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Marsal Lyon Literary Agency

Lucky Lucy

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I don't see a separate thread yet for Jill Marsal and Kevan Lyon at their new agency, Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.

On Sept. 4 I sent an email query to them. On Sept. 10 received email from Jill Marsal requesting 20 pages. Sent them without delay. On Sept. 11 I received another email from Jill requesting full to be sent by snail mail. All emails have been lovely; enthusiastic and professional. Even if they are form emails they made my day. I see on Publisher's Marketplace that Jill Marsal has been busy racking up sales this past month. Crossed fingers. I have five fulls being read by agents, fortunately none as exclusives.

Any other experiences with this new agency? I read somewhere that Sept was the busiest month for agents but I don't know why. Any ideas?

Back to my new project and time to quit obsessing.
 

ChrryBlssmGrrl

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I saw Kevan Lyon on Agent Query and thought she sounded like she might be a good match so I e-queried her yesterday.

Today I got an email from Jill Marsal, saying Kevan had forwarded my query to her and would I send her the first 20 pages. She included both her postal and email address so I emailed them - post takes a while/costs a bit/is none too friendly for the environment from Ireland to California so I hope that will be ok...

And now...waiting!!! Anyone else out there on AW been querying these guys??
 

scottishrose45

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I LOVE Kevan

I queried Kevan Lyon and have so far found her wonderful.

Here's my history thus far:

5/8: Queried
5/12: Partial requested
5/31: Full requested
6/8: Emailed with a rejection, but very detailed as to what worked and what did not. No indication as to whether she would be willing to look at a revised book
9/12: I sent the revised book, asking if she'd be willing to look at it again
An Hour Later: Said yes
10/21: Emailed saying she loved the revisions and requesting that I send the full manuscript by snail mail

The first time she requested the full, she only read the first eighty pages and she requested it by email. The second time she requested the full by snail mail after reading the first 80 pages again.

She's very nice and extremely approachable. She also very knowledgeable and seems genuinely interested in helping authors. I've received an offer for representation (yesterday), but am going to wait to see what she says because I think she would be an absolute dream to work with. Helpful, knowledgeable and passionate!
 
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scottishrose45

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Haha, if only. She's only had it for a week and a half. Waiting is the most excruciating part of this whole thing. The good news is I got another request for a full manuscript from Alexandra Machinist, who is another of my top dream agents.
 

ChrryBlssmGrrl

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Haha, if only. She's only had it for a week and a half. Waiting is the most excruciating part of this whole thing. The good news is I got another request for a full manuscript from Alexandra Machinist, who is another of my top dream agents.

Both Alexandra and Jill were looking at my partials too! Alexandra took about 2 months but eventually got back to me with an R, Jill took about 4 weeks but same response alas and it was a form R, alas. But didn't make me wait too long tho, which is a plus :)
 

sciri

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Hi, those of you who got the 20-page request from Jill Marsal: did you include a synopsis? Would it be inappropriate if I did? And did you send the pages as a word attachment, double spaced I suppose? Is that what one is supposed to assume when no instruction on the formatting is given? (sorry for the fretting....)
 

Fmate66

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Queried 13th Dec
Partial requested 23rd
Rejected 26th

Nice short note. Don't know if it was a form letter or not. Said pages were interesting and well written. I'd like to believe her but I have no idea if these are just kind, but standard, words.

Very fast and efficient.
 

sciri

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That's what she said to me too, "well written, I enjoyed reading them."
Not enough to request the rest though.... oh well!
 

Bushdoctor

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I got that too. seems to be her standard form rejection
 

Molko

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I received an offer for representation today, even though I probably sounded like an idiot on the phone. :) She had warned me that she was going to call, but I wasn't expecting it to be so soon after the e-mail. I think I'm going to take it. Is there anyone here who has experience with Ms. Marsal? She is very approachable.
 

Vandal

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I received an offer for representation today, even though I probably sounded like an idiot on the phone. :) She had warned me that she was going to call, but I wasn't expecting it to be so soon after the e-mail. I think I'm going to take it. Is there anyone here who has experience with Ms. Marsal? She is very approachable.


Congratulations, if you so choose to take it.
 

Molko

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Thank you Vandal and rebobinar. I haven't really told anyone yet, so you two are the first to congratulate me! :)
 

honeysock

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For those looking for response times: queried Kevan on 1/24. Got a request for a partial on 1/25. Very very nice personal R today (after only 2 weeks) on the partial with feedback and the offer to "look again" if I made revisions in the near future.

I had another agent request completely different revisions on the full so I'm doing that now. If it doesn't pan out, I'll consider Ms Lyon's suggestions.

FWIW, I've had four agents give me four totally different directions for revising. If they all matched, I'd have an easy job deciding what's wrong with my manuscript. As it is--I'm starting to think this is a crapshoot.
 

sciri

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Fascinating! I always take any agent's advice to heart, but in your case... what's one to do?? Mhm... I think next time I make revisions for an agent I'll ponder a bit longer instead of jumping straight to it... Thanks for sharing!
 

rebobinar

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Yeah, I've had two very different revision directions from agents also. They weren't mutually exclusive, though, so I can kinda do them both. :) Just very different things they keyed in on.