Here are some examples:

Green covers don’t work—and then there was GOOD NIGHT MOON.

Books about dead or abused children won’t sell—now the true crime category is back and books like Hanya Yanagihara’s A LITTLE LIFE have become bestsellers.

Short story collections don’t do well.   And then along comes Jennifer Egan’s A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD.

Books about death are a “no no” but what about BEING MORTAL and WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR?

And, finally, we all know that books with unlikeable protagonists definitely don’t work, but what about those in GONE GIRL or Meg Wolitzer’s THE INTERESTINGS?

I guess rules are made to be broken and, I have to say, I am always delighted when those in our industry are.  It makes life so much more interesting.

I wonder whether you have any examples of what you have been told definitely won’t work…until it does.  Let me know.

And it doesn’t help, too, that the more I look at Matt and Sweat (such great names!) I see George Clooney and Tim Blake Nelson playing them in the movie version:

But while I can’t wait to see how it all ends, I’m having trouble wrapping my agent hat around it. For one, where does a prison-break story fall in terms of genre? On first glance, I’d say True Crime, but the crime here isn’t murder—at least not yet—which still seems like a prerequisite for the genre. But if not True Crime, then what? Moreover, with the story having so much media attention and legs so far, what would be covered in a book that hasn’t already been seen on TV or the Web? It’s an issue that’s bedeviled traditional True Crime for years, and unless an author can get access to Matt, Sweat, or Mitchell, it’s hard to see what would pass the “new and newsworthy” test.

So, what’s the angle? It’s a question agents ask ourselves all the time, especially when it comes to stories in the news. If any readers have any ideas, I’d love to hear them, because I do think there’s something here, or that there will be down the line. At the very least, we can play the casting game—any thoughts on who plays Joyce?

So for today’s blog entry, a plea to you from me:  I want to represent the book that feels like this podcast feels.  I want that tension.  I want that slow unfolding and conversational reportage.  Fiction or nonfiction is fine, but I’m not looking for a run-of-the-mill mystery or true crime book.  I want something that feels huge and also intimate.  A book where every answer raises more questions and then explores all those paths looking for the truth.  I want a book where I’m dying to get back to it and desperate for friends to read it to so we can talk about what we think is happening as we read.  I want to be certain and then confounded and certain again and endlessly curious.  I want something that grips me from the first sentence and maybe won’t ever let me go.

So if you’re the author of that book and you’re looking for an agent, please query me.  And if you want to just talk about Serial, hit me up in the comments or on Twitter (@laurenabramo). (Though let’s try not to spoil it below for anyone who’s just diving in.)

The other day Lauren Abramo pointed out this piece to me and it brought to mind how much the category of true crime non-fiction has changed over the last twenty or more years.

When I began representing books in this category, they were almost always published initially in hardcover and you could be sure once a high-profile crime was committed and someone arrested for it, there would be three or four authors rushing proposals out to publishers through their agents. I can actually remember one of my true crime writers coming through my office door with the proposal he had stayed up all night to finish just to beat out the next writer. When the Amy Fisher murder case happened, for example, my client’s book was one of three made-for-TV movies that aired.

Advances for true crime in those days could be substantial, which is why so many people wanted to get in the game, so to speak.

Over the years though, these books came to be published only in a mass market paperback format and advances went way, way down. That was the bad news; the good news is that full proposals are no longer necessary, especially for writers who have previously published in the category. Even when there needs to be some kind of a proposal, it nowhere near as complete as it once had to be.

True crime today is fairly formulaic. It must have a sensational murder; the characters need to be people whom the reader can truly relate to and it doesn’t hurt if there is lots of money and sex involved.

We are still handling several true crime titles every year and, though the advances are low, they very often earn out and so the writers earn royalties (which they generally didn’t when the advances were higher). Still, this is a very difficult category to succeed in. It takes someone who is persevering, energetic and patient enough to search out just the right cases.

If you have any questions about this category, I am happy to try to answer them.