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Good Morning!

I'm excited to share an interview with the wonderful Andrew James, founder and agent of Frog Literary Agency. Andrew founded Frog Literary in 2023, after 12 years working as a commissioning editor across the industry. This is extra exciting for queer authors, as this is the UK's first literary agency solely dedicated to representing LGBTQIA+ writers and creators. It's important to note that though Frog Literary only represents queer people, your writing does not need to have a queer focus.

Frog Literary is open to fiction and non-fiction, and they're currently still eagerly accepting submissions. Andrew has already signed a handful of authors since starting his agency, including Mia Violet, Emma Morgan, TC Oakes-Monger, Hannah Nicholson, Daniel Harding, Emily Garside, Jasmine Andersson, and Louis Glazzard. We can’t wait to see what they work on together!

You can check out twitter for Andrew and Frog Literary to keep up to date with what the agency is working on.

We're busy working on Andrew's AgentMatch profile, but in the meantime you can find more information here.

Hi Andrew, thank you so much for speaking with us. We're excited to hear more about your agency and what you're looking for in submissions.

What brought you to agenting?

Queer representation is really important to me in terms of publishing, and agents are often the first contact with publishers as they’re pitching these projects. I believe that if we want diversity and more queer representation then this needs to be coming from agents, and it’s important that they are representative of society in terms of what they’re taking on. So, rather than going into another job as an editor and trying to do representation work there, I thought why not start at the beginning and try to get the books to the editors in the first place.

Your agency solely works with LGBTQIA+authors, and you've done a lot in your career to focus on the experience and opportunities for queer authors. What kinds of challenges do queer authors face in mainstream publishing, and how do you hope to change this?

I think one of the challenges would be the belief that queer books don't sell as much, or that there's not a big market for them. Publishers might think that LGBTQ+ books are only going to be read by LGBTQ+ people, which obviously isn’t true, but I think that’s the same belief for all types of books about marginalised groups. I think another issue is, because there isn’t a lot out there, publishers will be using the same sorts of books as comparisons, which reduces the diversity of the representation you’re getting, so a lot of the same tropes come up time and again, such as the coming out story or books about AIDS, and if a book covers something quite different then the publisher might be wary because there’s no track record of success. And this is certainly the case with lesser-known identities, like asexuality and pansexuality. And for some authors, their platform might be quite small and geared towards the community, so publishers may think that they can only reach a small pool of people, so it’s about trying to make them see that there is a bigger market for these kinds of books.

The other thing is that the people in power who are making the decisions may not be queer themselves, so they might not be inclined to acquire those stories or to really understand what is happening within communities and why it’s important. In those cases, it might be best to go towards imprint collectives that have those interests. And this just reduces the pool to which you can submit, and you might need to work a bit harder to convince them because they might not immediately understand.

As for Frog Literary and the focus on queer writers (but not necessarily queer stories), I wanted to create a space that was different from what I had previously experienced. Where I used to work I had been signing queer writers, but a lot of them would be limited in speaking about their own identity or topics, and while it is incredibly important that people do that, and you’re probably going to get a better story if the person writing it has direct personal experience, I also don’t want people to believe that’s all they can write about. So foregrounding queer voices in publishing and focusing on the people themselves, and not necessarily on the stories, is a big part of what I do.

What are the benefits of going with a smaller agency?

One would be dedication. I really want to make this work, so I'm going to throw everything I can behind it to get the best deals and really push them as much as possible. I want queer representation to change, so there’s no taking the easy route if it could be better. I also have personal experiences and a particular eye for topics that are needed, and because of this, certain books will stand out to me that maybe wouldn’t in amongst massive submissions with more generic big agencies. Another thing I always find with smaller agencies and imprints, or independent publishers, is that it’s more community focused. I feel like you all work together and support each other in a much closer way, which I think you might not get when going with someone bigger.

What's at the top of your fiction wish list?

I'm trying not to be too prescriptive at the moment but in fiction, I would love to see: stories with a trans protagonist across literary, commercial and romance; historical fiction with queer characters; a novel about the impact of Section 28; stories that explore the complexity of gay lives that are not focussed on sex or AIDS; queer romance in general; experimental and inventive literary fiction; anything that takes an existing heteronormative trope/genre/story and queers it up.

What's at the top of you non-fiction wish list?

In non-fiction, I'd be keen for some hard-hitting books on the current 'gender wars' - akin to The Transgender Debate by Shon Faye; books by and for asexual, demisexual and pansexual people; ideas on the future of LGBTQIA+ rights/identities; lesbian memoir and anthologies; and guidebooks for young people.

Is there any genre or theme you'd rather not receive?

We’re currently not accepting submissions for children’s, fantasy, horror, scripts, or poetry.
I think the key thing is that I want what I’m reading to have something different. Science fiction and fantasy are okay, but I find that a lot of things that come through feel like something I’ve seen or heard of many times before, and I want to see things moving in a different direction or doing something different, and that’s where I struggle with some genre submissions. Sometimes an author has a great idea but they’re not using it to the full potential, and in those cases I want them to step back and think about how the story can be taken in a more exciting direction, and not just settling for an easier or more simple narrative.

Anything that’s set in space or new worlds or kingdoms and things like that is not something I’m personally interested in. Unless it’s very intelligent and moving more towards literary fiction then it’s not for me. I’m not looking for anything that’s very stereotypical, like the coming out story at school where there’s lots of gossiping, because for me that’s not a very nice experience and I don’t really find it interesting or engaging to read. I’m sure other people may feel differently, but for me I think we’ve had enough coming out stories that follow the same narrative, and what we’re really looking for now is something new and nuanced that hasn’t been done before and is representative of something different.

