Today’s guest is Evangelia Avloniti, founder of Ersilia Literary Agency. Her agency represents Greek and foreign authors in Greece and worldwide, and foreign publishers and agents, including 2 Seas Agency, in Greece.

Greece has had its share of crises these last 10-15 years or so, even before the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic.

On this episode, we discuss amongst others how this has helped make the Greek publishing market more resilient, the impact of the pandemic on the country’s publishing industry, what led Evangelia to found her own literary agency back in 2009, the challenges she faced then, and how she dealt with them.

^{Evangelia Avloniti}

Here are some of the questions I asked Evangelia:

• What was the state of the Greek publishing market before the pandemic started?
• What has the impact of the pandemic been on your activity as a sub-agent selling into Greece and as a literary agent representing Greek authors?
• What has happened since the start of the pandemic in terms of book sales in Greece?
• Was the publishing world on a standstill and were publication dates postponed?
• Was there a higher demand for ebooks and audiobooks, as we have seen in other markets?
• What was the biggest challenge for you to launch your own company, and how did you address this matter?
• What is the one piece of advice you have for people who are thinking about starting their own literary agency?

Show Notes

• Evangelia’s book recommendations

– Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020)

– Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart (Grove Press, 2020 for the US edition; Picador, 2020 for the UK edition)

• About Evangelia

Evangelia Avloniti, was born in Corfu, Greece. She studied History of Art, Archaeology and Literary Translation at various institutions, including the Courtauld Institute of Art, King’s College, London, and University College London. She began her career at Sotheby’s in London and then worked as an editor in ELT publishing for five years. In 2009, she founded the Ersilia Literary Agency, where she represents Greek and foreign authors in Greece and worldwide, and foreign agents and publishers in Greece. She was named a Frankfurt Fellow in 2013 and a Zev Birger Fellow in 2015.