How to pitch books to The Guardian with Emma Loffhagen

Alessia Horwich (00:07):

Welcome to On The Rox, the podcast from Roxhill Media that asks some of the best journalists in the UK what their answers are to some of the questions that confront PRs daily. We know there’s not a one size fits all way of communicating with journalists, so we’re going straight to the writers in the newsroom to find out how they like to work with PRs and the best way to stand out in their inboxes. My name is Alessia Horwich. I’m a former Sunday Times journalist now head of brand at Roxhill. Today we’re going to be talking about how to pitch books to The Guardian with books writer, Emma Loffhagen. Emma, you might as well start off, we might as well discuss how does a book become an it book? You must tell me because what does The Guardian do when it knows that something big is going to happen in books?

Emma Loffhagen (00:47):

Yeah, it’s really interesting. I think about it a lot because since I started working in books, it is something that people ask me, how do you know when a book is going to be successful? How do these books that just suddenly appear everywhere? Where does that come from? And I think sometimes it’s organic. Also sometimes it happens after the fact. There are some books like perfection that appeared on the scene a few years ago and then somehow they’re rediscovered and they get this new lease of life. And often that’s like organic communities online, but sometimes it is kind of driven by PRs and you trust a PR’s opinion on a book and if they tell you, “I’m really excited about this book, you should really read it and X, Y, Z person has signed off on it and said that it’s really good.” Then you kind of think, “Oh, okay, let me give this one a go.

Alessia Horwich (01:32):

Yeah. That must really depend on your relationships with PRs. How have you built your relationships with books PRs?

Emma Loffhagen (01:38):

I think it’s trusting people’s taste because obviously you get a lot of emails from people all the time saying, “This book is great, this book is great. I want this book to be on your radar.” But if you know, okay, this person told me last year that this book was going to be really good and I really enjoyed it and it’s done really well. Okay, if you tell me this book is going to be great now, I’m going to think, okay, we lodge that in my brain. So yeah, I think it’s trust, but also everybody has different tastes. I think that’s the thing with all, not just books, but any kind of culture journalism, it is very subjective. So what my idea of a brilliant it book is might be someone else’s idea of a really boring read.

Alessia Horwich (02:16):

But I guess that means for the PRs, they’ve got to tune into this kind of stuff that you’re picking up and you’re writing about enthusiastically and then maybe look for stuff that’s similar in their background.

Emma Loffhagen (02:25):

Yeah, exactly. And I think I kind of tend to write about younger writers and that kind of more, I guess like Gen Z millennial it’s book genre. I think I appreciate them when PRs notice that and will maybe pitch me those debut authors or people that are writing about Young Life in London or whatever it is that they ascribe to me probably accurately.

Alessia Horwich (02:49):

Okay. So let’s go back to the beginning. How did you get into the job that you’re in now? Why are you so into doing writing about books?

Emma Loffhagen (02:56):

This is my second job at The Guardian. So I started on the magazine. I was doing a sabbatical cover as a commissioning editor on culture and lifestyle. But even before that, I worked with the Evening Standard and I did culture and feature writing and I did some book reviews there and I’ve always liked writing about books. But yeah, when I was on the magazine, the books team and the magazine at The Guardian are very sort of one and the same because the vast majority of the books coverage that we do goes to the magazine and there’s a huge section in the magazine which is dedicated to books. So I kind of through that, got to know the books team and then October last year, I started full-time writing about books.

Alessia Horwich (03:36):

Oh my gosh, it must be so fun. What’s your favourite genre book?

Emma Loffhagen (03:39):

It’s really hard. I think I try and be as open-minded as possible. I would say like generally broad strokes, literary fiction is what I like. I’m trying to get into the genres that are doing really well in the industry like romantic, but I don’t think it’s naturally what I am drawn to. But I try not to rule out any genres. But yeah, I think literal fiction is where I would gravitate towards.

Alessia Horwich (04:07):

What do you think the genres that most resonate with Guardian Readers are?

Emma Loffhagen (04:10):

I don’t think there’s like a hard and fast rule and I think part of our dramas, writers or editors is to try and say, “This is why this book is interesting. This is why it’s important or this is why we think it should be on your radar.” But if I was to describe a guardian reader, it probably would be something more like in terms of novels, maybe more literary, but also we’re trying to attract new readers, different readers. So I don’t want to put guardian readers in one sort of rarefied box.

