Dear Newsletter subscriber,
May News
Andrew Lownie remains the top-selling agent in the world, across all categories, according to Publishers Marketplace. He has 41 recorded deals over the last 6 months (second place has 30) and 73 deals over 12 months (second place has 64). He is first worldwide in biography and second worldwide in the history/politics/current affairs category. The agency also remains in the top ten in the world across all categories and first in UK non-fiction - with 34 deals in the last 6 months (with second place at 7 deals), and 54 deals over the last year (with second place at 15).
He spoke at the Media Networking Conference in Oxford on ‘Publishing: here today and gone tomorrow?’.
The agency had three authors in the non-fiction charts the week of May 8th
Coming Up Trumps ghosted by Deborah Crewe at no 4 hardback.
Black Rainbow: How words healed me - my journey through depression by Rachel Kelly at no 9 hardback.
Daddy's Little Princess by Cathy Glass at no 3 paperback.
The agency also had three titles in the top ten Sunday Times bestseller paperback and hardback lists the following week with Coming Up Trumps at number 7 and Black Rainbow at number 10 in the hardback non-fiction list and Daddy's Little Princess at number 8 in the paperback non-fiction list.
It had two titles in the top 20 non-fiction paperback list the third week of May with Marni Mulholland’s Raw at no 9, and Cathy Glass’s Daddy's Little Princess at no 13.
The agency also had three titles in Amazon’s overall Top 10 for Biography, with the e book and paperback of Cabin Fever at numbers 4 and 9, and Daddy's Little Princess at 8
Lynne Barrett-Lee’s Novel: Plan it, Write it, Sell it.went to 21 on Amazon and remains the top seller in Writing and Publishing & Books.
Eat Your Way To Lower Cholesterol: by Laura Corr was in the top thirty on Amazon and was serialised over two weeks in the Mail on Sunday
David Craig’s illuminating new consumer guide Would You Buy That? was serialised in the Daily Express.
Coming Up Trumps ghosted by Deborah Crewe, spent the month in the SundayTimes hardback non-fiction best seller list rising to no 5.
They eat horses, don’t they?: The Truth about the French by Piu Marie Eatwell won the multicultural non-fiction category of the 2014 Next Generation Indie Book Awards and was a finalist in the historical Non-fiction category.
Cathy Glass’s Daddy's Little Princess remained in the paperback non-fiction list throughout the month reaching no 3. It is currently in its ninth week in the bestseller lists.
Rachel Kelly’s powerful memoir Black Rainbow spent several weeks in the SundayTimes top ten hardback list and is currently no 9 in the Times hardback list.
Chris Lloyd’s history What on Earth Happened? has become a best seller in Japan selling over 150,000 copies.
Marni Mulholland’s memoir Raw went to no 9 in the paperback non-fiction best seller list
David Stafford’s Spies Beneath Berlin was in the Amazon top 20.
Mandy Smith’s Cabin Fever reached no 11 on Amazon
M J Trow’s The Adventures of Inspector Lestrade reached no 15 on Amazon .
May Deals
Penguin have bought North American rights in Mandy Smith’s bestselling memoir Cabin Fever
John Blake have bought the memoirs of 12-year-old-mum Tressa MiddletonTressa: The 12-Year-Old-Mum ghosted by Katy Weitz..
Japanese and Traditional Chinese rights in Nessa Carey’s The Epigenetics Revolution
Simplified Chinese rights in Marina Chapman’s The Girl With No Name: The Incredible True Story of the Girl Raised by Monkeys
German rights in Andy Donaldson’s Terrible Estate Agent Photos
Andrew Lownie
Selected current submissions
Geoff Andrew’s James Klugmann and the Hopes and Fears of British Communism. a biography of the influential Communist which also sheds new light on ‘The Climate of Treason’ and wartime recognition of Tito.
Journalist Duncan Campbell’s We'll All Be Murdered In Our Beds: a history of the world of crime reporting
Ian Graham’s biographical collection 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. US rights sold to St Martin’s Press.
British Yemini Diana Kader’s memoir Hear My Cry about her inspiring fight against forced marriage and ‘honour crimes’.
Sian Mackay The Incredible Mr Ripper is the extraordinary story of the Austrian aristocrat, Baron Rudolph ‘Rip’ von Ripper (1905-60) from his rebellious childhood in the imperial Austria-Hungary court, to his eventual acclaim as an artist and US military hero and work as a CIA agent tracing Nazi war criminals.
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
Selwyn Parker’s In Pursuit of the Brute relates the turbulent early days of racing in France through the life of the cyclist Leon Georget known as the “Brute”.
Tim Tate’s Hitler, Erika and Me is a powerful, first-person account of being at the heart of one of the Nazi’s cruellest and most obscene experiments - the Lebensborn program to create a new Aryan master race.
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 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
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 The Devil's Work, a hard-boiled thriller in the style of Lee Child, in which reluctant assassin Cal Winter finds himself in Africa investigating an MI6 mole.
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.
Andy Rumbold's The Last Fiesta, a gripping, dark novel, full of menace and suspense, as four estranged friends head through Spain to the running of the bulls in Pamplona.
June Publications
Carol Acton’s edition of A Very Private Diary: A Nurse in Wartime
Anthony Stancomb’s memoir Under a Croatian Sun: From Grey Britain to a Sunny Isle: One Couple's Dream Comes True
Casey Watson’s memoir The Girl Without a Voice
The paperback of Jonathan Conlin’s Tales of Two Cities: Paris and London, 1750-1914
Three new articles were added to the website in May:
Opening lines in which Andrew Lownie gives examples from recent submissions of how not to address agents.
An Agency Week in which Andrew Lownie outlines the range of activities he is involved with in a ‘typical’ agency week.
Ghostly Aspirations part 2 where In a sequel to the website article ‘Ghostly Aspirations’, published last November, eight of the agency’s ghosts explain the sort of books they would like to work on.
Best wishes, Andrew Lownie and David Haviland
Andrew Lownie Literary Agency Ltd.
36 Great Smith Street
London SW1P 3BU
020 7222 7574
Twitter: @andrewlownie
Facebook: Andrew Lownie
