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Nuts & Bolts: Jennifer Jackson

August 25, 2008 This week's Nuts & Bolts interviewee is speculative fiction agent Jennifer Jackson. Jennifer has worked with the prestigious Donald Maass Literary Agency for 15 years and represents both rising stars and established authors, including Jay Lake, Cherie Priest, Laura Anne Gilman, Jim Butcher, and Anne Bishop. I asked her about the agenting process for C.E. Murphy's The Queen's Bastard (Del Rey, April 2008).

Genreville: Where did you first encounter the idea for the book, and what attracted you to that idea?

Jennifer Jackson: The first time C.E. Murphy sent me a summary of The Queen's Bastard was back in the spring of 2004. It wasn't until the fall of 2005 that the proposal for the book was actually ready to send to an editor, though. I was thrilled to see Catie trying something that would stretch her voice as this political fantasy was a much different direction than her urban fantasy series.

GV: What challenges did you face when helping to develop the manuscript and pitching the book?

JJ: Ironically, the same thing that attracted me to the book--that it was different from her Urban Shaman series with Harlequin's Luna line--also proved to be one of the biggest challenges. The bigger scope of the story and the multi-threaded plot meant that it required more extensive feedback. When it came to pitching, I got lucky, though. The author had previously met Betsy Mitchell of Random House's Del Rey imprint at a conference and let me know that Betsy was one of her dream editors to work with. As it turned out Betsy called me to inquire after a manuscript (Heart of Stone) that Catie had mentioned at the conference, but I'd just gotten an offer from Luna for that as well. So, I let her know about The Queen's Bastard and she asked to see the proposal, and made an offer for that and a sequel.

GV: How did it inspire or discourage you? How is that experience affecting your current and future projects?

JJ: There really wasn't anything discouraging that I can think of--except figuring out how to schedule delivery and publication dates so that none of the books from either Harlequin or Del Rey had conflicts! I feel the experience made me more adept at the balancing act faced by authors working for more than one publisher, and has also helped me talk to other clients about juggling multiple series. I also think that working with Catie on both this series and the others allowed me to become even more flexible and imaginative in terms of assisting my clients to develop ideas that are diverse and creatively explore new directions.

Next week's Nuts & Bolts will feature editor John Joseph Adams discussing his forthcoming anthology Seeds of Change (Prime, August 2008).

Posted by Rose Fox on August 25, 2008 | Comments (0)