Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency

I'm still waiting on Mollie Glick too. I'll drop her a polite reminder next week if I haven't heard. Sigh.

Marva, seems to me that you have a great hook for following up. The offer from the micro-publisher (not exactly sure what that term means) gives you an opening to contact Jessica again. If it was me, I'd let her know about the offer and see if that speeds her response.

That said, if you do land the agent, I'm assuming the micro-publisher is not the direction you want to go (or you'd have taken the deal already). Maybe you should head over to the Writing Novels board and see if anyone has suggestions on how to finesse this new info when you provide it to agents who already have your partial/full. Or maybe others will think bringing it up at all is a bad idea.

mikeland said:

I'm still waiting on Mollie Glick too. I'll drop her a polite reminder next week if I haven't heard. Sigh.

Marva, seems to me that you have a great hook for following up. The offer from the micro-publisher (not exactly sure what that term means) gives you an opening to contact Jessica again. If it was me, I'd let her know about the offer and see if that speeds her response.

That said, if you do land the agent, I'm assuming the micro-publisher is not the direction you want to go (or you'd have taken the deal already). Maybe you should head over to the Writing Novels board and see if anyone has suggestions on how to finesse this new info when you provide it to agents who already have your partial/full. Or maybe others will think bringing it up at all is a bad idea.

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I'd thought of that, but the offer isn't very impressive (no advance) and I'd probably have more sales if I self-pubbed. I won't mention the publisher because I really do love them dearly. I've had several stories in their zines. But, as a book publisher, well . . . they're kind to their mothers.

I will go over to the Novel group and take a look. Thanks, Mike.

Mollie Glick has had my partial since Nov 13. Is it - in your honored opinions! - too soon for a status check? She does seem to get back to people quickly, but with the holidays and all...

Good luck Steffi!

Just popping in to say that Mollie Glick requested my full today! ***happy dance***

She requested a hard copy (darn it - that means I need to figure out my new printer) but she also said if I sent it soon, she could have a response to me by the end of the month.

All prayers, including to Wicca Gods or L. Ron Hubbard, very welcome!

Yay! <dancing with you> I know what you mean about the hard copy. In my querying life I have only submitted via email, choosing agents that accept email for that reason. I figured once I had worked my way through all the email accepters I would move on to snail mail - hoping that by then everyone would be using email.
So stoked for you - best of luck!

Dear agent, which art in New York,
Howled be thy name
thy request has come,
my work is done,
on computer, and I am in heaven.

Okay it might not qualify as a real prayer, or even a very good parody. Hopefully I'm not struck down. But the thought is there!

I tried Jessica Regel a few months previously - I believe after reading about Ms. Glick and with a much-changed query, I'd prefer to query her.

Congrats, Appalachian.

Well, that was easy. I got a request for a partial this morning. Then again, this agency does tend to request and reject a ton.

Novel Idea said:

Just popping in to say that Mollie Glick requested my full today! ***happy dance***

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Did she insist on an exclusive? She requested from me the last time I sent my novel out (2 years ago, yikes!) but wanted an exclusive, so I passed. I really like what I hear about her, so was going to query her again on this round, but wanted to know if she was still set on exclusives.

She didn't, IceCreamEmpress (heh), but then before I sent my partial I had already explained it was out to six other agents - she was fine with that, just asked that I let her know about other offers and allow her to weigh in before making a decision.

I think if you let her know it's out she'll let the exclusive lapse. Also - she's pretty quick from all reports. And she told me she'd get back to me by the end of the month - so there's that.

Yeah, the exclusive she mentioned when she asked for my partial was only about 2 weeks or so. Not the month like other agencies.

I usually only put up with exclusives if they're pretty prestigious agencies.

Well, as noted - Mollie did NOT insist on the exclusive. I've found that the couple that asked for it from me waived the requirement without any fuss. It's always worth asking them.

I think Naggar is a prestigious agency - I have tons of HUGE awards - including an NEA grant - and I'd be enormously pleased if they took me on!

Okay. I wasn't knocking you or the Naggar Agency. I was just commenting that for a lot of agencies, exclusives are never used or, as with Mollie, are more of a formality or possibly put in as agency policy more than actually wanting exclusive control of your submission.

It shouldn't matter anyways, the turn around time for the Naggar Agency is remarkable.

Spiny Norman said:

It shouldn't matter anyways, the turn around time for the Naggar Agency is remarkable.

