alterean.

James Gill

Felicity Bryan Associates

Submission status
Open
Submission route
Website
Response time
Assume no reply = no after 12 weeks
Last checked
2 days ago

About

James has worked in publishing and literary representation since 1995 and represents a broad range of fiction and non-fiction authors writing for the general-trade market.

He has represented Sunday Times number one and top-ten bestsellers in both fiction and non-fiction. His clients have been shortlisted for prizes including the Booker Prize, the Baillie Gifford Prize and the Theakston's Crime Novel of the Year. Other clients have won awards such as the Wolfson History Prize, the Whitbread Prize and the Ondaatje Prize.

Genres

Commercial FictionContemporary FictionCrimeMemoirNarrative Non-Fiction

Looking for

  • the original and the excellent, whether in fiction or non-fiction
  • real-life stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things
  • first-person books that show them a life, or an occupation or situation that they don't know about, a voice they haven't heard before
  • originality and clarity of intent in a proposal or outline
  • a driving plot, a promising set-up and believable characters

Not looking for

  • novels that are formally adventurous and daring
  • self-consciously “literary fiction”

Agency submission guidelines

Submissions are accepted only through the online portal; postal submissions are not accepted. A covering letter should be included in the box provided, with other materials added as attachments. Work must be typeset in a legible font with double or 1.5 line spacing. Submissions should be addressed to a specific agent. High-concept science fiction, educational textbooks, erotica, graphic novels, picture books and translations of already published works are not sought, and the agency is not currently accepting submissions in fantasy, romantasy, science fiction and fantasy, or children's and young adult. Scripts for theatre, film or television are not represented. Only one project should be submitted at a time; only the first will be reviewed. For fiction: a full first draft should be ready before submitting, but only the first three chapters (maximum 10,000 words) should be sent initially, along with a one-page synopsis detailing the narrative arc. For non-fiction: a covering letter should be sent along with, for subject-led non-fiction, a proposal (no more than 20 pages) covering the book's essential idea, structure, market analysis and the writer's credentials, plus approximately 5,000 words of sample text. For narrative non-fiction or memoir, the first 10,000 words of the manuscript should be sent, optionally with a proposal or synopsis of the rest of the book.

Agency AI policy

They do not accept submissions that they reasonably believe to have been wholly or partially generated, written, or edited by artificial intelligence (AI).

Links

Clients include

  • Richard Armitage
  • Pete Brown
  • Chris Bryant
  • Barnabas Calder
  • Justin Cartwright (Estate Of)
  • Claire Cohen
  • Charlie Colenutt
  • Nicholas Crane
  • Jane Dunn
  • Tom Gregory
  • Dominic Gregory
  • Mark Gyves
  • Jon Harvey
  • Sudhir Hazareesingh
  • Patrick Hennessey

Other agents at Felicity Bryan Associates