Today I’m thrilled to have agent Mark
Gottlieb here. He is a literary agent at Trident Media Group.
Status:
Open to submissions.
Hi Mark! Thanks so much for joining us.
About Mark:
1. Tell us how
you became an agent, how long you’ve been one, and what you’ve been doing as an
agent.
Unlike many people who choose book publishing
as somewhat of an accidental profession, it was always expected of me that I
would one day work at Trident Media Group, a family-owned and operated literary
agency. I think it comes as a comfort to many of my clients that I’m not
leaving the literary agency, nor book publishing anytime soon. Anyway, you
could say I was sort of groomed for the position at a young age. That’s why I
chose Emerson College in Boston, as they were one of the only schools at the
time offering an undergraduate study in publishing. My company bio expresses my
professional journey from my time at Emerson College, onward:
About the
Agency:
2. Share a bit
about your agency and what it offers to its authors.
Our diverse group of literary agents are skilled in all genres of fiction and nonfiction. With an eye toward innovation, our clients are supported by dedicated departments in all areas of rights and career management. TMG’s robust Foreign Rights Department leads the industry in sales of both fiction and nonfiction abroad. Our author services include Digital Media & Marketing, Business Affairs & Administrative services, and Film & Dramatic rights sales.
What He’s
Looking For:
2. What age
groups do you represent—picture books, MG, and/or YA? What genres do you
represent and what are you looking for in submissions for these genres?
We represent all genres, generally excluding
poetry, short stories, novellas, and textbooks.
We are always
seeing a high demand for commercial fiction, genre fiction, thrillers, women’s
fiction, romance, YA, literary/general fiction, high-end nonfiction and health
books written by authors with major platforms in the areas of
history/politics/current affairs, business books and celebrity nonfiction.
3. Is there anything you would be especially
excited to seeing in the genres you are interested in?
An ideal project
would carry an important social message or moral to the story, and while not
only being beautifully written, it should be accessible or have some aspects of
commercialism to the writing, even if it is literary fiction. I also look for
authors that have good writing credentials such as experience with writing
workshops, conferences, or smaller publications in respected literary
magazines. Having awards, bestseller status, a strong online presence/platform,
or pre-publication blurbs in-hand for one’s manuscript is also very promising
in the eyes of a literary agent.
What He Isn’t
Looking For:
4. What types
of submissions are you not interested in?
I am not
interested in cozy mysteries, erotica, urban fantasy, horror, paranormal
romance, and personal (non-celebrity) memoir.
Agent
Philosophy:
5. What is
your philosophy as an agent both in terms of the authors you want to work with
and the books you want to represent?
In the case of
literary fiction, lending some accessibility is what I find to be important.
The literary community as a whole tends to be very insular and the books
themselves also read like they're too cool for school. Uncompromising
literary fiction often contains prose that are more concerned with
being stylish and flowery, thereby torturing the narrative and losing the
reader in the poetics. A piece of advice I tend to share with clients
in such a pitfall is a famed quote from the author Charles Bukowski: "An
intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard
thing in a simple way." That will help the moral of the book shine
through, which is ultimately what attracts me to a manuscript, since many
of the books I represent are concerned with important social messages.
For genre
fiction and commercial fiction, it is important to be aware of the genre
conventions and tropes, in order to either generally avoid them, or spin
them in a new and interesting way. For instance, I find it the strangest thing
that in most every zombie novel, the protagonist wakes up in a hospital bed
from a coma, to suddenly realize they're in a world full of zombies. I'm
sure that was a neat trope when it started out, since the motif of
dreaming/waking kind of plays with the zombie theme in reverse (our
protagonist wakes from the world of the living to the dead, whereas his
antagonists have fallen asleep from the world of the living to a dream-like
state in the world of the dead). Nowadays that trope is just old hat to
most readers of zombie books.
In nonfiction,
I mainly make an evaluation based on the author’s platform.
