Behind the Scenes with Eve White Literary Agency

Are you nearing the point of querying literary agents with your novel? Perhaps you’ve started writing your query letter or your one-page synopsis, and you’re midway through your online search for agents who are open to submissions.

Maybe you’re simply curious about what a literary agent does, and what the submissions process looks like from the other side of the desk.

If so, you’re in luck!

On the blog today, we are proud to host Eve White and Steven Evans from our trusted agency, Eve White Literary Agency, as they share their expert insights into the literary agency submissions process.

About the agency

Eve White started the boutique Eve White Literary Agency in 2003. Since its launch, the company has grown to represent everything from prize-winning literary fiction to bestselling picture books across the world while maintaining that caring, family feel.

The original goal for Eve was to achieve successful careers for a hand-selected stable of authors, and she is very happy to say that she has achieved that aim. The agency now counts Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling writers among their clients, with many book-to-film deals signed. Eve was shortlisted for the BIA Literary Agent of the Year Award in 2015 and the British Book Awards Literary Agent of the Year Award in 2017.

Eve continues to work closely with her authors, both editorially and to help shape their careers. Alongside her is Steven Evans, agent and company manager, who joined the agency in 2021. Steven loves to find non-fiction books that shed light on underrepresented perspectives, communities, and histories, and fiction novels that explore new ideas, challenge the reader, or play with style, form, character, and plot.

The Novelry is proud to work with the Eve White Literary Agency to find authors with fresh voices and exciting new fiction. Members of The Novelry will enjoy a live Q&A with Eve and Steven at the end of this month, as part of our roster of illuminating live sessions with authors and experts from across the publishing industry. In the meantime, let’s grab a cup of tea and go behind-the-scenes with the professionals—over to Eve and Steven...

On the agency’s successful submissions

I recently had a party to celebrate 20 years of Eve White Literary Agency. I decided in my speech to look back at the very early days to see which submissions had turned into great successes. These three books came from writers who approached the agency before I employed anyone to read for me.

Andy Stanton’s middle-grade novel You’re a Bad Man, Mr Gum led to a series of ten books published by Egmont Press, one of which, Mr Gum and the Dancing Bear, was adapted by the National Theatre for a musical. The series sold millions of copies around the world. Andy has since written picture books (with Hodder and Faber) and adult non-fiction (with Oneworld).

Rae Earl’s adult non-fiction, My Fat, Mad Teenage Diary, which Hodder published and followed with a sequel, was adapted by Channel 4 as My Mad Fat Diary, a series which is still streaming. Rae then wrote several children’s novels with Walker Books and is now writing a novel for adults.

Tracey Corderoy’s The Grunt and the Grouch was published by Little Tiger Press as a picture book. It went on to be a series of young fiction and, since then, Tracey has published 80 children’s books.

On reading for treasures

In those early days, I said to myself, ‘Take on people whose books make you laugh or cry or affect you so strongly that you want to shove them into the hands of a friend.’

Very soon, I had enough clients to keep me busy all week. But that meant that, to give them my time, I needed others to read the many submissions that were arriving by post each day. I decided that when employing freelancers to read the submissions for me, I would always employ people who had worked as publishers. They would pass on the best partials, and I would request the complete manuscript and read that myself. 

When Andy Stanton first approached me, he had been rejected by about six other agencies. He thought from my entry in The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook (my address was a country cottage) that I looked cosy!

There are now four of us working full-time at the agency: me, Ludo Cinelli (MD and Agent), Steven Evans (Agent and Company Manager) and Emmanuel Boakye (Agency Assistant). We employ four freelancers who read submissions and scout for talent. We also work with sub-agents to sell our film rights and to sell books in translation.

But we are still a boutique agency, and we love the feeling of our central London office, which is surrounded by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and we enjoy inviting prospective clients to come and sit by the fire and drink tea with us.

On finding new authors

We find new clients in several ways.

We have our submissions procedure, in which we invite anyone to submit three chapters. Our freelance reader, Nicky Marcus, has discovered brilliant talent for me over the years. The author sends three chapters and, if we like them, we request the full manuscript. That is read by one or more agents in our team.

