About Me

 

I opened  my literary agency in  2008.  Prior to that, I was the owner of the legendary  Cody's Books in Berkeley for 30 years. During that time, I sold more than 10 million  books and  hosted over 5000 events for some of the world’s greatest authors.  In 1989, Cody’s was fire bombed  in retaliation for the store featuring  Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. This  made us the first victim of  international  terrorism in The United States, which goes to show that bookselling can be a dangerous business. We never stopped selling the book.

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 My agency represents books in a  wide range of  non-fiction genres  including: narrative non-fiction, science, journalism, history, popular culture, memoir,  and  current events. I also represent literary, commercial, historical, crime, upmarket women’s fiction, and YA fiction.  My client, former Paparazzi,  Jennifer Buhl’s memoir: Shooting Stars was recently optioned to a major Hollywood studio and is currently  in development for a scripted series.

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 Tawni Waters, author of  Beauty Of The Broken [Simon / Pulse, 2014]  and winner of the International Literacy Association YA Award, said this about me: “Since the day I signed with him, Andy has been an amazing friend, ally, and editor.  He fell in love with Beauty of the Broken when it was in rather raw form and spent months helping me hone and polish the manuscript.  He has a keen eye and is able to expertly assist both with global editorial issues and line editing. Before I met Andy, Beauty of the Broken had been represented by another agent and had failed to sell.  However, within weeks of submission, Andy's edited manuscript garnered interest from several major publishing houses.  Shortly thereafter, we signed a contract with Simon Pulse.  I have no doubt Andy's edits were the thing that gave Beauty of the Broken the polish it needed to sell to a mainstream publisher. “

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Authors I represent include: Daniel Ellsberg, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, Anjanette Delgado, Elisa Kleven, Tawni Waters, Randall Platt, Mary Jo McConahay,  Gerald Nachman,  Michael Parenti, Paul Krassner, Milton Viorst, Beth Hensperger, and Michele Anna Jordan.

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I am a member of the Association of Author Representatives (AAR).

In 2009, I started by blog, “Ask the Agent”. Most of the blog posts deal with subjects of interest to writers. The blog has had close to 500,000 views.

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Check out my agency website and blog.                                                                 .

Website: www.andyrossagency.com

Blog:   "Ask the Agent"  www.andyrossagency.wordpress.com