A manuscript
that recently spoke to me that I decided to take on, and subsequently sold to a
publisher, is World Fantasy Award-nominated author Christopher Brown’s TROPIC
OF KANSAS. Description: on the front lines of a revolution whose fuse
they are about to light, a fugitive brother and sister are harboring explosive
government secrets; pitched as a novel of political dissent akin to
the Americana of THE ROAD, the brave new corporate
world of JENNIFER GOVERNMENT, or a post-9/11 MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE;
the story of ordinary people seeking to refresh democracy in a mirror
America ruled by a telegenic dictator of a businessman. The famed and
award-winning editor David G. Hartwell of Tor Books had bought the book in his
very last book deal, but suddenly passed away in a terrible freak accident. We
were able to move the project over to David Pomerico of Harper Voyager where
the project now happily resides and is slated for publication in 2017.
What initially
drew me to the project was that the author not only had a lot of “street cred”
as an award-nominated author and short story writer—he had already collected
pre-publication blurbs from William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, and Cory Doctorow,
as well as trade reviews from Locus, Boing Boing, Tangent, and many other trade
review sites and notable authors. Christopher had also tapped into the heart of
near-future sci-fi with an important social message—a hot topic for right now
in SF.
Christopher’s
writing focuses on issues at the nexus of technology, politics, and economics
and often fit within the literary subgenre sometimes denominated
avant-pop—"pulp fiction for smart people," in the words of the
author, answering questions such as “Whatever happened to the guest appearance
of Jorge Luis Borges on The Love Boat?” or “What if Beltway psychological
warfare operatives co-opted Saddam’s Frazetta-dealer?”
Harper Voyager
has also compared TROPIC OF KANSAS to READY PLAYER ONE, STATION ELEVEN and
HIGH-RISE.
Editorial
Agent:
6. Are you an
editorial agent? If so, what is your process like when you’re working with your
authors before submitting to editors?
If interested
in a manuscript, I tend to offer representation upfront, with the expectation
that an author will remain open to editorial discussion, if need be. Every
manuscript is different; I have read manuscripts that read very tightly and
needed few if any editorial comments from me. In those instances I might
provide just a few bulleted points or so for the author to keep in mind. In
other instances I have written ten or twelve-page editorial letters. While that
may seem like overkill, it expresses my firm belief in an author’s career
growth.
Query Methods
and Submission Guidelines: (Always verify before submitting)
7. How should
authors query you and what do you want to see with the query letter?
My advice to
authors along the querying process is to really nail the writing of that query
letter. A query letter that reads well is usually a good indication to the
literary agent that the manuscript will similarly read well, inclining the
literary agent to request a manuscript. Oftentimes the query letter can go on
to become the publisher’s jacket copy, were the publisher to acquire the
manuscript via the literary agent.
A good query
letter is: upfront in one-two sentences what the book is about in hook or
elevator pitch fashion (should mention the title, lend a sense of genre, and
contain one-three competitive/comparative titles that were bestsellers or
award-winners, published within the last few years. If the author has
pre-publication blurbs, those can appear before those first two sentences. Next
is a couple of body paragraphs detailing some of the plot details without too
many spoilers and in that space the literary merits of the manuscript can be
mentioned. The last paragraph is usually reserved for a short author bio,
mentioning relevant writing experience/credentials, and a link to an author
site or social media page(s) can be included there.
In addition to what I mentioned above in terms
of what attracts a literary agent to an author, once an author has gone as far
as they can go with the writing / editing of the manuscript and honed in on a
knock-out query letter / hook, then it is time to begin the process of querying
a literary agent.
The Trident
Media Group literary agency prefers to be queried by authors via our website at
http://www.tridentmediagroup.com/
Our query letter instructions are there.
8. Do you have any specific dislikes in query
letters or the first pages submitted to you?
There are many
mistakes that I’ve seen in query letters, but I will name just a few that would
absolutely deter me from requesting the manuscript from an author.
