Jane von Mehren

Jane von Mehren appears in Inside a BOOK auction as one of the literary agents who developed and sold the Planet Money book project. With Laura Nolan, she helped shape the concept, build the proposal, generate publisher attention, and design the auction process.

The source uses Jane’s work to show that agents are market makers as well as representatives. She and Laura used publisher relationships, early buzz, meeting orchestration, and competitive bidding format to make the book visible as a serious acquisition target.

Key Claims

• Jane helped identify Planet Money’s prior audience behavior as evidence that a book could sell.
• She worked with Alex Goldmark, Alex Maiassi, and Laura Nolan over about a year on proposal material.
• She helped compare first-round bids across advances, rights packages, and publisher fit before narrowing the field.

Connections

• Laura Nolan - co-agent in the source.
• Alex Goldmark and Alex Maiassi - author-side collaborators.
• Tom Mayer and [[WWNorton|W. W. Norton]] - editor and winning publisher.
• Literary Agent Market Making, Book Proposal As Sales Document, Publishing Auction Design, and Advance Against Royalties - concepts tied to her work.