The Leshne Agency is seeking new and existing authors across select genres.
Before you go any further, I highly recommend you read this excellent article with 20 Tips for Aspiring Authors by Zibby Owens.
We are especially interested in:
-Narrative and prescriptive non-fiction, with a particular interest in social justice, women’s issues, and underrepresented voices.
-Sports, health, business, political and pop-culture topics.
-Exceptional commercial and literary fiction, and select illustrated, graphic novels, young adult, middle-grade and children’s books.
We are NOT interested in:
-Screenplays
-Scripts
-Poetry
-Mystery
-Science Fiction
If your submission is in a genre not specifically listed here, we are open to considering it, but if your submission is for a genre we’ve mentioned as NOT being interested in, please don’t bother sending it to us.
All submissions should be submitted through Query Tracker to get the fastest response, OR emailed with your query letter to submissions@leshneagency.com. Please do not do both. For emails, please put the word QUERY as the first word in the Subject line of your email followed by the title of your proposed book. This will help us to better keep track of your submission. For all submissions, we prefer a Word document, easy to read 12-point font, double-spaced. This is not a requirement, but it does make it easier for us to read, and we appreciate it.
For Non-Fiction:
Please summit a complete book proposal, including an overview of the book; a table of contents and detailed chapter outline; the book’s target audience; marketing or promotional plans; four to six recently published titles you would compare your book to and why; your bio; and at least two fully-written sample chapters. See the below Proposal Guide for a more detailed description of what we like to see in a book proposal.
For Fiction:
Please tell us about yourself (the more complete, the better – we want to know about you!), and include the title, genre, word count, a hook or tag-line, and a brief synopsis of your manuscript. If there is something in particular that inspired you to write your book, we want to know about it. You want to catch and hold our attention and make us want to read more. You can also give us some comp titles (see point #4 below) of books that you think are similar to yours in tone, genre, and/or audience appeal. You can just give us a sentence or two, there is no need to write a paragraph for each comp title you pick. Please include 10-20 sample pages. We will request more if we are interested.
The Leshne Agency’s Proposal Guide:
1. An Overview focused on who you are and why you wrote this book. This must be concise (ideally just 2-3 pages), well-written and engaging, giving readers an idea of your voice (as you plan to use it in your book) and must make a persuasive argument for why your book is important. It’s also a good idea to include anything from your background or your personal story that contributes to showing why only YOU could write this particular book.
2. An About the Author section with a headshot and your bio. Be sure to include your education credentials, any past published work (with links if applicable), any applicable awards, and do your best to show your personality in both your photo and writing. Anything that makes you memorable is good! The challenge will be to make sure you don’t include the bulk of the information you’re going to include in the next section so it doesn’t read as repetitive. This should be written in the third person, because that makes it easier for the editor to then “sell you” to their sales and marketing team. They will use this section to discuss your credentials as an author.
3. An Audience and/or Promotion or Marketing section(s) outlining the audience for your book (with relevant statistics and sources as they help – e.g. if you’ve written a book all about dogs, try to find numbers for how many pet owners there are in the US and how much dog-related merchandise they buy. Always cite your sources with links where applicable!) and, as the publishing companies like to call it, your “platform” for selling the book. List any strong social media numbers you might have, highlight your personal website if it’s excellent, and be sure to include a list of any personal and professional contacts that you are prepared to call upon to help promote your book when the time comes (again with links to their credentials as applicable – e.g. if they’re a journalist, be sure to link to a page that lists their articles, or if a high profile celeb, link to their personal we page or social media account and let us know how many followers they have.) Be aware, these are just people you’re suggesting who the publisher may or may not reach out to on your behalf to help promote the book. You’re not promising anything from your contacts, you’re demonstrating that you have a strong network. You should not include people who would say, “who?!” if asked about you. However smarmy it might feel, you should include everyone you have actual connection with who you would be comfortable reaching out to ask if they would help to promote your book.
