Interview with Literary Agent Mark Gottlieb

We are thrilled to have a special guest with us today.

Good morning, Mark. Thank you for joining us.

Hi, it’s a pleasure, and thank you for having me on your site for this interview.

You have been in this business for a long time. Did you always know you wanted to be in the publishing business?

I have been working in major trade publishing since 2009 when I started at Penguin Books. I’ve grown up around books all my life, since both my parents worked in major trade publishing, and my father happens to own/operate the literary agency where I work—Trident Media Group. So I like to tell folks that I’ve been publishing from the womb! There was always the expectation that I would study book publishing in college in order to one day go into the family business. That is why I attended Emerson College in Boston, since at the time it was one of only two schools to offer an undergraduate study in book publishing.

What part of this journey has been the most rewarding?

As my client Domenick Dicce, author of the Tarcher/Perigee book YOU’RE A VAMPIRE: THAT SUCKS! (A SURVIVAL GUIDE), put it: “Thank you for making my dreams come true.” Making the dreams of authors come true is precisely what I live for. There are amazing morals for society contained within the pages of books that can enrich all our lives and I consider it an honorable profession to be able to do good for everyone. Certainly it could be a hell of a lot worse—I could be working for a big oil company or on Wall Street, for instance.

What makes you want to read more of a submission?

A well-written query letter will usually result in my request for a manuscript to read and consider. Seeing good writing in a query letter is more often than not a good indication that the manuscript will also be well-written. That is why I always tell authors to think of their query letter as their storefront, since it’s everyone’s first impression of a book. Oftentimes, the copy from the query letter will find its way into an agent’s pitch or onto the jacket copy of a publisher’s book, so the query letter is an essential starting place.

What can authors do to get you excited about working with them? Is there a magic formula?

There isn’t exactly any one particular magic formula for getting a literary agent excited, but having a successful publishing track record will certainly help. If an author’s previous book sold in very high numbers, that’s usually a good justification for an agent to step into the picture. In the case of a newer, perhaps less established author, award nominations and shorter publications in respectable venues will be great. Having advance praise/blurbs from well-known authors can also help to position a book well in the eyes of an agent or an editor at a publishing house. A very strong social media following can also help quite a bit in the way of an author platform.

What are your top 5 submission pet peeves?

There are so many things an author can do wrong in querying an agent with a submission letter, while there are very few things an author can do right in querying an agent with a submission letter, so it’s really hard to say… If I could throw just five glaring problems I tend to see:

1) Authors querying an agent before their fiction manuscript is finished/fully-written, or before their nonfiction book proposal is finished/fully-written, is certainly a pet peeve. It makes no sense querying an agent with unfinished work.

2) I would advise against writing query letters that state that the author does not want to write a query letter but has instead opted to merely attach a manuscript or synopsis to let the work speak for itself. Right away the literary agent will know that the author is going to be difficult to work with. The query letter is also essential so it really can’t be skipped.

3) It is very impersonal seeing a query letter email from an author addressed to dozens of agents at various literary agencies with a “Dear Agent” greeting. Smaller agencies on those lists might think to themselves that they might not be able to compete with the bigger agencies on that list, opting to bow out, while bigger agencies will think to themselves that they shouldn’t have to put up with that, also opting to bow out. So where would that really leave an author? It’s better to do one’s research and approach the very best agency.

4) Reading and respecting a literary agency’s submission guidelines (usually listed on the agency’s website) is also a good way to get a foot in the door, whereas bucking the system will seldom get a good result. New authors call all the time, asking if they can query us over the phone, and I must always refer them back to our website since we prefer to receive query letters there as a matter of company policy.

5) Knowing the rules before breaking them is also important, as going outside of genre-specific conventions and norms can be difficult for an author trying to make their major debut. For instance, a book written for elementary schoolchildren should not contain explicit language and content only appropriate for an adult audience. Knowing the proper book-length for the type of book written is also important, since publishers consider their cost of printing/production as well as shipping and warehousing, alongside how to price a shorter versus a longer book.

What would you like to see in the form of submissions, right now?

I am mostly open to every kind of submission right now, excluding poetry, textbooks, novellas, short story collections and coffee table art/photography books. In terms of fiction, I’d like to see more genre-specific submissions, such as thrillers, mystery/crime, sci-fi/fantasy, general/other fiction. (Women’s fiction/romance tends to work best when it’s from an already highly-established or bestselling author). In terms of nonfiction, I’d like to see advice/relationships, biography, business/investing/finance, diet, health, history/politics/current affairs, how-to, humor, lifestyle, celebrity memoir, parenting, pop culture, spirituality, science, true crime. In terms of children’s books, I’m open to fantasy, middle grade, picture book and young adult. I also work with graphic novels on occasion.

Do you have a huge to-be-read pile? What are you currently reading?

Despite having read many books, in my personal life’s reading pile, I do happen to have a huge to-be-read pile, since much of my reading nowadays is for work purposes. I still find time to read the occasional classic work of literature, modern novel, or even a bedtime story in the way of a graphic novel. When reading for work, I focus my attention in on the task at hand such that I keep my to-be-read pile to a minimum, and can move swiftly between projects.

Tell us something that we may not know!

You may not know that the universe is ever-expanding and there might even be multiple dimensions, and no one really knows what happens inside of a black hole but to go into one might be painful. Since our place in the universe is very small, we should try with humility to empty our cups at the door and remember that publishing, like the universe, is never fixed and is ever-expanding/changing. There really are no rules in book publishing and it’s important to be able to roll with the punches in accepting change, rather than going the way of the dinosaurs in being resistant/unable to adapt to change in environment.

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Mark Gottlieb

Literary Agent

Trident Media Group

Mark Gottlieb’s focus on publishing began at Emerson College, where he was a founding member of the Publishing Club, later its President, overseeing its first publication and establishing the Wilde Press.

After graduating with a degree in writing, literature and publishing, Mark began his career with the Vice President of Berkley Books (Penguin), working with leading editors.

His first position at the Trident Media Group literary agency was in foreign rights, selling the books of clients around the world. Mark later worked as Executive Assistant to Robert Gottlieb, Chairman of Trident, with responsibility for organizing/managing diverse authors and their complex business transactions. He next assumed the position of audio rights agent. Since Mark has managed the audio rights business, the annual sales volume has more than doubled. Mark showed great initiative and insight in identifying talented writers.

In passing the Audio Department's torch, Mark is building his own client list of writers. He is excited to work directly with authors, helping to manage and grow their careers with all of the unique resources that are available to Trident. Since that time he has ranked as high as #1 in Agents on publishersmarketplace.com in Overall Deals. He has also ranked #1 in categories such as Science-Fiction/Fantasy, Children's, and Graphic Novels. He has ranked in the top five for Thriller, Mystery/Crime, Womens/Romance, Young Adult, and certain nonfiction categories such as Pop Culture, Memoir, How-To, and Humor.

Find out how to submit to Mark HERE