Transcript
Speaker: Ooh, a spicy question.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Because the writing is sort of everything, right?
Speaker: Like you can fix plot holes, but if the writing... So some readers love that and some readers are like, but I wanted more of this.
Speaker: So it's kind of a gamble.
Speaker: Hello and welcome back to the Right and Wrong podcast.
Speaker: With me today, returning from what is becoming an annual feature at this point, last year's Romantic Novelist Association's Agent of the Year and a finalist again for this year, also this year, achieved the London Book Fair's Trailblazer Award.
Speaker: It's LBA's Hannah Schofield.
Speaker: Welcome back.
Speaker: Hannah Schofield Hi, thank you so much for having me again.
Speaker: Lovely to be here, third year in a row.
Speaker: And even more lovely to be introduced with so many accolades to my name.
Speaker: I know every time you come on, it gets longer.
Speaker: You're like Daenerys Targaryen.
Speaker: Well, I'm always like, oh, is it, you know, is it, is it too, too much to be like, oh, multi award winning agent.
Speaker: But it is true.
Speaker: So I'm excited.
Speaker: Well, facts are facts.
Speaker: So it's always a delight to have you on.
Speaker: Thanks so much for coming.
Speaker: Third time on the podcast.
Speaker: And as we've mentioned, it seems like every time you come on, you've collected another award we added into your introduction.
Speaker: And congratulations, obviously, again, this year for the RNA awards, which are coming up soon down to the final two, you and Lena Langley.
Speaker: Can you do two in a row?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I mean, that would be pretty cool.
Speaker: I mean, I'm honestly just so delighted to be back on the shortlist.
Speaker: Lina is, of course, absolutely amazing.
Speaker: So no pressure.
Speaker: But this was like a career goal for me.
Speaker: And when it came true last year, it was just amazing.
Speaker: absolutely awesome um and so for it to be be dangled in front of me again the second year running just feels really really exciting and affirming of all the all the work I'm doing in the romance space and it's yeah it's really lovely to have that recognition from the industry
Speaker: Yeah, it must be, like you said, so validating to know that you are doing something that everyone else has sort of acknowledged that as, oh, this is great.
Speaker: They're doing a really good job and really kind of helping.
Speaker: Because as an agent, your job is to help authors, you know, obviously you have an investment in it as well, but your job is to help authors kind of be the best they can be and kind of have a career of their own.
Speaker: Yes, definitely.
Speaker: And I think agenting can sometimes feel quite insular.
Speaker: So having that recognition is really great.
Speaker: And also, I think it widens the opportunities for my authors, particularly in the romantic space.
Speaker: that people know me for this area.
Speaker: And so when I'm working on authors' books, which are in the romantic fiction space, I feel like that gives extra clout to them, which I really like as well.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: When you get these awards, so you won last year and then you've got the Trailblazer Award this year from the Lion Book Fair, do you notice a sort of uptick in how many submissions you get from authors and interactions?
Speaker: I mean, I feel like I always get quite a lot of submissions, so I wouldn't necessarily say...
Speaker: there's been a much greater uptick.
Speaker: But I do think the proportion of submissions I get that are from romance authors probably has increased in the last year.
Speaker: And whether that's because of my award win, or whether that's because that's a really hot place in the market right now, it's probably a little bit of both, I would say.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You work with the RNA on other things as well.
Speaker: So I'm guessing that you just have quite a lot of crossover with their members and you'll probably get a lot of submissions just from people associated with that.
Speaker: Yes, definitely.
Speaker: It's been really wonderful to work closely with the RNA for several years.
Speaker: And I attended my second conference with them this summer in person, which was really nice.
Speaker: And I think that definitely...
Speaker: led more people to my inbox.
Speaker: So yeah, I'm always on the lookout for romance submissions.
Speaker: So it's a really nice partnership to be able to explore.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so as mentioned, and long-term fans will probably have listened to both your previous episodes.
Speaker: Um, if you, and if you do want to hear more about Hannah's kind of career path into becoming an agent and, um, what she does kind of day to day tackling submissions and things like that, go check out the other, the other episodes with Hannah.
Speaker: That's episode 50 and episode 95.
