Hannah Westland is literary agent at the Rogers Coleridge and White agency. She talks about how she went from assistant to an agent with her own list of clients.
Becoming a literary agent
Hannah always knew she wanted to work in publishing, but felt no desire to be a writer. Having left university with an English degree, she applied for any jobs she could find in the publishing industry – from bookselling to publishing houses – before stumbling on a directory of literary agencies.
She wrote to them all, saying she loved reading and she wanted to work in publishing. Timing was on her side when her letter arrived on the desk of Debra Rogers, one of the founders of the Rogers Coleridge and White (RCW) agency.y.
“The day I wrote to Debra was the day her current assistant said he was leaving, so she called me up. She doesn’t look for typical attributes in an employee. Debra is into personalities and what people love and what their passions are and what they’ll fit into.”
The importance of work experience
"Do your homework about the agent. Find the person with the right feeling for your work."
Though she did not go through the route of work experience, Hannah believes it is an important way of getting into the industry.
“Every summer we have people doing work experience. If you do a placement, it can be boring and you don’t get paid, but it’s useful. If we like someone who makes the most of their time here, the next time we hear of an entry-level job, we let them know.
“Publishing is small and jobs don’t come up often. They get advertised through email contacts, so doing work experience might indirectly lead to job. It’s really useful thing to do as long as you make the most of it.”
Working as a literary agent
Hannah finds that maintaining close relationships with writers can be the most rewarding part of being an agent, especially when you get to make ‘the call’.
“When you take a writer on and you work on their first novel together and you think it’s wonderful and you send it to publishers and someone rings you up and says they want to publish it. The best part of my job is ringing that writer and saying someone wants to publish their book. I’ve been privileged enough to do that quite a few times now. That’s a lovely feeling.”
More than other areas of the publishing industry, Hannah feels that being a literary agency allows a diversity of job and versatility of daily life that keeps things interesting.
“If you work in a publishing house, you’re in a particular department, either publicity or editing. As an agent, you have to be good editorially, you’ve got to be a bit of a hustler, you got to know your way around a contract, understand publicity and have contacts in the media – a Jack of all trades."
Agents often have to defend what they like. Whether they think something will fit with a publisher, or has to sell, or just has good writing. Hannah maintains that confidence in knowing what you like as a reader can make you a better agent.
“When I first started, I thought you’d develop a sixth sense for what would sell, even if you didn’t like it. And actually I don’t think that’s true. You get more confident in your taste mattering and if you like something, other people will like it and you have the right to make that call. It takes a while to be brave enough to make that call.”
Hannah estimates that she reads 200,000 words a week – the equivalent of two long novels. This is standard practice for a literary agent. Her daily task list doesn’t afford her the time to read through manuscripts, which pile up weekly, so she takes to reading in her spare time to keep on top of things.
“You have to be willing to read all of the time, including outside work hours. It means you don’t always get to read books. You only ever read manuscripts except when you go on holiday and treat yourself to a novel you’ve wanted to read all year.”
Skills needed to be a literary agent
"You have to be good editorially, know your way around a contract, understand publicity, have contacts in the media, be a bit of a hustler."
Two of the most important skills an agent needs are versatility and diplomacy.
A literary agent needs to juggle a lot of different things to good level of proficiency, while diplomacy means managing your authors’ expectations and publisher’s demands.
“You’re not only your author’s champion and defender, you’re also the conduit between them and the publisher. If there’s a dispute between the two, you have to sort it out.
"For example: the author hates the cover the publisher designed, and there’s no way they’ll let their book be published with that cover on it. You might think it’s an ugly image, but it needs to have something commercial on the cover, so you don’t fully agree with the author or publisher. Your job is to persuade both of them to come to an agreement. You’re protecting them from each other. It’s a subtle thing to know the right thing to do in each situation. You have to know your authors and manage their expectations, but be honest and keep their confidence.’
Advice for authors submitting to agents
There’s an industry standard to submitting to agents for representation, involving sample chapters, a synopsis and a covering letter, but it takes a little more than that to catch an agent’s eye.
“You should do your homework about the agent. If they’ve got similar interests to you, or have represented writers you like, then make reference to that when you approach. People want to feel like you’re not just sending the same standard letter to 100 agents. Find the person with the right feeling for your work.”
