Senior Agency Assistant / Associate Literary Agent

Job description

Apple Tree Literary (ATL) are seeking a highly motivated and organized Senior Agents' Assistant or Associate Literary Agent to join the company, supporting our agents – founder Max Edwards and incoming Managing Director Ella Kahn. Depending on experience, this role will be with a view to the successful applicant building their own list of authors over time. This role is pivotal in supporting our agents in managing their client portfolios and as helping to oversee the administration and smooth-running of the agency.

This is a full-time position, working 5 days per week, with a strong preference for at least three days in-person in our Soho workplace.

Key Responsibilities and tasks will include:
• Supporting Max and Ella in the day-to-day running of the agency, including assisting with contracts, invoicing and payment chasing, diary management, database and website administration etc.
• Author support and communication
• Evaluating the commercial potential of book proposals and manuscripts, and editorial work on manuscripts and proposals by current clients prior to submission
• Keeping abreast of current market trends and industry news, such as editor moves, new publisher launches, etc
• Assisting in organizing the agency’s attendance at, and participating in, industry events and book fairs.
• Providing support in liaising with our foreign rights partners
• Providing general administrative support as required by the agents and the company.

We’d love it if you had…

The successful candidate will have the right to live and work in the UK. We’re seeking individuals with at least 1-2 years publishing experience at a junior level , for example as an assistant in an agency or in various departments within a publishing house, such as rights or editorial, and who are ready to take their next career step on the path to becoming a Literary Agent. The successful applicant will be passionate, ambitious, and hardworking, with a genuine curiosity about the world. You should have strong administrative, organisational, and communication skills.

The successful candidate will be interested in, and be willing to engage with, a wide range of genres in both fiction and non-fiction, from popular science to commercial and genre fiction, memoir to history, and beyond.

Employer details

Founded by in July 2024, Apple Tree Literary is a bespoke literary agency with a global outlook, committed to the people who write books rather than simply the product they create. Representing authors from across the world, its clients have been Sunday Times and New York Times bestsellers, and have won or been nominated for the likes of the Nero Book Awards, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the William Hill Prize for Sports Writing, the World Fantasy Award, and the Wolfson Prize for History.