The HHB Agency refocuses for its second act

It is less than two minutes after Elly James and I sit down for a chat when she starts talking about the HHB Agency’s values. Which makes it sound as if she might have just come off some sort of evangelising McKinsey & Co innovation summit and wants to bring some of the thought showers and blue-sky thinking back to the mother ship. But there is more grounded context here.

It has been almost two years since HHB founder Heather Holden-Brown retired and handed the keys over to her long-time colleague (James had joined a couple of years after HHB launched in 2003). A lot of James’ time since has been taking up with the more practical aspects that arise when a duo becomes a solo act. She says: “There has been a lot of consolidation and shoring up. Heather and I had a lot of crossover before she left, but I really wanted to make sure that the clients I didn’t know so well beforehand felt they were being looked after with that same level of author care. There has been getting a handle on the business and making sure that I have the capacity to look after who we have, so I haven’t taken on loads of new clients – maybe five or six – in the past two years.”

But along with those practicalities, there has been a deeper thinking about HHB’s DNA. Which is still centred on its founding principles: “Heather was very big on author care and being optimistic. I’m naturally much more of a cynic than she is but I try to emulate all the positives of being a small agency.

But we were set up under the banner of ‘Words That Matter’ and this holds true for me, especially in an AI world. We want to represent books by writers who also value the power of words and use them for good; with rigour and through skilled storytelling. Despite shaky times for non-fiction in particular, I feel confident that we still need new ways to consider and understand our place within an increasingly conflicted world – whether that is through expert voices or the escapism of fiction.”

Fleet street

There is a decent case that, pound-for-pound, HHB has one of the starriest agencies in Britain. James’ roster includes a fleet of journalists turned authors, with a particular pipeline from Aunty Beeb, including ex-BBC Radio 4 Today (and now Bloomberg) presenter Mishal Husain, the corporation’s former tech correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones, longtime Big Breakfast star Louise Minchin and BBC Verify brainbox Ben Chu. There are heavyweight prize-winners such as James Hanning, while the wellness, food and drink stable is particularly strong (Holden-Brown launched HHB after a career in non-fiction publishing, and cookery in particular was a foundation stone) featuring the likes of Charlotte Pike, Lalitaa Suglani, Saliha Mahmood-Ahmed and Sophie Grigson.

You will note the above are non-fiction authors, in the main. But James has a sizeable and growing list of bestselling novelists, too (“and I’m hungry for more”), most of whom write in the commercial or book-club space, including Charlotte Betts, Emma Burstall, Annabelle Thorpe and Molly Green.

But the majority of HHB’s clients write non-fiction, which, of course, has been a more difficult sell of late, particularly in the UK. While not pooh-poohing the downturn, James (despite her previously avowed innate cynicism) remains optimistic. “There are the undulating waves of the market, and we still have made some great deals. But you have to think about your strategy, and be selective in what you take on. There is still a huge appetite for good stories that make sense of a world that is feeling evermore difficult to manage. So high-quality non-fiction, and fiction, will always find a home.”

Continues…