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Prentis Literary (formerly Linn Prentis Agency)

christwriter

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I've been going back and forth about whether or not to post my experiences, but I figure I will.

They had previously looked at a full of my 3rd novel, and were not enthusiastic enough to take it on.

I queried them with my 4th novel. In my query, I made it clear what the premise of the novel was, stated my genre (contemporary young adult) and told them that my word count was 50,000 words.

I received a request for a partial, and in the email, Amy told me that my wordcount, at 50,000, was a little low, and would I be willing to make the book longer?

I thought it was a little early to be asking that question, but I said that if an agent interested in representing me asked me to make it longer, then I would discuss that possibility at that time, and attached my partial.

They got back to me very quickly, with one of the strangest personal rejections I've ever received. They did not mention anything that would have indicated that they read my pages. Rather, they said that 1) They felt that, at 50,000 words, it was too short for young adult 2) They felt that young adults would not be interested in reading what I was writing about, ie, the premise.

What I do not understand is, why request pages and get a writer's hopes up only to reject solely on the basis of information that was clearly stated in the query?

Not only that, but they actually asked me, out of curiosity, if other agents were considering the novel, in light of the fact that they didn't think young adults would be at all interested.

I have no hard feelings toward Amy and Linn, I'm sure they're nice people just doing their jobs as best they can, not unlike all of us, but this whole exchange left a bad taste in my mouth, and assuming I don't get an agent on this 4th novel, I don't think I'll be querying them again.
I don't have that much experience (this being my first novel) but it might have been possible that they had more than one thing on the table at the time and needed to narrow it down. I've certainly done the same thing when I grab an armload of books at the store but know I can only buy one. One agency can't represent everybody. It may be that they believed your book has promise, but it would take more work to get it sell-able than other proposals might, and thus elected to pass.

It also sounds as if more than one person weighed in on the subject when it got to that stage.
 

Mr. Anonymous

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The email stated that they felt the novel, given its length, genre and the subject matter (all of which were stated in the query), was, in their words, an "impossible sell."
 

miamyselfandi

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The email stated that they felt the novel, given its length, genre and the subject matter (all of which were stated in the query), was, in their words, an "impossible sell."

Something in the query made them think they should look further before rejecting. Something tweaked them enough to think maybe it could overcome those issues (if you were willing to rewrite, which they asked ahead of time). Once they read it, they didn't find what they thought might be there and rejected. Or so it seems to me.
 

Mr. Anonymous

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All due respect, I don't want to get into an argument here. Suffice to say, the only thing in my query that did not have to do with subject matter, genre, and length was the fact that I'd queried them before. I'll let this be my last word on this.
 

miamyselfandi

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All due respect, I don't want to get into an argument here. Suffice to say, the only thing in my query that did not have to do with subject matter, genre, and length was the fact that I'd queried them before. I'll let this be my last word on this.

My apologies. My intent was not to argue. Good luck with your other subs.
 

Victoria Roder

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Lost Submission

Worried that my resubmit didn't reach Linn Prentis Agency, I sent a nudge to the agency. My stats: Nov. 18th, 2010 sent Q & 10 pages
Resent Jan. 12th, 2011 after notice from agency
Sent nudge March 11th, 2011 letter only

Anyone else have news?
 
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TracyG

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I may do the same as you, no response yet to my resent query on Jan. 12th...keep us updated!
 

Stlight

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On 1/12/11 I had a request for a resend due to cyber space/my formating scrambling my query. Today received a nice personal rejection. Actually this only my third personal one so that's good.
 

christwriter

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Got an e-mail two weeks ago from Amy stating that she liked it well enough but did not "love" it. Given my natural pessimism when it comes to my own work I'm assuming this is the kiss of death, but she did also ask for a few more chapters, so who knows. Unfortunately the chunk she asked for contains the chapter I feel least confident about. If she didn't "love" the first bit I don't really see how she can "love" this one. Ah well, at least the main character got to be kick ass for a little while.
 

alohachild

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Equeried August 12th, form rejection from Amy August 17th... something about only accepting 1% of new authors blah blah blah... *sigh* It made me blue because they are one of the few agencies out there that focus primarily on sf. At least it was fast and polite.
 

domynoe

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Is there any new news on this agency? I tried to send a query twice and it bounced back twice.
 

KateJJ

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I got a response from them on 7/8 after querying on 7/5 - form rejection. I sent it to Amy Hayden as instructed by their webpage, no problems there.
 

ssbittner

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This agency is on my list of ones that might be worth trying, but I'm concerned that no one has talked about them here in two years. Does anyone have recent experience with Linn Prentis?
 

Roxxsmom

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I was researching her also, but aside from Patricia Briggs (a big UF author), A.M. Dellamonica, and Kage Baker's estate, I don't see any books on her site. The only recent sales I see in publisher's marketplace are for Patricia Briggs, so maybe she's winding her career down and is not really looking to expand her client list? Querytracker says she's not accepting queries, though her website says they expect to resume taking submissions shortly.
 

DMcCunney

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Linn got her start working for Virginia Kidd. After various twists and turns, she left and formed her own agency.

I met her back when, and she seemed intelligent, competent, and devoted to her clients. There was a patch a few years back where her eye trouble left her blind for a while till medicine could correct the problems, and this impacted her agenting.

Today, Gordon Van Gelder (editor/publisher of Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine, and former Editor at St. Martin's Press reported that Linn died in her sleep last week. He got the news from a Facebook post by Trodayne Northern, an associate at Linn's agency. See https://www.facebook.com/search/top...mYTczMmNmYTU5YTFjYjZkOWY0NTBkMzg5MjQyNGU0OSJ9
______
Dennis
 

Filigree

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Here's a fun one: Autumn Frisse, acquisitions agent at Prentis Literary, sent me a rejection notice a day or two ago. Looking back on my records, I queried this agency once in 2009 and once in 2011. I didn't query them at all (far as my querytracker and other notes show) for the latest mms in 2016 and 2017.

Either it's a mistake and I got some other poor person's rejection letter (there are a few people around with my first name, some on AW), or Prentis really needs to organize their filing system.
 

D.L. Shepherd

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Anyone have any recent experience with this agency? I noticed they are no longer on QueryTracker for some reason.
 

F.L.N

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Linn Prentis, died December 24, 2016 and the agency is now co-owned but the name is the same. Maybe QT is just waiting on the new owners to provide the updated information.