There has been lots of coverage of this story over the weekend about the 
Patsy’s upcoming autobiography - a project I am working on with my colleague Duncan Millership who is Patsy’s theatrical and primary agent. Here is the full story from The Press Association….
Patsy Kensit is in talks over an autobiography deal, which is set to lift the lid on her days as a wild child and Brit Pop figurehead as well as her colourful family background. Kensit’s episode of BBC1’s Who Do You Think You Are, which showed her investigate the life of her late father Jimmy Kensit, who was involved with notorious gangsters the Krays and the Richardsons, attracted more than seven million viewers.
Continue reading ‘PATSY KENSIT - THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY’
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.
I am delighted to announce that Ian Fleming Publications Ltd (IFP), the Fleming family company that owns the copyright to the James Bond books, has appointed me to manage the worldwide English language literary rights in the Ian Fleming titles and Young Bond.
Corinne Turner, Managing Director of IFP said, “Simon Trewin joins us at a very exciting time. The centenary year has generated a phenomenal amount of interest in Fleming - the writer - and his work. We’ve achieved an incredible amount and now wish to build on our successes by taking on a dedicated literary agent. In this way, we benefit not only from the expertise of a talented agent but also of the whole team at United Agents. We very much look forward to working with Simon.”
Ian Fleming Publications’ rights include Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the best-selling Young Bond series by Charlie Higson. Foreign rights for these will continue to be managed by The Buckman Agency.
Read the full press release ………..
Continue reading ‘IAN FLEMING’
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’.
I have just returned from a sell-out event at Waterstones flagship store in London’s Piccadilly where the brilliant Danny Wallace launched his latest bestseller FRIENDS LIKE THESE. He talked in front of a spellbound crowd about the personal journeys he made to recapture his childhood and reconnect with his best friends from school. There was even a slide-show, a plethora of jokes about Danny’s massive box, many top facts about conkers and an unforgettable live link-up with Homebase in Guildford. Pictured with Danny are three of his South East London fans - Jack Bowyer, Jack Trewin and Bobby Bowyer. Check out Danny’s site at www.dannywallace.com and hopefully come along and say ‘hi’ at one or more of his events. On a personal note I would have to be honest and say that Chapter 8 of the book is a bit of a let-down but, I suppose, even diamonds have imperfections. Shame though. ALSO WATCH THE BRILLIANT TRAILER HERE.
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.
Borders bookshop in Market Street, Cambridge held a joyous evening last week to celebrate the UK publication of THE EYES OF A KING - Volume 1 of Catherine Banner’s world-dominating fantasy trilogy.
Pictured with me and Cat are my assistant Ariella Feiner (left) and Tessa Girvan (right) from ILA who has been busy selling Cat’s novel worldwide. 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.
Congratulations to my two authors who won prizes last night at separate ceremonies in London. Steven Hall picked up a Somerset Maugham prize at the annual Society Of Authors ceremony at the Great Hall in Barts for The Raw Shark Texts and Fiona Neil won ‘Most Loveable Heroine’ for Lucy Sweeny in The Secret Life of a Slummy Mummy at the Melissa Nathan Award For Comedy Romance.The Melissa Nathan awards were created by Andrew Saffron in memory of his late wife, novelist Melissa Nathan. The Somerset Maugham is awarded to the best writer or writers under the age of thirty-five of a book published in the past year. Also at the Society Of Authors bash two other United Agents authors picked up prizes - Thomas Leveritt won a Betty Trask Award for his novel The Exchange Rate Of Love with David Szalay winning the overall Trask Award for London and the South-East.
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.
Sigrid Kraus at John Boyne’s Spanish publisher Salamandra has just emailed to say The Boy In the Striped Pyjamas has now exceeded a million sales in their edition - bringing the world-wide total in all languages and all editions to nearly 2.5 millions sales.
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..
