Peggy Lee

What if being busy didn't stop you writing? We share a little about what mentoring an author means to us here at BPA.

Twenty years ago, editors at publishing houses had time to work with an author on their manuscript, if they saw promise. As the market has become more and more saturated, this job has moved to literary agents. Now, agents are so busy they often don’t have the time either. Literary consultancy agencies have formed to give authors the possibility to receive industry-level feedback and increase their chance of being noticed.

Twenty years ago, editors at publishing houses had time to work with an author on their manuscript, if they saw promise. As the market has become more and more saturated, this job has moved to literary agents. Now, agents are so busy they often don’t have the time either. Literary consultancy agencies have formed to give authors the possibility to receive industry-level feedback and increase their chance of being noticed.

We recently discovered that, by coincidence, two BPA clients, Philippa Ronan (right) and Lindsey Mellon, were both to be published by the same independent publisher Northside House within only a few weeks of each other. They were happy to share their experience of going indie in our latest Author Q&A.

Julia Kelly won the BPA 2021 First Novel Award, coming first out of more than 1,000 entries. She then signed with that year’s competition judge, literary agent Hellie Ogden. In 2024, Julia signed a six-figure publishing deal with the publishing house Harvill Secker. Her debut novel The Fisherman’s Gift comes out today, Thursday March 6, 2025. We caught up with Julia to congratulate her on her success and to find out more about the different stages that lead to publication.

Triona Campbell worked closely with Blue Pencil Agency’s head editor and founder Sara Sarre on a YA novel, after which she successfully acquired an agent and a three-book deal with Scholastic UK. In this Author Q&A, Triona describes working as a film producer, the steep learning curve expected of the newly-signed author, and how the budding writer might handle the industry and land a publishing deal.

At secondary school, teachers often encourage students to use a thesaurus to find more interesting options for their creative writing and expand their vocabulary. If you study the craft at university level, though, most tutors will tell you not to use one, to simply use the words that come naturally. Fiction should be true to the author’s voice, not striving for a preconceived – probably elitist – idea of good writing.

Saloni Surah worked closely with Blue Pencil Agency’s head editor and founder Sara Sarre on an Early Reader book Flora Investigates: The Case Of The Missing Gold Eggs which she has recently self-published. We were curious about her self-publishing journey – an option which continues to grow in popularity within the writing community – and asked Saloni if she would accept to do an Author Q&A so that we might glean some insider tips on the dos and don’ts of a more hands-on appr

Imagine you were brushing your teeth or daydreaming on the underground this morning when suddenly you were hit with an amazing story idea. How might that story first come to you – in words and sentences or as images, like a film?

Many of our BPA First Novel Award and Pitch Prize judges say they’re looking for an attention-grabbing opening and a stand-out first line. The first line of your novel is undeniably important, but terms like ‘attention-grabbing’ can be easily misconstrued. That’s part of the reason we decided to start sharing our favourite opening lines from your entries on Twitter. Some of these sentences are subtle and some are bold. Some are simple and others are lyrical. Some are long, so