Caroline Sheldon Literary Agency

Caroline Sheldon is lovely. I subbed to her at the beginning of the year and got a personal letter back from her saying how much she liked it but also going on to explain why rhyming picture books are such a hard sell - I really appreciated her time on the matter.

I think she used to represent Harry Horse - his books are located everywhere - but he died a year or so ago.

Anyhow she is legit and a very nice person to boot.

Good luck!

Did the email to her go through? I sent her a query last month, using the address on litmatch (which was the same on her website), and it bounced back to me as undeliverable...

Hey J-! Welcome!

Good luck, anjulee. Caroline is known for being a nice person.

abctriplets, I know someone who sent sample chapters as an attached file. Apparently, the email arrived but the attachment wasn't logged, so she had to re-send. Maybe you should try again.

qwerty said:

Good luck, anjulee. Caroline is known for being a nice person.

abctriplets, I know someone who sent sample chapters as an attached file. Apparently, the email arrived but the attachment wasn't logged, so she had to re-send. Maybe you should try again.

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Hey Lori! Thanks for directing me here.

And yes, I did send it with an attachment (should I not?), but I don't think the email ever got there. I got a MAILER-DAEMON return, stating the message was undeliverable because there were "No MX or A records for carolinesheldon.co.uk"

Maybe I should just try it again.

Anyone dealt with this agency lately? Submission guideline requires three sample chapters, do we send by attachment or just paste it in the body of the e-mail? Thanks.

It would be worth e-mailing the agency to ask this then posting the answer here.
In the agency guidelines they do suggest unpublished authors will do better to send snail mail chapters and they will reply by e-mail to overseas submitters.

Yeah, I'm aware of that, but I prefer submitting by e-mail since it's much more convenient for me. I've sent a query plus attachment of the first three chapters. I'll update if I hear from them.

Vermilion said:

Anyone dealt with this agency lately? Submission guideline requires three sample chapters, do we send by attachment or just paste it in the body of the e-mail? Thanks.

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Most agencies have a lot of shields up on their e-mail systems. In general, unless an agent very specifically tells you to put something as an attachment to an e-mail, it's not a good idea.

Many agents ask for pages or a synopsis appended to the end of an e-mail query. Since their web page is unclear on this, it might be safest to use this method.

Myself, I'm going to cough up the cash and mail it, even though it's to London. I noted on their website that they prefer responding to even hard copy overseas submissions by e-mail instead of using postal coupons.

Any updates on snail mail vs email attachment for this agent?

I just emailed her with 3 chapters attached and so far, no MAILER-DAEMON message, so maybe it was just one of those cyber glitches with no explanation...

10 Pet Hate list

Not to be a real P-I-T-A but I just took a look at Ms. Sheldon's homepage. Before anyone gets so wrapped up in all of the 'hoo-rahh' of her fan club I seriously suggest that before you send or submit that you read her '10 pet hate's' listing. I'm glad I did. You are going to save your a lot of wasted time and aggravation.

Deep Woods Writer said:

Not to be a real P-I-T-A but I just took a look at Ms. Sheldon's homepage. Before anyone gets so wrapped up in all of the 'hoo-rahh' of her fan club I seriously suggest that before you send or submit that you read her '10 pet hate's' listing. I'm glad I did. You are going to save your a lot of wasted time and aggravation.

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Huh?
I went and looked at this list and I am not understanding your comments. What, in particular, do you have issue with? All ten things seem reasonable to me. In fact, from what I've learned most agents get aggravated with or have issues with the things on that list.

Deep Woods Writer said:

You are going to save your a lot of wasted time and aggravation.

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If you take those 10 Pet Hates to heart, regardless of which agent you're submitting to, you can indeed save a lot of wasted time and aggravation.

I've had a full submission for my YA urban fantasy with Penny Holroyde since September 15th - will send a nudge and report back.

Just thought it's worth updating this. They now only accept email submissions when it comes to new authors.

I sent an e-mail query today, so if anyone else is waiting on this agency, let me know if you hear back ^-^

I sent them an e-mail query on February 6th, and received a small, but polite rejection email just this morning.

I submitted an "application" with 3 chapters, synopsis etc etc earlier this week. I'll let you know what happens...

I sumitted a few days ago. Fingers crossed.

Just submitted a short story for their consideration today, fingers crossed here too.

Rejection! Ah well!

Any recent interactions with this agency? I subbed to them years ago when my MS wasn't ready - and despite how bad it must have been (! xD), I still got a personal rejection back. I know they imply they take most commercial genres, but I'm wary to submit my Fantasy, since, judging by their authors, they don't rep much Fantasy, let alone New Adult/Adult stuff.
Anyway, just a thought.