Elizabeth Evans - Editor
Literary agent turned publishing consultant, specializing in memoir, travel/adventure, popular science, and other stories strange and true.
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Overview
If your dream is to see your work in print, I can help you make that goal a reality. After twelve years of experience as a successful literary agent, I launched a freelance editing and consulting business to focus on what I love most: working directly with writers. While an agent, I sold over sixty books and guided dozens of aspiring authors through the publication process. I know what it takes to succeed as an author today, and I know what agents and editors are looking for. I can help you get there.
As a seasoned publishing professional, I provide a full range of editorial and publishing consulting services in both fiction and nonfiction, although nonfiction is my specialty. I am an expert at crafting and revising nonfiction proposals, and I can help you create a first rate proposal that will grab the attention of top agents and editors.
By nature, writing is a solitary process, but it doesn’t have to be a lonely one. Collaboration can be the key to unlocking your work’s full potential, and to making the experience less stressful and more fun. No matter what stage of the game you’re in – from creative brainstorming to polishing a final draft – I can provide sound guidance and counsel to help you navigate the path to publication.
TESTIMONIALS
"When I began seeking representation for my book, I had no idea what I was doing and felt mentally paralyzed by the undertaking. Even after doing days of research on potential agents, I couldn't find any that seemed to suit my specific genre and I felt so isolated and discouraged. It felt like a miracle to find Elizabeth as an agent matchmaker, who was like my fairy godmother through the daunting query process! She promptly took on the challenging task of seeking out agents who might be open to my unusual and hard-to-explain book idea, and she was so encouraging along the way.
Not only did she present me with a thorough list of potential agents, each with an explanation of why she chose them and extra helpful notes, but she got my query letter into shape and gave me great advice on how to present myself to agents. After our emails and phone call, I felt like I had my own personal cheer squad of one behind me, and I felt so much more confident in pitching my idea.
Within two weeks, I signed onto the ideal agency for me. A couple months later, I signed a fantastic book deal that has completely changed my life. None of this would have been possible without Elizabeth's guidance. I credit her entirely with getting me through the intimidating query process and for finding an agency that perfectly aligned with my career goals. Elizabeth is equal parts warm and powerful. She's kind and helpful, and she gets it done!" - Mari Andrew, Author of the forthcoming ANATOMY OF AN ADULT (Clarkson Potter, 2018)
"Elizabeth Evans provided vital opinions and patient advice relating to form and content. She took a primordial, amorphous blob of words and squeezed it into the functional format that evolved into a live - and not too bad - book. Her casual demeanor, thoughtful encouragement, and subtle input masked a critical professionalism that greatly improved my work." - Bill McConnell, Author of HIRE HONESTY
"It is incredibly difficult to convey in a few sentences how utterly wonderful and instrumental Elizabeth has been in helping me navigate the publishing world—my back has never felt so safe. Having spent two years with her as my agent, I am roughly one hundred percent sure that nobody else would have been able to instill such a calm, steady courage in a writer so young and uncultivated. Quite frankly, she is a superwoman." Ella Frances Sanders, New York Times bestselling author of LOST IN TRANSLATION
“I had the privilege of calling Elizabeth Evans my agent for six years, during which she secured six book deals for me, as well as various international, audio and app-related opportunities. During this time, I relied on her wise counsel on everything from proposal strategies to writing edits and I credit her expertise for allowing me to become a published author. Elizabeth is intelligent, trustworthy and compassionate—any writer would be lucky to have the chance to work with such a talented literary professional.” Natasha Burton, Co-Author of THE LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF BIG RED FLAGS and Author of 101 QUIZZES FOR COUPLES and 101 QUIZZES FOR BFFs
