Miriam Altshuler Literary Agency

She has a pretty lengthy list of clients, it looks like. Francis Adams, Harriet Brown, Andrew Carroll, Robb Forman Dew, Barbara Esstman, George Foreman, Mitra Modarressi, Alex Sanchez....

Just a totally random sampling. And a lot of sales to her credit. I get the feeling a lot of agents feel like they don't need to bother giving info on their website since they get as many clients as they can handle anyway.

She read my full quickly, and responded with very encouraging, helpful comments.

[Agent] Miriam Altshuler

Does anyone have any information on this agent? Her website says nothing about any sales she made since establishing her agency in 1994, although it says that she has offices in Red Hook, NY and in Manhattan.

http://www.miriamaltshulerliteraryagency.com/


Her profile at AgentQuery lists seven sales from 1996 to 2005. It doesn't look very impressive to me.

http://agentquery.com/agent.aspx?agentid=96

Am I misjudging her?

You need to search B&BC to determine if there is already a thread on a particular agent or publisher before starting a new one.

Thread is here.

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1989490&highlight=Miriam+Altshuler#post1989490

brianm said:

You need to search B&BC to determine if there is already a thread on a particular agent or publisher before starting a new one.

Thread is here.

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1989490&highlight=Miriam+Altshuler#post1989490

Click to expand...

My apologies. I usually do a forum search now that I know that it is SOP. I guess I forgot this time. That's what I get for working into the middle of the night. LOL

Dragon-lady, where did you find her list of clients? Her profile at AgentQuery only lists seven sales from 1996 to 2005. I know that's probably just a few examples, but does she have any recent sales?

I noticed that her website states, "Any material sent should be single sided, double-spaced, and in twelve font." As it specifically says "any material," does that mean that she wants the query letter double-spaced?

A query letter is not a submission, per se. It's a letter that may generate an invitation to submit, but it is not a manuscript submission.

Regards,
Scott

ExposingCorruption said:

Dragon-lady, where did you find her list of clients? Her profile at AgentQuery only lists seven sales from 1996 to 2005. I know that's probably just a few examples, but does she have any recent sales?

I noticed that her website states, "Any material sent should be single sided, double-spaced, and in twelve font." As it specifically says "any material," does that mean that she wants the query letter double-spaced?

Click to expand...

I searched her in Publishers Marketplace which is well worth the price of a subscription if you can.

Generally "material" applies to sample material and not to the query letter, I believe, but I won't swear to that.

I'll take a look at PM again and see what sales show there. It's a resource I couldn't do without--at least not while I'm still agent hunting.

Edit: This shows why I so love PM. Here is a deal search on Miriam Altshuler:

Showing all 23 deals matching Miriam Altshuler (keywords). Results are sorted in reverse chronological order.

Categories of all matched deals: Children's: Young Adult (5); Foreign rights: Non-fiction (2); Non-fiction (2); Non-fiction: General/Other (2); Fiction (1); Fiction: General/Other (1); Film rights (1); Foreign rights: UK Non-fiction (1); Non-fiction: Advice/Relationships (1); Non-fiction: Biography (1); Non-fiction: Health (1); Non-fiction: History/Politics/Current Affairs (1); Non-fiction: Memoir (1); Non-fiction: Parenting (1); Non-fiction: Religion/Spirituality (1); Poetry (1)

Click to expand...

I'm not going to quote the entire list of deals which is for the past 7 years. But the most recent:

10 January, 2008



Non-fiction:
Biography Adina Hoffman's MEASURE OF SPLENDOR: The Life and Times of Palestinian Poet Taha Muhammad Ali, to Ileene Smith at Yale University Press, by Miriam Altshuler at Miriam Altshuler Literary Agency

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She appears to be heavily into non-fiction.

Dragon-lady said:

I searched her in Publishers Marketplace which is well worth the price of a subscription if you can.

Click to expand...

I just signed up at PM. There's good stuff on there.

ExposingCorruption said:

I just signed up at PM. There's good stuff on there.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I think it's great. I understand that not every sale ends up in their database but a huge percentage seems to. I look everyone up there.

Miriam is my former agent. She's wonderful. She keeps a very low profile. She sells much more than she reports on the net. Any author would be extremely lucky to be represented by her. Good luck!

Has anyone had recent personal experience with Miriam Altshuler? She recently asked for my full ms and am hoping to get information other than can be obtained through the web.
Thanks!

Hello! I sent a snail mail query to Miriam and within a couple of days received a request for 50-100 pages.

I am curious if anyone has had the same experience and knows the amount of time it usual takes before this agent - or others - to respond back from a requested submission.

Thanks

I sent a snail mail query and within the week had a rejection.

Back in April, she requested my full manuscript after a one page query and got back to me with a rather generic but polite pass about two weeks later. My project was young adult fantasy with gay characters - my sense is that fantasy is not her thing.

Wow, this thread is showing it's age. Anyone with more recent interactions with Ms. Altshuler? I'm going to query her, and will report my experience.

I sent her a query several months ago and received no response.

Scribelady

Mailed query on 10/15
Received request for full ms on 10/18, sent same day
Kind rejection today, 10/31

I addressed the original query to Ms. Altschuler, but subsequent correspondence was with Cathy Schmitz. She was very professional.

Miriam Altschuler is selective about responding, but when I corresponded with her several years ago regarding a manuscript, she was the consummate professional.

I queried her a few months ago and she asked for a full. Yesterday she emailed me with a lengthy discussion of the novel and said if I made some changes she would be happy to read again. Third agent in two weeks with the same response.

gerrydodge, did all 3 agents give you the same suggestions for your revision?

EQ: 4/11
Request for full: 4/11

I'm gonna go lie down. This shit is nuts.

Miriam altshuler how to respond?

Finished my literary historical novel July 4th, after umpty-gazillion drafts. It's accessible but waaay literary. (Just the way it came out) Submitted to four agents on the July 6. With ms. Altshuler, I had a referral from a much lauded author, who said, tell her I have not read it but think she'd be interested.
Ms. Altshuler immediately asked for whole manuscript plus two week exclusive. I said yes, and politely pulled other submissions. The two weeks were up Monday, but I have not heard anything.

Do I noodge? Write it off (pun intended) and start submitting to others? I'd love to at least get her feedback before crashing other gates. Anybody with experience with Ms. Altshuler?

Hi True!

I don't know about this agency, but just a thought for the next time (if she doesn't rep you): When an agent asks for an exclusive, and other agents are considering your partial or fulls, you can tell the agent that others are considering your work and it'd be hard to pull, and if she'd still be interested in reading the full. Most of the time, the agent says "Fine."

I'd email her next Monday if you don't hear back, since she stipulated it's an exclusive for those two weeks.

Best of luck!