Ask the Industry Expert: Caroline Sheldon

Today we welcome Helena Fairfax back to the blog with another of her interesting interviews.

Literary agent Caroline Sheldon needs no introduction to many members of the RNA. Caroline is a previous visitor to our blog, and Felicity Trew, her colleague at the agency, took pitches at the RNA conference last year.

It’s a pleasure to welcome you, Caroline. Thanks so much for taking the time to take part in our interview.

Please tell us a little about the Caroline Sheldon Literary Agency, how long it’s been established, and how you came to set it up.

I set up the Agency thirty years ago after a twelve year career as an editor. There are now two agents in the business, Felicity Trew and myself.  Our main areas of specialisation are woman’s fiction and children’s books.  We represent about sixty clients and are always on the look-out for exciting opportunities for our writers and for exciting new talent.

What do enjoy most about your job? And least?

MOST 

Discovering talent; building success; building income; selling an editor an exciting book; selling a book after twenty turn-downs and seeing it go on to success; suggesting a new area of writing for an author that goes on to be successful; suggesting promotional ideas; working at the puzzle that is helping authors come up with great titles for their books; living in the world of authors and publishers.

LEAST 

Accepting advances that don’t amount to a living for an author; getting turn-downs for a project I love.

What is it you are looking for when a manuscript lands on your desk? Are there any specific plots or themes you’d like to see?

I’m looking for a book that is well-written. It doesn’t have to be literary, but I need to feel the author is taking the reader on the journey. The author has to have story telling ability and a way with words. A great first sentence always grips attention.  A three line description of the book that interests me is an important factor. And a voice that I feel is special and distinct. Also I love anything that makes me laugh or cry. I absolutely am not looking for specific plots or themes but big story telling is important. Something described as any of the following would make me sit up: a modern Rebecca, an epic family saga, a funny modern romp, an intricate and deeply layered historical novel, a psychological thriller, a weepie, anything with animals. 

Do you ever find authors outside the slush pile? If so, how?

One of the nicest ways to find authors is when another author I represent recommends them to me. Also occasionally a publisher will recommend an author. I always have my antennae out for mentions of upcoming authors in local newspaper or any other media. Both Felicity and I have taken on an author we first met at conferences. Probably a third of new authors we take on come from our submissions – I don’t really like the term slush pile - and two thirds from recommendations or contacts made at conferences or through professional organisations.

What advice would you give someone submitting to you?

Our submission guidelines are on our website – www.carolinesheldon.co.uk. Read them before sending in. The email you send with your submission is your one opportunity to sell your book and yourself as an author to the agency. Approach it as you would a competitive job application – it is much more competitive than any job for which you will apply with odds of about 1 in 3,000. We ask for a three line description of the book at the head of the submission and spend time on this –

maybe practice writing three line descriptions of successful books you have read to build up some experience in how to do a good one. Lay your email out attractively.  Information about the book in one paragraph, information about yourself in another, information about any success you might have had in another. Have you got a great title for your book? Often titles change from that under which it is submitted but good titles do grab attention. Sound professional but not dull. 

Do you think these days aspiring romance writers have a better chance of being published if they are planning a series? Are stand-alone novels more likely to be rejected by publishers and agents?

Publishers all want to publish authors who will deliver one or occasionally two manuscripts in a year. The holy grail of brand-building is much easier to achieve if the books are in the same genre and aimed at the same audience.  I would hope to get a two or three book contract for an author – but it is generally the consistent delivery of a book with the same market that concerns the publisher rather than that book should be in a specific series. 

What benefits do you feel an agent can offer an author?

Agents are talking to publishers all the time and know what each editor is looking for. The market is unbelievably tough at the moment with editors taking on many fewer books than they did a while ago. An agent I would say was invaluable in finding you the right home for your book and the best financial reward for your work.  And indeed an agent might help you shape your writing to the point where it could find a home. Once the right publisher is found the agent will negotiate the contract with attention to all the minor terms such as high discount as well as the headline advance and royalty. Then the agent will sell the rights they may have maintained on your behalf – for example translation, America or film and television. 

