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#228 - Juliet Pickering
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Literary agent, Juliet Pickering returns to the podcast to chat about the things that have changed in publishing over the past few years as well as the latest stories and authors that she's looking out for!
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Transcript
The Role of Writing in Storytelling
00:00:00
Speaker
Ooh, a spicy question. love it. Because the writing is sort of everything, right? Like you can fix plot holes, but if the writer is there. So some readers love that and some readers are like, but I wanted more of this. So it's kind of, it's kind of a gamble.
Introduction of Juliet Pickering and Her Role
00:00:14
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the Right and Wrong podcast. ah Today I am joined by a returning guest. ah Last time we spoke, she had just been named the RNA's Literary Agent of the Year 2021.
00:00:27
Speaker
twenty twenty one um It's Blake Friedman's Vice Head of Books, Juliet Pickering. Hello, welcome back. Hi there. Thanks so much for asking me back. No, it's such a pleasure to have you on.
00:00:39
Speaker
um so when when last we spoke, I noticed this as I was having a look on the website. I don't remember your title being Vice Head of Books.
00:00:50
Speaker
Oh, that's interesting. I've got no idea when I became Vice Head of Books. I will say it's an empty kind of title, really. i think it's just a sort of gratuitous, oh yeah, you do all right in the book department, have a vice head kind of title. but yeah, it means that I just help my colleague Isabel look after everything bookish at the agency and strategizing and all that exciting stuff.
00:01:18
Speaker
Oh, okay. So it's it's not like it comes with a whole new set of responsibilities and and and job stuff? oh Oh, yeah, definitely. all about All of that. Loads of new responsibilities.
00:01:30
Speaker
No, it's just ah it's just a version of what I already do with extra title added on. And to be absolutely honest, I completely forget about it. I've never been someone to put my job title and my email signature or anything like that. And Ultimately I'm an agent and that's where I begin and end. So yeah. yeah Okay. Right.
00:01:48
Speaker
So you still very much identify as Juliet Pickering literary agent. Yeah. I would add the words, Her Majesty. Oh, right. Yeah. yeah I have earned those, of course. Yeah. um
Changes in the Publishing Industry
00:02:03
Speaker
Yes. As I mentioned last time we spoke 2021, which feels like ah a lifetime ago.
00:02:10
Speaker
um so something I'd love to ask as someone inside of publishing Do you feel like over the past few years, there have been many big shifts within the industry and kind of what are the, what are the biggest ones that, that you've kind of felt or been affected by?
00:02:29
Speaker
yeah, I think, Probably the ones that have been felt most keenly in the last year or so lots buying up of smaller publishers by groups like Hachette and Penguin Random House. um So, for example...
00:02:49
Speaker
uh when i submitted a cookery book to editors um even this time last year but definitely this time a couple of years ago i would have had quite a wealth of editors to send it but so many of those little independent cookery publishers have been snapped up groups um harper collins or as i said pingam random house like dawling kindersley has gone ah have they've acquired an independent publisher recently and HarperCollins bought Pavilion.
00:03:19
Speaker
But our kind of options as agents in terms of submitting a book to lots of editors have really shrunk. um And it feels like some of the imprints within those big corporate groups who were publishing cookery are now retracting that because it's such a high kind of expense endeavour.
00:03:36
Speaker
and So it does feel like the industry has weirdly both grown and shrunk. and shrunk in terms of our opportunities sadly i think a little bit um but growing massively in other respects and obviously we're seeing big boom in fantasy publishing lots more publishers get involved in that area where perhaps they weren't quite so overt about it before they didn't have kind of the relationships with book subscription endeavours and things like that that they have now.
00:04:07
Speaker
So as always, I think there's a little bit shrinkage, there's some growth. um You see these things happen all the time, but it's just, as an agent, you fear that when it affects your authors personally.
00:04:18
Speaker
Yeah. So when when you say that lots of the smaller imprints are being bought by the bigger imprints, I mean, in in some cases that doesn't change a lot mechanically.
00:04:30
Speaker
They sometimes just continue the imprint running as per. Does that mean, if you're saying there's less opportunity, does that mean that ah a lot of time they're sort of taking these imprints and then folding parts of them away and then moving editors out of those imprints and into different places? Yeah.
