Lizzy Kremer
Lizzy Kremer is a literary agent at David Higham Associates, where she represents authors including Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train; Kate Morton; and the UK’s highest selling self-published author, Rachel Abbott. Lizzy always loved books but stumbled into her career by accident, when she applied for a press assistant job believing it would lead to a career in journalism.
In fact her role as publicist at Michael O’Mara Books had more to do with getting journalists arrested for stealing embargoed royal biographies from the printers. When looking for her next step she ‘naively but very rationally’ took stock of her interests and strengths and found three things: she loved working closely with authors, she was good at negotiating and she wanted to marry creativity and business. Despite having never met a literary agent, she struck on the idea of becoming one herself, and was offered a job as a PA to literary agent Ed Victor. After seven years with Ed, she joined David Higham in 2004 where she is now a head of their books department, alongside her two year stint running The Association of Authors’ Agents.
She says one of the defining differences between the work of agents and editors is that publishers buy books and agents take on authors: authors who are not necessarily writing their bestselling book yet, or even the book that the agent will sell, but who are producing the kind of writing the agent loves to work with. ‘As an agent you can afford to take a long view of a writer’s career and then, when they are published you can offer incomparably specific focus on what they are writing and how they are being published because there are no competing factors: seeking the benefit of the author is your priority in every conversation you have about their work.'
'If we are able to successfully marry empathy with absolute authority in our point of view, we can become powerful.'
As an agent, you need to be able to advocate strongly for your authors. How does that fit with your personality?
I like this question for its use of the word personality: one of the things I realized when I worked on the Commitment to Professional Behaviour is that we ‘book people’ all have to feel safe to bring our personalities into our work, even if we should strive to be professional, rather than personal, in our interactions. To answer your question directly, I am a passionately loyal and caring person, as well as rigorously mathematical, nerdish and strategic. I also like to have fun. I bring all that to bear in my work. Being a good author advocate necessitates caring very deeply about their careers if you are to be relentless in your scrutiny and care. I often tell publishers apologetically that my job is in part to keep asking questions: even if some of my questions are ones they have already answered for themselves, others will hopefully spark new ideas and focus.
Recently I coined a phrase I like, as a guide to the mode of communication with which I am most comfortable: ferocious kindness. As women in publishing, if we are able to successfully marry empathy with absolute authority in our point of view, we can become powerful. The trick is to learn how to hold onto your self whilst being open to others’ perspectives: mastering this makes you a dynamic person to work with. I’d cite my friend Meryl Halls, who runs the Booksellers’ Association, as someone I have got to know recently who excels at it.
As a woman, you have to be a fully realized version of yourself to be a strong negotiator: confident in who you are and in what you do well. Earlier in my career, someone pointed out to me that I could have a quite an uneven tone in my dealings with people. Friends in publishing said they didn’t like negotiating with me because I wouldn’t act quite myself – I would lose all the warmth they associated me with. I think inconsistency of tone derives from a lack of confidence in oneself and in one’s position that I hope I have shaken off. Now I’m comfortable maintaining my ferocious kindness in every conversation I have… and as for my warmth, I like and admire plenty of people in publishing but I don’t think we should be afraid to say to one another: ‘OK, this is work, now let’s do our jobs’.
'There is still so much work to do around our expectations of what female behaviour in the workplace should look like and feel like.'
Do you think there are particular challenges women face when they negotiate?
There is still so much work to do around our expectations of what female behaviour in the workplace should look like and feel like. Too often I have heard words like ‘strident’, ‘undiplomatic’, ‘emotional’ or ‘hysterical’ used to describe powerful women, including myself and top industry figures I admire. And no, it isn’t always from men over the age of fifty. There’s an underlying suggestion that women in power are somehow flawed in their personalities if they have to break a few eggs while making everyone some delicious omelettes. I have already said that my ideal mode is for stridency to be embodied in kindness but you know what? You can’t always do business over drinks at the club if you’re a woman and the club is for men.
What I hear in that language is a genuine fear of being wrong-footed through not knowing how to engage successfully with women when they hold strong and differing points of view. But allowing this language to intimidate us is to turn our backs on the possibilities offered by a truly inclusive and diverse profession. Next time you hear someone saying of a powerful woman: ‘I don’t know if she’s a bit of a bitch’ or ‘I’ve heard she’s really hard to work for’, ask yourself ‘what would they say if she acted exactly in the same ways and she was a man?’ So often you will be disappointed by the answer.
'In a good negotiation, you don’t have to be fierce. You just have to prove that you are right.'
As a strong negotiator, what advice would you give to someone when championing themselves?
There has rightly been a lot written about the gender pay gap over the last couple of years; I think if most women asked for more, they would probably get more. Although inequality isn’t the responsibility of those who are prejudiced against, perhaps we also haven’t asked as often or as loudly as men. We need to get better at that.
Whether negotiating for yourself or for someone else, you need to be ready with your facts. Go in to every negotiation knowing what you’re willing to give up and what you’re determined to hold on to. You need to be extremely clear on your arguments: do your research exhaustively and in good time, and remember what the opposite party wants most of all. Don’t be afraid to ask for what you want on your own behalf, but remember to offer something unique or at least valuable in exchange.
In a good negotiation, you don’t have to be fierce. You just have to prove that you are right. There’s a difference between a fact-based negotiation and a feeling-based negotiation. What some editors do when negotiating with an agent, especially when they are re-contracting, is to employ what I call ‘the language of love’ as a persuasive tool to get the rights or terms they want. When authors read those letters they are sometimes flattered but they are often also thinking: ‘That’s very nice but this is my job. Pay me for doing my job. Don’t ask me to shoulder more risk than you.’
One of the very specific things I say to female colleagues is to be really tough editors of the ‘feeling words’ in their letters. When you have written an email, go back and delete ‘I think’, ‘I feel’, ‘It’s possible that’. Even ‘I’m sure that’ is a slightly undermining phraseology. Just tell them what you know! It’s amazing how many letters can be transformed in this way into work that is much more evidently expert and worthy of respect.
'Sharing is at the heart of good mentoring and the best mentoring relationships are mutual.'
You’ve written about the tremendous value of your mentors to you. In your experience, what makes a good mentor?
Ed Victor used to say that the answer was to keep an open door and always to listen to the things that the younger or less-experienced person is saying to you, rather than just monologuing to them. That was really good advice, because sharing is at the heart of good mentoring and the best mentor/mentee relationships are mutual. They are conversations as opposed to lectures and that’s what I gained sitting outside Ed’s office for over seven years and now from Anthony Goff’s open door at DHA.
Ed was very good at ‘soundbites’. I remember one time I was writing a note and I was so angry and frustrated about what I was writing. He looked at it and shook his head knowingly and said to me: ‘More in sadness than in anger, Lizzy’. How many times have I sat down and written that angry email, deleted it, and written it again more in sadness than in anger? It’s one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever been given.
Finally, can you tell us about another woman working in publishing who inspires you?
Nicola Solomon is Chief Exec of the Society of Authors and as a lawyer she was the best advocate in London for authors before she took over at the SOA. She lobbies intelligently and fearlessly for authors, not just to publishers and broadcasters but also to government both nationally and internationally. She’s an incredibly articulate campaigner and an extremely impressive woman, with an unparalleled grasp of the law and of contracts and how to use both to protect the author.
