People and Publishing

On never forgetting the person behind the book

Welcome to the first of a semi-occasional foray into the world of publishing, from an agent’s perspective. I’ve always been geekily interested in the ins and outs of the publishing world, always keen to learn more and delve into the world behind books-on-shelves. As a Literary Agent at Aevitas Creative Management, I have a particular perspective on the publishing world. I hope that Representative Thinking might be a useful insight into the world of Literary Agents and publishing more broadly, or, at the very least, into my experiences here.

I’ve worked in publishing for a decade now. I’m by no means an expert. But, as I’ve worked to establish myself in my chosen profession, I’ve learnt a hell of a lot - from the micro to the macro. As a result, some of my views are firmly held; many more are fluid, changeable, and are continuously being built.

Hopefully some of what I’ve learnt, and what I think about, may be interesting to you, whether you work in publishing, are an author, a reader, or just an interested observer; whether you much more experience than me (in life and work), or whether you’re just starting out. Do feel free to reach out to me. I’d love your thoughts!

Publishing is a very strange industry. It’s a world of contradictions: it has an outsized cultural impact, and yet its relative turnover (compared to other cultural pursuits, from music to TV to video games) is tiny; it’s a manufacturing and supply business, populated predominantly by humanities graduates (including me); it’s always fighting for relevance, but is afraid of change. And, perhaps most jarringly, its a romantic pursuit - one often driven by instinct and vibes and its employees and creators’ deep-seated love of the written word - that is, and will always be, a business.

That may sound obvious, but it can be hard to remember sometimes: everybody inside the publishing bubble needs to keep the lights on, pay their rent, put food on the table. In order to do that, the books we work on become products, £9.99 dollops of words that we need to persuade consumers to buy, in order to make our companies, and therefore us, money. But trying to remember that when you’re swept away by the majesty of a novel, deeply moved by someone’s experience in a memoir, or fascinated by the new discoveries or argument made in a history or polemic, is bloody hard. It’s even harder when you remember there’s a person, a talented human being, behind that book.

I think most people on the talent-facing side of the publishing industry - by which I mean for the most part editors, agents, publicity and marketing folk: the people who interact most often with authors - have felt various forms of this tension between love and business. I got into publishing because I loved books, and wanted to work with them every day; anecdotally, my experience is nigh-on universal.

I still do. Nothing brings me the same joy as sitting down with a brilliant book, being enlightened by another’s experiences on the page.

Correcting the Balance

My job as a literary agent is to represent my clients’ best interests in their interactions with the publishing world. We are, to not put too fine a point on it, glorified middlemen. We correct a power imbalance - the Big Five Publishers (Macmillan, Penguin Random House, Hachette, Harper Collins, and Sinon & Schuster) are worth literal billions of dollars (PRH’s attempted acquisition of Simon & Schuster in 2022 means we can put an actual number on S&S: $2.2 billion). Unless I’m working with Bill Gates, my clients are probably not.

We also correct a knowledge imbalance. Just as I don’t know much about the advertising industry, or the ins and outs of academic life, or what an HR role entails, so too my clients aren’t expected to know the ins and outs of publishing. Be it contracts, critical paths, or editorial contacts, my representation of my clients’ best interests takes in the knowledge I have that they might not.

Labour of Love

My job also adresses, most crucially, an imbalance in objectives

. At the start of this, I spoke about the book being a product, a bunch of words bound together with hot glue and stuck between some boards, distributed wholesale to retail outlets and on - hopefully with the support of the media and some advertising - into the willing eyeballs of readers - consumers - around the world. And to publishing companies, that is at heart what a book is. A way for the company to gain turnover, to pay its employees, and to make its owners and shareholders a profit.

Business is business, as the old saying goes. Everyone needs to make money.

But to most authors, a book is not just a product. To most authors, a book is labour, it is love, it is imagination and hard work and experience and expertise. It is a creation, worked at over hundreds, if not thousands, of hours.

Like us publishing employees, many authors have loved words since they were young. To them, the book remains romantic, untainted by the grotty business side. To them, it is what they experience on holiday, in bed, on long train rides, in the course of research or desire to fumble toward a greater personal truth. That outsized cultural influence has taught all of us to pay attention to books above other things - that they have something to say that nothing else can say (an argument I happen to agree with, for what it’s worth).

So their objective in having a book published differs from the company that has bought their book. It may overlap - they may want to make money too, to find success. But they also want readers who care. Or they may want to turn a dial, change a conversation. Some simply want to see a book on a shelf, have the experience of being told ‘yes, you and your story are worthwhile. You do have something to say.’

And me? I have to have my authors’ best interests in mind as I work for them. I also have to make money. And so a book, to me, has to be both a product and not a product. I have to believe two impossible things, both at the same time.

People and Publishing

When I talk to a prospective new client, I have a typical spiel that I go through. It’s a well honed thing, an eight-minute, four-part, analysis of what a literary agent is, and what our job is. I don’t expect them to know what I can do for them, or simply trust that just because everyone else has one they too should give up 15% of their book income. I want to start our relationship as I mean to go on - with an exchange of information, with honesty, with ambition.

So, after I go through the editorial work, the contacts I have and how submissions occur, and through contracts, administration and finance - the nitty gritty of my job, the clear and overt ways in which I add value to their lives as an author - I talk in the abstract, about what I call people and publishing.

I tell them that an agent’s job is far more than simply making the cogs in the machine work smoothly on their behalf. Far more than making their manuscript or proposal sing, taking away some of the administrative burdens. Far more, even, than the act of sale, of helping them financially.

Those are vital, yes, but what is more vital is my role with them as people. My work with a client doesn’t stop when she’s signed a contract, I’ll say. Instead, it’s only just beginning - I’m there for the long term as well as the short term. I’m there to ensure the creative collaboration, which will have moved from myself to an editor (who is far more talented at editing than I am - it’s why they exist) runs smoothly. I’m there to be the bad guy on their behalf if they hate their cover; to get them a three month delay on delivery if their dogs dies; to make sure that their publicity is up to snuff, that they aren’t lost in the machine.

But I’m also their to celebrate and to commiserate. For a beer or a phone call or a panicked email. To ensure, as best I can, that their work, their book, is treated as individually as it can be. I’m there, in short, to make sure that they don’t become a product rather than a person, even if their book may be in the eyes of the company that has bought it.

Publishing is a people driven industry. We are a bunch of nerds who love books - be we authors, publicists, editors or agents. Those of us inside the publishing bubble just happen to love books and to need them to pay the bills. It’s confusing, it’s weird, it’s business - but it shouldn’t only be that.

Publishing is books, but publishing is also people. And I hope that I serve my authors by never forgetting that.