Speaker: We'll get an update on what Hannah's looking for and working on later on in this episode.
Speaker: But for now, I'd love the opportunity to ask some questions more about publishing and the kind of mechanics of publishing and deals.
Speaker: So it's often, I mean, publishing is a mystery to a lot of people outside the industry.
Speaker: I think to a lot of people inside the industry as well.
Speaker: But when I go on the bookseller, and th is is something I'd love to sort of get cleared up a bit.
Speaker: I go on the bookseller and I see a headline and it says, so-and-so has signed a six-figure deal with whomever publisher it might be.
Speaker: What does that mean in terms of like, who's getting six figures?
Speaker: Is anyone getting six figures?
Speaker: How's that being divvied up between author, agent, and whatever other parties might be involved with that?
Speaker: Great question.
Speaker: The six-figure deal, obviously...
Speaker: is very broad term.
Speaker: It's a big range.
Speaker: Anything from £100,000 to just under a million pounds.
Speaker: So that's a big range.
Speaker: And the way that monies are paid out on publishing contracts, it's not like you can get that deal and then quit your job the next day because
Speaker: you're unlikely to get all of that money up front.
Speaker: You will get some of it up front.
Speaker: So usually a advance is split into three or four sections, which will be on the signing of the contract, on the delivery of the final manuscript, which in practice means when the manuscript goes to copy edit, and then on first publication, and sometimes also the fourth part on first paperback publication.
Speaker: Say you've got £100,000 on the table for your book.
Speaker: Great news, first of all.
Speaker: That's really great news.
Speaker: That's not all going to hit your bank account at once.
Speaker: That might be over the course of two, three, four years.
Speaker: And of course, the agent will take their commission on that deal, which the standard is 15%.
Speaker: Although in the UK, don't forget about VAT because that also t akes a chunk.
Speaker: But after that, then money should always flow to the author.
Speaker: So it will come from the publisher to the agency.
Speaker: The agency will take their cut and then it will be paid out to the author.
Speaker: But of course, timings...
Speaker: can really vary on that depending on how long the manuscript takes to complete depending on when they're going to publish so I would say like any author who is worried about finances or has questions about their finances like definitely ask your agent to sit down with you and kind of talk through when the payments are coming what your cut is going to be and what
Speaker: be able to sort of like look at it holistically there.
Speaker: I think that's very important.
Speaker: A lot of authors and publishing people are obviously quite like humanities orientated because they're creatives.
Speaker: But I love maths and I think it's really important that everyone knows how to do the maths of their own income.
Speaker: So yeah, I do think that's really useful to sit down and crunch the numbers.
Speaker: And if you're looking for extra maths fun, crunching the numbers of what you would have to sell to earn out your advance, I think is also a very helpful metric.
Speaker: So you just sort of can know what you're shooting for.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So let's, for the simplicity of maths, if you had a 100,000 deal, you're probably over the course of three or four years, you think you're probably going to actually only receive about 70,000 of that because the rest of it will be tax or for the agent.
Speaker: Oh, I hadn't even thought about tax.
Speaker: That's a great point.
Speaker: Well, if you're a self-employed author with a UK agent based in the UK, you will receive 82%.
Speaker: So in this case, that would be
Speaker: £82,000 from the overall deal pre-tax.
Speaker: So post-tax, I can't do that maths in my head right now, but maybe that will be around £70,000.
Speaker: So yeah, it's not unfortunately quit your job tomorrow money, but it is.
Speaker: And that's over the course of years, like you said.
Speaker: Yes, exactly.
Speaker: You know, of course, as the numbers go up, so too do the installments.
Speaker: So yeah, there's different levels, even in the six-figure deal.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It can contain multitudes.
Speaker: Yes, yeah, of course.
Speaker: But it's good to know that, you know, the lion, when you do read so-and-so has got a big deal, the lion's share of that is actually money that is being paid to the author.
Speaker: Oh, absolutely.
Speaker: And you mentioned it briefly there about advances.
Speaker: I've a simple understanding of how royalties work in terms of advances, but just run me through how it works.
Speaker: The author gets the advance, which will be probably a quarter or so of whatever the deal is.
