IN DEPTH
Company Spotlight United Agents
FROM LEFT: JANE WILLIS, GEORGINA LE GRICE AND AMY MITCHELL
A United front helps foreign rights thrive at new-look UA
A recent reshuffle of United Agents’ rights team, into a non-hierarchical trio that shares an office, has paid off in spades— most notably with its speedy work on the late physicist Stephen Hawkins’ recent bestseller Brief Answers...
Tom Tivnan @tomtivnan
TheBookseller.com O
ne of the first deals that the new-look United Agents foreign rights team tackled collectively, and one of the hotest, was last year’s Brief Answers to
the Big Questions, the final book by Stephen Hawking. It was a complicated business: the book was sold to English-language publishers shortly aſter Hawking’s death in March 2018, and was to be published just months later, with the estate hoping for as many simultaneous publica- tions as possible. Plus, the estate and UA were keen to put fresh energy into the new book, offering it widely (in the UK, principal agent Robert Kirby moved the title to John Murray from Hawking’s previous home, Transworld). So auctions in multiple territories, most involving new players and a really short window. How do you keep your head? UA rights agent Amy Mitchell says: “It is always best to be clear on the rules. A lot of publishers think it might be just about throwing money at a book. Of course we were looking for good advances for Hawking, but from the outset we were clear that it was also about the right fit—we wanted to see marketing plans and the full publish- ing picture.”
Subtle things are also an aid when offers come cascad- ing in. Mitchell and rights colleagues Georgina Le Grice and Jane Willis share an office. Le Grice says: “It seems like Continues overleaf
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Photography: Mark Guest
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