I’m going to guess, like me, you’ve had at least twenty-three email or in-person conversations in the last couple of weeks about the weather. Yes – summer is here, hooray! And across UK publishing, employees are melting into one of three categories (which might in turn affect you in some way if you’re an aspiring author, or you have a book under contract . . .):
The vacationer: There are some unicorns among us who take the whole of August off, European style. And, okay, this is more of an agent’s modus operandi, because it tends to be someone who’s self-employed with their own outfit – which means they’ll have worked extra hard throughout the year to make it possible. (Everyone in publishing aspires to be this person at least once in their career, ideally involving a villa in the south of France.) If you’re a querying author, these unicorn agents might close their submissions while they’re away, so make sure to check before sending.
It’s hard to say whether summer’s a good or bad time to submit to agents generally. Many agents will probably be away at some point, and most (as with a lot of publishing house folk) work ‘summer hours’, which has been a perk of the publishing world for as long as anyone can remember. It means they’ll be off either all Friday afternoons, or maybe from 3 or 4. So they might have even less time than usual to get to their submissions inbox. But the opposite argument is that most agents do their reading in their spare time anyway. If you’ve sent in a killer submission and an agent is enjoying it, maybe they’ll call it in so they can take it away on holiday with them to hungrily read by the pool, and thereby get to it quicker than usual. The only times I would potentially advise avoiding submitting to an agent are the weeks running up to and including Book Fairs (London, Bologna etc), and from the second week of December. This is because if you get an offer of representation from an agent soon after you submit, and then you want to chase up all the other agents you approached, you’ll probably be hit by a wall of out-of-offices, which might mean you get less information than you otherwise would have done to make an informed decision.
The frenzied editor and co: Most books you’ve read will have taken at least a year to get from the point of acquisition to publication, and many will have taken two years or more. But what about the books that are jumping on a trend, or would make a perfect Christmas gift, but only became a twinkle in the commissioning editor’s eye back in April? Or, dare I say, the book was commissioned a long time ago to publish for Christmas this year, but the author was so busy they could only deliver their manuscript in May? Those editors at the helm of such books, the team editorial assistant, plus the designers and production teams, will be having a Really Lovely Time working late nights and weekends to ensure the book makes its print slot for an October/November publication. This can happen across all areas of publishing, but it is most common in commercial non-fiction for the memoirs of celebrities-of-the-moment, and for beautiful gift, puzzle and satire books. To do these jobs, you need a lot of stamina and to enjoy working under pressure.
Depending on what else the editors involved publish, agents might therefore wait to submit an author’s proposal until the summer is over and these ‘crash’ books have been ‘put to bed’, to give the submission the best shot at success.
P.S. If you already have an editor, the crash books might be why they’re taking longer to reply over summer!
The opportunist: For those happy to take holidays at other times, or if they’re only going to be out for a week and they don’t have a crash book, then blissfully the summer can be a quieter time of the year. Less meetings (because so many colleagues are away) can potentially mean more time for editors to get to their submissions - helped by less submissions coming their way overall because various agents will also be on holiday, or making the choice not to submit at that time - and for everyone to tackle big projects and less necessary but nice-to-do tasks. So on the flip-side to point two, depending on what an author has written, an agent might say now is as good a time as any to submit to editors.
At The Blair Partnership, we’ll all be taking a much-needed break at different points of the summer, but we’ll also be the opportunists taking advantage of the quieter time to submit to editors who are still around; to ready our other submissions for autumn and winter; to prepare for Frankfurt Book Fair in October (which is when our international team will meet with editors from all around the world and pitch our clients’ books to them); and hopefully to spend a bit more time in our submissions inboxes.
So, what is it we’d love to find in those inboxes? To give you a little taster, we’re going to share what books we’ve been enjoying, or the ones we’re looking forward to reading. We talk to each other about the submissions we’ve received and we love it when there’s a book for all the team to get excited by - so as well as our primary agents, we’ve also included in this colleagues from our brand partnership team (they handle everything from securing speaking gigs to social media and licensing deals for our clients) and our international rights team.
And if you’re not thinking of submitting soon, or you’re finessing your submission, then we hope these might act as some good recommendations for you to take on your own summer holiday, or to read on a picnic rug in the park. Because the best way to use the summer wisely, whether you work in publishing or you’re an aspiring or published author . . . is to read!