Speaker: And then before they can start receiving royalties itself, like royalties directly, they have to pay off the advance with the royalties.
Speaker: Is that correct?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So the way it works is everything that the publisher sells, and that includes copies through the tills or e-books or audio books or sometimes subsidiary rights, including translation, the author's chunk of that is accounted against their advance.
Speaker: For example, if you have a hardback royalty, that means you're going to get two pounds per copy, which is
Speaker: may well be a little generous, but it's useful for the maths, then you would have to earn back of those like kind of two pound increments all the way to your advance to be able to get any royalty payments on that.
Speaker: But of course, there'll be different formats.
Speaker: So it won't just be the hardback royalties.
Speaker: And if your publisher is also selling your translation rights, for example, if they do a giant deal in Germany, that's a really nice chunk out of your advance.
Speaker: And that might be two years before your book's published.
Speaker: So then you would have less that you would need to earn out before you can start earning royalties.
Speaker: I really think the thing to remember is publishers will make money before you earn out your advance.
Speaker: Otherwise, the whole thing wouldn't work.
Speaker: So if you are looking at your advance and thinking, oh, my goodness, I'm still so far away from publishing.
Speaker: earning it out, or maybe I'm quite close to earning it out, but it hasn't happened yet.
Speaker: Rest assured that your publisher is still making money and like, it's not necessarily a bad thing that you haven't earned out your advance.
Speaker: It's, it's one of the, the very magical publishing metrics that they use to determine kind of their own profit and loss in house.
Speaker: And it's quite difficult to sort of, I guess, impose,
Speaker: any kind of meaning to that.
Speaker: So I think it is really important to sit down with your agent, to look at the numbers, to think how many copies would I need to sell to earn out this advance?
Speaker: How many hardbacks, how many e-books, et cetera?
Speaker: Or what sort of subsidiary rights would I need to bring in so that you have a sense of it?
Speaker: But very successful authors may never earn out their advance and that's also fine.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: I've also heard conversely of some authors, usually established authors, when they are negotiating deals, and they'll already have multiple books published and they'll be doing this full time.
Speaker: Some people do like to try and have a smaller advance so that they can earn it out very quickly.
Speaker: That's also an option.
Speaker: And some publishers have deliberately smaller advances so that
Speaker: authors move on to a royalty model more quickly.
Speaker: And either way, book money can be quite unpredictable.
Speaker: So if you have a really great season when you're earning royalties, and they tend to be accounted six monthly in traditional publishing deals.
Speaker: So you could have a really great six months and earn lots of monies in royalties, and then a downturn in the next six months, and then you wouldn't earn very much.
Speaker: So
Speaker: Again, it's a really difficult thing to predict.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it's why, you know, your agent should definitely be checking in with the publisher, checking in about sales figures, especially when you're on either a royalty only model from the start or you've moved on to a royalty model having earned out your advance because it's just worth tracking.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And presumably, as you say, it's very difficult to predict these things, but will a publisher be more excited about re-signing an author for more books if they quite quickly earn out their advance?
Speaker: It depends on the publisher and it depends on the size of the advance.
Speaker: If an author's earned out like £500,000 in six months, then
Speaker: Yes, the publisher will be very excited to take their next project.
Speaker: Honestly, I always say to my authors, everything depends on a brilliant next idea.
Speaker: So kind of regardless of whether you've been a huge success, a medium success or not the success that you've hoped, if you've got a really brilliant next idea, then that's the main thing.
Speaker: Sales figures obviously do factor into publishing decisions.
Speaker: either for recontracts or for taking a chance on an author who has publication history.
Speaker: But it's not the be all and end all always.
Speaker: Yeah, I think one of the coolest things for me, at least about publishing is that it's one of the few kind of creative industries where a lot of the time the product is bigger than the creator in some way.
Speaker: Books are more famous than authors.
Speaker: That makes sense.
Speaker: Really interesting.
Speaker: I guess that's true.
Speaker: Although I think to some degree for like brand authors, there is more of that sense of like, the author is who I want to pick up the next book from rather than like individual books.
Speaker: But yeah, that's, that's a nice way of thinking about it.