What’s your favourite romance novel of all time?

I’ll put down three – EMMA, GONE WITH THE WIND, ANNA KARENINA (it counts as a romance to me).

Apart from your own authors, which book have you enjoyed the most in the past twelve months, and why?

I’m loving CAPITAL by John Lanchester, publisher by Faber and Faber. It’s the story of a group of people living in a London Road Pepys Road – a banker, a young football star, the family who own the corner shop, an asylum-seeking traffic warden, a cutting edge-artist, an old woman dying of a brain tumour. It’s beautifully written, often very funny and an interesting observation on the world we live in. I felt the same about THE CASUAL VACANCY by JK Rowling which I thought was another wonderful novel of our time. I also loved rereading 1984 and THE HANDMAID’S TALE so my tastes are pretty catholic. I do like heart and warmth in writing. And a good story

What do you like to do in your spare time?

Reading, walking, listening to music, playing tennis, watching tennis, watching horse-racing, eating, drinking, talking to dogs.

If you could describe your working day in just three words, what would they be?

I tried to go for alliteration but failed so I will go for – Busy, Engaging, Tough.

Thank you so much for dropping in, Caroline, and for your thoughtful responses. A modern Rebecca sounds a wonderful idea. Please do let us know if such a novel ever appears in your submissions!

About Helena

Helena Fairfax writes contemporary romance novels, and sometimes branches out into romantic suspense when she’s in the mood for danger. Her latest release is The Scottish Diamond, a contemporary romantic suspense novella set in the wonderfully mysterious and romantic city of Edinburgh. The Scottish Diamond is now available on Amazon.

Thank you, Helena and Caroline, a most interesting insight into the world of a literary agent.

The RNA blog is brought to you by

Elaine Everest & Natalie Kleinman

If you would like to write for the blog please contact us on elaineeveres@aol.com

Ask the Industry Expert: Literary Agent, Eve White

Welcome back to Helena Fairfax with another of her popular agent interviews.

I’m delighted to introduce literary agent Eve White, who has very kindly agreed to give up precious time to answer my soul-searching questions. Eve’s answers are thoughtful and in some cases surprising – as you will see!

Thanks for joining us today, Eve.

Please tell us a little about the Eve White Literary Agency, how long it’s been established, and how you came to set it up.

I was a drama director and actor for 25 years and during that time I wrote many plays. I had always

thought that running my own business was something I’d be good at and one day I decided to give it a go. I didn’t tell anyone, I just said to myself, ‘I want a business that I can run from home that has a strong creative element.’ A few weeks later, a friend gave me a manuscript to read. I gave him some editorial suggestions and he asked me to be his agent. Just like that - out of the blue. So that was it! I got started and never looked back. At the time, he was self-publishing the first of a series and I realised that what he really needed was someone to do his sales, marketing and PR. I took the book to the head of sales at Waterstones and got it into the nationwide 3 for 2 promotion. We sold so many copies in the first three months that it wasn’t difficult to get interest from mainstream publishers. My first deal was done after a three-way auction.

 I found living off my own wits enormously satisfying. If a bill dropped through the letterbox and I had no means to pay it, I would just say to myself, ‘something will turn up.’ I worked very hard and something did always turn up. After being pushed and pulled around Britain and Europe at the whim of directors and producers, it was wonderful to be in charge of my own life again. And knowing what it was like to have an agent was very useful – I knew what it was like from the other side.

 Being a literary agent gets me up every morning. I am still extremely motivated by it 13 years later and have negotiated contracts for 330 books, many of which have been published abroad – some into over 30 territories. Many of these books have been or will be adapted for TV and film.

What do enjoy most about your job? And least?

I really love a bidding war but I think what gives me most joy is calling a debut author and telling them I have had an offer from a publisher.