00:04:47
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, does and it doesn't affect us because I think editors and the people that publish our books around those editors, so publicists, marketing, sales, all those, it will affect them and their jobs quite a lot of the time.
00:05:02
Speaker
um You'll see lots of reassurance that nothing will change. as the event unfolds and as it's made public. And then, you know, after a couple of years, you may only have a few people from the originally acquired publisher left.
00:05:18
Speaker
um And sometimes
Impact of Editor Changes on Authors
00:05:19
Speaker
they've gone into other places, a which is great and good for them. But when you have authors with those publishers, it can leave them a bit stranded or a bit orphaned.
00:05:29
Speaker
particularly if their original champion, like the acquiring editor who bought their book in the first place, has had to go or move on, um then you can really lose that kind of person who is really elevating your book in every kind of publishing meeting, every planning meeting.
00:05:48
Speaker
You need that champion in-house to really get your book and sold. And sometimes an editor change can be absolutely fine. That new editor is really invested And sometimes it can be really tricky because that's perhaps, you know, the books that they're taking on perhaps aren't their own heartland. So they don't feel as connected to them.
00:06:08
Speaker
Yeah. I know with authors, it's often a ah big, something that they're kind of worried about is if the person that commissioned the book is not the person that edits the book, that can be a scary thing because obviously the person that commissioned it loves it and you don't know as much how how the other editor will feel about it.
00:06:27
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And that happens all the time now. I mean, when i started agenting, editors probably held on to their roles for longer before they might move around.
00:06:41
Speaker
um But it's not unusual for an editor to just work somewhere for a couple of years and then move on. um and it's totally understandable like they've got to do the best themselves in their careers but it can be very gutting for an author and I've had several authors who've sort of been acquired in great excitement by an editor only for the editor to then kind of turn around and say well actually I'm going um and that's that's quite sold as drawing for a while because you just think wow we had such energy around this acquisition and now you're moving on what does that leave us with but
00:07:16
Speaker
It's just part and parcel of the process of being published these days. You just have to sort of get on with it, meet the new editor, have that conversation or the new publicist or whoever it might be and hope for the best really.
00:07:28
Speaker
Yeah. And like, like you said, a lot of the time that works out and the new editor is also really excited. It's, you know, it it might be a slightly different than how it would have come out with the previous editor, but it still comes out really good and, and and it kind of is a success nonetheless.
00:07:43
Speaker
Yeah. And you have to hope that the publisher is hired. everyone under its umbrella because they're good at what they do and they will publish well and they will look after their authors or, and you know, run a great campaign or make sure the book's sold into Waterstones or whatever it is that they do. So, yeah, of course, there has to be a certain amount of trust in and everyone around the book, not just so the main editor.
00:08:07
Speaker
Yeah.
Agent-Editor Relationships and Digital Publishing
00:08:08
Speaker
And in terms of, you mentioned that it doesn't necessarily affect you as a like a literary literary agent and sort of that part of the industry, but has the has the pipeline between you as an agent discovering a new writer, signing them and then taking them out to editors, has that pipeline had to change because of shifts in the industry at all?
00:08:34
Speaker
Yeah. Not really, I don't think. I mean, I think the main way it's changed has just been some newer people coming in and perhaps my not having known them previously. I mean, usually when I submit books to editors, I know the editors at least a little bit. We will have met somewhere along the way.
00:08:55
Speaker
I think that is something that COVID changed as well, was that. you know, everyone was kind of meeting in person a lot of the time. So even if you didn't have a book to send an editor at that particular moment, you were making the introduction, you were saying hi, you were going for coffee, you were having lunch, you were meeting at a kind of agent editor mixer, um and you were introducing yourself and your books properly. And so you felt that when the book sent was sent out,
00:09:21
Speaker
That editor knew who you were and what the book was about. and And I think that's changed a little bit just because people are less likely to go out and mix quite so much. I think that's, you know, coming back and that's great.
00:09:34
Speaker
And also in this kind of new age of hybrid working, which is really welcome and really positive. it's understandable that you cross paths with people less because they're all over the country and that's a great thing.
