Ep. 2 Amy Elizabeth Bishop Literary Agent: Dystel, Goderich & Bourret: Interview Series

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Introduction

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Interview

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Video

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Topics

3 Big Takeaways

1. Get book or media industry experience under your belt
2. Structure your day around your brain power
3. Reach out to professionals in the career you want.

During the interview, Amy shares something that I think is important to consider. She spent months sending out resumes as a quality and qualified candidate. And still, she had to wait until something opened up. I think sometimes writers think about the query process as, “Am I a good writer or not.”

But sometimes success and failure in the query trenches has more to do with what’s open for a particular agent. Do they already have a book or author that produces the same kind of work that you do? In that way, a rejection for a query can be much more like a rejection based on a resume and cover letter. It’s not that you’re not good, it’s just that we’re not looking for someone right now.

However, if you wait it out and keep pushing through, you’ll land the job you always wanted. Or in your case, hopefully, the agent you’ve always wanted.

Also, Amy structures her days by front-loading her brainy tasks in the mornings. Are you similarly intentional about your days? If your mornings are your best times to get work done, are you giving yourself enough time to be productive? Evaluate your system for organizing your life and work. Do you have the right balance? Because that can sometimes be the difference between success and failure.

In the second part of this interview we talk about what Amy is looking for right now and the kinds of stories she gravitates towards. But more importantly, hearing her talk about how she builds her list will provide some insight into how to think about literary agents.

Amy gives some great advice for writers, and it’s one I don’t hear too often. She talks about the importance of building community around yourself as a writer. These communities can be critique groups, masterminds, writing groups, or even book clubs. Amy reiterates the roller coaster ride that is being a writer and talks about how these groups serve as a way to sustain you throughout the writing process.

Finally, I ask Amy what would change about the industry if she had a magic wand and what her number one tip for writers is.

And as a little bonus, we find out if agents really are out there during the PitMad Twitter Pitch Parties.

So hang out for a little bit and listen to Amy talk about her experiences. Whether you’re planning on submitting work to her or not, she’s working at one of the most famous literary agencies in the world. So her insight into how agents operate will be really helpful.

Full Transcript

DG: Amy, thanks so much for coming on, like I mentioned before we started recording I really think that there’s gonna be a lot of great information for people first want to submit to you and second we want to be literary agents so I’m really excited about this conversation.

AEB: Thanks so much for having me like this is, I love doing these kinds of health and it’s fun to just people submitting questions and it’s just fun to get out there a little bit too.

DG: It’s funny I actually just to get a little bit background on you I listened to your manuscript Academy podcast that you did at the start of quarantine my god that’s right, and it was like totally brought me back to that time, I think you were like a week into quarantine.

AEB: Yeah, I haven’t listened back, and I now I’m like, maybe, yeah, maybe I need to because

DG: It was, it was, yeah, it was so funny to hear because like even the hosts were like talking about like, oh you know this time will be so interesting and I was like they have no idea what’s about to happen. So I’m, what is the publishing world like now I mean are you back in the office at all, you still at home

AEB: I was racing back office to my desk here. Um, but we are personally starting a bath in the office, mid September so I think the 14th is our first week fast, and we’re doing a more hybrid situation so I’ll be in three days of the week and then working from home two days of the week. But I, you know, we’ll kind of see what happens with the Delta variant, and the fall goes but tentatively The idea is that we’re back in and operating I know a lot of the big publishers are coming back in the fall, people I think are starting to venture back out a little bit more.

DG: So I’m a teacher but my, I have friends in finance and they specifically I mean they’re talking about not going back. A lot of them are talking about not going back at all I mean, do you have a sense of publishing I mean are you going to be going to stick with a hybrid model?

AEB: I think a lot of people are going to do hybrid, you know, I know Harper, and maybe even Macmillan are doing a hot desk thing. I know there’s some places that if you commit to be in five, like maybe four or five days a week you will get an assigned desk, but like three days, or under you’re kind of floating. I know people just kind of in the beginning of the pandemic, like packed up and like left the city completely with no plans to really return so I mean, I think people are gonna have to keep it more hybrid because yeah.

DG: I’m curious to as like as the kind of tail end of COVID Hopefully. Right. Did you, when you look back, did you see like a slowdown in acquisitions over the last year and a half, I mean, has it been rising since then, or is it kind of steady,

AEB: We saw there was maybe a little bit of a slump in like late March, early April as we kind of figured out what’s going on and I feel like the trauma of everything happening and kind of realizing that we were in this long haul, and then things kind of ticked up and accelerated that I think part of it probably was that publishers were assuring us right and left that, you know, business as usual we were not slowing down, the doors were staying open, I think a lot of people threw themselves into work as an escape, you know, to some degree. Our jobs are so flexible in terms of being able to shift, at least in terms of editorial and agency. I know like art, and I think contracts, a little bit harder. But, you know, for our jobs, we were kind of able to just go full throttle in, and I think people were just so desperate to pretend like something was normal, and people were speaking the books, and there’s a lot of excitement about that. So, it was a very busy year I mean for the agency, our agency did really well last year, um, in terms of sales and I feel like nothing has really slowed down and we’ve just all been full speed ahead.

Unknown
That’s good I keep hearing that about the book industry that it’s it’s fine like they kind of powered through that nobody was really missing a beat. I just wonder I mean it was that. Is that like the nature of the work that you’re in that you’re able to communicate, you’ve kind of been communicating online with agents and editors like you’re not doing a lot of physical meetings I mean or were you before and not as much now.

