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Firebrand Literary / Story Complex (Nadia Cornier)

CaoPaux

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06-16-2006, 10:18 AM
mysterymar
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Firebrand Literary

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Anyone have any info on this agency?
06-16-2006, 10:24 AM
Maddog
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They are totally legit, if that's what you're asking. I met Nadia at a conference, she's a kick! They have a lot of clients for being so new but they are making a lot of sales too.
06-16-2006, 10:28 AM
DeadlyAccurate
Not really.

New agency but respected agents with prior experience.
http://www.firebrandliterary.com/
Nadia Cornier was apparently a powerhouse agent at CMA at a very young age. Caren Johnson came from Peter Rubie's agency and is also a young agent with previous experience. Caren is currently reading my full manuscript.
06-16-2006, 10:40 AM
dragonjax
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I love, love, love Nadia. I interviewed her for Wild Child Publishing, during which she spoke about being an agent. Here's the link, if you're interested.
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06-16-2006, 06:03 PM
Richard White
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I've met Nadia and read her blog Agent Obscura.

I wish she took adult SF/F because I'd pitch her in a second, but she's more into YA fantasy. Grumble, grumble.
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06-16-2006, 06:06 PM
Christine N.
Bush has the Ring!

Rejected my manuscript (both Nadia and Lauren when she was on board) but very, very nice, helpful, and legit agency. Making big waves for a new agency.

Nothing but props for them.
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Christine
06-18-2006, 11:05 AM
brainstrains
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Nadia has been my agent for a couple of months now, and so far she's been wonderful. For a relatively new agent, she has quite a few sales under her belt and an incredible knowledge of the YA market (which I write). I don't believe she's taking submissions right now.

Megan Atwood is a new agent at Firebrand-- I know she is actively seeking YA (you can see more on the Firebrand website). Good luck!
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06-26-2006, 03:04 AM
Stuart Hades
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Nadia has represented me in the past. A true star.
 

bloemmarc

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Firebrand Literary Agency

Hi, I have a question.

I had received an offer in the mail from Publish America, but also received a letter back from Nadia Cornier telling me that she is quite full right now with her clients, but to definatly contact her again at the end of the summer if I had not already found representation by then.

I would indeed love to wait to resubmit to her agency, because of how good their track record is, and how onest they are.
If an agent writes back to you telling you to recontact them at a later point in like a month or so, is there real interest on their part or are they just being polite many times.
 

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clara bow

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bloemmarc said:
Hi, I have a question.

If an agent writes back to you telling you to recontact them at a later point in like a month or so, is there real interest on their part or are they just being polite many times.

I would certainly resubmit if you haven't found representation. For what it's worth, though, I did exactly that after Nadia turned down one of my fulls and received the same invitation (I had a sneaky suspicion she liked it but her supervisor agent at the time didn't). However, she declined to see anything from the second book. I didn't try resubmitting with the manuscript she had read, though, so who knows.
 

bloemmarc

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Thank you.

I was just wondering, and wanted some advice on it. I've had so much bad luck, I had to slap myself in the face that a good agency like hers might actually be interested in my tale.
She also responded to me like two days after I contacted her, whereas her site says it usually takes them likes two weeks I think.
 

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If it's a choice between PA now and Nadia (who is one of my favorite people, even though it was a no for me for representation) later; there IS no choice - take Nadia up on her offer later.

She's a hardworking agent who takes her business VERY seriously. If you want to know how legit she is, one of her clients is Lauren Barnholdt. Lauren was one of her first clients, and Lauren's book just came out from Simon Pulse, which is the teen imprint from Simon and Schuster.

And Lauren's book was just in the July issue of Teen People as a "Must Read for Summer."

So legit? Way beyond.
 

bloemmarc

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I know, I believe you Christine. It's just like I said, Ive had so much bad luck that I had to slap myself that I got invited to resubmit again later, when most agents told me no thanks.
 

LeslieB

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bloemmarc said:
I know, I believe you Christine. It's just like I said, Ive had so much bad luck that I had to slap myself that I got invited to resubmit again later, when most agents told me no thanks.

A 'call me' is a great thing to get from an agent, even a delayed one, so take heart.

*looks at join date* You've been here a year and you haven't tripped over the Publish America threads? You've missed some lively stuff. Please, go and read some of the posts in the PA forum. You'll run screaming in the opposite direction from PA after hearing the experiences of some of their victims. Believe me, you don't want to get tangled up with them, not when you have the attention of a good agent who can get you published by a real publisher.
 

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bloemmarc said:
I had received an offer in the mail from Publish America, but also received a letter back from Nadia Cornier telling me that she is quite full right now with her clients, but to definatly contact her again at the end of the summer if I had not already found representation by then.

I would indeed love to wait to resubmit to her agency, because of how good their track record is, and how onest they are.
If an agent writes back to you telling you to recontact them at a later point in like a month or so, is there real interest on their part or are they just being polite many times.

1) An offer in the mail from PublishAmerica is about like an offer in the mail from 24 Hour Fitness, except 24 Hour Fitness is at least a real gym.

2) Agents are sometimes polite (probably by accident or some unavoidable conditioning from their childhood), but they NEVER say to contact them unless they want you to contact them.

Throw away that PA letter (or save it to remind yourself how close you came to tragedy), get back to querying real agents, and as soon as you can reasonably claim that it is the end of the summer, get back to Nadia. Write REQUESTED MATERIAL on the envelope, and remind her in your letter that she asked you to get back to her.

