Seventh Avenue Literary Agency

Non-Fiction Specialists for Over 30 Years

Seventh Avenue Literary Welcomes Dr. Carin Bondar

Carin Bondar author

Seventh Avenue welcomes Dr. Carin Bondar, a biologist, writer, presenter and a true science geek.  She specialises in animal population ecology, with an extended focus on their sexual behaviours. She’s also the author of two books; WILD SEX (THE NATURE OF SEX, Orion), 2016, and WILD MOMS, due out in April 2018.

Wild Moms by Dr. Carin Bondar  Wild Sex by Dr. Carin Bondar The Nature of Sex by Dr. Carin Bondar

Dr. Bondar’s award winning shows along with her unique style and candour allow us fans to feel exceptionally tame in our own perversions when compared to the shocking behaviour of animals in the natural world. You can currently see her on Discovery Channel’s Outrageous Acts of Science and Stephen Hawking’s Brave New World.  Her independent web series Wild Sex has amassed over 50 million views and she presented on this topic at TED Global 2013 in Edinburgh, Scotland.

She’s also a psychotherapist, jungle explorer, glass artist, former ballerina, TED speaker and mother of 4.  Despite being fabulous, Dr. Carin is forgetful and sometimes disorganized.  She loves to cook – and although dinner may reach the table later than usual, it’s almost always delicious.

 

 

The Mirror Method: How to build productive teams by ending workplace dysfunction

rusenmarli_themirrormethod_frontcover-400px

The Mirror Method: How to build productive teams by ending workplace dysfunction, by Marli Rusen describes her straightforward and practical six-step framework to help leaders gain an accurate reflection of their current workplace dynamics and address any dysfunction uncovered by their review.

Marli Rusen brings years of extensive experience as a labour, employment and human rights lawyer to her current work as a third-party educator and problem-solver.  Marli has effectively transformed her legal knowledge and understanding of workplace dynamics into proactive, practical and timely “tools” to assist parties with the informal and formal resolution of their complex workplace challenges and issues.

Without One Word Spoken: 18 Life Lessons from Jacob

schwartz_covers_final-400px

Now a Globe and Mail and Canadian bestseller, Without One Word Spoken is Ellen Schwartz’s second volume of life lessons from her son Jacob, who was born with a rare neurodegenerative disease. Jacob can’t speak, move, or look after himself in any way.  And yet, for eighteen years he has been able to bring joy, teach courage, and profoundly touch the hearts of all those around him.

Without One Word Spoken isn’t just the compelling story of a child’s miraculous life. It’s also a mother’s how-to of survival and joy. – Craig Offman, The Globe and Mail Newspaper

@18lifelessons on Facebook
www.projectgiveback.com
www.jacobsladder.ca

Top 10 Questions Literary Agents Get Asked

1. Everyone says I should get an agent. Right?

The answer is, maybe. An agent can be what most writers need at the right time of their career. An agent could open doors and gets decision-makers to consider a project or proposal quicker. But not everyone needs an agent. In the non-fiction world, platform (e.g., what have you done counts considerably) when trying to attract an agent. Many unpublished writers would be better served to consider self-publishing or approaching small presses – for which an agent is not needed.

2. What do you charge for your services?

Literary agents do not charge for their services – they are paid only by commission and only when a publishing deal is consummated. Any other proposed arrangements within the publishing industry should be treated carefully (e.g., pay me money now and I’ll help you.)

3. Do you edit my manuscript?

As a rule, literary agents do not provide editing services. Having said that, many agents may have been editors in a previous life. So there is some editing of pitches or proposals, but to a lesser degree the manuscript. Just do not expect that all agencies do this.

