Simon Trewin

Manchester United Football Club has appointed me as their first external agent, representing its book publishing interests worldwide. Sameer Pabari, director of media at Manchester United, said the club looked forward to working with me on “building our publishing brand to reach as many of our 139 million fans worldwide as possible.”

We are thrilled that Janie Hampton’s THE AUSTERITY OLYMPICS (Aurum Books) - her magisterial account of the 1948 London Olympics has been longlisted for the prestigious WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR.

There are 12 other books long-listed and the winner will be announced on Monday November 24, 2008 at Waterstones Piccadilly in London. The winning author will receive a £20,000 cash prize plus a £2000 free William Hill bet.

‘We have a wonderful selection of Longlist contenders for the twentieth annual award, and with record prize money on offer it will be the most eagerly anticipated occasion yet’ said Hill’s spokesman and founder of the Award, Graham Sharpe.

Continue reading ‘WILLIAM HILL LONGLIST ANNOUNCED’

My friend Lola Jaye’s international bestselling novel BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS has received wonderful critical acclaim and seen hundreds of thousands of copies walk off the shelves. Any budding authors out there will be fascinated by this little film Lola made about actually watching her book come off the printing presses. Check it out here. Lola is represented by the agent Judith Murdoch.

Congratulations to the team at Headline Publishing and to Sir Cliff Richard  whose book, written with Penny Junor, is riding high at Number One for a second week. His single is currently at Number Three in the UK’s charts.

MORE than 1,000 fans packed out the Trafford Centre in Manchester  to meet their idol. The 67-year-old musical legend was at the shopping mecca on Thursday September 4, to sign copies of his new My Life My Way, at the centre’s WH Smith shop - beating even David Beckham and Westlife when they turned up for signings.

The Disney/Miramax/Heyday Films movie of John Boyne’s multi-million selling novel ‘The Boy In the Striped Pyjamas’ has had its Dublin and London premieres in the last week and open at the San Sebastian film festival in Spain today.

The London premiere was attended by all the cast, the director Mark Herman, producers David Heyman and Rosie Alison and stars such as Rachel Stevens and Dustin Hoffman. The book is back at Number 1 in Ireland, is the UK’s number one best-selling children’s paperback and will appear in The Sunday Times adult fiction chart at the weekend as well. John’s website has some great footage of the London premiere along with a bunch of interviews with him and the cast. Pictured are John’s Mum and Dad at the premiere in Dublin.

Arsenal F.C goalkeeper Manuel Alumnia visited the Phoenix Cinema, High Road, East Finchley on Sunday 14^th September for a Q & A session before its screening of the film as part of the Premier League’s Places for Players initiative, which aims to highlight the continued and increasing commitment the 20 Barclays Premier League clubs have to their local communities. Manuel showed his support for Arsenal’s Premier League Reading Stars programme, one of the many Arsenal in the Community education projects, in which he chose ‘Boy’ as his favourite novel.

Europe is on the brink of being set aflame as the Great Powers - Britain and the Soviet Union - challenge each other for supremacy in the hidden world of spies. In The Shadow War, you can choose who you will join: will it be the Soviet Secret Police, or the British Secret Intelligence Service? To discover more and to play this brilliant online game visit www.youngbondshadowwar.com where the good folks from Puffin, the international bestselling author Charlie Higson and a character called James Bond can tell you more………

My very good friend Philippa Pride is running another of her inspirational writing courses this Autumn from September 29th to October 6th in Turkey. I only wish I could go myself. It sounds wonderful……

Imagine a week in the magical setting of an olive grove; a week to explore the book inside you; a week to lie in hammocks, walk in the pine forests, swim in a natural stone pool and gaze at the stars. Treat yourself to time – time to write and to let your ideas emerge.

Welcome to beautiful Huzur Vadisi where you will have an opportunity to discover what goes on in the world of publishing and how you can write a winning book.

Philippa Pride, an accomplished book editor, offers a unique course of professional tips for getting published and inspirational exercises for freeing creativity and getting started on / continuing the book inside you.

