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Nicola Barron joins one of the UK's most respected literary agents, Juliet Mushens, to talk about the publishing world and her upcoming Masterclass for The Standard.
Juliet shares her expertise and gives practical advice for aspiring authors.
Topics include:
Whether you're just dreaming of becoming an author or have a completed manuscript ready to go, Juliet’s insights offer invaluable guidance for every stage of the writing process.
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Here’s a fully automated transcript:
Hi, from London, this is The Standard Podcast, and I'm Nicola Barron from Masterclasses from The Standard.
Before we dive in, a quick reminder that Masterclasses from The Standard offers an incredible range of live, interactive workshops and classes.
Whether you're looking to sharpen your negotiation skills, manage stress and anxiety, or transform your sleep habits for good, we've got something for everyone.
You'll find all the details in our show notes.
And today, I'm thrilled to welcome Juliet Mushens, one of the UK's most influential figures in publishing.
She's been shortlisted for Literary Agent of the Year four times, and her client list reads like a who's who of contemporary literature, including million-copy bestseller, Jesse Burton, author of The Miniaturist, and the publishing phenomenon, Richard Osmond.
Juliet, welcome to the podcast.
Thank you so much for having me.
Thank you.
So before we dive into the specifics of publishing, I think a lot of people understand what publishers do, but the role of a literary agent, that sounds a little bit more mysterious.
Can you help demystify that for our listeners?
Of course, and it is incredibly mysterious.
I had no idea what literary agents did until I started working in a publishing house, so my first job was at HarperCollins, and I had no idea really that literary agents even existed, and suddenly these mythical beings would descend to the office of their clients, and I'd go and make them tea, and they'd make outrageous demands sometimes, and people would be scurrying around before the meetings, saying, oh, they're gonna ask us a really difficult question, or we're gonna have to prepare for this, or what if they ask about that?
And I thought, wow, that looks like a really interesting part of the job.
I really loved working in a publishing house.
I worked in marketing, and then I worked in editorial, but what I loved about marketing was writing book blurbs or coming up with marketing ideas and looking at positioning and publishing overall in a more holistic way.
And what I loved about editorial was getting hands-on with an author manuscript, and I would really say that agenting combines those two things.
I'm the person that finds a book, loves the book, edits the book with the author, but I also get to help pitch the book to publishers, offer my opinion on marketing campaigns or publicity campaigns.
So I felt that being a literary agent really combined those two things.
And what's quite fascinating to me is that whilst no one has ever really understood what we do unless you're in the industry, any book you see on the bookshelf, there's a literary agent behind it, whether it's one based here, one based in America, or one based elsewhere.
So I would say our job very much is acting as the middleman between the author and the publishing industry.
So helping them get the best possible deal and helping them build a long lasting career.
And we work with all sorts of publishers.
I did a deal in Kazakhstan a couple of weeks ago.
Okay, so I imagine with that being said, that you receive countless submissions.
What's the one thing in a manuscript that makes you think, this is it?
I would say that personally, I'm always looking for an intriguing concept.
So an idea that feels quite rich and meaty.
So an example of a book of mine, which has done really well recently is The Wrong Sister by Claire Douglas, which has been a big Sunday Times number one bestseller.
And the concept for that was very simple.
It was that two sisters do a life swap.
So essentially, they swap houses for a week.
And then one of them is attacked and ends up in hospital.
And her sister gets a note to say it was supposed to be you.
So it's a kind of case of mistaken identity.
Why is someone after her?
She's a perfectly ordinary mum of two who doesn't have any dark secrets.
So who was trying to attack her?
And how can she make sure that she survives essentially?
And as soon as she sent me that idea, I was hooked in.
I thought that's so intriguing.
It's really meaty.
You have immediately a lot of questions about it, a lot of suspense inherent in it.
So I'm a sucker for that kind of concept where you have a lot of interesting questions around it, I suppose.
But I also love an intriguing character.
Some of my favourite books are books that don't start with a big crash-bang dramatic opening, but books with a really interesting voice from a character, or someone that you think, oh, they're hiding something, or there's more to them than meets the eye, or maybe it's quite spiky, or maybe it's quite funny, or it's got a really interesting sense of period or sense of place.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think often authors feel we've got to hook an agent's attention in those first few pages, so I'm going to throw everything at it, I'm going to throw the kitchen sink at it, we're going to have a fire, we're going to have a murder, we're going to be really shocking.
And actually, you do need to grab our attention, but more it's coming up with questions that I'm going to have, that I'm going to want to read on to find out how you answer them.
Coming up:
When she had a C-section, the anaesthetist was asking her what the market was like for rom-coms.
She was warning me because I was about to have a baby and she said, do not tell them what they do because it was at the same hospital.
She was like, I don't want you to have the same anaesthetist.
Welcome back.
Do you find that people pitch their novels to you when you're out at parties, that kind of thing?
Yes, it happens all the time.
Actually, the worst example I've ever heard, it didn't happen to me, but it happened to one of my friends.
When she had a C-section, the anaesthetist was asking her what the market was like for rom-coms, and she was warning me because I was about to have a baby, and she said, do not tell them what they do, because it was at the same hospital, and she was like, I don't want you to have the same anaesthetist that I've had.
So yes, I imagine in the way that doctors always say they can't go to a dinner party without someone telling them about some kind of complaint they have.
I think that in my case, you will come across someone who says, oh, actually, I've got an idea for a book, or I'd be quite interested in publishing a book, and it could happen when you least expect it.
I think also it's the curse of having such an unusual surname.