Speaker: Yeah, I've always thought that people can name a lot more books than they could authors.
Speaker: And even if they could name the author, they probably wouldn't recognize them necessarily unless they're a super fan or something.
Speaker: Yeah, no, that's true.
Speaker: And I think even though we've come...
Speaker: quite far from the sort of author in the garage no one knows who they are era yeah um with sort of increased presence of authors on social media and so on there there is as you say i guess more of a more of a sense of privacy perhaps if you're an author although probably authors will say don't be ridiculous my publishers on tiktok the whole time yeah
Speaker: As an agent, no one knows who I am and that's ideal.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I guess the, um, the recently passed Cormac McCarthy was the sort of last of the sort of epic.
Speaker: No one really knew anything about him has done like one interview, his whole career kind of authors.
Speaker: I mean, you kind of have to respect that, to be honest.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: But if you are an aspiring author and want to be that sort of person, I think that would be a red flag for a publisher.
Speaker: You might want to have a bit more involvement between author and publicity.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, also I'm very impressed if your, if your level of standard that you're aiming for is Cormac McCarthy.
Speaker: So good luck to everyone attempting to achieve that.
Speaker: I hope, I hope you do it because I would love to read.
Speaker: Back down to us.
Speaker: As an agent, you obviously take a cut of, like we said, you take a cut of the deal when it's signed, um, which is standard 15%, uh,
Speaker: Is there any involvement or cut from the royalties or is it all on the initial deal?
Speaker: The 15% is on everything that the author brings into the agency.
Speaker: So any deals that they do, the agency cut will come off the advance if there is one, and then any subsequent royalties.
Speaker: So any payment that lands in the agency bank account will have a cut taken out of it before the author gets their much bigger cut passed to them.
Speaker: Okay, right.
Speaker: I'm assuming you don't get the 15% of royalties when the author is not earning them because they're paying off the advance though.
Speaker: Did that make sense?
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So that's just accountancy that's done on the publisher side and wouldn't result in a payment.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's good to know.
Speaker: Good to clarify.
Speaker: Well, that was really interesting and enlightening for me.
Speaker: I hope it was enlightening for, for, for people listening, getting onto, um, submissions.
Speaker: We've, we've talked a lot about submissions and how Hannah tackles them in the previous episodes, but it's great to check in and see what you're looking for at the moment because you are open to submissions.
Speaker: Um, and whilst you do work in, in romance, uh,
Speaker: as obviously is attributed by the RNA.
Speaker: Just so everyone listening can know if they're thinking about submitting, what are the kind of genres and styles that you have on your list?
Speaker: I have on my list or have on my wishlist?
Speaker: Are they different?
Speaker: Not really.
Speaker: As my list has grown, I find myself more intentional about the projects I'm seeking out so that I'm not
Speaker: bringing people to my list who would compete with existing authors if that makes sense.
Speaker: But in general, I'm looking for
Speaker: commercial and upmarket fiction across genres, as well as some nonfiction and some YA.
Speaker: And I always say, if you want to win the Booker Prize, I'm not your gal.
Speaker: So an indication of that is basically I don't do literary fiction.
Speaker: And that's not something that I have any expertise in or particularly gravitate towards.
Speaker: So in terms of like tone and vibe, I'm very much a character driven character.
Speaker: Reader, I need to have a plot.
Speaker: If it's all vibes, again, I'm not the gal for you.
Speaker: But I'm really open across genres.
Speaker: I don't do sci-fi or saga, again, just because I don't have expertise in those areas.
Speaker: But more or less everything else I'm open to.
Speaker: And in commercial fiction, of course, the big thing is the cracking one line pitch.
Speaker: And that's true whether it's romance, historical, thriller, whatever.
Speaker: That's kind of the thing that I will always get excited about in my inbox.
Speaker: And at this time of year, I do tend to be looking for kind of mystery thriller.
Speaker: I think it's something about the autumn just brings that out of me.
Speaker: But I'm always open to being surprised.
Speaker: And I think, again, as my list has grown,
Speaker: I have less slots that I'm looking to fill, fewer slots I'm looking to fill, but I'm still looking for new authors.