Unknown
Before the pandemic, I was out with editors, two to three times a week, usually, you know at lunches and drinks so it is a very social industry, but we shipped it to Zoo which I mean, there’s been a variety of like, I love this. I hate this about those kinds of meetings like I have been to a couple other lunches in person and it’s really nice like it’s really nice to go have lunch with somebody and like have a nice meal. And talking about books when I do kind of miss that element, obviously, in April of 2020, no one was interested in that, including me, but I think it is sort of an element of social. It’s at the people industry, I mean so much of it is the connections you make, and the people you know, and the connections you forge and editors and authors. So I think to some degree, that kind of social element, keep going. Although we’ve been kind of moving along by honestly even before the pandemic I haven’t met, probably 80% of my authors, you know, because they live in California or in Nebraska, or you know whatever they hail from so it’s not unusual for us to have been kind of corresponding electronically before this either.

Unknown
Alright, so I actually, I want to backtrack a little bit and let’s talk about the beginning. Let’s talk about how you got interested in the publishing world I mean I read your bio on the agency, it seems like you were always kind of a bookish kid. Did you always know you wanted to work with books.

Unknown
No, I always liked writing, and I wrote a lot as a kid, I thought I was in New York later kind of grew up with that I was writing something, I majored in English in college, which is unsurprising to everyone, and I feel like it’s also unsurprising. Everybody who works in publishing, I feel like that’s just what you do with a few notable outliers, but I didn’t really know about publishing but I wanted to do publishing until probably like my junior year of college, actually, I knew that I didn’t want to go for my MFA around junior year I saw a lot of my friends who were much more serious about writing than I was, start applying talking about, you know mission statements, and I’m like, I just figured out always your master’s program, it’s to not seem to get enough reason to do an MFA program. And so apart from drawing a blank on like that mission statement. I was like well, it would be nice to make some money to, you know, at least a little bit, and I started kind of thinking about what I could do an English degree, and I knew I didn’t want to cheat. I just like wasn’t really cut out for that. And as sort of like a little to do with an English degree, and I look books often looks cool. And so I was just talking to everybody I knew about it and being like, God, Buddy What are my steps to get there and I happen to be working at college advancement in like college at the time this is a part time job. And one of the ladies on the board was like, Oh, I have a friend who works in publishing, does an agent Curtis Brown, you should talk to her. Oh, like, so we had like an informational interview, um, she says what Curtis Brown, but she talked me very plainly for half an hour 45 minutes about entertaining and publishing and I never thought about interesting, I knew about agents I had period of terrible book, like my 15 year old self wrote that is somewhere like a floppy disk, so I knew about agents but hadn’t thought about going to the content of like a job, right like this is a copy or somebody could help. And so I was fascinated and I thought wow like this sounds like a job that I would be good at and interested in, and Kadish my starting, and so when I applied internships that summer going into my senior year, I applied agencies as well as publishing houses, and I was lucky enough to get this one with distal. So that was the summer of 2014, and I loved it I came away from the internship at the end of the summer, feeling like I had learned so much and thinking what a great people to work with, and this is also something I really want to do. So I played a team around I graduated, I moved to the city, with my boyfriend and he seems he’s grown up here, and I just do service for three months and find it the West Village, and applied for jobs and like read it and was like I’m unemployed like so hire me, and have someone just fill as well so you know I, I was reading a couple agents, they’re coming in the door, and eventually A call came through in July and they were like what openings any position. Do you want to come in for it’s not directly affiliated but it’s an agency, this is the Feinstein job so I was like oh my gosh yes, myself, was the financials and subsidiary rights, Assistant. Like, oh they want me to work with money. Okay, sure. And,

Unknown
but, you know, I got the job, every English major dreams of right.

Unknown
Oh great, but usually it was like where I wanted to be and I was like, you know, it’s been it’s been three months of sort of sending out resumes, it’s like black hole now so I’ll take it.

Unknown
Okay, I want to pause here because Amy shares something that I think is really important to consider. She spent months, sending out resumes as a qualified and quality candidate and still she had to wait until something opened up for him. I think sometimes writers think about the query process, as am I a good writer or not. And no rejection means you’re not an acceptance means that you are, but I think sometimes success and failure in the query trenches has more to do with what’s open for a particular agent. Do they already have a book or author that produces the same kind of work that you do. And that way a rejection for a query can be much more like a rejection based on a resume and cover letter. It’s not that you’re not good, it’s just that they’re not looking for someone with your particular set of skills right now, but like, Amy. If you waited out long enough and keep pushing through, you’ll land the job you always wanted. Or in your case, hopefully the agent you’ve always wanted. For the rest of this interview listen to how Amy structures her days. Her downtime and work life balance, and think about how you organize your own life and work. Do you have the right balance, because that can sometimes be the difference between success and failure. So let’s head back to the interview

Unknown
and got the job and then, you know, three months into that. James assistant a time left to just pursue other things, and Jane asked me to be her assistant and then I did that for like five and a half years and then I just this January, move in a different position that agency like gives me more time to focus on my own list.

