Flatiron building – home to publishers including Macmillan and Bloomsbury
I spent last week in New York on business seeing over 50 editors from 11 major US publishing companies. Each day tended to be ordered around two major publishers, with thirty minute back-to-back appointments at each. Day 1 consisted of Little, Brown and HarperCollins; day 2: Simon & Schuster and Random House; day 3: Penguin and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; day 4: Bloomsbury, Macmillan’s imprints (all in my favourite building in NY, the Flatiron) and Egmont; day 5: Hyperion and Scholastic.
It felt wonderful cementing relationships and meeting new editors to work with as there has been so much movement over the last two years. I am now busy following up my meetings and submitting new material by my clients to all the interested editors.
Further to the success of S.J. Watson’s BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP, psychological suspense is still working really well. Everyone I spoke to had read, or was reading, the cracking psychological suspense novel GONE GIRL by Gillian Flynn. Even the children’s editors were discussing this book, reminding me of my last business trip in NY when the crime author Tana French was most talked about. St Martin’s Press will be publishing Sophie McKenzie’s gripping first adult psychological suspense, CLOSE MY EYES, this summer, and I was very lucky to get a proof copy. Most of the editors were looking for new psychological suspense – even on the Young Adult side they were looking for this genre, particularly stories told by an unreliable narrator.
The other trend that was most talked about was New Adult, defined by an editor as realistic stories involving college age characters (with lots of sex), appealing to adult readers. It looks like popular sitcoms like GIRLS are now translating into books.
It was a super trip, and I’m already looking forward to my return.
Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency 