The Booker Albert Agency

That's fantastic news! Strange Chemistry has a great stable of authors, you're in good company there.

I saw your press release earlier. It sounds like a great book!

Eeee! Congrats!

I sent a query to Brittany Booker today, and I'm waiting to hear back. I'll keep you updated. In the meantime, does anyone have any advice for a 19-year-old first-timer who's trying to break into the market? At the risk of sounding cocky, I will say that I know I'm a good writer. I've been doing it my whole life, and I recently completed my first novel (a fantasy, a little over 130,000 words). So, any pointers?

J. Anne Bradshaw said:

I sent a query to Brittany Booker today, and I'm waiting to hear back. I'll keep you updated. In the meantime, does anyone have any advice for a 19-year-old first-timer who's trying to break into the market? At the risk of sounding cocky, I will say that I know I'm a good writer. I've been doing it my whole life, and I recently completed my first novel (a fantasy, a little over 130,000 words). So, any pointers?

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My first bit of advice is that you're raising the hurdles several feet higher by starting out with something over 100K words. I say this from experience, as someone who busted his hump doing the same thing. My first novel is still 146K, but I ended up publishing it myself. The ones I'm trying to sell now are in a safer word count range.

It's not impossible to sell a 130K debut novel, but it does make an already difficult process more difficult.

J. Anne Bradshaw said:

I sent a query to Brittany Booker today, and I'm waiting to hear back. I'll keep you updated. In the meantime, does anyone have any advice for a 19-year-old first-timer who's trying to break into the market? At the risk of sounding cocky, I will say that I know I'm a good writer. I've been doing it my whole life, and I recently completed my first novel (a fantasy, a little over 130,000 words). So, any pointers?

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Getting some shiny things for your CV is good too. This might mean winning a couple of prizes, and publishing some short stories in a respectable magazine (you're in luck, genre is one of the few markets where short stories are well read.) If you can write, these will be easy to get.

My advice: keep writing.

Sounds simple, but it isn't always easy.

J. Anne Bradshaw said:

I sent a query to Brittany Booker today, and I'm waiting to hear back. I'll keep you updated. In the meantime, does anyone have any advice for a 19-year-old first-timer who's trying to break into the market? At the risk of sounding cocky, I will say that I know I'm a good writer. I've been doing it my whole life, and I recently completed my first novel (a fantasy, a little over 130,000 words). So, any pointers?

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Beta readers, contests, conference cold reads. Stone cold feedback from strangers without an emotional investment in your work can be invaluable.

Christine N. said:

Jordy is now my agent. So far, so good. Excellent communication and keeps on top of things. Not much else to say this far, we just signed about a month ago. I WILL say that when it comes to revising a manuscript before submitting, she seems to know her stuff (with a MA in English, I would hope so). She gave me a list of excellent notes that I am implementing now. She also has given me a brief plan of action, which was good.

Once we get to the submission stage, I'll let you know how it goes. She's very nice.

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Christine N. said:

So now I can tell! Finally!
Jordy Albert got me a 'nice' deal from Strange Chemistry Books! We made the deal in November, but we had to coordinate the announcement and with the holidays, it all came down to TODAY.

So yes, this agency makes deals. SCB is the YA imprint of Angry Robot, based in the UK but distributed in the US by Random House.

They are an agent-only (except during Open Door times), advance-paying, SFWA market-qualifying publisher.

Jordy did a great job with the deal and I am an EXTREMELY HAPPY CLIENT!!!

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First of all, CONGRATULATIONS! So happy for you.

Second, thanks for sharing this. Jordy currently has a partial of my MS, and it's good to know I could trust her if she was interested in my work.

Congrats Christine!

Congrats on the book sale!

FYI: Steve Mancino, formerly of JABberwoky (and formerly agent of Jim Hines) has now joined Booker Albert Lit. Yay!

It's not on the website yet, but clients were told over the weekend, and Steve announced it yesterday on his FB. So I guess it's okay to tell people. I'm sure as soon as he's ready to accept subs it'll be up there. He tends to like SF/F.


Also, since the Strange Chem shut down, Jordy has been working on getting my manuscript sold again. Very hard. Just another data point for anyone thinking of submitting to them.

it's officially on the site now: http://www.thebookeralbertagency.com/about-us.html

His email is forthcoming, but you can still query him using the [email protected] , just put 'Steve' in the subject line if you want him to read it.