Alessia Horwich (04:47):

I mean, books coverage is so important to The Guardian, right? How much do you feel that as someone who writes about books for the title?

Emma Loffhagen (04:53):

I think it’s really, really important and it’s because also it takes up such a big part of the print magazine we have a whole book section, which is sort of there’s a culture section and there’s a separate book section, which is really, really nice. It feels like it’s taken very seriously and we have a big books team and there’s lots of room for reviews, there’s lots of room for features. So yeah, it’s a really big arm of the culture section.

Alessia Horwich (05:19):

When you say big, like how big is big and who’s on the books team? Who are the most important people to know about? I guess you’re all important.

Emma Loffhagen (05:25):

I mean, I say big, I guess big relative to other books teams that I know of, but there is me, there’s Ella Creamer who’s the digital commissioning editor and then there’s a job share in the fiction editors. So it’s Charlotte Northedge, Lee Spencer, Justine George and all fiction editors and then the nonfiction editor is David Shariatmadari. So that’s how many people have I just said? Six people. Six? I think six.

Alessia Horwich (05:52):

Yeah, that is a big team.

Emma Loffhagen (05:53):

Yeah.

Alessia Horwich (05:53):

Do you think you’re pitched more nonfiction or do you think it’s pitched more fiction?

Emma Loffhagen (05:56):

That’s interesting. I would say I’m probably pitched more fiction, to be honest. I wrote a piece actually last year about the decline in nonfiction sales. And I think that that is something perhaps in the industry and I don’t know if this is reflected in my inbox, but it certainly is something that people are feeling in the industry that nonfiction sales are not doing as well as they have done. And conversely, books like romanticy and romance in general are like booming. So if you’re looking for the kind of upswing in the industry, maybe you’d be gravitating towards fiction, but-

Alessia Horwich (06:33):

That probably says a lot about society today.

Emma Loffhagen (06:36):

More than anything. Exactly.

Alessia Horwich (06:37):

Yeah.

Emma Loffhagen (06:38):

Yeah, exactly. And that is, I think when I was interviewing people in the industry, that is what they were coming back to is that people don’t necessarily actually want to diagnose problems in the world anymore and they just want to retreat. And I think there was a sort of boom maybe five or six years ago where people were reading nonfiction and then there was this real hunger to understand what was happening with the world. But I think maybe people that are thinking, “I can’t fix this. “

Alessia Horwich (07:03):

Yeah. Gosh, I wonder what that means for our nonfiction PRs who are trying to put their books if it’s more difficult for them. So can you tell me about all the different slots where books are covered?

Emma Loffhagen (07:12):

Yeah. So I’ve written down all of the starts that are in the magazine and then there’s a separate online. We have a few that don’t go and print, but the vast majority of our books content does go and print. So we’ll always have a main cover feature, that could be an interview or it could be like a big feature. I’d say usually it’s an author interview and then we have our fiction reviews and nonfiction reviews and then we’ve got the big idea, which I said, which is a kind of nonfiction feature pegged to a book that’s out that week or that month. And then we have Books of My Life, which is an author talking about the books of their life. Digital, we have some sort of roundups. So we’ll always do like the month’s best paperbacks and then we have audiobook of the week and poem of the week, which are kind of self-explanatory.

(08:08):

Then we also have a book’s newsletter, which I think I’m always trying to put onto people’s radar because I think people forget about it. And it’s also a good way to get coverage because the newsletter will be like on a sort of theme, like a trend or a topic or these-

Alessia Horwich (08:22):

How’d you pick the themes?

Emma Loffhagen (08:23):

It’s really random. It could be like a news story. So for example, if a short list for an award comes out that week, like a big award, maybe it will be sort of pegged to that or like an interesting news story about a trend in the industry. It could be about that. Yeah, but it is a good read. And also in the newsletter we’ve got, we’ll talk about the stuff that’s in the magazine that week.

Alessia Horwich (08:51):

When’d you come up with that theme? Do you guys kind of chat about it on a Monday and then it comes out on a –

Emma Loffhagen (08:55):

Actually very, it’s quite last minute. It comes out on a Sunday, so it has to be written by Friday and we discuss it on Wednesday.

Alessia Horwich (09:05):

Oh, right. I mean, do PRs ever email you and go, “Hey, I’ve got an idea for a theme.”

