Not So Secret Agent: The Interview

An Interview with Agent Sally Ekus.

Welcome back to Publishing Confidential’s interview series. This week, I spoke to Sally Ekus, agent extraordinaire. Sally writes the

Not So Secret Agent

Substack, which you should subscribe to immediately. She is also a Senior Literary agent at The Ekus Group, which her mom, Lisa Ekus, founded in 1982.

Sally Ekus is a Senior Literary Agent at the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency, where she spearheads The Ekus Group, a boutique culinary division specializing in cookbooks and lifestyle titles. She represents various culinary, health, wellness, and lifestyle talents, from first-time cookbook authors to seasoned chefs, RDs, professional food writers, bloggers, online creators, and journalists. She has brokered over 300 book deals from concept to contract with top publishers, including Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Hachette, Simon & Schuster, and numerous indie publishers. Sally also hosts an online community called How to be a Cookbook Author, where she posts a wide range of general publishing news and agency programming and facilitates connections among the community.

I truly enjoyed our conversation, and I hope you do, too. You can read Sally’s interview with me here.

What is the most challenging part of being an agent today?

The sheer number of books being published each year.

How do you know when a potential project has the "it” factor?

It’s an intangible gut feeling. Sure, there are key factors that I look for in any non-fiction project. Namely, unique POD (point of differentiation) in a successful category + fabulous voice/tone/perspective + platform. But sometimes, I am willing to completely ignore that formula when I just get that tingly thrilling feeling about someone’s unique sparkle.

I sign people, not projects.

For those Type A list lovers, here are some common traits I find in authors I work with who have that unquantifiable “it” factor:

·      Super organized

·      Great public speaker

·      Confident yet humble

·      Creative and brave

·      Have worked hard and created an incredibly supportive and meaningful network within their expertise

·      Willing to learn and open to feedback

·      Collaborative

·      Don’t rush into things

·      Know how to say no

·      Trust their gut

How much does social media play into how you find projects?

I wrote a post on my substack about how I find new projects if your readers want to understand how I offer representation.

Social media is a factor, though. I scout on social media, but I am also lucky that at this point in my career, my relationships with editors and other colleagues lead to the majority of my new projects. For example, editors who know my working style and personality well will make introductions to people they are scouting.

Publishing is a business of relationships.

However, when I am considering a new client or project, I turn to their social media to get a sense of what community (platform) they have built. It used to be that 150k followers on IG would get my attention, but now those numbers need to be much higher. Why? We know that, on average, about 1-3% of someone’s following will convert to a pre-order. It is a numbers/ratio game.

Before readers freak out, I rep clients with very low social followings, too. The Ekus Group was built on signing and selling projects we believe in, regardless of an author’s social media following.

Say an author has been querying for three months with no bites. What should they do? Revise their query letter? Find an editor to work with?

I honestly don’t know how to answer this for the general population. I can tell you that every non-fiction query we get at The Ekus Group is reviewed and answered within 4-6 weeks and often faster. I know this is a rarity across agenting, especially regarding fiction. I was raised, trained, and mentored by Lisa (my mom!), who instilled in me a very specific review and rejection process. Since we are almost exclusively represented in the culinary space, it is highly likely that if we pass on someone’s project and they remain working in “this industry,” we will cross paths down the line. Providing specific feedback for someone’s proposal is a key part of our rejection process. We want to help you refine your idea and improve your proposal. We also want to help the industry thrive as a whole. There have even been scenarios where people come back years later with a revised pitch, and then we sign and sell their project successfully.

Timing is an under-discussed aspect of publishing. You don’t just want to sign with any agent; you really should sign with the right one. I know not everyone has this luxury.

And yes, working with an editor to polish your query and proposal is a great idea if you can afford it.

All this said, the following is my advice for follow-up when you think you’re being ghosted: (Also, readers should check out agent Kate McKean’s recent post all about why agents may be ghosting. Hint, we are busy and have a LOT of reading to do!).

Send your query and say IN YOUR query if this is exclusively for that particular agent. I like to be told when I am someone’s top choice (and why). Follow up 2-4 weeks later if you haven’t heard at all, asking for confirmation of receipt (especially if there was a large file attached). Follow up again two more times if you haven’t gotten a confirmation. If, after three follow-ups, you haven’t heard, move on. It should be noted this only applies to non-fiction. Fiction takes much longer, so people may want to adjust the follow-up schedule by swapping the weeks for months.

