Agent Interview: Hannah Sheppard

Revolution Sparking Books

Claire Wilson, Jodie Hodges, Alice Sutherland-Hawes and Julia Churchill

Jennifer E. Smith
Peng Shepherd
Menna Van Praag
Alice Feeney
Eva Ibbotson
R.F. Kuang
Catherine Steadman

I have met a lot of agents during my time in the industry as an editor and now that I am an agent through the Association of Author's Agents and I think we all do the best job we can for our clients - what makes a difference in the author/agent relationship is the very specific combination of author and agent - like any relationship, it's about the chemistry and how you interact with each other.
I will always treat my client's work with care, be honest with them about their careers and do my best to champion them.

I know this is horribly dull - but it really is to just follow the submission guidelines, make sure you're actually telling me what the book is in your cover letter and then start writing something else

I like a polite but personable letter - you don't have to be overly formal.
Tell me what the book is - genre, word count, target audience/where it sits in the market, who else your reader might be reading (comp titles)
Give me a short paragraph focusing on character, goal and stakes so I know what I'm investing in emotionally when I read your story
Share some information about yourself (keep it short and pertinent) and any reasons you have for approaching me.
Sign off with your name (I realise that sounds very prescriptive but it's amazing how many people don't)

I love a strong, distinctive voice and when it's clear that the author has put some work in and isn't just sending their first draft...beyond that, it differs depending on what I'm looking for - but I know it when I see it.

So many people miss out telling me what their book actually is - it's very difficult to assess whether something is working if you don't know what the author was trying to do.
Beyond that, I think it's mostly just not reading the guidelines properly, our form works for the majority of submissions and is fairly self-explanatory, but we do have instructions for when the form isn't suitable and people rarely follow those properly.

I don't need to know much to begin with - but if there's information that's relevant to your submission then that's useful. It's nice to have a bit of a sense of who you are, where you're based etc, but I don't need a full history.

That very much depends project by project - sometimes I know from the pitch that it's not going to be right for me, mostly I do dip into the sample but I can often tell quickly if it isn't grabbing me. I only read the full sample if I'm interested enough to think I could possibly work on it.

I would usually have a call with someone before offering representation, but assuming that goes well, I offer representation and they agree then we would start work on any editorial points I think need addressing - sometimes these are fairly broad and we'll already have discussed as part of that initial chat so the author will start work, sometimes it's more of a line edit in which case I'll work on that and send it over. There can be one round of edits, there can be several - it very much depends.
While that work is happening I'll start talking about the book to potential editors when I see them so that I can start building my submission list ready for the edits being finished.
I discuss the submission list with the author and share my submission note with them for comment. Once the book is on submission I ask authors how they want to hear about responses - passes can come in quite quickly as they're the easiest for an editor to action where taking a book to acquisition involves several other people reading it so I always warn people that this can be a bit dispiriting. Some authors opt to only have good news unless they ask for it, some ask for a weekly round up and others are happy to hear as and when news comes in.

It's not really possible to answer this question - there is no typical day.
Mondays are often quite admin based for me - I have a catch up with my colleague and focus on clearing emails, looking at contracts and doing anything else that may have cropped up to do with running the business.
Tuesday to Thursday I have at least one day in London for meetings with editors, and the other days are split between anything that may crop up for my clients/with their publishers, managing foreign deals for client's books, talking to my film agent etc and working on edits for my clients or having calls with them about their projects.