Unknown
Nice. I mean, what was it, what was it like working with Jane just saw she’s like a, she’s like a publishing legend

Unknown
is a legend. She is just, yeah like I feel like Legend is the best way to describe her. She’s absolutely fallacious defensive her authors and like in their interests. It was actually really, I always say like, it’s the best job to do, if you want an agent because I saw everything I saw. I saw her whole process, like she’s so meticulous and detail oriented. And I feel like I learned really good strategies and good processes from just watching her do it and do it day in day out and I feel like she has so in some ways like casual about the brilliant people she works with, and not that she thinks them for granted but that she’s just, she’s, she can see a good idea and hone in on it and be like, This is a book you have to write like, I don’t know if you knew this but she represented Brock Obama’s four spots. Oh I didn’t know that and she wrote to him when he was when she saw his, you know, article about being the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, and was like you have a book, you know, I’d like to talk to you about a book, and that was that. And she’s just got this amazing eye, and so when I say she’s so casual about the talent she works with just because she sees it and she goes after it, and like, she’s worked with all these luminaries, and it’s just part of,

Unknown
You know, it’s awesome. If there was one thing that you learned from Jane distill that you could share what do you think it would be a great

Unknown
question. I would say it’s leaving out like a specific lesson, but it’s more just sort of like, you work in the service of your clients, and like their best interests, and if people get mad at you about that that’s not your problem like your clients come first, and always go first. And so you’re going to ruffle some feathers sometimes but like that’s, you know, we want to be courteous and polite. At all times, if possible, but you can’t be faulted for doing what is in the best interest.

Unknown
That’s all she sounds fierce. She is. She is so for young people interested in landing an internship in publishing, I mean it sounds like you had a little bit of an in in that you got to talk to somebody from from publishing I mean is that what you recommend is just talking to people who are in the industry and,

Unknown
yeah, It’s like a interconnected industry in that way to the age I talk to at Curtis Brown like couldn’t really help me get in anywhere, but she helped me kind of stop, just like a better sense of the industry, I guess.

I think having prior editorial experience to some degree can be helpful, you know, whether it’s like working on like a lit mag or like reading or something just like stuff to show you’re interested in books. you’ve been or literature, you’ve been working with that kind of thing, but I will also say that if you wanted a job and publishing down the line like this news to the case I’m not sure it is anymore, but the old was used to be, you need New York experience to get a new publishing job. Again, as a pandemic, I don’t know how true that is anymore, a lot of different avenues opened up, but, um, you know, looking on book jobs, calm is where actually I found the distal internship with Pfizer so far internship, there’s you know commissions marketplace. Also, one weird thing, helpful is having Office experience like administrative experience. It’s also helpful when looking for a job because if you start out as an agency assistant or editorial assistant, so much of your job is less about like headhunting and finding talent and so much about supporting your boss and doing a lot of like, you know, can you write professional email can you find something you found, You know, can you find that information, it’s very obviously things and so having had four years of training at college advancement.

Unknown
Oh wow that’s great. So is that is that the route most people go I mean are they interning in summers before, maybe even before graduating or after and then assisting and working their way up, seems like that’s the most common.

Unknown
Yeah I thought that’s most typical mostly to because there’s so many different facets of publishing but I think it’s a good way to sort of figure out what you like and what you might be good at and what interests you the most like some people have done agency work and I’m like yeah that’s not for me, right, you know, people have been a, you know, An editorial essence they like, yeah, I just choose to structure or whatever, I think that’s generally like internships kind of that pipeline, I know people have also done, the different publishing courses in Denver, this one Columbia NYU, I know, you know, people of color and publishing has been a big, mentorship, and we We Need Diverse Books similarly so there’s a few more pipelines I think but internships are just I think helpful in giving you the experience and kind of boots on the ground.

Unknown
Do you hear people moving careers into publishing later in life or is that is it mostly people who have been there since the beginning I’m just thinking of people who are maybe listening to this and thinking like, I need to career change, I’m ready to make a career change I love books I want to get into publishing, but I’m not 22 years old, like what I do here any of that.

Unknown
The last couple of years, there are a lot of changes a lot of people segwayed into magazine publishing or brought in as editors, I think it’s hard if you don’t have both immediate experience on your resume, to some degree, and I think the other problem is a lot of internships really aren’t geared towards students, like if you know someone who is, you know, 35 or 40, came in like one of your internship and you’re like, I don’t think you do, like, you know like you just have so much more speed like it’s, it’s really is like entry level work. I think it can be tricky, but I’m sure it’s always

Unknown
interesting. I know agents sometimes moonlight as like editors or is that something that you do as well I mean is that common or is it now, where you kind of shift to fully focused on on your agency.

Unknown
I feel, oh Jimmy like freelance work. Well, yeah. Oh okay, yeah, yeah, I think you know publishing is getting better and not pay a lot. So, you know, to some degree, I think people are picking up side gigs to just kind of make ends meet.

Unknown
And just to kind of get a sense I know you probably don’t have a traditional or typical day but what is, what is your morning, I mean, is there a day that’s typical for you and what do you normally do in the mornings and the afternoons is there, is there something that you can share that might give people a sense of what it’s like to be a literary agent

Unknown
There definitely is no set day. It’s kind of all different like I had a nice little to do list on my notepad today of stuff I wanted to get done and I got maybe two things. I was working with, I’m not really sure. But I, for me personally, you know I like to try to do my more like thinkI tasks during the morning I’m precious, so when betting a contract or reading an edit memo or something more detail projection note or more organizational Grenier things I try to do those in the morning, otherwise I’m just coast by afternoon. Afternoon, I like to try and do a little bit more reading if possible you know, the thing I think the biggest myth is that we sell all our days reading and so people are like, Why haven’t they gone back to me about, you know my career they said two weeks ago and it’s the truth is that we do a lot of our reading at night and on the weekends when we, our computers are shot, the most of my day is spent on email answering point questions, phone calls, you know, brainstorming. The editors, the healer meetings and emailing me emergency admin kind of things, so my really does happen if I can shut one screen open another. And so, and then you know of course you’re trying to fit like a life and around that, that can be a little bit tricky but, you know, the optimal day if things are not, you know on fire and there’s no emergencies. I like to try to do a little bit of reading around three or four, but it doesn’t always happen today did not happen. Maybe tomorrow. We’ll see.