What is a day in the life of an agent like for you?

At the moment a lot of my time is spent reading submissions, going through and seeing if there is anything that initially catches my eye and then moving that into another inbox to focus on more closely. I’ve requested quite a few full manuscripts, so I spend a lot of time reading through those and feeding back to the authors. I’ve had a lot of meetings with editors to let them know about the agency and to find out what they’re looking for, which is really helpful when I’m then going through submissions. I’ve been having a lot of calls with authors I’m potentially looking to take on and discussing the project, how it can be developed, and how agency representation and publishing works, because I’ve found that a lot of people don’t really understand what’s going on even with all the information out there, and so it’s something important for me to talk about with them. The rest of my focus is on building the brand and working on social media, liaising with sub-agents and tv agencies.

Once I have started signing clients the focus will shift and a lot of my time will be spent on developing pitches, pitching to editors, negotiations, and other contract-based things like that.

What do you want to see in a cover letter? And what do you hate?

I’m looking for someone who can really convey the story and the hook in an exciting way. I get a lot of submissions where they’re just telling me what the story is, which is fine because we do need to know, but I’d love if they could begin with a little bit of what’s going to draw me in and is different or unique and will grab me.

Sometimes I can find comparable titles difficult or misleading. On the one hand, they can be really useful, but often I may not have read the book they mention (and if I’m very interested I can always look it up but I couldn’t do that with every submission I read), and then sometimes they may not be accurate at all and then they lead you down the wrong path because you’re expecting one thing and it’s actually completely different. It’s nice to see someone who has really thought about where their book fits and how it differs from what’s out there and what the selling points are. Thinking about the market is really important, who your market is, and why they would want to read your book, and that involves stepping back from the creative side of publishing and thinking with a more business head which is hard to do but so useful.

Being really to the point with the plot and being succinct and clear with where it’s going and what the book is trying to say is another great skill. And also talk about why you’ve written the book and what goes on behind the book. I think it’s important to talk about it in the most accurate way, rather than just comparing it to something else, and not just blending the synopsis and cover letter as these are two different things.

Many times I will just go straight for the manuscript and not even read the synopsis, because often it does just come down to the writing, and if the writing isn’t up to scratch then there’s not really much you can do. It’s important then to choose the strongest section of your manuscript for the writing sample, whether that is the first three chapters or somewhere in the middle.

Another important thing is to address your cover letter to the agent you’re submitting to. When it isn’t it feels like they haven’t thought about why they’re submitting to an agent or agency and feels like not a lot of thought has been put in which makes it less engaging.

What are you looking for in the opening pages of a novel? What excites you?

For me I’ve found that it’s the voice that stands out most. What I’m leaning towards is something where I’m immediately drawn into the perspective, and something that has a particular style or voice that helps me to get a sense of the person and it feels unique and different. Writers like Damon Galgut, Lucy Ellman, Javier Marias, Cormac McCarthy or Patrick Modiano make me think of this as they all have such a distinctive style of writing, and it’s something I’m really drawn to.

What are you looking for in a non-fiction proposal that will jump out to you?

With non-fiction it’s about having that really clear concept of what you’re trying to do. What is the book saying, are the arguments clear, do you know where it sits in the market, are you aware of the readership. The structure may change but seeing what the book is going to contain and that it covers all bases is important at this stage. And again, seeing that personal connection, why is the person writing, and conveying that knowledge and passion is important. I think the first few pages need to be engaging in some way and show that unique voice that makes this book special.

What should the biographical note include in submissions?

Whether they’ve been published, and if so, where and how successfully. A bit more about the author’s background, if they’ve done creative writing programmes, workshops, readings, anything that would be useful for me to know. If someone has a platform, network, what their reach is or social media channels. I’m not going to sign someone just because they have 50,000 followers, but it’s useful to know going into it. Where they’re located, anything personal that connects them to the book, such as why they wrote it, if the storyline is based on something, the reason why they write.

Do you accept queries from authors based overseas or just in the UK? Does location matter?

I think as long as they write in English there isn’t anything that would stop me taking on someone who was based internationally, at least at the moment. So long as it’s well written and I can sell it, that’s the most important thing. When it comes to submitting to publishers it could be a slower process as they might be less keen to take on certain things, for example if a US writer is writing in a very US style, then UK publishers might hesitate, so it all just comes down to the ability for it to sell in the UK market.

What's the etiquette regarding re-submitting when the original submission wasn't ready? Is it possible to retract a submission that's not ready, and should you tell the agent?

For me personally it isn’t a problem at the moment. I put the submissions I receive into a spreadsheet, and while it might be a little frustrating if I’ve already read it, it isn’t going to affect the process and you’re not going to be blacklisted. And when it comes to resubmitting, I would treat it as a new submission, mentioning that you’ve taken on board any suggested changes, and just being clear about what is different and why it’s stronger.

What's your favourite thing about being an agent?

I would say that it’s being able to experience the diversity of the submissions I receive, across genre and writing styles. I’m actually quite picky when it comes to what I read personally, so I’ve been reading a lot of things I would never have picked up in a bookshop but have been enjoying, and it’s refreshing. It’s definitely opening my mind a bit and helping me to experience things I may not have otherwise, even if they’re not necessarily my cup of tea.

What are some of your favourite authors and books?

I really love writers like Alice Munro, Anita Brookner and Henry James, quite old-fashioned and literary but they have such distinctive voices and they’re so perceptive about the human condition. That’s what I love reading about, and I feel like when you read those books it really opens your mind, and you can connect to them on a very personal and human level. In terms of queer writers, I love Now and Then by William Corlett and its past and present structure as well as The Folding Star by Alan Hollinghurst. He writes about the gay experience quite differently, which is refreshing, because he doesn’t write about stereotypes and tropes, and even though it was a while ago when he first started it feels like he’s always been very fresh and new. I really love Japanese literature, and I feel like the aesthetic and culture infuse the writing as well in a very minimalist and pared-back way. A favourite from my youth is Iris Murdoch and the way she blends philosophy and big ideas with her writing. Her novels are funny, intelligent and have brilliant characters, and she was a pioneer when it came to queer representation. I think it’s also very important for writing to be believable. Something I recently read and loved was Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah. It really drew me in and was so well done. Everything about it, the world, the characters, the history was so believable, and it had a really distinctive style and voice.

What interests or passions do you have beyond the world of books? What do you love?

I love being outside and in nature. I grew up in the Dorset and Wiltshire countryside, so I love walking and there’s a real tradition of paganism and folklore in those counties and I love learning about the culture and history and visiting neolithic monuments. I love nature writing and gardens as well as doing crafty things. I might be doing taxidermy one weekend and wooden spoon whittling the next.

Any final words of advice for authors in the querying process?

If you can, it’s useful to have other people read your work who you don’t know so you can get really objective feedback. It can be so hard to do but finding writing groups or starting a blog is a great place to start. It’s a subjective industry and the people reading your work are the same as anyone in that they have their own interests and tastes, and while they’re obviously bringing a lot more in terms of market knowledge and things like that, in a lot of ways it does come down to enjoying a book and someone’s writing. Don’t be downhearted if someone gets back to you saying it wasn’t for them because we’re all readers at the end of the day and it doesn’t mean your book isn’t good. That is also why it helps to do your research and find an agent or agency that seems to be in sync with what you’re writing and what you’re trying to do. It might make the process a lot easier to really tailor your approach with agents rather than submitting to lots at a time.

If you’re struggling with your query letter and synopsis, do check out our free resources on our website. We have lots of info to help you on your way. Or, better still, if you’re a member with us, our lovely Writers Support team will be happy to offer you a free query letter review!

The opening chunk of your book can do a LOT.

I once sold a non-fiction book off the back of no more than 10,000 words. The NY editor who picked up Talking to the Dead told me she knew she was going to buy the book after she’d read the first couple of pages.

You can lose an agent (or an editor or a reader) in that opening chunk. You can also pretty much convince them to take a ride with you.

I’m thinking about this, partly because it matters in its own right, but partly, because we have a First 500 Novel Competition (details here) which offers a range of goodies, including a manuscript assessment, JW membership, and an agent one-to-one. Entry’s free if you’re a member (so, duh, enter). If you’re not a member, we’re charging the rip-off price of £10 per entry.

Oh yes, and the 8 shortlisted entries will read their work out in front of literary agents who will probably throw HUGE GIANT INCREDIBLE offers of representation at the winners. So this is a prize worth chasing.

In a minute, I’m going to offer some incredibly High Quality Thoughts on how to ace that competition – but first I want to tell you about:

Feedback Fridays

As from next Friday, this email is going to be coming out to you at 10.00am or so, UK-time – a few hours earlier than it does now.

Each week, I’m going to set you a little “Feedback Fridays” writing challenge. That challenge could be “what’s your elevator pitch” or “show me the bit in your manuscript where you first describe your character” or “I want to see your query letter”. I’ll invite you to share those things on Townhouse and will of course tell you exactly where to go. (If you’re not yet signed up to Townhouse, it’s free and easy to join. Just choose the free option here.)

You’ll have the whole week to think about the challenge and upload your response. Then, on the Friday following, I’ll jump in and take a look at your responses – giving as much feedback and advice as I can. I’ll be online on Friday morning, but I’ll try to check in over the weekend too – I don’t want the interaction to be limited by what you’re doing on Fridays or what time zone you’re in.

These challenges are open to everyone. I’d love you to join in, both in terms of uploading your work and in offering constructive advice on everyone else’s. I’ll do what I can in terms of feedback, but do be aware that my own feedback is going to go to Premium Members first and anyone else if I get a chance. There’ll be a couple more yummy extras to announce, but I’ll tell you about those next week.

All this comes by way of an extra, not a replacement. So the main thrust of these emails will remain exactly as before – too long, discursive, under-planned, random, and occasionally useful.

OK.

First 500 words. Here’s what I think:

1. It’s not about the opening sentence

Sure, fancy-pants opening sentences are fine. Some books announce themselves that way. There’s nothing wrong with doing so.

But readers aren’t persuaded by that first sentence. The real test for a browser in a bookshop is “does this first page or two persuade me that I’ll want to read further?” That’s partly a matter of story-promise and largely a matter of whether you feel trust in the author.

If your opening sentence feels glued on, if it doesn’t feel natural to the book, then a fancy-pants opening sentence may actually weaken the reader’s sense of trust.

For what it’s worth, my opening sentences are basically dull and I’ve never been especially tempted to jazz them up. You can do differently if you like, but you certainly don’t have to.