Catherine Banner’s debut novel The Eyes Of A King has hit the ground running. Yesterday’s Daily Mail tipped her as ‘the new J K Rowling’, the book shot to Number 7 on the Amazon.co.uk Children’s Bestseller List and Number 30 on the overall Bestseller list. The story was quickly picked up by The Telegraph, The New York Daily News, The London Evening Standard, BBC Cambridge (TV and Radio) and by news agencies worlwide. You can listen to an earlier interview with Cat here as well. In The Eyes Of A King, a fast-paced novel with a unique style three fifteen-year-old characters, and the parallel worlds of contemporary England and the dictatorship of Malonia, become increasingly entangled….
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.
Due to the phenomenal number of recent approaches from budding authors I need to have a little time to catch up! For the time being we will not be able to respond to unsolicited emails and would prefer it if you wrote to me c/o Ariella Feiner United Agents 130 Shaftesbury Avenue London W1D 5EU. For more detail on submissions please click 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
We had a great night out at the Arthur C Clarke awards for the Best Science Fiction book of the year as part of an exclusive event in partnership with the opening of this year’s SCI-FI-LONDON Film Festival. . Steven Hall’s The Raw Shark Texts was one of 6 shortlisted titles from about 60 read by the judging panel and Black Man by Richard Morgan scooped the pool. Steven is pictured (left) with his girlfriend Mel. Here are some more pictures
Patrick Neate and the Bookslam team (pictured) won a much coveted Sony Radio Award last week for Best Internet Programme for the Book Slam podcast. Download the seventh episode now. It features Richard Milward reading from ‘Apples’ [Faber], El Crisis and the South London soul of Jamie Woon.
It is great to see this project coming together in such a smart fashion. Val Hudson and her team at Headline are set to publish this Autumn and the early signs are that we will all have a massive bestseller on our hands. Sir Cliff Richard OBE is the biggest-selling artist of all time, selling over 250 million records around the world since he burst onto the music scene in 1958. But how has he kept his appeal all these years? In a world fuelled by drink, sex and drugs, he is perennially attractive without any of those things that keep other singers’ profiles high.
Continue reading ”
Our clients were much in evidence at the Irish Book Awards last week in Dublin. Robert Kirby’s client Anthony Horowitz presented two awards, John Boyne was a guest of his publisher Random House Books, Robert Harris was shortlisted for The Tubridy Show Award for THE GHOST and Niamh Greene’s THE SECRET DIARY OF A DEMENTED HOUSEWIFE was shortlisted for both the Newcomer Of The Year Award and The Galaxy Popular Fiction Book Of The Year. Pictured are John Boyne and Niamh Greene. For lots more pictures see 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’.
Congratulations to the multi-talented Robert Popper for winning a BAFTA last night for PEEP SHOW in the Situation Comedy category. The paperback of his hilarious book The Timewaster Diaries is published by Little Brown later this year.
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.
In common with most people in publishing I will be at Earls Court for the next three days for the London International Book Fair. The Bookseller’s free downloadable digital daily magazine is well-worth reading. Check it out here.
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.
Patrick Neate’s Bookslam podcast was nominated for a highly prestigious Sony Radio Academy Award last night in the category of Internet Programme at a launch hosted by multiple Sony Gold winner, Chris Evans and webcast live around the country. The winners will be revealed at the 26th Sony Radio Academy Awards Ceremony on Monday 12th May at the Grosvenor House Hotel on London’s Park Lane.
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!
The Winchester Writers Conference is rapidly gaining a reputation as a great launching pad for new writers. Three years ago at Winchester I met the unagented and unpublished but clearly multi-talented Lola Jaye. I was thrilled to hear that as a result of meeting agent Judith Murdoch there she not only landed herself an agent but, through Judith’s hard work, a fabulous deal with HarperCollins UK and US for her debut novel and a second book. BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS is launched this Summer in the U.K. Lola writes a great blog and her website is www.lolajaye.com
On the eve of the London International Book Fair New York agent Daniel Greenberg (left) 
has closed a great deal with John Parsley at Little Brown (US) for Danny Wallace’s heartwarming book ‘Friends Like These’. John said of Danny’s account of his quest to Film4/track down his key childhood friends, ‘I’ve fallen for the book, which I can’t stop talking about and which I found funny, original, and compelling’. He will publish next year and Ebury will bring out their edition this Summer. Ruby Films/Film4/Miramax have already acquired the film rights and the book is selling rapidly in translation with more deals in the offing during the book fair. Jessica Craig is the contact on that front.