00:09:46
Speaker
and But it just feels like maybe it's a little bit harder sometimes have that personal connection to an editor as an agent that you would really like to have before you put a book in their hands. But that's not insurmountable either. And I'm not kind of just starting this whole podcast off being extremely negative at That's not what I want to do It's just you asked what was different. And I think that is one of the things that changed changed and in the last few years and not for the worst necessarily but just to say that and it's it's great when you know an editor a bit more fully when you put the book into their hands you know that you can trust them with it and also sometimes you do have a sense of whether they're going to be sticking around or moving on quite quickly as well
00:10:30
Speaker
Yeah. I guess the, ah just having a personal connection, it kind of, it adds a certain, don't say a layer of protection, but like there's a certain level of safety that I guess that you feel once you've met someone and you kind of shaken their hand or you know them in person.
00:10:47
Speaker
Yeah. There is something unspoken about it. And also there's, you know, as with everything in agency, there's your gut instinct. And sometimes I meet people I'm like, you might be great for someone, but I'm not going to put my authors into your hands very rarely.
00:11:01
Speaker
But here and there, you just think, no, I don't think I want you to work on my books. and And sometimes that's just because you see all these flags that suggest that you as the agent are going to be doing an awful lot of side care for the author because the editor may be a bit AWOL or may not be so attentive.
00:11:21
Speaker
m So sometimes the in-person meetings can really help with that instinct of like, you know, how will this editor be with my authors and how much will I have to help with the relationship or not? and And ideally an editor should be so good at communicating with the author that you don't have to keep kind of stepping in and encouraging that conversation. But often as agents, we do have to do that. And it's easier when you trust the person on the other end of your email who will immediately step up and be like, yeah, of course, you know, let me out raise that with your author and we'll talk about it
00:11:56
Speaker
Yes. Okay. That's interesting. That's, that's, I think, a side of editorial and and agency that doesn't really get talked about very often. Well, the communication between the agent and the editor.
00:12:10
Speaker
yeah yeah Well, the I guess the author and the editor via the agent in some ways. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the degrees to which agents are involved vary so hugely. yeah I'm fascinated by it and I think I are on the side of probably too involved.
00:12:31
Speaker
Sorry, sorry, too edited. But, yeah, I am was speaking to an editor a little while ago who published one of my author's debut novels last year, and she hired a freelance publicist on it.
00:12:44
Speaker
And apparently the publicist said to her, it was Julia always this involved, like in a slightly touchy way? Yeah. And I was like, well, I'm just looking out for my author. It's not that I don't trust the editor because she's brilliant or I don't trust the people around here who I'm sure are doing a great job.
00:13:01
Speaker
It's just at the end of the day, I don't want my author to turn around and be like, oh, we only could have asked that question halfway through. Or I didn't realize I could have had that done for me by my publisher. And I just want to make sure that my authors feel kind of fully looked after in that respect. And yeah also editors and their teams are understandably incredibly busy people have an increasing amount of overwhelming tasks to do. So it's understandable that sometimes, you know, they might or might not need me weighing in to ask, has this been done or could we do this?
00:13:36
Speaker
Or, you know, that kind of thing. I think it's really important. Yeah. And especially for a debut author who maybe it doesn't you know have any experience with publishing. Yeah, exactly.
00:13:47
Speaker
ah I mean, speaking to my friends on my other podcast, we wish we recently did a run of episodes where we basically went through is ah my friend Naomi and Melissa who have both published multiple novels each.
00:13:58
Speaker
And they were basically talking about their experiences, what they did know. or didn't know when they first published versus how they approach, you know, speaking to it an editor, speaking to their agent, speaking to yeah whoever it is now. And it's just totally different. And there's so much of a sort of um them saying like, I wish I knew what I know now when I went through the system the first time.
00:14:22
Speaker
Yeah, exactly that. So particularly for the authors that I've picked up um who've been represented before or had a publishing career before I've come to them and perhaps worked with them several books down the line, they you have such a singular experience as an author with your agent that perhaps you've never deviated from. You've always been with them or with your publisher. And obviously it's more common these days to move around publishers and experience different kinds of processes there.
00:14:53
Speaker
um But, you know, I've had authors who I took on laterally sort of say to me, oh, I've never had agent. agent in the room on a campaigns meeting before. And to me, that's absolutely crazy. Like six months out from publication, you have a sit down with the publisher and you will discuss what's going to be done for the book.