Emma Loffhagen (09:09):

No, which it would be really helpful because it is difficult to think of a theme every week, but at the end of the newsletter we also have a section which is where we ask a writer every week to recommend a few books. So that’s also a good way of being- Looking for slots.

Alessia Horwich (09:31):

That. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds like there’s a lot of opportunity for PRs. In terms of author interviews, how famous do they need to be? What’s the calibre of person you’re looking for that, because that’s a big chunky feature at the beginning.

Emma Loffhagen (09:41):

Yeah. It’s hard to put a kind of barometer on how famous someone needs to be. I think like for example, I just did an interview with a debut author, which was in the magazine at the weekend, but this author, he won the murky book’s new writer’s prize and that kind of put me on his radar. I think it was two years ago that he won that prize and then his book is out this month, but I sort of heard about what the book was about. I thought it sounded really interesting. It’s about these three boys who spend this night on this really famous road in Manchester and I thought it sounded like a really interesting concept for a book. And then also because he’d won the prize for the beginning of this book. And then I read the book and I was like, “This is phenomenal.” And then I was like, “I really think that we should interview him.” So sometimes it can work like that and this is someone who hasn’t written a book before, so someone who’s not famous, but then equally we obviously want to interview all the big name authors too.

(10:45):

So I think it is not necessarily that you have to reach a certain level of fame in order to be interviewed. I think you can also, if there’s something interesting about you or if we love the book, then-

Alessia Horwich (10:56):

I mean, I guess it must be a challenge for PRs to get you to read their books

Emma Loffhagen (10:59):

Yeah

Alessia Horwich (11:00):

There’s so many of them. But I mean, if a PR had pitched that to you, would it be enough to say, “Oh, well, he won this prize and I think the book’s really good.” That might kind of

Emma Loffhagen (11:10):

Yeah

Alessia Horwich (11:11):

Get over the edge for you.

Emma Loffhagen (11:11):

I mean, yeah, I think in that case, having won a prize like that and because Murky Books is such an interesting imprint and the books that they have put out are really, really great. Yeah, I think it’s hard to have a hard and fast rule for it. I think in general, it’s probably easier if you’re a lesser known author to get coverage elsewhere rather than like a dedicated interview, but that’s not to say it could never happen.

Alessia Horwich (11:41):

Yeah. I was wondering about the regular slots, whether it’s easier to get into those. Who does those?

Emma Loffhagen (11:48):

In terms of the fiction ones, those are Charlotte, Lise, Justine, they’re all kind of editing that because that’s very both in the magazine. Ella as well is involved in that. So Ella’s very responsive.

Alessia Horwich (12:03):

And if you’re pitching for a regular slot, how can you make that really clear in a pitch email?

Emma Loffhagen (12:07):

Put it at the beginning. If you’ve got a slot in mind, and also that’s really helpful for us because A, it shows that you are engaging with the content and have an idea of where you think your client can fit, maybe even put it in the subject line, but also if you think that an author could work for a few different sections, then I happily say that and we’ll see. And I think it also depends, like sometimes we’re backed up for ages with these things so we won’t have space. It doesn’t work timings wise and then other times we’ll need one. So yeah, it’s hard to predict the ebbs and flows.

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Alessia Horwich (13:45):

I want to ask you about what you need to put in a pitching mode, but I also want to ask you about reviews because they are kind of these mystical things that there’s no guarantee that you can get one, but everybody wants one.

(13:55):

How do you decide what you’re going to review?

Emma Loffhagen (13:57):

It’s hard to have a particular rule. I think because in terms of reviews, for me, it’s me pitching to my editors to write a review. So for example, at the beginning of, or rather at the end of last year, actually, I went through all of the kind of spring catalogues that I had been sent and just literally made a list of all the books that sounded interesting to me and obviously that’s me. I’m subjective and I’m sure lots of writers and editors are doing this and it is all very subjective. But yeah, I made a list of the ones that sounded interesting to me and then I said to my editors like, “These are the books that are sending out to me. “

Alessia Horwich (14:36):

When you say that to them, what is it that makes them say yes or no? What little things do you put in your pitch?

Emma Loffhagen (14:42):

I think it really depends on the book. For example, we’re talking at the beginning about it books. So I got an email from a particular PR whose taste I really respect and I think he knows when a book will sell and he said that this book is good. And then like sometimes I’ve read the book, sometimes I haven’t. There are a few that I sent to my editor at the beginning of the year that I had read, but most of them I hadn’t read. I just thought they sounded good and I’ll say, “This person said that this is really interesting and this person has blurbed it. ” I mean sometimes that can …

Alessia Horwich (15:23):

It seems like all these little things help though, because I mean, I’m obviously thinking what can a PR pull out for you that’s going to make you go, “Oh yeah, well maybe it would be worth it. ” And the blurb thing works.

