What’s your name/age/job title?
Alex Christofi, 25, Literary Agent at Conville & Walsh.
Please give us an overview of your average day.
I spend most days at my desk on email. There’s often a lot of back and forth about book covers (fun), marketing and publicity (quite fun) or draft six of a manuscript I’m working on (draft six is no one’s idea of fun, but sometimes it needs to be done). But it’s a varied job: last week I spent one afternoon watching classified Al-Qaeda footage, and a whole morning phoning editors to rave about a book I love.
What’s the most common misconception about your job?
That my day job is sitting in a Chesterfield reading. In reality, I read on the way home, after dinner, on weekends – everywhere but the office. (You’ve got to love reading.)
What’s the hardest thing about your role?
The hardest thing is to be totally honest and perceptive in a way that makes an author want to go back and make it perfect. People invest a huge amount of time in writing a book, so it’s always going to feel personal to them.
When did you decide what you wanted to do with your life and how did you set out to achieve it?
During uni, I began to wonder what jobs I could possibly do that might (a) involve books and (b) not involve teaching. The idea of publishing sounded exciting, so I found work experience at Random House, then did some temping for them, then when I finished my degree I started applying for publishing jobs. I assumed I would be in the editorial department of a publishing company, and didn’t really know what agents did, but the job came up and the agency seemed cool.
What can you do to get a head start?
Do work experience – it is often slave labour, but it’s a closely networked industry and at entry level you may not have the luxury of philosophising on the matter. Curtis Brown and Profile Books do good, long and paid internship schemes. This one will sound a little obvious, but read popular, current books. I love Shakespeare but publishing is about looking for new authors, and you should know how to spot one.
Could you describe the creative element to your job?
It starts when I’m reading a submission and realise I love it. I meet the author and we talk about how it came about, and how I might help them find a publisher. Then we edit the book together. Editing is not telling an author what I would do, but bringing the book as close as possible to what they set out to achieve.
What’s the one thing you wish you had known at the start of your career that you know now?
Agents aren’t bloodsucking monsters. We’ll do a lot of work for an author that we believe in, for a long time before there’s any chance we will get paid for it. We all confront the instability of publishing daily, but we keep coming back for more.
Which organisations/websites/resources do you think would be useful for people entering your industry?
Society of Young Publishers, The Bookseller, Futurebook, Shelf Awareness. If you love books and you’re informed about the industry people will take you seriously.
If you are a writer and would like to find out more about the books Alex is looking for, you can find guidelines here.
For more articles, jobs and opportunities, visit our Writing and Publishing hub.