00:15:13
Speaker
m And why on earth wouldn't I be there? Like I'm part of the process, but I'm also part of the following six months where I check in with the publisher and say, ah you know, we had this great idea in that meeting.
00:15:25
Speaker
Has anything been done about it? Or have you sent the book to that book club or that bookstagrammer that we raised in the campaigns meeting? And, you know, I'm never going to be relentlessly on their backs, annoying them because I don't want the relationship to be antagonistic, but I'd want to just gently kind of check in along the way and make sure that they're fulfilling what they promised in that meeting.
00:15:45
Speaker
And so, yeah, an author's experience of agents and, of course, then editors and publishers varies hugely. yeah And yeah, I just like to be present. I think that's important.
00:15:58
Speaker
I think that's great. And I mean, I think that's probably what an author ideally would have, you know, more people on sort of, don't want to their side because the editor and the publisher is also on their side, but you know what I mean?
00:16:11
Speaker
Someone who's sort of on their side of the career, as opposed to just this one book, always kind of with them as as much as they can and kind of fighting their corner. Because in many ways being a literary agent is just being the biggest sort of um cheerleader and and person fighting for the author outside of the author themselves.
00:16:29
Speaker
Yeah. And you have to be the kind of constant, because the editor might change or the publicist might change or the marketer might change. So if you are across it as the agent, that helps hopefully kind of keep things running more smoothly um so that you're in on those conversations and you're aware what's going on. So when things change around a publishing process, then you're at least there to say, okay, don't worry. You know, new marketing person is great. We can continue the campaign just as we planned.
00:16:58
Speaker
and So it just helps to fill in the gaps as well and when they might happen. Yes. Yeah, indeed. And okay, maybe we can, we can talk about, I think something that's maybe a ah positive thing that's happening within the industry is, and it's, you know, it's been growing for a long time now. It's not a new thing to say, but digital publishing, I feel like now is as big as it's ever been, and it doesn't show any signs of stopping and audio books kind of alongside that too.
00:17:28
Speaker
is Is that something that that has much more importance now, I think, in terms of the rights and the sales than it used to? It's an interesting question because I think for the books that I work with, in most cases, digital publishing has actually offered some opportunities in translation markets that weren't there before.
00:17:52
Speaker
But for the UK-US market, probably doesn't feel that different a few years down the line. and So, for example, ah couple of my, um like, it's very kind of generally called women's fiction, ridiculous name for it, but I guess romantic fiction, right?
00:18:12
Speaker
couple of my authors who do, who write romantic fiction, who are incredible and and have had a few sort of translation sales into print and in Europe.
00:18:25
Speaker
There was a digital first publisher set up um in Denmark called Jentus. And Denmark has had a very kind of sudden and kind of swell in romantic fiction reading, partly, of course, because of TikTok and online conversation.
00:18:44
Speaker
And I hear, i don't know, I'm not Danish, but I hear that they just didn't have kind of enough local authors writing romantic fictions, kind of fu fulfilled demand.
00:18:55
Speaker
So this digital publisher set up and very quickly acquired lots of romantic fiction from UK, US s and around the world. and And those authors have been really successful there.
00:19:07
Speaker
So we're seeing an opportunity in markets like that that didn't really exist before, or certainly didn't exist for print. and And they're snapping up not just the books that the authors have published more recently, but older titles as well. So they're kind of catching up with their publishing while we've been publishing them here for years.
00:19:26
Speaker
So that's been ah really brilliant digital development and for those authors and a really nice kind of income boost for them. and here I don't tend to go digital first in my authors. That's not to say I absolutely wouldn't. Of course I would. and like There's some fantastic publishers out there doing it.
00:19:48
Speaker
and But I think because I tend to work in... slightly less genre-led fiction um so i do have the romantic fiction of course but they all have print publishers at the moment that might change in the future um so we're still seeing ebooks do nice numbers there but for most of my authors ebook numbers have sort of plateaued out and the print editions are still valuable for them um but in the wider world absolutely i think you know digital publishing is only ever going to be
00:20:22
Speaker
a really kind of fruitful endeavour for many authors and um probably the main source of income ah versus print and other formats. i yeah But yeah, audio books have seen a really nice surge and I think that's becoming or has been for a while now a really interesting area of the market too.
