Side by Side Literary Productions, Inc. is a boutique literary agency founded by Laurie Bernstein. A former Vice President & Executive Editor at Simon & Schuster, Bernstein is recognized for her track record of New York Times bestsellers. Specializing in big-idea books, politics, memoir, and narrative non-fiction, she stewards titles that scale bestseller lists and are acclaimed for their mission and message.

Our Approach

Side by Side maintains a small, exclusive list of authors so that we can give a degree of personalized focus and attention to each and every client that is simply not available at other agencies. We are dedicated to partnering with authors to achieve books that scale bestseller lists and often advance the national conversation. We focus on the success of each book, as well as on devising customized publishing strategies to support our client’s publishing careers and, where applicable, their broader mission-specific goals (short-term, mid-term, and long term).  We understand that our responsibility to our clients is not only to shape their books, but to be a strategic partner who can help make the necessary alliances and dynamic plays to build an author’s platform and, wherever applicable, realize the potential for turning great concepts and books into sustainable franchises and launching pads to success across multiple platforms.

What Makes Us Different?

Forward thinking, Side by Side recognizes that the role of the literary agent has changed. To meet the demands of today’s dynamic publishing landscape, the agency delivers a unique, full-service, hands-on, focused approach to serving our clients. To be effective in today’s marketplace, we must not only assume the responsibilities of a traditional agency (project and proposal development, placement of projects at top publishing houses, and guiding the book through every phase of the publishing process), but also embrace a role that is more akin to that of a production company for our clients.  Side by Side has formed strategic alliances and partnerships with an elite network including:

• co-agents and writers affording clients the finest caliber editorial support throughout the entire publishing process and beyond  •   cutting-edge publicity talent to guide and support our clients across all social and media platforms  •   innovative traditional publicity, marketing and branding experts  •   film agents  •   speaking bureaus  •   top publishing and entertainment attorneys  •   content developers

Testimonials

“To say that Laurie Bernstein goes above and beyond the call of duty is pure understatement: nobody works harder for her authors than she does. Her level of involvement in any given project is so much greater than other agents, it almost seems like she’s doing a completely different job.”

Carol Colman, Bestselling co-author and writer of more than 30 books

 

Featured Books

Exposure book jacket

Exposure

by Robert Bilott
Simon & Schuster
Coming October 2019
Inspired the upcoming feature film,
Dark Waters, starring Mark Ruffalo
as Rob Bilott (Nov 2019)

DDMS-cover2

The DASH Diet series

by Marla Heller
Grand Central Publishing
Over 600,000 copies in print
Voted #1 Best Diet by U.S. News & World Report for 8 consecutive years

9781101902776_Klebold

A Mother's Reckoning

by Sue Klebold
Crown/Penguin-Random House
New York Times bestseller
Full-hour Diane Sawyer Special
TED talk

9780812983562_TheSpark

The Spark

by Kristine Barnett
Random House
International bestseller with
foreign sales to over 29 countries
Film rights optioned by Warner Bros.