Books & Such Literary Management— Big News!

Books & Such Literary Management has big news, but first a little background.  .  .

Books & Such Literary Management is often asked if all literary agencies are basically alike? Our answer? Absolutely not. Let me explain.

Some agencies are all about the sale.

That’s understandable. Writers want an agency that will actively go about making the sale of their manuscript. But what about aftercare? There’s so much more— choosing covers and titles, for instance. Troubling issues arise at times, and an agent needs to decorously step in to help resolve things. If your agent is all about the sale, they may be AOL during problem phases. What if the writer feels his book has been over-edited? That takes a discerning agent who can address the problem without straining any relationships. Books & Such places an equal emphasis on selling and aftercare.

Some agencies silo their clients.

Many agencies worry that if they form a community of writers, their clients may compare sales numbers, contract issues, and contrast the client care each one receives. Those agencies feel it is better to keep their clients siloed—communicating with one client at a time. Books & Such believes there is power in community. We have a “secret” Facebook community for our clients to freely communicate with us and each other. We enthusiastically gather our clients together with retreats, quarterly webinars, virtual Christmas parties and State of the Industry addresses. We make it a point to collect our “Bookies” together at writers’ conferences and industry events. When endorsements are needed or clients need help with book launches or promotions, they have hundreds of other successful writers to call on. I encourage you to spend an hour or two on our website  to get to know us better.

Our philosophy is ministry first, business first.

Yes, we can walk and chew gum at the same time. Neither ministry nor business takes a back seat with us. We are in the business of finding and advocating for clients who have a unique place in the market and a message that furthers the Kingdom of God.

So. . .  what have we not been able to do?

Sadly, none of us has had enough time to seriously mentor up-and-coming writers. We do some of this at writers conferences but, truth be told, ten-minute appointments do little to allow us to get to know potential clients or guide promising writers. We wish we could answer every query with feedback but, because of the volumes of queries and now with the addition of surreptitious AI book queries that don’t even have a human behind them, it’s simply not possible.

Big News!

At the beginning of the year, our fearless leader, Janet Grant, challenged us to find  a way to mentor up-and-coming writers who are not yet clients. She reinforced that we still would commit to 90% of our time on clients and their projects. But she threw down the gauntlet and asked us to come up with some innovative way to use 10% of our time in innovative initiatives to reach out to others in the writing community. After all, she reminded us, together we have an aggregate 160 years of experience in the Christian publishing industry.

Books & Such— The Podcast

Four of our agents, Barb, Jen, Cynthia, and Debbie, set to work to create a podcast touching on everything related to writing, publishing, securing an agent, and getting that eventual offer. We’ve been doing a blog for years now, but something a writer can listen to while hiking or can watch on YouTube seemed perfect for what we are attempting to undertake. And we’re celebrating today! Our podcast went live this week. We invite you to visit. Tell us what you think. You can find it at a number of places:

• https://www.booksandsuch.com/podcast  
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GrdOir3mlQ [You Tube for the video version]
• https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/books-such-literary-management-the-podcast/id1817246799 [iTunes]
• https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/36740015 [On our Libsyn host]

Books & Such— The Writing Intensive

When Janet asked us to see how we could carve out time for writers outside of our agency— time that would not affect our efforts with clients, we realized that without the time needed to pack and travel to conferences, it would be far more economical energy-wise and time-wise to invite a handful of writers to join us virtually, spending three intense days with the Books & Such agents.

So, we are launching a three-day Writing Intensive, the first one being held on September 22 – 24, 2025. This would be time you would work one-to-one with a literary agent on your book project. The Intensive offers serious time to work with someone who knows what elements make a manuscript saleable to a publishing house. Over the three days, this mentoring could ease the hard work of writing your manuscript and get it ready for publishing. Or it could be a valuable time to help you refine your direction and re-envision your book. Check it out to see if it is for you at https://www.booksandsuch.com/writing-intensive/. Since we have six agents participating in this first intensive, we can only take a few dozen participants. When you apply, we will look at a sample of your writing project and go from there.

Can you tell we are excited?