2. No beds

Too many books start with the character waking from sleep. There’s nothing actually wrong or bad about that, but agents see it too often. So, yeah, ditch the bed.

3. Voice

Your opening chunk needs to establish voice. It needs to hypnotise and seduce. The reader needs to think “I’m safe” and ideally, “this feels different” – that is, the feel of the text needs to be unique. If you’re writing a crime novel, you don’t want the book-buyer to think that they could pick up the book sitting next to yours and get, effectively, the exact same thing as you’re offering.

For clarity, though, this isn’t about trying too hard. It’s just being completely you. It’s honouring the story and the character and doing that in a way that only you can do. If that all sounds a bit wishy-washy, here’s what I mean – this is the opening paragraph of Talking to the Dead:

Beyond the window, I can see three kites hanging in the air over Bute Park. One blue, one yellow, one pink. Their shapes are precise, as though stencilled. From this distance, I can’t see the lines that tether them, so when the kites move, it’s as though they’re doing so of their own accord. An all-encompassing sunlight has swallowed depth and shadow.

Can you see how little that does? There’s no suggestion of story. There’s no big, memorable, quotable sentence. There’s no hint really of the situation in which the character finds herself – or, in fact, anything about the character at all.

But – there’s voice. A kind of authority which says, “I know what I’m doing, I’m not going to rush it, and I know you’re going to enjoy the ride.” That authority is, above all, what you’re seeking to establish in your opening.

4. The scent of character, the tickle of story

If authority – voice – is the most important comfort you can offer, the two things that matter next are:

1. A good whiff of character and (less important)
2. The tickle of story

I should probably qualify what I’m about to say next. So: If you’re writing for the James Patterson market, then you need to deliver big from the first paragraph: “The first bullet struck the wall six feet from me. The second one hit about six inches away. I didn’t want to know where the third one was landing.” – that kind of thing.

But in most cases, you just don’t need to be as immediate. In my Talking to the Dead, it’s 2,000 words before I offer the reader what they know I’m going to offer them: a corpse and a police investigation. I don’t even make that offer in a dramatic way. Fiona Griffiths is in the office, doing boring office stuff, when she gets tasked with a minor chore as part of a large homicide investigation. There isn’t a big fireworks display at the start of the book and there doesn’t need to be one. That’s true of most books.

So what does the first 500 words actually accomplish? In my case, I’d say there are plenty of clues as to character but really nothing much in relation to story.

Fiona is being interviewed for the police job. Her interview notes that she did philosophy at university. She says yes, but corrects him as to what kind of topics that comprised. He says, “Useful for police work”. She says, “Not really.”

Is there any story there? I don’t think so. There’s a scent of character, definitely, and that scent (plus the voice) will, I hope, keep you reading.

It’s probably not until the 750-word mark that you can feel story intrude. The interviewer asks about a gap on Fiona’s resume when she was a teenager. Fiona basically deflects the question (“I was ill. Then I got better.”) No one feels that the issue has been properly addressed. So, after 750 words, there’s a first hint of mystery, if not quite story action.

All this is really just to remind you that you can take it slow. If you have a mystery, you don’t need to reveal it too fast.

5. The dinner party paradigm

Let’s say you’re a guest at a dinner party. You’re sitting next to some people you haven’t met before, but they’re basically your sort of people. (That is, to de-code the analogy, your book is with the right sort of readers – literary fiction for literati, crime fiction for crime lovers and so on.)

Because this is a dinner party, not a shouty disco set-up, you have all evening. You don’t need to rush.

So you wouldn’t bellow at your neighbour, before finishing your first breadstick, “Hi, I’m Charles, I’m divorced, still really messed-up after the break-up and, yeah, I’m having kind of inappropriate sex with a co-worker.”

You might, in fact, have disclosed all those facts by the end of the evening, but you’d hardly rush to get them out. You’d establish a pattern of communication first. You’d offer some clues, gauge the responses, find out a little more, and so on.

Obviously, the analogy is imperfect because book/reader communication is one-way not two-way, but it’s kind of the same thing. Establish trust. Don’t be boring. And that’s almost it.

6. A word of honesty

And look. I’m offering these thoughts because we have a First 500 Novel Competition on. (Did I mention it? I did. The link is here.)

But if I’m being completely honest, the advice I’ve given in this email is probably good advice if your mission is “Write a good and saleable book”. It’s probably not the best advice in the world if your mission is “Win Jericho Writers’ quite fantastic competition.”

Unsurprisingly, judges of these competitions do tend to favour entries that have something to show off about. Quiet elegance tends to get outdone by bold colours and improbable hats.

So what to do? Well, I think the experience of entering these competitions is massively helpful, so it’s worth doing no matter what. But don’t bend your book out of shape in order to win. Write the best book you can. Polish the first 500 words. Then enter.

Good luck. I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

Til soon.

Harry

We’ve been talking a lot about marketing: 

• here, on how to make Amazon work for you, 
• here, for a more holistic view of book marketing, 
• here, on why you need, as a very first step, to get people engaged with your book offer at some very minimal level, and  
• Here, on how my Fiona series put some of these thoughts into action 

I also said that I would “show you some snippets of how the book itself lines up behind its marketing promises – not just early on, but all the way through.” So that’s what we’re doing today. 

