Matt Belford – Editor

Conceptualize and ideate more than 12 projects with current and potential license holders, including the New York Times Bestselling STARDEW VALLEY COOKBOOK.
Manage up to 15 titles yearly, develop and hone written concepts and larger client facing proposals.
Responsible for hiring designers and writers.
Edit and project manage the book creation process and the various phases of publication including contract negotiating, financial projections, P&L and assuring appropriate milestones.

Managing a roster of clients, I am responsible for editing, preparing, and sending out client works to sell to publishers, and entice other interested parties in subsidiary rights (i.e. Film/TV rights, merchandising rights, etc.). I specialize in representing science fiction and fantasy, and graphic novels. In January of 2021, I was promoted to Senior Literary Agent, responsible for managing junior agents. I’ve negotiated and sold projects to a wide variety of publishers, including Macmillan, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, IDW, and Wiley.

Working as David Black’s personal assistant, I managed his schedule, while also facilitating client needs and preparing works for submission. These duties naturally transferred to my own work as a literary agent under the David Black Agency, where I represented my clients: acting as a fiduciary, preparing and editing works before submission, selling the proposals or manuscripts to publishers, and negotiating deals and contracts. These clients included legendary comic book writer Chris Claremont, interviewer Shanna Farrell, and several cartoonists in Rob Rogers, Nate Fakes, and Jeff Danziger, in addition to negotiating deals for David Black’s existing clients: Claire Saffitz, Erik Larson, and the Lorraine Hansberry Estate.

As office manager, I was responsible for all general office administration duties including answering the phone, taking detailed messages, managing contract mailings between both authors and publishers and general filing. As an assistant, I recorded author deals in BAITS and Publisher’s Marketplace, and I also read and reviewed author queries and manuscripts.

My responsibilities included proofreading and editing all articles, posters, PDFs, and web pages posted to the Charles River website. In addition to growing organic web traffic by 30% year to date, I also was in charge of SEO, HTML5 coding, and integrating content from several website acquisitions.