Talcott Notch Literary Services

I came in here to lament about the fact that Jessica Negron is closed to queries, because the ms I've just completed dovetails perfectly with her stated interests, but I'd like to say that I appreciate Ms. Panettieri's taking the time to share her perspective on the above posts.

In the meantime, if it isn't too self-serving a question: do you know if Jessica will be open to queries again in the near future?

Hi, Jes sometimes closes to new queries to allow herself time to catch up with her inbox (she's a popular lady!), focus on sales and submissions and make certain she's on top of all of her client work, but she should be looking at opening to new work soon. We're going to be launching our newly-redesigned and expanded website very soon, and that should also be helpful in allowing writers to keep up with the latest going on with the agency and the agents.

Thank you so much for the quick reply! I'll keep an eye out.

Confused

sarahwrites said:

Editing my post in response to Gina's post, which had me vacillating between bemused and put off before settling on indifference. I hope everyone checking out Talcott Notch does their research, as they would for any agency, and closely examines the prospective agent's recent sales list. Remember that a few recognizable publishing houses does not cancel out a slim sales history. Good luck.

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Sarahwrites, do you mind reposting or letting us know what the issue with Rachael was? it's helpful for other querying writers to know as much as possible about an agent and not just get the agent's side of the story. Thanks!

I'm in the same boat, waiting for over 6 months now. I nudged once without response. So I'm writing it off as closed/no response.

Hi, Lena, Yes, Rachael's inbox is ridiculously crowded. She's not closed to new queries, and we do have interns assisting to get to as many as possible, but depending on how your subject line read (meaning how close the book sounded to her specializations) it may or may not have gotten more priority. Which really shows how important that subject line is! Can you tell us what your subject read (if it wouldn't be giving too much away?)

Berlu, I was simply presenting a balanced perspective to the issues Sarahwrites presented in a post she then chose to delete after reading my reply. In response to her edited brief reply, my only reply is a 'scant' sales record to major houses when one builds ones lists very carefully and takes on very few writers but places them in major houses is very impressive, especially for a new agent.

Paula Munier Talks a Good Game

I see there are continuing problems with Talcott, Notch. Gina seems like such a fine person on the phone, but I couldn't get any satisfaction from Paula after waiting over 18 months for a response about my Full. After calling and talking to a very nice person who may have been Gina, I was told my complaint would be given to Paula. Indeed, her assistant responded and asked me to send a note to Paula, which I did. Paula, never responded about my Full. Good or bad, or why. I know about the high mortality rate among agents for Queries, Synopses, and even Fulls, but Paula had been extremely interested and responsive about my initial Query and first ten pages, which I had summited to her on a Writer's Digest Boot Camp webinar. But, after her requesting my full, that was it. So, I have to wonder if perhaps Paula, is primarily interested in selling these webinars and attending conferences, of which she does a lot, all for a very nice fee?

Hi, Mushy. It can take Paula a long time to get through fulls, but I'll agree 18 months is outside her norm. She did, in fact, just recently ask me to ask our web site developer about additional email addresses for specific issues (we're doing a launch of a new website very shortly which will be more informative and interactive so it's part of an overall revamp) because she felt she was missing key emails in the huge amount of mail she's getting. I think if you check Paula's sales history, though you'll see she's very clearly focused on selling books, in fact, she's selling new projects every month, usually multi-books contracts, mostly for new first-time authors she's met at a conference, etc. (though often she has worked with those books with the author, developing them and revising them for quite some time prior to the sale). She's even got three multi-book deals for debut authors she brokered recently she hasn't posted yet. So you can see her focus is very much on discovering new voices.

The fee any of the faculty gets for any webinar or conference appearance is actually a small fraction of the tuition paid to the conference or sponsoring entity (many/most conference appearances are uncompensated, with the conference only covering travel expenses to get there and a room in the conference hotel in exchange for the agent creating and hosting workshops, doing panels and taking pitches at the conferences), and the opportunity is seen more as a chance to meet new writers, find great work and see how the authors work with revisions (an important consideration!). My recommendation is to ask her assistant to follow up with her (cc each other on the emails?). He works in her inbox and can pull up the original submission and prepare a reader's report on it to help advance the submission through the process. Feel free to cc me on anything you need particular help with as we have our own support staff in our office who can also assist.

gpanettieri said:

Hi, Lena, Yes, Rachael's inbox is ridiculously crowded. She's not closed to new queries, and we do have interns assisting to get to as many as possible, but depending on how your subject line read (meaning how close the book sounded to her specializations) it may or may not have gotten more priority. Which really shows how important that subject line is! Can you tell us what your subject read (if it wouldn't be giving too much away?)

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My subject line always says: Query: (title) (genre)

My nudges say: Requested Material Follow-up (and maybe title and genre again). I always like to nudge when I have a heavily revised MS, which I did this time around.

