AKA Literary Management (formerly Anita Kushen & Associates)

Don't want to pick on her but "alot" is not a word. Twenty years of editing should have driven that home.

Tri

I just received this response....

My agency has only been open since last August. I have no sales as of yet.
I do have very fine authors (some already published). If you are wanting
someone with sales under their belt you will have to keep looking. I have
20 plus years in the business, I was a freelance editor and got manuscripts
ready to be sent to an agent or to the publishing house directly (not
something done very often anymore). I feel confident that I will have a
contract(s) soon. Let me know what you decide to do.
Anita

Honest answers to my questions.

CaoPaux, I know of people who moved from writing and editing to agenting (and back again), but they had densely massed ties to the industry. Anita Kushen doesn't. She also doesn't write like an editor. I'm with Triceretops on this issue. If someone claims to be a freelance editor of long standing, spotting their errors in language and usage is research, not nitpicking. That is, she doesn't have a lot of contacts and resources, and she's still figuring out what she's doing. Let her learn on other people's books.No. That should be "I have clients who are published authors." Cue the flashing red lights. The phrase should have been "...but as of yet have not made any sales." Agents don't use "get a contract" to signify making a sale. They get contracts when the contracts arrive in the mail from the publisher, or when they come back signed by the author. After that, the author and the publisher have a contract. Two errors in one compound adjective! "Twenty" should be spelled out, and "twenty-plus" should be hyphenated.A clunky sentence, but not, strictly speaking, an ungrammatical one.Another clunker. That's a graceless use of "newbie," and you could make good arguments for the presence of one or two commas in there.Triceretops nailed this one: nobody who professes to work or have worked as a professional editor should use "alot." It is never correct, and it frequently needs to be corrected. For me, this is enough to bring into question the woman's entire representation of herself.

In-house editors don't have to be former spelling bee champions. One of the finest editors I know is a borderline dyslexic. She has solid grammar and a great ear, she's a brilliant structural editor, and what she doesn't know about contracts, acquisition, and packaging ain't worth knowing.

But unless they're part of Tor's auxiliary corps of consulting editors, freelance editors don't usually acquire books, negotiate contracts, suggest cover treatments, or exercise any of those other important editorial skills. Freelance editors mostly just work with the text. They have to be good at it. Moreover, in most cases they're paid by the author, not the publisher. Unsatisfactory work gets them bad word of mouth and no repeat business.

This woman's writing is inferior to most published authors' raw prose. Only a very inept author would believe she was worth hiring as a freelance editor.

I'd like to know the real story.Three objections. First, that forcibly yoked singular and plural construction is clumsy enough to make me wince.

Second, when you add "(s)" to the end of a noun to show that it may be plural, there should be no space between it and the noun. Like "alot," that's an error no editor should ever make.

Third: as I mentioned earlier, an agent wouldn't refer to selling a book to a publisher by saying "have a contract" or "get a contract." They say "make a sale," after which they "draw up a contract." The person who has the contract would be the author, i.e. her client.

This woman doesn't talk like an agent. That's significant. You learn to be an agent by working with other agents. If she hasn't had enough contact with real agents to pick up their basic language, she hasn't had enough contact to learn how to do what they do.Again, several things wrong here, starting with language and punctuation that are downright awkward. I also have to wonder what she means about her contacts. Think about the relatively small size of the trade publishing industry. There aren't all that many real editors, just like there aren't all that many real agents. For real agents, contacts are nontrivial. Even if you're making new contacts, losing a bunch of old ones has to hurt. And what kind of contacts just plain disappear?

It's hard to match the story she's telling with the my map of the trade publishing industry. Squa tront! First, it's inasmuch, insomuch, or insofar. If it's the first or second, there should be no spaces between the words, and if it's the third, it's best if there are no spaces. In as far is Right Out. Second, any of those words, if used in that construction, would yield an ungrammatical result. Third, there's a required comma missing from the end of that parenthetical statement.

If there were any legal standards for who can and can't call themselves an editor, she wouldn't pass.At least she's polite.

agents writing

I have nothing to say about Anita, but the last two entries have inspired me to write.

I received two of my queries back this week...both from HOT agents, that P and E rates very highly. Each one took the time to write me a note on the bottom of the query telling me why they are not asking for more, that they want to see everything I write from here on out, books they reccomend I read and so on. What struck me is how many writing mistakes they made in those few sentences. At first I was judgemental, then I stopped and considered how busy they all were and how incredibly nice it was to get a note from them. When an agent is trying to get a letter/email/note out fast, they are bound to make mistakes. Lord knows that I have tons of errors in EVERYTHING I write, if i am not very careful. Can't we cut these people some slack..after alll, they are just people? Should we really judge them so harshly based on that or did I miss what you were trying to say?

