The Croce Agency works one-on-one with a select number of authors of the highest quality books. We help our clients position their projects for the marketplace, develop their proposals, negotiate their contracts and manage the full spectrum of their intellectual property rights, including foreign language, merchandising and movie rights, among others. Once a project is sold, we then act as liaison between author and publisher to help market the books as well as keep close account of earnings. Foremost, we believe in helping our authors strategize their long-term writing careers.

We work directly with all the major publishers including Random House, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Penguin Group, Macmillan, Hachette Book Group and more. Our contacts also include a network of international co-agents with whom we partner to sell the subsidiary rights of our properties. Throughout all our dealings we proudly abide by the Canon of Ethics set forth by the Association of Authors' Representatives.

Our most recent clients include Jennifer Papale Rignani (Red: A Curious History of the Rarest Hair Color), Mark D. Williams (Rivercrossing: How I Learned About Fatherhood by Fly Fishing the Waters of the World) and Michael East (Behind the Badge: The Story of One Cop's Fight for Survival in a Dying City).

As a boutique agency, we specialize in narrative nonfiction including memoir, biography, history, science and travel and character-driven upmarket fiction, plot-driven commercial fiction (mystery, thriller, suspense, and chick lit to name a few). At the moment, however, we're much more receptive to nonfiction as well as fiction by previously published authors.

“I would hands down recommend Nick. He is very savvy and very aggressive. He molded two of my book ideas from concept to real proposals. He sold one of mine within two months of shopping it around.”
- Jennifer Papale Rignani, client

“I've had nothing but a good experience with Nick…very professional and organized. I recommend him without reservation.”
- Thomas Laird, client

Erik Rush

Rush is a regular guest on Fox News’ Hannity and Colmes and America’s Election Headquarters, CNN’s Paula Zahn Now and is a veteran of numerous national radio appearances. On February 28, 2007, Rush brought the story of Democrat presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s militant pastor Jeremiah Wright to the attention of national news media during an appearance on Hannity and Colmes.

Never before has there been a more poignant case than presently exists for the current level of disillusionment and cynicism amongst Americans or reason for their fundamental misgivings concerning the legitimacy of the Federal government as a whole. Over the last few years, it has become apparent to more and more Americans that some of the most challenging and dangerous situations we now face—the War on Terror and the Border Crisis to name just two—have been brought on over decades by series of administrations spanning the political ideological spectrum. Their principals, in the main, have abandoned the concept of representative government; operating out of self-interest, fear and greed, they increasingly ignore the best interests of the American people for self-aggrandizement, petty legacies, perks, power and money. Forced to play a public relations shell game, average Americans have become so divided and confused, their ability to rectify the situation seems scant at best. In his latest book, The Divided States of America: How Polar Politics is Destroying the Democracy, Rush analyzes American politicians’ evolution into an elite class that governs against the will of the people, voter apathy and the inordinate focus on extreme factions of the political right and left.

Mark D. Williams

Mark D. Williams, one of the nation's foremost fishing authorities, has written articles for numerous national magazines and newspapers including Dallas Morning News, SPORT Magazine, ESPNoutdoors.com, Texas Sporting Journal, Baseball Digest, Texas Rangers' Program, Beckett’s, Cowboys and Indians, Southwest Fly Fishing, Texas Sportsman, Texas Outdoors, Texas Fish and Game, Backpacker, Men’s Health, Men’s Journal, Flyfishing and Flytying Journal, Bass Pro Shop, Orvis News, Rocky Mountain Game and Fish, among others.

In his latest travelogue, Williams traverses Europe fishing the continent's most prized spots while experiencing the food and drink to better understand the regions, the people, the cultures and, foremost, the waters.

Michael S. East

Author Michael S. East, whose writing has appeared in True Blue II (St. Martin's Press), arrives in Saginaw, Michigan, a naïve, “wannabe” cop on a cold and blustery November day in 1993. The night of his arrival, as drunken thugs try to break down his hotel room door, the author realizes his entire world is about to change, which he documents in Behind the Badge: The Story of One Cop's Fight for Survival in a Dying City. This introduction into a new sense of reality begins immediately as East is thrown into the world of violence and racial division which envelopes the city he will soon call home. A brush with death inside the twisted metal of a burning, bullet-riddled car; a missing man's body found lying in bed, entombed in cement; an elderly woman's stand against the drug-dealing punks that control her neighborhood—these become the daily routine as East transforms from innocent civilian into disillusioned street cop. Along the way, East searches the abuse-filled memories of his own childhood, and struggles with the realization that as a police officer he still cannot change the course of destiny. The author presses through his final years policing the oppressive streets of a rabidly violent city. He struggles not only with the physical and emotional strain of the job, but also with the economic conditions that have decimated his police department and his will to continue the fight. Despite personal loss, and the overwhelming feeling of hopelessness which shadows him daily, East needs to decide his life's course, whether he should see his career to its conclusion.

