The David Godwin Associates Masterclass
with David Godwin and Philippa Sitters
As part of our series of masterclasses, Indie Novella is thrilled to have been in conversation with David Godwin and Philippa Sitters at leading literary agency, David Godwin Associates to further provide our authors and students with inside industry knowledge direct from one of the most experienced literary agency in the business. Representing a dozen Booker Prize shortlisters and winners as both a literary agent and previously a publisher, David's list has included incredible names such as Arundhati Roy, Penelope Lively and Jeet Thayil to name a few. In 2022 David Godwin Associates represented two authors on the Booker Prize longlist, Shehan Karunatilaka and Selby Wynn Schwartz, with Shehan's novel, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, being shortlisted and subsequently winning the prestigious prize.
David started David Godwin Associates in 1995 with Heather Godwin. Literary agent, Philippa Sitters began working at the agency in 2014. Together, they represent an exciting and varied list of international writers, including novelists, poets, biographers and journalists, and as a small agency pride themselves in building close, effective relationships with their clients.
How would you describe the role of a literary agent?
We do what our clients want us to do. They are the most crucial parts of the business and we are involved in their books, publishing, television, handling their rights all over the world, events, and just giving them the best advice we can. This varies from person to person as people have different needs at different times. It is a complicated industry so we need to know each part of it, and if an author hits a road block we are there to help them out, so the publication process is as smooth as possible.
Do you need to get along with the author on a personal level?
Very much so, as a healthy and professional relationship is very important. But you take writers on because they have something interesting and important to say, and it is nice if you do get on well but that is a bonus. There has to be a truthfulness of the relationship. It is particular rather than general.
What is the typical day like as a literary agent?
There is no such thing! Our days are very different, between each of us. Meetings, a lot of meetings with, clients, writers and publishers. For example, with Frankfurt coming up there would be meetings about the foreign rights of our clients, who they are going to approach, what material they need, and our job is to make sure they have everything they need. In addition, I have potential clients come and see me to discuss if we can work together and we have a discussion of how the process is going – every day has probably a meeting like that.
We also have to deal with contracts and money and make sure the cogs are turning, while also thinking about new business and finding new, lovely people to represent. And between us (David and Philippa), we are a team and talk a lot throughout the day.
What is your process of taking someone forward?
We receive about 12 books a day. For example, four out of thirty of my clients (Philippa) were found from the submissions inbox and the rest I approach myself, who have a book they should be writing or I have read their work in a magazine or a literary journal. I (David) have a lot of existing clients but I read a piece in the Observer about an Indian woman living in Wales that I found an interesting piece, so I tend to approach people. She made a short film which was shown at the New Yorker Film Festival, and this all came out from a piece in the Observer, and that’s when these things are fun. I tend to find things I like and pursue them. I read something in Granta or a magazine that interests me and I will pursue it.
What is your process of selection?
I am open to the world - sports, music, classical music - a variety is interesting.
I am looking for someone with more than one book, if someone is submitting formally to the agency through the submission guidelines. But we also get manuscripts out of the blue, the most famous of which was Arundhati Roy’s, The God of Small Things. That was pure luck, I was asked if I wanted to see this novel from India and I knew from one paragraph that this book would be a monster hit. That was probably the only time in my life I knew that was the case. It’s lavishly written, and different and comes from a different place, and is just incredible.
You said you can tell pretty early on if this will be a book you would like to take on. How can you tell?
I wish it was definable! When you pick up a book in a library or a bookshop you can tell early on if it is for. More, it is something that keeps you reading and an absence of things that make you want to put the book down. Unfortunately somethings do pop up and put me off, but we have to consider these as we can’t take on 12 books a day. It is a little indefinable.
Good writing is very difficult, as is finding things that work quickly and easily. When you read something that is really good it feels so natural and it suddenly feels so obvious. But when it doesn’t, you, as an agent, feel like you want to change it. I don’t think it's obvious to oneself and there is a range of responses to the book.
It takes the pain out of rejection knowing that no one will universally love your book. I always say to people who are submitting their book to us that we in turn are submitting it to many other people and we feel the same stress and tension of the possibility of rejection. When people send books to us, it works or it doesn’t, but don’t feel disheartened as there is someone else out there who may feel different.
One of the other problems is, who is qualified to make things better. And I do think sometimes literary agents are unqualified to give advice, so I caution writers on taking advice. Advice is very easy to give, so I will be very nervous of giving too much advice.
