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Thanks, everyone, for all your support. I appreciate this community more than you can possibly know.
Sorry, I didn't mean to hijack the thread. I just wanted to contribute my story to the discussion. I'll post in the Goals and Accomplishments forum and allow normal discussion about this terrific agency to resume.
Sorry, I didn't mean to hijack the thread. I just wanted to contribute my story to the discussion. I'll post in the Goals and Accomplishments forum and allow normal discussion about this terrific agency to resume.
Selene
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Does anyone have any news on Heather Evans? Has she left agenting? I can't find any information about her on the Fine Print homepage, her twitter page seems to be gone, and querytracker reports her as closed to queries.
Selene
Selene
Hi Selene, Heather is my invaluable assistant. She's not open to queries. 
Sorry. If you have other questions, please feel free to drop me a line.
Sorry. If you have other questions, please feel free to drop me a line.
Selene
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Thanks for the heads-up! That's too bad--from this interview, she sounded like a good fit for my current project.
Selene
Selene
careful how you query fineprint
^----saw Janet posting above and couldn't resist the chance for her to read a sentence or two of mine after reading pages and pages and pages and hanging on to her every word for three or four months of my life.
I queried both Janet Ms. Shark and Diane Freed last year and had a very sobering experience. I'd been a fan of QueryShark since I was halfway finished with my mss. I followed the blogs (yes, both of them) and the twitter. It was disgusting. So of course, my first batch of queries, Janet was #1 on the list and who even remembers who else was there. On top of my slavish devotion to the Shark, I had an awful Query. I was soundly rejected by everyone (who's names I had barely paid attention) and most painfully by Janet via a Form.
Wait a minute. What?! How could she? I know about her coffee. Her minions. I've seen her 2010 Christmas tree. I laugh at all her jokes. A form rejection?
I was shattered. But if I knew Janet, and believe me, I knew Janet. I knew better than to pour my heart into some pathetic reply to that form rejection.
So instead, I poured my heart out to Diane Freed (one of those random unimportant non-sharks I'd also queried and gotten a form from). And amazingly. She answered.
She told me that my idea wasn't uninteresting. Gave me a convincing reason why she couldn't take something like that on right now. And then she pointed out where my query had gone wrong. And to her, I owe my infinite gratitude.
After that, my query started working. It's gotten me on a Penguin editor's desk twice (sadly no acquisition) and it's gotten me three full requests from agents who actually represent books like mine (unlike Janet, who doesn't, a fact I failed to notice because she's just so funny!).
Anyway, that's my fineprint literary story. And sorry if you feel like I wasted your time. I'm new and I need to post a thread for an entirely different reason and I can't until I up my post count.
^----saw Janet posting above and couldn't resist the chance for her to read a sentence or two of mine after reading pages and pages and pages and hanging on to her every word for three or four months of my life.
I queried both Janet Ms. Shark and Diane Freed last year and had a very sobering experience. I'd been a fan of QueryShark since I was halfway finished with my mss. I followed the blogs (yes, both of them) and the twitter. It was disgusting. So of course, my first batch of queries, Janet was #1 on the list and who even remembers who else was there. On top of my slavish devotion to the Shark, I had an awful Query. I was soundly rejected by everyone (who's names I had barely paid attention) and most painfully by Janet via a Form.
Wait a minute. What?! How could she? I know about her coffee. Her minions. I've seen her 2010 Christmas tree. I laugh at all her jokes. A form rejection?
I was shattered. But if I knew Janet, and believe me, I knew Janet. I knew better than to pour my heart into some pathetic reply to that form rejection.
So instead, I poured my heart out to Diane Freed (one of those random unimportant non-sharks I'd also queried and gotten a form from). And amazingly. She answered.
She told me that my idea wasn't uninteresting. Gave me a convincing reason why she couldn't take something like that on right now. And then she pointed out where my query had gone wrong. And to her, I owe my infinite gratitude.
After that, my query started working. It's gotten me on a Penguin editor's desk twice (sadly no acquisition) and it's gotten me three full requests from agents who actually represent books like mine (unlike Janet, who doesn't, a fact I failed to notice because she's just so funny!).
Anyway, that's my fineprint literary story. And sorry if you feel like I wasted your time. I'm new and I need to post a thread for an entirely different reason and I can't until I up my post count.
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Well that made me chuckle this morning. Thanks. Janet Reid's blogs are sweepingly awesome, no? I owe her infinite gratitude for all those patient lessons that helped improved my query from its shitty original state. After about 100 hours of polishing, it finally shines. Said shiny version's getting a spin very soon, and she's at the top of my recipient list, too.
Not sure whether it's been said on here already, but Peter Rubie is not taking any new clients right now.
Just got his R.
Just got his R.
Just a heads up to everyone that I will be closed to queries starting March 1. I'll open up again on July 1 (2012!)
There's a reason for this and it's a GREAT one: news on that to come (think contest with an AMAZING prize!)