4. Can you find a big publisher for my work?

That is impossible to answer. Some projects just do not belong, or more accurately, would not work at a large publishing company. Big publishers have their advantages of course, but with all due respect to them, they also have their fair share of failures. There are many terrific mid-sized and smallish publishers that handle books in many categories beautifully and boast good success rates. Bottom line: agents find champions – editors and publishers – within big, medium and small publishing houses for a book projects

5. Do you help market my book?

That depends on how you define “market”. If you mean publicity, promotion, and advertising – then, no. Agents’ help with marketing client books is not tangible. They talk-up the book within the business, certainly promote it on their website, and if they control others rights, bring it to the attention of that many more people, but agents are not in the marketing business.

6. Can you help me meet editors that work at publishing firms?

No. Not that editors have anything against you – they just spend more time editing than meeting, especially with writers they do not know, and especially writers who are trying to sell them some new work. That is the strong advantage of the agent’s role – they deal with many editors all the time and act as an advocate for your work.

7. I would like other agents to work on my book too – is that a problem?

Yes, that is a massive problem. Agents operate on an exclusive basis with clients. Agents are only paid on commission and therefore want to know they have the sole negotiating rights for a project.

8. Should I send all my work to you? I have a 100,000 word manuscript and more!

In the non-fiction world, I would rather see an e-mailed short pitch suggesting you have more and offering to send it if my interest has been piqued. In the fiction world, the agents usually want to see it all if the synopsis and writing sample get them excited.

9. Am I going to get rich?

Probably not – and if that is why you are looking for an agent I would suggest putting your efforts into something else – buying lottery tickets? Agents try to sell the rights for a project to a publisher in the hope it becomes a win/win relationship to both build the audience for an author and add to the publisher’s list of popular books. If a book takes off and becomes a bestseller and revenue builds, then everyone wins. Does that mean riches? Maybe, but unlikely.

10. Am I going to be famous?

There are thousands of books published in the English language each month by trade publishers, and additional thousands of self-published books in all shapes and sizes. Most are written by authors looking for attention of some kind – for some that is fame and notoriety – but it does not happen for most. No one knows why a few books succeed wildly while the vast majority sink without a trace of attention.

But I can guarantee one thing – if you don’t write it, there is no chance your name will ever become known as the Author of…..

If you’re wondering if your manuscript has what it takes, check out my Submissions page for information on submitting to Seventh Avenue Lit.

Creatures of the Rock: A Veterinarian’s Adventures in Newfoundland

Creatures of the Rock by Andrew Peacock

When you’re the only veterinarian in an area that’s 130 miles long and has a coast on either side, you never know what each new day might bring. A cow giving birth, a colicky horse, an aggressive lynx, caribou in need of pastures new, a polar bear in a bingo hall, a six-hundred-pound boar who won’t like what you’ve been asked to do to him… The only constants for Andrew Peacock are his faithful dog and his passion for his work.

When Andrew Peacock made the move from Ontario to Newfoundland, he thought he was kicking off his career as a newly qualified veterinarian with a brief adventure in a novel location. Turns out he was wrong about the duration —he  is still in Newfoundland three decades later.  But it has certainly been an adventure. A whole series of adventures.

In his immense new practice – half the Avalon Peninsula – Andrew was the only vet for miles around, visiting patients (and their owners) on farms, in homes and zoos, and in the wild.

A day’s work could include anything from performing a Caesarian section on a cow in a blizzard, to pursuing a moose on the loose, to freeing a humpback whale from a trap designed for cod. And, on the human side, anything from trying to impress a surprisingly large audience of farmers with your first boar castration, to taking care of the distressed owners of a stricken cat, to discouraging farm hands from helping themselves to hypodermic needles.

All this against the background of a domestic scene in which Andrew’s wife Ingrid–also freshly qualified, as a “human doctor”–shares the adventure of making a new life, fitting in to a well-established community, and in due course of starting a family.

Andrew Peacock is a born vet, devoted to the care of animals, and in constant wonder as an observer of their lives.  Luckily for the rest of us, he is a born storyteller, too. Creatures of the Rock is a funny, thrilling, unflinching but ultimately heartwarming collection of tales about the connections between people and animals, and people with each other.

Doubleday Canada