Out of the Mouths of Agents - by SC Skillman
Recently (March 2019) I went to a publishing conference at Regents College in London organised by Jericho Writers. During the day, 70 of us heard from agents, editors and traditionally-published novelists. I took lots of notes, and here I offer you some of the nuggets I picked up from the agents, for those of you who are interested in the traditional publishing route. Please note that I also discerned at least five areas of contradiction between what one of the novelists said, and what the agents said. But I believe this is because publishing in 2019 is a highly subjective business, and different individuals can take different approaches – and this is very true of literary agents. HANNAH FERGUSON - HARDMAN & SWAINSON Hannah first reminded us of the essential role of an agent: to spot, develop, sell and manage talent. In answer to a question, she said she’s happy to take novels from older writers and says age is irrelevant. In contradiction to an earlier statemen...