Episode Details

CAA literary agent Rachel Mann on what makes her say yes to a manuscript, how to navigate the submissions process without losing control of your career, and why cutting is the work that makes prose land.

You'll learn

• Why the recognition an agent needs is physical rather than analytical.
• What to do when you're not sure your manuscript is ready to send out.
• How to buy more time after a full manuscript request without killing the momentum.
• Why telling other agents about your requests works in your favour, even if it feels grubby.
• The realistic rhythm for chasing an agent who has gone quiet.
• Whether refusing to use social media can cost a writer representation.
• A question worth answering before you sign with anyone, and why the answer shapes the edit.
• The edit most manuscripts need before submission, and why it rarely means adding.
• How poetry's distillation applies to prose, whatever you write.
• What still gives an agent hope in a market where people are reading less.

Resources & Links

• Rachel's Website
• Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr
• Waterstones
• Puffin
• Jo Unwin Literary Agency
• Karolina Sutton agent
• Harriet Poland agent
• Sarah Harvey agent
• John Ash agent
• Boy Parts by Eliza Clark
• Ottessa Moshfegh author
• Society of Authors
• The Arvon Foundation
• To Query CAA: Email ukbooksubmissions@caa.com. To submit, please send a cover email, one-page synopsis and the first three chapters of your work, or the rough equivalent.

About Rachel Mann

Rachel Mann is a Literary Agent at CAA and represents a broad range of work – largely fiction, with some non-fiction — from commercial to literary, in adult, young adult, and middle-grade markets.

Her clients include Eliza Clark, Caleb Femi, Jade LB and Aisling Rawle, and have won and been listed for major prizes, including the Granta Best Young British Novelist, the Forward Prize for Poetry, the Rathbones Folio Prize, the Jhalak Prize, the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize, the YA Book Prize, The Bookseller Discover Prize, and the Carnegie Medal.

She spent ten years editing and commissioning fiction for young people at houses including Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster, and was global publishing director at the Roa