“Elizabeth Evans has been invaluable to me in my writing career. Not only did she encourage me to delve into tackling books to begin with, she helped me to navigate the unfamiliar and ever-evolving world of the publishing industry. I always valued her sound advice and wise counsel on a host of different topics. Our discussions always led to better ideas, better writing, and better books, and I am forever grateful to have connected with her.” Megan Watzke, Co-Author of YOUR TICKET TO THE UNIVERSE, LIGHT: The Visible Spectrum and Beyond, and COLORING THE UNIVERSE: An Insider’s Look at Making Spectacular Images of Space
“My literary agent, Elizabeth Evans at the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency, understood what I was trying to do with this book before even I did and was unfailingly supportive and a delight to work with.” Doug Mack, Author of EUROPE ON FIVE WRONG TURNS A DAY: One Man, Eight Countries, One Vintage Travel Guide, and the forthcoming THE NOT-QUITE STATES OF AMERICA
“These pages would not exist without my super-powered agent, Elizabeth Evans, who had faith that the tiny seedling of an idea that I presented to her would one day be a book. Her intelligent encouragement helped me access a voice that I might otherwise have never found. For this, as well as for her untiring attention to all things large, small and in-between, I am deeply grateful.” Mari Ruti, Author of THE CASE FOR FALLING IN LOVE
“I owe my agent, Elizabeth Evans, at the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency, inestimable thanks for being the first professional to believe fully in this project. Thank you for your keen and literate eye, your professional advice, and your continued support.” Lisa Catherine Harper, Author of A DOUBLE LIFE: Discovering Motherhood
Languages
English (US)
Non-Fiction
Biographies & Memoirs
History
Life Sciences
Sports & Outdoors
Travel
Fiction
Literary Fiction
Women's Fiction
Certifications
- MFA in writing, University of San Francisco
- BA in English Literature, Phi Beta Kappa, Hamilton College
Awards
- Rose B. Tager Prize in Writing
Work experience
Editor
Self Employed
January, 2016
–
Present
(about 6 years)
In 2016, I launched my freelance editorial and publishing consulting business. I provide a wide range of support to aspiring authors in fiction and nonfiction, including line editing, developmental editing, proposal crafting, platform building, query letter critiques, and agent matchmaking services.
Literary Agent
The Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency, Inc.
January, 2010
–
December, 2015
(almost 6 years)
While an agent at the Naggar Agency, I represented over sixty authors, including New York Times bestsellers, developing a strong focus in narrative nonfiction, especially in the genres of memoir, current events, journalism, history, popular science, illustrated/gift, humor and biography. I negotiated over fifty book deals with publishers, many earning six-figure advances. As an agent, I managed all book-related rights, including first and second serial, foreign, film, audio and merchandising. I worked closely with my clients to edit and polish their work prior to submitting it to editors, and continued to offer editorial guidance and feedback after I closed the deals. I facilitated communication between authors, editors, publicists, marketing and sales reps, and I coached my clients in the use of social media and publicity and marketing initiatives. My clients included New York Times bestselling authors, and many were recognized with notable awards and distinctions, including the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, the Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship, the McGill Medal for Journalistic Courage, the Emmy, the Riverteeth Literary Nonfiction Prize, and the Macavity Award. Many of my authors appeared on national TV and radio programs such as The Today Show, Good Morning America, Anderson Cooper 360, Dr. Oz, the Steve Harvey Show, VH1, Animal Planet, Fox News, CNN and NPR, and their writing appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Nature, Scientific American, the Christian Science Monitor, Ploughshares, Slate, Salon, and others.
Literary Agent
Kimberley Cameron & Associates (formerly Reece Halsey North)
January, 2004
–
November, 2009
(almost 6 years)
My career as a literary agent began with an internship at Tiburon, CA-based Kimberley Cameron & Associates, where I read the incoming submissions while I was pursuing my MFA in writing at the University of San Francisco. I quickly fell in love with the work and became a full-time agent after I completed my MFA. During my six years at KCA, I developed a strong clientele in both fiction and nonfiction and became a sought after speaker at literary festivals and conferences across the country.