During her 20 years experience as a commissioning editor with one of the major publishing houses in Britain, Philippa has worked with some of the biggest names in the business. She is also a Life Coach, with a great deal of experience in helping writers of all kinds to find the voice and shape that they are looking for in their work.

The course is designed for anyone with a story to tell – fiction, non-fiction, diary or blog – whether a newcomer or established writer.

For more details click here

Congratulations to Tom Vanderbilt on hitting the New York Times Hardback Non-Fiction Bestseller list with his wonderful and timely TRAFFIC - Why We Drive The Way We Do (and what it says about us).

The blanket review coverage in the U.S has been extraordinary and Penguin Press are set to publish in the U.K later this year. I urge you to listen to Tom’s interview here and to read some of the reviews here. I represent Tom on behalf of Zoe Pagnamenta who has recently launched her new agency in the U.K.

“Tom Vanderbilt is one of our best and most interesting writers, with an extraordinary knack for looking at everyday life and explaining, in wonderful and entertaining detail, how it really works.

–James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds

Most book launches are pretty boring - warm white wine, twiglets and a speech by a man with a beard. One man is changing all of this - Patrick Neate. Co-founder and host of London’s finest literary nightclub, BOOKSLAM, Patrick has thrown away the white wine, stamped on the twiglets and has cunningly retained the beard in his efforts to revolutionise the literary landscape of the U.K. And it is working - BOOKSLAM is the destination par excellence of any cool author hanging around in London with a book to promote. Take a live band, maybe a little bit of poetry, a reading or two, a D.J and the net result is a good night out which might, just might, put Twiglets out of business. Check the Sony Award-winning podcast here featuring Irvine Welsh, the Alabama 5, Sophie Woolley and Adam Buxton and buy tickets (a steal at £6/£8) for the next event on July 31st - the line-up is exceptional and includes James Frey - the man who famously angered Oprah Winfrey so much that millions of Americans tuned in to watch him getting a right old telling off. See you there.

The inaugural search for The Hospital Club 100 was launched at the beginning of June this year in association with The Independent Media Weekly.

 In essence, it’s a search for the authentic stars and media power across London’s creative industries; film, television, music, new media, journalism, publishing, performing arts, marketing PR undefined events, fashion, art, advertising, media law undefined recruitment and celebrity.

The hot 100 list was announced today…

Over 5,000 people voted and the resultant list features the likes of Amy Winehouse, Liz Murdoch, Jonathan Ross and Banksy and, hilariously, also one ‘Simon Trewin’.  So today I am officially the 84th most creative person in London - not quite sure what it means other than the fact that Carlos Acosta, Principle Guest Artist, Royal Ballet (London’s 85th creative person) is looking at my name and thinking, ‘damn this Simon Trewin fellow’.

We attended a great night out courtesy of Henry Jeffreys at Sceptre - the literary imprint of Hodder and Stoughton - to celebrate three upcoming novels they are publishing this Autumn. Our author Andrew Miller spoke movingly about the influences behind his much-awaited new novel ‘One Morning Like A Bird’ set in Tokyo in 1941 and he was joined by Chris Cleave who told of his experiences working with asylum seekers in the UK - experiences that inspired his new novel ‘Little Bee’ and Alexei Sayle and kept us laughing with tales of ex-pat life in Spain. His novel ‘Mister Roberts’ in out in September. View some pictures of the night in question here.

 New client Jessica Ruston’s wonderful debut novel ‘LUXURY’ has been snapped up by Catherine Cobain at Headline for publication in 2009. Cat has bought world volume rights and describes the novel as ‘a blockbuster for the 21st century’. Jessica has written a number of children’s books and non-fiction titles including HEROINES - The Bold, the Bad and the Beautiful which was published by Long Barn Books - the independent publishing company she runs with her mum - Susan Hill.

