I no longer take mysteries or thrillers

Checked the site and saw that she also says "I do not want any romance novels, science fiction, fantasy, inspirational, religious, paranormal, erotic."

She don't want much, do she?

tko said:

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]As a rule, I no longer take mysteries, thrillers or historical novels because publishers won’t buy them from unknown authors.[/FONT]

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Complete shite.

No mysteries, thrillers, historical, romance novels, science fiction, fantasy, inspirational, religious, paranormal, or erotica. Sounds to me like she's saying she is unable to sell anything.

I sent a query to Ms L Diver, of the Knight Agency. She represented a lot of SF/F in her time and I felt she was the agent I wanted. I received a reply that the story had premise, but was not what they were looking for at the time. Well, I signed up for their agency newsletter so I could learn more of what they are selling as the Knight agency is a rather large and well respected agency.

What I noticed over the years is that the Knight Agency takes on more women's and romance fiction, including supernatural and vampire stuff with romance as a heavy element of the story.

I wrote to the associate editor in charge of the newsletter at the time about a year ago and asked if the agency still represented SF&F? Her reply was of course they do and she listed a few books that would be listed in the next news letter.

The next newsletter arrived and the new titles were there, but they were heavy into romance when I read the blurbs. While romance is involved in my stories, it is not the main element so I have serious doubt I will ever query the Knight Agency again

Agents and agencies represent what they can sell, based on their contacts with publishers. This does not mean other genre's don't sell, just that their contacts are not as heavily into the other genre's. So, the above quote does not really surprise me.

As a side note, my first agent started out in SF&F, horror, detective stories etc, and today, she only reps romance stories. Its all about what they can sell.

Yeah, that's kind of a blanket statement. I don't think my agent would be pushing my thriller at the moment if Jodie's opinion held any water. She's probably had a very difficult time selling thrillers or mysteries, although I should look at her sales list to verify this. Too tired.

On a more ironic note, Nat Sobel believes that the only book a male writer has a chance of selling today is a thriller.

tri

Maybe SHE can't sell MTS, but that doesn't mean NO agent can.

Wow! Talk about waving a white flag! Just what CAN she sell then?

Leaves non-fiction on her list.

Good heavens.

ETA: P&E lists her with a $ and as repping "Literary, Adult, Children's."

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=104640

http://www.brianstorms.com/articles/workshop.html


-cb

Well, mysteries/thrillers just ain't her "niche". I'd say she enjoys reading "literary" much more and has been more successful pitching books of such.

I believe she specializes more in non-fiction work. I sent her a query several years ago for my non-fiction book. She practically BEGGED me to submit a proposal - which I did. I had professional help writing the proposal because I'm basically a fiction writer and wanted to make sure it was done correctly. WELL, she rejected me - which is fine but the letter she sent was mean and vicious. I mean really, really nasty. I hope it made her feel better. I'm not sure what agents think they are accomplishing with that kind of rejection. Of course I went on and published that book - as well as nine novels, three novellas and countless articles and short stories.

I checked out the link for Jodie's website and laughed out loud. Her photo at the top is about 40 years out of date!

Carlene

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]As a rule, I no longer take mysteries, thrillers or historical novels because publishers won’t buy them from unknown authors.[/FONT]

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That's silly. And what a bizarre way to say that these aren't books she's looking to represent. Which is fine, by the way. She should rep what she wants to rep, but there's no need to justify her choice with an easily disproved declaration.

A subscription to Publishers Marketplace will show debut deals for mystery, thriller, and suspense nearly every day.

They bought mine and I'm a nobody.

Bollocks you are.

(That was my Scottish way of paying you a compliment, by the way.)

Thanks for the links, cbenoi1.

For those considering the turn of events in this thread, you might want to check out the more recent posts in the specific AW thread regarding Jodie Rhodes Literary Agency. The Dec 2011 posts start at #60.

I don't think any commentary I could add would illuminate the situation further. May I wish Ms. Rhodes the best in her new literary endeavors and strongly encourage anyone considering agents at the query stage to read through each agent's or agency's thread here at AW's [URL="http://absolutewrite.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=22"]Bewares, Recommendations & Background Check[/url] section, at the very least.

Mod Hat On:

Let's leave the discussion about the agent herself to the thread devoted to her on Bewares and Background Checks, shall we?

If you want to discuss how difficult it is to sell mysteries and thrillers, please do.

/mod hat

What she means is that publishers won't buy mysteries/thrillers from new writers if she's representing those writers. What she means is that she doesn't know how to tell a great, marketable mystery or thriller from horse manure.

There's nothing wrong with this. As she says, her first love is not mysteries and thrillers, so why would she be any good at finding ones publishers want from new writers? More agents should drop genres that simply are not good at representing. Far too many agents try to represent every genre out here, and while this may put more money in an agent's bank account, it's a huge disservice to writers.

But those who drop genres should do so without idiotic excuses, and without saying something that's total nonsense, such as "publishers won't buy them".

Publishers buy mysteries and thrillers from new writers on a regular basis.

Now, I like an agent who keeps trying after eight or ten rejections, but this agent goes far beyond the point of common sense, and far beyond the point where a sale is going to do anything other than hurt the writer.

And I sure as hell don't want an agent getting involved with marketing, regardless of her expertise. All this does is get in the way of the writer and the publishers marketing department, and they do not leave writers out in the cold.

Hey tko, I once got a similar response from an agent, very kindly worded with feedback. I honestly think it's more of a statement about that particular agent's contacts than the market in general. I mean, look at Stacia Decker. She's had huge success representing our genre and she broke out several new writers. So of course, everyone knows that and now she no longer takes queries.

The market is out there for MTS, so there are agents looking for it. Sounds like this one is busy enough right now with her Romance contacts.

Warm regards,

Lucie