Piu Eatwell - How We Work Together
17 Jun 2014

Piu Eatwell’s first non-fiction book , an examination of myths about the French entitled They Eat Horses, Don’t They? The Truth About The French, was awarded the 2014 Next Generation Indie Book Award (category: multi-cultural nonfiction). Her next book, The Dead Duke, his Secret Wife, and the Missing Corpse, is a historical true crime and mystery thriller, published by Head of Zeus in September 2014.

I discovered Andrew completely by chance. Knowing nobody in the publishing industry and with the vaguest idea for a book, I simply emailed the list of agents in the ‘Writers’ and Artists’ Handbook’, working through it alphabetically until I got bored at the letter ‘m.’ Thank goodness I didn’t give up at the letter ‘k’! Otherwise, the course of history….at least, my small personal corner of history….would have been irrevocably, and no doubt depressingly, different.

As it was, I was thrilled when an email bounced back almost immediately from Andrew, responding to my book idea with enthusiasm and a raft of helpful suggestions. The reply was so quick that – coupled with the fact of it being a late hour on a Saturday – I felt sure this must be a new agent, desperate for work. I was absolutely stunned on checking Andrew’s credentials, to find that he is in fact the leading agent for non-fiction. Over the subsequent years, I have come to expect – but never fail to appreciate – this phenomenal rapidity in response.

I am now two books down the line from that initial book, and find that my professional relationship with Andrew has developed apace. Of course, he ticks all the boxes that a top literary agent should: he checks all contracts with minute attention to detail, and immediately highlights any areas of concern in the small print; he chases unpaid bills; he reviews all book proposals and makes incisive comments, before they are sent out.

However, Andrew is much more than all of this. He is my first sounding board for any new book idea. Whatever the subject, he is bound to have read every single competing book in the field, know if anything else like it will be coming out in the future, and – on at least two occasions so far – has even acted as agent for the author who wrote the previous leading work on the subject.

He also has an unfailing nose for the latest ‘new thing’ in any given genre, an instinctive feel for the market and for what publishers are looking for. If Andrew predicts that, say, murders with a European wartime backdrop are the next ‘big thing’ in historical true crime, then he will invariably be correct. Most of all, you know that if Andrew believes in your book, he will fight to the death to make it a success in the market. Which means that you, the writer, can make yourself a cup of tea, switch off the mobile phone, and do what you always wanted to do…..write books.