How SWF helped Sophie secure an agent

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At Stockholm Writers Festival (SWF) 2018, Sophie Austin learned how to best pitch to a literary agent. Then at SWF19, she put her learnings to use during a 10-minute agent one-to-one with Caroline Hardman. By year’s end, her book was under contract with Caroline. Below, Sophie shares this inspiring story, along with some lessons learned and why she never wants to miss Stockholm Writers Festival!

About Sophie and her book
From London originally, I came to Sweden in 2017 to take my Masters in Transnational Creative Writing and turn the idea that had been sitting in my head since a month-long trip to Ireland into a novel. I’ve been writing full-length novels since 2014 but The Daughter of Time is the first I’ve queried — partly because I love it in a way I never loved the others and partly because a lot of my early novels were very much me getting to know the process of novel writing. 

The Daughter of Time is a historical time-travel novel about Marian Beaton, a logical young woman whose journey to find where she belongs takes her spiraling between the pages of history and into a time where family feuds are deadly and the English crown is set on crushing Irish rule. Split between 1891 and 1591, it’s a book about love, war and secrets lost to time.

Making the pitch at SWF
I didn’t know an awful lot about the do’s and don'ts of agent pitches before I came to Stockholm Writers Festival 2018. At SWF18, speaking to an agent was a dream but I learned how to prepare for verbal pitches, what to include (and to skip) in written pitches and how to sell your novel to an agent.

When I came back to SWF in 2019, I was ready to query and, thanks to the festival, I had all the tools I needed. I thought it was madness to pitch verbally before having sent out email queries but I had learned it’s far easier to pitch to an agent once you’ve met them — so SWF19 was the very beginning of my query process. I watched the agents’ Q&A on the same day that I pitched to Caroline Hardman, furiously scribbling extra tips down and changing my pitch to try and capture everything of importance into a 60-second opening speech (“the less time you spend talking, the more time the agent has to ask questions”). It was my first pitch, my first agent query and I was nervous. 

The book pitching process is hard because you have to try and cram an entire manuscript, not to mention year(s) of work and all that love, passion and dedication into such a short span of time. Whether it’s 60 seconds verbally or a short written opener, it’s tough to boil down what makes your novel brilliant and worth reading into a sound bite. But SWF taught me how to do it, and when you’re surrounded by other authors who’ve done it or are prepping to do it there’s a sense of familyhood that pushes you past the nerves.

When it was my turn to pitch to Caroline, I had ten minutes in a room with her. I spoke for about two minutes (60 seconds pitching the plot and then the rest talking about the novel in a wider context) and then she asked me some questions that I’d prepared for after faculty member Jane Friedman’s talk earlier in the day (Where did you get your inspiration from? Who is your target audience? Which books would yours sit next to on a shelf?) When the meeting finished, I asked Caroline if she’d be willing to read the manuscript once I’d finished my thesis (I was knee-deep in University at this point) and she said yes. I sent it in September 2019 and by early November she had offered to represent me.

To say I was over the moon is an understatement. I am excited to work with Caroline and her agency, Hardman & Swainson, whose author list is intimidatingly impressive. It’s a really great feeling having an agent like Caroline, who has years of expertise as a literary agent, as enthusiastic about my work as I am. 

Some learnings
A lesson or two I’ve learned from the process is firstly, everything takes time. Don’t expect answers straight away and don’t keep checking your inbox every minute. The second thing I’ve learned is you can never be over-prepared. Write down everything someone could ask you about your novel and know the answer to it — because you, after all, are the expert. 

Before coming to SWF I’d never been to a writer's festival before and now I can’t imagine ever missing this festival — it’s an integral part of my year. You walk away with so much inspiration and so much knowledge that even if you are in the deepest of writing ruts you’ll want to go home and get working on your manuscript as quickly as possible. It’s a great place to push your craft forward, to meet fellow writers and to learn more about the business of writing and publishing, along with being a whole lot of fun! 

More from Sophie: Her top tips for verbal pitches.

Catherine PetterssonComment