4. A Competitive and Complementary Titles section that’s an analysis of your contemporaries and your market via a compare/contrast paragraph about 5-6 complementary titles for your book. Briefly compare your book to another already published successful title from within the past three years and contrast what’s different (and, ideally, better) about your book – and rinse, repeat for 4-5 other titles. You should not chose books that are more than a few years old because they won’t reflect the current market. You should start with the most recently published book, and go in descending order.
You DO NOT need to find how many copies of the comp titles were published or include any more detailed information about each comp title other than the author’s name, the full title, and the (publisher, publication year) in parentheses after the title (you do not need to include the ISBN). Be sure to look at the hardcover/first edition format of the comp title to find the original publication year. DO tell us if the book was a NYT bestseller or the winner of a Pulitzer or other notable awards.
Example: Ladyparts: A Memoir by Deborah Copaken (Random House, 2021) In this darkly comedic memoir, the author uses humor and her journalist’s keen eye to dissect the…
OR
In Deborah Copaken’s Ladyparts: A Memoir (Random House, 2021), the author uses darkly comedic humor and her journalist’s keen eye to show…
Throughout your proposal, whenever you mention any other book DO always include these credits this way. Obviously, only once – after you’ve listed them once this way, if you need to refer to the same book again, it’s OK to mention it with just its short title, like Ladyparts. And the need for this credit once applies to any other book in addition to the one that the proposal is about – so, if Deborah Copaken is writing another proposal for her next book, she should mention Ladyparts: A Memoir with its full title and (Random House, 2021) when it first appears.
Also – Do NOT pick books that were huge category bestsellers because it’s unrealistic to use these as comp titles. In other words, if you’re writing memoir, do NOT tell me your book is the next EAT, PRAY, LOVE or GLASS CASTLE or HILLBILLY ELEGY. You DO want to pick titles that were on industry-respected bestseller lists and were successful, because this is how the sales teams at publishing houses will project how many books they think you can sell if they believe you’ve chosen realistic comparisons. Please DON’T tell me that the book was an Amazon bestseller in a particular category, unless it was in the top 100 books on all of Amazon. Some years ago Brent Underwood wrote this hilarious and informative article: Behind the Scam: What Does It Take to Be a ‘Best-Selling Author’? $3 and 5 Minutes.
Do your best, you don’t have to get this section perfect to submit it to us, and if we represent you, we will help you find the best titles we can. See a more detailed write-up about how to write the Comp Titles section HERE by Brooke Carey, a former editor at Penguin Group. PLEASE READ IT- IT’S EXCELLENT and goes into important detail about what and what not to include in this section.
5. Either a full Synopsis or a Detailed Chapter Outline with a brief summary of each chapter’s contents/focus. This can range from a paragraph about each chapter, to several pages on each chapter with sample content included. It depends on the number of chapters, and the kind of book you’re writing. This is the beating heart of your book proposal and it should show the complete narrative arc of the book. These shouldn’t be excerpts from your chapters, but should be short summaries about what each chapter will reveal.
6. Two to three fully written Sample Chapters. This is to establish proof of concept. No matter how great your idea is, if you can’t execute it well, we won’t be able to help sell your book. The writing needs to be excellent.
Lastly, always remember this is a marketing document (think of it as a business plan for your book), and it must make a strong, confident case for why your reader (and the publishing house) would want to invest money, time and energy in your book. Even if a book editor at a publishing house has fallen completely in love with your book, they will still need a strong proposal to “sell” your book internally to their entire editorial board. Additionally, the publisher’s sales and marketing teams need to believe in the sales potential for you book in order for it to be approved. Similar to how we will use your proposal to get you a book deal, an editor will use your proposal to advocate for your book internally to their sales and marketing team, but instead of arguing for a great deal, they’ll be negotiating your book’s publication schedule and marketing budget.
Good luck. 😊
If we are interested in your project, we will get in touch to request you send us more sample chapters or the full manuscript for consideration. We consider every query carefully, but due to the large volume of submissions, it may take us up to two months to review your submission. Regrettably, due to the volume of submissions, we are unable to respond if we are not interested. Rest assured, you WILL hear from us if we ARE interested.
We look forward to reviewing your work!