That is why we advise writers to polish their work to the Nth degree before they give it to us. I do give advice on what I think they can do to make the book work, but I caution that they do not have to listen to me. We will go out with it and we will try.
Is there anything you particularly don’t like in an opening to a book?
Don’t start with a dream and don’t start with the alarm clock going off and I woke up. There are so many cliches. We once looked through 20 sets of the first 500 words of submissions and half included descriptions of what someone’s eyes were doing and the other included descriptions of the weather. And there are a lot of good books that begin with both, however, you want to prevent someone reading your book for the first time to find an excuse to stop reading. You want to jump straight into the action, or describe something uniquely. There are a few cliches you want to avoid.
Is it important to get straight to the heart of the book?
You have to get someone’s attention. Give them a reason to keep turning the page. There are exceptions but there should not be a moment where you are wondering what on Earth is happening or what the point is this? I like something that is well written and interesting, and that is quite hard.
I want to see a cross genre thriller, or crime novel, that is approached from a different angle. People doing insane things through traditional tropes. There is always room for innovation.
As literary agents, how much are you involved in the editing process?
As I said before, I am nervous about giving too much advice. I would advise authors to tread carefully about any advice provided – either from friends or agents. I like to provide more positive, sweeping feedback. I notice some scenes which do not really contribute anything to advance the novel, and I want the author to put in more into the book of their strengths, so this is a more sweeping statement. You want to see an author who has talent and is able to write creatively off their own back.
Is there a way to know if advice is worth listening to?
It is a very hard task, independent of qualifications. It is an instinctive emotional thing. But this is a very big issue, as the rise of the editor is a relatively new phenomenon. At Jonathan Cape there was a team of readers, who were proper writers, whose job it was to read the book. They would read the books and provide a report. I think the advice given by colleagues and peers is actually stronger as they know what it is to write a novel.
Regarding voice, do you think it is important for a book to have a distinctive voice? Is there any advice you would give authors to develop their voice?
It is great to have your own unique voice, it turns you into someone people can become fans of, however, a lot of books are told quite traditionally. It is difficult to define.
I get very passionate about things. I believe in projects, I believe in writers. But in the end, I like it when something gets my fancy, and that is difficult to define. But I do like different things, and it is that which draws me to stories we have not heard before.
The Booker Prize
David: I was there 12 times, as an agent and as a publisher, with all kinds of books. The first was with Penelope Lively with Moon Tiger, which won. It is tremendously interesting and very surprising. It is very competitive, and glamorous. We were there with Lucy Ellmann which was a thousand pages and just 14 sentences. An incredible book. And it is heartening when a book like that gets vindicated – they are making a movie, the National Theatre is doing a play, and it is wonderful when something good gets delivered.
It’s a lot of fun. Shehan (Karunatilaka) is there this year and that has a good chance. And it is a lot of fun if you win.
The process works as the more successful you have been as a publisher (in terms of being on the longlist and winning the prize) the more nominations they get. Most publishers can only submit one or two books, so it is a challenge when a publisher has 5 great novels. We once had two writers shortlisted. What do you do? You ideally want two joint winners.
It is the only time when publishing is vaguely glamorous, so it is good to get that part of it.
(David did win, by the way. Shehan won for the Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. And Dua Lipa did a wonderful speech. It was quite glamourous.)
Do you think there is anything missing in the publishing industry?
I think there is an issue with diversity - a huge issue. I think about how new voices are heard and how to champion voices, but it is a funny situation as ours is a particular industry and we do particular books. I like individual novels, individual things - this poem, not that poem. I think the problem is that publishing is incredibly driven by fashion. A lot more than you may think. Twenty years ago, I would have been able to get a number of novels about India published, but this is less the case now because, for whatever reason, people are less interested in novels about India. But if Shehan wins the Booker there would be some interest back in South Asian books again, because that is how it works. I am very conscious about fashion and there is a mood about some books and some of what you do as an agent is to sense the change in mood. This is also especially true of non-fiction books.
It is frustrating that you have to have one hit so as to have a foot in the door on a particular theme. It took a long time to sell a book about a non-binary person’s memior, and now it is doing really well. And I hope this opens the door for books like theirs as there is so much talent. Also, the way publishing is structured there are now large meetings, and marketing and sales have a considerable say, and what they know is what has happened before. And a good editor knows what will be the future. Sales people will say that this will not sell. Trying to spot the future is interesting, not just trying to repeat the past, and this is a problem we are dealing with in publishing.