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I sent a query 10/25 and Ms. Regel requested a partial on 10/26. That's remarkable. After that, not so remarkable. I sent a note 12/11 (notice that is about 1-1/2 months after sending the partial) asking how things were going. She sent back a note saying it got "lost" and she'd get to it ASAP. On 1/7 I prodded again. She had "read it over the holidays" and a nice no thanks. It seems that your ms can get lost in the cracks, so be patient and follow up if you get a partial request after a decent period. Maybe my case was an anomoly.

Novel Idea:
Congratulations on your request for a full from Mollie! Did she respond after you checked the status or on her own? Also, did she tell you to send your partial via e-mail or snail mail? I've got a query out to her and am curious.

She responded to my status query by telling me that I was next on the pile and she'd get back to me soon. Then she requested the full about a week later. I don't know if this true of everyone, but she requested both the partial and the full snail mailed - although I e-queried.

Hope this is still relevant. It's been awhile since I've been on the boards (I'm finding that what comes after submitting the completed ms is a lot more work than actually writing it.)

Mollie signed me after she read a partial on my memoir. That was after she asked for an exclusive and I told her I couldn't do that as it was out with other agents. Whenever agents asked for an exclusive, I always said the same thing (it was usually true, as it was in Mollie's case) and I never had an agent say, "Well then, I don't want to see it."

In my opinion, exclusives suck and I would not give them. I learned this the hard way after a very well known, prestigious agency asked for one, I gave it to them and after 12weeks, when I asked for an update, they appologized that the "interns are so behind sending out rejections." That was the last exclusive I ever granted.

Notes on my experience with Jessica Regel.

I queried her in mid-December and she wrote back within three hours (!) asking for the first five chapters. She wanted an exclusive. As another agent had also requested material and was sitting on it, I countered that I would not accept any offers until she had had a reasonable amount of time to consider the work. She said it would take a month and if I hadn't heard by then to email her. I waited six weeks figuring nothing gets done the last two weeks in Dec. She wrote back quickly -- thumbs down. Nevertheless, I would have no qualms contacting her. She was professional, flexible and works for a solid agency.

As far as exclusives go (the other agent passed as well) I am not opposed to them as long as there is some sort of time limit. We are all up against the same parameters, if on different sides -- agents are swamped; writers don't have years to wait. If at all possible taking a middle road can work the best.

I'm new to this site and also new to making these posts. What a great community. I've been helped so much already. Hope I can be the same source of counsel others.

this is interesting.
i got an email requesting for first three
chapters (in .rtf, anyone know how to do that?!)
from jessica regel today.

her name didn't sound fimiliar but jean naggar
of course did. i had originally queried jennifer
weltz on 2/15 via post and apparently got passed
on?

will keep you posted.

i now need to research on how to make
an .rtf file.

also, she didnn't request for exclusive
but did ask to be informed if an agent made
an offer and wanted a week to read if they
did? ? ?

Julie Worth said:

If you're using Word, select "save as," then where it says "save as type," slide down to "Rich Text Format."

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wow, thanks!
i was too tired to do anything and
now my question is answered!

*hands julie a cupcake* =D

with sprinkles!

Steffi said:

This was after she had said she really enjoyed the sample chapters. This was exactly what I didn't want to have happen. I didn't want it to seem like I was forcing her hand and trying to get a response out of her. I have a feeling she thought the easiest thing would be to just pass and not give it careful consideration.

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This is indeed the catch 22 of submissions. You can't afford to wait months for a reply, yet if you say" I really need an answer" the answer is almost always no.

Exclusives suck, but if an agent you want requests one, you don't have much of a choice. Well, you do, but the choice is only to cross them off your list.

When I was submitting, I usually sent a reminder on overdue exclusives that simply said, "have you had a chance to look at it yet?"

But there is no good solution.

Following some sage advice, I e-mailed Molly and told her that other agents were looking at partials and I didn't feel an exclusive would be appropriate. She said, "Okay, send the partial anyway." I did. She had it for a couple of weeks, as I recall, and then sent me a lovely letter saying something like "she couldn't get excited about it." I sent her a thank you note and that was that. HOWEVER, when the WIP is finished, she's on my list to query. The agency and the agents seem professional and eager to discover new talent.

I recently got a reply from Jessica Regel...i sent her my query and a couple days later she asked for the first 3 chapters. Here is some additional info she provided: I do not charge a reading fee and do not require temporary exclusivity. Please do let me know if you receive an offer of representation from another agent. At that time, I require a one week period in which to respond to your
project.

Anyone know how long she generally takes to get back to you?