It is almost essential in today's publishing climate for an author to have an agent. The emphasis has shifted to an extent and it is often the agent who finds and nurtures the author and the editor who uses the agent as a reliable screening process. Any agent worth her salt will have an expert knowledge of the market and have the reputation and understanding to represent and support you. She will know exactly to which editor to present your book, negotiate your contract, resolve any crises with your publisher, continue to focus selling your book to all other markets and build your career as a writer.
At the moment we are particularly looking for burgeoning new talent in the fields of excellent crime fiction, epic family sagas, historical and commercial novels and upmarket literary fiction. Biographies and autobiographies will also be considered. However, we are not experts in the fields of children's books, science fiction and fantasy, nor 'chick-lit', which we believe has had its day. Neither are we looking for poetry, short stories or plays/screenplays. On the non-fiction side, we are not interested in spiritual or new-age philosophy, or business books.
We always encourage our authors to produce their best work. We have a strong editorial team who will work closely with you until you have achieved this goal. We may ultimately act in many different guises such as financial adviser, therapist, career counsellor and hopefully a friend.
If you would like to submit your book to us please send a synopsis of your book (a full explanation of the plot, not longer than a page), the first three chapters (double-spaced for ease of reading) together with a covering letter telling us about yourself, your past work and future plans. You can either send this by snail mail to
Mary Jones Gregory & Company Authors' Agents 3 Barb Mews London W6 7PA
or by email to [email protected] if it is a brief letter, synopsis and no more than 10 pages. Please put your book's title followed by '(submission)' in the subject line of your email so that we can distinguish your message from the vast amounts of spam that we receive. Please do not send the entire typescript unless we have specifically asked for it. We regret that we are unable to return material unless sufficient postage accompanies each submission, however, if you would prefer us to recycle it, do let us know.
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