-Submitting
queries for novellas, short story collections, poetry or textbooks will usually
turn a literary agent off, as most literary agents do not represent such
things. Publishers tend not to buy from literary agents in those areas in the
first place.
-Word count is
also very important. Traditional book length is 80-120K, and commercial fiction
tends to be in the 80-90K-word range. Going outside of normal book-length will
not produce good results for an author querying a literary agent for a shot at
going into major trade publishing.
-Writing
within struggling genres such as cozy mysteries, erotica, or urban fantasy is
also another way to turn a literary agent off in the querying process. We tend
to be weary of that at Trident Media Group.
Response Time:
9. What’s your
response time to queries and requests for more pages of a manuscript?
Literary agents differ in their response time
to a manuscript. This will also depend on the length of the manuscript, how
full the literary agent’s plate is already, etc. I think a reasonable response
time is within a month’s time, though. Of course this is a hurry-up-and-wait
sort of business, so it could take longer as it takes time to read. In my case
I prefer to read within the first few days or week of receiving a manuscript
from an author in order to express my level of enthusiasm, rather than just
sitting on my hands.
Self-Published
and Small Press Authors:
10. Are you open to representing authors who have
self-published or been published by smaller presses? What advice do you have for
them if they want to try to find an agent to represent them?
The self-publishing/indie sphere has become
something of what the farm league is to major league baseball, but the odds of
that success can be lower than were an author to try and approach a literary
agent as an author attempting to make their major debut in trade publishing.
The bar is quite high in terms of self-publishing to attract an agent or
publisher. An author usually needs to have sold at least 50,000 copies at a
decent price.
If an author is involved in the writing
community at a grassroots level with conferences, workshops and has published
in esteemed literary magazines, then that can help. As far as an insider tip
goes, it’s great to see an author that comes to us with pre-publication blurbs
from bestselling and award-winning authors. So it certainly doesn't hurt to
reach out to well-known authors and ask them to review your work, if they're
interested and if they indicate they do like it, see if they'll provide a short
blurb.
Also Listing a few competitive / comparative
titles that were bestsellers and / or award-winners, published within the last
few years, is also key for a literary agent’s consideration.
At the end of the day, though, the manuscript
must be an amazing read.
11. With all
the changes in publishing—self-publishing, hybrid authors, more small
publishers—do you see the role of agents changing at all? Why?
Yes, it is all too easy for an author to feel
discouraged and turn to self-publishing or small indie publishing. However,
many successful self-published authors eventually go into traditional
publishing in order to take advantage of having a team of professionals who
help them take their work to the next level.
A literary agency with industry knowledge and
expertise can bring a huge value add to the table for an author, evidenced by
many of the success stories we’ve created for our clients, the bulk of which
are award-winning and bestselling authors. We’ve actually built a lot of
self-published success stories into mega-bestsellers, giving authors a
Godzilla-like footprint in the industry.
Trident Media Group is a full-service literary
agency for authors, handling accounting, legal review, management, foreign
rights (books in translation), book-to-film/TV, audio books, etc. We’re also a
literary agency with tremendous clout in the industry, so we can get many
things for authors from publishers and film / TV buyers that an author
otherwise would not be able to get on their own.
I’d like to think that a literary agency would
save an author a lot of headaches in order to help the author focus in on their
own writing, thereby allowing the author to become more prolific. Meanwhile,
the literary agent would work in concert with their subsidiary rights people and
departments within the literary agency. In looking at a literary agent and
considering paying them a commission on a deal, an author should be asking what
they stand to gain in having a literary agent.
The digital landscape has seen our literary
agency evolve. Thanks to the tremendous resources available to our company and
our Digital Media and Publishing department, Trident Media Group often helps
our clients in their marketing/publicity efforts. We also try to put the
publisher on the hot seat in encouraging them to perform marketing/publicity
tasks for the author, by sharing ideas and having in-depth meetings with
publishers.