Portfolio (23 selected works)
Our species long lived on the edge of starvation. Now we produce enough food for all 7 billion of us to eat nearly 3,000 calories every day. This is such an astonishing thing in the history of life as to verge on the miraculous. The Big Ratchet is the story of how it happened, of the ratchets—the technologies and innovations, big and small—that propelled our species from hunters and gatherers ... read more
Evoking Krakauer's Into the Wild, Dan Schultz tells the extraordinary true story of desperado survivalists, a brutal murder, and vigilante justice set against the harsh backdrop of the Colorado wildernessOn a sunny May morning in 1998 in Cortez, Colorado, three desperados in a stolen truck opened fire on the town cop, shooting him twenty times; then they blasted their way past dozens of police... read more
Dirty Chick: Adventures of an Unlikely Farmer
Antonia Murphy
“One month into our stay, we’d managed to dispatch most of our charges. We executed the chickens. One of the cats disappeared, clearly disgusted with our urban ways. And Lucky [the cow] was escaping almost daily. It seemed we didn’t have much of a talent for farming. And we still had eleven months to go.”Antonia Murphy, you might say, is an unlikely farmer. Born and bred in San Francisco, she ... read more
Love with a Chance of Drowning
Torre DeRoche
New love. Exotic destinations.A once-in-a-lifetime adventure. What could go wrong?City girl Torre DeRoche isn't looking for love, but a chance encounter in a San Francisco bar sparks an instant connection with a soulful Argentinean man who unexpectedly sweeps her off her feet. The problem? He's just about to cast the dock lines and voyage around the world on his small sailboat, and Torre is te... read more
America is in the midst of a meat zeitgeist. Butchers have emerged as the rock stars of the culinary world, and cozy gastropubs serving up pork belly, lamb burgers, and sweetbreads rule the restaurant scene. In New York, the humble meatball enjoys entrée status from upscale Gramercy Tavern to newcomer The Meatball Shop. Across the country in San Francisco, savvy chefs flock to hip meat markets... read more
An artistic collection of more than 50 drawings featuring unique, funny, and poignant foreign words that have no direct translation into English. Did you know that the Japanese language has a word to express the way sunlight filters through the leaves of trees? Or that there’s a Finnish word for the distance a reindeer can travel before needing to rest? Lost in Translation brings to life more ... read more
Light: The Visible Spectrum and Beyond
Megan Watzke, Kimberly Arcand
A visual exploration of the power and behavior of light, across the electromagnetic spectrum, and how it affects life on earth and everything in the Universe. Light allows us to see everything around us, but humans can only see a sliver of all light, known as the electromagnetic spectrum. Here, Kim Arcand and Megan Watzke present the subject of light as never before. Organized along the order ... read more
Natural disasters don't matter for the reasons we think they do. They generally don't kill a huge number of people. Most years more people kill themselves than are killed by Nature's tantrums. And using standard measures like Gross Domestic Product (GDP) it is difficult to show that disasters significantly interrupt the economy.It's what happens after the disasters that really matters-when the... read more
When Ye Pei dreamed of Venice as a girl, she imagined a magical floating city of canals and gondola rides. And she imagined her mother, successful in her new life and eager to embrace the daughter she had never forgotten. But when Ye Pei arrives in Italy, she learns her mother works on a farm far from the city. Her only connection, a mean-spirited Chinese auntie, puts Ye Pei to work in a small... read more
The Little Black Book of Big Red Flags: Relationship Warning Signs You Totally Spotted... But Chose to Ignore
Natasha Burton, Julie Fishman, Meagan McCrary
Finding the right guy is often a trial and error process, during which you're bound to encounter more than a few big red flags. From not introducing you as his girlfriend, to calling his mom for help with every decision, a guy's behavior can offer valuable lessons of what you don't want in a boyfriend.The Little Black Book of Big Red Flags explains all those relationship warning signs you tota... read more
The Geography of Love: A Memoir
Glenda Burgess
When Glenda Burgess and Kenneth Grunzweig met in 1988, Kenneth had already lost two wives—the first in a fatal car crash, and then years later his second wife in a brutal murder for which Kenneth remained for many years the prime suspect. What possesses a woman to fall in love with a man fourteen years her senior, with a troubled teenage daughter and a past shadowed with so much suspicion and ... read more
Praise for The Case for Falling in Love "Why play 'hard to get' when you can just get what you want? Mari Ruti's lively research, from Plato to Freud to Gossip Girl to her own bedroom, finally puts an end to playing games, and provides a resource for lovers and the love-scorned alike. A must-read for anyone who has ever fallen in love, wants to, or wants to know what went wrong." -Arianne Cohe... read more
Genomic Messages: How the Evolving Science of Genetics Affects Our Health, Families, and Future
George Annas, Sherman Elias
