If you’re new here, welcome to this newsletter that goes out to 1.7k writers each week. I’m Caroline Madden, author of The Marriage Vendetta (99p on Kindle this month!) and The Village (April 2027). It took me more than a decade to get my first book deal, and in this newsletter I’m sharing all the things I wish I’d known back when I was getting buried under rejections!
Book launches are my entire social life these days (which is fine by me!) and yesterday I was delighted to make it to Dubray’s on Dublin’s Grafton Street for the launch of Louise Nealon’s second novel Everything that is Beautiful.
I adored her debut Snowflake so Everything that is Beautiful has gone straight to the top of my towering TBR pile. I also got to meet up with some of my Bonnier/Eriu imprint siblings which is one of my favourite parts of being a writer.
This week, I’ve done a deep dive into the novelists who are currently on the New York Times bestseller lists to see which literary agents they’re represented by, and also to see if any of those agents are open to submissions…
I fell down a lot of fascinating rabbit holes in the process, and found out several things that surprised/interested me:
✨Many of these heavy hitter agents are seeking new clients!
✨Some bestsellers are represented by relatively low profile agents I’d never heard of, but who sound like they're brilliant champions of their clients’ work
✨Many bestselling authors had a very difficult road to publication filled with rejection and disappointment before eventually achieving huge success
✨A number of current NYT bestsellers were originally self published and were approached by agents once they found success themselves.
✨One of the most successful current NYT bestsellers (three HUGE hits and two massively successful film adaptations) originally found it impossible to get an agent: “So after three years of not being able to get any traction with literary agents, I had one knocking on my door!”
✨Most of these agents have LOTS of bestsellers on their roster. One agent has represented almost 200 NYT bestselling titles.
I was also delighted to discover that my own agent represents a current NYT bestseller! (And please bear in mind, around this time last year I was once again floundering without an agent.)
Note: I know that everyone’s definition of success is different and that hitting bestseller lists is NOT a measure of a writer’s worth (or so I keep telling myself 😂). Also the NYT lists are weird because they’re not solely based on sales figures, there’s also an editorial element. But analysing the agents behind the bestsellers does throw up a lot of interesting information all the same…
So here are 12 literary agents (spread across the US, Canada and the UK) who represent current New York Times bestselling novelists, and who are looking for the next big thing:
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