Jennifer Papale Rignani

Rignani, award-winning journalist for the intellectually curious, combs cultural geography for signs of the unique and fiery demeanor of redheads. From Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus" to Lana Lang of "Smallville," Rignani investigates culture, from classic to pop, for the markers of this stereotype and what they reveal about society.

Red: A Curious History of the Rarest Hair Color tells the story of how and why this physical trait has so influenced the cultural psyche, such as in art, literature, movies, science and politics. Throughout history, redheads have been stereotyped as people whose emotional temperament is influenced by their physical appearance. This color of rage, passion and love has forever marked redheads as hauling these emotional attributes. As a result, this stereotype may have become somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy. That redheads are treated as having what the Indian medicinal practice of Ayurveda call a Pitta temperament, or being easily irritated yet driven, they may in turn have developed the emotional temperament on which they've been judged.

John Mastromarino

John Mastromarino's Dante's Journey is a new vision of Dante's classic, Inferno. Murdered Boston police detective Joseph Dante searches through the circles of Hell for his family's killer, drug dealer Filippo Argenti, with the help of his mysterious guide, Virgil DiMini. Joe doesn't realize that he faces the dual task of saving his own immortal soul.

Thomas Laird

Thomas Laird is the author of Cutter, Season of the Assassin and Black Dog, all published by Carroll & Graf, which was recently absorbed into the Perseus Books Group. Laird’s previous novels have been praised by the Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus Review, The Independent and Edgar-Award-winning author Michael Malone.

In Laird's latest novel, The Walking Dead, NCIS investigator Will Koehn, seeks the murderer of two teenage girls in Kuwait at the close of Desert Storm. Shortly thereafter, Koehn leaves his tour in Kuwait and returns to Chicago, having never found the killer, a “jarhead,” a marine, he believes. Now a detective in Chicago Homicide, Koehn is put on the case of a multiple murder that is almost identical to those he investigated in Kuwait. The killer has followed him home.

T.Q. Tyson

T.Q. Tyson's Midnight Choir, a timely and timeless novel, tells the story of Camille, named after the Category 5 hurricane that struck the Gulf Coast in 1969 during which she was born. Camille, the storm and the newborn, bring together three disparate lives: Mattie, a young, grieving black woman, B.W. Shaver, the womanizing preacher, and Dorothy, an unrepentant alcoholic, to take care of the baby during the chaos. Over the next three decades, their lives touch each other as regularly as the storms continue to sweep over the region, culminating with Hurricane Katrina.

Written in embracing prose, Tyson interweaves these lives through the devastation of the tackling storms, testing whether redemption can be borne of tragedy and if the roots of time, geography and love can withstand the powerful blows they each face.

RED: A CURIOUS HISTORY OF THE RAREST HAIR COLOR
by Jennifer Papale Rignani
University Press of Florida
Rights Sold: North American English

Prior to founding the agency in 2007 I was an editor at the literary journals Conceptions Southwest and Blue Mesa Review, which was co-launched by award-winning novelist Rudolfo Anaya. I went on to work as a journalist for the Bergen News and later in the editorial department at John Wiley & Sons. After several years, I took the position of Managing Editor at Rosen in Manhattan's Chelsea district. With this industry experience, I subsequently founded a small press, which was named by Writers Digest as one of the top 50 publishers for first-time authors because of our commitment to strong relationships with writers. Throughout it all I've worked with hundreds of authors whose books have appeared in media such as Inc., Men's Health, ABC and CNN, among many others.

I am the author of three books for young adults. My writing has also appeared in Conceptions Southwest and, in a letter to the editor defending innovation in fiction writing, The New York Times. I hold a BA in creative writing and journalism from the University of New Mexico and a certification in book publishing from New York University.

Nicholas Croce
President
(201) 248-3175
ncroce@thecroceagency.com
*Please do not send submissions to this address.

Please visit our Web site for our current submissions guidelines.