Tough Gig
Postprandial book chat in Naxos
It’s hard work but someone’s got to do it. Elly spent a week in September on a Greek island with a group attending the How to be a Happy and Successful Writer retreat with Naxos Creative. It was a terrific chance to discuss the publishing landscape and how best to ride through it with head held high, a strong pitch and hope in one’s heart! Crime writer Sophie Hannah and Bedford Square Publisher, Jamie Hodder-Williams, shared their expertise and experiences very generously so it was a great pleasure to be part of the line-up, contributing thoughts from an agent’s perspective. The writers themselves were impressive too. They were focused and diligent, hungry for knowledge and had good commercial awareness. There are many different paths to publication and ‘success’ will look different to every author so it’s really valuable to discuss the realities, common pitfalls and perhaps, most importantly, how to achieve and maintain a positive mindset. Sophie brilliantly guided the group through morning workshops, Jamie had them all role-playing an acquisitions meeting and we each had one-to-one sessions with the attendees to discuss individual manuscripts so it was a productive week.
It’s now back to reality, the long summer is over and publishing people are mostly at Frankfurt Book Fair. We have ILA handling the Foreign Rights for our authors so they will be hard at work selling our titles to Rights teams from across the world. Back in the UK, there’s still plenty going on with festival season upon us once more. Mishal spoke about Jawaharlal Nehru’s legacy and her book BROKEN THREADS at the Chelsea Arts Festival last month, Adam Hart has been up and down the country talking about OPERATION PIMENTO, Helen McGinn is attending Maidstone, Henley and the Isle of Wight Literary Festivals this week alone so her feet are hardly touching the ground. Ben Robinson’s been discussing COASTLINE at Gloucester, Wimborne and St Ives festivals and is also off to the Isle of Wight this weekend. Trine Hahnemann had a packed room at Toppings bookshop in Bath for an event to celebrate her latest book MIDNIGHT SUN and she met a group of superfans at an afternoon cake table event at Elder Press Café in Hammersmith at the end of last week.
In the office it’s an exciting time too. Lots of proposals being shaped up, new manuscripts coming in and Rights deals for forthcoming titles. Bring on autumn.