Skip to content

Ask the Agent

I'm Jennifer Laughran. I'm a Senior Agent at the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, representing great authors and illustrators….

  • By Jennifer Laughran
  • Based in United States of America
  • Roughly three posts per day
  • First post on

Posts per month

Data for this chart is available in the table below
Posts per month
Month starting Posts
Nov 2022 51
Dec 2022 149
Jan 2023 114
Feb 2023 129
Mar 2023 78
Apr 2023 45
May 2023 60
Jun 2023 50
Jul 2023 83
Aug 2023 74
Sep 2023 73
Oct 2023 62
Nov 2023 90
Dec 2023 48
Jan 2024 75
Feb 2024 88
Mar 2024 206
Apr 2024 88
May 2024 12

Any gaps could be due to errors when fetching the blog’s feed.

Most recent posts

Dear Jennifer, I have the opposite problem from the writer who’s having a problem selling as a debut. My only published book (more than ten years back) was not commercially successful. A writer friend with similar issue has been subbing under a pen name and even made a website under that name. She suggested to me this is the only way. Not a pen name for privacy reasons, but to get an agent and then a publisher. The thing is, I’m too honest to hide my name and publishing history. Advice?
Two things can be simultaneously true. For example, this is true:It's fine to write under a pen name! Literally SO MANY people use pen names -- whether variations of their own name or something entirely …
On , 437 words
I’m hearing consistently that editors are ghosting submissions they’ve asked for. Big, mid list authors to newbies, no one seems to be special. It’s tough rn on those Kidlit streets! As an agent, does ghosting affect your relationship with editors at all? Like are you thinking that person is a jerk, confused, or reconsidering if you’ll send materials to an editor ever again? My only reference for ´ghosting’ is dating, and it’s never a good thing.
I mean, yeah, it's not GREAT!To be clear, I really don't think most ghosts are TRYING to ghost. Editors are in a tough spot -- there are more agents than ever before, more submissions than …
On , 306 words
why are publishers so averse to debuts now? I’m on sub and have gotten a few replies that praise the bill but then are like “aren’t acquiring debuts” or “debut list is full for x amount of years”. I am also starting to see agents kind of echo this online. It’s just like gosh how can I try when the chance doesn’t even want to be given
For what it's worth, debut status has never been expressed to me as a reason a publisher is passing on a book. If anything, the opposite has been the case in my experience. Poor sales …
On , 282 words