The business of risk

When I became a mother, there were several things I could not wait to share with my child. The first was the taste of chocolate. The second was Disney movies and the third was their own book collection. My whole life when I envisioned becoming a parent, I knew I wanted my child to have their own home library – a place full of the classics that was just for them. These would stem from titles that had formed my childhood, cemented my exploration into adulthood and stayed with me through all the ages of my life. From Paddington to Matilda, moving up to Anne Fine and Goggle-Eyes; I wondered, will he rail at Jo’s rejection of Laurie, or find empathy in the disaffection of Holden Caulfield? Will he cry at the painful failure of Atticus Finch? Or Lyra’s decision to leave Will?

This year I started finally building it. He has a whole world waiting for him to discover: a faun in a wardrobe, murderous rabbits, moving scarecrows, a pig that thinks it’s a sheep dog. And as I started pulling out each book and placing them on the shelves, I felt a cementation of a faith I have felt all my life; as holy as any communion and as endemic to me as any memory. These are in the fabric of my being, these stories – these generous writers who put their vulnerabilities on a page. And now all these decades later, they get to speak to my son.



It is hard to imagine how these books could not have existed; that their path could ever have not been assured. But as I opened them and read the first paragraph, I asked myself a teasing question. Would they be published now? Would we have the insight? Or better question – would we have the courage?



I remember asking an editor at the start of my career how they made their decisions when beginning a submission and they said to me, that for them every submission starts on a 10 out of 10 and it’s only as they start reading, that the numbers begin to fall. Sometimes the descent is fast; sometimes the descent stabilises and sometimes – on those special, incredible moments – it doesn’t happen at all.


But now I ask myself is that still true? Because it’s felt, for a while, like it’s the opposite – like a submission starts on a one and you’re having to build up to a 10. Which in itself is maybe not an issue, but I would argue it is that much harder to persuade, than it is to disappoint.

Maybe that is understandable – after all, we’ve been surrounded by death and panic and corrupt confusion for over two years which is not exactly the warm blanket of comfort in which to start a reading experience.


I also want to be clear that I do not believe that editors or agents are in a space of not wanting books; not wanting to find the next novel that will sit on the shelf of a reader three decades later. The immortality of books to live beyond their pages, to find new audiences in new generations is part of the magic of what we do. But what I do wonder about – and it may be a an uncomfortable discussion to have — is whether we have retained the courage to still take the risks needed to find the people who perpetuate that magic.


At the FutureBook conference last November I was asked whether I felt that publishers stuck with authors even after their books stopped selling. And I said yes, I truly believe editors want to stick by their authors, but the wider umbrella of publishing as a business entity – no, I don’t. Not with the same regularity and as widespread as I would have said 10 years ago. I think we are so afraid of failing, of missing the mark, that we prioritise certainty over risk. Which makes sense as a species but not entirely for the business we are in. Our business is based on risk – on discovering something before it exists and determining a readership that hasn’t found itself yet. We trade on a gut reaction; on finding a book that speaks to us and hoping that if it does for us, it will for others too. But somewhere along the line, I think we forgot that this is the underlying thread of our way of being. And instead we started looking at success as the only goal instead of what it should be – which is the ultimate one. How many authors have found the book that has come to define their corner of the literary cannon after the third, fifth or even seventh try? What made the editor stick with them despite the lacklustre sales, despite the lack of retail support or public engagement? Their gut – the same gut we pride ourselves on having, on honing and educating, and sometimes it takes time for that to be proven on a wider scale than just the individual or the team.


I am not proposing that we celebrate failure or aim for failure. But being an agent means I am constantly having to strategise and wrestle and therapise my relationship with failure. I am always afraid of failing my authors, or their books failing, of their careers ailing. But in trying to stay "safe", in not recognising that failing comes hand in hand with that other most important element of my work, I am also not honouring what makes the magic happen: risk.


Is there a way to reframe our way of being where we as a collective support risk more, rather than make the conversation one of trying to mitigate failure? Because we ask authors to take risks all the time – risk themselves by being vulnerable and putting their souls on the page; risk in putting themselves out there for criticism; risk in engaging with a public who can turn their backs on them or put their teeth in them. And without that risk, that artistry doesn’t happen.

Without risk, we don’t get the new which implodes what we have known then scatters it into an array of pieces, making room for more new and ingenious things to happen?

Sometimes it feels, cynically, like we have to wait for an external permission to give credence where it has always been due. For example, the move to diversify what we publish across a class, race and sexuality spectrum — these titles were deemed too much of a risk for too long. And genuinely I think we have lost out on some things which could have been so special. But then George Floyd happened and people were stuck inside reflecting on the world and it was as if, finally, the industry woke up to the realities its inhabitants had been living in for a long time. And the risk suddenly began to look more attractive.



Risk is what we are drawn to and what we thrive on. Let’s not pretend otherwise. And I am not saying throw caution to the wind and ignore sense, but I am asking if the way we have been thinking about things is the wrong way round? After all, the past two years have shown us that the ground cannot just shift but crack and chasm beneath your feet. And, if that is the case, then surely we need to look a bit wider and a bit further than just the prism of immediate and total success. Because maybe that’s how we ultimately find it and not just a success for now but a success with longevity.


Because the story of a faun who wears a scarf in a wardrobe is as nonsensical as a spider saving a pig from becoming bacon. And I am sure when he discovers them for the first time, my son will not care one little bit.


All he will see is magic. Just like their agents and editors did 50 years before when they took the risk and published them.

Nelle Andrew is an agent at RML. She was named Agent of the Year at the 2021 British Book Awards, having been nominated in 2018 and was a Bookseller Rising Star in 2016.