Antony Topping

In submissions often what catches my eye is when an author seems to have an interesting new take on a genre. When the historical crime writer CJ Sansom joined us in 2002 with his first novel DISSOLUTION, I fell in love first with the manuscript, without a thought for how it might fit into the commercial market. At that point in time there was effectively nothing comparable in the world of crime fiction, except maybe for Ellis Peters’ Caedfael novels. CJ Sansom started a significant trend and I do now represent a number of brilliant, bestselling authors of historical fiction, whether crime or otherwise, and I’m always on the hunt for more. More often than not these novels take a well-known tipping point in history. This isn’t a requirement but it can help. What I’m looking for is characters who embody the dilemmas of their time but whose struggles also shine a light on our lives today.

It’s often the points of difference that speak to me, whether it’s literary or commercial, contemporary or historical. I’d love to hear how you think your book fits into what’s already out there, and the books that inspired you, but I’d also love to hear about what gives your work a clear identity of its own particularly if you’re writing from a point of view or community marginalised and neglected by publishing.

I always want to see contemporary crime novels and thrillers.

As for non-fiction, the tantalising thing about it is that it’s possible to write a best-seller or a prize-winner on pretty much any subject (in recent years I’ve represented books on lemons, David Bowie, violins, money, the Periodic Table, astrobiology, stonemasonry, human failure, the whole universe, the Riemann Hypothesis, suicide bombing, and the novel NINETEEN EIGHTY FOUR). It’s a matter of choosing your angle and working out how to make a page-turning story out of your material so in terms of submissions to me I don’t think there are any subjects that are off-limits.