Lauren Galit, a magazine editor by training, started the LKG agency in 2005 and is best known for representing many of the stars of TLC’s “What Not to Wear.” She sold Clinton Kelly’s Freakin’ Fabulous books, Carmindy Acosta’s 5 Minute Face and Get Positively Beautiful, and Nick Arrojo’s Great Hair. The LKG Agency has also worked with numerous magazine writers to help them launch their book projects.
However, in 2010, after selling associate Caitlen Rubino-Bradway’s Ordinary Magic to Bloomsbury US, LKG Agency opened its doors to children’s books…and the whole world exploded. Descendants of Revolutionary heroes and traitors, a teen struggling with OCD, art that comes alive, a boy who lives every day twice, a girl on a quest for a new bedtime reader, the dogs of Camelot – LKG authors have explored these themes and more. LKG focuses mainly on middle grade and young adult, only working on picture book projects with already established LKG authors. As for genre, LKG has a special interest in contemporary and magical realism but is open to fantasy, sci-fi, thriller, and more (but maybe not horror).
Regardless of the project, LKG doesn’t stop with the sale, negotiating each contract to make sure authors get the best deal possible, and continuing to hold their hands through delivery, publication, and publicity. Lauren also works with Sandy Hodgman, of Hodgman Literary, for foreign rights for her projects. Because, after all, writing a book is hard enough. LKG will guide authors through all the rest.
Lauren Galit
Agent: such a loaded job description. It’s the word you scream (AGENT!) into the phone when you get stuck in an airline or cable company’s automated loop. Or it might call to mind images of a classic real estate or Hollywood agent with slicked-back hair and too-sharp clothes. But that’s not who I am. My client, Clinton Kelly, once wrote in the acknowledgments of Freakin’ Fabulous: “Lauren Keller Galit, a totally chill agent who’s not even a jerk.”
Being a literary agent is my dream job (but then again, I was a literary geek at Harvard): I get to work with writers all day long, helping them craft their book ideas and manuscripts. And then, once the work is complete, I get to connect with editors to sell them on something I have passionately committed myself to for the past few months. And I get to chat — a lot (but hopefully not too much). With writers, with editors, with anyone who will listen. All good.
I also get to be a world-class dilettante. For each new project that comes along, I delve deep into that book’s world, asking questions with the authors. Who are these characters? How do they grow and change? How does the magic work? Would that plot point evolve organically out of the story?
I started my agenting career in 2002 at John Boswell Associates, a literary agency and book packager that’s most noted for creating 365 Ways To Cook Chicken, as well as countless other best sellers. Because Boswell was a packager as well as an agent, he taught me how to do more than just craft a proposal and sell it; he showed me how to create a book from scratch, working with designers and production people along the way. It is that attention to detail that I bring to my current projects, even if fiction. I help my authors envision what their books could be.
Before becoming an agent, I was a magazine editor for 10 years, starting at GQ (Gentleman’s Quarterly) and ending at GH (Good Housekeeping). That’s where I learned to edit and copy edit, to read and reread until an article or caption or pull quote was just so. It is a skill I bring to every book I work on with a writer. It won’t go out until it is just so, because the manuscript should beautifully and accurately represent the idea and characters an author is dying to bring to the world.
Sandy Hodgman, Foreign Rights
Sandy Hodgman is the founder of Hodgman Literary. A graduate of Colgate University, Sandy Hodgman has worked in publishing for over two decades. In the course of her career, she has licensed UK and translation rights for both major US publishers and independent literary agencies. Some of the authors she has had the pleasure of representing in the foreign market are Madeleine Albright, Akemi Dawn Bowman, Peggy Dean, Ree Drummond, Beth Evans, Emmy Laybourne, Gregory Maguire, Rafael Nadal, Jeremy Rifkin, Gene Simmons, Cynthia Swanson, Maria Toorpakai Wazir, among many others.
Sandy is a fixture at the London Book Fair, BookExpo America, and the Frankfurt Book Fair and travels overseas to maintain relationships and promote our titles throughout the year.
She is a member of the Association of American Literary Agents (AALA).