You have a choce here between a horse's *** and a horse. Choose wisely.

Afternote: Hey, the word for posterior came out automatically as *** even though I didn't type it that way! Hey, I'm honored! I've been bleeped! Though I wasn't aware that particular word was on the no-go list, as it is found even in the politest of dictionaries. Who the **** knew you couldn't say ***?
 
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James D. Macdonald

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If one legit agent likes your book, another one will. Keep querying from your wish-list. On 31 August resubmit to Nadia.

Meanwhile -- all that an offer from PublishAmerica means is that you sent them something. The difference between having your book out from PublishAmerica and having your book lying in the bottom of your desk drawer is that if it's in your desk drawer you haven't lost your rights.
 
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bloemmarc

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Thank you, I will ost certainly do that. i know that {ublish America wasn't any good. It was just weird that the same day I received their contract, I got the letter from Nadia telling me to resubmit later again, which I plan to.
I just see the invitation to resubit later as an oppurtunity to find a better editor to help me polish my manuscript and query letter more than before.
 

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Nada from Nadia

Hate to be a party pooper when everybody's saying how great she is, but she wasn't so great to me. I queried her just after she went out on her own, having read about her in Publishers Marketplace. By e-mail, she asked for a partial. I sent it, waited, waited some more, but never heard a reply. Followed up by e-mail; no reply. I don't care how nice she is. That's just not the right way to do business.
 

Christine N.

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And not usually the way she DOES business. I think it took me 8 week weeks for my partial rejection. This was also last year, just after she opened the agency.

I would e-mail her again and ask. It may have just gotten lost. Or your letter may have gotten lost in the mail. It's not like her to NOT reply is what I'm saying.

Although if it's been so long and she hasn't tracked you down, I would take that as a no. But you never know, maybe she wanted a full and if the request got lost, she thought you went with another agent.

Doesn't hurt to ask again.
 

bloemmarc

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I hope everything's cool with her, I plan on resubmitting to her again soon.

As far as I can see, she may be one of the best agents out there with real proof of her accomplishments.
 

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Hate to be a party pooper when everybody's saying how great she is, but she wasn't so great to me. I queried her just after she went out on her own, having read about her in Publishers Marketplace. By e-mail, she asked for a partial. I sent it, waited, waited some more, but never heard a reply. Followed up by e-mail; no reply. I don't care how nice she is. That's just not the right way to do business.

This doesn't sound like Nadia. Yes, she's busy. Yes, she doesn't get back right away. I'd e-mail her again. How long have you been waiting for a reply on your partial?
 

Novelhistorian

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I've stopped waiting, actually. I submitted the partial to her last October or November and made a follow-up six to eight weeks after I mailed her the partial. That was the only communication that went snail-mail; my query, her reply, my confirmation that I'd sent the partial, and my follow-up were all e-mails. If the partial had never arrived, she could have told me so when I followed up. I took her silence as a no (and fuel for my increasing cynicism about agents). Thanks for your concern, but by now, it's literally a dead letter, not only because of the time lapse but I've rewritten the book entirely, folding small pieces of it into a sequel and chucking the rest. So it's not as if the novel I offered Nadia is on the market; I just wanted to weigh in with my story on this thread. I'm not saying she's a bad agent, only that she doesn't walk on water. Maybe she just dropped the ball where I was concerned--that happens in every business.
 

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Real agents, like real editors, are experts at handing out rejections. If a real agent asks you to resubmit later, she means it.
 

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Help!! I've been trying for two days to send an e-query to Caren Johnson, but each and every time I try, my email bounces back, saying this:

The user does not accept email in non-Western (non-Latin) character sets.

What the heck? I thought perhaps I should try in plain text only, but it still bounced. Tried different fonts; it still bounced. What gives, anyone know? My query isn't written in Chinese! And email is the only way to query her, according to Firebrand's site.
 

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Pellegrina Leoni said:
Help!! I've been trying for two days to send an e-query to Caren Johnson, but each and every time I try, my email bounces back, saying this:

The user does not accept email in non-Western (non-Latin) character sets.

What the heck? I thought perhaps I should try in plain text only, but it still bounced. Tried different fonts; it still bounced. What gives, anyone know? My query isn't written in Chinese! And email is the only way to query her, according to Firebrand's site.

Did you try a different email account? If you did and it still bounced, the problem is likely on her end. If you need another account, send me a PM, and I can send you a gmail invite.
 

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Firebrand forums

Though they're rarely used anymore, you might try posting your question there. There should be a link on their website.
 

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Thanks, Uncle Jim, DeadlyAccurate and Maddog! DeadlyAccurate, I sent you a PM. Maybe the problem is on her end - regardless, I'll keep soldiering on with my agent list! :)
 

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I queried Caren via my gmail account and had no problems. She requested the full a week or two ago and I sent it to her and am now waiting to hear back from her. Hopefully you'll get the email glitch sorted out, whether it's on your end or hers. I know how frustrating that must be!
 

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Kasey Mackenzie said:
I queried Caren via my gmail account and had no problems. She requested the full a week or two ago and I sent it to her and am now waiting to hear back from her. Hopefully you'll get the email glitch sorted out, whether it's on your end or hers. I know how frustrating that must be!

Thanks, Kasey - I'm now fixed up with a gmail account, and my query went through, no problems. And how awesome that she requested a full MS from you - best of luck! :)