Emma Loffhagen (15:34):

Yeah, blurbing is handy.

Alessia Horwich (15:34):

Prizes, interesting imprints. Yeah. Another thing about pitching for an author profile is like, what do you need to know about the person themselves? Are you guys always pushing these personal narrative stories or, because I think this is something that comes up that’s very interesting between male and female authors. Female authors are always expected to like pedal their personal narratives to promote their books, whereas you don’t get that so much from men. What’s the guardian sort of taking it? Do you need a really interesting backstory from an author to do a profile on them?

Emma Loffhagen (16:03):

I don’t think so. I think the book is the focus and I think particularly if you are a lesser known author or a debut author, I think readers want to know whether they want to read your book basically because most authors are not trying to be celebrities and if you’ve got an interesting life, then fine talk about your interesting life, but you can equally just talk about your book. And I think that often does the job. But if there is something from an author’s life that they feel comfortable talking about that could make for an interesting feature alongside them talking about their book, that’s great. But I don’t think it’s necessarily necessary.

Alessia Horwich (16:46):

For these regular slots and listen things, if you’re pitching for one of the ones where the authors choose a load of books that they like, should you pitch the books that they want to choose or I mean, does that help? What’s the best way to kind of say I’ve got this author?

Emma Loffhagen (16:59):

Not necessarily. I don’t think. I think like for example, when we’re doing it for the newsletter, when we’re getting writers or authors to pick books that they’re recommending, we don’t need them to be recommending a certain type of book or that’s not going to necessarily sway it. I think it’s just-

Alessia Horwich (17:15):

What does sway it?

Emma Loffhagen (17:16):

Often it’s people coming to us because they’ve got a book out that month or they want something and that’s fine, particularly for the newsletter we’re just keen to get an author to touch.

Alessia Horwich (17:28):

Do you have to think about balancing all the voices you’ve got across the book in any particular week?

Emma Loffhagen (17:34):

Yeah. So sometimes things move around for that reason, especially with features. Reviews like less so because it’s less likely to be lots of crossover and also across the magazine, that’s another thing because books is so cohered with the rest of the magazine we don’t want to have the whole magazine be about one thing or suddenly notice that we’ve got only interviews with men or something. Those things are, we do have to keep in mind and often it is a thing of, oh God, we’ve just happened to have put all of these things in the magazine this week and no one really thought about the crossover. So there is a weekly magazine meeting which is kind of solely for that purpose to

Alessia Horwich (18:16):

Yeah

Emma Loffhagen (18:17):

Make sure that-

Alessia Horwich (18:17):

But it’s really important, isn’t it? Yeah. Yeah. In terms of sort of lead times for these things, like if that happens and you find out you’ve got like six things about white men, could you turn around something new very quickly or would you take it from the bank or how does it kind of work?

Emma Loffhagen (18:32):

Usually it’s a case of something that’s already been commissioned and this has happened to me a couple of times with things that I’m writing. So if I’m writing a feature or a cover feature or whatever, sometimes I’ll be like, “Oh, actually could you do this for tomorrow instead?” Because we need to move around, whatever. And that’s sort of how it works. It’s not usually, “Oh, we need to commission something, a whole new thing if for two dates time or something.” It’s usually, “Oh, we need to just hurry up that person writing the thing”.

Alessia Horwich (19:01):

If I’m a PR coming to you to pitch a book story, what’s the ideal amount of time that you would want to work on something good?

Emma Loffhagen (19:08):

I think with books, the longer the lead time, the better because you need to read the book. That usually does take quite a bit of time and especially-

Alessia Horwich (19:18):

How long does it take you to read a book?

Emma Loffhagen (19:19):

If I’m reviewing a book, it takes much longer because then I’m making notes and stuff. But also it’s like if you’re pitching an author to me or a feature idea to me that’s pegged to a book, I’m probably reading a lot of other books at the same time so it would be great to have a bit of time to factor it in. But I mean in general, I can read really fast, but I usually try not to because if I’m reading for work, it’s usually because I’m writing about it so I need to be able to draw out the themes and stuff.

