The Bookseller.com

8th January 2009

Daisy Frost

Daisy Frost is an agent at the Edward Cecil Literary Agency. She blogs at missdaisyfrost.com.

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12.06.08

I can only think of a couple of occas­ions on which I have been genuinely star-struck. The first was with the Queen (the actual one as opposed to Madonna): I almost called her Lillibet, but panicked and said, “Hello, the Queen”, which made my poor dad almost swallow his fist.

The second time was at the BA Conference when watching David “Windy” Miller descend from his throne as the Orion Literary Agent of the Year. I have known David for years—I nursed him through that difficult week last June when there were no launch parties for him to adorn—but even I felt overwhelmed by this coronation and half-curtseyed.

Peter Straus and Gill Coleridge covered the ground with rose petals, I thought I heard a chorus of angels, anything felt possible. I sat at the end of the pier afterwards with failed finalists Sheila, Luigi and Robert, consoling each other that industry recognition wasn’t important at all—we were much happier ramming our days with unsolicited calls from del­usional weirdos who think they can write. In fact, we would have all turned down the award had it been offered to us. (That is a lie.)

Hay was a nightmare as usual—all thermos flasks and blustering tents full of earnest literati. What was Lady Gush doing in that muddy field with six secret service men, ex-President Jimmy Carter AND Twiggy? Next year I am going to do “Hay-Lite”: sleep in my garden under the sprinkler and cover myself with mud while reading the Guardian  and listening to Mariella on my laptop.

On my way to the Orange, I shared a cab with darling Malcolm Edwards, who said things were shaky with Orion and that Hachette was battling with Amazon. My initial thought was: “Oh, damn! I must have forgotten to Sky+ the new season of ‘Gladiators’.” But it dawned that this was just another day in the wonderful business that we call publishing. Maybe, just maybe, if sweet old Hely-Hutch hadn’t busted the Net Book Agreement back when I was just a glint in the milkman’s eye, perhaps we might not be in this state. Just a thought, darling Timmy.

JonnyG from Curtis Brown seems to be netting every­one recently but he is not getting his hands on my new super signings: Alex and Lee from “The Apprentice”. Telling them SurAlan was my godfather was probably a stroke of genius—they looked terrified and signed immediately. It looks like Vermilion will be snapping up Alex’s bitter memoir, Beauty and the Beasts: 24 Years of Me Against the World, whereas Lees’ laddish novel, S’what I’mtalkingabaht, has become the subject of a bidding war between Dangerous Dan at Cape (who thinks it is post-modern) and Jake Lingwood at Ebury (who thinks it is post-watershed).

But I was absolutely gutted to lose the pitch to represent SurAlan’s Nick and Margaret. After 14 hellish interviews over 14 weeks, I fall at the final hurdle to their literary counterparts, Patrick Walsh and Claire Conville. Before we know it they’ll have their own chat show—guests to include King David the First.

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