Books Are My Business: Sallyanne Sweeney, literary agent

Sallyanne Sweeney, originally from Dublin, is a literary agent with Mulcahy Sweeney Associates, based in London. She studied English at Trinity and has an MPhil in American Literature from Cambridge.

Literary Agent, Sallyanne Sweeney for BAMB

How did you become a literary agent?

I was really, really lucky. I was an intern at Watson Little literary agency, making the tea, running to the post office, and all of that. 

Somebody quit while I was doing my internship and they offered me the job of assistant agent. 

I started taking on clients after a year, so I have a few clients I've been working with for over a decade, which is really great. 

The longer I'm working in books, the more I feel that, as exciting as it is to do a book deal, sustaining a career is a much harder thing. 

Then in 2013 I joined up with Ivan Mulcahy, who is also from Dublin. 

It's really nice, we like to think of ourselves as an Irish agency in London. 

We are both really passionate about Irish writing, and very much focused on bringing Irish writers to an international readership.

What does the role involve?

On the creative side, I am usually the first reader of my authors. 

Sometimes, it might be a one-sentence idea, and then I work with them to make it a book. 

Sometimes we would do multiple drafts to make sure our manuscript is as strong as it can be before we send it to publishers. 

I really love editing. A publishing house will also have fantastic editors but now publishers are really looking for things that are very much almost there. 

I also love pitching books — how to get that message across to publishers when selling it to them. 

I know I’ve done a really good pitch if it ends up on the back of a book, that's really gratifying. 

And then on the business side, it’s contracts, deal negotiations and all the other parts, that might be audio rights or TV and film rights, translation rights. 

Strategising with the author, the publisher and give a book the best chance of success.

What do you like most about your job?

I love that mix of the creative and the business. 

It’s nice having those two different head spaces. 

Originally I probably thought I might want to be an editor and solely be on that side of things. 

But actually, I find that sometimes I really like contract negotiation, it’s using a different part of your brain and I find it quite satisfying. 

Ultimately though, it’s all about the people involved. 

Books are so driven by passion, that feeling when you read something amazing and you want to press it into somebody’s hands. 

I have that in my job when I'm so excited about a new author or a new novel. 

It is a privilege to work with an author from the very beginning, to be their first reader and to be there at the start of an idea and to see it come to fruition.

What do you like least about the job?

There’s a lot of bad news. 

Authors get rejected a lot, but agents get rejected too. 

Or sometimes you do the deal and the book comes out and doesn’t sell. 

The longer I’m an agent I think that you never feel full joy because something can be going really great for one client and not another. 

The weird unpredictability of books is that sometimes you don’t know why something just takes off and does really well, while other people really deserve it and it just doesn’t happen.

Any book recommendations?

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan was probably the best book I read last year — it was just exquisite and perfect. 

I would recommend some recent books by Irish authors I represent — Service by Sarah Gilmartin and Hearts and Bones by Niamh Mulvey which is a short story collection. 

Her novel is coming out next year, and it is amazing. 

Also out soon is Sing, Wild Bird, Sing by Jacqueline O’Mahony, who is originally from Cork.

What three books would you bring to a desert island?

Little Women by Louise May Alcott, Life After Life by Kate Atkinson and Ulysses by James Joyce — I’m hoping I’d actually manage to read it on a desert island.

• Sallyanne Sweeney will be conducting an online seminar on the role of the literary agent at the West Cork Literary Festival at 1pm on Friday, Jul 7. 
• www.westcorkliteraryfestival.ie