Audiobooks and Rights Negotiations
00:20:43
Speaker
have have you When it comes to the audiobook rights, because I've spoken to a few other agents about the similar topic and it can be dependent on agency and you know whether there's like a uniform decision on how everything's done or just down to the specific agent. But do you like to hold on to the audiobook rights separate of the print rights?
00:21:04
Speaker
Well, that's not always our decision. So what we'll tend to do for most, certainly most new fiction and nonfiction projects, and is submit to a broad range of publishers.
00:21:17
Speaker
So that's the corporates and independents. um And then we will submit to audio publishers alongside. And what we'll do is often, i mean, the audio publishers we work with, Belinda, F. Howes, are absolutely brilliant. They are so keen and committed. They read the book a lot faster than the print publishers most of the time.
00:21:39
Speaker
And often we get an offer from them for the audio rights before any print offer is on the table because they read and respond so quickly. Sometimes they know the author because they've published their works before and sometimes they're coming to it new.
00:21:53
Speaker
um And then what we tend to do, um and i don't think I'm giving anything away to any other agents by saying this, is just kind of hold that audio offer and say, wherever we can separate out those rights, we will.
00:22:08
Speaker
and we'll bring it to the audio publisher, and they trust us to do that, which is why they make the commitment of offering the first place. It's very hard to hold back audio rights from big corporates like Hachette, like Penguin Random House, like HarperCollins, who all insist that they have those as part of the package of rights that they're buying from us.
00:22:28
Speaker
So when they buy what's called volume rights, they're buying print, e-book, and audio as part of the package. And um they stand fairly firm on needing that grant of rights from us in order to offer.
00:22:43
Speaker
So you will say to some publishers, particularly Penguin Random House, you know, i have another audio offer or I'd like to hold back audio rights. And what you'll get back in response from the editor is I'm not allowed to offer unless I have audio rights as part of the deal.
00:22:59
Speaker
And so what that does, though, is if you have an audio or from the table, first of all, you have an idea of the value of those. So I think it's really worthwhile attracting the offer and then letting the print publishers know that you have it and saying, you know, if you want to acquire audio rights part of the package that I'm granting to you, then you must value those accordingly. We have a clear value placed on those from this independent audio publisher.
00:23:24
Speaker
So please acknowledge that if you're going to offer overall. um And in some cases, and Particularly if you've got a kind of big brand name author, and you might have the clout to do something separately.
00:23:37
Speaker
So an example of this is David Nicholls. You are here. That sold separately to an audio publisher. And then the print rights were published by Hoda at Hachette. And I imagine that because it was David Nicholls, his agent managed to pull that one off.
00:23:53
Speaker
and But it's very hard if you don't have an author of that sort of level. Mm-hmm. Okay. So it's with, with the kind of growth of it and and how big it's become as, as a segment of the industry, it's just become a much more powerful tool of negotiation, basically.
00:24:09
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. And particularly for some authors who are recognised as narrative voices. um or So, for example, um when diane I saw Diane Abbott's memoir, obviously, who should narrate that but Diane Abbott.
00:24:28
Speaker
So there's a certain amount of value a recognised voice can add to the audio rights. And what I'll do is, Even though it went to Viking at Penguin Random House, of course, I was granting them audio rights.
00:24:41
Speaker
We had a conversation about the audio edition right up front at the point that we were talking about them buying the book and us sort of saying, you know, what can you do with it? and Diane would narrate clearly. You usually have a separate narration format.
00:24:58
Speaker
agreement and obviously a separate narration fee for doing that too so there's a little bit of added value there and but you want to kind of be sure that whoever publishes the audio edition might be able to run some marketing for you on that front or give you some sample clips to show off online to attract people to the audio edition um and you might want to talk to the publisher about whether Audible and Spotify those two big audio platforms are going to flag the book on their homepage, make sure it's visible, that kind of thing.
00:25:30
Speaker
Those can be harder to commitments on, and but certain types of nonfiction have a great audience on those platforms. So maybe you just want to say to whoever's publishing the audio, what can we do to make sure that people see these books on Spotify or Amazon? Is there anything we can do?
00:25:49
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Okay. That's really interesting. Um, and great to hear about these kinds of growing, um, areas of the industry and that there's these new opportunities like in Denmark with them buying up all this romantic fiction. That's, it's great to hear.