I am very pleased to be a judge for an exciting new initiative launched this week by Waterstone’s. They are looking for the next great writing talent to emerge from within its stores and offices. The Bookseller’s Bursary will offer two booksellers the chance to go on one of the Arvon Foundation’s renowned creative writing courses, as well as give them a cash prize of £500. Continue reading ‘THE WRITE STUFF’
Fiona Neil’s The Secret Life Of a Slummy Mummy is one of six books short-listed for this year’s Melissa Nathan Award. Having attended the inaugural event in 2006 I can speak from first-hand knowledge that this award, set up to commemorate the tragically-short life of bestselling novelist Melissa Nathan, is a really wonderful endeavour and I am delighted that Fiona has been selected. Read the full press release here. You can also watch a webcast interview with Fiona for Bookzone on Sky/BordersTv by clicking on the screebgrab (above left).
Joel Rickett in The Bookseller today interviews me and my colleagues Pat Kavanagh and Caroline Dawnay about United Agents and the future, PFD and the past. You can read the whole article here.
There has been so much other press in recent days about the launch that I have archived it here. You can also visit our website here
If you missed Paul Arnott, author of LET ME EAT CAKE, on Richard Bacon’s BBC R5 show on Thursday night you can listen again here. Paul will be doing a lot of publicity and press over the next three weeks to launch his stunning new non-fiction title IS THERE ANYONE UP THERE? - Adventures In Faith and Doubt which is published by Jocasta Hamilton at Hodder on April 17th. As a young boy Paul Arnott believed in Adam and Eve, Father Christmas and Baby Jesus. But as he got older he found things weren’t so simple…..
The multi-talented Chris Humphreys has joined my list.
As C.C. Humphreys, Chris has written five historical fiction novels. The first, ‘The French Executioner’ was runner up for the CWA Steel Dagger for Thrillers 2002. Its sequel, ‘Blood Ties’, was a bestseller in Canada. He has written three books about Jack Absolute - this ‘007 of the 1770’s’ - ‘Jack Absolute’, ‘The Blooding of Jack Absolute’ and, most recently, ‘Absolute Honour’. All have been published in the UK, Canada, the US and translated widely. As ‘Chris Humphreys’ he has written a trilogy for Young Adults ‘The Runestone Saga’. His latest adult novel: THE LAST CONFESSION - the true history of DRACULA which will be published worldwide in 2008 and 2009.
Venetia Thompson (pictured on the cover of the current issue of The Spectator) has joined my client list. Read her piece ‘A Sloane Ranger In Gangsta land’ here - Tired of Euro-Sloane bores in Chelsea, she tours the clubs of Harlesden, the UK’s ‘gun capital’, and experiences a world where a firearm is as normal a status symbol as a Chanel handbag or a Rolex watch would be in SW3. Venetia is working on a fantastic non-fiction proposal - more details soon.
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Congratulations to Scarlett Thomas whose novel THE END OF MR Y is on the Orange Broadband Prize For Fiction Longlist 2008 announced today.
