YEAR TWO OF AGENTING

The numbers, stats, and lessons learned in July 2024-June 2025

I have shared my story of becoming an agent in a few different places, but I did not start representing clients until fall 2023 when High Line Literary officially launched. So last summer on our one year anniversary of being open, I shared on my instagram some images that recapped my first year as an agent. I wasn’t expecting how popular it would be at the time but now know why: because no one else is ever transparent about their numbers.

So now in our second anniversary, I’m going to share these stats again, and more, because I know that the key to breaking down the gatekeeping and “shoulds” of the publishing industry is transparency and honesty wherever possible.

my instagram post from last year about my first year as an agent.

The BIG NUMBERS:

• Number of projects sold: 16

• Value of advances: nearly $2M

Yes, same as last year, despite 2025 being a very slow year due to so many socio-political and economic unknowns. Eleven of the sixteen were sold in 2024, so in total I sold 26 projects in the last calendar year and five in 2025 (to show the extreme difference in last year to this year with acquisitions).

• Sold across 8 categories:

  • Lifestyle (largest category with 25% of sales)

  • Food & Drink

  • Advice, Relationships, Self-Improvement

  • Health & Medicine

  • Memoir

  • Parenting

  • Illustrated (*new)

  • Science & Technology (*new)

With two new categories, this brings my total category range to ten different nonfiction categories.

Of these sold books, many have had UK distribution or translation rights sold and available now in Germany, The Netherlands, Brazil, Spain, and Hungary.

Where are my clients from:

• 31% from Outreach

• 38% from Referrals

• 31% from Queries

  • Total number of Queries: 1244

These ratios have changed the most of any of the stats so far, but make sense for an agent building their list. Of course the first year is a lot of outreach and “slush” pile, but then clients sell their books, refer their friends, editors like working with you and send you clients, proposal coaches get to know you and send you referrals—and then there is just less time available for outreach and spending time shaping proposals from your queries.

Proposal/Submission Timeline:

• Average time prepping client proposals after signing: 6 months

  • Shortest: 3 weeks, Longest: 16 months

• Average time out on submission before sale: 4.7 months

  • Shortest: 6 weeks, Longest: 13 months

• Average time from sale to signed contract: 4.2 months

  • Shortest: 8 weeks, Longest: 8 months

These are stats I don’t have much control over but I thought would be interesting to track and share as the timeline with traditional publishing is often shocking to authors from other industries. The first, proposal prep-time is the only one we have some control over but I believe in divine-timing and don’t think that fastest is best. Those proposals I get that are basically ready when I get them, still need my own time to sit, study, and strategize the best way to position them for submission. Maybe another agent could get it out in a week and good luck to them, but I can’t sell that way.

Books released in my year two:

• Number of releases: 3

• Number of copies sold: 76804

• Earned out:

  • 100% in three months (nice deal)

  • 100% in three weeks (very nice deal)

  • 35% in four months (significant deal)

• Books coming out in YR3: 10 in Fall 2025, 6 in Spring 2026

Lessons Learned:

• Everyone can promise they’ll do something but I want to be the one who actually does it.

  • In year two, my pitch to sign clients changed. Before I had to lean on the success of my agency, my training, get them to trust that could make up for my inexperience. Now, I have a track record of sales for people across a variety of categories, with very diverse backgrounds, platforms, and writing experience, you would assume that I would have an easier time signing clients than before when I had less sales to share and that would be wrong. I’ve actually lost more clients that I’ve offered on in year two than before. I’m no longer a newbie so I’m judged alongside other long-time agents, so yes I’ve sold, but I have a sold a best-seller, have I sold a seven-figure project, have I sold one of their comp titles. But really, I think the reason I’ve lost some potential clients is that: I only promise what I know I will do for them, I don’t tell anyone what they want to hear. When I say that xyz is a part of my client care, it is actually a part of my client care. I didn’t learn how to do this job from a decade within the industry, so my frame of reference for expectations for client care is very different than others. I was a unicorn freelancer for nearly fifteen years handling branding, marketing, advertising, publicity, and platform strategy for major brands, with only my results to stand on. I do more than the job description says and I don’t know how not to. It isn’t sales pitch to me, it’s the truth.

• The sale to the reader is just as important as the sale to the publisher.

  • I’m not selling a book then putting my author up on the shelf. Authors need someone else as invested in their book promotion and success as they are, and Publishers just don’t have the time. Most for-hire publicists, just don’t have the flexibility in their services that authors need to have a successful campaign that actually sells books and connects directly with readers. Every job I’ve ever had before being an agent was directly tied to my ROI and now, though I’m not judged by that, it is still important to me to support my client to have the best possible book launch they can have (and to track that data). I know what it is like on the day your book comes out to feel completely alone. I will not let that happen to my clients. I’ve developed (and keep improving every day) my propriety launch plan that I put into place for my authors and its is all a part of my agenting services to them.

• Just because I can sell the project, doesn’t mean I’m the agent for it.

