Agent Alert: Peter Rubie of FinePrint Literary Management
Literary agent alerts (this one with Peter Rubie of FinePrint Literary Management) are golden opportunities for new writers because each one is a literary agent who is likely building his or her client list.
Peter Rubie is currently the CEO of FinePrint Literary Management, a NYC-based literary agency. He grew up in England and was a Fleet Street journalist, before becoming one of the youngest news editors for BBC Radio News. He came to the U.S. in 1981 and worked as a freelance editor and writer for agents and major publishers before becoming the adult fiction editor at Walker & Co., for 6 years. He left that job to become a literary agent.
He has also been an adjunct professor in the New York University publishing faculty, where for 10 years he taught the only university-level course in the country on how to become a literary agent. For several years, he was also the director of the book publishing section of NYU's Summer Publishing Institute. Peter thinks of himself as "an editor in recovery" who picks and chooses various ed boards for his clients' projects. He often works extensively on the editorial content and presentation of a project before submitting it.
At one time, he was a regular reviewer for the international trade magazine Publishers Weekly. A member of the Association of Authors Representative (AAR) as well as the Author's Guild, he regularly lectures and writes on publishing and the craft of writing. He is the author of two published novels and a number of nonfiction books on writing, publishing, an introduction to Shakespeare, co-author of Hispanics in Hollywood, and co-author of a book on learning the guitar with jazz master Jack Wilkins.
Currently Seeking
Peter's philosophy is broadly that books (both fiction and nonfiction) help us figure out who we were, who we are now, the times we live in, and where we're possibly going. So he is always looking for writers who can help us understand these things. He represents a broad range of high-quality fiction and nonfiction and is a sucker for great writing. He specializes in children's books, particularly middle grade and YA and in adult books, narrative nonfiction such as the occasional memoir, biographies, history and current affairs, as well as books on business, popular science, spirituality, politics (really hard to sell though), technology, parenting, music, and food. In adult fiction, he does crime novels, thrillers, commercial women's fiction, fantasy, science fiction, and exceptional literary fiction.
What many people do not know about Peter is that he is also an active jazz musician. In any given week, he can be heard playing guitar around jazz venues in New York City—and occasionally in London. His latest novel is doing the rounds of publishers as you read this . . .
How to Submit
Send an email query and a proposal for nonfiction or for fiction, a synopsis, bio, and the manuscript as Word attachments to peter@fineprintlit.com.
Check our website to see the kinds of books we do and are looking for.
Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of 40 Plot Twist Prompts for Writers: Writing Ideas for Bending Stories in New Directions, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.