Last week we said that my books were: 

• Dark 
• Literate 

• British-set 
• Police procedurals 
• With a female detective 
• Who used to think she was dead 

That was the marketing message we wanted to deliver everywhere. But is that actually true of my stuff? We’re about to find out. I’m going to look at the first book in the series, Talking to The Dead, but in principle we could do the same exercise with any of the books. Here goes: 

First chapter 

The first chapter opens with Fiona being interviewed for a British police job by a British police officer. So I obviously tick the boxes for British-set police procedural and it’s already evidence that Fiona is going to be the detective who propels the series. So at the most basic level, my opening chapter reassures readers that they’re going to get what they came for. 

As for the “literate” requirement – well, the literacy doesn’t shout out at you, but it’s there all right. Take this passage: 

Matthews is a big man. Not gym-big, but Welsh-big, with the sort of comfortable muscularity that suggests a past involving farm work, rugby and beer. He has remarkably pale eyes and thick dark hair. Even his fingers have little dark hairs running all the way to the final joint. He is the opposite of me. 

That last line is inventive enough that it will catch the eye of people wanting to engage with decently written and thoughtful prose. But it also hints at more. What is the opposite of Matthews? Well, Matthews has a “comfortable muscularity” to him. The ingredients making him up involve farm work, rugby and beer. So Fiona’s the opposite of that. If Matthews is physically grounded in his body, Fiona is the opposite. Where Matthews is literally comfortable in his skin (and muscles), Fiona isn’t. 

That’s a very roundabout way of suggesting that where Matthews is comfortable with the basic task of being alive, Fiona is not. But roundabout is fine. The theme is there. 

And (not to beat about the bush) it’s there in the last paragraph of the first chapter too, just after Matthews has told Fiona she’s getting the job: 

I’m standing up. Matthews has stood up too and comes towards me, shaking my hand and saying something. His big shoulders block my view of Bute Park and I lose sight of the kites. Matthews is talking about formalities and I’m blathering answers back at him, but my attention isn’t with any of that stuff. I’m going to be a policewoman. And just five years ago, I was dead. 

Boom! You want a story about a detective who used to think she was dead? Well, here she is, chapter one, telling you she used to be dead. 

Page 50 

On page 50 (in my Word document, not the actual book), I have this: 

I’ve never cried once during my time on the force. Indeed, that hardly says it. I haven’t cried since I was six or seven, ages ago anyway, and hardly ever even then. Last year, I attended a car accident, a nasty smash on Eastern Avenue, where the only serious casualty was a little boy who lost both his legs and suffered significant facial injuries. All the time we were getting him out of the car and into the ambulance, he was crying and holding his little tiger toy against his neck. Not only did I not cry, it wasn’t until a few days afterwards that I realised I was meant to have cried, or at least felt something. 

I reflect on all this as Amanda cries and I say, ‘It’s all right,’ like a mechanical toy, wishing one day to find some tears of my own. 

The core elevator pitch is present here too – albeit only very obliquely. 

But obliquely is fine! Obliquely is actually good. If you bash away at the same thing in the same way for 300 pages, you’re going to produce a tedious book. So really you’re pasting together a thousand jewelled pieces, no two of which are quite the same, and which all have slightly different lustres and qualities, but which combine to give the effect you are seeking to deliver. 

And this passage – Fiona failing to cry when it might be normal to do so – points again to the core oddity of Fiona. What’s wrong with her? Why no feelings? Why does she talk of herself as a mechanical toy? And, golly gosh, if you wanted to summarise in two words the self-view of someone who used to think she was dead, then ‘mechanical toy’ gets you pretty darn close, right? 

Page 150 

Fiona gets ready for a date: 

I go up, get dressed and put on some make-up. I don’t often make the effort, but if I put my mind to it, I can look all right. Not Kay-like gorgeous. That’ll always be well beyond me. But nice. An attractive girl. That’s all I’ve ever hoped to achieve, and I feel a kind of satisfied relief at being able to achieve it. More than relief. Pleasure. I like it. I like the way I look tonight. 

At seven ten, I skitter out of the house. I’ve still got an undercurrent of anxiety about my physical safety, so I carry a kitchen knife in my clutch bag, but the knife is quite a small one, and the clutch bag matches my dress, has silver trimmings and boasts an extravagant silk bow, so as far as I’m concerned, I’m still in girly heaven. 

There are two things here. First, the relationship between Fiona and physical looks is slightly non-standard. It feels like she is wanting to tick a box – to fit in. It’s not quite that there’s anything forced about that impulse, just that it doesn’t feel to flow with real naturalness. 

And second – more strikingly – she goes on a date with a knife in her clutch-bag. Fiona’s version of ‘girly heaven’ still involves something intimately bound up with violence and death. All that is highly consistent with a woman who has a very complicated relationship with the fact of being alive. 

Page 250 

We’re getting towards the end of the book now. The big denouement is about to take place. Naturally enough, the prose is more concerned now with setting up the next stage of the action. Except that here is how the chapter starts: 

A mile or so away from my destination, I park up. The verge is so thick with tall stalks of cow parsley that I have to mow a swathe through them to get off the road. All their pretty white decapitated heads. 

That last sentence is classic Fiona description. Yes, British verges in May are gloriously lacy and white. Yes, if you park on them, you’re likely to knock over some flowers. But ‘pretty white decapitated heads’? Only Fiona would join some springtime floral loveliness to a particularly gruesome image of mass murder. 