  • I’m not looking at the book first, I’m looking at the cook. What I mean is the author and their short term and long term goals will be what determines whether I should sign the client. Some authors only have one book that they will write, and so I look at does this book fit in with the body of work I’ve been building, is it the missing piece for my readers. Do the author and I have a similar idea of how a book would function in their brand universe? If the author wants to write several books, how are they structuring their ten year plan to support those goals and how can I help strengthen that plan? Just because it is sellable, doesn’t mean I should be the one to sell it. If I don’t have something else connecting me to the author’s goals, then I’m probably not the agent for it. I also am aware that my work/comm style doesn’t work with everyone. I’m someone who needs to be told to do something once, then does it. I trust that everyone is doing what they say their going to do. Because of this, I’m not much of a micro-manager and I only communicate when there is news. I’m mostly reactionary to what my clients need or feedback on submission. This is partly because of that trust, and partly because authors need to be able to manage their projects without super structured management, because once the book is sold they will need that discipline to get through the manuscript. That doesn’t work for everyone and all authors deserve to have an agent that matches their own style and expectations. I don’t want to ever sign someone and stand in the way of what they could have had with someone else.

• There will be ebbs and flows in the industry and there is very little you can do to prepare for them.

  • I’ve probably referenced this year’s ebb in nearly every post I’ve made on substack so far, but since November 2024 general energy in the industry (and the country as a whole) is down. How could I have prepared for this? By building a relationship with clients that allows for us to talk about these constraints, be patient to wait for our opening, trust that we’ll find the right person at the right time, and sharing as much as possible the very human side of the decisions that will be made about their project. Editors live in this world and have responsibilities outside of it. They work their hours, then live their lives. Agents are the same. Have I had a client fire me because I didn’t send their proposal out on election day, or Christmas, or New Years? Yes (would that project have succeeded if so, absolutely not). Have I had a client fire me while I was sick with Covid and they couldn’t wait for a call? Yes. Is it my fault, partly yes, because I didn’t do the work in creating the relationship or setting the expectations that would help them understand the very human side of this industry. Agents, editors, readers are humans and they don’t exist in a vacuum. Acquiring a book is a personal experience before it is a business one and to ignore that there is some social strategy in the timing of sharing those proposals is only going to hurt your chances. (Wouldn’t that be nice though to live in a book vacuum where nothing else could touch us?) **I also wanted to note that I have absolutely no ill will towards those I’ve parted ways with. I trust my experience and my own strategic approach and just wasn’t the right fit for them. They deserve someone who is.

• When it comes to the launch of your book, publishers will do what they are good at and you’ve got to do the rest.

  • The author’s job is to do all they can to support the publishers efforts, while managing the big picture of their launch outside of those efforts. The publisher does not have the bandwidth to think outside the box and create very specific strategic plans for your book launch. You’re on your own, kid.** After seeing my three books launch into the world this year, I had seen enough to know, there has to be a different way. So I’ve been tirelessly investigating what that way is. I now stand next to my authors, help strategize, and put the plans into action. I wish for all authors to have the same type of support from their team.

**did you think I’d get through a substack with out a Swift reference?!

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I’m very grateful to my clients and my team for enabling me to have this fantastic year. These stats have landed me at the top of many sales categories on Publisher’s Marketplace, including steadily sitting in the top 10 of all nonfiction agents. I would not be here without the trust my clients have put in me and I’ll do everything I can to prove they made the right bet.

I have to also add that becoming a parent, particularly a mom, once, let alone three times over, can crush your career goals. As a freelancer, I was earning more that my partner for several years, then I had my first child and the work decreased, then my second son in the middle of the pandemic, and the work completely dried up. I took that as a chance to start over and hopefully find something that could intellectually and financially support the life I had built. I took low paying or no-paying work and internships to learn a new industry. And then, surprise, I had my third child and for the first time since I was fifteen years old had absolutely no paycheck coming in, no job lined up, nothing. Every night up late nursing, I would schedule emails to send out begging agencies to give me a chance to work for them for free. When my daughter was five weeks old, I had someone respond to one of my applications immediately and ask for a call. That was Kim and Margaret. We scheduled a call and the rest is history. After 36 agencies rejected me, the right one for me found me. I started working with what would become the High Line Literary nonfiction team three weeks later. I found affordable part-time care for my two oldest and worked for the agency while my youngest napped. A year later, I sold my first project and haven’t looked back. Intellectually, I’ve never felt like I’ve ever had a role that completely utilizes every single one of my skills like being an agent does, while pushing me to improve my weaknesses. Financially, I’m almost back to where I was before kids and will steadily increase that each year, which is very unusual for most mothers as they will chase that pay gap for the rest of their careers behind their male counterparts. I have the flexibility my family needs and they teach me so much about how to better serve my clients and fight for what is right. Most parents/mothers will never be able to have a career like the one I’ve been able to forge in these last two years and I know that it is a part of my privilege to work to make sure more can—whether that is my clients, the readers of our books, and beyond.

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So in seeing this, what is most surprising? What stats do you wish I would share? What’s missing? Let me know and maybe I can go back and dig up some figures, but for sure can include them in next years round up!

And now to spend a few hours making a some cute Canva graphs to show off this data for instagram.

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You can find me on instagram: @amandabernardibooks

Yes, I am open for queries. See my MSWL and querying preferences on the agency website www.highlineliterary.com.

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This newsletter is a personal project. The sentiments and opinions expressed here are my own and not those of my agency, clients, or publishing industry colleagues.