Agents

To help you put together a winning pitch for an agent, Brown Literacy Agency founder Roberta Brown shared a few tips at mediabistro.com. Brown’s literary agency represents New York Times bestsellers Sarah McCarty and Lorie O’Clare.

First and foremost, make sure that you are pitching the genre that the agency represents. For example, Brown only wants to see pitches for romance (single title and category), women’s fiction, erotica, young adult and mystery cozies. She also says that her agency only works with authors who are already published. Here is more from, Pitching An Agent: Brown Literacy Agency:

“We are only reviewing material by New York published authors seeking new representation,” said Brown. If that’s you, email a synopsis and two chapters of a proposal in an email attachment. The agency no longer accepts printed material by snail mail. Response time can be anywhere from one month to six weeks, all depending on the influx of material.

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In the “Pitching An Agent” feature at mediabistro.com, literary agent Laura Langlie gave aspiring YA writers some hints on how to pitch her agency.

Langlie represents author Meg Cabot, Meg Tilly and others. She founded her own literary agency after years of working in publishing, including six years as an agent at Kidde, Hoyt & Picard. Check it out:

Langlie sees a lot of young adult (YA) and middle-grade fiction writers who talk down to their readers. “People have this misconception that writing for children is easy. A middle-grade or YA novel is simply a novel for that age level. It still has to have great characters and a great story arc. You have to try and remember what you were like when you were that age,” said Langlie, who represents Delia Ray (Here Lies Linc) and others.

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Literary agent Al Zuckerman will no longer serve as chairman of Writers House, the major agency he founded in 1974.

Current Writers House president Amy Berkower will serve as the new chairman and Simon Lipskar will be the agency’s president. Zuckerman will maintain his list of authors, including: Ken Follett, Stephen Hawking, Michael Lewis and the estates of Hermann Hesse.

Here’s more about his career, from the release: “Under his guidance, Writers House has grown from a closet-like space on West 42nd Street in New York City to two Victorian buildings on West 26th Street erected for the Astor family in 1872, with offices also in London and San Diego. Its staff has grown from one to 43, eight of whom have been with the company for more than 25 years.”

Brooklyn-based literary agent Elana Roth has established her own agency, Red Tree Literary. Roth made the official announcement yesterday via Twitter.

Roth (pictured, via) will focus on authors of children’s books and young-adult novels. She represents Doug-Dennis and the Flyaway Fib author Darren Farrell, Juniper Berry author M.P. Kozlowsky and The Selection author Kiera Cass.

Here’s more about the agency: “We all have different philosophies on what to do next, where to take risks, and what’s the best approach for each book. For me it comes down to being more select, more picky, more specialized. Instead of increasing volume of projects to account for decreasing advances (and therefore commissions), I want to work with the right people on the right projects. Each person will get the attention they need. Each project will be meticulously chosen, and given its due, even when that means defying conventions.”

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Kristina Holmes will start her own literary agency, The Holmes Agency.

Holmes plans to take on nonfiction clients exclusively. Her list will be open to several different genres, including health and wellness, business, psychology, spirituality, sex, relationships, environmental issues, science, nature, literary nonfiction and memoir.

Previously, Holmes was a partner literary agent and consultant at Ebeling & Associates Literary Agency for six years. Some of the authors she has worked with include Garret Kramer, David Steinman and Gregory Lang.

Literary agent Celeste Fine will jump to Sterling Lord Literistic. She starts January 30th.

Fine (pictured, via) plans to take on projects from expert and celebrity authors in the health, science, food, business, and lifestyle genres. In addition, she will manage foreign rights for the agency’s children’s and young adult list.

Prior to this move, Fine served as the senior vice president and subsidiary rights director at Folio Literary Management. She has worked with a number of major authors, including Courtney Love, Dean Koontz and Janet Evanovich.

As writers carry out their new year’s resolutions to revise their manuscripts, they have to be wondering: what do editors want this year?

The Andrew Lownie Literary Agency, a London-based company, has decided to ask that question to twenty different editors. His list included HarperCollins associate publisher Myles Archibald, Random House publisher Trevor Dolby, Penguin Press/Particular Books editorial director Georgina Laycock, Little, Brown publisher David Shelley and Bantam Press/Doubleday publishing director Susanna Wadeson.

Here’s more from Archibald at HarperCollins: “Ideas or stories with a strong, interesting narrative structure is essential for all media and is what non-fiction now needs. It is also interesting that non-fiction works well with broad subjects, or very specific, illuminating stories. Finally, it is striking how stories that seem to have waned from people’s memories can have a massive resurgence – so perhaps new takes on old stories might be a vein to mine.”

Literary agent Michelle Wolfson used stylish Moo business cards to support her clients and promote her agency at the same time.

As you can see by the cards spread above, Wolfson filled the backs of her business cards with cover art from her client’s books–an excellent conversation starter at literary parties. Have any other agents tried this strategy?

Here’s more about her literary agency: “Wolfson founded Wolfson Literary Agency in 2007 and is actively seeking authors of commercial fiction in the following categories: mainstream, mysteries, thrillers, suspense, chick-lit, romance, women’s fiction, and young adult. She is drawn to well written material with strong interesting characters. She is also interested in practical and narrative non-fiction projects, particularly those of interest to women.”

Amanda Knox has signed on with a Washington D.C.-based attorney Robert Barnett to represent her in talks with publishers.

The Seattle student, who was charged in the 2007 death of her former roommate Meredith Kercher while studying abroad in Italy, was exonerated earlier this year and is expected to write a book about her experiences with the Italian justice system.

The Associated Press has more: “Knox family spokesman Dave Marriott says Robert Barnett will represent Knox in discussions with publishers and help her evaluate other opportunities. Barnett has represented the literary interests of U.S. Presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, as well as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.”

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Raffaele Sollecito, Amanda Knox‘s Italian boyfriend, has signed on with Seattle-based literary agency Martin Literary Management.

Like Knox, Sollecito was charged with the 2007 death of Meredith Kercher in Perguia, Italy, but the conviction was overturned earlier this year. Literary agent Sharlene Martin told GalleyCat, “I have consistently believed in the innocence of Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox and it seemed to me from the beginning that it made no sense to think that these two were guilty of the tragic murder of Meredith Kercher.”

Martin is currently interviewing writers to work with Sollecito on his memoir. While Martin would not tell us which publishers she is talking to, she did say that her deal with Sollecito includes foreign rights too. “I believe this has potential to sell in many foreign language territories,” she said. “My wonderful foreign co-agent, Taryn Fagerness, will handle the foreign sales on behalf of MLM.”

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