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[Agency] Hummingbird Literary (Mira Reisberg)

EMaree

a demon for tea
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Well, their names makes me think of the Hummingbird Bakery.

Their website is cute, professional, and looks fairly standard at first. I found it odd that she reps YA when her site seems to be focussed almost exclusively on MG and picture books, but that wasn't a red flag. Then I got to this bit (blue font is me):

We will be accepting submissions from industry referrals and attendees of Hummingbird Literary conference presentations for 3 months after conferences. A special email code will be provided.
Hm. Unusual that they felt the need to announce this, but okay.


Former students of Mira’s are asked to wait six months after the final class before submitting for representation. This is to avoid any conflict of interest.
This seems fine, I appreciate that they're making it clear there's no conflict of interest here.

We will also be accepting manuscripts that have received a 1-2 score from Rate Your Story by forwarding your email and ratings sheet from Rate Your Story and attaching your updated manuscript with a query letter. Er, hang on, what? Chapter book, middle grade, and YA writers are also welcome to submit query letters. For illustrators, please send a one page query including whatever is applicable from above and a link to your website. Don’t worry if your website isn’t great. If you become a client, I will mentor you in making your website wonderful WHAT

This agent is involved in a huge amount of work all at once. They seem to have some involvement in Rate Your Story, though the relationship there isn't clearly stated, and then they mention doing web design on top of agenting? A web designer doesn't usually have time to do agenting, and vice versa. Both are busy jobs.

On top of agenting, web designing, Rate Your Story-ing, teaching classes and attending industry events, this agent is an instructor and director of the Picture Book Academy (now the Children’s Book Academy).

Mira's personal website goes into her background a bit, and mentioned that "I was encouraged and mentored by Karen Grencik [Red Fox Literary] to become an agent and founded Hummingbird Literary in late 2013.". So this agency is very new.

There are no book deals mentioned on the website. There's a lot going on here, and too little of it isn't agenting. I'm sure Hummingbird works hard, and their aims seem fantastic (the illustrators they rep are amazing, and the Picture Book Academy is a great little group) but at the moment I'm not seeing enough focus on selling books.

Considering that they only started in late 2013, I'm hopeful this will change soon. If they start announcing book deals then this could probably be a powerful little agency -- they certainly seem to have the talent. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this agency to see how they do....
 
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