What UK Non-Fiction Editors Want 2014

Andrew Lownie Literary Agency

In the agency’s annual feature, forty-two editors outline the sort of books they are hoping to commission this year.

Hugh Andrew, Managing Director, Birlinn
It would be too obvious to say that the next few years will just be about ‘war’ books but nevertheless there are many areas that relate to the war where good books are needed. Next year we will be publishing on war art as it relates to Scotland and this seems to me to intersect neatly with producing beautiful gift books. This Xmas was a very good one for us with regard to good quality non-fiction and I would like to see our list develop here with books which have that ‘must have’ look and feel. It was obvious too that if a book was stunning enough then price was not an object. Yale’s £60 book on the Arts and Crafts movement sold out very quickly as did the beautiful new book on Eric Ravilious. This is an area where paper still has an overwhelming advantage over e. As traditional review coverage becomes ever harder in a market where the newspaper is in a seeming death spiral then it becomes more and more important for the publisher to produce a book which becomes a ‘must have’ in terms of production quality and almost canonical feel.

Tom Avery, Senior Editor, William Heinemann
We are very lucky to have recently taken on a number of young, extremely talented (and largely British) non-fiction writers, working on a diverse range of projects – on architecture and linguistics, twentieth-century history and technology, the Pre-Raphaelites and politics. It is a group I would like to grow in 2014. Subject and form are less important to me than originality and ambition, although I’d love to commission a big, satisfying biography, and to find a writer ready to fill the void left by the late, great Tony Judt, whose magnificent uncollected essays we’ll be publishing in the autumn.
In fiction, I’m on the lookout for any work that captures the texture of our times, and for anything funny. A combination of the two would be perfect.

Hugh Barker, Commissioning Editor, Constable & Robinson

I mainly focus on gift and humour titles, so obviously I’m looking for ideas that make me laugh or surprise me, and that will stand out in a crowded market. My best selling recent title has been We’re Going on a Bar Hunt, a humorous parody, an idea which originally arrived via my colleague James Gurbutt - one of the authors was writing thrillers for him and he thought I might have fun with it. Quirky or eclectic non-fiction titles can also fit my list – for instance I’ve just published David Long’s Bizarre London, and will soon publish Take Care Son, a touching cartoon account of the dementia suffered by cartoonist Tony Husband’s father.

I need a personal understanding of the appeal of subjects I publish, but in purely commercial terms, I also need to be convinced there is a clear demographic that the book will appeal to, and that the title has the potential to sell across different trade channels. Some books can succeed by selling predominantly through bookshops, even in a shrinking market - but it is better if you can also imagine them selling in gift shops, supermarkets, museums and garden centres or wherever, or can see a strong reason why the book will sell online and as an e book as well as in a trade print edition. I also try to focus on books that will have some longevity – it’s easy to focus on the short term prospects of a title, but in the end all strong publishing companies rely on their backlist and I am happiest when I see books I publish continuing to sell over a number of years.
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