For the second instalment of In The Dock, Crime and Publishing is pleased to welcome literary agent Luigi Bonomi of LBA, whose agency looks after authors including David Gibbins, Simon Kernick, Matthew Dunn, Alan Titchmarsh, James May, Richard Hammond, Josephine Cox, Matt Hilton and Sam Christer, amongst many others.
Having started his career as an editor at Harlequin Mills & Boon and Penguin, he became a literary agent in 1997 when he joined Sheil Land Associates. And in 2005 he set up Luigi Bonomi Associates. In 2010 he was named the Orion Literary Agent of the Year at the Bookseller Industry Awards.
C&P: How did you get into publishing? And was it always something that you wanted to do?
LB: I read English Literature at University College London and my tutor, Professor Karl Miller, was also Editor of The London Review of Books. He would talk a great deal about publishing and had had a number of students enter that world – from Vicki Barnsley (now head of HarperCollins) to Alexandra Pringle (now head of Bloomsbury), and there were several authors like Dan Jacobson in the department. It all looked very glamorous to me and a million miles away from my own upbringing. I don’t know whether I always wanted to do it but when I saw an ad for a job as a junior editor for a children’s publisher, while working at Foyles Bookshop, I leapt at it.
C&P: You moved from being an editor to being a literary agent. Why did you decide to do this?
LB: I’d been made redundant from Penguin Books. My wife was expecting our first child and, while I’d been offered an editorial job in New York, neither my wife nor I wanted to move to the US. Two of my major authors at the time were Alan Titchmarsh and the romantic suspense author Charlotte Lamb, and both told me that if I became an agent they would join me. This greatly encouraged me as I knew I wouldn’t effectively be starting from scratch. I also began to realise that my real skill lay in developing ideas with writers rather than working as part of a larger team and so I approached a number of agencies to see if they would have me and was fortunate enough to be taken on by Sheil Land.
C&P: And what do you see as being the differences between an agent and an editor?
LB: An editor has to be an effective team player – they have to have an eye to identify good writers, but they also have to be able to see how they can market them and make them stand out in the marketplace. To do this effectively they need to be able to persuade their colleagues – the marketing and publicity departments and sales departments – and maintain this momentum of enthusiasm all the way to publication and beyond.
Agents are on the whole loners – even those who work as part of a big agency. They are also more risk takers – they do not need to subscribe to what a company’s needs are but can follow their own instinct and belief in an author. An agent needs to be able to identify potential: not just writers who already deliver wonderful novels but writers who, with a little bit of work, can go on to produce terrific work. They need to be able to encourage these writers to do their very best and then work closely with them to get there. Once a book is ready, an agent needs to be able to persuade publishers of just how marketable and promotable their author is. They then need to place their author with the best publisher for the right price and then ensure that their author is a priority for that publisher, not just at the point a contract is signed but throughout that author’s time with their publisher.
C&P: Whilst you are responsible for a number of non-fiction authors, I would like to focus on the fiction side. What do you look for in a fiction submission/author?
LB: I look first and foremost for a great plot and terrific characters. Unless truly awful, most writing can be worked on, but great plots and memorable characters are hard to come by. It’s also true to say that we only want to work with authors who are amenable to editorial suggestions. They must want to make their novels commercial bestsellers – that’s our goal. While it is nice to get great reviews, I’m afraid reviews don’t pay bills. What counts is sales and that’s what we go after. Over the last three years we have discovered some of the most exciting crime and thriller writers: authors like Matthew Dunn, Matt Hilton, Dean Crawford and Sam Christer are all destined to hit the bestseller lists here and in the USA, and with each of them plot really is king!
C&P: And when you find an author with potential, how do you [and your agency, LBA] work with them?
LB: If we identify a promising piece of writing, it is read by a number of colleagues and may even be put out to several readers. These thoughts are all collated and go off to the author, who we then call in for a meeting. We explain our vision for the book and see whether that tallies with the author’s. If it does, we sign the author up and then we work very closely with the author, giving hands-on advice on plot, structure, and characterisation. The manuscript may need to be revised several times and when the author delivers the final revised manuscript to us it then tends to go to a professional copy-editor who will copy-edit it. The manuscript is then submitted to publishers.
C&P: What advice would you have for unpublished authors out there?
LB: I would urge them to read the kind of books they want to write – they should steep themselves in the genre and anything around it and then try and identify what makes their novel stand out while at the same time being true to the genre (a tricky call, this). They also need to write, write, write and never give up. They should try and identify which agents are working in their field. Remember most agents who have had success in one area are looking for more of the same, so if you want to write thrillers, send your manuscript to agents who have had great success in finding and establishing authors within this genre! There is no point in selling an agent a romance novel when the bulk of what they do is science fiction. Target your agent and write them a terrific letter focusing on the novel and a little about you. Do not tell them that all your friends enjoyed the book – it’s not relevant – or that this is the seventh novel you have failed to sell. They don’t need to know this! Just be concise, positive and professional about your novel.
C&P: And finally, do you see any trends happening in publishing at the moment, or do you have any predictions for the future?
LB: I think all publishers are after great thriller writers – this is very much a booming area of the market. There is some evidence that genres are blending and that readers want crossover genres, eg supernatural thrillers, YA that features action-adventure, horror that features romance and so on, but this is just a trend. The real market for pure thrillers is very much there and stronger than ever. This is a very exciting time and as an agency we are keener than ever to find the next generation of great new authors.
My thanks to Luigi for taking the time to answer my questions, and I hope that they have given people an insight into how literary agents operate. And if you are interested in finding out more about LBA and their authors, or have an unpublished book that you would like them to consider, then follow this link to their web site, here, to find out about their submission guidelines.