Again, the reference to our elevator pitch is notably oblique. But it’s present – that’s what matters. Fiona has a strange relationship to life and death. And here, looking at flowers, those two things get joined in a very unsettling way. Even on page 250, where the book is getting ready to let off some fireworks and then close down, the theme is there. 

Oh yes, and the reason why I chose to look at pages 50 / 150 / 250 is simple: I wanted to prove to you that I wasn’t cherry-picking extracts. Truly, truly, the theme is there pretty much anywhere you look. (I checked page 100 and page 200 too. And yep. You find the basic pitch all present and correct there as well.) 

Closing chapters 

I won’t talk about the closing chapters in detail. Suffice to say that in the pre-penultimate chapter, Fiona tells her boyfriend (and the reader) about the psychiatric condition that she used to have. She tells him: 

‘In a mild form [of the illness], patients suffer from despair and self-loathing, but my form wasn’t mild. Not mild at all. I had the full monty. In a severe state, patients hold the delusional belief that they don’t exist, that their body is empty or putrefying … For two years, I thought I was dead.’ 

Boof! That’s the promise of the elevator pitch fully and completely discharged. All those earlier clues and hints now line up between the fact that unifies and makes sense of them all. 

The penultimate chapter is something of a riff, a monologue, from Fiona. As part of that, she imagines talking with one of her former psychiatrists. In that (imagined, not real) conversation she tells the doctor that she spent a night once in a mortuary. The doctor is shocked and she responds: 

“Yes, The mortuary, Doc. Where they keep dead people. Why? Are you bothered by the dead? Do you have uncomfortable feelings around them that you find hard to deal with? Perhaps you should find someone to talk to.” 

Again, that keeps the core pitch front and centre of this chapter. 

We then move onto the final chapter where Fiona learns another deep secret about her past. She is moved and finds that something very strange is happening to her: 

It is not a painful sensation, as I always thought it must be. It feels like the purest expression of feeling that it is possible to have. And the feeling mixes everything up together. Happiness. Sadness. Relief. Sorrow. Love. A mixture of things no psychiatrist ever felt. It is the most wonderful mixture in the world. 

I put my hands to my face again and again. Tears are coursing down my cheeks, splashing off my chin, tickling the side of my nose, running off my hands. 

These are tears and I am crying. I am Fiona Griffiths. Paid-up citizen of Planet Normal. 

She cries. For the first time in twenty years. The person who started the book as the ‘opposite’ of big, Welsh, muscular Matthews is now not exactly the same as him, but on the same planet as him. She’s come home. 

Elevator pitch – delivered. Reader (assuming they are in the market for this kind of book) – satisfied. Marketing task – done. 

And that’s enough about marketing. We’ll be on something completely different next week. Bring a glass of rosé and a bowl of salted almonds. We’ll talk till the sun sets beneath the wine-dark sea. 

Til soon. 

Harry 

This email completes a messy quartet of emails around selling books. If you’ve missed them (and – what? – you’ve missed them? YOU DON’T READ MY STUFF???), you can catch up:

• here, on how to make Amazon work for you
• here, for a more holistic view of book marketing, and
• here, on why you need, as a very first step, to get people engaged with your book offer at some very minimal level.

But look. Advice on all this stuff has a useful, wholesome feel to it, but there’s always a gap between wise advice and implementing the stuff yourself – especially if the wise advice in question is full of nonsense about time machines and inflatable unicorns.

So this email is going to try to join up some of the thoughts we’ve collected so far. The obvious thing would be to do that in relation to obvious bestsellers: books which have clearly nailed their marketing. The trouble is partly that those books now sell themselves in large part on their own aura. When Harry Potter was first marketed the core pitch was “orphan goes to wizard school.” These days, the pitch is substantially different. It’s more “What do you mean you’re undecided? This is Harry ****ing Potter.”

Also, of course, I can’t tell you what was in the mind of Bloomsbury’s original marketing folk, but I can tell you what’s been in my mind in relation to my own novels. So I’m going to use my Fiona Griffiths work as an example of marketing. I’m not saying it’s perfect – just that I’ve tried to get it right.

For clarity, the elevator pitch for these Fiona books is something like: “Crime story, where the detective once believed herself to be dead.”

Is that pretty? No. Does that sentence appear anywhere at all in my marketing? No, of course not, it would be terrible. But could that phrase be a useful memo-to-self stuck above my computer screen? Absolutely yes. And does it intrigue enough that the average crime reader would want to know more? Hell, yes.

So it’s a good pitch.

But marketing doesn’t depend on a pitch alone. You also have to map out your book in terms of some broader co-ordinates, most notably genre.

My books are:

• Police procedurals. A bad term in my case, because Fiona isn’t really one for following police procedure at all. But my books still count as police procedurals because they’re set around police offices, feature police detectives, have a police investigation at their centre, and so on.)
• British-set. That sounds obvious, in a way, and obscures a more interesting point, which is that the books are set in Wales. But from the point of view of international readers – and I’ve sold way more books in the US than in Europe – the books are British first, and Welsh second. It’s also relevant here that Amazon has a specific category for British-set police procedurals, which means there’s an actual sub-bestseller list that British crime addicts can haunt.
• Led by a female protagonist. Again, this matters to some readers and Amazon has a specific sub-categorisation for readers who want a female cop at the centre of things.