Speaker: I still love the kind of rush of a new project landing.
Speaker: You're like, I must have this.
Speaker: I must work on this.
Speaker: So yeah, and all this is of course on the LBA website as well, in case anyone wanted to have more specific guidelines and books that I have loved.
Speaker: But yeah, I'm a pretty broad church, quite deliberately.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a sort of tricky dilemma of the agent as you build your list, as your list gets bigger.
Speaker: You sort of have less space to fill, but also you probably have more submissions than you've ever had.
Speaker: Yes, absolutely.
Speaker: Which is kind of terrifying.
Speaker: And I do, like I often close my submissions for a couple of months a year, just so that I can honour a reasonable response time, because I know authors find it so stressful to sit in people's inboxes, never hearing back.
Speaker: So I really try and honour that.
Speaker: And at LBA, we say three months for a response.
Speaker: So that's kind of the longest I would
Speaker: let something sit there.
Speaker: But sometimes it's just, it's just too many.
Speaker: I'm only one woman.
Speaker: I only have one pair of eyes and a lot of other things going on.
Speaker: So sometimes that's the thing that has to give, but everyone I've signed this year, I think that's true.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Everyone I've signed this year has been from the quote unquote slush pile.
Speaker: So it's still very much a route to agents and a route to market.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, a hundred percent.
Speaker: When you talk about, just specifically on the things you said you don't represent, literary got that, sure.
Speaker: When you say you don't represent sci-fi and saga, when you say saga, you mean something where it's going to be like a three book epic, a five book or a seven book kind of thing?
Speaker: Oh, no, actually, I meant for projects which are like romantic saga.
Speaker: It's a very specific genre, which tends to be broad strokes, like women doing chivalrous things during World War II.
Speaker: It's a huge genre, but it is a very specific area of the market and not something that I have been hugely involved with.
Speaker: So I wouldn't feel like I would be the right person to...
Speaker: to take on a saga, but I'm pretty sure Lena, as in the RNA finalist, represents saga.
Speaker: So there are lots of agents out there, particularly within the romantic novelist community, who do work on that sort of project.
Speaker: And I love historical fiction, but I tend to non-war fiction more.
Speaker: And that doesn't cross over with the saga space.
Speaker: Oh, I didn't realise saga was, in my head, saga is like fantasy saga, right?
Speaker: Fantasy or like sci-fi space opera or even just like, is it Pillars of the Earth?
Speaker: The like historical fiction kind of saga stuff?
Speaker: Oh, yes.
Speaker: I mean, to be honest, I would also not be the right fit for that just because it's too long.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And you also said you don't represent sci-fi.
Speaker: Is that like a blanket science fiction done or is it, do you mean more like hard sci-fi?
Speaker: It's pretty blanket for me.
Speaker: I just don't really get it.
Speaker: Having said that, I also never thought I would be a fantasy agent and here I am.
Speaker: But I'm very much like not a genre reader in those spaces.
Speaker: I sort of never have been.
Speaker: So
Speaker: while it's really exciting that fantasy and sci-fi have been much more, I don't know, like much more- Democratised kind of?
Speaker: Democratised, yes.
Speaker: And there is a broader market appetite for those genres, which is really exciting.
Speaker: But I'm the reader who needs plot and character in those other worlds more than the world building and the history of the genre, if that makes sense.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: That makes perfect sense because as you say that they've really changed.
Speaker: Fantasy and sci-fi have become this kind of thing where it's not the main thing in a lot of books now.
Speaker: It's like, oh, this is the story happens to be set in a fantasy world with something like, I can't remember what it's called, Legends and Lattes.
Speaker: I don't know if you've read that or heard that.
Speaker: which is just about someone who starts a coffee shop in the middle of town.
Speaker: It's all about setting up a coffee shop and making it work and stuff.
Speaker: It happens to be set in a classic fantasy world, but that's not what the story and the characters are about.
Speaker: It's about a very kind of relatable and realistic, even quotes realistic thing.
Speaker: realistic but with elves yeah exactly with elves and orcs and stuff but like they're just making up they're not doing the classic like out to slay dragons to save some royal family yes um and within the industry we tend to call that cozy fantasy at the moment yes yeah yeah which definitely is having a moment not cozy sci-fi though is that a thing
Speaker: Probably.
