The Krista Goering Literary Agency LLC

Ms. Goering has a law degree, but I don't see any publishing or agenting experience. No sign of sales that I can discover.

- Victoria

This agency has been discussed at length in another thread. I just can't remember which one.

BrookieCookie,
I found the thread: http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=72948.

It was in the nonfiction forum. Read through the entire thing, and please note that my comments and recommendations still stand.
Lauri

Three months back, I had a very long mail chain chat with Ms Goering responding almost immediately after my queries/replies. This went on for about an hour and she praised me profusely for my particularly brilliant strategy for selling my novel to a non-resident Indian readership out there in the West. Sitting duck, she said. In fact, if memory serves, she even mentioned that it would not be a bad idea to open a publishing house only for this particular readership! And, may be this could have been sheer coincidence since I was querying at random, she seemed to have an abiding interest in India and we picked up some common acquaintances as well. And wasn't I impressed with my salesmanship and luck? Of course, I was but thank God, my agent, with a huge reputation and bigger sales, picked me up not too long after this enlightening and friendly conversation with Ms Goering. Having said this, I must say she was decent, very decent and encouraging.

Publishers Marketplace:

http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/members/KristaGoering/


______________
Sharon
http://www.saaustin.net

Before this conversation goes off the tracks yet again, I want to reiterate that my concern with this agent is the same concern I'd have with any other inexperienced agent: it's always better to work with someone who knows the industry, has worked in the book publishing industry, and has contacts in the industry. I don't see any red flags in working with this person other than the fact that she has no experience as a literary agent, and very little in book publishing.

You're welcome, BrookieCookie. I don't know this agent. Just happened to see her name in Publishers Marketplace a few days ago.


S.

Krista Goering just updated her page on PUblishers Marketplace. I looked up a couple of the authors she lists on that page on Amazon.

L.J. Maxie has published a book with Author House.

Courtney Mroch has publishe hers with Publish America.

Christ Orcutt has published with Xlibris.

And from what I can gather, Rick Berry's book (not the one listed on Krista's update) was with Infinity Press which appears to be exactly that: a printing press not a publishing house.

I think I'm starting to see a pattern here that I don't like. Dave, I hope you're listening - I see her listed on P & E.

I think we need to learn a lot more before submitting to this one.

Repunzel said:

I think I'm starting to see a pattern here that I don't like. Dave, I hope you're listening - I see her listed on P & E.

I think we need to learn a lot more before submitting to this one.

Click to expand...

I'm keeping this one under observation. For now, my impression is she's clueless about what constitutes publishing credits. If so, then she's got a steep learning curve ahead.

Could be she's been taking on clients who have published with vanity/pod's/pa in the past. It's not necessarily a crime to do so - an agent has to start somewhere and so do newbie writers...sometimes they hook up.

It's when an agent TAKES CREDIT for sales to infinity, author house and PA that we need to start being suspicious...

Repunzel said:

Krista Goering just updated her page on PUblishers Marketplace. I looked up a couple of the authors she lists on that page on Amazon.

L.J. Maxie has published a book with Author House.

Courtney Mroch has publishe hers with Publish America.

Christ Orcutt has published with Xlibris.

And from what I can gather, Rick Berry's book (not the one listed on Krista's update) was with Infinity Press which appears to be exactly that: a printing press not a publishing house.

I think I'm starting to see a pattern here that I don't like. Dave, I hope you're listening - I see her listed on P & E.

I think we need to learn a lot more before submitting to this one.

Click to expand...

Not everyone who was printed by PA is a hack writer...

I'm guessing that this agent approached these so-called clients -- all writers deperate enough to use a vanity publisher -- and not vice versa. I'm not saying these writers are hacks - they may all be brilliant - but like so many good writers haven't been able to get their foot in the door of a good literary agent. We all know it's a tough go, but persistence and good writing will eventually pay off. I just hope they haven't hitched their star to a wagon with a broken axle. I suspect, though, that they have.

That being said, to list these as clients on your Pub Marketplace webpage, implying (I believe) that the agent has "Sold" these self-published books, is deceiving. And if a writer doesn't do a little checking on said client's publishing credits, that writer could end up signing with Krista based on her previous "sales."

I agree with Miss Snark on the issue of bad agents: I'd rather have no agent than a bad one, i.e., someone who locked up my work, gave me false hope, only to tell me a year or two down the road that she couldn't sell my work because the market wasn't there; the writing wasn't good enough; whatever - anything but the truth which would be that she has no connections and no idea what she's doing.

We all come to this forum to help each other avoid disaster. Yes, we're all hungry and in many cases desperate, but if we're here, we're not stupid.

To be fair to Ms. Goering, she's not claiming her clients' books as sales for the agency, and there's no reason why an agent wouldn't take on a talented author who'd previously self- or vanity-published (though the agent might not necessarily try to sell those books).

The main issue, IMO, is that Ms. Goering doesn't have the professional background a literary agent needs, and thus may not have the skills or contacts to successfully represent manuscripts to publishers.

- Victoria

Saundra Julian said:

Not everyone who printed with PA is a hack writer...

Click to expand...

True. But it doesn't take a great deal of agenty skill to sell a book to them, either.

True, Jim!

"To be fair to Ms. Goering, she's not claiming her clients' books as sales for the agency"

Then why does she list them and their books under "Leading Clients" on her Publishers Marketplace page. When I saw the list, I immediately thought the agency had been involved in all of the books listed. I believe most people will think as I did.

I think it's yet another marker of this agent's inexperience in the biz.

Yes, I did think she arranged the sales of the books. Very, very misleading.

Wow ... this thread is incredibly helpful, as I've been chatting with Ms. Goering for the last month about my novel. She says she loves it, and we've been talking about whether I need to shorten it... but now I'm really quite concerned that I've been duped, and feel even dumber for not having done better due diligence on her earlier in the process. Thankfully we haven't gotten to an agreement stage yet, and now I think it might be wise for me to move on.

Thank you all so much for being open about all this. And I was feeling good about the possibility, too. Just goes to show you can never be too careful. Oh, well. Live and learn.

If anything else arrises on this front, I'll definitely add to the discussion.