In my opinion, what drives the book is the enthusiasm and passion of the publisher who buys it. If they loved the book they will work harder. It is a myth that if publishers pay a tonne of money for a book they will work harder i.e. promote it more and invest in the marketing. More often than you would think, they panic and questions are raised regarding who took it on, and you even see books abandoned. The books I’ve had which have been marketed the best have not seen huge advances, but the people behind them have been incredibly passionate, driven and convincing to their team. If the editor believes in it then it has a ripple effect and it explodes.
Reviews and feedback, in addition to sales, are good metrics of success for books. Or Shehan being on the shortlist. Look at J.K. Rowling. Her book’s first edition was of 500 copies and she saw her book, spine-out, in a shop in Edinburgh and she felt then at that moment that it was successful. And, right then, it was. History changes how you we look at it now, but it was. It is all relative. As long as the publisher has poured their enthusiasm into the publication, you can consider it a success. In fact, for J.K. Rowling, I don’t think Bloomsbury did anything for J.K. Rowling in the beginning, it was word of mouth. It’s like watching books do well on TikTok now. But it is completely unpredictable, and I like that. I would like to have a wide variety, rather than publishers treating books like movies (and just investing in potential blockbusters).
What would your advice be to someone who has had bad luck in publishing?
Sometimes they switch agents, and you can take it to a different set of people, to get a different point of view. Sometimes you need a fresh approach. There is no knowing, so keep trying, and if it is still not going well, take a step back, give yourself some time off and come back with a fresh approach.
Looking at the different approaches people take, what do you think of the different narrative styles? Should someone try to do something different?
Sometimes novels in the second person are difficult, but then when they work they do well, because they are rare. If it feels right and it feels cohesive, that is not just trying for the sake of it. Take Lucy Ellman's books, a thousand pages and just 14 sentences. Some people loved it and some people didn’t, it is just a different way of reading a book like that.
Characters
In Maggie O'Farrell's The Marriage Portrait there are a few characters she doesn't really talk about that often and I felt quite sad about that. She only initially talks about two characters in much depth early on in the book. But I’ve seen it happen, and I’ve seen authors really pull you in with characters with just a few small indicators that it is sad to let someone float about in the background. I am into character growth and development, but each book is different so it is difficult to cast a sweeping statement.
Do you think writers should only write about what they know?
I fully believe that you should be able to write about characters who have not experienced your exact world. The nature of fiction is that you should be exploring other lives, but you should do it with integrity and know what you’re talking about. Take Samantha who is writing a fantasy world, but she has done a huge amount of research about medieval culture. It may be fantasy but it has an authenticity to it due to the amount of care and intellect someone has poured into a world.
I remember in Jaipur a few years ago when we started talking about who’s stories you can tell and why, and it meant different things at different times. There is a famous American book about Mexican immigrants coming across the border (American Dirt) which was incredibly successful, but it was written by a white, American woman, and that was complicated. She told the story well and had researched it, but I felt it was not her story to tell. It took Ben Okrie who is Nigerian to write The Famished Road. No white person could have written that book.
Publishers are very conscious of this now. There is a very big discussion in publishing houses, certainly about novels, asking the question, is it appropriate?
Do you believe there are groups that are underrepresented?
I think Black writers are underrepresented, clearly. We’ve had a huge amount of diverse books, with a large African books in particular. You have to be open to the world and not prejudiced against anything and seek out different stories. We want different stories. There aren’t enough stories.
Any opportunity I have to increase diversity in publishing I take it. We are aware how 'white' the publishing industry is. There are a lot of complicated reasons - it is not particularly well paid, a lot of very successful people don’t want to go into publishing, it is a very niche thing. Previously you would have to work as an intern and not be paid. This is less true now and this gives more of a chance. But I think it is also the structure of publishing which is the problem, not just the individuals. The whole thing needs to change and is a complicated problem which needs to consider the role of bookshops and community bookshops and libraries too.
It is slow, but it is good to see the gradual change. Look at The Guardian newspaper. It has a very different take on colour and women than they did 5 years ago.
Do you have any advice for authors from underrepresented groups on how they can enter the industry?
There are schemes now. The Arts Council are doing schemes and trying to move money out of London. It is endlessly frustrating, and can be like banging your head against a wall, but if there are any legs up people can give, that's what the industry needs. People should be putting themselves out there, writing, talking to people, getting involved in communities - there are so many good communities out there - and sticking together. We are trying.
I think we are here to help people. We are there to champion people we believe in and DGA’s record shows that. But be open to the world, and not be overly fixated in any one direction. We are all muddling through and it is an overwhelmed industry. But never lose faith.