Alessia Horwich (19:51):

Can Books PRs do anything to help you with this? I. E., could they say to you, look, I’ve got a great new book, I think you’re really going to enjoy it. It’s for you for all these reasons. If you want to read just a tiny bit of it, I think this chapter 13, pages one to six or whatever are a really good demonstration of what it’s all about. Is that helpful or is that just way too prescriptive?

Emma Loffhagen (20:11):

I think no one’s ever done that, but I think it is kind of helpful because otherwise you kind of are a little overwhelmed with the books that you want to read. But also for me, I think I’m really bad at not reading a whole book so I probably just would read the whole book.

Alessia Horwich (20:30):

What’s the best strategy for pitching nonfiction? What other kind of things that you can pull out that work for features for you guys?

Emma Loffhagen (20:37):

Firstly, David Shariatmadari is the nonfiction editor. In terms of the ideas, anything that is sort of newsy and has a kind of timely peg is always great. Obviously nonfiction is probably going to be more likely to be political than fiction. So think about the guardians like sort of social and political bent and something that would align with us there.

Alessia Horwich (21:09):

Do you take features that are written by the authors?

Emma Loffhagen (21:12):

I think those would usually be the higher profile authors, but it’s not a definite that we wouldn’t, but I think it would have to be … And also that could be something for the wider magazine as well in terms of nonfiction that could be like a feature in the magazine.

Alessia Horwich (21:29):

Yeah. Just does it bust out in that sense if it’s something that’s well that’s topical.

Emma Loffhagen (21:33):

Yeah. So if it’s topical, it wouldn’t have to be limited to our section. It could be in the magazine or just like a general feature for G2 or whatever it might be.

Alessia Horwich (21:44):

If that was the case, is it best to pitch first to David?

Emma Loffhagen (21:48):

Yeah, I’d say so. The magazine often does like big meaty features about a really juicy sociological political topic, so it’s always worth going to them as well.

Alessia Horwich (22:00):

Let’s talk specifically about pitching now. So you said about the newsletter about ideas on Wednesday, finished it on Friday. How does the books team’s week work in terms of putting together the edition for the weekend? When should ideas be pitched to you? What time of the week works?

Emma Loffhagen (22:16):

I think it depends on what the pitch is. If it’s not something that’s super timely, like if it’s a book that’s coming out in a few months or something, I think then the time of day or day of the week doesn’t matter so much. If it’s a book’s news story for example, then better to pitch first thing in the morning, like 60 PM on a Friday is not ideal.

Alessia Horwich (22:40):

No, definitely not.

Emma Loffhagen (22:41):

But I like to read my inbox first thing in the morning. I want to know that you know what we do at the magazine and on the book’s desk and like ideally, like I said, we’ve got all these different sections. So if you have a kind of cognizance of where your author could fit into those sections, that’s always really helpful. I mean, also the sort of basic things that I always say is like, if you’re pitching me an article that you want to write, make that clear. If you’re pitching me a client who you want me to feature, make that clear, why is this interesting for me? And that needs to be quite high up. I think knowing the sections is a really big one because also then it’s helpful for us, but it’s also helpful for a PR to know that there are lots of different ways that you can get coverage, which isn’t just a review or like a dedicated interview feature, because obviously those are very coveted, but they’re also like kind of hard to achieve.

(23:39):

So yeah, be familiar with the sections.

Alessia Horwich (23:43):

I guess the big tip there is newsletter guys.

Emma Loffhagen (23:44):

Yeah. Newsletter. It’s every week and we’re always looking for stuff to put in it. Ensure that there’s enough time for us to read your email and read the book.

Alessia Horwich (23:57):

What’s the perfect amount of time? Like six weeks, eight weeks?

Emma Loffhagen (24:01):

Maybe eight weeks. I was going to say the longer the better, but then sometimes it can kind of- Yeah, if it’s too far off. Yeah. It’s a bit like, oh, then I’ll put that to the back of my mind and then I might actually forget about it. So yeah, maybe eight weeks. Yeah. Six weeks might be a little too short if it’s like a book that you want me to be able to read and then write something and then put it in the magazine in that time. So maybe eight weeks.

Alessia Horwich (24:25):

Emma, thank you so much for coming in and

Emma Loffhagen (24:26):

Telling us all your

Alessia Horwich (24:27):

Secrets. No problem. I hope you will get lots of good pictures.

Emma Loffhagen (24:30):

I hope so too.