Sandra Bruna: "There is a difference of degree between being an author and a writer"

BarcelonaSandra Bruna (Barcelona, 1973) made the decision to launch her own literary agency when she was only 28 years old, even though she already had a decade of experience in the sector. A quarter of a century later, the agency represents a hundred authors –among whom are Maria Barbal, Francesc Miralles, Alejandro Palomas and Care Santos– and has a dozen employees. The first thing one sees when entering the office located on Carrer Còrsega in Barcelona's Eixample district is a large window from which the towers, already in an advanced phase of construction, of the Sagrada Família rise up. The image is a good metaphor for the Catalan agency itself, which despite being one of the most important still has the ambition to expand a little more.

When, in 2001, you opened your own literary agency, you already knew the profession very well. If I understand correctly, your first steps were with Mercedes Casanovas.

— My mother worked as an accountant at the Mercedes agency and mentioned to them that I was about to start studying philology. The summer before starting my degree, I spent it at the agency, packing parcels. From that initial position, I began to discover the trade and the sector. It is very important to have been able to know all the jobs in a company, if one day you want to end up directing one, as ended up being my case.

How come you studied philology?

— I started with Catalan philology, but later I switched to Hispanic studies. Since I was a little girl, I had really enjoyed reading and writing. I remember the novels by Enid Blyton, the Puck saga... and later on, Aloma, by Rodoreda, and Luces de bohemia, by Valle Inclán. My father, who was a sales representative, was a great reader and used to recommend that we read. Both my sister Berta and I loved it. Our whole family ended up linked to the agency: my mother helped us with accounting matters, which my brother now handles; my father was in charge of selecting manuscripts for a time, and Berta, after having worked at Random House, Mondadori, Planeta, and Grup 62—where she ended up directing Columna—, also came to the agency.

Do you remember your first trip to the Frankfurt Book Fair?

— Yes. I went there very early, in 1993. I will never forget it. Something terrible happened while I was flying to my first Frankfurt Book Fair.

Which?

— My grandfather died. Although my mother would have preferred that I did not know until I returned to Barcelona, Mercedes let it slip while we were there. I remember that I was staying in a private house and that when the owners saw me crying they told me to call my family.

It must have been a difficult moment.

— It was a difficult moment and one of many nerves, but I was also aware that I had to do my job. Later on, when I already had my own agency, I became a mother, and going to the fair also became complicated. My son would get a fever of 39 °C every time I had to go. It was horrible. I was doubting whether to go or not, and my husband told me not to stay here, that the boy would be fine right away.

Now your son must be grown up and you must be able to leave in peace.

— It is different now, yes. Sometimes, when my son asked me why he didn't have a brother, I would tell him that he did have one: the agency.

Is the bond with the agency that strong?

— It requires great dedication. If you are not passionate about this job, it is better not to get into it, because sooner or later you will end up quitting.

How is it that you decided to take the step of leaving the Mercedes Casanovas agency at only 28 years old?

— I don't know if I would have dared in today's world, but at that time I had received many offers to work as an editor, both at Planeta and at smaller publishing houses, and Mercedes had been giving me more and more freedom within the agency. When I left, I was representing authors like Eduard Estivill, Care Santos and Robert Saladrigas and I was also in charge of the foreign catalogues section.

Were the beginnings difficult?

— It was easier than I imagined, because many of the authors I represented at Mercedes' agency came with me. And it didn't take long for Coia Valls, Héctor García, and Sònia Fernández-Vidal to arrive.

How did you distinguish yourself from what other agencies were doing at that time?

— Since many Catalan authors did not have an agent at that time, I bet on that. It also seemed to me that children's and young adult literature had potential. I was immediately interested in non-fiction, which at that time was considered second-tier. By 2002, we already had a very important author for us: Francesc Miralles. The novel Amor en minúscula [Ediciones B, 2006] was translated into almost thirty languages. Later on, the non-fiction book Ikigai [Urano, 2016] has sold more than five million copies and has been translated into more than seventy languages.

One of the authors who helped you grow was Ildefonso Falcones. From the agency, you managed to get La catedral del mar –later translated into Catalan as L'església del mar– published by Grijalbo, and it immediately became a sales phenomenon.

— We gave it to Francesc [Miralles] to read and he said it was the Catalan version of The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett. That was how we sold it to the publisher. It became such a huge success that we could not have foreseen it. Cathedral of the Sea also gave us great international visibility. Falcones was a new voice. If he did not stay with us longer, it was because he is an author with a lot of character.

From your agency, you currently represent 170 authors. In these 25 years, have you gone through any difficult moments?

— The year of the pandemic, the agency had to downsize. For a couple or three years we hadn't had many things that shone and the lockdown made everything a little more difficult. We were left with five people. Since then we have been able to grow and now there are ten of us, apart from the team that runs Bruna Talent, which offers services to those authors who send us manuscripts and need an editorial coach so that their book can reach its optimal form. An author we represent, M.J. Bausá, coordinates a team of 35 freelance technicians.

The feeling is that more and more people are writing and want to publish books.

— There are many authors, that is true, but there is a difference in degree between being an author and a writer. In the market there is a high level of demand and at the same time we have the feeling that everything is being published. Now I see that there are few publishers that bet on books that are very well written but that cannot be easily labeled.

One of the labels that has sold the most lately is romantasy, right?

— Now we see that it is starting to wear out a little, but it continues to be a phenomenon. At the agency, we handle the foreign catalog of Rebecca Yarros, author of the Empyrean series, and the volume of translations and annual copyright royalties is very large. It is lucky to have her, but it is also demanding work.

Tell me about some other foreign bestseller that you represent.

— Taylor Jenkins Reid, author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, and Rick Riordan, who writes fantasy for young people, with series like Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

After 35 years dedicated to the profession of agent, 25 of which from your own company, what continues to surprise you?

— It is a profession in which you encounter different challenges every day. If you want to do it well, you must have read a lot, you must know how to put negotiation strategies on the table, know languages, always be prepared to travel and to do networking. One of the most important aspects is learning to have a lot of psychology to set limits and barriers. The authors are not friends, because they are your clients, but sometimes it becomes very difficult not to break this rule.

Does dealing with editors also require psychological skills?

— Yes, of course. It is always said that dealing with authors requires a lot of tact, but with editors, too. There are very delicate moments, such as when you have to say no to an editor who really wanted a book. You have to know how to choose the way to do it and also the most appropriate occasion.