00:26:05
Speaker
Um, like i said, good things happening in the industry so that it's not all doom and gloom all the time. Oh, definitely. Definitely. And I mean, Yeah, I actually really hate starting anything on negative notes. I didn't immediately mean to go into a whinge about publishers when we started and because I am overwhelmingly optimistic about things. And I also believe that where things change or things are more challenging, everything is cyclical.
00:26:29
Speaker
You know, we are finding it harder at the moment to sell new fiction, for example, but I've been in this industry long enough now to know that those these things come and go. and so while everyone might be kind of leaning into more escapist stories, more immersive stories at the moment...
00:26:46
Speaker
that that feels like a kind of direct result of how terrible the world is and how difficult the last few years have been. And hopefully things will change again in the wider world and there'll be an uplift in people going towards more tricky stories or more literary stories, for example.
Trends and Genre Preferences in Publishing
00:27:04
Speaker
So yeah, for everything, there's a season, right? So yes, yes, but things will come. Exactly. Yeah. And these things come around. I mean, it doesn't feel like too long ago that I remember people saying that no one was buying YA and yeah now YA romanticy is like half of what I hear about every other time someone speaks to me.
00:27:27
Speaker
Absolutely right. that getting Getting back onto you, and before we go to the desert island, ah you ah we've obviously covered this last time, but it was a while ago. So just for everyone listening, um as a literary agent, ah what sorts of genres and and and authors do you represent?
00:27:50
Speaker
and So, I'm fiction and non-fiction for an adult audience only. and On the fiction side, i tend to be more contemporary, although since I spoke to you last, I have had my first historical novel published. It just came through the submissions pile that absolutely loved.
00:28:11
Speaker
and And also, hilariously, I've also, having never represented crime or thrillers, one of my journalists decided to write a cosy crime book, which had he had such a brilliant idea for it, I could not resist all about a group of dog walkers who investigate a corpse that they find in the woods.
00:28:31
Speaker
and um So I now apparently represent crime, which is interesting. and But I have to say, um and I need to make this very clear on the website, even though i and I'm quite enjoying kind of a bit of a recent introduction to crime fiction, I'm very much not of the bloody and brutal character ah persuasion so i like a nice cozy crime with some dogs involved or i've been reading and devouring all the ellie griffith's crime novels which are fantastic um my crime is definitely on the more comfortable side and the more visceral side um okay but i look after some romantic fiction as i mentioned um something that feels a bit fresh in that area is always welcome
00:29:17
Speaker
I love stories of families, um very much similar to like what I said last time I imagined. I really like kind of very human relationships and dynamics and that kind of thing.
00:29:29
Speaker
um Great love stories. um On the nonfiction side, I look after... A little bit of memoir, but I'm not really looking for that at the moment unless there's a kind of large amount of other writing. So, for example, nature writing, ah food writing. So if it's memoir with a lot of something else wrapped in, then I'd be interested.
00:29:52
Speaker
um And some more practical illustrated books like cookery, a few gift books, that kind of thing. So it's quite broad. um It's all on the break, Friedman.
00:30:03
Speaker
website where we have our own agent profiles as well if anyone anyone wants any more details. Yes. and And sometimes it's, ah it can be more useful in some cases for authors to hear what you don't represent. I have been on the website. I have the list here.
00:30:20
Speaker
it is things you don't represent is poetry, YA children's ah fantasy, supernatural, dystopian, sci-fi, thriller, horror, crime, but you kind of touched on that and the nuance there.
00:30:33
Speaker
And then just business diet or health books. yeah does that sound right that still stands all of that absolutely yeah yeah I think there's a lot of um blurring of genres in fiction at the moment and that's making it quite hard for us to be specific so two of my authors have decided to write something that is kind of literally leaning into horror um if we publish those books then people may find um argument with the fact i say i don't do horror but we'll have to see we'll have to see we get later down the line
00:31:08
Speaker
The two genres that I think are getting most paired with other genres are romance and horror. Yeah. And then this i think a sub-genre, which is getting paired with a lot of things, is cozy.
00:31:22
Speaker
Yes. Generally, from what i've seen. The cozy thing is... is kind of harking back to that desire for escapism at the moment. So it's like, I want to escape this world, but make the other world a nice kind of safe place to be because this current world is not a nice safe place to be.
