A Day With The Writer's Market

After spending the last eight hours thumbing through the 'Writer's Market 2008' (forward by Peter Ackroyd), I've condensed over 50 pages of details for the nation's literary agents into one helpful pocket-sized listing. All you ever need to know about searching for representation is summarized in the following. I suggest you send them your manuscripts immediately. I know I have.


The Geoffrey Pinfrock Agency
14 Duntcare Road, London, L1 7RF

Contact: Geoffrey Pinfrock, Harry Grebe (historical and biography), Andrew Tinkle (fiction).

Established: 1952.

Insider Info: We specialise in fiction and non-fiction. We are on the lookout for bright undiscovered writers. Although we are renowned for taking raw talent and helping them to reach the next stage of their publishing career, we would much rather head-hunt a few established writers from other agencies whose percentages we are happy to undercut by a few points.

* Geoffry Pinfrock became a literary agent after a long career as a successful novelist, penning three books set around the Swahili Swamp Fever epidemic of 1873. Our agency is proud of its reputation as a relaxed environment where Geoffrey takes a hands-on approach with all new female clients. Charges of sexual misconduct and serial groping are routinely dismissed before our famously long liquid lunches.

Non-fiction: Considers anything with a celebrity face on the cover. No academic books unless it is accompanied by its own series on the BBC. No nature books unless your surname is Oddie. No books about poetry unless your name is Fry.

Fiction: Considers action/adventure, humour (not satire), mystery, romance (no pornography), thrillers, contemporary fiction (but nothing set in Ireland involving peat). We are actively seeking new novels about the angst of simple middle class London folk who work in a creative field such a publishing and turn to the booze and drugs as a form of escape.

Submission guidelines: Do not send manuscripts. Do not contact us via email, post, or carrier pigeon. Approach us in the first instance through a friend connected with the industry or an established name. We will not reply to you unless you're already known to us. Do not approach us in person. We own a bloody big dog who has a taste for human blood.

Clients: Victor Occram Jnr., Horace Tadpole, the estate of Sir. Henry Sellinger Pfnnar.

Tips: No unsolicited submissions, letters, or emails. To make yourself known to us, you should be either be a published author who we already represent or related to a published author who we already represent. People know to us are welcome to make themselves more known to us. The rest of you can just hop it. And yes: that includes you.

Please note: we are not accepting submissions at this time. All manuscripts will be burned on our open log fire while we sit around cackling as we warm ourselves by the heat of your fading chances of publication.