Features
Rising Stars
Alumni Focus The Rising Stars has since become, well, a
bit of a thing. Not least because after the first outing – conceived entirely in-house – we asked those from the trade to put their staff, colleagues or themselves forward. This has expanded our, as the many Rising Stars marketers might say, “engagement” and submissions have risen in every year since, cresting 500 in 2025. For the past dozen years, the list has been
backed by the Frankfurt Book Fair, a sponsor- ship which includes FBF bringing each year’s Shooting Star – essentially our Rising Star of the Year – out to the Messe to appear at seminars and for meet-and-greets with senior industry figures. And the Rising Stars flew further afield: FBF asked our permission to fund similar schemes in other countries, which it does in conjunction with local publishers’ associations and trade magazines; for the past decade it has brought the Shooting Star equivalents from China, Brazil, the Netherlands, Germany and the US out to its fair. I will not be coy: the Rising Stars is also
popular because it helps careers. Each and every one of the honourees would have been successful without the gold star our list gives them. But we track the post-Rising Stars trajec- tories and it is surely not incidental that from 2011 to 2023, 73% of our honourees were poached or promoted within two years. This figure includes roles in organisations with sometimes relatively flat structures (literary agencies, for example) and owner/operators where moving up does not apply.
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ooking back over the previous years, we can see a reflection of industry trends. Many Stars from the early lists had “digital” in their job titles. The surge in audio and podcasts in
the mid-2010s had an accompanying spike in Stars from that sector, such as HarperCollins audio publishing director Fionnuala Barrett (’18) and Mostly Lit hosts Rai, Alex Reads and Derek Owusu (’18). Many from recent vintage have been awarded for sterling performance at their nine-to-fives plus industry-rattling work on representation, such as Bad Form creator (and now Avon editorial director) Amy Mae Baxter (’21), Free Books Campaign founder Sofia Akel (’22) and Maria Garbutt-Lucero, the 2023 Shooting Star and co-founder of the East and South East Asian Literary Festival. You may twig that the bulk of the Rising Stars
name-checked thus far are women. This reflects the demographics: including the 2025 edition, 608 people have been named Rising Stars, 77% of whom are female. This is not an agenda driven by the wokerati, but is on par with the gender split of submissions. Just over one in five (22.9%) Rising Stars are from a previously under- represented community, a ratio that has climbed
in recent years: it is one in three since 2018. Again, this aligns with the percentage of nomina- tions coming in, which I trust is a reflection of diversity and inclusion schemes bearing fruit. The decade and a half has seen the Rising
Star turns
Stars dominated by those working in trade publishing, accounting for 53% of all entries, just under a quarter of whom (23.6%) work in children’s. The next-best represented sector is agenting/rights professionals (on 14%), with retailers scoring an 11% share. Inevitably, London has been by far the hot
1 Class of 2012 Juliet Mushens
The superagent ( 1) made the second Rising Stars tranche while at PFD, and one of the reasons noted was her orchestrating Hodder’s pre-empt for a Pointless tie-in. One half of that quiz show’s presenting team, Richard Osman, later became a cornerstone of Mushens Entertainment, the agency she would launch eight years later.
Class of 2016 Nelle Andrew
Rachel Mills Literary’s Andrew is one of five Rising Stars who have gone on to win Literary Agent of the Year at the Nibbies. Andrew’s colleague and RML founder Rachel Mills was also a Rising Star, appearing on the launch list when she was rights director at PFD.
Class of 2021 Micaela Alcaino
The year after Alcaino became a Rising Star – helped by her cover for Bridget Collins’ bestseller The Binding – she bagged the Designer of the Year Nibbie, a gong also claimed by fellow former Stars Jack Smyth (’17) and Kishan Rajani (’21).
Class of 2016 Sarah McIntyre
The Rising Stars list is focused on professionals, not the content creators, so authors and illustrators appear rarely, except for when their work benefits the wider industry. That was the case for McIntyre, whose Pictures Mean Business campaign was a game-changer in the trade’s recognition of illustrators’ work.
Class of 2019 Laura Ricchetti
The first (and thus far only) person from sales to become the Shooting Star, Ricchetti ( 2) did so while in post as Pan Mac’s international sales director for Europe and the Middle East. A year later, she moved to Penguin Random House where she now heads up international and European sales.
spot with three in every four entries since 2011 plying their trade in the capital. Throw in the South East and 80% of Rising Stars work within touching distance of the M25. Scotland’s 26 Rising Stars (4.2%), South-West England’s 24 (3.9%) and Ireland’s 22 (3.6%) are the next three biggest regions/countries.
W
ith London/trade publishing as a priority, it is not surpris- ing that conglomerates bag many spots. Hachette is the Rising Stars king with 61
entries, six ahead of rivals Penguin Random House. A whopping 17 Orion staffers have been honoured, by far the most for any publishing division or imprint. Waterstones leads retailers on 14 – one in five booksellers selected – although half of those have since been poached by publishers, including Pan Macmillan’s sales director for high street and children’s Sarah Clarke (’11), Zaffre publishing director Melissa Cox (’13) and Scribner editorial director Chris White (’13). Some in the past have grumbled about the
make-up of the list – the trade publishing focus and London-centrism in particular. I do not disagree; I would love to see more from, say, the academic sector or libraries. But because of where Rising Stars are in their careers they are less obvious to us than, say, heads of houses. So we need submissions. Around eight years ago, I received a nasty, hectoring email from a director of a prominent retailer – which has many stores on the high street and in transporta- tion hubs – complaining that not one of his booksellers had ever been a Rising Star. None had ever been put forward. To this day, after thousands of nominations over 15 years, I have only received two entries from that retailer. You have to be in it to win it… Ultimately, what has driven the success of
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the list is the Rising Stars themselves. The joy of doing this exercise is the interviews we conduct with each class, getting their thoughts on the present and ideal future of the industry. Their answers are always full of energy and innovation and it gives the sense that, even with the looming, titanic challenges ahead, the trade is in good hands.
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