The book publishing industry has always fascinated me. So, when I happen to run across Jessica Faust‘s writing at the BookEnds LLC‘s blog, I decided to contact her for an email interview. As detailed at the site: “BookEnds, LLC, is a literary agency cofounded by Jessica Faust and Jacky Sach. Originally started in 1999 as a book packaging company, BookEnds now operates primarily as a literary agency focusing on fiction and nonfiction books for adult audiences.

As a literary agent and cofounder of BookEnds, LLC, Jessica Faust prides herself on working closely with her authors to make their goals come to fruition. Her areas of expertise include historical, contemporary, fantasy, paranormal, and erotic romance, urban fantasy, women’s fiction, mysteries, suspense, and thrillers. In nonfiction, Jessica specializes in current affairs, business, finance, career, parenting, psychology, women’s issues, self-help, health, sex, and general nonfiction. While open to anything, Jessica is most actively seeking unique fiction with a strong hook, and nonfiction with creative ideas and large author platforms.“

My thanks to Faust for sharing her take on the publishing world. (And my apologies to her for using the term “trashy novels” in that one question–it won’t happen again, I promise!)

Tim O’Shea: You’ve been in the publishing industry since the mid-1990s and have a great perspective on how the Internet has helped redefine your industry. First off, have you seen an increase in submissions from people that think they should be published (and have no chance) or has the rate and quality of unpublishable manuscripts stayed about the same in your experience?

Jessica Faust: I think there is a huge change. Granted what an agent sees is different from what editors see, but with the Internet and computers it is so much easier for everyone to write a book. When I started in publishing in 1994 typewriters were still the norm. Computers were new and many within the industry still didn’t one at their desks and certainly few had Internet access or email accounts. Now anyone can throw words on the page and easily find information on who to submit to. So yes, I see a huge amount of material from people who probably should not be considering publication. From an agent’s perspective though I think it can also make our lives a lot easier. We now email all our submissions to editors and can easily update them on anything that’s happening to those submissions.

Read the rest of this entry »