00:31:41
Speaker
So my feeling is that, yeah, cozy is perhaps a little bit reductive for some of the, um some of the genres we're mixing it with. So um for the cozy crime novel, which we're announcing on Wednesday online,
00:31:56
Speaker
ah they made a little, the publisher made a little video for it, which is very sweet and charming. And it's got a very jaunty soundtrack. And one of my colleagues who I was showing it to was like, well, it's some very jaunty music for some quite grisly murders. And I was like, yeah, what are we doing?
00:32:11
Speaker
But by making everything cozy, we're just like, oh, hey, two people got killed, but let's put some trumpets over this. It's fine. the Yeah. Yeah. It's classic publishing.
00:32:22
Speaker
Cozy crime is a trend i am enjoying. You know, I'm yeah obviously the big one being Richard Osman's Thursday Murder Club. And then on television, it would be um only murders in the building.
00:32:35
Speaker
yeah i love that show yeah and you know i'm really enjoying all of it but you're kind of right in in that it's like people are dying let's have fun and band together and be citizen detectives yeah exactly let's see uh steve martin do a little skit just after he found a body on his kitchen floor or whatever yeah yeah I mean, you know, we were all aware of what it is and that but that's not real life. And that's exactly why we're enjoying it, isn't it? So fair enough. I think it's, for me, the the cozy thing is ah if you start reading something or watching something that and people have told you is cozy, I take that as it's going to be low stakes.
00:33:15
Speaker
It's going to be pretty relaxed. Yeah. that, you know, if something does happen like a violent murder, uh, it's not going to be, the focus is almost not on that. That's almost like the MacGuffin of the story.
00:33:28
Speaker
And it's about, it's always about found friendship or relationships and family relationships. Absolutely. That's why you're reading it. And that's why, you know, a series like, um, the Ellie Griffiths Ruth Galloway series works so well is that she'd spread this kind of love story over 16 novels.
00:33:47
Speaker
Yes. Yeah, and indeed. So we're about halfway through the episode. Before we go to the desert island, I just wanted to ask, following on from you saying, you you know, the sort of broad strokes of what you represent, are there any particular characters, settings, themes, or whatever it may be that you are more specifically on the hunt for at the moment that you'd love to see popping up in your query inbox?
00:34:14
Speaker
Um, hmm. I think I've seen a lot of novels that play out over quite a short time span. ah So a few days, a few weeks, a few months, year maybe.
00:34:27
Speaker
And um I'd love to see something that plays out over a longer period of time. um So I have a novel on submission at the moment, which is a lifetime actually, which covers the lifetime of one woman and within this very big kind of family who we also learn about.
00:34:44
Speaker
um But I think it's quite rare to find a novel like that. and partly because it's so challenging. and yeah Sometimes honing in on ah real turning point for your main character, what the day that they meet the person they're going to love, you know, is a lot more straightforward than trying to wrap in an entire ah decades worth of a life into one story and but particularly looking at kind of love and relationships I'd love to see a relationship play out in full um in a novel and and I'm also i keep thinking about this and I don't really have the perfect solution for it because I've only seen it done a couple of times but um I love the
00:35:28
Speaker
co-author dual perspective so um josie lloyd and emilyne rees um published their first book when i was a bookseller and that was a kind of romantic story between the male female perspectives and falling in love and what that was and their i think their husband and wife in real life um and they just announced maybe last year that they're writing another book together all these years later and i was quite intrigued i don't think it's romance i think it might be crime. I might have got that very wrong.
00:36:00
Speaker
But actually, i've also read a few books by Nikki French, who are a husband wife writing team on the crime side. I think it's really rare now to come across two people writing together, but I'm very intrigued by it. So if anyone out there is doing that, I really love to hear from you and and hear about how you're doing it.
00:36:24
Speaker
okay yeah I've had a few co-authors on the podcast and it's always interesting to see how the dynamic works you know like how they divide out who writes what if they both write different characters or if it's all the same yeah it's always interesting yeah I've had co-authors uh writing other the kinds of books so have um at least two kind of co-authored non-fiction books and actually the whole um co-authors is like as a couple thing completely goes against my rule of never representing a couple.
