Bradford Literary Agency (Laura Bradford)

Congrats! I queried the agency about a YA novel a few days ago, so we'll see. I'll keep my fingers crossed...and keep writing.

Congrats, Wendy! What was the genre of MS you queried with?
Natalie certainly seems like an enthusiastic agent. Queried 31/03 and whilst I don't expect to get a replied for a while yet, I'm still biting my nails.

ETA: Wendy, I didn't realise it before, but I'd come to your blog before you posted; I'm reading Spirits of Saint Louis at the moment - I was in an anthology with two of your fellow writers, Schevus and Dacia, which is how I came to hear about Spirits.

Thanks, all. I'm really excited to be working with her!

Cel_Fleur said:

Congrats, Wendy! What was the genre of MS you queried with?

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Adult Sci-Fi (light sci-fi w/ mainstream/commercial appeal)

Cel_Fleur said:

ETA: Wendy, I didn't realise it before, but I'd come to your blog before you posted; I'm reading Spirits of Saint Louis at the moment - I was in an anthology with two of your fellow writers, Schevus and Dacia, which is how I came to hear about Spirits.

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Awesome! It's a small writing world sometimes! I'll have to go grab my copy of Spirits to see which stories were theirs.

WendyN said:

Adult Sci-Fi (light sci-fi w/ mainstream/commercial appeal)

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Ooh, I'll have to keep an eye on your progress.

I thought sci-fi was commercial anyway? Or am I just being silly there? I find classification one of most difficult parts of querying.

Ah, got my form r from the agency today from a 31/3 query to Ms. Lakosil. Less than the 4 weeks they suggest, so that's good, even if it is an r. Shame, what I've read of the ladies has been all good. I was have liked to have them as my agency, even if they did start near the bottom of my to-query list.

~Fleur

Queried Sarah LaPolla with YA Post-Apocalyptic on 10/24/14. received form R on 11/4/14.

Anyone have any recent experience with this agency and Laura Bradford or Natalie Lakosil in particular?

XSnapdragonx said:

Anyone have any recent experience with this agency and Laura Bradford or Natalie Lakosil in particular?

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Laura has been my agent for the past 3 years. Do you have a specific question?

I do! A few of them, in fact. I sent you a PM.

But I have one more for here (at least, I hope this is the right place to post it). I have a book from an author the agent represents that I want to mention in my query letter. However, it is a very early book. How do I find out if this agent was the one who represented that novel at that time?

Okay, four weeks has passed (though just by about a week) and I still haven't heard anything in reply to my query. Is this an agency where if you don't hear anything you've gotten your answer or should I nudge with an email?

I queried in May and got a response 40 days (5.5 weeks) later. Yes, they say their approximate response time is 2-4 weeks, and Query Tracker supports this, but I wouldn't nudge unless it had been significantly beyond that. Like, 3 months. Things happen, they may be behind for whatever reason. As far as I know, they always respond.

XSnapdragonx said:

Okay, four weeks has passed (though just by about a week) and I still haven't heard anything in reply to my query. Is this an agency where if you don't hear anything you've gotten your answer or should I nudge with an email?

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Everything I had read about this agency so far had said they replied pretty fast, so I wasn't sure. I'll give it some more time (and head over to check out their Twitter account). Thanks for the help!

Any recent experiences with Monica Odom?

Per Publisher Lunch, Monica Odom has left the agency.

update
agents currently at this agency:
Laura Bradford (closed to queries until spring 2018)
Natalie Lakosil
Sarah LaPolla
Kari Sutherland
Jennifer Chen Tran

hey all, I just had a 'what to do' question.

I queried Laura the day she was listed as being open again on QT (and the agency website confirmed) but when I got the automated response it said that she still was closed (this was on the 8th of March). I originally had hoped that she just hadn't changed it yet. A few days after that someone posted in the comments that she was only accepting PitMad queries for a short time. I couldn't find confirmation for that anywhere. I sent a question, just to confirm that my work hadn't been deleted without being read and have heard nothing.
Did I screw it up for myself? I was crazy anxious because I really think that she's a good fit for my work and I was so excited that she was open again (not to mention that I love the pics she posts on Twitter of her nibblet)

Since your only official response from her was the automatic response saying she was closed, I would probably resend when she's officially open.

A 404 is coming up now.

it looks like they were hacked at some point today. The page was fine at like 12:30am and is fine now but about an hour ago I got a 404

Brenda Hill said:

PMcKnight or anyone: what are PitMad queries? And I read an earlier post about High Fantasy and have no clue about that either. I'm a former mystery/supense writer who's changing genres, and I need help to define what I'm writing now. I checked, but can anyone recommend a thread that explains genres and sub-genres?

Thanks,

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Pitmad is a hashtag "game" on Twitter that goes on occasionally. On a prearranged day, people will post short blurbs about their query-ready novels, and agents and publishers can like them if they're interested. Then, the person who received the like can send their query to that agent with a note that they expressed interest on Pitmad. In this case, allegedly, Laura is only accepting queries she liked from a recent Pitmad.

As for your genre, you're welcome to post a thread somewhere asking what yours might be with details about the story to help us nail it down. I don't think there's a specific thread anywhere for labeling the genres. There are so many, after all.

Good idea, Maggie. Thanks! I'll do that.

so I re-queried, 35 days later I got the most impersonal form rejection ever. couldn't even be buggered to copy/paste my name into the greeting.
Really disappointing, I thought that I'd be a great fit with this agency

Sent a query today to Laura Bradford, received the automated reply. I like that. Now I know my query isn't lost, and that she'll get to it when she can. I'll use the time to do some revisions - again. I wonder if we're ever satisfied. Oh, rats! I just realized I forgot the synopsis, included the query and first chapter. Darn, darn, darn. ***Banging head against the wall***

PMcKnight, so sorry about the rejection. And if it was so impersonal, maybe she wasn't officially reopened yet. I went back to check, and her website said if queries were addressed to her, they'd automatically be rejected until ??? Who knows? The auto response to my query could be read in several different ways, so I might receive the same thing. From the different posts here, impersonal rejections are not the norm.