SPOTLIGHT FEATURE: Sian Ellis-Martin from Blake Friedmann
Good morning, everyone!
Sian Ellis-Martin is an Associate Agent at Blake Friedmann. While building her own list, she also assists Isobel Dixon and Kate Burke at the agency. Sian is looking for commercial, upmarket and accessible literary fiction, as well as narrative non-fiction, memoir, history and cookery. She is especially passionate about diversity in literature and would love to hear from authors from underrepresented backgrounds.
You can read some of the highlights from our interview with Sian below, which includes some great tips on building your agent submission pack!
Sian will also be running one-to-one sessions with Jericho Writers in March 2023. If you’d like to get her feedback on your work, you can learn more and buy your session here.
“Getting to watch authors be creative geniuses is really inspiring and I think it’s quite rare to be that close to art when you’re not necessarily much of an artist yourself.”
Hi Sian, thanks for speaking with us! We would love to hear about your work and what you’re looking for in a submission.
Q. What brought you to agenting?
Like most people, my love for books! After doing an English degree at university, I was lucky to get an internship at a literary agency called Rogers, Coleridge & White and almost immediately loved it. I got to work with books all day! Then I went and did another internship at Peters Fraser and Dunlop and undertook work experience at Octopus. I found it difficult to get a permanent role though, so I worked in HR for a few years until finally, I got the internship at Blake Friedmann. This was much longer than the other internships I’d done so I was able to fully engross myself in an agency and learn the inner workings, and it confirmed to me that that’s what I wanted to do.
I get to work with authors and stories all the time, it’s really fast-moving and dynamic and varied, and I love it.
Q. What’s your favourite thing about being an agent?
The authors are my favourite thing. Getting to watch them be creative geniuses is really inspiring and I think it’s quite rare to be that close to art when you’re not necessarily much of an artist yourself. I also really love the variety of it; one day I’m doing editorial and the next day I’m looking at a marketing plan, and then another day I could be doing something completely different.
Q. What is at the top of your fiction wish list right now?
I’d love a big sprawling family saga, like ‘Pachinko’ (the TV programme). I’d love some queer stories without trauma, or where trauma isn’t linked to being queer. And I’d really like a female-led crime series as well.
Q. In terms of non-fiction, what are you looking for at the moment?
Mainly memoirs that explore experiences we don’t often get to see, like Educated by Tara Westover, and The Trauma Cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein. And I’m also looking for cookery, again from voices that we don’t hear so much from.
Q. Are there any genres that you’d rather not receive, or any themes you avoid?
YA and children’s books are not for me, and neither is sci-fi and fantasy (apart from a slight speculative element to a story). I’m also not into dystopian novels either. In terms of themes, there’s nothing I necessarily avoid but I pay close attention to how women are treated and represented in fiction, and I also look at whether there’s a diverse cast of characters in the novel.
Q. What do you want to see in a query letter and what do you hate?
As part of our Blake Friedmann Open Week, I actually wrote a post on this exact thing, which may be helpful for people to read (http://blakefriedmann.co.uk/news/cover-letter-synopsis-tips).
Most of all, I just want a really great pitch and blurb, ones that entice me into opening the sample chapters. I also want to see that someone has read my bio and truly thinks that we would make a good match. You’d be surprised how often I receive submissions for genres of books I don’t work with, so I think showing that you’ve done your research and that you think your book works well for a specific agent is a good thing. Overall though, it’s all about the book, so include a little bit about yourself as an author but make sure your book shines.
Try not to speak negatively about other books or authors when talking about comparable titles. That doesn’t start you off on a good foot.
An understanding of the market and where your book fits is very important, so you should pick realistic comparable titles that your book could sit alongside in the current market. While it’s okay to make comparisons to older titles, it’s important to also understand today’s marketplace, so you need to also include recent examples. TV, films, and music can also be great comparisons. Just anything that you think tells the story of your book or relates to your book.
Q. The same question when it comes to a synopsis – what do you want to see, what do you not want to see? Do you find the synopsis helpful?
I do like a synopsis. The way I usually treat submissions is I read the cover letter or email, then I read the sample chapters, depending how engrossed in it I am, and then I look at the synopsis to see how they’re going to continue that story.
I think the most important thing to do in a synopsis is detail the core narrative of the book, introduce the main characters, and tell us the setting. We want to know the beginning, middle and end of the story, including spoilers. You should be looking at who the characters are, what the incident is that sparks off the narrative, how the characters react to that incident, and how is it all resolved in the end (if at all). Try to keep it to about a page, but if it’s slightly less or more then that’s okay. A synopsis is not a blurb, which I think is the most common mistake.
Q. What are you looking for when you’re reading the opening pages of the novel? What will make you want to read on?
That’s a good question. For me personally, I like things that grab me from the get-go, I’m not so keen on being slowly led into the story. And there are so many ways to do that that can work really well, like jumping in the middle of some action, or introducing us to a character that’s really interesting, or starting in the middle of some dialogue. It’s really hard to pinpoint, but I just like to be grabbed straight away.
I think it’s important for authors to think about what makes them want to read on when they’re reading a book, and what grabs their attention, and then think similarly about their own openings. And avoid clichés – I hate when a story starts with a really cliched opening, like a character looking out of the window at the rain or waking up in the morning. That isn’t going to grab me because we’ve all seen and read those 100 times.
Q. What would you say makes for a successful author-agent relationship? How can both parties get the most out of that relationship?
I would think of it as a partnership. Your agent is your biggest champion, the person that opens doors for you that you might not be able to open if you are un-agented. They’re often the person in between you and the publisher or editor when you’re trying to sell your book. So, I think what’s really important in having a successful author-agent relationship is choosing the right agent for you in the first place and asking the right questions early on. Find out what their vision is for your book and for your career past that book, and what their plan is for all of your rights, not just print but audio, translation, film and TV too. How is this agent going to help you build a career in writing, not just sell the book that you’re currently writing?
A key part of the relationship is honesty. Your agent is there to do the difficult things, to have difficult conversations with the publisher if you don’t like something and you’re afraid to say it. So always be honest with your agent. I think a lot of the time for authors it’s probably a gut feeling, if they’re meeting multiple agents, which is the right one for them.
Q. Do you have any final words of advice for authors in the querying process?
I think the most important thing is to do your research. Agents get thousands of submissions a year so if you want your submission to stand out it’s important to make sure you’re submitting to the right agents and really paying attention to what the agent wants. My other bit of advice is that we know it can be a really disheartening process, and that it’s also disheartening for us to have to say no to people, we don’t enjoy that element of the job. Just keep persevering, the right agent is out there – you just need to find them!
The full interview can be found on Sian’s AgentMatch profile.
In the meantime, 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!
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