Literary scouting: what is it and how does it work? What makes a book a pass or a recommend?

An interview with Rosie Welsh, Head of UK & US Scouting at Eccles Fisher

Hello everyone, happy Monday!

I hope you all had restful weekends. I had quite a full-on one, as I was in my local drama group’s performance of Blue Stockings by Jessica Swale on Saturday, and then I gave a few talks at the Stratford-on-Avon literary festival yesterday. Thank you to those who came! It was great to meet some new writers, and I’m wishing you all success on your writing journey.

Today I have another interview for you, this time with a Literary Scout. I think to those outside the industry the role of the scout can be quite mysterious, so I’m very pleased to have Rosie Welsh of Eccles Fisher here to shed some light on what she does. Rosie returned to Eccles Fisher in 2022, after a previous stint from 2017 to 2019, and is now head of UK and US Adult scouting. She was previously a scout at JMH Literary Scouting in the US, and worked at Jonathan Clowes and The Wylie Agency in London. She is now based in London, and also reads French and German.

1. Hi Rosie, thank you so much for coming on The Honest Editor. Please can you tell us a bit about your role as a scout? What does a typical day look like?

Hi Phoebe, I’m excited to join you! As a scout covering the US and UK for international publishing clients, I look for new books coming out of those two markets, with a view to recommending them for translation around the world. My colleagues on our International team cover books from all over the world for those publishers, and my colleagues on the Film & TV side of things cover books from the UK and international markets with a view to finding titles that our screen clients can adapt.

Our work often involves meeting with foreign rights teams (from both agencies and publishers), primary agents and editors, with a view to gathering intel and swapping notes as to new and exciting books that are currently on submission or newly under contract. I also – as nobody can escape – send and receive a huge volume of emails! Scouts receive submissions from agencies and publishers, that we then triage for relevance for our particular clients. We enter the information into our system, and then generate a weekly report which rounds up all of the books we think most noteworthy. We also sample the submissions that stand out to us by reading every evening and at weekends, and when we are particularly impressed by a book we read the whole thing and write up a full synopsis plus opinion: a reader’s report. We do this in-house as much as we can, but also outsource to freelance readers in busy periods, or if the full manuscript is only available in a language that none of us reads.

Another important aspect of my job is working closely with clients, in order to share material they need, answer questions about who is selling rights, and support them in their deal negotiations. We stay in touch with Teams calls throughout the year, and then meet in person at book fairs.

2. Should authors use scouts, or do they need to know scouts to help get their work out there?

Scouts don’t tend to work directly with authors – we simply don’t have that capacity. We hear from agents and publishers about new authors and books they are working with. Sometimes authors reach out to us with their work before finding an agent, but unfortunately we’re not able to do anything at that stage.

3. Many people wonder how scouts get paid - are you paid if you facilitate a deal, or are you paid by a company?

We are paid by the companies we work with on a flat rate retainer basis. This helps to insure we’re neutral in our opinions, and is an important part of what differentiates us from foreign rights agents: we give information and recommendations rather than trying to sell anything. Publishers very much need both, but they need our roles and motivations to be reliably distinct.

4. What made you want to be a scout?

Scouting for me gives a unique opportunity to be connected to both the domestic and international publishing scenes in a very broad capacity. I love meeting people from all over the industry, and facilitating international connections for both business and friendship.

5. What is the best part of scouting?

It’s not particularly cool to admit it, but I truly love the Frankfurt and London book fairs. Scouts do most of our hard work in the run-up, to make sure we have all the latest information to share with our clients, so the fairs themselves are all about catching up with the brilliant international people who are names on emails or little boxes on screens for the rest of the year. Frankfurt this year was a particularly buoying experience because the chance to come together and enthuse about books feels even more significant when the world is extra dark.

I also hugely admire my colleagues, and feel lucky to be able to work so closely with such a brilliant team – it’s a fundamentally important part of a challenging job.

6. And what is the most challenging part for you?

Since it’s our job to be on top of everything that is new and hot in the industry, in can feel like a blow when, as inevitably happens sometimes, we’re not the first to the party. Speed is important, as we want our clients to be the first to have the information they need to move quickly on potentially impactful acquisitions, so when someone else is faster, it can be hard not to experience it as a personal failing.

And speaking of that personal level, I’m currently finding it particularly challenging as the parent of a young child to fit the seasonal surges of extra work around the home responsibilities of family life.

7. When you are writing up scout reports, what do you tend to point out? What factors make a book a recommendation for you?

We always indicate where in the market we think a book will sit in terms of how literary/serious or commercial it is. For translation clients, we give our thoughts on how international the subject matter feels. For screen, we comment on a number of factors influencing adaptability, such as whether the structure of the plot would make it most suitable for film or for TV, and whether there is more focus on the internal lives of the characters vs lots of action. Most importantly, we share our personal reaction to the book – how much we enjoyed reading the material, and whether we feel it stands out as special.

8. And what makes a book a pass for you?

Some novels and non-fiction projects are fascinating to me on a personal level but hold little potential to be published in other markets if the central themes and issues are too British or American.

9. Do you have any tips for authors?

Translation rights are so important, and there is so much variability within our industry as to whether the potential there is maximised. When you’re signing with an agent, or agreeing to a book deal, try to find out as much as you can about how translation and film and TV rights in your work will be handled. This is a huge subject, of course, and you will likely be automatically informed of things like percentages of revenue, but it can be very helpful, if you can, to get a sense of how active an agency, or, in the case of a world rights deal, a publisher, is in promoting the rights they handle. Do they work directly or use co-agents? If the latter, can they tell you more about those agents? Do they attend all the big book fairs? Do they actively promote new titles to scouts? You might even ask to see their previous rights guides, or to meet with the people who will be selling your translation rights, just to get a sense of how your work will be promoted internationally.

Thank you so much, Rosie, for sharing your insights.

If anyone has any questions or comments, please feel free to pop them below. Thank you as ever for reading The Honest Editor!

Phoebe x