(Arabella Stein is the first one from the left.)
ARABELLA STEIN (UK) is an agent with the London-based literary agency Abner Stein. She began her career at Pan Macmillan UK and was subsequently commercial fiction publisher at Fourth Estate and paperback publishing director at Bloomsbury UK. Arabella Stein is a guest of the VIP Program, an initiative of the Australia Council for the Arts.
LinkedIn (can’t access her page): https://www.linkedin.com/pub/arabella-stein/0/1b9/57
Genres this agent is interested in:
Travel, Science, Politics, society & current affairs, Other non-fiction, Religion, Mind, Body, Spirit, Memoir and autobiography, Food and Cookery, History, Women’s fiction, Science fiction, Paranormal romance, Horror, Historical fiction, Genre romance, Fantasy, Erotica, Crime, thriller, action, General Fiction, Literary Fiction.
Abner Stein Agency
10 Roland Gardens
SW7 3PH
United Kingdom
Phone: (020) 7373 0456
Fax: (020) 7370 6316
Contact:
Caspian Dennis caspian@abnerstein.co.uk
Arabella Stein arabella@abnerstein.co.uk
Official Website: (not much information) http://abnerstein.co.uk/
Founded 1971. Mainly represents US agents and authors but handles some full-length fiction, general non-fiction and children’s literature. No scientific, technical, etc. No scripts.
· Commission Home 10%; US & Translation 20%.
· Not taking on any new clients at present.
· Member of AAA
(http://www.thewritershandbook.com/sample.asp)
Partners and Clinets: (according to what I’ve found on Google):
Wales Literary Agency http://www.waleslit.com/rights/
Greenburger Associates http://greenburger.com/
Philip G. Spitzer http://spitzeragency.com/
Betsy Amster Literary Enterprises http://amsterlit.com/site/
James Fitzgerald Agency http://www.jfitzagency.com/
Doris S. Michaels Literary Agency http://dsmagency.com/
Waxman Leavell Literary Agency http://www.waxmanleavell.com/
Carol Mann Agency http://carolmannagency.wordpress.com/
Margaret Cezair-Thompson http://margaretcezairthompson.com/about
And so on.
Caroline Weber mentioned in her book Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution “Arabella Stein worked wonders with the sale of this book in Great Britain.”
Gillian Bagwell mentioned her in the thank-you list of the book The September Queen.
(And a few similar appearance.)
In The Media:
Abner Stein’s daughter to run agency ‘as partnership’
01.17.11 | The Bookseller
http://www.thebookseller.com/news/abner-steins-daughter-run-agency-partnership.html
The Abner Stein literary agency will be run as a partnership by his daughter Arabella, as well as Sandy Violette and Caspian Dennis, following Stein’s death last week.
In a statement, the agency said Abner Stein died last Wednesday (12th January) following a brief illness. It said: “He is survived by his daughters Jessica and Arabella, his sister Linda Clark, and his granddaughter Natalie. He will be greatly missed by his family and all his many friends and colleagues in London, New York, and worldwide.”
Stein put in place a succession plan several years ago, which will see Arabella Stein, Sandy Violette and Caspian Dennis run the agency in partnership.
Stein was born in Massachusetts in 1938 and worked at several American publishers before moving to London in the 1960s to join Sphere. He formed the eponymous literary agency in 1971, representing American publishers and agents as well as British and overseas clients.
(Arabella’s fundraising page for Little Hearts Matter: http://www.justgiving.com/Arabella-Stein)
Agent Abner Stein Dies
1/27/2011 | Publishers Weekly
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/obituaries/article/45916-agent-abner-stein-dies.html
Longtime agent Abner Stein died earlier this month. He was 70. Stein worked at various American houses before moving to London in the 1960s to join Sphere Books. In 1971, he launched his own eponymous agency, representing American publishers and agents, as well as British clients and others from around the globe. In the wake of his death, the Abner Stein Agency will be run as partnership between (his daughter) Arabella Stein, Sandy Violette, and Caspian Dennis.
Faber buys two from Lippman
09.17.12 | The Bookseller
http://www.thebookseller.com/news/faber-buys-two-lippman.html
Faber and Faber has acquired the rights to two new crime novels from American novelist Laura Lippman.
The writer’s previous books were published in the UK by HarperCollins’ commercial imprint, Avon, but her 18th novel, And When She Was Good, will now be with Faber’s crime and thriller list.
Rights were bought for the UK and Commonwealth by Faber senior editor Angus Cargill from Arabella Stein on behalf of Vicky Bijur.
The e-book version of the novel will be released in November, with a mass-marker paperback following in May 2013.
Lippman’s US publishers, Morrow, will publish the books simultaneously.
S&S to publish tale of wartime bravery
01/13/14 | The Bookseller
http://www.thebookseller.com/news/ss-publish-tale-wartime-bravery.html
Simon & Schuster UK is set to publish the true story of Polish nurse Irena Sendler who helped to smuggle nearly 2,500 out of the Warsaw ghetto during the 1940s Holocaust.