But of course, procedurals come in all kinds of flavours and, as I’ve just mentioned, my books take the ‘police’ part seriously and the ‘procedural’ part not seriously at all. If I were analysing my books not by genre, but by tone, I’d say they were:

• Literate. I don’t mean my books should win the Booker Prize, but they are read by the sort of people who do also read literary fiction – as well as people who just like a good crime yarn. My books demand a kind of literary intelligence in the reader. They care about the prose and expect the reader to notice.
• Dark. My books aren’t bloodthirsty, but they’re very much not cosy crime. They take the reality of crime, its darkness, seriously.

And that’s it, really. To market my books, you have to tell the reader fast and effectively that they are:

• Dark
• Literate
• British-set
• Police procedurals
• With a female protagonist
• Who used to think she was dead.

Ideally, you want to communicate that message as briefly as you can. Remember last week’s email: your elevator pitch isn’t there to sell the book. It’s there to prompt the next level of engagement.

You can do that with titles. My titles clearly refer to crime (“Talking to the Dead”), to darkness (“This Thing of Darkness”), and to a female protagonist with an unsettling relationship to death (“The Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths”). Given that the second title there deploys a quote from Shakespeare, I’d say that the ‘literate’ box was ticked as well.

So much for the titles, but your communication also needs to run visually through the book covers. Here are mine (the US versions, which I commissioned myself): US book covers.

Those covers communicate crime. (Not thriller, by the way. There’s a stillness about the covers which suggests crime. A thriller image needs to suggest explosive action.)

They also literally communicate darkness – the covers use plenty of black.

The topmost quote, which is drawn from a British newspaper, quickly suggests to a US reader that this book is likely British. It also refers to the ‘most startling protagonist’ in recent crime fiction. That doesn’t yet say female, but it does already draw the reader’s attention to the important oddness of the central character.

By the time you turn the book in your hand, or read the book description on Amazon, you’ll quickly find that the book is indeed British, and does have a compellingly strange female detective as its lead.

And of course, I have a problem. My elevator pitch refers to Fiona’s Cotard’s Syndrome – a genuine psychiatric condition in which patients think themselves to be dead. But I can’t put that fact anywhere on the cover of the book, because it’s the big plot reveal which only happens at the very end of the book. So I’ve got an elevator pitch I can’t directly talk about.

Which is fine. You can’t talk directly about the huge plot twist in the middle of Gone Girl either, but that book did OK. If you can’t slap the pitch down directly on the page, you have to allude to it – hint at it – give the reader a feel of the shape, like a vase hidden under velvet.

The book description introduces Fiona this way:

“Rookie Detective Constable Fiona Griffiths - a new recruit with a reputation for being deadly smart, more than ordinarily committed . . . and unsettlingly odd.” That does enough to suggest what I need without giving away any plot spoilers.

I’m lucky enough to have a ton of nice quotes to use about my book, and I don’t choose the ones that are kindest. I choose the ones that most communicate the basic marketing pitch: dark, literate, female protagonist, strange. Each quote wants to be repeating those basic thoughts, echoing the cover, echoing the blurb.

You won’t have all those quotes yet – though you may have some from readers. But whatever elements you do deploy, you need to make sure they are knock-knock-knocking at the one same door you want your reader to walk through.

So far, therefore, everything has lined up: title, cover art, cover quotes, book description or blurb, quotes.

And, if things go well, you’ll even find your reader reviews lining up nicely too. I have some nice 5-star reviews that I like very much. (Thank you, readers.) But I’ve got some 1-star quotes that I like too. This one for example:

“Anyone who touts this work of fiction as resembling real police procedure, has never stepped inside a police car in real life. The measures the main character took were bizarre, illegal and wholeheartedly unusable as evidence. The only thing they got correct was the stupid amounts of paperwork involved in a homicide case.”

That’s a terrific way of telling readers what my book is and isn’t. If you like your police procedurals to be, ahem, vaguely accurate, then my book is not for you. And yes, you want sales, but no, you should never seek to sell your book to the wrong readers. There are some technical reasons there, but they boil down to this: Amazon knows whether books are positively or negatively reviewed, and whether they are or are not read to the end (in the case of e-books.) You want Amazon to think that readers love your stuff and that means not selling your books to readers who just aren’t going to like it. So that one-star review is a brilliant way to warn the wrong readers away from reading my book. That’s good. That’s helpful. It’s actually part of a good, rounded marketing effort.

If I feel like it, next week, I might show you some snippets of how the book itself lines up behind its marketing promises – not just early on, but all the way through.

Right now, the kids are in the very last stages of building a model version of the old Victorian village school for a class project. They want cotton wool smoke to come out of the chimney, and the glue gun is needed.

Hey, ho, hey ho. A-gluin’ I go.

Til soon.

Harry

No publishing journey is ever the same, so it's always interesting to hear different writers' perspectives. We spoke to Cate Green, a former Festival of Writing prizewinner (who's also used our agent one-to-ones, mentoring, and editorial services), about her experience.

JW: Please tell us a bit about you: how long have you been writing, and what was your journey to finding an agent like?  

I’m one of those writers who always says, ‘I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember’, and it’s true! I loved writing as a child at school and at home and had a special notebook for my stories and poems. I was a prize-winner in my first national essay-writing competition at the age of 18 and, although it took me many, many years to finally write a novel (let alone have one published) I never stopped writing one way or another. I’ve had a career that has spanned news journalism, copywriting, and communications in the UK and France, where I have lived for almost thirty years. 