Trident will also make recommendations to our
clients on how they can think about improving their social media presence and look
to online efforts to market / promote their books. Otherwise, book publishers
normally devote their marketing dollars and other resources toward authors that
are huge successes or are making a major debut.
We at Trident might even recommend a private
book publicity firm to a client, but that doesn’t come cheap. An author
should still know that their role in marketing and promoting the book is
integral to the process since, at the end of the day, readers / fans will want
to hear from the author.
Clients:
12. Who are
some of the authors you represent?
The Trident
Media Group literary agency’s client list is viewable here: http://www.tridentmediagroup.com/
Interviews and
Guest Posts:
13. Please
share the links to any interviews and guest posts you think would be helpful to
writers interested in querying you.
Mark Gottlieb |
Literary Agents in NYC | Trident Media Group
www.tridentmediagroup.com/agents/mark-gottlieb
Publishers
Marketplace: Mark Gottlieb
www.publishersmarketplace.com/members/gottliebm/
Literary Agent
Spotlight: Mark Gottlieb of Trident Media Group ...
www.writersdigest.com/...literary-agents/literary-agent-spotlight-mark-...
Michelle4Laughs- It's
In The Details: Query Questions with Mark Gottlieb
www.michelle4laughs.com/2014/10/query-questions-with-mark-gottlieb.html
The Grim Tidings
Podcast » Talking Literary Agents with Mark Gottlieb
thegrimtidingspodcast.podbean.com/e/talking-literary-agents-with-mark-gottlieb/
Unicorn Bell: Agent
Interviews
unicornbell.blogspot.com/2016/03/agent-interviews.html
Interview with literary
agent Mark Gottlieb. | Amy M. Newman
https://theliterarymom.wordpress.com/.../interview-with-literary-agent-mark-gottlieb/
Update on 2/2/2023
Mark Gottlieb website
Podcast at Alexander Pennington (08/2022)
Podcast at Middle Grade Ninja (04/2022)
Podcast at Wordsmith Academy (03/2022)
Podcast at the Witty Writers Show (01/2022)
Do's & Don'ts of Querying Podcast at Witty Writers Show (11/2021)
Podcast at Rick Bleiweiss 09/2021)
Interview at Cardinal Rule Press (01/2021)
Interview at Writer's Bone (04/2020)
Podcast at Thriving Authors (03/2020)
Podcast at diyMFA (05/2017)
Links and
Contact Info:
14. Please
share how writers should contact you to submit a query and your links on the
Web.
The Trident
Media Group literary agency prefers to be queried by authors via our website at
http://www.tridentmediagroup.com/
Our query letter instructions are there.
Additional
Advice:
15. Is there
any other advice you’d like to share with aspiring authors that we haven’t
covered?
The most
important advice I can give to writers just starting out is to learn and grow
from constructive criticism and rejection, rather than being discouraged by
that feedback. It is not an editor or literary agent saying the author’s
writing is not good—we’re saying the writing is not good enough, at least not
yet. So, hang in there…
Thanks for
sharing all your advice, Mark.
Mark is generously offering a query critique to
one lucky winner. To enter, all you need to do is be a follower (just click the
follower button if you're not a follower) and leave a comment through 1/28/2017.
If your e-mail is not on your Google
Profile, you must leave it in the comments to enter either contest.
If you do not want to enter the contest, that's okay. Just let me know in the
comments.
If you mention this contest on Twitter, Facebook,
or your blog, mention this in the comments and I'll give you an extra entry.
This is an international giveaway.
Last Updated: 2/2/2023.
Agent Contacted for Review? Yes
Last Reviewed By Agent? 2/8/2023
Last Updated: 2/2/2023.
Agent Contacted for Review? Yes
Last Reviewed By Agent? 2/8/2023
Have any experience with this agent? See
something that needs updating? Please leave a comment or e-mail me at
natalieiaguirre7@gmail.com.
Note: These agent profiles and interviews presently focus on agents who
accept children's fiction. Please take the time to verify anything you might
use here before querying an agent. The information found here is subject to
change.
