Lorella Belli has been a successful literary agent for many years, even setting up her own agency. Her recent speaker event was full of really useful insights for people looking to become a literary agent or get their novel published. Lorella bounced around several topics so I’m going to be responding to the points I found most interesting and giving my thoughts on her advice.

“If you want to become a literary agent, think about what you really enjoy doing.”

Lorella continued on this by talking about how you should audit what you enjoy doing, what you’re knowledgeable about, what you have a natural interest in and importantly, what you enjoy reading. Lorella gave the example of how she has a passion for international books/authors and a general interest in other cultures and international news. This sets her up well to represent a diverse cast of authors or even authors whose books have international appeal. I hadn’t considered that certain stories or characters may not be read or allowed in other countries due to a difference in culture or even just the socio-political climate of the time. I feel this advice of ‘audit what you’re interested in’ works well for writers too as it is essentially the same as ‘write what you know.’

“What’s In the Best Seller Section Was Commissioned a Long Time Ago.”

If there was any nugget of advice from this talk that was useful for both aspiring agents and writers, it was this. Lorella gave us examples of books that have recently been commissioned but won’t hit the shelves until late 2024 or early to mid 2025. The general take away she intended from this was for us not to look at the bestseller shelf in our local Waterstones and decide “okay, romance novels about time travelling robots are popular, I’ll write that” because it is likely that by the time you were to write the novel, get it commissioned and finally published; that ship will have sailed and now you’ve just got a really weird novel about robots from 1851 in love.

“It’s Not a 9-5 Job.”

Lorella shared some more personal details about her life when discussing the hours that she works. Lorella advised us to find a partner that is okay with us working unsociable hours, evenings, weekends etc. While this was said with a smile and followed by a laugh, I’m sure she meant it. To take this comment at its basic meaning, she meant: Whether you’re writing or representing writers, you’re signing up for a lot of commitment so be warned, this isn’t your typical 9-5. I think that is great advice for everyone and proves you can only do this kind of work if you’re passionate.

In short, I really enjoyed this talk. Lorella Belli had a super interesting story of how she started in the industry and worked her way up which would have been a compelling enough reason to attend the talk. However, the main prize was all the incredible wisdom she shared about the industry which I know I—and I’m sure the rest of the students—learned a lot from.

Kalum Wilson