Andrew Lownie Literary Agency Newsletter
Andrew Lownie
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November deals
North American rights in Nicholas Best’s oral history account of the week around Pearl Harbour, Seven Days of Infamy have been sold to St Martin’s Press.
World rights in Tom Devine’s Independence or Union?: The Scottish Question in History' have been sold to Penguin.
World rights in Marius Gabriel’s historical epic Weep No More have been bought by Lake Union Publishing.
Harper Collins have bought world rights in two more fostering memoirs from bestselling author Cathy Glass. The first, Saving Danny about a young Autistic boy, will be published in February and the second A Very Bad Day about a young boy coping with his father’s suicide, will be published in September.
World rights in David Long’s Lost Britain which tells the story of Britain’s lost landmarks, forgotten tongues and some truly bizarre cultural artefacts, have been bought by O’Mara Books
World rights in Jeff Maynard’s biography of George Hubert Wilkins The Unseen Anzac: How an Enigmatic Polar Explorer Created Australia’s World War I Photographs have been bought by Scribe.
World rights in Professor Tony Spawforth’s Civilisation: A Greek and Roman Journey have been bought by Yale University Press.
Portuguese rights in On Duty with the Queen. by Dickie Arbiter and Lynne Barrett-Lee
Greek and Portuguese rights in Manuel Arriaga’s Rebooting Democracy: A Citizen's Guide to Reinventing Politics
Italian rights in Joyce Cary’s The Horse's Mouth and A House of Children
Turkish rights in The Girl With No Name: The Incredible True Story of the Girl Raised by Monkeys by Marina Chapman and Lynne Barrett-Lee
Sinalese rights in Cathy Glass’s Damaged: The Heartbreaking True Story of a Broken Child
Swedish rights in Rachel Kelly’s Black Rainbow: How words healed me - my journey through depression
Finnish rights in Tim Tate’s Hitler's Forgotten Children
Japanese rights in Peter Thompson and Robert Macklin’s The Big Fella: The Rise and Rise of BHP Billiton
Italian rights in Mei Trow’s Lestrade and the Sawdust Ring
Portuguese rights in Casey Watson’s The Girl Without a Voice
Spanish rights in Christian Wolmar’s To the edge of the world: The Story of the World's Greatest Railway
News
The agency had three titles in the top eleven paperback non-fiction list during one week in November
Julie Shaw’s Our Vinnie: Book 1 The Canterbury Warriors Trilogy at no 8
Casey Watson’s Nowhere to Go: : The heartbreaking true story of a boy desperate to be loved at no 10 having been no 4. It spent over a month in the bestseller list.
Cathy Glass’ The Child Bride at no 11, having been no 6 and spent nine weeks in the bestseller list.
On Duty with the Queen. by Dickie Arbiter with Lynne Barrett-Lee was selected as one of the Daily Mail’s Christmas picks: Manuel Arriaga’s Rebooting Democracy: A Citizen's Guide to Reinventing Politics went into the Amazon top 5 for books on ‘Democracy’.
Jeremy Clay’s The Burglar Caught By A Skeleton and Other Singular Stories from the Victorian Press.by Jeremy Clay was selected as a ‘Must Read’ by the Daily Mail.
David Cornell’s Bannockburn was one of the Kindle 100 ‘most-read’ titles during October.
David Craig’s The Great Charity Scandal: What really happens to the billions we give to good causes? was serialised in the Mail on Sunday
Baroness Trumpington’s memoir Coming Up Trumps ghosted by agency author Deborah Crewe, was selected by the Guardian as one of The best politics books of 2014.
Cintia de Silva’s Full Brazilian : The true story of baring all in the front line of lap dancing was serialised in The Sun
Andy Donaldson’s Terrible Estate Agent Photos was number one in an Independent feature on the best ‘loo book’ stocking fillers and was described by the Guardian, in its best stocking fillers for 2014, as having “ the obvious advantage of being actually funny and wins hands‑down the toilet book captions-of-the-year competition"
Duncan Falconer’s eight-book series of Stratton action thrillers, beginning with The Hostage and published by Little Brown, based on his own experiences serving in Special Forces, have been bought by actor Henry Cavill (best known for his Superman character) for his own production company Promthean, producing with Amber Entertainment and GFM Films, with Cavil taking the central role of Stratton.
London Grid for Learning recently launched Helen Fry’s book The M Room: Secret Listeners who Bugged the Nazis as a national schools curriculum learning resource. It has just been shortlisted for the BETT Awards 2015.
Ian Graham was one of four writers nominated for the Educational Writers Award 2014
Sonia Oatley’s powerful memoir Bye, Mam, I love you: A Daughter's Last Words. A Mother's Search for Justice. The Shocking True Story of the Murder... went to no 25 in the Kindle bestseller chart. It now has almost three hundred 5* reviews on Amazon.
Vikie Shanks , author of Unravelled: The inspirational true story of a journey out of darkness, was honoured at the Best Magazine Bravest Women Awards 2014
Gary Smith’s Standard Deviations: Flawed Assumptions,Tortured Data and Other Ways to Lie with Statistics was Times Book of the Week
Andrew Lownie: submissions
Under the Rainbow by Matt Deighton and Lynne Barrett-Lee, an intensely personal story about a dog – a very special dog – and how she helped a man find new meaning in his life after his home was destroyed by a tornado.
Patrick Garrett’s biography of his great aunt, the veteran war correspondent Clare Hollingworth, Troubles with my Aunt
Paddy Hayes’s Daphne Park: Queen of Spies, the first biography of a major British Cold War intelligence figure for almost twenty years.
Harvard historian Danny Orbach’s Networks of Resistance: A New History of the German Resistance to HitlerSally Smith’s biography of the barrister Sir Edward Marshall Hall and his famous cases More Eloquence than Logic.
Philip Walker’s The Men Who Shaped the Arab Revolt: : T. E. Lawrence’s Forgotten Colleagues
David Haviland: 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.
The Last Fiesta, a tense literary novel, set around the Pamplona running of the bulls. Shortlisted for the Longbarn Books First Novel Award.
Joyce Mackenzie's A Bride for Sunil, a tale of stormy relationships in the melting pot of post-colonial India.
The Blackbird Singularity, a first-person literary novel about the struggle to start a new life after losing a four-year-old child to cancer.
The Hickory Stick is the nostalgic tale of a 19th century Norfolk police constable, based on the diaries of a real-life figure.
The Devil’s Work, a hard-boiled thriller in the style of Lee Child and Vince Flynn, 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.
Ithaca by Patrick Dillon, an exciting, action-packed historical novel, based on Homer’s Odyssey.
December publications
Cintia de Silva’s Full Brazilian : The true story of baring all in the front line of lap dancing
The Kindle Single of Katy Long’s Mending Migration: how to make immigration work for all of us
The third volume in Julie Shaw’s Canterbury trilogy My Mam Shirley: Tales of the Notorious Hudson Family - Canterbury Warriors Book 3
Articles
David Craig gives his non-fiction writing tips in Writing a non-fiction book in five easy steps
In The Commissioning Process Trevor Dolby, the Publisher of the Penguin Random House imprint Preface, outlines the commissioning process.
In Further ghostly aspirations , 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.
Sixteen agency authors describe their writing habits in Writing Habits
With best wishes, Andrew Lownie and David Haviland
Andrew Lownie Literary Agency Ltd.
36 Great Smith Street
London SW1P 3BU
020 7222 7574
