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

About

James has worked in publishing and literary representation since 1995.

He represents a broad range of fiction and non-fiction authors writing for the general-trade market. His clients have been shortlisted for prizes including the Booker Prize, the Baillie Gifford Prize and the Theakston's Crime Novel of the Year, and have won awards such as the Wolfson History Prize and the Whitbread Prize.

Looking for

  • real-life stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things
  • first-person books that show us a life, or an occupation or situation that we don't know about, a voice we haven't heard before
  • a driving plot, a promising set-up and believable characters

Not looking for

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

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

Agency submission guidelines

Submissions are accepted via the online submission portal only; postal submissions are not accepted. The agency is currently not accepting fantasy, romantasy, science fiction and fantasy, or children's and young adult submissions. Scripts for theatre, film or television are not represented, nor are high-concept science fiction, educational textbooks, erotica, graphic novels, picture books or translations of already published works. Submissions believed to be wholly or partially generated, written or edited by AI are not accepted. How to submit: use the online portal, with the covering letter in the box provided and other materials as attachments. Work should be typeset in a legible font with double or 1.5 line spacing. Address the submission to a specific agent. Submit only one project at a time; only the first will be reviewed. Writers based outside the UK and Ireland are also considered. Fiction: send a covering letter with a concise pitch, inspiration for the book, relevant information about the writer, and a couple of comparable titles or authors. Only submit once a full first draft is ready. Initially send the first three chapters (maximum 10,000 words) plus a one-page synopsis giving the narrative arc beyond the sample (no chapter-by-chapter breakdown needed). Non-fiction: send a covering letter covering the writer's passion for the subject, credentials, and intended readership. For subject-led non-fiction, submit a proposal (up to 20 pages, covering the book's idea, structure, market analysis, timeliness and credentials) plus approximately 5,000 words of sample text. A full manuscript is not required for non-fiction. For narrative non-fiction or memoir, send the first 10,000 words of the manuscript, optionally with a proposal or synopsis of the rest of the book. Submissions are acknowledged via an automatic form response.

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).

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