Unknown
And are you getting. I mean how many queries are you getting per day Is it is it, it’s, it sounds like at times it’s astronomical for literary agents.

Unknown
So I actually just started doing query manager which has been delightful and I get this question a lot and I didn’t have any good answer for anybody because I didn’t have stats I wasn’t gonna go like counts up, but actually has managed to compile stuff for you, just really nice. The month of August, it looks like I’ve gotten 219 theories, wow, and honestly is supposed to be a slow month like who actually knows. And that’s just unsolicited that’s not stuff that, like that was that’s not referrals that’s not conference stuff that’s just unsolicited work.

Unknown
And, I mean, do you have a sense of how many of those are you asking for more materials

Unknown
query manager tells me it looks like I asked for eight projects. This month from pre manager, I’ve turned out 145 I have about 66 I have to.

Unknown
It sounds like it’s a numbers game. Yeah, right, as an English teacher I often say like I you know I talked to math teachers all the time they’re like oh yeah like I’m done with grading I’ve never done, there’s always a pile of papers somewhere I’m like that it sounds like it’s the same kind of thing, there’s always something you can be doing it’s gonna be hard to turn it off.

Unknown
I feel like if I find my reading I’m like caught up, I’m like wow, like I’m good to go. You know, I will say this year it’s been a challenge in terms of reading for fun because I ever have sat down, I’ve been like, oh I have a good manuscript I have three or edits I have to do and get that stock is also not counting client material after wheat and comedones you so. Yeah, it’s to get to know you kind of you, it varies too right like there are times I will like an absolute demon, you know, straight through and like, you know, clever docs and there’s weeks and I’m like, I just need

Unknown
a break. How do you find the time to turn it off. Where do you make boundaries is there timing do you set an alarm for yourself or you just keep powering through

Unknown
boundary shifts you know I think we’re getting into the busy season and fall so I feel like I’m gonna have no boundaries for a little bit if I’m, if I’m feeling very overwhelmed, I try to like do a lot more read a lot faster because I like math, I have to, you know, all this stuff has to get done. You know, in the slower months I feel like I’m clicking a little bit easier, really slow much slower month. No, it kind of just absent flows, I think it depends on how well things are going on in my life like this weekend it was really like really cute. I said for an author who has an offer like oh yeah i’ll try to read them the weekend, I moved this weekend, and I was like, it didn’t happen, I’m still reading it, I did not look at one paper over the weekend. So, you know, obviously, next week I just been great, like, oh I can’t do anything, because I’m exhausted. So, yeah, that kind of stuff too but I try to get back to people with varying degrees of success,

Unknown
but stuff happens all the time, I guess. Alright and that’s it for part one in the next part of this interview. Amy and I will be talking about what she is looking for now, why it’s helpful to go with newer agents trends and publishing Twitter pitch parties and Amy’s top tip for writers, Be sure to check that out next week.

Full Transcript

DG: You’re building your list right now and I’ll link to your Manuscript Wish List and your agency page on to this interview but will you share a little bit about what you’re looking for either broadly, or more specifically.

AEB: Yeah, absolutely. So, I am still growing my list, and growing it a little bit slower than I was, you know, three or four years ago because we have, we’ve been growing. I would say, you know, for me, for fiction I’m looking for that literary market fiction. You know I’m really interested in stories by, about, and for women. I think family relationships are so interesting, and the dynamics are always fascinating to me. I really love also the work from BIPOC authors who have their own stories tell whether it’s joyful or sad or, you know, just the whole range I’m kind of looking for. I think Nancy Jooyoun Kim’s novel, The Last Story of Mina Lee is a great example of what I’m looking for. It’s a mother daughter story, but it’s also about location and women figuring out their way in the world. I have a great novel coming out next summer about a biracial woman who flees Haitian Revolution and her family’s kind of plantation owning land of slave owning background to go to Paris, where that French Revolution is breaking out and kind of what her role as a mixed race woman is, you know, when you’re talking about liberty and justice and freedom and equality.

Those kinds of stories that really interrogate life and the bigger conversations we’re having I feel like all of my projects have wound up running some element of social justice into them or trying to deepen conversations. I have a novel coming out also next summer now, father and daughter growing up in West Texas, and, you know, their relationship is really fractured when the data comes out as gay, and despite their really fierce love for each other, they’re having a really difficult time parsing out what this means this small kind of evangelical town, you know, the daughter, definitely wants to stay in her community loves her community but the community does not love her back and, you know like what do you do with that? And so, you know, just I love stories from all over, and I’d love to find more stories not set in kinds of the more typical settings of like the East Coast like the West Coast.

For nonfiction I do a lot of really interesting, like expert driven narrative nonfiction. I love history, pop science, things I haven’t heard before which is lot but like untold histories that kind of thing really makes me excited.

DG: You just had a, an author just came out with a nonfiction book because a July, one of your authors

AEB: That must have been Shannon, Shannon Yeah,

DG: And was that something that just really stood out to you something that you really wanted to share like a story that that really resonated with you?

