'Quality will win out'

‘The characters are also really key early on - you have to believe in them, they have to come to life on the page. You can fix plot holes - you're looking for that fundamental quality writing... I can't always control how people are published, but I can control the way that storytelling is delivered to readers. I think quality will win out...

There needs to be substance, I need to feel sympathy for my main character, and I have to be falling in love with their love interest through that character's eyes... I need to trust that all the historical information is right - but the research needs to feel effortless...

Be really clear on what your book is about so that whoever's reading it can quickly get a sense of whether it would be interesting to them. You can research agents online, you can read their websites, but it can still be difficult to know who exactly likes what, so there's still some guesswork involved. But if you're really, really clear about what your book is, it will let the agent know if they're going to be interested in your book, and whether they want to invest the time to read it. If you're not clear, that's going to be a dangerous area - agents are busy, they read an awful lot of material, and if they don't see something they like in there because it isn't clear what the book is, it won't be looked at with much attention. Be very clear in your cover letter about what the book's about, and why it's interesting...'

Kate Nash, founder of the Kate Nash Literary Agency, which represents commercial fiction, and winner of the Romantic Novelists' Association Agent of the Year Award in 2019 in Bookbrunch.