I started seriously trying to write a novel just over ten years ago and, after a couple of near misses, won the 2019 Exeter Novel Prize. That led to offers from a few agents, including one from the Prize judge, Broo Doherty of DHH Literary. I’m delighted to say that Broo now represents me and negotiated my two-book deal with One More Chapter, a Harper Collins imprint. My novel, The Curious Kidnapping of Nora W., will be published in paperback, digital and audio in the summer of 2023. 

I find that mentoring is a great way of moving ahead with a manuscript as it’s so helpful to have objective feedback and support that’s completely personalised to you, whatever stage you’re at with your novel.

JW: What resources have you found useful along the way?

I’ve never been on any writing courses as such and my first Festival of Writing back in 2012 was both a real eye-opener and a huge help in learning more about the craft of writing, and standing back to understand how to edit your own work. The agent one-to-ones were just fantastic in giving me confidence about my writing – although they didn’t lead to representation, both agents asked to see my first three chapters and gave me some incredibly helpful feedback. In fact, York was also the place where I met Broo Doherty for the first time. We were both sitting at the back of a workshop and after the talk, I plucked up the courage to do a quick pitch of the novel that I’d brought to the Festival that year (the first one I’d written, which is now deep in a hidden drawer, where it will stay). Broo was kind enough to listen and interested enough to ask to read the first three chapters – proof that agents actually are approachable people and that sometimes things do come full circle.  

I went back to York in 2014 and this time actually won the Best First Chapter Competition and came runner-up in Friday Night Live – second to Joanna Cannon, for whom the rest was history! I had lots of interest from agents then, but I had only written the first five or so chapters of my second (unpublished) novel and, in the end, it wasn’t to be – that time. 

I naturally turned to Jericho Writers for help with manuscript critiques and mentoring. I worked for a few months with a great mentor, but we decided to part ways – for the best of reasons: I had come runner-up in the Yeovil Prize and through that found an agent. Sadly, I also parted ways with the agent several months later (see below), but hey, onwards and upwards. 

I find that mentoring is a great way of moving ahead with a manuscript as it’s so helpful to have objective feedback and support that’s completely personalised to you, whatever stage you’re at with your novel. I later went on to work with another mentor who encouraged me to enter the Exeter Prize, so huge thanks to her! 

And book Twitter has been a great resource. I’ve had so much encouragement and support from other writers, agents and editors on there – many people are so approachable and generous. Plus, it’s a great way of finding out who’s who and who does what in publishing. 

JW: Did you experience any setbacks? How did you cope with them?  

I’ve had lots of rejections from both agents and editors. To be honest, I think that having worked as a journalist and copywriter for so long means that I’ve grown used to having red ink all over my work (as well as using it on other people’s work!) and grown quite a thick skin. 

I’d say my main setbacks were parting ways with my previous agent and, before that, coming down from the First Chapter Prize cloud when I realised that, unlike Joanna, I wasn’t going to get seven agent offers and a fast track to publication. That was a blow to my morale, but the Prize meant I knew I could write and that my idea had legs, so in the end it made me determined to finish the novel and get that agent. When I finally did though, being ‘fired’ by the agency after coming very close to a publishing deal was the most difficult setback to cope with. It was a fairly big London agency which was going through some internal restructuring, including a change of role for my agent, and it made me realise that sometimes you just fall through the cracks. They didn’t like the idea for my next novel – the one set for publication next year – but I really believed in it so, after a few weeks of tears and soul-searching, I just dusted myself off and decided I was going to write it. 

… Working with an agent while I was still writing the book was just wonderful. I had someone to bounce my ideas off and to give me honest, constructive feedback, as well as some great ideas – and who was rooting for me the whole time!

JW: What was it like having an agent while you were still writing your book? In what ways do you think that a more collaborative approach (working with an agent/editor) changed or will change the way you approach your writing? 

I was incredibly lucky that Broo Doherty signed me on the strength of my first ten thousand words because working with an agent while I was still writing the book was just wonderful. I had someone to bounce my ideas off and to give me honest, constructive feedback, as well as some great ideas  – and who was rooting for me the whole time! True luxury after so many years of working on my own or paying for editorial services. I’ve also enjoyed working with Charlotte Ledger, my editor at One More Chapter – again, fresh eyes and a collaboration with someone who’s totally on your side, loves your work and wants to make it even better is just such a positive experience.

I’m looking forward to working on book two with both of them. It’s in the early stages for now, but I think the biggest change will be the challenge of a tight deadline. I know it’s not the most orthodox approach, but for my first three novels, I didn’t write a “messy” first draft as such. I tend to keep editing until I’m happy and then move on to the next chapter of the novel. But having just under a year to write the next book (and keep doing the day job and running family matters!) means I’m not sure that I’ll be able to work in the same way this time. I hope I can make it! 

JW: What has it been like working with a digital-first publisher? What are the benefits?

I haven’t had any concrete experience of any difference the digital side might make – except for the fact that the royalties are significantly higher than for print and audio, and that’s a bonus since OMC are very experienced in selling and marketing in the digital arena. 

About Cate

Cate Green grew up in Buckinghamshire and moved to France over twenty years ago. She now lives just outside of Lyon with her husband and three daughters.

Cate is a copywriter and a broadcast and print journalist, with more than twenty years' experience in television, international radio, and corporate communications.

Her debut novel, The Curious Kidnapping of Nora W, won the 2019 Exeter Novel Prize and will be released in the summer of 2023.

You can follow Cate on Twitter here.