Note: If you query me simultaneously with other agents and you get an offer for representation, I want to know right away. Because we review every project, my team and I do not want to spend time reviewing one signed elsewhere.

I feel like it is important to underscore that since I work in a very specific genre, while we do get a lot of pitches, they are far more manageable for us than for my colleagues who are literally sorting through thousands of queries each year—upwards of 5-10k sometimes.

As a respected figure in the industry, I'm curious to know if there was ever a project you wanted to take on but didn’t because the commercial potential wasn’t obvious?

No.

I am lucky in that I get to work on what I want, and I take risks. Do I sell 100% of the proposals I pitch? No. But that’s a good thing. Sometimes, just finding any publisher isn’t the right call for a project. It can make sense to revise or retire and take something back out to sell when the market has changed in some way.

I get super jazzed if someone isn’t commercially obvious but has that sparkle. I am also a sucker for a great idea with no platform. I love a challenge and am willing to fight like hell for my authors.

On the flip side, there have been times when I have had the chance to interview highly saleable people (huge platform and a great idea) shopping around for agents and have passed on the opportunity. Why? Because even if something is very commercially viable if I am not personally interested in it, it is unfair to the author. I just don’t rep things well if I am not into them.

What have been the major changes in agenting over the past 5 years? I left agenting in 2018--it must be different now.

·      There are more and more cookbook agents, and that bodes well for the category.

·      More mentorship: I am part of the mentorship program that Literary Agents of Change runs, which is a great shift towards more diversity in agenting. There is also a lot more transparency about the industry and agenting in particular.

·      Also, OMG, production costs of books have skyrocketed. Especially the highly produced, 4-color books that I work on.

·      During the Black Lives Matter movement and its reckoning on publishing, we saw a surge of DEI initiatives. The extent to which these remain, have seen success, and still need enormous efforts and support is a long conversation worth delving into in another post entirely. This article in the Atlantic is worth reading too. (possible paywall)

·      AI. Technology and its applications and implications have changed immensely in the past five years. Again, another post entirely.

What’s one thing you’d love to see publishers do that they are currently not doing?

Communicating marketing and publicity budgets to authors and working through the line items of where that money will be allocated—together. If authors are required to bring huge platforms and communities to the table to be attractive to a publisher, why not partner with those same authors to invest in those networks? Some publishers are doing this, and I have seen it yield fabulous media placement, successful IRL events, and SALES.

What’s your perfect project?

Strong hook + makes me laugh + author who is nice and fun to work with + platform.

What do you think of potential cookbook authors knowing about querying you? What are you looking for?

Do your homework. I am a highly accessible agent and it is not hard to find my submission guidelines or a bunch of info I have shared online about learning your way around the cookbook shelf. You can get a good sense of my working style, personality, and passion for this work by digging around the content I have put out there. If you think we are a good match, query me with specifics about why. Also, after 15 years of agenting in a 43-year-old agency, it is highly unlikely that you don’t know at least one of my clients. Connect, Network, Engage with us!

What is a mistake you see authors make while querying?

To be honest, the queries lately have been top-notch. People are listening, reading, and doing their research. It is less about mistakes and more about either not being the right fit for us as an agency or an author not being ready for representation. I can tell from a query/proposal if someone is not ready.

Bonus question if you want to answer: Are you open to queries? If so, where can people find you?

Yes, even though I am not actively looking to sign I am always open to that special someone. I am rarely formally closed to queries. Again, perks of working in a specific genre where pitches come in as book proposals, not full manuscripts.

You can find me on IG here and my email is sally@ekusgroup.com. I share this because I trust your readers not to abuse this.

Feel free to engage with me online first and get a sense for if we would be the right fit. Oh, and I moderate a Facebook group called How to be a Cookbook Author. Brilliant name, I know. 😉 I post a lot more than cookbook info in here too so feel free to join if you like to learn about publishing with an edge towards non-fiction. And, of course, my Substack, Not So Secret Agent.

Thank you, Kathleen. Your newsletter has been a guiding light of honesty, creativity, and innovation, and I am honored to be your digital surrogate this week! Thanks for being mine!