Christine N. said:

it's officially on the site now: http://www.thebookeralbertagency.com/about-us.html

His email is forthcoming, but you can still query him using the [email protected] , just put 'Steve' in the subject line if you want him to read it.

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I was just going to post that

I just queried him using the above email--here's hoping for the best!

Steve just emailed and requested a partial

I got a Twitter request from Jordy. Or at least I'm assuming its a request. She posted about a week or so ago that she was accepting Twitter pitches for a short period of time. Only a handful of people pitched and then today I noticed she favorited my pitch, but nothing more was said. So going off my limited experience with Twitter pitches I'm assuming I'm supposed to send the basic query submission mentioned on their website. And also mention I pitched it on Twitter. Does that sound about right? I thought she might give a few more details about what she expected after the pitches were over, but she hasn't. She doesn't seem like a big Twitter user. Anyway - thoughts?

Yes, if she favorited then you're okay to send.

I got a dm shortly after the favorite from Jordy yesterday. I didn't see anything till a bit ago so I got everything out to her now.

Has anyone heard back about their partials from the Booker-Albert agency? Had a partial request from Brittany and curious about turn-around time. Thanks!

tbrosz said:

My first bit of advice is that you're raising the hurdles several feet higher by starting out with something over 100K words. I say this from experience, as someone who busted his hump doing the same thing. My first novel is still 146K, but I ended up publishing it myself. The ones I'm trying to sell now are in a safer word count range.

It's not impossible to sell a 130K debut novel, but it does make an already difficult process more difficult.

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Sorry, not for fantasy - about 120k is okay for a debut, unless it's YA. It's at the upper end but it's not out of the ball park.

I've been watching their sales, and it seems like it's almost all digital. Does this mean I wouldn't be able to find any of the books sold by The Booker Albert Agency in regular bookstores?

xDream said:

I've been watching their sales, and it seems like it's almost all digital. Does this mean I wouldn't be able to find any of the books sold by The Booker Albert Agency in regular bookstores?

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There are a lot of people around here who have more experience that I do, so I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but if they're digital-only, then yes, you wouldn't be able to find any of those books in brick-and-mortar bookstores. That said, I haven't seen contracts for any of those imprints, so it's possible that they have print clauses built in if the works reach certain sales thresholds.

Krista G. said:

There are a lot of people around here who have more experience that I do, so I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but if they're digital-only, then yes, you wouldn't be able to find any of those books in brick-and-mortar bookstores. That said, I haven't seen contracts for any of those imprints, so it's possible that they have print clauses built in if the works reach certain sales thresholds.

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Hmm, they don't seem to say they're digital, but it seems like, whenever I click on a book cover, it brings me to a Kindle eBook.

Thank you for the information.

xDream said:

Hmm, they don't seem to say they're digital, but it seems like, whenever I click on a book cover, it brings me to a Kindle eBook.

Thank you for the information.

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I checked out their list, and starting from the top, Swoon Romance is a digital-first imprint, meaning (I think) that they publish original fiction in e-book form first with the possibility of a print run (if the title does exceptionally well).

According to this PW article, Random House Flirt is a digital-only line, which means (I think) that they never plan to publish those titles in print.

Ebury bills itself as "the adult and children’s fiction and nonfiction print and digital trade book publishing businesses of Penguin and Random House in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and India, Penguin’s trade publishing activity in Asia and South Africa; Dorling Kindersley worldwide; and Random House’s companies in Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, and Chile," so that sounds encouraging (though I have a hard time believing that an agency can land print contracts in the UK but not the US).

eKensington sounds like the digital-only or digital-first arm of Kensington, though their website doesn't really confirm or deny this.

Berkley publishes in multiple formats, including hardcover and paperback, so that's something.

And the list goes on. I didn't look up any of their specific titles, but that should at least give you an idea of what to expect. It's unlikely that an agent will sell your book to someone they haven't already sold at least one book to (unless they're brand new, of course).

Jordy sold to Strange Chemistry Books, my now defunct print publisher. So there's at least one that was going to be print until Strange Chemistry went bye-bye back in June of this year.

Saskatoonistan said:

Jordy sold to Strange Chemistry Books, my now defunct print publisher. So there's at least one that was going to be print until Strange Chemistry went bye-bye back in June of this year.

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Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that. But thank you (and Krista G.) for the information.

Mine too, went to Strange Chem, then she sold it to Curiosity Quills.