She joins United Agents client Tessa Hadley, author of THE MASTER BEDROOM, and a host of other female authors to make up a list which aims to celebrate excellence, originality and accessibility in women’s writing. The Chairman of the Judges Kirsty Lang said “There is a great balance on this list, not only in its international reach and range of human experience, but also between first novels and some established writers that haven’t perhaps had the recognition they deserved”. The shortlist is announced on the 15th April and the winner, who receives a cheque for £30,000 and a trophy (the ‘Bessie’) is announced at a ceremony in London on June 4th. Continue reading ‘THE FUTURE’S BRIGHT - THE FUTURE’S SCARLETT’
The most successful Irish debut of 2007, Niamh Greene’s laugh-out-loud SECRET DIARY OF A DEMENTED HOUSEWIFE (Penguin Ireland), has been shortlisted for two Irish Book Awards - in the The Galaxy Irish Popular Fiction Book of the Year and the International Education Services Ltd Best Irish Newcomer of the Year categories. Continue reading ‘THE GRASS IS ALWAYS GREENE(R)’
The Observer has released the 2008 list of The World’s 50 Top Bloggers and we are thrilled that both Petite Anglaise and Girl With A One Track Mind are both riding high. Read the full list here
Danny Wallace’s forthcoming novel FRIENDS LIKE THESE has been optioned by those nice people at Ruby Films. Miramax Films and Film4 have struck a development and production deal with Alison Owen and Paul Trijbits of Ruby Films, the British company behind The Other Boleyn Girl. Overall deal is Miramax’s first anywhere in the world since Daniel Battsek moved from Disney’s London office to run the studio’s specialty division in 2005. The three-year pact gives Miramax and Film4 first look to co-develop and co-produce Ruby features. Miramax will take worldwide rights to movies made under the partnership, with Film4 retaining U.K. TV rights. Read the full story here
Stanley Spencer is best known for his huge paintings that treat British village life in the manner of Renaissance frescoes, such as his masterpiece The Resurrection, Cookham, in which the lives (and deaths) of ordinary folk are tenderly offered up to our gaze. United Agents’ Author and Spencer fan Sîan Pattenden visited the current exhibition at Tate Liverpool and made a wonderful little film. Click on the screengrab to watch the whole thing.
Fiona Neil’s ‘The Secret Life Of A Slummy Mummy’ has risen to Number Three - its highest ever position in The Sunday Times paperback bestseller list, selling a whacking 21,000 copies in the week.
United Agents author Steven Hall is shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2008, the UK’s premier prize for science fiction literature alongside Stephen Baxter, Matthew de Abaitua, Sarah Hall, Ken MacLeod and Richard Morgan.
We had a really lovely lunch at The Hospital Club yesterday to celebrate the launch of Catherine Sanderson’s wonderful book Petite Anglaise . Joining me and Catherine were Jessica Craig who is masterminding the international rights sales of the book, Alex Elam who sold the serial rights to The Sunday Times and The Guardian, Katy Follain (who acquired and edited the book for Penguin), Clare Pollock (who is responsible for the extraordinary amount of publicity generated this week) and my former colleague and partner-in-crime Sarah Ballard who worked with Catherine at proposal stage. Read Catherine’s blog for an account of the whistle-stop tour and, of course, buy the book here.
Mark Lewisohn, who is currently writing what will be the lasting word on The Beatles, is appearing at this year’s Hamburg Sound Festival2. The first volume of Mark’s mammoth and genre-defining biographical study has been signed up by Little, Brown for the UK, Crown Publishing for the USA, and Kawade Shobo Shinsha for Japan. Watch this space….
Niamh Greene, whose debut novel THE SECRET DIARY OF A DEMENTED HOUSEWIFE sold in excess of 100,000 copies is publishing a new volume featuring the wonderful ‘demented’ Susie Hunt in June of this year. Entitled Confessions of a Demented Housewife: The Celebrity Year it promises to be a huge smash-hit and Niamh has just signed a new two-book deal with Patricia Deevey at Penguin Ireland to produce a new book a year from now on to meet the ever-increasing demand. Watch this space for some more exciting news about Niamh in the next three weeks.
Andrew Martin’s brilliant series based around Jim Stringer – a detective on the Victorian railway system – has been shortlisted for the Library Dagger in the UK’s most prestigious crime and thriller awards – the CWA / Duncan Lawrie Daggers 2008.The winners will be announced at the 
Yesterday started early for author Janie Hampton who launched her book 
The nominees for the 2007 Tähtivaeltaja award have been announced.