Thanks for taking the time to correspond on these boards. Would you mind telling us if your agency responds to all full requests eventually, or do you have a 'no response means no' policy on requested material?

Hi, Lena, if the book is revised substantially since the version the agent is working with, you'd definitely want the agent reading the newest version rather than the original submission. My suggestion is to send the revised submission in an attachment to Rachael and cc her intern, Evan Helmlinger (ehelmlinger at talcottnotch dot net), who is reading a number of her submissions right now to prepare reader reports.

We do try to reply eventually on all requests (though if we've had the book for a while, we'll contact the writer first and ask if the book is still available before reading it since sometimes the book isn't available for one reason or another - the author decided to pull it for further revision, signed with an agent and didn't inform the others considering it, or maybe self-published it, etc). If we've read it and passed, we'd let you know. If we haven't contacted with a pass, it would still be in consideration. We know it can be frustrating to wait without word!We did decide to expand the number of assistants we'll take on in January to help move material as quickly as we can. I think that will help, especially with these 'follow ups' like you're mentioning since we can make that a priority for one in particular.

Hi, Ms. Panettieri, sorry to bother you again, but I had a question. Are any of your agents (including junior agents) going to be participating in PitMad?

Hi, Dream, I'm not sure, let me check and when I've heard back from everyone, I'll post the answer. With the holiday and traveling, I'll have to check via email. -
Okay - everyone has weighed in that they are going to be working on their backlogged requested projects and don't plan on participating. But good luck to everyone who is putting their pitches out there!

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Ms. Panettieri,

Thanks for the response. I will send updates to Ms. Dugas and continue to leave that query open.

Hi, Lena, sounds good!

Has anyone else queried and received a response since 11/22/14?

I queried Ms. Dugas on Nov. 22 and, per their instructions of waiting at least 4 weeks, sent a status update request on January 8 (cc'ing Ms. Panettieri), but still haven't heard anything. I'm afraid that my query and the status update request weren't received.

I know this thread has been quiet for a few months, but I'm hoping Gina Panettieri will drop by again to set my mind at ease...

You might read through this thread just to get an idea of the usual response times.

Edit: Long story short, they are backlogged and catching up right now. So patience may be needed.

Received an interesting R from Jessica Negron yesterday (queried May, 2014). I'd long since written it off as a no response means no.

Dear Author,

Thank you so much for your interest in Talcott Notch, and for your patience. I regret to inform you I am leaving the agency. Please visit the Talcott Notch website (TalcottNotch [dot] net) to see which other agents may be a good fit for your work. I appreciate the opportunity to consider your book and wish you the best of luck finding representation.

Those response times are ridiculous, but not outside the new norm. When I queried agents, I wrote off the submission as 'no response = no interest' after four or five months, and went on to the next. No hard feelings, no ranting - I'd seen the query stats from many publishers, and I knew my query was one among thousands.

Conversely, any agent who did respond after that was in competition with the ones I'd more recently contacted. The slow responders were weighted toward the bottom of the list unless their track record was otherwise extraordinary.

SABA SULAIMAN - Talcott Notch

I noticed on #mswl today that I may have a work for Saba Sulaiman from Talcott Notch. Of course, my first stop was to come here to find any info on her. I didn't find any. I'd love some feedback before I query her.

Thanks.

Hi, All. Just a quick update to give you all the latest. Yes, Jessica Negron is leaving agenting. She was offered what amounted to her dream position with a major online gaming company. We're sorry to lose her but we're incredibly excited for her at the same time because we know that this has been a lifelong passion of hers. Jes- we're going to miss you around the office!

At the same time, Saba Sulaiman has been a fabulous addition to our agenting roster. You may run into Saba during social media pitch fests or a contest run by a blog or writing organization. She holds a Master's in Comparative Lit from the University of Chicago and previously interned at Sourcebooks before interning with us and becoming such an invaluable addition we couldn't let her go. Saba spends a day a week networking in New York spending time with the editors in the publishing houses and building her own personal contact database. She's a terrific addition to our team and is already getting interest for her projects from Big Five publishers.

It's been a hectic week - a reoptioning for one of my client's books for feature film, a shiny new option by one of the largest studios we can't disclose yet, yet another pre-publication translation rights sale for Kim Van Alkemade's ORPHAN NUMBER EIGHT (bringing the number of countries to five and it's really building a head of steam!), a new sale for Rachael Dugas, an audio offer on Ron Franscell's THE DARKEST NIGHT, and finalizing the contract terms on a new thriller for Crooked Lane Books for a writing team of mine with amazing skills.

Queried Rachel Dugas with a YA Post-Apocalyptic on 10/4/14. No response so I'm assuming no.

Hi, Jtrylch13 - I'd suggest nudging/requerying with the full query now for Rachael.

Hi Ms Panettieri.

What's a reasonable time frame to nudge you about a full MS? Thank you.