Speaker: I mean, people talk about Becky Chambers as sort of doing cozy sci-fi.
Speaker: I must confess I've never read any Becky Chambers, but I know lots of people who are absolutely obsessed with her books.
Speaker: So, I mean, never say never.
Speaker: I just don't tend to vibe with robots.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So that's the main issue.
Speaker: What if it was like a romance just set on the International Space Station with a bit of slightly futuristic sci-fi stuff?
Speaker: If it was really romance led, maybe, but I also hate space.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's fine.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Well, I think that, that clears things up and, and I think people now know exactly not what to send you.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah, no, that's definitely helpful because otherwise you're pretty eclectic and you are open to stuff.
Speaker: And like you say, you didn't ever expect to represent fantasy.
Speaker: So maybe someone will crack sci-fi for you.
Speaker: But really think carefully, anyone listening, if you're thinking about subbing sci-fi to Hannah.
Speaker: Don't call it sci-fi.
Speaker: Don't let her know.
Speaker: Don't put it in the first three chapters.
Speaker: You'll be fine.
Speaker: But also kind of general tip, don't try and trick agents.
Speaker: Like they generally know what they want.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because even if you manage to trick with the submission, you'll send the full manuscript and they'll be like, what on earth?
Speaker: This is not what I signed up for.
Speaker: It's got space in it.
Speaker: I don't want this.
Speaker: Where did these aliens come from?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Well, you already covered it.
Speaker: I was going to ask what you were looking for, but you very much covered that.
Speaker: I guess slightly on from that, curious to know if you, with your experience, kind of your unique kind of perspective on the industry, do you think there's any specific settings, tropes, genres that are building momentum at the moment to maybe become a big trend in the next year or so?
Speaker: Great question.
Speaker: To be honest, I think the same things this year are true from last year.
Speaker: I know we talked about this before.
Speaker: Romance and romanticcy are not abating at all.
Speaker: There's still a huge appetite for that, particularly from...
Speaker: Particularly Formula One romance.
Speaker: And I could not be less interested in Formula One, I'm going to tell you.
Speaker: But the sports romance thing, I think is really hot right now.
Speaker: And there are a lot in the pipeline that sound really exciting.
Speaker: So I think that sort of like tropey romance in a sports setting, basically, very much a la mode.
Speaker: Is that like a fusion of, because my, I've not read many sports things.
Speaker: Is that like a fusion of my knowledge being of sports, kind of motivational sports movies and television shows, which I do love, things like Friday Night Lights and stuff.
Speaker: Is that kind of a fusion of that and romance just for ultimate feel good reading?
Speaker: Maybe, but I think mostly, and I would actually, I would love to see more queer romances in this space because it does tend to be like,
Speaker: ooh, the hot American football player.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And like, that's great, fine.
Speaker: But I think there are other ways to play with that genre, perhaps with queer protagonists.
Speaker: That could be really exciting.
Speaker: I've had my eye on a couple in the YA space.
Speaker: So hopefully that will also come into the adult space.
Speaker: But I think it's a really thriving area of the market, which is very exciting.
Speaker: And particularly as someone who is...
Speaker: very invested in the romance genre as a reader, as well as, as a professional.
Speaker: It's, it's really cool to see that there's like more and more an offer and really something for everyone.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Romance, I've seen that more than, I think, maybe fantasy because I think Game of Thrones made fantasy very mainstream popular.
Speaker: And now you get all sorts of fantasy from like cozy, which is a new kind of very getting a big as a genre to like, there's a kind of whole spectrum of it.
Speaker: But romance really has become so inclusive.
Speaker: There is like romance for everyone now, it feels like.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And of course, there's still work to be done.
Speaker: Like, certainly the biggest romances don't tend to be the most diverse, which is not the best.
Speaker: And I think a lot of people have done research and sort of think pieces on how TikTok really pushes certain books that tend to be very straight and white and able-bodied, etc.
