Janet says, "Many of my literary-agent colleagues began their careers at large publishing companies; I followed a different path. I've worked in several different jobs that have had two common themes: marketing and publishing. These include executive recruiting, directing a small publishing company, corporate marketing communications, and book promotion. I'm also a published novelist. I've co-written nine romantic suspense novels with my husband Ron, plus a romance novella that I wrote independently.
"My diverse background — including my work as a novelist — provides the wide-ranging experience I need to identify and successfully represent high-quality literary properties.
"The heart of my agenting style is to build strong working relationships with authors. I'm proud of my reputation as an accessible, responsive agent — an agent willing to chat with clients whenever time permits.
"Of course, my highly personalized agenting approach limits the number of authors I can represent. I must tightly control my client list so that I can effectively serve a small group of authors whose work I truly believe in."
Ron says, "I bring an unusual background to literary representation: I'm a highly experienced writer who's also an attorney familiar with publishing agreements, rights and subrights issues, and copyright law.
"On the writing side, I'm a published novelist. (I've co-written nine romantic suspense novels with Janet, plus two romance novellas that I wrote independently.) I also write non-fiction. My latest non-fiction books are The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Christian Fiction and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Christian Mysteries, both published by Penguin's Alpha imprint.
"As an agent, I enjoy working with good writers to fine-tune their novels and proposals, to increase the likelihood of capturing an editor's interest. Alas, as Janet noted, this kind of personalized agenting means that I must limit my client list to a few authors. I'm especially interested in representing high quality mainstream fiction and non-fiction."