Hattie Grunewald (Agent)
Recs: Romance/Crime
Whenever I get busy with client edits, audiobooks on my commute and during the nursery run have been my saviour and I've already gone through three this month. I just finished THE WEDDING PEOPLE by Alison Espach (which was an absolute five-star listen for me, a clever romcom that hits all the right notes) and also WRONG PLACE WRONG TIME by Gillian McAllister (solving a crime in reverse as the narrator moves backwards through time – an absolutely genius pitch). I've just started GREAT BIG BEAUTIFUL LIFE by Emily Henry which I know I'm going to love, and also can't wait to dive into ATMOSPHERE by Taylor Jenkins Reid – I really think it's going to be a great summer for reading.
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Adam Reed (Brand Development Lead)
Recs: Coming-of-age fiction
I've just gotten round to reading Donna Tartt’s THE GOLDFINCH. I'm aware I'm very late to this party! I read Barbara Kingsolver’s DEMON COPPERHEAD recently, which I loved, so a colleague suggested THE GOLDFINCH. I like these gripping coming-of-age sagas with deep and characterful central protagonists, set against a backdrop of dramatic twists and turns, that are at times intensely sad and traumatic and other times darkly humorous.
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Juliette Evo-Heurtevent (International Rights Assistant)
Recs: Fantasy
I don’t know what it is about the summer that makes me crave a taste of the supernatural. Could be the intensity of three British heatwaves in a row. In any case: my chosen summer reading will be a re-read of the amazing GODKILLER by Hannah Kaner, a series I fell in love with at the beginning of the year and just can't seem to recover from, and a new read of BURY OUR BONES IN THE MIDNIGHT SOIL by V. E. Schwab, because the tagline of ‘Toxic, Lesbian Vampires’ has me hook, line and sinker.
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Lauren Simmonds (Brand Development Assistant)
Recs: Sexy romance
This week, I am re-reading RIDERS by Jilly Cooper. I have just come back from a gloriously sunny week away and, as much as I love reading new books, sometimes a relaxing holiday calls for a light read which you know will be fun, flirty and escapist. What I love most about RIDERS, other than the infamous RCB [Rupert Campbell-Black – the ‘handsomest man in England’], is how it has become such an enduring classic; the often biting wit of the dialogue paired with Cooper's unapologetic sensuality and charm makes it a delightful read every time!
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Rachel Petty (Agent)
Recs: Book club fiction
My three most recent reads have been BITTERSWEET by Hattie Williams, which is about a young publicist working at a big five publishing house who has an affair with a lauded literary fiction author – sad girl fiction at its best. I've also just finished CONSIDER YOURSELF KISSED by Jessica Stanley, about an Australian woman who moves to the UK and falls in love with a British man who has a four-year-old daughter. It's set in Hackney at a time when I lived there and is about the joy and pain of love and motherhood. Lastly, I've joined a book club (we're yet to actually meet) and we've chosen MONGREL by Hanako Footman, which is an absolutely incredible intergenerational story about three Japanese women which I highly recommend.
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Ed Wood (Agent)
Recs: Crime and Thriller/SF
Given I’ll be juggling three kids this summer, my reading interludes for fun are often brief, so I like things I can devour in addictive little bites. I recently enjoyed Lisa Jewell’s thriller DON’T LET HIM IN, so I need to go back for NONE OF THIS IS TRUE. I’m a Janice Hallett (cosy crime) book behind, so THE EXAMINER will be a must-read. But I’m also an audiobook junkie, and hopelessly addicted to the DUNGEON CRAWLER CARL series by Matt Dinniman, with incredible narration by Jeff Hays. It’s an insane LitRPG (Literary Role-Playing Game – basically like reading a SF-meets-fantasy videogame), with characters I adore (Princess Donut the talking cat!), stupid humour and great action. If you loved Andy Weir’s magnificent PROJECT HAIL MARY, it’s like that but ten times crazier.
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Liane-Louise Smith (Head of Rights)
Recs: Eclectic!
I’ve stacked up a vast number of books on my ‘to be read’ pile this year and now we’re heading towards the summer holidays I have the difficult task of trying to whittle them down to a more manageable number! I like to take a selection with me and between recent recommendations and authors I love, these are the ones currently creeping to the top of the list: THERE ARE RIVERS IN THE SKY by Elif Shafak (historical fiction), THE SAFEKEEP by Yael van der Wouden (historical LGBTQ+ fiction), ALL FOURS by Miranda July (literary fiction), SLOUCHING TOWARDS BETHLEHEM by Joan Didion (memoir essays), QUESTION 7 by Richard Flanagan (memoir) and a couple of the recent Jo Nesbo books for a bit of criminal escapism.
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