Zoe Pagnamenta, who for a number of years ran the New York office of PFD, has left to set up her own company - The Zoë Pagnamenta Agency, LLC and she will, in her own words, ‘continue to handle literary fiction and a broad range of non-fiction by writers from both sides of the Atlantic and beyond’. She represents a number of authors on my list including Catherine Banner, John Boyne, Petite Anglaise, Claire Kilroy, Fiona Neill and Beatrice Colin and we will no doubt have some exciting collaborations in the years ahead. Her website is www.zpagency.com

Continue reading ‘ZOE BRANCHES OUT’

Zoe Margolis (aka Girl With A One Track Mind) wrote a blistering piece in this weekend’s Observer about why she has given up on British men. It was the most popular article on www.guardian.co.uk this weekend. Read it here, buy the book here, visit  Zoe’s award-winning blog here and watch her interview with blogger funkybrownchick here.

Tom Cox’s hilarious UNDER THE PAW - Confessions Of A Cat Man was launched last night in London’s Covent Garden. Currently at Number One on the Amazon Pet Chart UNDER THE PAW records the chaos of Tom’s life - in which owning seven of the most charismatic, idiotic and duplicitous cats in the country begins to take over his world.How exactly does a person go from living a fancy-free young metropolitan life to suddenly thinking it is normal to be on 24-hour call for multiple sets of whiskers? Read on..

Congratulations to John Boyne, whose moving book The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas has been chosen by Arsenal goalkeeper Manuel Almunia as his choice for the Premier League Reading Star’s Scheme.  Manuel described The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas as a  ”gripping” and “devastating” book that would appeal to all ages. This wonderful initiative works in conjunction with the National Literacy Trust to nominate one player from each of the teams in the Barclays Premier League to become a “Reading Champion”, with each one supporting a different book. Each team then chooses at least one library to adopt and donate free copies of all the recommended titles to. The footballers include Ricardo Carvalho from Chelsea, Edwin Van Der Sar from Manchester United and Jermaine Jenas from Tottenham Hotspur.

John is in excellent company, with John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach also nominated.  You can read more about the scheme here.

Robert Popper’s alter-ego Robin Cooper’s hilarious volume THE TIMEWASTER LETTERS is published in the US this week. To celebrate this event Robin Cooper has been making prank phone-calls to a number of establishments with bizarre requests. Oh deary me….listen here

Yesterday started early for author Janie Hampton who launched her book The Austerity Olympics: When the Games Came to London in 1948 on Radio 4’s Today programme in an interview with John Humphreys. It was an appearance which helped propel her vivid, atmospheric re-telling of the extraordinary story of the post-war London Olympics to the Number One spot on the Amazon Sports Book bestseller list. The launch at Waterstone’s Oxford later that day saw a packed crowd of well-wishers including Aurum press editor Graham Coster, author Philip Pullman, iconic sportsman Sir Roger Bannister and a host of Olympians from the 1948 games - some, rather impressively, still fitting into their official blazers! Janie demonstrated how various items of sporting kit were effected by rationing and also sang, with great gusto, the official 1948 Olympic song - while holding a ‘flaming’ torch. Pictures HERE

Welcome to Amy Krouse Rosenthal (and her daughter Paris) who are in the UK this week to promote ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF AN ORDINARY LIFE published by Grove Atlantic. As Viv Groskop said, in the Sunday Express, ‘Amy is a witty, astute observer of modern life in all its baffling guises…ENCYCLOPAEDIA makes you feel glad to be alive’.

John Boyne’s THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS has been awarded the prestigious Qué Leer prize for the best novel translated into Spanish. John receives the award at a prize ceremony held in Barcelona later today. My colleague Jane Willis here at United Agents has just sold Maltese rights for John’s novel - this is a first for her and the agency.

Congratulations to my friend and colleague Robert Kirby for his much-deserved shortlisting as Literary Agent of the Year, to the creative team at Canongate for the StoraEnso Design & Production Award shortlisting for Scarlett Thomas’ The End Of Mr Y and the marketing team at Canongate (headed by Jenny Todd) for being shortlisted for the Guardian Marketing Campaign Of the Year for their publication of Steven Hall’s The Raw Shark Texts. The winners will be announced at the BA Conference in May.

The quite brilliant The Internet Now Available In Handy Book Form by David McCandless has received the ultimate web-based honour, being an Official Nominee in the 12th Annual Webby Awards in the humour category. Hoorah!