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Sarah's Bookshelves Live

Ep. 56: Holly Root (Literary Agent) on the Rise of Rom-Coms & Publishing in the Coronavirus Era + Book Recommendations

Sarah's Bookshelves Live

Sarah Dickinson

Bookrecommendations, Bookpodcasts, Sarahsbookshelvespodcast, Sarahsbookshelveslivepodcast, Sarahsbookshelveslive, Bookpodcast, Literarypodcast, Whatshouldiread, Arts, Bookreviewpodcast, Reading, Readingpodcast, Books, Sarahsbookshelves

4.9 • 732 Ratings

🗓️ 29 April 2020

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In Episode 56, Holly Root (Literary Agent and Owner of Root Literary) talks about the rise of the rom-com and publishing in the coronavirus era…plus, the story of selling Jasmine Guillory’s debut novel to publishers.

This post contains affiliate links, through which I make a small commission when you make a purchase (at no cost to you!).

Announcement

  • Starting in June, the podcast will move to a bi-weekly airing schedule for the summer (just like last summer).
  • Every episode this summer will be a full length episode (mini episodes will go on hiatus until the Fall).

Highlights

  • Holly’s journey to becoming a literary agent.
  • What you need to be good at to be a good agent.
  • Holly’s agent “style.”
  • How the current rom-com trend got started and Root Literary’s role in that.
  • The story of selling Jasmine Guillory’s first book to publishers.
  • The move of romance from mass market only to trade paperback…and which types of romance fall in each category.
  • “Patient 0” for the contemporary rom-com trend.
  • The role Book of the Month has played in the rise of the rom-com.
  • How coronavirus is impacting publishing (particularly book acquisition and publication dates).
  • How publishers are deciding which publication dates to push back and which to hold in place during coronavirus.
  • A publishing secret about Edelweiss.
  • Spin-offs being a big thing in romance.
  • The hard part about the “enemies to lovers trope” in romance.
  • The differences between a “romance” and a “rom-com.”

Holly’s Book Recommendations [27:49]

Two OLD Books She Loves

Two NEW Books She Loves

Discussion About Reading Books You Don’t Like [38:17]

Two NEW RELEASES She’s Excited About

Rate It Game [43:30]

Other Books Mentioned

Other Links

About Holly

Website | Instagram | Twitter

Holly is the founder of Root Literary, which opened in 2017. Prior to opening her agency, she worked at Waxman Leavell Literary, Trident Media Group, and William Morris. Based in Los Angeles, her clients include #1 New York Times bestsellers, international bestsellers, RITA winners and nominees, and numerous titles named to Best Books of the Year lists by Publishers Weekly, The Washington Post, NPR, the American Library Association, RT Book Reviews, Kirkus, and Amazon. She represents authors of commercial fiction for adults and kids, as well as select nonfiction. 

Next Episode

Mini Episode featuring Liz Hein (@lizhein89)…airing May 6.

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to Sarah's Bookshelves Live. I'm Sarah of the blog Sarah's Bookshelves. Each week I'm

0:15.5

talking with one bookish guest about two old books they love, two new books they love, one book they don't love, and one new

0:22.7

release they're excited about. We're going to get real and sometimes a bit snarky about all things

0:28.3

books. If you like the show, I'd really love your support. Spread the word to your reader friends,

0:33.8

subscribe to the show, rate and review it wherever you listen to podcasts, or get bonus podcast episodes

0:40.8

by supporting the podcast on Patreon. There's a link in the show notes and in my Instagram bio to my

0:47.5

Patreon page. Let's get rolling. Hey everyone, welcome to a full-length episode of Sarah's Bookshelves Live. I've got a quick announcement

0:55.6

today before we get to our guest, and that is starting in June, just like I did last year,

1:01.6

the podcast will be moving to a bi-weekly schedule for the summer. My family travels a lot in the

1:07.3

summer, and my kids are also out of school, which I guess is no different from right now, but it usually is a different situation. And it's just hard for me to get

1:15.2

weekly episodes out in the summer. So I do go biweekly and every biweekly episode will be a full

1:22.2

length episode. So we'll just sort of put the many episodes on hiatus until September.

1:33.2

So you'll get weekly episodes through the end of May, and starting at the beginning of June,

1:37.4

you'll get an episode every other week and every episode will be full length.

1:40.2

All right, let's get to our guest.

1:47.1

Way back in November, and that would be episode 40, I had Bird Level, a literary agent at the United Talent Agency on the show. He specializes mostly in representing nonfiction authors,

1:53.3

and as we talked through the episode, it became really clear that his process and how you represent

1:59.9

somebody who writes nonfiction

2:02.2

and how you go look for those clients is pretty different than somebody who specializes

2:06.8

primarily in fiction. So I knew at that time that I also wanted to have on the show an agent

2:12.3

who represents fiction. And that's what we have today. I'm thrilled to welcome Holly Root.

2:19.5

She is the founder of Root Literary.

...

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