PVish said:
Anybody know if Sagalyn Literary Agency is legit?
http://www.sagalyn.com
I'm suspicious--they don't have agents' names or even a street address on their website that I could find, and they're located in Bethesda, Maryland. They take queries by email only. A gentleman I know sent me their link and asked me to take a look.
Sagalyn is more than legitimate - they are one of the best non-fiction agencies out there (especially for business and politics), and Rafe Sagalyn is a very classy, smart, and connected guy. Rafe sold John Nesbitt's
Megatrends, one of the best selling non-fiction books ever. They also do fiction -- Rafe is Andrew Greeley's agent -- but it is less of a focus for them.
He's very hands-on with the books, too: I've seen Rafe really push back with authors on what they're doing, and he offers very useful advice both on improving the quality of the book and its commercial prospects.
For the kind of clients he has, Bethesda is a good place (it is a suburb of Washington, D.C.). I believe he spends plenty of time in NY, though. Also, although I'm not sure about this, I think Rafael Sagalyn may be the only agent at the Rafael Sagalyn Literary Agency. Thus the name.
Remember a few years ago when the news of Dean Kamen's new invention leaked, and everyone was forwarding this snippet about how Steve Jobs and John Doerr and Jeff Bezos were astonished and said it would change America forever? That story came from a press release that Rafe sent out announcing he had sold Steve Kemper's
Code Name Ginger to Harvard Business School Press. (Yeah, the invention turned out to be a dud, but it was a brilliant piece of book marketing.)
Disclaimer of sorts: I'm not a client of Sagalyn, but I've met with him about books, and he represents a number of colleagues. If I write a non-fiction book, he will absolutely be the first agent I'd contact.
Meta-discussion: his web site gives you all the information you need to decide whether he's legit. He has clients you've heard of (Robert Reich, Michael Kinsley, Jim Hightower, etc.), he's sold many many books to publishers you've heard of; he's sold books you've heard of; books he has sold have won the Pulitzer Prize.