Brenda Sturgis reports on the top literary agents for selling picture books in this recent post. Let’s talk about this report.
Top Literary Agents for Picture Books
Self Reported Statistics. The statistics for Sturgis’s report was compiled from reported sales on Publisher’s Marketplace. This is a big caution because sales on PM self-reported. I know from talking to friends that their agents (some of those listed in the report) have had sales, but they weren’t reported on PM. In other words, agents select the sales to report and tend to report only the “hot” sales or the “big” sales. Sales to smaller houses or those without large advances tend to be under-reported.
Top Picture Book Agent. No surprise: Brenda Bowen, former editor and editorial director of various imprints during her time is the top selling agent of picture books with nineteen reported deals. (Read her blog; her agency.) She is very selective in her clients, because she can be. Her industry contacts makes her network amazing and she’s working it apparently.
19 down to 3. While Bowen has 19 reported deals, number 20 on the list, Stephen Chudney only reported 3 deals in the last year. If this holds true, then an agent who sells 2-3 picture book deals per year is doing a stellar job.
But again, remember, this is based on SELF-REPORTED DEALS. We really don’t know how valid these statistics are. And, overall the top twenty agents for picture book deals reported 119 total sales. Those will probably be some of the top picture books published in the nest few years.
I appreciate you reporting on my article. You are correct, that some deals are not reported. My goal in reporting on this article was to make available the facts as written to the general public, for their own research purposes. There are 100 agents in the picture book category, but as with any place you write for, you are limited with word count. It would be great if all agents reported all deals, and then we’d have the latest, most up-to-date information in the picture book category of kidslit.
I agree with everything you said. And I made a comment to that effect on the article and apparently it wasn’t deemed worthy of printing.
Brenda:
I appreciate the post greatly! It’s better than having no information at all about who is selling what. I’m just pointing out that as helpful as the PM info is, it’s still limited.
Darcy
Thanks so much for these lists. It’s a good way to know where to start in the submission/query process.