There's a reason for this and it's a GREAT one: news on that to come (think contest with an AMAZING prize!)
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That is a great, great contest idea. Best of luck with it (and of course, best of luck to all the entrants!)
That indeed sounds like an excellent idea, and I will for sure be entering. In the meantime I am sending a query to Rachel for my historical fiction. I will post back when I hear a response to that.
Good luck to everyone entering the contest!
Bryan
Good luck to everyone entering the contest!
Bryan
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Wish I was eligible. *grin*
Sounds like a wonderful contest and good luck to any and all entrants!
And a special cup of the Shark's special coffee or tea to her for reading all the entries to come.
Sounds like a wonderful contest and good luck to any and all entrants!
And a special cup of the Shark's special coffee or tea to her for reading all the entries to come.
Stephany Evans called me within hours of sending my query letter back in 2005. She signed me up right away, and then nothing happened. She sent me excellent comments on my MS, comments that must have taken a great deal of time to write, and we spent some time on the phone discussing revisions, but the book never went anywhere. My impression was that she liked the idea but not the way I wrote it, so she never bothered sending it out. Either that, or if she did, her concept of what the book was meant to be was different from what it was, and this made it tough to market for her.
My overall experience was that I liked working with her, and as a person she was pleasant and professional, but I would also like to have sold the book. Several years later, I realized that my problem in the book is that I tried too hard to appeal to two audiences that were quite opposed to each other: New Age and Christian. There was no way to reconcile the differences these groups had with each other without removing quite a bit of the most compelling material or downplaying it.
With that in mind, I rewrote it from scratch, had a much better product, and sent it off to Stephany again. At that point I'd already sold two other books, but they were academic books for the UK publisher Springer/Verlag and didn't require an agent. The point is that when I first contacted Imprint, I hadn't published anything. The second time, I had two on store shelves and the new book was actually a finished product that did not require much editing. As far as I know, she never looked at it. I did talk to her by Skype about it, and my impression was that she didn't want to lose time on something she couldn't sell. So I found a different agent, sold it, and it is now published, though with a much smaller publisher than Stephany would probably have found.
I think she may have miscalculated on the second version of the book, but that was her decision to make, and I think she is a good agent/editor regardless. However, as I have learned through the experience, the book you have must also be compatible with the agent who sells it. In her case, I think part of what attracted her to the first one was that Mel Gibson's "The Passion" had just come out and was very successful. My impression (possibly incorrect) was that she wanted to tap into that audience, though it was bound to be antagonistic to many of the things I wrote. In case anyone is curious, this is the book:
AP
My overall experience was that I liked working with her, and as a person she was pleasant and professional, but I would also like to have sold the book. Several years later, I realized that my problem in the book is that I tried too hard to appeal to two audiences that were quite opposed to each other: New Age and Christian. There was no way to reconcile the differences these groups had with each other without removing quite a bit of the most compelling material or downplaying it.
With that in mind, I rewrote it from scratch, had a much better product, and sent it off to Stephany again. At that point I'd already sold two other books, but they were academic books for the UK publisher Springer/Verlag and didn't require an agent. The point is that when I first contacted Imprint, I hadn't published anything. The second time, I had two on store shelves and the new book was actually a finished product that did not require much editing. As far as I know, she never looked at it. I did talk to her by Skype about it, and my impression was that she didn't want to lose time on something she couldn't sell. So I found a different agent, sold it, and it is now published, though with a much smaller publisher than Stephany would probably have found.
I think she may have miscalculated on the second version of the book, but that was her decision to make, and I think she is a good agent/editor regardless. However, as I have learned through the experience, the book you have must also be compatible with the agent who sells it. In her case, I think part of what attracted her to the first one was that Mel Gibson's "The Passion" had just come out and was very successful. My impression (possibly incorrect) was that she wanted to tap into that audience, though it was bound to be antagonistic to many of the things I wrote. In case anyone is curious, this is the book:
AP
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I have a partial out with Joy Azmitia, who recently moved camps to FinePrint from Russell & Volkening (sp?) - she's an extremely friendly, professional person from my interactions with her thus far, and I really hope I get the chance to work with her!
Best of luck, guys - keep pluggin' away, and somethings bound to stick sometime!
Best of luck, guys - keep pluggin' away, and somethings bound to stick sometime!
(bolding/underline mine for emphasis)
Are you sure you subbed to the person (or agency) you think you did?
Stephany Evans was the head of the Imprint Agency before they merged with Peter Rubie to form FinePrint.
Yes, I've spoken with Stephany by phone often enough to know that. The problem is that I keep forgetting that her agency is now called FinePrint, because I signed with her when it was called Imprint.
AP
Hi! I was wondering if anyone who'd sent a query to Rachel Coyne around early May has heard anything? Just curious. Thank you!
I queried her in early March and have heard nothing. I'm assuming it's a silent R.