454: Jim Levine - A Conversation With My Literary Agent (How To Write A Great Proposal)

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk

Ryan Hawk

Careers, Management, Business

4.8 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 10 January 2022

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Read my new book, The Pursuit Of Excellence

https://bit.ly/excellencehawk

Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com

Text Hawk to 66866 for "Mindful Monday"

Jim Levine has been a literary agent for more than 30 years. Some of his agency’s clients include Ray Dalio, Scott Galloway, Jay Shetty, Gillian Flynn (author of Gone Girl), Satya Nadella (CEO of Microsoft), Tom Brady, & Giselle Bundchen among others… He also is my book agent and he brokered the deals for my book deals for both Welcome To Management AND The Pursuit of Excellence with McGraw-Hill.

Notes:

Early in my podcasting career, I asked all authors I recorded who the best book agent was... And many of them said, Jim Levine.
"Being an agent is a continuing liberal arts education, it’s an opportunity to engage with experts and thought leaders in a wide variety of fields and help shape their work to reach the broadest possible audience.”
Jim has written and published 7 books and over 100 articles for professional magazines… He's won awards for his work as a writer.
He's the founding director of The Fatherhood Project – A 20-year long foundation-supported initiative to increase men’s involvement in childrearing in all segments of society.
Jim takes us inside the process from book proposal, selling to a publisher, and ultimately getting the book published.
"Being an agent is so much more than just selling the book. The relationship is so much more intimate. You have to care."
Building a company and a culture of growth...
The best book proposals he's read:
- The Master Algorithm -- Pedro Domingos
- Welcome To Management
- Smartcuts by Shane Snow
Jim has spent most of his career putting together ideas, people, and money; identifying, nurturing, and marketing talent; and creating projects that make a difference.
Jim graduated Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude from Amherst College, winning Woodrow Wilson, Fulbright, and Ford Foundation Fellowships. He holds two advanced degrees in English Literature from UC Berkeley, where he specialized in Shakespeare and modern literary criticism, and a doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he specialized in child development and social policy.
Advice:
- Don’t think about a job, think about skills you have and challenges you could take on…
- The WHO is really important - Who you work for...
- Be a perpetual learner
- Follow your curiosity
- Have a wide range of interests
What Jim looks for when hiring – Pat Lencioni’s humble, hungry, and smart – It’s about helping people solve problems.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	If you liked episode 424 with Bert Bean and Sam Kaufman, you will love this opportunity.
0:06.1	Compass is a division of insight global dedicated to helping organizations build incredible cultures.
0:13.2	Compass has just launched Culture Academy and they are opening up the playbook on how a
0:18.8	$3 billion company created a massive culture turnaround. Culture Academy is a three-day in-person
0:26.2	workshop at their headquarters in Atlanta. Once together you will work with a group of like-minded
0:32.8	leaders interested in learning how to build an excellent culture. Compass gives you a practical
0:38.8	framework on how to build a fulfilling culture that drives performance. Go to igcompass.com to sign up
0:47.6	today. Welcome to The Learning Leaders Show, presented by insight global. I am your host,
0:58.6	Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text Hawk to 66866. That's H-A-W-K to 66866 to become
1:09.7	part of mindful Monday. You along with tens of thousands of other learning leaders from all over
1:16.4	the world will receive a carefully curated email from me each Monday morning to help you start
1:23.1	your week off right. You'll also receive the opportunity to read a portion of my new book.
1:29.8	The pursuit of excellence for free if you text Hawk to 66866. Now on to the nice feature leader,
1:39.4	the great Jim Levine. He's been a literary agent for more than 30 years. Some of his agency's
1:46.5	clients include Ray Dalio, Scott Galloway, Jay Shetty, Gillian Flynn, who's the author of Gone Girl,
1:52.8	Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, Tom Brady, and Jezel Bunchin, among others. He is also my book
2:01.6	agent and he brokered the deals for my books. Welcome to management and the pursuit of excellence
2:09.3	with McGraw Hill. A few of the topics we discussed, what he needs to see and a potential client to
2:14.8	take them on and why he chose to represent me. Then he takes us inside the process from book
2:22.5	proposal, selling to a publisher and ultimately getting the book published and then how he works to
2:30.2	build a culture of growth at his agency. He founded this agency by the way and what he looks for
2:37.6	when hiring a leader. Ladies and gentlemen, this one is personal to me. It's so good. It's Jim Levine.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Ryan Hawk, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Ryan Hawk and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.