Agent Spotlight: Ginger Clark Interview and Query Critique Giveaway

Today I’m thrilled to have agent Ginger Clark here. She recently left Curtis Brown, LTD, to start her own agency, Ginger Clark Literary.

Status: Open to submissions

Hi­ Ginger! Thanks so much for joining us.

About Ginger:

1. Tell us how you became an agent, how long you’ve been one, and what you’ve been doing as an agent.

I started in publishing in 1998 (!!!) and after a year as an editorial assistant at Tor Books, I moved to Writers House where I was an assistant literary agent. I’ve been an agent since 2001, when I took on my first clients (John Dickinson, Richard Kadrey, and Elizabeth Wein). I moved to Curtis Brown in 2005, and then started my own agency in July 2021.

About the Agency:

2. Share a bit about your agency and what it offers to its authors.

Beyond the usual primary-agent functions, we have deep expertise in foreign and translation rights, contracts, and literary estates. My colleague, Nicole Eisenbraun, is our Translation Rights Manager in addition to handling her own list of clients. She’s fantastic, and it’s unusual for a smaller agency like GCL to have someone focused on foreign rights. Our work with the Contracts Committee for the AALA—I am presently the Committee’s chair—keeps us focused on new contract developments. And our work with estates gives us a long perspective on how contracts have evolved and been applied. We also partner with all the major book-to-film agencies.

When I make decisions about my agency, I’m thinking first: How this will affect my clients?

What She’s Looking For:

3. What age groups do you represent—picture books, MG, and/or YA? What genres do you represent and what are you looking for in submissions for these genres?

I’m looking for middle grade and young adult fiction and nonfiction on the children’s side of my list. I’m looking for everything in those age groups. If it’s for kids between ages 8 to 18, send it my way.

On the adult side of my list, I handle science fiction, fantasy, horror, romance, and women’s fiction. Women’s fiction and romance are two genres I’m really hoping to build at this agency. I have always been a fan, but both genres were especially huge comforts to me in 2020 during the beginning of the pandemic.

4.  Is there anything you would be especially excited to seeing in the genres you are interested in?

I’d love to see more middle grade fiction and nonfiction, and more young adult nonfiction. I also remain a huge fan of historical fiction, for both age groups.

What She Isn’t Looking For:

5. What types of submissions are you not interested in?

I don’t handle picture books, and I’m not looking to take on any adult literary fiction at the moment.

Editorial Agent:

6. Are you an editorial agent? If so, what is your process like when you’re working with your authors before submitting to editors?

I have never gone on submission with a book that hasn’t gone through at least one round of revisions. I give notes on all clients’ unsold work and have follow-up phone calls to discuss my notes and answer any questions or concerns they have.

Query Methods and Submission Guidelines: (Always verify before submitting)

7. How should authors query you and what do you want to see with the query letter?

Please email me at submissions@gingerclarkliterary.com. Tell me a bit about how your book will fit into the market. Compare it to other recently published books. Spend a paragraph or two summarizing the plot, focusing on the main characters and their main arcs. You do not have to explain the ending—just talk about the first twenty percent of the book, until the main conflict or inciting incident happens.

8.  Do you have any specific dislikes in query letters or the first pages submitted to you?

Please don’t write the query letter in the voice of a character. Query letters are business correspondence. Authors are asking agents to be their business advisor and provide them a service. 

Response Time:

9. What’s your response time to queries and requests for more pages of a manuscript?

I review all queries within two weeks of receipt. For requested partials and full manuscripts, I’m currently responding within six weeks.

Self-Published and Small Press Authors:

10.  Are you open to representing authors who have self-published or been published by smaller presses? What advice do you have for them if they want to try to find an agent to represent them?

I welcome all authors who have self-published or published with smaller presses. In fact, I welcome all authors, full stop!

11. With all the changes in publishing—self-publishing, hybrid authors, more small publishers—do you see the role of agents changing at all? Why?

My career has straddled a very interesting, very dynamic period of publishing. Publishing 30 years ago was very much like publishing 50 years ago, or 70 years ago, or even 100 years ago. But publishing now is very different from publishing 20 years ago. The medium is changing. I remember when eBooks were considered a fad in 2002, and then when the digital market started to explode in 2008 to 2012, and for several years now I’ve been watching supply chain issues around paper shortages. (The pandemic exacerbated this, but the underlying issues predate it.)

Another change is that it’s never been easier to get expert-level information about publishing, but it’s also never been easier to get bad information about publishing. Both are just a Google search away. The potential for informed authors and the potential for confused authors have both increased. As an agent, I see it as my responsibility to make sure my clients are the former and not the latter.

Clients:

12. Who are some of the authors you represent?

Tina Connolly, John Dickinson, Karina Yan Glaser, Molly Gloss, Monica Hesse, Richard Kadrey, Drew Karpyshyn, John Langan, Gretchen McNeil, Dana Mele, Colleen Oakes, Tim Pratt, Rachel Vincent, Elizabeth Wein, Patricia Wrede, Caroline Yoachim, and the estates of Ursula K. Le Guin and Steph Bowe.

Interviews and Guest Posts:

13. Please share the links to any interviews and guest posts you think would be helpful to writers interested in querying you.

Well we have to include this wonderful interview with Nicole:

https://publishingperspectives.com/2021/08/a-new-agencys-rights-translation-rights-manager-nicole-eisenbraun-covid19/

Here is an older interview with me:

https://theliterarymom.wordpress.com/2014/09/30/interview-with-literary-agent-ginger-clark/

Also, here I am on the BBC:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09nrsbs

Links and Contact Info:

14. Please share how writers should contact you to submit a query and your links on the Web.

Email here:

submissions@gingerclarkliterary.com

More information here:

https://gingerclarkliterary.com/Submissions

Update on 1/21/2023

Twitter

Query Tracker

Additional Advice:

15. Is there any other advice you’d like to share with aspiring authors that we haven’t covered?

Read the genre or age group you are writing about. If you want to write middle grade historical fiction, spend at least six months diving deep into the last five years of middle grade historical fiction. Know the field you write in, so you can pitch yourself more specifically and accurately to agents and editors.

Thanks for sharing all your advice, Ginger.

­Ginger is generously offering a query critique to one lucky winner. To enter, all you need to do is be a follower (via the follower gadget, email, or bloglovin’ on the right sidebar) and leave a comment through February 26th. If your e-mail is not on your Google Profile, you must leave it in the comments to enter the contest. If you do not want to enter the contest, that's okay. Just let me know in the comments.

If you mention this contest on Twitter, Facebook, or your blog, mention this in the comments and I'll give you an extra entry. This is an international giveaway.

Last updated: 1/21/2023.
Agent Contacted For Review? Yes.
Last Reviewed By Agent? 2/6/2023

Have any experience with this agent? See something that needs updating? Please leave a comment or e-mail me at natalieiaguirre7@gmail.com

Note: These agent profiles and interviews presently focus on agents who accept children's fiction. Please take the time to verify anything you might use here before querying an agent. The information found here is subject to change.