Two leaders in the field of genetics—a bioethicist-health lawyer and an obstetrician-gynecologist geneticist—answer the most pressing questions about the application of new genetics to our universal medicine and what personalized medicine means for individual healthcare.Breakthroughs in genetic research are changing modern medicine and pharmaceuticals. But what are these changes and how do the... read more
Bohemian Love Diaries: A Memoir
Slash Coleman
Infused with southern charm, this irresistibly weird and wonderful story chronicles Slash Coleman’s upbringing in a warped but warm-hearted household of eccentric artists. Descended from a posse of off-beat immigrants--including a grandfather who danced at the Moulin Rouge--and raised near the capital of the Confederacy during the 1970s and ’80s, young Slash sets out to find true love. Unfortu... read more
On the surface it may appear that yoga is yoga is yoga, but take a closer look and you’ll discover myriad different yoga systems and lineages. There are dozens of yoga styles to choose from, and while yoga is for everyone, not every style is the perfect fit for every person. But how do you choose between mysterious-sounding names such as Ashtanga, Kundalini, Bikram, and Kripalu? As Meagan McCr... read more
More than 180 million Americans have a problem with their vision. Most believe there's not much they can do on their own to change how much (or how little) they see. Now there is hope. In the past decade, an overwhelming number of clinical studies have shown that eating specific nutrients can help maintain vision well into old age, alleviate eye conditions, and even reverse the progress of dis... read more
Sweetie-licious Pies: Eat Pie, Love Life
Linda Hundt, Clarissa Westmeyer
Served up in a charming retro package, Sweetie-Licious Pies ushers readers into a kitchen built on the traditions of our foremothers. This is the perfect book for anyone who knows that love can be baked into a pie! A 16-time national pie-baking champion, Linda Hundt truly believes in the ability of pies to spread good will, one delicious bite at a time. In this sweet cookbook, she shares the h... read more
Create your perfect day!Formal or casual An intimate gathering or a major party Frugal or budget-busting Traditional or trendy These are only some of the options you and your beloved will need to consider as you plan the wedding of your dreams. Where do you start? A quiz book and planning guide all in one, 101 Quizzes for Brides and Grooms will help you navigate this special time in your lives... read more
An eye-opening journey to the most overlooked parts of America.Everyone knows that America is 50 states and…some other stuff. Scattered shards in the Pacific and the Caribbean, the not-quite states―American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands―and their 4 million people are often forgotten, even by most Americans. But they’re filled with American ... read more
There I Go Again is a celebrity memoir like no other, revealing the life of a man whose acting career has been so rich that millions of Americans know his face even while they might not recognize his name. William Daniels is an enigma—a rare chameleon who has enjoyed massive success both in Hollywood and on Broadway and been embraced by fans of successive generations. Few of his peers inspire ... read more
The Illustrated Book of Sayings: Curious Expressions from Around the World
Ella Frances Sanders
From the New York Times bestselling author of Lost in Translation comes this charming illustrated collection of more than fifty expressions from around the globe that explore the nuances of language. From the hilarious and romantic to the philosophical and literal, the idioms, proverbs, and adages in The Illustrated Book of Sayings reveal the remarkable diversity, humor, and poignancy of the w... read more
Entertaining, colorful, and deceptively full of facts, This Phenomenal Life tells the story of the wondrous ways that humans are always completely at one with our surrounding world. From the vast galaxies above to the miniature microbes within, humans are organically connected to the complex cycles and mysterious processes of our universe. Every single atom of our body is made of remnants of s... read more
One Nation Under Baseball: How the 1960s Collided with the National Pastime
John Florio, Ouisie Shapiro
One Nation Under Baseball highlights the intersection between American society and America’s pastime during the 1960s, when the hallmarks of the sport—fairness, competition, and mythology—came under scrutiny. John Florio and Ouisie Shapiro examine the events of the era that reshaped the game: the Koufax and Drysdale million-dollar holdout, the encroachment of television on newspaper coverage, ... read more
Elizabeth has 1 review
Professionalism
Professionalism
Quality
Quality
Value
Value
Communication & Punctuality
Communication & Punctuality
This is my first book and I had nervously hoped to find the perfect match for an editor. Elizabeth Evans was exactly that, and then some. From the very first e-mail I received from her, she demonstrated a sincere passion and interest in my book (a biography). Even before reviewing the other four candidates, I knew she was the one. Once we started to work together I knew immediately that I h...
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Timothy Hoover, October 2016
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Over 25 years of working with successful fiction, inspiring memoirs and narrative non-fiction as a literary agent and editor.
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