Setting yourself up for success with an agent, publisher and audience.

Takeaways from London Writer Salon’s interview with publishing consultant and novelist, Abigail Bergstrom.

This week Matt and Parul from London Writers Salon interviewed Abigail Bergstrom, literary agent, publishing consultant and author. Bergstrom began her career as an editor at Simon & Schuster before moving to Gleam to become their Head of Publishing. She recently published her debut novel, What a Shame, and she launched her own publishing consultancy, Bergstrom Studio. Keep an eye out for their Substack, launching soon!

In this fascinating interview, Bergstrom shares a lot of insights she’s learned from working behind the scenes as an editor and agent. She also discusses experience with burnout and how it led to a life change, and the process of writing and publishing What a Shame.

Here are my favorite takeaways.

Your unique lens of the world is what sets you apart.

One of my favorite takeaways of the interview was the idea that each of us has a unique lens of the world. As writers, we struggle with being redundant and saying something that’s already said. According to Bergstrom, that’s simply not true.

“People often say when they’re writing a book, ‘Who cares about what I’m writing? Why would anyone want to hear from me? Why is my perspective on grief relevant and more important than anyone else’s?’ The thing is your unique lens, your unique experience, that thing no one else can write and no one else can share or talk about and that’s the thing that sets you apart. That’s the thing that makes your book on grief interesting. What is it and how do you get to it? I think a lot of writers have a tendency to look outwards. What are other people doing and almost leaning away from themselves…I think I’m always trying to push that writer gently back into themselves and into those awkward and darker and comfortable places with those stories and emotions that shape-shift so quickly. We can’t quite put words to them. We can’t quite name them. That’s where the magic comes to life. That’s your unique thing you have to offer the world through writing on a subject.”

Have continuity across your brand.

Branding is not easy. We’d like to appeal to many, but according to Bergstrom, having a distinct, understandable brand is what truly allows for scalability. Also, having continuity across your brand is important.

“I am definitely draw and interested in that brand continuity. What I mean by that is being distinct. Saying something original that is cutting through the noise… I think being distinct is scalable. You need to think about scalability when it comes to building a brand. You need to think about continuity…What’s the one-liner? That needs to concise in your mind, and that needs to reverberate not just across social media platforms, but also across what you’re saying.”

It’s all about drafting and redrafting.

We may not like it, but it’s true.

“People will write the first draft of a novel, send it to you and be like ‘I’m done.’ And you’re like, “Whoa. Hang on. It’s not my job to go through your sloppy scribbles.’ You need to go back. You need to re-read. You need to edit, re-edit. I often advise writers to just pull a chapter at random and read it as its own entity because, of course, that’s often how we read. We’ll stop. We’ll put a book down and maybe two days later, we’ll pick it up again and suddenly we’re in this chapter. What world are you in? How is it embedding you? Where are you sign posting from and to? I also advise writers to print things out and read on paper because that’s a completely different experience — reading dialogue aloud. If you’re not reading your dialogue aloud then don’t bother. You have be saying it to catch on the page what is realistic dialogue. So yeah, it’s all about draft, redrafting, drafting and redrafting. The first draft will be terrible. It should be terrible.”

On finding the right agent for your work.

If you want to find an agent that is a good fit for you, turn to the books that are like yours. It won’t get simpler than that.

“You go on the websites. You look at the agent, and you read what they’re looking for. I was skimming through agent profiles. They were like, ‘I love this book. I love this book.’ and [I was like ] ‘Cool. You get it. This is what I’m trying to do.’ I always advise people to know if there’s a novel, a work of nonfiction or whatever — a book that’s similar to what you’re trying to do or successful within the field. Go to the back of the acknowledgements. In there nine times out of ten, any good author, any respectable author will have thank to the people that have worked on the book, and you’ll find the agent’s name in there.”

The three “b’s”.

Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica. Just kidding. Bergstrom’s three b’s are a little more helpful with landing an agent.

“When you submit [to an agent]— blurb, bio, bridge — the three b’s. It’s a short bio, like who you are, what you’re about, what about you is relevant to the piece. A bridge . If two creative projects made love to create your project, what would those two things be? It can be films. It could be movie. It could be games. It could be anything. Then a blurb. Don’t write a long and wildly synopsis…like read the back of a book. Those blurbs are written to entice and to bring you in.”

A green editor can provide more value.

Don’t be seduced by a brand name publisher! An editor will be your greatest champion as your book goes through the publishing phase, so make sure you find an editor that’s going to give it the love and attention it deserves.

“I see a lot of authors wowed and drawn to these really established editors that have published these amazing books and had loads of success. Sometimes those publishing directors have got their big fish, and they’ve been very successful award-wise and commercially-wise. They haven’t really got anything to prove. ….Then you get these young, green hungry editors that have to make their mark, need to find that breakout success and need to make something successful. I find they’re bursting with enthusiasm, and your editor is your catalyst in house. They’re the people briefing the cover. The sales team understanding of your book comes from them. They’re so integral and so important. They need to be passionate. They need to love your book. It needs to be the most important one on their mind that year. That often comes from going with a more junior editor.”

Ask questions about the marketing campaign.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Understanding how a publisher will handle your book will help you scale your brand alongside them.

“I would ask a lot of questions about the marketing campaign…What would that strategy be like? How would you market this book? What would the big campaign idea be? [All this] is important. And I would say to your agent, ‘Can you let people know ahead of time that those are things I’m really interested in?’ so when you go into the room, they have to have the answers [ready] because you get a lot of lazy broad stroke answers.”

The beauty of books.

Bergstrom shared why she loves books.

“I find books meditative in a world we live in today where our attention span is fought for and battled for by some of the strongest brands and platforms in the world. A book is really a kind of opportunity for transcendence and escapism from that.”

And boy do we need it. Thank you to all the authors who provide much needed escapism!

And if you’re an author looking for a little writing escape of your own, join us for one of our Writer’s Hours, held four times a day every weekday!

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