These three UK agents are actively seeking to expand their client lists. Claire Paterson Conrad represents a wide range of subjects and authors, both fiction and non-fiction, literary and commercial. Joanna Swainson is looking for crime and thrillers, ghost stories, speculative fiction, horror, and narrative nonfiction. Cara Jones is looking for exciting new voices in fiction, particularly crime and thrillers, and is also interested in thought-provoking narrative non-fiction.
Always check the agency website before submitting. Agents may switch agencies or close their lists, and submission requirements can change.
If these agents don’t suit your needs, you can find a comprehensive list of new and established agents seeking clients here: Agents Seeking Clients.
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Cara Jones of Rogers, Coleridge & White
Cara Jones started her career in publishing in 2002 at Random House and joined Rogers, Coleridge & White in 2006.
What she is seeking: Cara is looking for exciting new voices in fiction, particularly crime and thrillers, and is also interested in thought-provoking narrative non-fiction.
How to submit: Send a query letter to cara@rcwlitagency.com. For fiction, send the first three chapters or approximately the first fifty pages of the work to a natural break, and a brief synopsis. Non-fiction submissions should include a proposal up to twenty pages explaining what the work is about and why you are best person to write it. Material should be in 12 point font, double-spaced.
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Claire Paterson Conrad of Janklow and Nesbit (UK)
Claire Paterson Conrad began her publishing career at Chatto & Windus, went on to work for Granta and Canongate Books, then subsequently moved to New York, where she lived for five years and worked for the New York Review of Books. There she became Publisher of the NYRB Classics series, an imprint which republishes great and sometimes forgotten literature. Claire returned to the UK in 2002, and joined Janklow & Nesbit as a literary agent.
What she is seeking: She represents a wide range of subjects and authors, both fiction and non-fiction, literary and commercial.
How to submit: Please include a covering letter in the body of your email and attach other components in Word format if possible, or as PDFs. Please send your submission to submissions@janklow.co.uk, including your name, the title of your work and the name of the agent you wish to submit to in the subject line. If you are submitting fiction, you should include a covering letter, synopsis, and either the first three chapters or the first fifty pages, whichever you feel is appropriate. Your covering letter and synopsis should ideally be no longer than a page each. If you are submitting non-fiction, you should include a covering letter, a full outline setting out the aims of each chapter, and if possible a sample chapter. Please title all documents and your email with your full name and the title of your work for ease of reference. Your submission should be double-spaced, size 12 and in a reasonable font.
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Joanna Swainson of Hardman & Swainson Literary Agency (UK)
After a degree in French Joanna ran a business for several years, providing a range of copy writing and editing services. Her love of books and an interest in writing led her to freelance for a number of literary agents, including one of the most commercial agencies in London as well as a specialist children’s agent.
What she is seeking: “In fiction, I am looking for complex, larger-than-life characters. I love crime and thrillers at both ends of the commercial / literary spectrum. I also love a good ghost story and accessible speculative fiction, as well as a bit of horror. Whatever the genre, whether literary or commercial, for adults or children, historical or contemporary, thriller or crime, I’m looking for originality and distinctive voices. On the non-fiction front, I enjoy narrative non-fiction, especially popular history and science. I’m very partial to a memoir. I also enjoy nature writing.”
How to submit: Send a query, and attach a one-page synopsis as well as the full manuscript, and send by email to: submissions@hardmanswainson.com. For nonfiction send an email outlining your book, why it has a place on the bookshelf and why you are qualified to write it, along with a proposal and a sample chapter of the whole work, if it is completed. Please include the sample material along with the query — either as an attachment or in the body of the email.
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