AEB: Yeah, You know I don’t do a ton of memoir, but Shannon really stood out to me. For one you have an amazing platform to begin with so that that helped but the way she talks about faith, and her own life, and kind of the really unflinching honesty with what she writes really stood out to me and she sounded so conversational and accessible. I mean just getting on the phone with her and talking to her, she’s absolutely incredible. And, you know, I think it was a combination of her, her message and her voice and the book changed a lot between when we signed up, and when it came out for a number of reasons, but that was something I was really drawn to.

I have another memoir coming out next May, about a Korean American woman who was the model daughter the model, you know, Asian immigrant went into medicine, pediatrics, and then at the age of 40, left it all behind to kind of rediscover her Korean roots and her heritage and become a writer. And again it was one of those things that writing was really beautiful. A story really resonated with me. And so we took a shot and it worked. So, memoir is really hard though. Memoir is really tricky.

DG: I imagine it’s a lot about platform and analytics in that in that way that, I mean is fiction the same or is fiction, a little bit less so?

AEB: Fiction is less so because, you know, fiction is so subjective right like we’ve all picked up books that we weren’t sure we were going to like and loved them. And we pick books that we thought would be a sure hit for our interest and we’ve been like, eh. Anybody can come to a story, I think, when you’re doing, nonfiction, you know, if you’re a history reader you’re, You’re gonna go history buff, right, like if you’re your science you’re going to be interested in science, the new science titles that come out. There’s just a more set category there for them versus fiction where it’s sort of like, you know, the Wild West, you can kind of pick and choose whatever.

DG: Yeah. Interesting. So you’re a newer agent than, then some of the other ones working in the industry, what are some of the benefits of working with a newer agent you know if you’re somebody who’s planning on querying like, why is it helpful to go with somebody who’s maybe newer in the industry maybe building their list.

AEB: Well I think the first is face, I mean they’re going to have space on their list for you. And, time, space and time. And not to say that people, you know, who are more established don’t because I think they’re always looking for great stories they’re always picking people out of slush, but they have a lot less room on my list to do that, so they’re going to be even more selective and like, you know, you’ve heard my, my numbers just now and, you know, it doesn’t get any better. Right, so I’m not so the people who are new are not going to be as choosy. But if something needs a ton of work, they might be more willing to invest that time than someone who has a really full client roster and is already managing a lot of projects. It’s not just taking on new clients and working with I was also servicing your other clients you know who are already on your list and their projects and their needs so it’s a balancing act in that way.

DG: Yeah, that makes that makes a lot of sense. I feel like in creative careers there’s a lot of rejection and I feel like the publishing industry is pretty infamous for its horror stories about rejection reactions to rejections I’m sure you’ve already had a few I mean what, what advice do you give to writers about if they get a rejection, how should they handle something like that.

AEB: A polite, thanks for your time, or nothing at all will suffice.

DG: I’m sure you’ve, you’ve already initiate I feel like that’s like the thing that comes right after when people talk about querying they talk about the crazy responses.

AEB: Yeah I mean it’s not fun for the writers but it’s not always a walk in the park for us,

DG: I’m sure, I’m sure. Alright so if you, if you had a magic wand and you could fix one part of the book publishing process or industry, what do you what do you think you would fix?

AEB: I think accessibility and I think that covers a large swath of things you know it covers pay barriers to entry in the publishing for people who work in publishing, but I think it also impacts people who have access to being published. There’s been a lot of change, a lot of us discussion the industry obviously about, you know, ways to make things better, you know, ways to put more seats with tables, I think the tough thing is we have a lot of younger people coming in, you know, and they’re more junior positions, but they don’t pull the purse strings, they don’t mark, you know they’re not running the show. And so, you know it can be tough. In that way, to really promote I think you know, people’s credit, there has been a lot of change, it’s been a much broader swath of voices that we haven’t heard from before. But there’s always room for improvement and I think, you know, I’ve heard stories from colleagues and our colleagues who just not felt heard or silenced or there’s the frustration that you say you want diversity that you want different experiences and then we come in and no one cares. So, yeah, I think just that’s the magic wand, right more accessibility on both sides of the desk.

DG: Yeah I mean I feel like too and there’s a lot of crossover I feel like in a lot of industries about this where it’s something to put on the website, it’s something to say it’s something that you tweet out or it’s something that’s on the About Us but it’s not necessarily something that is ingrained in what you’re doing on a day to day basis. Is there anything that you’ve seen in the last, I mean, is this something that you’ve seen since you’ve started as a shift, or is this something that is even more recent in the last three years or so?

AEB: I think it’s a little more recent than that. I think children’s was starting to push really early. I feel like I’ve noticed that on the children’s side I feel like change comes a little faster, and maybe it is because you know we’re writing for the next generation, you know, and we’re publishing books to them.

I think adult has been a little bit slower to change but we’re catching up now, but I feel like when I started, it was six years ago it was starting, and I think it’s really pick up speed. I mean, there have been so many of my colleagues who have started amazing, you know, Beth Phelan who does DV Pit and DVCon has been doing amazing kind of promoting writers of color and diverse writers. There is Me and Diverse Books, there are People of Color in Publishing, like there have been a lot of incredible initiatives that people have been able to do that if provided more resources like LatinX in Publishing. That’s all been sort of recent, I couldn’t say for sure, but I don’t feel like that was really the case when I started, but it’s been a long time so I don’t quote me on that.