Speaker: But there's always been
Speaker: real great moves to inclusive stories in the indie publishing sphere in romance and that is showing in Tradpub at the moment so I'm hoping that it's still gonna like keep trending that way so there will be love stories for all because that's that's really what I think we should have on the market is love stories for all.
Speaker: Yeah, because it's one of the single most relatable themes that can be in any story, I think.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker: And also I think...
Speaker: because there's so much romance out there, there's also a space for books which are about relationships, but that aren't romantic relationships.
Speaker: I think I'd love to see more, I guess, like family relationships or friend relationships given the same weight as romantic relationships.
Speaker: I mean, obviously it wouldn't be in the romance space, but thematically, I do think those are, those are really interesting things always to push on.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that's actually, I could be wrong here, but I'm pretty sure that was a direction that Disney started going in a while ago.
Speaker: They started with Frozen, where the whole thing was like a subversion, where it wasn't actually the romantic interest, the romantic relationship wasn't the true love, it was her and her sister.
Speaker: I feel like that's a light bulb moment for me.
Speaker: I'm like, of course, of course Frozen will surprise me.
Speaker: Listen, something about sisters, I'm obsessed.
Speaker: I have a sister, so that probably is why.
Speaker: But, yeah, I love those either family or found family stories where...
Speaker: your soulmate isn't necessarily your romantic partner.
Speaker: And that's also, I guess, the diversity of stories, right?
Speaker: It's not just one sort of experience that is the right one.
Speaker: Everyone has different experiences, but everyone has relationships in some form.
Speaker: Yeah, true.
Speaker: And that brings us neatly to the end of the episode where normally
Speaker: I would ask what book you would take with you to the desert island.
Speaker: But you've been on the show before, you have given an answer.
Speaker: You went with The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte.
Speaker: Would that still be your choice?
Speaker: it would still be my choice.
Speaker: And I think last time I said, that's still my choice, caveat, otherwise it would be Eligible by Kirsten Sittenfeld.
Speaker: That's still true.
Speaker: Those would still be the books.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: I reread Eligible this year.
Speaker: I haven't reread Tenant this year.
Speaker: Maybe I should.
Speaker: I think you said the same thing last year.
Speaker: Oh my goodness.
Speaker: Well, it's been two years in a row that I haven't read it.
Speaker: So we definitely should reread it.
Speaker: It's time to reread.
Speaker: Maybe that'll be my Christmas treat.
Speaker: Oh, that'd be nice.
Speaker: Always good to go back to an old favourite.
Speaker: Well, I'm very impressed with your conviction at keeping that same first and second choice as your books over the years.
Speaker: I am far more fickle than you with my favourites.
Speaker: I have a lot of favourites, but I think the real top tier ones are difficult to displace.
Speaker: But
Speaker: You never know, maybe year number four will be the one and I'll have a surprising answer next year.
Speaker: We'll see.
Speaker: We'll see.
Speaker: We'll check in next year and find out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Amazing.
Speaker: Well, thank you so much, Hannah, for coming back on the podcast, sharing all of your knowledge and experience that you've got through the years of publishing and giving a sort of glimpse behind the curtain and...
Speaker: Good luck with the R&A Awards, which as of recording this is just over a week away.
Speaker: Win or lose, I'm sure it'll be a wonderful evening.
Speaker: Everyone over there is so lovely and brilliant.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker: I'm really looking forward to it.
Speaker: And thank you so much for your kind words.
Speaker: It's been wonderful to have another chat on this podcast.
Speaker: Always a pleasure.
Speaker: And for anyone listening, you can keep up with Hannah on Twitter at Hans Schofield.
Speaker: That's H-A-N-N-S-C-H-O-F-I-E-L-D.
Speaker: And if you're thinking about querying Hannah or any of the other agents at LBA, head over to lbabooks.com where you'll find all of the submission guides as well as a recap of what each agent is interested in and looking for, etc, etc.
Speaker: To make sure you don't miss an episode of this podcast, follow along on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook.
Speaker: You can support the show on Patreon and for more Bookish Chat, check out my other podcast, The Chosen Ones and Other Tropes.
Speaker: Thanks again to Hannah and thanks to everyone listening.
Speaker: We'll catch you on the next episode.