 I have been struggling to come up with something I don’t like. I’ve even consulted my assistant and we still can’t come up with anything.

What is it you are looking for when a manuscript lands on your desk? Are there any specific plots or themes you’d like to see?

I would never ask for specific plots or themes or I’d be seeing them all the time and what I really want is something unique. I say to clients that they should never try to write for the market. I say, ‘Write what you are burning to write, what you cannot resist writing and write it from the heart.’

 When reading submissions I try to imagine that I have picked this book off the shelf in Waterstones. As a customer I’d be saying to myself, ‘Is this a story I can get lost in and am intrigued by? Will I find it hard to put down? And, if so, would I push it into the hands of a friend?’ If it makes me laugh or cry, all the better.

Do you ever find authors outside the slush pile? If so, how?

We make a point of keeping in touch with as many writing organisations as we can. We get the anthologies from all the creative writing courses and we go to their launch parties.

 This is how we found Jane Shemilt, whose debut, Daughter, became the bestselling debut published in the UK in 2014.

 Paul Cooper (River of Ink, Bloomsbury Jan 2016) did an MA in creative writing at the University of East Anglia. This is a stunning novel about a poet who is in love with his servant, whom he is teaching to write.

 It takes a lot of hard work to develop the skill of novel writing and the more help a writer can get, the better.

What advice would you give someone submitting to you?

We receive 10,000 submissions a year from hopeful writers and invite a small percentage of these to submit full manuscripts. It isn’t worth burning your bridges with agents by sending a very early draft.

Write, rewrite, polish, get editorial feedback from a college or writing group and submit your work to me when it’s the best it can be.

We will then work editorially to help you improve it, so that by the time we submit it to publishers it has the best possible chance of being accepted.

Do you think romance writing has a negative image? If so, why? And what can romance authors do to counteract it?

A new generation of readers is coming along and how they conceive of what is romantic could be quite different.  Most female readers now see themselves as stronger and more in control of their lives than the protagonists of traditional romance novels. Readers often need more than the satisfaction of the lead character winning her man; I like to have an element of mystery or some kind of suspense to keep me turning the pages. There is a huge trend for psychological thrillers at the moment and they tend to have very interesting female leads. There seems to be an edginess to what’s popular at the moment.

What benefits do you feel an agent can offer an author?

This is endless but to summarise, I give my clients more time to write by looking after the business side of their careers. I can do better deals than they might be able to do for themselves. More time. More money. And time is money!

What’s your favourite romance novel of all time?

Pride and Prejudice

Apart from your own authors, which book have you enjoyed the most in the past twelve months, and why?

Fish Bowl by Bradley Somer – Ebury Press. A brilliant story about the isolation of modern living. One episode had me laughing and crying at the same time.

A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler – Vintage

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy – Harper, Perennial. Each page is exquisite; there are sentences you have to read two or three times.

Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw – Fourth Estate. Five fascinating and wildly different characters come together in contemporary China.

What do you like to do in your spare time?

My job involves a lot of sitting so I squeeze in a cycle ride most days and I try to do yoga once a week. Living in central London allows me to go to a lot of theatre and concerts. I love staying in a place by the cliffs in Norfolk and cooking for friends and family from whatever grows in the garden.

If you could describe your working day in just three words, what would they be?

NEVER

THE

SAME

It was great getting to know you through the RNA blog, Eve. I enjoyed your answers very much. And how lovely to dislike nothing at all in your job! Thank you very much for taking the time to join us.

About Helena:

Helena Fairfax writes contemporary romance novels, and sometimes branches out into romantic suspense when she’s in the mood for danger. Her latest release is The Scottish Diamond, a contemporary romantic suspense novella set in the wonderfully mysterious and romantic city of Edinburgh. The Scottish Diamond is now available for pre-order on Amazon.

Thank you, Helena and Eve for a most interesting interview.

The RNA blog is brought to you by,

Elaine Everest & Natalie Kleinman

If you would like to write for the blog please contact us on elaineeverest@aol.com