The Black Writer's Guide to Being Agent-Ready

According to WordsRated, "as of May 2023, 16.46% of the books published during the year so far have at least one Black author or illustrator listed. This is already a 22% increase over 2022 figures, showing that the trend is also going upward this year...However, Black authors are still underrepresented in their niche if we look at the data on the representation of Black people in the overall US workforce."
This lively panel discussion features working literary agents, moderated by Tracy Sherrod, speaking on the state of the publishing industry for Black writers, why and when you need an agent and the best practices necessary to attract an agent that will support your writer's journey.
Learn more about us at HurstonWright.org
About the Moderator
Tracy Sherrod , VP and Executive Editor at Little, Brown and Company, has been a publishing professional for more than three decades. She has worked at Marie Brown Literary Services, Henry Holt, Simon & Schuster, and most recently, as the VP and Editorial Director of Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Throughout Tracy’s career she has worked with many authors, including social critic bell hooks; Man-Booker Prize winner, Paul Beatty; NAACP Image Award winners, Dick Gregory and NASA’s Katherine Johnson; as well as the Zora Neale Hurston Trust and Shirley Chisholm’s estate.
During her tenure at Amistad, the imprint published #1 New York Times Bestselling titles such as Cicely Tyson’s Just as I Am and Steve Harvey’s Act Like a Success, Think Like a Success; and other NYT bestsellers include Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston, edited by Deborah Plant; My Vanishing Country by Bakari Sellers; Another Brooklyn by National Book Award winner Jacqueline Woodson; and Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter by 50 Cent.
About the Panelists
Shabnam Banerjee-McFarland (she/her) is an Associate Agent at Odom Media Management.
Jaidree Braddix is a literary agent representing non-fiction authors who are changing the ways we think about, talk about, and move through the world we live in.
Albert Lee spent the first two decades of his career as a magazine editor working with a wide array of writers from prize-winning journalist Rebecca Skloot to novelist Jonathan Safran Foer. He transitioned from editing to literary agenting in 2015, working at independent literary agency Aevitas Creative Management, where he signed and represented such clients as the estates of Muhammed Ali and Albert Einstein, National Public Radio, and writers including celebrated Silicon Valley diversity activist Ellen Pao and Pulitzer-winning journalist Jennifer Berry Hawes. He joined United Talent Agency in 2018, where he has closed more than 100 deals and landed more than a dozen clients on The New York Times Bestseller list.
Carlos Segarra is a Literary Agent at leading entertainment and sports agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA).
Regina Brooks is the founder and president of Serendipity Literary Agency in New York, New York. Her agency is the largest African American owned agency in the country and has represented and established a diverse base of award-winning clients in adult and young adult fiction, nonfiction, and children’s literature.
About the Hurston/Wright Foundation
The Hurston/Wright Foundation’s mission is to provide services, supports and opportunities that mentor, recognize and provide community for professional and aspiring Black writers. Workshops and classes taught by award-winning authors serve emerging and midcareer adult writers. More than a thousand Black writers have taken our classes since the first one in 1996, increasing diversity in the cultural community as they have gone on to create books and careers as professors, local cultural workers, and national thought leaders.
About Hachette Book Group
Hachette Book Group (HBG) is a leading U.S. general-interest book publisher made up of dozens of esteemed imprints within the publishing groups Basic Books Group, Grand Central Publishing, Hachette Audio, Hachette Books, Hachette Nashville, Little, Brown and Company, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, Orbit, Running Press Group, and Workman Publishing. HBG provides custom distribution, fulfillment, and sales services to other publishing companies. HBG's books and authors have received the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, Caldecott Medal, Newbery Medal, Booker Prize, Nobel Peace Prize and other major honors. HBG is committed to diversity within the company and HBG publishing programs, striving to foster a culture of inclusion for all HBG employees and authors.

[@zakiyamoore]

So so grateful to have this information out there as a Black writer. Thank you! It was helpful and confirmed what I was already feeling about building out my platform on social media and an audience. Looking forward to the "Manuscript to Market" class.

[@mothersoul1]

When it comes to agent vs author how important is similarity in race and culture ?

[@marilynroberts5187]

🤭 'Promo SM'