Agent's Corner: What Sells Abroad

Literary Agent Samantha Haywood discusses the foreign book market. Writers, readers, Samantha would love to answer your questions. Please post them in the 'Post a comment' section at the bottom of the article.

By Samantha Haywood

While at the Frankfurt Book Fair this past October, I was thinking about my readers back home, here on Open Book, and I wanted to come back with some insider’s answers and insights for you about what is selling abroad these days.

During the course of my meetings, I asked editors, scouts and our subagents alike what was working for them in terms of selling English-language fiction and nonfiction abroad, and the consensus is that well-written books — literary, if you will — matched with plot-driven and accessible story lines — commercial, if you will — are in high demand.

To Canadian authors hoping to sell their books abroad, what I can say is that what made our exquisite literary fiction sought after is becoming slightly passé. Let me clarify: the Canadian fiction stereotype of quiet, introspective novels that are beautifully crafted is no longer in vogue abroad. The problem, I think, is the perceived “quietness,” which in my opinion means that the style and craftsmanship of the language in these books overtake the importance of the plot or story. As Bill Clinton famously said, “it’s the economy, stupid.” It now feels to me like publishers are almost saying, “it’s the story, stupid.” And the old selling axiom of "can you pitch it in a sentence or less" has never been more true. I think it’s quite safe for me to say that literary fiction everywhere is having a hard time in the face of commercial bestsellers. The pressure is on literary writers to enter into this sales-driven marketplace by matching their craftsmanship with Big Plot.

Another challenge is the competition. We used to be competing mainly with American and British writers for foreign sales, but now we’re competing with those authors AND European authors. Europeans are reading more home-grown authors and this trend extends beyond Europe to Asia and South America and beyond.

What do I recommend? If you’re a literary fiction or literary narrative fiction author, do not despair, but do take care about plot and become accustomed to thinking about your book in terms of what it is going to be marketed as after it’s finished. On one side of the spectrum there is the author Justin Cronin whose commercial bestseller, The Passage, proves that when an established literary author goes into the commercial fiction world, there is great money to be made. And I heard of other examples of American literary fiction writers who are now doing their literary novels alongside some new thrillers, YA series or supernatural commercial fiction novels. It’s too early to tell if this trend will prove long-lasting, but I can see why its happening and those authors that pull it off are enjoying more financial success as a result. But can they maintain dual readerships and publishers on both sides of the fiction spectrum? We shall see.

In my opinion, it’s never a good idea to write something to follow a trend because the trend will likely pass before you’re finished and trying to sell it. So don’t see this Frankfurt report as reason for you, as an author, to change how you write, but you do need to become cognisant of the ways in which you can keep your story accessible and understood in a marketplace that is unquestionably driven by a need to sell into commercial categories.

And if you are a commercial writer or genre writer, then the more “upmarket” you can be, the more crossover appeal you'll have to a foreign market as the lines between fine writing and story-driven fiction become more and more necessarily intertwined.

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Any views or opinions presented in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Transatlantic Literary Agency.