Sam Edenborough

Sam handles translation rights on behalf of Greyhound Literary's clients and is building his own list of authors.

He began his career at A.M. Heath, then moved to Andrew Nurnberg Associates where he started selling translation rights. From 2001 until 2021 he worked at ILA, a specialist translation rights agency, selling rights for a wide range of English-language authors, including many prize winners and global bestsellers. He served as President of the Association of Authors’ Agents from 2014 to 2016. In January 2022 Sam joined Greyhound Literary as a director, to represent translation rights for the agency's clients throughout the world. 

Sam was a founding member of the international publishing band Half on Signature, playing tenor and alto sax with them until their last gig in 2017. He currently plays tenor in the publishing jazz combo The Editörial Standards. 

A life-long reader of speculative fiction, Sam would like to see highly original submissions in the science fiction, fantasy and literary horror genres. He's also keen to take on experts writing non-fiction for a general audience.  Please do not submit children's or young adult books to him. 

Here is what he's on the look out for:

• Fantasy with wit, brilliantly deep world-building and characters with an edge, in the vein of Mark Lawrence's Prince of Thorns, Katherine Addison's The Goblin Emperor, Joe Abercrombie's First Law series, Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy, Richard Swan's Justice of Kings or the irresistible Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree;
• Hard SF and cyberpunk that explores the biggest questions about what it means to be human. Something fresh but inspired by classics such as Greg Egan's Diaspora, Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon The Deep, William Gibson's early novels, Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice, Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time, and Iain M. Banks' Culture novels;
• Work that pushes SFF genre boundaries: think Becky Chambers’ Long Way to A Small Angry Planet, China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station, NK Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy, Russel Hoban’s Riddley Walker, Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries;
• Upmarket, folkloric, horror-tinged fiction like Katherine Dunn's Geek Love; Andrew Michael Hurley’s The Loney; Max Porter’s Lanny;
• Fiction and non-fiction which engages with landscape or the sea in a profound and original way, such as: Robert MacFarlane’s Mountains of the Mind; Ian McGuire’s The North Water; Derek Lundy’s The Godforsaken Sea; Fergus Fleming’s Barrow’s Boys; Kapka Kassabova’s Border;
• Books about jazz and classical music that take an unconventional approach. Favourites include Ben Ratliff’s Coltrane, Geoff Dyer’s But Beautiful, Alex Ross’ The Rest is Noise;
• Writing by experts who are able to inform and entertain, relaying complex ideas with verve, for example: Anna Keay’s Restless Republic, Alice Roberts' Tamed, Brian Greene’s The Elegant Universe, Richard Dawkins' The Ancestor's Tale, Cat Bohannon’s Eve, or Robert Hughes' The Fatal Shore.

Sam welcomes submissions of work intended for adult readers in the areas suggested above, and is keen to work with writers whose background, identity, sexuality, cultural experience or ethnicity have historically been under-represented on publishers’ lists in the UK.