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Agents offering authors emotional support

16 January 2023

‘It's a big part of the job. Being able to put yourself in their shoes is really important. I'm not a writer, but I watch a lot of author content online and I read a lot of stuff from authors. Having that perspective is really important for me to be able to give my authors context. Their emotions are important. If they're disappointed we didn't sell, so am I. Being able to sit in that space is important, but my job as an agent is to move the author from despair to strategy, asking questions like: what are we doing to do next? What do we learn from this? It's a skill to sit in the darkness with them, and to get ourselves out into what's next...

Although it's common sense, when you're a young agent and every deal feels like make or break for your career, it's important to be aware that there will always be more avenues, and there will be always more opportunities. You can't just say yes or get into something that is not actually going to serve the author.'

Hannah Schofield, literary agent at LBA in London in Bookbrunch