Literary agent Oscar Janson-Smith has worked on numerous books by high-profile names in the creator industry. This range from cookbooks – including Hari Beavis’ Country Comfort and Niall Kirkland’s The Good Bite’s High Protein Meal Prep Manual – to fiction, such as The Potting Shed Murder by Paula Sutton. Janson-Smith also brokered the deal for boxer Tommy Fury‘s autobiography Lightning Can Strike Twice, as well as The Wanted’s Tom Parker, who wrote his memoir Hope while battling brain cancer.
The literary agent didn’t have a conventional journey into his industry. “I always wanted to get into publishing, but at the time it wasn’t really an option if you didn’t have an English Lit degree,” he says. He left school early and after a few different jobs, landed a role as an estate agent. From there, he moved into advertising, then talent management, and after working on book projects, he realised this was his route. “I had this tiny little window of opportunity and just made it happen,” Janson-Smith says.
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With creator clients, he joins the publishing process at different points. “Sometimes I will approach someone with an idea or they might have had ideas before, and we’ll work on shaping it into something commercially viable together,” he says. He then supports the author throughout the process of getting a book deal and stays by their side until publication and beyond. “For 95% of my authors, I’m not just thinking about one book, hopefully we’ll be working together 10 years in the future,” he says.
So how does he determine which creators’ should be in print? “Likes don’t count for that much in my opinion, but if someone is talking about something interesting and they have a clear community, that’s usually a very good start,” he says. Likeability and the capacity to write a book is also essential, though some creators get writing support or work with ghost writers. “The days of people throwing money at people just because they’ve got platforms are gone, publishers really do interrogate the value of what’s being proposed,” he says.
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The publishing industry is keenly aware of the power of #BookTok, which has more than 38 million tagged videos. In 2023, 48% of TikTok users in the US and 53% of Canadian users reported reading more because of BookTok, and in 2022 90 million book purchases in the UK were inspired by the community. “Publishing marketing budgets aren’t what they were, so if you can get organic traction online, and you get people with a bit of clout talking about your books, that’s a game changer,” he says.
For example, TikToker and psychologist Dr Julie Smith’s mental health book Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? has sold more than one million copies and was the best-selling non-fiction book in the UK in 2022. “I think even the snobbiest editor or agent, their eyes open a little bit when they look at the bestseller charts and see there’s a number one bestseller there because of their large platform and engaged audience,” Janson-Smith says.
He is expecting an uptick in successful books from TikTok creators as their audiences grow up and the platform develops. At the same time, he is wary to work with TikTokers who haven’t migrated their following over to Instagram as well. “It suggests the audience are engaging more with the content and not with the creator, which isn’t always going to result in a book that does well,” he says.
The literary agent says there’s currently an appetite for literature with purpose. “Books that improve people’s lives in some way, be that financial advice, wellness advice or healthy cookery,” he says. Tiwalola Ogunlesi’s self-help book Confident and Killing It is among his published projects, as well as financial creator Ellie Austin-Williams’ Money Talks.
“A lot of the time, the books doing well are from people with platforms or public profiles – it’s just a reflection of the world we live in,” he says and adds; “I don’t think the appetite for creator-led books is going to wane”.
By Dina Zubi, news and features writer for CORQ. Picture credit: Oscar Janson-Smith.