The book was signed through Arabella Stein at Abner Stein on behalf of Lauren Abramo at Dystel and Goderich Literary Management.
Book Deals: The Round-up
4/30/2012
http://chicklitchloe.blogspot.com/2012/04/book-deals-round-up_30.html
Senior editor Kate Howard bought British Commonwealth rights in the title from Arabella Stein at Abner Stein on behalf of Stephen Barbara at Foundry Literary + Media, with plans to publish in hardcover in autumn 2014.
(And a few other book deals on the internet.)
Abner Stein: Literary agent who championed American writing in the United Kingdom
4/5/2011 | The Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/abner-stein-literary-agent-who-championed-american-writing-in-the-united-kingdom-2262369.html
For more than 30 years Abner Stein was one of London’s most successful but least visible literary agents; this despite the fact that he worked with a select group of American agents and publishers on whose behalf he represented some of the most important American bestselling authors of the past 20 years. These included Dan Brown, John Grisham, Jonathan Franzen, Sue Grafton, Audrey Niffenegger, Jane Smiley, Amy Tan, David Baldacci and hundreds of others. Arguably no other literary agent had so many bestsellers, nor such a dazzling list of authors, with repeat successes every year (the Holy Grail of every publisher and literary agent).
Yet, despite this staggering success and exemplary reputation in the book trade, Stein was invisible outside it, refusing ever to speak to the press or give interviews. While some agents want to be stars, elbowing their authors aside to bask in the limelight, Stein always remained in the shadows. He believed agents had no business courting publicity, but everything to do championing their authors’ interests and making publishers behave.
As one of his clients, the bestselling writer Raymond Feist, said: “Abner was old-school. Witty, knowledgeable regarding his work and the larger industry in which he practised it, Abner was the sort of person to whom a handshake was as good as a contract. He spoke truth to power, as the saying goes, dealing with authors whose egos made them as difficult as heads of state, publishers whose agendas might not necessarily be in Abner’s client’s best interests, and deftly navigating the shifting landscape of publishing over decades.”
Abner Stein was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1938. In 1964 he moved to London from New York when he was head-hunted to help create a new paperback publisher, Sphere, being set up by Lord Thomson, then owner of The Times. At the time Penguin and Pan were the leading imprints, although paperbacks were not yet a solid part of the ecology of the book world, as they were in the US.
Stein also founded the Poem of the Month Club, an ambitious subscription operation run from his Battersea home. Each poem was signed by the poet, and these included Fleur Adcock, Philip Larkin, Kingsley Amis, Brian Patten, Gavin Ewart, John Lehmann, DJ Enright, WH Auden, George Barker, Elizabeth Jennings, Anthony Thwaite, Stephen Spender, Roy Fuller, C Day Lewis, Stevie Smith and Robert Graves, for whose autograph Abner travelled specially to Majorca.
In 1971 Stein set up his eponymous agency. The Abner Stein Agency was, and has remained, unique because it was built on a co-agenting model – jointly representing authors in conjunction with another (almost invariably American) agency. Stein recognised very early on that literary culture, and particularly the mass market, was globalising, following trends in films and television, and that great American authors were not being properly sold into the UK. As the English, and indeed international, appetite for American writing grew, so did Stein’s agency. Whether it was crime, thrillers, literary fiction or the most commercial titles, the agency, through its arrangements with New York and international agencies, had the pick of the titles.
There were two secrets to its success. First, absolutely meticulous efficiency and flawless administration in a business not recognised for world-class organisation; this is a rare and underappreciated skill. Second, an amazing nose for the potential bestseller. Stein had the enviable knack of picking out the special books that would dominate bestseller lists for weeks and make a house’s fortune. These were not submitted with a perfect word-processed letter, but a short note, hand-typed by Abner himself on an obsolete Olivetti typewriter with a raised capital “S” (a troublesome letter from Mr Stein), and included Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence and Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays with Morrie.
In the late 1990s naysayers predicted the demise of co-agenting as the big publishing groups consolidated and tried to buy the biggest properties globally. But with a few exceptions this hasn’t happened because it is far more important to authors to be placed with the right house (for the right money) in each market. And only a great agent on the ground can do this. Jonathan Safran Foer, a client of the agency, expressed it perfectly: “Abner Stein was, professionally, and over time personally, like a father to me. He always fiercely defended me (and ‘fiercely’ really is the right word here – just ask anyone who has to sit across a table from him in negotiations). He was my uncompromising champion… I always looked forward to his sly chuckle, his matzo-dry humor, his knowing smile.”
Abner Stein, literary agent: born Boston, Massachusetts 6 December 1938; married 1968 Annabel Roney (marriage dissolved; two daughters); died London 12 January 2011.
