Mulvey and Roisin Meaney. Mulcahy reps more non-fiction, such as the bestselling Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang and “Succession” star Brian Cox, whose upcoming memoir he sold to Quercus for £500,000. But he has authors who span non-fiction and fiction, such as Robert Webb, plus some novelists, including Women’s Prize for Fiction winner Lisa McInerney.
Mulcahy says: “I’ve absolutely no rules. Some might say there’s not much of a patern to what I take on. I think both of us will take on anything we fancy. Right now I’m reading a weird Celtic mythology/science fiction/ apocalyptic thriller kind of thing, which I am totally captivated by. I’ve never sold fantasy or future fantasy and”—Mulcahy motions to Sweeney siting next to him— “don’t tell Sallyanne but I may take it on. But we both have this sort of freedom [to sign up the authors].”
Branching out
That freedom and the wish for intellectual stimulation was why Mulcahy founded the agency in 2003, aſter something of a career epiphany. He had moved to London aſter graduating from Trinit College to take a post at the media and news giant Reuters, with whom he stayed for some 20 years. He moved up the ladder, also working in Reuters’ New York, Dublin and Stockholm offices—at the last he led a staff of 300 and the company’s entire Nordic operation. He says: “I basically woke up when I was about 40, realising that I didn’t feel any particular connection to what I was doing.” And though he did not have many contacts in publishing, he felt he had what it took to find raw talent in a manuscript. Sweeney also moved to London aſter universit (an undergraduate at Trinit and an MPhil at Queen’s College, Cambridge). She went straight into the publishing world, and joined Mulcahy aſter six years at Watson, Litle. Joking about their shared Irishness aside, the two did have several long conversations before Sweeney joined. She says: “I could have happily stayed at Watson, Litle forever, but if there was a time for me to move, it was then. I think one of the things that swayed me, coming from a very long-established agency, was the opportunit to work with someone who came from outside publishing and could see things a bit differently.” Like every agency, the Covid era has had its trials. Early on in the pandemic, Mulcahy had a bit of ruction
Mulcahy Sweeney Agent Hotlist
Edible Economics Ha-Joon Chang The latest book from the international bestselling author, demonstrating the centrality of economics in our lives through stories about food history and food culture.
Agent Ivan Mulcahy Rights UK & Commonwealth (Penguin), North American (Public Affairs), Korea, Italy, Spain, the Neth- erlands, Greece, Russia, Romania, Hungary
TheBookseller.com
Dinner Party: A Tragedy Sarah Gilmartin Set between the 1990s and the present day, from a farmhouse in Carlow to Trinity College, Dublin, Dinner Party is a dark, sharply observed début that thrillingly unravels into family secrets and tragedy.
Agent Sallyanne Sweeney Rights UK & Commonwealth (Pushkin)
Lucrative time
Mulcahy Sweeney will not be going to Frankfurt this year, so it will be two years without any international book fairs. Yet its translation rights business—which is run by rights director Samar Hammam—has had a lucrative couple of years.
“There has been a difference of timing without the fairs,” Sweeney says, “which might be a positive. You used to sell your book when it was coming out and do all your translation rights deals then. And that would be it. Now I find things are slower, but you can keep pushing a book and have longer conversations that aren’t just around the fairs.” Having said that, both Sweeney and Mulcahy miss the spontaneit of random book fair meets, and Sweeney notes that “some of the most fruitful meetings I have had at fairs have been at the airport on the way back. And it even helps visually when you walk around the stands to see how publishers present their books—particularly on the children’s side. You can’t re-create that online. And even though you always come back from book fairs exhausted, you tend to be liſted and look at your list in a new way.”
Mulcahy adds: “It’s an intangible and kind of a palpable sense that you are part of this communit. Even though it’s a big industry, it is a universe of individuals that come together—and you can build these connections.”
Stay Another Day Juno Dawson The YA author’s latest has three very different siblings—Fern, Rowan and Willow—go home for a Christmas reunion at their family home in Edinburgh. It’s not long before some very big secrets threaten their cosy holiday.
Agent Sallyanne Sweeney Rights UK & Commonwealth (Quercus), drama (Light- house Film & Television)
Teen Couple Have Fun Outdoors Aravind Jayan Bittersweet comedy about class, sex and the internet by a 25-year-old Indian début novelist, exploring the catastrophes that unfold after a young man and his girlfriend discover an explicit video of them- selves circulating online.
Agent Ivan Mulcahy Rights World English (Serpent’s Tail), French, Swedish, German, Italian
The Book Club Roisin Meaney After a tragic accident and the arrival of a stranger in the small seaside town of Fairweather, the tight- knit book club find their lives changing in ways they never could have imagined.
Agent Sallyanne Sweeney Rights World English (Hachette Ireland)
You’re either growing or you’re dying as an agency, and you need to demonstrate to the market that the business has longevity
Ivan Mulcahy
with a publisher—he wanted a début novelist’s title postponed but the publisher went ahead and released it in lockdown. Mulcahy says: “It didn’t disappear without a trace, but it probably sold a third of what it would have. It just makes the career of the author that much more difficult. It was kind of an object lesson... your author’s interest and the publisher’s interest were not necessarily aligned in that moment.” That moment in part led Mulcahy Sweeney to not submit many manuscripts to publishers for most of 2020, and made the two a litle more cautious in taking on new authors. But as the sales started cascading in (particularly to the conglomerate publishers) during the lockdowns, the marketplace shiſted. “We sold everything, I mean everything we had, at the end of 2020,” Mulcahy says. Sweeney adds: “But it was very late. We had one of our best years, but I probably sold more in December than in the previous 10 months put together.”
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