andrew lownie literary agency

Articles

Andrew Lownie uses his expert knowledge in the publishing field to maximise the potential of his clients and build up their careers. Here Andrew Lownie, and some of his clients and guest columnists, share advice on a variety of topics to writers. Elsewhere on the site you can find a Frequently Asked Questions list on literary agents, as well as advice for submitting work to agents.

  • A Short History of Why the US Market Has a Cold… and the UK Has the Flu

    21 Jun 2008

    Susan Ronald, author of The Pirate Queen: Queen Elizabeth I, Her Pirate Adventurers and the Dawn of Empire and currently writing books on Richard 111 and King Charles 11’s mistress Barbara Villiers, looks at how the non-fiction market, in particular for history, has changed over the last few years. A year ago, the UK and US markets were on a sympathetic course in the publishing world. The status quo merrily prevailed. Then, slowly, almost imperceptibly, things changed. In the autumn, world stock markets trembled; our Prime Minister stumbled over whether or not to call elections; ...Read more

  • Biographer Neil Simpson on the highs – and lows – of an American radio tour

    31 May 2008

    Would I consider a radio tour across America to promote one of my books? Would I ever. I’d practically packed my suitcase before my new US publisher got off the phone. But then the penny dropped. No-one needs to give you a plane ticket for a radio tour. All they want is your landline number. You go coast to coast from your kitchen table without an air mile in sight. Still. A national radio tour. It would be my first and I was so sure it would be fun that I forgot to ask the one vital question: What exactly would I have to do? ‘OK, you gotta know we’re totally uncensored....Read more

  • Should Your Literary Agent Make You Cry?

    01 May 2008

    Together with her husband Bill Martin, Beverly Swerling Martin, runs Agent Research & Evaluation, Inc. (www.agentresearch.com) a service that helps writers locate the agents most likely to be a good 'fit' She explains the importance of taking time to research the right agent. Her next book, City of God will be out in November from Simon & Schuster. Some years ago I was with my second agent. Unlike the first, he had sold four of my historical novels, but every time we spoke I wound up fighting off tears of anger and frustration. He just did not seem to understand who I was as a ...Read more

  • How I Found the Andrew Lownie Literary Agency (Part 3)

    08 Apr 2008

    In February and November 2006, I reproduced as articles some of the author comments on their author pages on the website on how they came to the agency. The articles proved to be of great interest. Prospective authors say it gives them ideas of how to find an agent and a very good sense of the agency and how it operates. Here is a third article of such extracts covering some authors from A to F and , if there is continued interest, further such articles can be added as we work our way through the alphabet. BERNARD ADAMS "Through a friend of a friend, I heard about Andrew’s ...Read more

  • Big in Norway

    26 Mar 2008

    When Kris Hollington accepted an invite to publicise the Norwegian edition of his book How to Kill; The Definitive History of the Assassin, he had no idea what he was letting himself in for. I was delighted to hear that my book had been bought by Gyldendal, Norway’s largest publisher. After exchanging a couple of emails with the Norwegian editor, I thought that was that, so I was very surprised a few days later when I received an invitation to Oslo to spend five days publicising Drap (the Norwegian title). Norwegians read more books per head than any other nation on the planet -...Read more

  • An Interview with Damien Lewis

    20 Mar 2008

    Damien Lewis’s thriller Cobra Gold has just come out in paperback as Cobra 405. The following interview appears on the Random House website. 1. Two of your previous novels, Operation Certain Death and Bloody Heroes both concern real life military operations in intense detail. Cobra 405 on the other hand is a fictional account. What inspired you to write fiction? Cobra Gold could only have been written as a fiction. It concerns the story of the world’s biggest bank robbery – which remains unsolved until this day - and who might have carried out that raid. Those ...Read more