Dear newsletter subscriber,
January News
According to Publishers Marketplace, the Andrew Lownie Literary Agency is now #6 among agencies worldwide.
The agency ran its traditional annual survey of leading editors which gave a range of fascinating insights into current trends and tastes in publishing.
What UK Non-Fiction Editors Want 2014
What UK Fiction Editors Want 2014
What US Editors Want 2014
Andrew Lownie gazed into his crystal ball for New Edition magazine An agent looks forward and was interviewed about all things biographical for Words with Jam magazine
Words with JAM. He was the guest speaker at the Guardian masterclass How to Write a Memoir on February 1-2. How to Write a Memoir and will be one of the expert speakers at the London Author Fair on February 28. London Author Fair
Marina Chapman’s new National Geographic documentary was added to Youtube a few weeks ago, and has already racked up more than half a million views. Woman Raised by Monkeys - Documentary
Roger Crowley’s Empires of the Sea was sold to Portugal.
Japanese rights were sold in Ian Graham’s The Ultimate Book of Impostors
David Long’s Bizarre Scotland was sold to Constable
Sean McMeekin’s July 1914: Countdown to War was bought for Croatia and the Czech Republic
Geoffrey Roberts’ Stalin’s General: The Life of Georgy Zhukov was sold to Germany.
Chinese rights were sold in Claudia Spahr’s Right Time Baby : The Complete Guide to Later Motherhood
Chris Woodsford’s Atoms Under the Floorboards: The Secret Science Hidden in Your Home was bought by Bloomsbury
Charlotte Zeepvat’s fascinating biography Prince Leopold: The Untold Story of Queen Victoria’s Youngest Son, recently reissued by Thistle Publishing, was in the Kindle top 20 for non-fiction.
Andrew Lownie
Selected current submissions
Nicholas Best continues his series of snapshot evocations of critical periods of history, through the lives of dozens of famous people, by looking at the seven days around Pearl Harbour in Seven Days of Infamy.
Ronald Binns’s The True History of the Loch Ness Monster is an up-to-date, authoritative and readable insider’s account of the Loch Ness saga which covers every aspect of the monster and its habitat and telling a tale that is as gripping and entertaining as any novel.
Michael Du Preez’s life of the Victorian doctor revealed on death to have been female Dr James Barry: A Woman Ahead of Her Time
Gavin Evans’s Black brain, white brain , already sold in South Africa, challenges the idea that intelligence is influenced by racial origin whilst his Gender Bender: men, women and evolutionary psychologists sets out to show that male and female minds do not emerge from different planets and that our emotional and intellectual capacities are moulded more by culture than biology.
Eleanor Fitzsimon’s Wilde's Women which explores the many rewarding relationships that the writer Oscar Wilde enjoyed with a series of fascinating and accomplished women throughout his life.
Former wife of England footballer Paul Merson, Lorraine Fletcher’s blend of personal memoir with motivational writing, giving a fascinating insight into the reality of being a WAG while showing how anyone can change their life for the better.Connect With Yourself: from WAG to life coach.
Timothy Good’s latest UFO book Earth: An Alien Enterprise. US rights to Pegasus.
Denise Gossage’s Raise Your Grade a revision guide for GCSE and A Level students based on a unique methodology of PUMP: Plan, Understand, Memorise, Practise.
Glyn Gowan’s revisionist biography , Prince George: Duke of Kent, which reassesses the reputation of George V’s most handsome, glamorous and cultured son.
Ian Graham’s Courtesan, tells the stories of the lives of the most famous, or notorious, women whose liaisons with royalty and aristocrats brought them wealth, fame and freedom undreamt of by most women of their time
Martin Hammond’s Ask a Silly Question: Messages from eBay's most troublesome customer, a collection of stupidly funny and completely genuine email exchanges between the quirky Fredrick Facedass and the online sellers of eBay.
Christian Jennings’ account of a crucial Second World War battle in Italy Gothic Line : The First Battle of the Cold War
John Jobling’s investigation of the rock group U2: The Goal is $oul. St Martin’s Press publish in April to tie in with the release of their new album.
Diana Kader’s Hear My Cry - the true story of a Yemeni/British woman, Diana Kader, who successfully resisted a forced marriage whilst on a dream holiday to the Yemen and two attempts on her life by her spurned suitor.