DG: Well, it just, it feels, it feels recent, it feels like I’m seeing it more than in the past, and I just think it’s interesting. I mean, are you seeing, and I don’t know if you can even answer this but are you seeing more of a push from readers for books that encapsulate more diverse voices or are these things from agency perspective? Where where are you seeing the push for more voices? I guess my question is are agents realizing that there’s a lack of diverse voices, and they’re pushing for it or our readers demanding it?

Unknown
It’s a really interesting question because I think in some ways, we [agents] are , you know, two layers removed, you know, obviously we’re consumers who are reading and buying books right but like we’re not selling into the places are buying the books, you know, we’re not necessarily always hearing from readers like that’s readers when we’re publishing facing a publishing house facing that they are agency facing. So, meaning kind of heard from the wind, but we’re not we don’t have direct kind of access to that, you know, what kind of governs our, our jobs and what we’re able to sort of take on other than our own personal taste and what we want to see out in the market is what editors will buy from us, right? So I feel like the editors, perhaps, are more driven by the market and what readers want and they’re, they have a more direct pipeline to what readers want based on like booksellers and marketing, publicity and sales. It’s hard to because you know we all are in this little insulated ball of our own internet right so like on my Twitter feed. I see lots of people who want diverse books but I’m also running in those circles so like, you know it can be kind of hard to tell because all you have to go on are like sales of books, you know, and, you know, those kind of random. Some things take off, they’re like, what how? Some things that you think are going to take off, don’t work as well as you’d hoped and

DG: I was teaching in Harlem when The Hate U Give came out by Angie Thomas and I just remember it felt like (we actually we ended up purchasing a copy for every, every student in our, in our I think in our school if not in definitely the grade that I was in) and it just felt like it felt really, it felt powerful for the students obviously to see someone who looked like them publishing a book about their own experiences. Especially I was in a charter school where it’s like, it can sometimes feel to kids like they’re code switching in the same way that she was in that book. And that they’re coming into a school run primarily by white teachers. And it just felt really powerful. And it was then that I started hearing more about diverse authors and diverse readership more than I had in the past. And it just really struck me as like, are agents realizing, wow, this needs to be there or are our markets driving that interest if that if that makes any sense.

AEB: Yeah, I think it’s probably a combination of both. I think for us, agents have so much power in some ways in terms of what they can take on because most agents, and editors are constricted by their house on what they can acquire, right? Like if you’re working on an adult imprint you’re not taking on YA. For us, you know, at least, at our agency, and every agency is different, you know it’s take on what you think is going to sell. For me it’s like well, I would love to see more diverse voices I would like to see more Asian voices. So that’s what I’m kind of looking at. And yeah I think it is really powerful to see yourself on the cover, you know, as a huge reader, and I am a child of the 90s like early 90s And like 2000s When YA was starting to happen and like I never saw myself on the cover of books. And so it’s really powerful. I think as an adult now, sort of seeing all these books that are out there with like a whole array of faces on the covers and being like, oh my God like when I was a kid, I would have loved that. It’s something you don’t really realize you’re missing until you see it, and you realize you’ve been missing it the whole time.

DG: It must be cool then to be a person who’s now bringing these voices to that next generation. Do you think about yourself growing up at all, and you’re like, oh, I would have loved this book. That’s something that needs to be out there.

AEB: All the time, like all the time.

DG: I want to pause here to unpack a little bit about what we’ve heard and give you something to think about during the second part of this interview. First, one thing I thought was so interesting about this conversation so far is how much literary agents are looking for things that speak to them. Sure they have to think about stories they can sell but ultimately they want books out there that they’ve always wanted to read. What might that tell you about pitching your own story?

Also, as you just heard, I’ve had some experience teaching students who don’t look like me. And it wasn’t until I was the only white person in the room that I realized how much default whiteness exists in our society. It just never occurred to me until I started working with kids where we’d spend lots of time trying to find literature that spoke to them, and honestly it was pretty much the same five or six books from three or so authors that would come up.

So I want to go back to this idea and really just open up a question to you as a listener to think about. Whenever you hear about institutions, I mean especially in the book industry but I guess really anywhere, saying that they want diverse voices I think doing this because they want to help more people who haven’t had the same opportunities to engage with and joy literature. Or are they doing it because they saw the numbers of sales on The Hate U Give? The more I talk to people from the industry, the more convoluted this question seems to be. But Amy addresses this question in the second part of this interview so make sure you listen in for that. Also, we hear about what stories Amy has sold recently. Think about the way she describes those stories. What did she love about them? What made her want to represent the author? Thinking about her preferences more deeply might make you think about how to approach literary agents with your work. Or, if you want to be a literary agent, how to approach your authors and titles. And I asked her if she’s avoiding sad and dark stories, and stories about pandemics. Her answer isn’t really what I thought it would be. Let’s dive back into the interview.

DG: You have some YA, anything coming out that we should be on the lookout for anything that’s just out now?

