Juliet Mushens
This episode is also available on our YouTube channel as a full video episode! Watch it here!
In the first of a special series of industry episodes following a books journey from being picked up by an agent all the way to Hollywood, we chat with superstar literary agent, Juliet Mushens! Juliet started her publishing career in 2008 at HarperCollins, and became an agent in 2011. She has been shortlisted for Literary Agent of the Year four times and is currently the number 1 ranked UK fiction dealmaker on Publishers’ Marketplace. In 2021 she was picked as one of the 150 most influential people in publishing by The Bookseller and The Times ran a piece recognising her as the first agent to represent the number 1, 2 and 3 UK bestsellers in the same week: ‘Star literary agent first to top the charts three times’. More than a dozen of her clients are Sunday Times bestsellers and four hit number 1 in 2022 alone. Her clients include million-copy no. 1 bestseller Jessie Burton, multi-million copy NY Times bestseller Taran Matharu, record-breaking multi-million copy no. 1 bestseller Richard Osman. Her guide to YA creative writing was published by Hodder in 2015.
We loved speaking to Juliet about how she became an agent, and talking with her about what she looks for in a query letter (including some very important dos and don'ts!) Plus, we hear how she works with authors that she represents, and chat about how she secures such brilliant deals for her clients.