The bestselling psychological thriller author Ruth Ware talks about this from an author’s point of view on my website.

We also receive anthologies from creative writing courses such as Bath Spa, Faber, UEA and the University of Oxford. In this case, we read single chapters from each student and request more if we like what we’ve read.

On working with The Novelry

We also receive recommendations from literary consultants, including The Novelry. We love receiving work from The Novelry because we know the books have been edited by very experienced editors, most of whom have worked for a major publishing company.

Recently, The Novelry sent us a wonderful thriller. We read it immediately, invited the writer into the office and offered to take her on. By the end of that week, she had nine offers of representation. In the end, we didn’t win her, and we were very sad.

In a situation like this, if we are lucky enough to win the client, we then often find that more than one publisher is interested.

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On what happens after a deal is signed

Once we’ve signed a new client, the first thing to do is to send notes to the author and help them get the novel ready to submit to publishers. Meanwhile, we create a list of editors, in both the UK and the US, who we know have had success with that genre. Our aim is to receive as many offers as possible so that we can conduct an auction, and so that the author can meet more than one editor and see who they’d like to work with.

Once we have a publisher for a novel, we then get the book out to our co-agents who sell rights in translation and film.

As an agency, we pride ourselves on tailoring our relationship with our clients to each individual and working hard to ensure they feel fulfilled and reach their potential.

On working with Ruth Ware

Ruth Ware is best known for her bestselling adult thrillers, but she initially came to me with a Young Adult romance, writing as Ruth Warburton. She had five of these published by Hachette Children’s and then wanted to turn to adult crime. Her crime fiction is published by Simon & Schuster in the UK/Commonwealth and the US/Canada, and by 42 publishers in translation. Ten million copies of her novels have been sold worldwide.

With many of Ruth’s books under option with film and TV companies, a movie of The Woman in Cabin 10  has now been made by Netflix and will be out in autumn 2025, starring Keira Knightley. It was filmed in Devon, London and Scotland. A highlight of my career was visiting the set for a day when Ruth had a walk-on role, and we were involved in behind-the-scenes footage.

Ruth’s publishing journey is a great example of finding representation with a manuscript and securing a publisher. It also shows the possibilities of writing for more than one readership. Indeed, we have authors who have written for adults and children, both in fiction and non-fiction. Our job is to enable writers to achieve their goals, offering guidance and helping them to build the kind of writing career they want.

But not every publishing journey is like Ruth’s. In fact, each client will experience publishing in a different way.

On working with Han Smith

Han Smith’s Portraits at the Palace of Creativity and Wrecking is proof of Ludo’s commitment to his authors, his ability to spot talent at an early stage and his dogged determination to literature that pushes the boundaries.

Ludo and Han first met on a one-to-one session as part of the London Writers Awards programme. Ludo instantly loved Han’s work and could see she had great potential, so he subsequently offered to represent her. However, Han’s route to publication was not a straightforward one.

Han and Ludo worked on and submitted two manuscripts to publishers, but they went unsold. This did not deter his belief in Han’s work, however, with Ludo and Han continuing to build her portfolio by placing her short stories with magazines in the meantime.

On the third full-length manuscript, they secured debut deals for Han with John Murray Press (for print) and W. F. Howes (for audio) in 2023. The book, Portraits at the Palace of Creativity and Wrecking, was subsequently a critical success, being shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize 2024 and also featured on the Guardian’s Best Fiction of 2024 list. Han is now working on her next novel.

On looking at older manuscripts

We have a few authors on our list whose first published work was not the one they initially submitted to us. On occasion, these manuscripts will be revived and will find a home at a later date. In our meetings with editors, we are constantly keeping our ears open in case now is the right time for that manuscript. For other authors, it’s simply that it was a step towards publication.

However, it is important to remember that no writing is wasted, and no two authors’ experiences of publishing are the same. Whether a manuscript leads you to receive some useful feedback, to secure representation, or ultimately to receive a first offer of publication, it’s an important step on your writing journey.

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