Unknown
Yeah so Martha June her, and she did a silence with phones but she, her second book the forest the stolen girls came out in this past April. This is our third book coming out in January I called the Red palace, and it seemed, this is really incredible Korean historical mysteries, and again it’s like you know what I wish I had been able to, like, read about Korean history through these fascinating like murder mystery lenses. As a kid, I learned so much history but didn’t feel like you’re learning history, like, for something like this, the family stories like the drama like who’s been who is murdering these people, but she’s amazing and I feel like her next book is like a K drama, waiting to happen. That’s awesome. But then my other author Claire Andrews has a bit of a come out in June called daughter of Sparta it’s been doing really well, and it’s kind of a feminist retelling of like the Daffy Apollo myth is really great and fireflies and great traction, anything in the fantasy communities, she’s got a second book coming out next next year I believe the sequel. And then I have a really exciting, why rom com coming out next March called being married Bennett, and it’s so fun like the banter is amazing, but it’s kind of a riff, I kind of just did the Jane Austen protocol just as a sort of Springboard Okay, and so like the family structure is there and all the sisters are there right but they’re, you know modern day in California, Marnie realizes that she’s not Lizzie, you know she’s not a hero of her own story really she’s the unlikable middle sister, and is horrified and is like, I have to admit that myself, how do I do this, and goes through this kind of series of mishaps and it’s really heartwarming. You know it’s a story about a girl who’s really prickly and kind of learning about herself and learning what people in and, you know, grow in that way, Johnny was a pitch wars mentee in 2020 and I read this book at the beginning of the pandemic and it was just like the heartwarming stories I needed, and we sold it in like May and it was just like one of those books I was like, Oh, What a breath of fresh air, like it is a total feel good, heartwarming story so very excited about that one, JC Peterson is the author, do you

Unknown
see people avoiding or maybe I should ask you specifically are you avoiding like, I mean obviously probably avoiding pandemic stories but are you are you searching for those very much escapist stories that you needed during this last year and a half,

Unknown
yes and no. I really love a good like heartwarming kind of story in that way like laser escapes, I think in my reading. I’ve been reading a lot of like romances and just like fun, you know novels that I just have a happy ending. All as well. I think in what I’m taking on, I’m torn between loving those but also I always have a dark kind of a dark edge. So I love, you know, a little bit of Gothic, you know a little bit of a, you know, creepy houses, locked up family dynamics, I don’t know so it really runs the gamut.

Unknown
It’s kind of like, whatever you’re interested you’re interested in unless yeah I’m

Unknown
less interested I think in like the political intrigue kind of books or obviously things with pandemics right now, or like dystopian novels, but, um, other than that kind of fair game.

Unknown
So you brought it up so I got to ask because I’m, I’m actually dying to know the, the Twitter like pitch thing do agents, look at those I mean is that something that agents are like sit on Twitter and scroll through and, and,

Unknown
yeah, yeah I thought in a good number of not good. No, definitely Kindle authors from from those contests and I request probably five to 10 things every contest. Just to look so yeah I’m

Unknown
sure people are happy right now. It’s like I think there’s another one coming up this week. That’s coming up. I think it’s like,

Unknown
oh yeah it’s Thursday, I think. Yeah, so I’ll be looking, you know,

Unknown
that’s awesome. I think it’s so funny because I feel like sometimes I feel like people are just throwing these out into the void and then I hear stories from people are like, yeah, no I actually got an agent or I got a request so I got. So I was curious about how much or how frequently agents are actually rolling around out there, that’s awesome.

Unknown
I think if you have time and you’re not already feeling kind of overwhelmed, we always keep. Yeah, you never know. I mean, enough of us have signed great things from those contests that we’re like, oh this look.

Unknown
Quick Look, it’s like I was gonna say it’s probably a quicker way of quickly going through then like you’re going through your, your query list I imagine takes a little bit more time.

Unknown
Yeah, I mean you’re thinking a little bit harder about the query and 25 pages you are about, you know 280 characters Right.

Unknown
Exactly. That’s cool. So, what is your maybe like number one tip or top two tips for writers who are writing right now in terms of querying or just like generally I’m generally, definitely.

Unknown
I felt like my number one tip is always kind of building community around you, you know, obviously if you’re a nonfiction writer you need that platform but I think even if you’re a fiction writer, you know, writing can feel so isolated, and it doesn’t have to be, I think that I think you’ll get more joy out of it and more help. If you are a part of some kind of community in terms of your manuscript in terms of really getting that final polish in terms of people being like, oh, but have you read this book, you know, or this is maybe really similar this is not only going to work or, you know, finding people who can both support you but also critique you is really helpful. And I think it can kind of get you through the hard times, even when you sign with an agent, there’s not always that quick, fast book deal behind it. You know I just wrote a book for an author, who should we have been working together since 2018. And we have tried this is her third book that we tried, and I just kept bringing her like, not when after not when. And we’re starting to feel really bad about it. And, you know, we ended up selling this adult novel, you know assignor for a while and it’s one of the big five houses, I’m like, it’s been going great, but it was three years you know and so I think for her. I’m sure having those people in her corner was really helpful, and you know I think at some point at the end of the day you’re eating can only do so much in terms of bolstering you, it’s felt like your parents, you know like you have to say that you’re my hero, my age. You know how there’s other words, it’s all that you’re saying can be helpful.

Unknown
Yeah, and so the the writers that you have that that you’re, that you’re agenting for I mean, do you see did most of them go through beta readers critique group editor like a version of that all of the above. Yeah,

Unknown
I feel a lot of authors have already come in with a manager that’s been looked at by at least one other person. They’ve just all been shockingly good at having home like kind of carved out these writing groups themselves, Not all of them, but many of them, and now that they’re all like, it’s so it’s so nice. I think they’ve also started each other’s work, to, you know, like they formed their own little, like, even smaller community of people, you know, agency siblings kind of with I think warms my heart. So,

Unknown
that’s awesome. Cool. So, as we as we kind of wrap up here, I mean, are there any books or resources you suggest for either for writers or people who want to be in the publishing world,

Unknown
I would say into that if you’re looking for job post things again like book jobs.com is great, which is marketplace job board is great. I think also just doing informational interviews like I have one coming up, let’s say Thursday, everyone is in the policy industry I feel like just willing to give a half hour of their time to talk to you about it, and can give you insights, I don’t think there’s really a book you can you can read about you know how to get your starting publishing industry. I will say if you solicit the job is hands on like you learn it’s kind of an apprenticeship, you are I don’t know any of this stuff when I started, it’s also doing and asking questions and just actually doing the work that I learned so much of it. So you just kind of need your in.