I'm all for cutting people slack, but I think the point here is--when you do something day in and day out, it should be second nature. For instance if you are a haircutter, you wouldn't walk around with a butchered hair style. It doesn't reflect well on the stylist.IMHO

I think Anita's letter was being examined on two fronts. One is that she says she has been an editor for a good long time. On that ground, it's fair to examine her writing for signs that she would be a good and careful editor. On that, she fails in several ways. Which means her editing experience may not be of the sort that is relevant to selecting saleable works of fiction.
The second front is her background in the publishing world, and whether, despite her short career as an agent, she has an understanding of how the publishing world works, and whether she is likely to present a good face to the editors and others she has to deal with in the course of her work. On that ground, she also comes up short for entirely separate reasons that are not connected with her editing lapses.
At least, that's how it looks to me.
-Barbara

Branwyn said:

I'm all for cutting people slack, but I think the point here is--when you do something day in and day out, it should be second nature. For instance if you are a haircutter, you wouldn't walk around with a butchered hair style. It doesn't reflect well on the stylist.IMHO

Click to expand...

Well, there is an old saw that says when you go to a barbershop, pick the barber with the worst haircut. Obviously, he hasn't cut his own hair.

I'm not disagreeing with the sentiment, only commenting on the analogy's appropriateness.

Her agency is closed for submissions until September '08.

Her website lists just 3 sales--one to A Better Be Write, which is the subject of a not terribly complimentary thread here, one to New River Press, and one to Ozark Mountain Publishing. These are all small publishers that don't require authors to be agented, and I would guess pay no or very small advances.

Not a very encouraging track record, IMO.

- Victoria

Ms. Kushen now has a recent sale to HarperCollins listed on her website, to be released in 2010. I don't subscribe to PM--has anyone seen any other recent sales by her or her associate, Ange Tysdal? She wrote this:

<http://www.ianthealy.com/main/node/29>

I also read where a writer claimed to be represented by a Terri Wolf at this agency. Anyone heard of her?

Ms. Kushen has requested two fulls from me. I have several partials and one full out with some well-established agents, so I hesitate to invest the time and money for printing. That's what I get for only giving her website a quick glance before querying and not searching AWWC sooner. (She has numerous authors posted--but their publishers, when listed, are either very small and don't require agents or have questionable reputations.)

I find 3 posted since Oct 2008. The one to Harper Paperbacks and two to Llewlleyn. All are non-fic titles, and all sales attributed to Anita.

Bumping up this thread. I pulled a honeysock

I found Ange through their new agency, AKA Literary. Here is their newest website:

http://www.wix.com/sightworx/akaliterary

Apparently Ange and Terrie acquired Anita Kushen & Associates early this year. There is another write up here:

http://ppwcon.org/2010-faculty (Scroll down the page)

I looked on AW for a thread on AKA and couldn't find one (because it was under Anita Kushen). I looked over their website, they have reported sales, so I queried Ange on 7/8/10. She responded this morning with a request for the full to be sent to Terrie (who handles MG). I checked PM, and Terrie has one reported sale to a major house for a non-fiction.

So now I'm wondering if I should send the full?! I mean, they are a new agency with only a few months under their belt. Their lack of sales, however, does make me a little nervous. I googled both agents, coming up with very little information.

The email I received from Ange was very upbeat and professional. I just wish I had found this thread before querying them.

Does anyone else have any more recent information on this agency?

Thanks in advance.

Thanks, CaoPaux.

I think I'm going to sleep on it and make my decision tomorrow. I'll post when I decide. I mean, it's not like this is the only agent who's asked for pages, but I don't want to waste Terrie's time, either. I want to be confident enough in her that if she asks to represent me, I can say yes without doubt.

Update: I decided to send the full. I'll let you all know what happens.

Update:

I've received several emails from Terrie. She loved my book so much, she read it twice. She wants to talk about representation. She seems very professional and nice, and her enthusiam for my story is what I'd want from an agent. But her sales aren't there. Maybe I should set up a phone call and be honest about my concerns?

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

Wow, ILS, congrats! That's very exciting!

I'm going to send you a PM...

My opinion is that if there your agent you should be able to talk freely with them. Isn't that the point? That you can go to them with questions..

Little -

I'm trying to set up a phone call for this Friday. She's not my agent -- yet.

YAY! I just receaved a full request from this agency. My vary first full request

ILSin-

What I mean is, even if it is a agent you quered, you should still be able to have an open dialog. You know what I mean? You should feel free to ask any question stupid or no.

EDIT: I realized you might think I am saying your questions are stupid. I am not. There valid and questions you should be asking.

I understand, Little1

Congrats on your full request! It looks like they are building their client list. I have a phone call scheduled for Friday, and I've prepared a list of questions -- Yah, me!

Thanks. That's awsome!! I hope it goes well. Has she sent you a contract to look over?

No contract yet, but I will ask her about it.