by Ian Whates

2007 was an extremely good year for John Jarrold’s Literary Agency. John, ever a popular figure at genre events and conventions, describes this as “the year the agency really took off!”

Having been at the helm of three major SF imprints – Orbit, Random House’s Legend Books and Simon & Schuster’s now-defunct Earthlight imprint – John has seen the industry from many angles. He took the decision to form the agency in the summer of 2004. Things have built steadily from there, and in 2007 John negotiated more book deals for new authors and more repeat deals for existing clients than ever before.

A couple of the new faces have already emerged – Philip Palmer’s Debatable Space (Orbit) and Robert V. S. Redick’s The Red Wolf Conspiracy (Gollancz) are in stores now, but keep an eye open too for Jaine Fenn’s Principle of Angels (Gollancz, June), Jasper Kent’s Twelve (Bantam, October), Stephen Deas’ The Adamantine Palace (Gollancz, early 2009), Mark Charan Newton’s Nights of Villjamur (Tor UK / Macmillan, early 2009) and an as yet unnamed supernatural thriller from Suzanne McLeod (Gollancz, late 2008).

Nor does last year’s momentum seem about to dissipate in 2008, with several deals unveiled already; the most recent being a three book deal with Harper Collins Voyager for fantasy author Stephen Hunt. This follows the original three book deal which began with his acclaimed debut novel The Court of the Air (April 2007) and will continue with The Kingdom Beyond the Waves, due out this May.

Despite being so obviously busy, John remains one of the most accessible of all industry figures, appearing regularly on the radio and maintaining a frequent presence on popular online forums in order to answer questions about the publishing industry. For this alone, we wish John and hisDetails of John and his services can be found at: www.johnjarrold.co.uk