Foster Literary Agency (Tina Foster)

I can find nothing at all on Cecile Randall apart from a totally uninformative page on Publishers Marketplace (where she is listing several rights offerings with really badly written synopses). Proceed with caution.

Tina Foster doesn't seem to have had any relevant professional experience before setting up as an agent sometime in 2003, and in the meantime has made no sales that I know of. She also runs, or ran, a paid editing service, which is at least a potential conflict of interest.

- Victoria

Has anyone had any experience with Tina Foster of Foster Literary Agency. I was wondering if she has any track record since the 03/2005 post above. I know she has a warning on P&E, but was wondering if she still had a conflict of interest with the editing or had any recent sales.

It's very unusual for a bad agent to morph into a good one.

A friend--and a very talented writer--had Ms. Foster as his agent for a time. She did not attempt to steer him toward editing services or charge any fees.

However, she also did not manage to sell his book....

Thanks for the information.

Some of the clients listed on her website have recently-published books, but all are either with small publishers that accept submissions directly from authors (i.e., an agent is not needed for such publishers) and may not pay advances (in which case, a reputable agent wouldn't approach them) or else have self-published.

- Victoria

There is still a P&E warning under her name (Tina Foster) but not her agency's (Foster Literary Agency.) I think I'm just going to steer clear. Better to be unpublished than branded with the likes of an unreputable company.

Agency Familiarity

Hi,

Is anyone familiar with Foster Literary Agency in Utah?

I'm sure a mod will be along in a moment to move this to Bewares and Background Checks where you will find an old thread on Tina Foster.
To summarize what the thread says - this is not an agency with a track record of sales to advance paying publishers and are not deserving of your attention.

I tried to check out some of the books/authors there, but they seem to exist only on their site, like Lady Lost by Christine Maloney. On the other hand Duplicity by Paul T. Goldman is indeed (self-)published by BookSurge and ranks around 5000 on Amazon, which is pretty good. But if the man had self-published his 'my purchased Russian wife turned out not to be Snow White, woe is me,' memoir without an agent, it probably would have worked out just as well. Unless he needed intense editing.