Unknown
I do feel like I feel like the older I get, the more I realize like people like talking about their job, but they feel comfortable doing it and so I think if you’re sitting out there right now you want to be a literary agent like reach out to a literary agent or 10 Probably and say like hey you have five minutes to chat about, you know what you do and I feel like that that might be the best advice I will say

Unknown
to for both writers, and people who are looking to get into the industry. Read what’s going on and like what’s happening now, like if you like read a fantasy novel if you’re writing a fantasy genre, read a book club book, if you’re in the book club space like if you’re applying for jobs, know what the agency has done know what that, you know, publishing house has done recently it’s been a big book for them, people are going to ask you those questions, you’re going to use if you’re writing your name and your comp titles like you have to know what’s happening now, you cannot use Harry Potter or, you know, the Vinci code like you have to know what’s happening in the market now, whether you’re a writer or someone trying to use the industry. And you know it’s it’s something that I feel like is it’s kind of obvious, but also people don’t think about like I was in college I was not really reading for fun because I didn’t have time. So, they’re like, Oh, what have you read if you’ve liked and I was like, Oh, so yeah so it’s important.

Unknown
Yeah, that’s great. So any any books you’re reading now or love or want to share with people.

Unknown
So I have like I said, I haven’t really slowed down in my phone readings while my work reading, but I read the rose code by Kate Quinn over my vacation in August and I love all of her books, but I have always been fascinated by Bletchley Park and this is about three code breakers at Bletchley Park, who is, past and present and they kind of uncover this, there’s been a mall in Bletchley Park, and, you know, what kind of what happens after that. But she said some beautiful atmospheric writer, it’s one of those books you laugh, you cry like your heart show your tongue. And I read this is not recently, but I have not been able to stop thinking about in the dream house by Carmen, Maria Machado, which is her memoir, told him is absolutely kind of mishmash of styles, and it’s one of those books that you feel like shouldn’t work but she pulls up beautifully, but it’s a memoir about a pretty bad abusive relationship she had with a woman, but also it kind of interrogating relationships in general queer relationships specifically through the lens of sort of a house, and the structure and she plays all this different form, but she’s got such a tight control the narrative that it all meshes. And I remember being like, oh, memoir, from other writer like how interesting is not going to be and like I opened and I love her short story collection that I opened that my moment I was like, I have to I have to own a copy, there has to be my shelf, I have to look at it again and again like it’s brilliant, like she’s brilliant. So

Unknown
that’s good that’s a good recommendation that’s strong recommendation for

Unknown
sure so good.

Unknown
All right, what’s, what’s one thing you hope people take from this conversation

Unknown
that we’re not as scary as we seem, I feel like a lot of people, you know, are so like you know I picked sessions in conferences like people, you know, are like shaking when they come up to me, I’m like, you know before I was like, I’m like, you know, this is yours, you’re 24 like you were like, he leaves in your 40s, you should not be afraid to come talk to me, You know what I mean. And now, even though I’m older like I still feel the same way it’s like you know we’re all just people who have books and have a conversation about books, and there is obviously a power imbalance because of the nature of our jobs but no one is really going to hold it over you, you know, we all slip up to them but I and so not as scary of his seat.

Unknown
That’s a good that’s a good message to share, where, where can people find you Where can people look you up.

Unknown
So on the agency website www.sceeto.com Under the new donation section. I’m on query manager at query manager.com slash Amy Liz Bishop, I’m on Twitter at aimless bishop, and that probably the best because defines me.

Unknown
Nice. Alright my last, my last kind of question is Is there, is there anything else you want to share anything else you want to say or any, any questions that you wish I had asked you that you want me to ask you so that you can answer.

Unknown
Yeah, honestly, I think people who are kind of looking to get into the industry, it. There are more entry points than there used to be. And I hope that kind of continues I hope that you know more virtual internships kind of continue. And you know, if you don’t live in New York, like the greater New York area, there is university presses there’s, you know, little outposts, I know like, you know, little you know Houghton Mifflin has an outpost in Boston, you know, I think sourcebooks is located in Naperville in Illinois, so don’t be discouraged.

Unknown
Nice, good. Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to chat with me as I anticipated this was really informative and I think will be great for people, both looking to become literary agents and looking for literary agents, I think they’re going to get a lot out of it so thank you so much for taking the time. Thanks for

Unknown
inviting me. This was great, I loved our conversation.

Unknown
Alright and that’s it from Amy Elizabeth Bishop I had a great time recording this interview and feel like she gave us some insight into her process as a literary agent, and to the publishing world as a whole. Next time I’m going to be talking to bestselling author Grady Hendrix about his new book, The final girl support group, plus his previous bestseller, this other book clubs guide to slaying vampires, as well as his multiple projects in production coming to a screen near you, we discuss his projects and film production, what it’s like to write the screenplay based on your own book. And what it’s like to pass your book on to someone else to be adapted. This conversation is perfect for Halloween. So if you’re looking for a great spooky season, listen, or you’re like me and you like to have spooky season all year round. You’re gonna love this interview, So make sure you check it

Unknown
out. Thanks.