Katy Long’s Mending Migration: how to make immigration work for all of us which documents the real impact of migration upon our economic, social and cultural lives.
Sean Longden’s Deliver us from Evil:: The Liberation of the Concentration Camps, 1945.
Christine Lord’s Who Killed My Son?:: A devastating memoir of a boy taken too soon and his mother’s quest for justice part memoir and part investigation into how BSE started, how it was allowed to enter the human food chain and why it was kept secret from the public for so long.
Banker and historian David Lough’s ‘Churchill and his Money: A Perfect Sieve’ which tells the hitherto unknown story of Churchill’s lifetime of problems with his personal finances.
Teena Lyons’ The Complete guide to ghostwriting based on interviews with leading ghosts, agents and publishers.
Jacon Minnema’s Beyond Hope, the prison memoir of a sixteen year old American boy who spent a year in a Saudi jail
Tracy Norton’s For the Love of Lexie is the account of one woman’s fight – firstly to help her daughter overcome addiction, and then, when that failed, to keep her grand-daughter Lexie safe
Mike Pannett, author of a bestselling series of memoirs of policing in Yorkshire, with an account of his time in the Metropolitan Police Crime Squad
Former MOD official Nick Pope’s account of a famous UFO incident based on two new key witnessesEncounter in Rendlesham Forest
Brazilian model Gabriella Santos’s memoir Full Brazilian : The true story of baring all in the front line of lap dancing lifting the lid on the lap dancing clubs, punters and girls. ANZ rights sold.
Ross Slater’s memoir Spy Games: One Man's Account of What it Takes to be a Double Agent
Mandy Smith’s Cabin Fever a raunchy and hilarious, account of what it’s like to be a stewardess in the modern world of air travel. ANZ rights sold.
Lee Trimble’s biography of his father Beyond the Call: The Incredible True Story of One American’s Life-or-Death Mission on the Eastern Front in World War II which tells the extraordinary World War Two story of an US pilot who covertly smuggled over a thousand people to freedom, including American POWs, foreign slave labourers and concentration camp inmates, from his airbase in the Ukraine. US rights sold to Penguin
Anita Varma’s Booze, Baths and Brothels:: A Time Traveller’s Guide to First Century Romenot only brings together new research but offers a unique window into a world which has dominated our culture for centuries.
Dick Venables’ memoir of his career in Disaster Management and Disaster Victim Identification A Life in Death : The Remarkable Career of DI Richard Venables, Disaster Detective
Philip Walker’s The Men Who Shaped the Arab Revolt: : T. E. Lawrence’s Forgotten Colleagues takes a fresh approach to the campaign, by looking at it through the experiences of seventeen British officers and intelligence operatives.
Martin Williams’s The Price of God: : How religion took over Britain. which tells the story of how the government has become a cash cow for religion.
David Haviland
Fiction submissions
Rickshaw, a gritty, comic tale of London nightlife and redemption from David McGrath.
The Gaps Between the Tracks, a quirky mystery featuring a blind detective, the debut novel from record producer Andy Bracken.
Weep No More, a romantic saga set against the sweep of history, in the tradition of James Clavell, Noel Barber and Colleen McCullough, by bestselling novelist Marius Gabriel.
Louisa Treger’s literary novel The Lodger, which tells the story of the passionate affair between writer Dorothy Richardson and H. G. Wells. US rights sold to St Martin’s Press.
Dominic Adler’s hard-boiled thriller The Ninth Circle, featuring reluctant assassin Cal Winter and his enigmatic employers The Firm.
The Art of Letting Go a thoughtful and surprising drama about art and artifice by award-winning debut novelist Chloe Banks.
Warwick Cairns’ action-packed historical romp The Fall, set during the English Civil War.
February publications
The paperback of Malcolm Castle’s second volume of fire-fighting memoirs Great Bales of Fire
Lisa Clegg’s The Blissful Baby Expert
Adrian Gilbert’s Challenge of Battle: The Real Story of the British Army in 1914
Carol Lee’s poignant memoir Out of Winter
David Long’s Bizarre London
The paperback of Sean McMeekin’s July 1914: Countdown to War
Kathleen O’Shea’s memoir Little Drifters
With best wishes, Andrew Lownie and David Haviland
