Gail Hochman is the president of Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents, Inc. For 20 years, she was the head of the AALA, the Association of American Literary Agents. She represents authors in numerous genres, including literary fiction, mystery, children’s middle grade, and serious nonfiction. Do you have any advice on how many agents to query at a time? If they are personalized, perhaps a rolling query with a limit? I would say get your core group of favorites first, and send to them—maybe five or six. Realize that many people these days do not answer queries when they are not […]
Read With Jenna July Pick
Yoto Carnegies
The Yoto Carnegie awards announced winners:
Study Finds Uptick in Publishing Diversity
In a long piece for The Atlanic, Dan Sinykin and Richard Jean So present the results of a DEI study centered on books published by Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, and Macmillan over the last four years. Hachette was excluded from So’s previous study, so it was excluded this time as well for consistency. The study found significant gains in the number of novels published by non-white authors: Between 2019 and 2023, novels by non-white authors rose from 9% to 16%, and novels by Black authors rose from 4% to 9%. The data set for these results is […]
People 6/20
Sean deLone has been promoted to editor at Atria.
Booktopia Suspends Trading of Its Shares
Struggling Australian online bookseller Booktopia looks to have reached a troubling new stage. Late last week they suspended trading of the company’s stock — which is worth only five cents a share — pending an announcement. But the follow-up announcement earlier this week simply said that trading in their shares would remain suspended, “pending the release of an announcement regarding further outcomes from the previously announced strategic review including its progress in seeking additional funding.” Co-founder, board member and once-again executive Tony Nash told The Guardian Australia, “We’re in motion at the moment, so [an announcement] will be probably more […]