Event Description
Monday, April 27, 2015
In a fast-changing marketplace, it’s more important than ever to have an advocate to fight for you when going the route of traditional publishing. Our annual Agent’s program this April 27 will present a panel of stellar Southern California agents who will provide a look at their world today. Topics we’ll be covering (and there will be time for Q&A from the audience) will include:
Do’s and Don’ts — how to get an agent’s attention in a good way, what agents are especially on the lookout for (and what they DON’T want to see) in cover/query letters and proposals.
How to make your cover, query, or proposal irresistible, and how to match yourself with the right agent for your “brand” and interests as a writer.
The future of the agent/author/publisher relationship in our new era of digital technology, E-books, and self- and small-press publishing. What an agent can – and can’t – do in our brave new world.
Establishing your platform – both in terms of expertise and social or magazine media visibility.
Young adult, graphic/comic book novels, and genre or series vs. “literary” stand-alone fiction, and self/small press publishing vs. mainstream – which would work best for your book?
Writing for a 21st century audience – how to make your characters or nonfiction subject matter relevant and come alive to a wired, diverse, Gen-X and Millennial audience by using up-to-the-minute techniques, styles, and genres.
We will ALSO have a top Hollywood motion picture and TV agent for those who are pursuing screenwriting rather than (or in addition to) book writing.
Our terrific lineup:
TONI LOPOPOLO is founder and president of Toni Lopopolo Literary Management. She has a book-publishing resume that began in 1970 in the publicity department of Bantam Books. As executive editor at both Macmillan and later St. Martins, she published Judy Mazel’s “Beverly Hills Diet” and popular best-selling women’s fiction by Barbara Raskin and Kate Coscarelli. Her literary agency was founded in 1991.
She has made deals for authors such as novelist/nonfiction author Sol Stein (“Stein on Writing”), novelist/nonfiction author Shelly Lowenkopf (“The Fiction Writer’s Handbook”), gritty Chicano noir mystery writer Manuel Ramos (“Brown-on-Brown: A Luis Montez Mystery”), and romance author Flo Fitzgerald (“Ghost of a Chance”), and worked with Hollywood legends like Jacqueline Susann, Hermione Gingold, and Robert Stack.
Toni looks for well-written, well-edited fiction: mysteries/thrillers, mainstream fiction with proactive female protagonists, and ethnic writers (including Hispanic). In nonfiction, she is interested in memoir with a message, family-oriented subjects, health, coping with special problems, and topical subjects. Toni conducts workshops for novelists and memoirists, and offers coaching on creating irresistible pitches and book proposals.
Toni’s website is: LopopoloLiterary.com.
JENNIFER AZANTIAN began her career over three thousand miles away from the hub of traditional publishing, in Southern California. As a teenager, she had two main loves: her love of literature and her love of children. Though she was always reading and writing, Jennifer pursued a career in clinical and developmental psychology, with a focus on young people.
In 2010, she graduated with a BS degree and honors from UC San Diego and pursued an internship with the prestigious Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency. Within three months, she had a job as an assistant to Elise Capron and Sandy Dijkstra, and a few months later, she was open to submissions.
During her years at the Dijkstra agency, Jennifer learned from the best and had the pleasure of working with some of the most prolific and talented authors around. She also developed her taste for fantasy, science-fiction, and horror that focuses on characters that feel real, the kind whose stories she can get invested in regardless of extravagance in plot or setting. She is fascinated by the basic human truths that emerge at the heart of all the greatest fantasies.
You can learn more about her services at AzantianLitAgency.com.
JENNIFER ROFE handles children’s fiction for arguably the most powerful and longest-established Children’s and YA agency on the West Coast, Andrea Brown Literary.
Jennifer handles children’s fiction projects, from picture books to young adult. Middle grade is her soft spot; she’s open to all genres in this category, especially the tender or hilarious. For YA, Jennifer’s drawn to contemporary works; dramatic or funny romance; and urban fantasy/light sci-fi.
For picture books, early readers, and chapter books, she’s interested in character-driven projects and smart, exceptional writing. Jennifer also enjoys how-to and sports-related nonfiction. Her clients include Laurie David, Cambria Gordon, Crystal Allen, and Barry Wolverton.
Jennifer is co-author of the picture book, “Piggies in the Pumpkin Patch.”
Check her and her colleagues out at AndreaBrownLit.com.
PAUL S. LEVINE, PAUL S. LEVINE LITERARY AGENCY, is a lawyer and a literary agent. He has practiced entertainment law for over 30 years, representing authors, writers, producers, actors, directors, composers, musicians, artists, photographers, publishers, in the fields of publishing, motion pictures, television, interactive multimedia, live stage, recorded music, concerts, and the visual arts.
Levine has sold over one hundred fiction and nonfiction books and has had many books developed as movies-for-television and feature films.
His biggest successes have been with self-published authors with impressive sales who wanted to have their books republished by a major publishing house.
His website is PaulSLevineLit.com
Moderator
TELLY DAVIDSON is author of the acclaimed media tie-in book “TV’s Grooviest Variety Shows,” cited as a Book of the Year by the TV Academy, and the forthcoming nonfiction book “What Didn’t You Like About It,” a serious (and seriously funny) look back at the politics and pop culture of the 1990s.
For two years he was senior “Culture Columnist” for David Frum’s enormously spopular FrumForum.com, and his writing has appeared in more than a dozen commercial publications and websites including AllAboutJazz, FilmStew, YahooMovies, the Los Angeles Daily News, Entertainment Today, and on the TV specials “Pioneers of Television,” “Most Outrageous Game Show Moments,” and as associate producer for KCET’s “The WRITE Environment.”
Currently, Telly works with veteran film producers’ representative Jeff Porter in acquisitions and research for his company, Porter Pictures, and he is a proud and active member of IWOSC, having hosted or served on several panels including “Books-to-Film,” “Biographies & Memoirs,” and earlier “Trends in Publishing” programs.