Often, it happens to my dad or to my mom, that someone will say to them, I don't suppose you're related to, and they'll say, yes, that's my daughter.
They'll say, well, let me tell you about my book.
My dad will always say, there's no point telling me about your book.
I'm not involved at all.
You can see her submission guidelines on the website, and you can send to her that way.
But yes, I think it's one of the things that goes part and parcel with this kind of job.
Hilarious.
So for all our listeners out there who might be harbouring dreams of becoming an author, but maybe haven't quite yet put pen to paper, what advice would you give anyone who's about to start?
So I would say, think about what you want readers to take away from your book.
What do you want your message to be?
What do you want the reading experience to be?
Do you want them to come away thrilled they've been on an edge of their seat adventure?
Do you want them to come away having had their mindset really changed about something perhaps deeper than that?
Do you want them to come away crying because it's a heartbreaking love story?
So really think about what story you're trying to tell and what experience you want to distill.
I think you need to make writing a habit as well.
I think that if you do want to do it, even if it's just for 20 minutes a day, lots of my authors are very busy people.
The vast majority of my client list had a full-time job doing something else or maybe a full-time job and a mother or a father with young children, so a lot of responsibilities.
But they would say things like during naptime, they would just write for 30 minutes on their iPhone, or if they were on the bus, they would make a note in the note section of their phone or something they thought was interesting or in the evening, they would just for an hour open up their laptop and write something.
Because I firmly believe that it's like practising the piano or anything like that, the more you do it, the easier it becomes and the better you become at it.
I also think it is a good idea to plan your book before you start, because I think a lot of writers have a vague idea and then just sit down and get to 20,000 words and think, actually I have no idea where this is going.
And I think it's a good idea to sit down and at least roughly, you might not stick to it exactly, have some bullet points of what twists and turns you're going to have in the book or what big moments you plan to have take place.
And what about for anyone who's completed their manuscript and are ready to take the next step?
What are your top tips for approaching you?
Before you approach an agent, put your manuscript away for at least a month and then get it out and read it again.
You're not giving your work the best possible chance.
I think when you've just finished something, you can't see the wood for the trees, you can't really tell with any objectivity, is this good, is this bad?
Whereas if you've put it away and then you take it back out, and the same is true for my existing clients as well, with multiple books under their belt, most of them will put it away for a few weeks and let it sit and let it rest before they send it out, because they'll find that in the time it takes that they've had away from the manuscript, they'll start having interesting ideas or they'll think, oh, I was really stuck on that point.
But actually, it would be much easier if I did this or maybe it would work better if I cut this out.
Then when you're sending out to literary agents, I think you really want to put your best foot forward in terms of writing a good submission letter.
We actually have on our website an example of the information you should have in a submission letter, and it's things like the title, the word count, the genre, a couple of books that you think are similar to your work.
Then what you really want to distill for us is what the book is about, what's the pitch of the novel.
When you read a book, when you pick up a novel and you turn it over and you read the back of the book, you want to try and recreate that for your own work.
Look at what makes you pick it up and makes you open it, what makes you put it back on the shelf or decide you aren't going to buy it, and then try and add that to your own work.
And I would also suggest just asking friends and family to read it, not necessarily the book, but get them to read your cover letter and tell you what they think.
Do they think it sounds interesting?
Do they find it confusing?
I always do this in the office if I'm about to submit a novel.
I always read my cover letter out to the office, and I often find that even the act of reading it aloud will make me realise, wow, I've used the same descriptor five times in the space of two paragraphs, or actually, this is incredibly confusing.
It's a fantasy novel, and I've put way too much world building into this.
Great.
And so before we wrap up, I'd love to hear more about your masterclass with us.
What can we expect?
I will explain what a literary agent does in quite great detail.
I will look at why you might need a literary agent, so what you can expect from the working relationship with a literary agent, whether that's contacts, contracts, international overview, and more.
I'll also explain how to pitch your book, so how to distill your book into a hooky couple of lines elevator pitch.
I'll help you write a blurb for your book, I'll help write a synopsis, so give my top tips for writing a synopsis.
I will explain my method for pitching books and my method for building out a good blurb for a novel when I'm sending them out.
I will also share my do's and don'ts all the way through the process from how to edit, how to target literary agents, how to research literary agents, questions you might want to ask literary agents, and more.
I'll also take some live pitches during the session, so people will be able to listen to me explain how I build a pitch, and then they'll apply that to their own book or a book they might be working on, and then I'll give them live feedback as to what works about it or what they might want to develop.
And finally, we have 30 minutes at the end just for questions and answers, so people can ask sometimes some really specific questions about what would you say if I handed you in a novel that had five points of view, or where do you think the market's going in crime, or what would you do in my shoes?
So getting some quite tailor-made feedback for the individual, as well as obviously some general help for how to approach an industry that can seem quite opaque.
So an absolute opportunity.
I would say so.
I talk a lot in it, and I actually, a few of my clients did my masterclass, so a few of my published authors now first came across me from having attended one of my masterclasses.
Perfect.
Thank you so much for joining us, Juliet.
It's been so insightful and I can't wait.
Well, I'm excited and I'm excited to meet many eager authors.
Thank you.
For more information on Masterclasses from The Standard and to book your place on Juliet's Masterclass, How to Get Published, Finding a Literary Agent for Your Novel, which takes place on Monday the 11th of November, go to standard.co.uk/masterclasses.
You can find full details in the show notes of this episode.
The Standard podcast will be back on Monday.
For all the latest news, head to standard.co.uk.
