The Wedemeyer Agency (Isabelle Wedemeyer)

Welcome!

I'm going to move this thread down to Bewares and Background Checks. You'll get quite a few replies down there!

Hmm...

Not even listed on P & E which I would think is not a good thing (but I don't really know).

Also not listed on Agent Query

I did a google search and pulled up nothing, then I dropped the middle initial and found three things maybe, nothing on recent sales. I also re-searched AQ without the middle initial. Still nothing.

I'm not the expert on these things, though, so I'm just saying what I know, and how I know to check it. Others may chime in with first hand or second hand accounts.

Good luck.

Not found at AAR: http://www.aar-online.org/

EmmaKate said:

I am looking for literary agents online, and I have been in contact with Isabelle D. Wedemeyer of the Isabelle Wedemeyer Agency, NYC. Is anyone familiar with her?

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Hi, EmmaKate. I don't know your level of experience, so forgive me if this is stuff you already know.

There doesn't seem to be much on IDW/IDA out there. That's not good, but it's not necessarily the kiss of death; all agents are new at one time, after all, so the next thing to do is to look at her record. How long has she been in business? Effective new agents should be making sales within six months or so of startup. Has she worked in publishing? If so, where, doing what? What does she say makes her qualified to be an effective agent? It's easy to call yourself an agent. It's much harder to be a good one. As a writer, you're looking for an agent who can sell your manuscript to the kind of publishers who will do it justice. Don't settle for less, under any circumstances. An agent must be shown to be good enough to be on your list, not bad enough to cross off it.

Some resources for information on agent searches:
The Index to Agents, Publishers, and Others here on AW
Preditors and Editors
Writer Beware and The Writer Beware Blog
The Safest Way to Search for an Agent and Researching an Agent's Track Record, by Victoria Strauss
Making Light: On the getting of agents

Also, mention where you came across the agent or agency name. If it's online, include the URL. That will help us when there are multiple agents or agencies with similar or identical names.

No reported sales at Publisher's Marketplace, or notices of the agency opening at Publisher's Weekly.

She has an email, but as far as I can find, there is no website. I found her listed on writers.net and as a speaker or participant at a coference. Here's what it said about her:

blurb said:

She is interested in high quality fiction and takes on some writers whose concept is better than execution.

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Does that make anyone else think an editing service is involved?*

*Which would be Not a Good Thing, for anyone who doesn't know that.

Aconite said:

Does that make anyone else think an editing service is involved?*

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Ayup.

- Victoira

I would say either that or ghostwriting.

On the other hand she may be good at working with writers that aren't quite up to snuff, helping them craft their writing into marketable books and will be willing to work with them for as long as it takes with no cost to them until the advance is paid from the publisher.

*slaps self*

The hell was I thinking? Up front paid editing service or ghostwriting.

Let me sum it up best: From what I've seen about the both of them in my short tenure here, if Victoria or James haven't heard of them and can't find anything on them:

Go with another agent.

"She is interested in high quality fiction and takes on some writers whose concept is better than execution."

Okay, so if your story takes place in a French Revolution setting, you're right out?

(Any interpretation of that sentence as non-scammy would require it to be an actual, working sentence.)

A. J. Luxton said:

"She is interested in high quality fiction and takes on some writers whose concept is better than execution."

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Some writers whose concept is better than la garrotte....

Some writers whose concept is better than hanging....

Some writers whose concept is better than the gas chamber....

But not much better.

I can think of lots of writers like that.




For writers who are looking for agents, some words of advice:

http://www.sff.net/people/VictoriaStrauss/agentsearch.html

http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2005/01/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about.asp

Here's her linked in http://www.linkedin.com/pub/isabelle-wedemeyer/7/32b/305
She's a harvard graduate & an independent publisher. So I take it she's an agent and a publisher?