Warning of 'submissions fatigue' as editors face 'tsunami' of book proposals

A “tsunami” of submissions caused by the cancellation of 2020's physical book fairs, and the proximity of London and Frankfurt this year, could lead to fatigue among editors and some authors not getting the deals they merit, industry insiders have said.

Editors and agents told The Bookseller they have seen differences in the flow and volume of submissions owing to the absence of physical fairs during the pandemic. Meanwhile, this year's London Book Fair's move to June could create challenges of its own, say some.

Juliet Mabey, publisher at Oneworld, said there had been “an absolute avalanche” of early submissions from early September 2020 through to the Christmas holidays, while Jeremy Trevathan, publisher for adult books at Pan Macmillan, said there had been a “ceaseless” flood of material coming to his editors since March 2020.

He said: “Normally there are periods of activity around the book fairs, or just before the book fairs, where it all gets quite tense. But I think all through the last year the intensity of the level of submissions never really slowed down. I think it was one of the fall-outs of not having the book fairs properly, there weren't these focus moments in the year for agents in particular to say, 'This is a good time to send out material'.

“How Frankfurt works for many agents is they try and tie down a UK and US deal about two weeks before Frankfurt or London in order to then arrive at the fair and do a string of translation rights deals face to face with loads of international publishers. When that calendar moment isn't really happening in that way, I think they've ended up submitting things all through the year …it creates a bit of a tsunami and then they all set dates for hearing back, let's say in a week or 10 days, and you've got 40 submissions that you're looking at. It wasn't anything different from normal, it was just much, much more intense and there was just much more of it.”

He added: “It seemed counterproductive for the agent community to be pumping out all this material, but they're all competing with each other so they can't all co-ordinate their submissions — it's the market. I suspect what it means is there are some projects which may not have got the level of advance people were expecting, just because editors didn't get to them or couldn't give them time to think about them or present them to colleagues.”

Kishani Widyaratna, editorial director for Fourth Estate, agreed the volume of submissions had felt larger in 2020 than in previous years although this was only “part of the picture” as, while some authors had more time on their hands to write because of the pandemic, others experienced pressure on their time and mental health strains.

However, the increase in submissions did raise concerns about the volume of books being put out across the industry as a whole, she suggested, saying: “It’s increasingly hard for books by lesser known or new authors, without large budgets or prize attention, to break through. I worry that this will mean it will be harder for authors to find their feet if their book is not considered ‘successful’ when their publishers are over-publishing and the market is so crowded. Over-publishing serves no one, not publishers, authors or the trade.”

Agent Nelle Andrew of Rachel Mills Literary said one of her main worries was the challenges caused by the move of the London Book Fair to June this year, and possible “submission fatigue” for editors.

She commented: “With Frankfurt a mere four months after the London Book Fair, that barely gives people enough time to really catch their breath before hurtling into the next fair. And let's face it, at this point, most big deals are done before the fairs, rather than within them now. My concern therefore is that editors will have submission fatigue more than ever from a fiction point-of-view by the autumn and that will affect their reading of material and will to acquire.”

Andrew added: “If 2020 taught us anything it was that you do not need a physical fair to still generate the same levels of interest and acquisition, and so I cannot help but think that once and for all, we need to really look at the function of book fairs and their impact, rather than cleaving to their present iteration simply because that is what we have always done in the past. Move on.”

Literary agent Cathryn Summerhayes at Curtis Brown said she was “often amused” by complaints about submissions aimed at the agents, whether it was that there were too many, too few or that they were badly timed. “Only yesterday two separate editors told me it was ‘dead out there submission wise’ and ‘like an onslaught’,” she said.

“The fact remains that for the majority of agents we send out material when we feel it is ready. We are mindful of colleagues and their submissions, but we aren’t obsessively focused on book fairs, although they of course do bring some prime selling opportunities especially when we can meet face to face and sell with passion. I am sort of forgetting the date change for the fair and continuing to work towards the spring as a fruitful and energetic time selling-wise when hopefully everything is a little more open - but I struck deals in December and I think if you have good stuff the timing is never wrong. “

She continued: “Reading submissions is time-consuming for agents and editors and I think the fatigue is caused more by the constant additional tugs on our time - home-schooling, Covid fears, the general chaos of working from home and trying to run a household too. Also the loneliness of not being able to talk freely with colleagues about an exciting submission. I think writers really started being more productive in the second half of last year after crippling anxiety in the spring and summer - and I salute that. I would much rather too many submissions than too few and I know the majority of editors feel the same. The fact remains that most agents and editors know what they are looking for and only have a few slots - so prioritising ‘right fit’ submissions is important.”

Some suggested the actual number of submissions had not increased in the past year but the stream had been steadier, because the seasonal ebb and flow guided by the publishing calendar has been disrupted.

Ailah Ahmed, publishing director at Little, Brown, said: “As we’re so used to the book fairs being in October and April, and the peaks and troughs that go with that, it will be interesting to see how the industry adapts to the new June LBF date. For the Frankfurt Book Fair in October last year, there was the same peak we’d seen in previous years, but with a much longer tail of submissions flowing through right up until early December which isn’t something I had experienced before.

“It had some pros: more time and space for big submissions, rather than receiving all the big books at once as you can’t go for everything. In terms of cons: those major auctions around book fairs are often fuelled by adrenaline and excitement, and that was sometimes hard to sustain for a longer period of time - but, you can’t complain, as brilliant books, great writing, and the space to consider them is a wonderful thing. I wonder if agents will start sending their most exciting books from spring onwards this year, with no major spike, but a more steady pattern of submissions.”

But while some felt there was more time to consider proposals, Marianne Tatepo, commissioning editor for Ebury Press & Pop Press, said an “always on” mentality within the trade, with many staffers even more tethered to their desks for working from home during the pandemic, had prompted more pre-empts in 2020 than usual.

“My initial instinct was that the Frankfurt Book Fair being extended over a period of weeks - if not months - would encourage sustained relationship-building and possibly even lead to less impulsive decision-making given that everything no longer hinged on one specific week,” she said. “But what actually seems to have happened is an initial scarcity mentality leading to more pre-empts in 2020 than usual, in part thanks to all of us being in non-stop proximity to our screens, able to sift through proposals as soon as they hit our inboxes. Due to this tethered, ‘always on’ reality, submissions have been coming in both later and earlier than usual with deals being closed beyond mid-December or submissions coming through in the very early days of January before people are back at their desks (for those who did leave them). The hope of a reasonable work/life balance was just that: hope.”

Katherine Armstrong, who joins Simon & Schuster as deputy publishing director in the adult fiction department next month, also said she anticipated submissions will be spread more evenly throughout 2021, with bigger "fair books" likely to come a little earlier - due not only to the new way of working remotely, but also because the London Book Fair and Frankfurt Book Fair are so close this year. “There will be the worry that, as they are closer, the summer will be incredibly submission heavy. But I think that as our European colleagues close down over August, schools are out and people are on holiday (assuming normal times) that the industry will have to consider carefully if it is better to spread submissions out over several months and give them more time, or focus heavily on the summer months between fairs and hope to generate the usual pre-fair excitement about the big titles, but perhaps at the cost of other titles if time is tighter.”