00:36:59
Speaker
But I am very intrigued by people's relationship dynamics. I think it's just me being very nosy and kind of wanting some insight on how that might play out on the page.
00:37:09
Speaker
I think it's such a neat kind of intriguing thing detail to authoring a book to hear that you know there are the two people writing it have a relationship in real life whether that's friendship or more um but also to learn about their writing process and how they handle it like do they pass the book back and forth do they come up with their own strands like yeah i'm just fascinated by it yeah it's an interesting process and i from a couple that i've spoken to um I guess it'll vary so hugely depending on the authors, the editors, the agents.
00:37:45
Speaker
But yeah, there's sometimes there's almost less um because like there's two people that are bouncing ideas of each other and editing each other the entire time. They often get to a more finished point quicker than an author by themselves would because um they don't get so trapped to it all the time, but they're not so close to it the whole time. So like they can...
00:38:07
Speaker
be much more analytical about the other's writing, if that makes sense. Yeah, I think there's a lot of that. um And the other person can kind of keep them moving when they might feel a bit stuck, maybe. Yes, exactly. Yeah,
Co-author Dynamics and Personal Favorites
00:38:20
Speaker
yeah. I have an author and who writes literary fiction by herself, who writes and romantic fiction with her husband and publishes it on Amazon.
00:38:30
Speaker
And um so the two of them have done that for years. And they've kind of spent half their day co-writing fiction to self-publish on Amazon actually earn an income.
00:38:41
Speaker
And then in the other half of the day, working on their literary fiction, which is more traditionally published by a conventional publisher. So, yeah, I think, you know, they do do that where they write a short story and then they hand it to each other at the end of the day and get each other to kind of feedback on it.
00:38:57
Speaker
and But that's a hugely trusting relationship as well. I'm kind of in love with it. Yeah. yeah um I'm sure a therapist would would love that ah the to hear that couples are writing stories together and really like exposing their feelings in that way.
00:39:13
Speaker
Absolutely. I want to be not the therapist, but the person who gets... little bit of nosy insight into the dynamic relationship basically yeah so um so we're at the point of the episode where normally i would ship you off to the desert island and ask you um what book you would hope to have with you if you were stranded there but you've already been um do you remember what you what you chose last time you were on I think I chose something that was a kind of anthology that was a total cop-out from the question. Is that right? You chose the biggest, yeah, I think you described it as whatever the biggest collective works of poetry you could find was by yeah either Mary Oliver or Emily Dickinson.
00:40:02
Speaker
Yes, yes. I mean... I have the right to change my mind on things, right? so and Yes, of course. I mean, I don't know. my One of my favourite books of all time is Heartburn by Nora Ephron. So I would pick that many times over any other book, I think.
00:40:19
Speaker
and if i If I take a book in print, like could I also take it in audio as well? Sure. Yeah. It's the same words. Yeah. So it's it's Meryl Streep narrating.
00:40:31
Speaker
Oh, wow. so that's why I would like it in audiobook too. That's great. She would be a great companion and a great comfort, I think. Yeah. Oh, yeah. yeah Meryl Streep, an absolute legend.
00:40:43
Speaker
Exactly. Okay. Awesome. That's a, that's a fun choice. And the audiobook is a, is a fun twist on it too. ah Yeah. Great. So, uh, next up we are going to get into submissions, queries, cover letters, and all that fun stuff that will be in the extended episode available on patreon.com slash right and wrong.
00:41:06
Speaker
um Yeah. And in this time around, I didn't have some hell cold that made my voice two octaves lower. So at the very least you'd hear a different kind of voice.
00:41:16
Speaker
Yeah. Indeed, indeed. And a much healthier episode. us For anyone listening, if you want to keep up with what Juliet is doing, you can find her on Blue Sky at Juliet Pickering or on Instagram at Juliet Represents.
00:41:31
Speaker
And if you're thinking of querying Juliet or any of the team over at Blake Friedman, You can find everything you need, including the guidelines and what each of the agents is looking for at blakefriedman.co.uk.
00:41:44
Speaker
To support the podcast, like, follow and subscribe. Join the Patreon for ad-free extended episodes and check out my other podcasts, The Chosen Ones and Other Tropes. Thanks again to Julia and thanks to everyone listening. We will catch you on the next episode.