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You should not query anyone else at Writers House until you actually hear back from Dan. Dan gave a talk at a conference I attended. WH is fine with serial submissions to different agents there, but do not submit simultaneously to multiple WH agents.Does anyone know of an instance when he didn't answer to show he wasn't interested? That way I'd know I could query someone else at Writers House...or something...
You should not query anyone else at Writers House until you actually hear back from Dan. Dan gave a talk at a conference I attended. WH is fine with serial submissions to different agents there, but do not submit simultaneously to multiple WH agents.
Katrina,
The reason no one is answering your question is that it is a personal thing. No one can say, "Oh, send it to Dan Lazar/Maya/Jodi!" because they haven't read the book and they don't know you.
That being said, here is some info on each agent.
Jodi is probably the biggest YA agent at WH, but because of that, she's not really building her list right now, she has stopped taking e-queries, and she has quite a long response time. She has several superstars (The Twilight series--as you mentioned--being the biggest) and takes on very few new clients. Like many uber-agents, she gets a lot of her new clients from referrals (though Stephenie got her through the traditional query method--it does happen!) In the spirit of full disclosure, Jodi is my agent and Stephenie is one of my best friends--so I'm biased.
Maya does have a focus on YA and is building her client list. She's not huge and famous yet, but with the WH name behind her, she would be a sure-fire thing no matter what. She is known for being extremely friendly and fast. Also, she was Al Zuckerman's assistant for, I believe, two years before taking on her own client list. She accepts e-queries and has a fast response time.
Dan is know for being fabulous and very friendly, but you have to have just the right project for him because he has very eclectic tastes. He sells some really, really awesome stuff and just moved up to the title agent instead of junior agent. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. I thought I read that somewhere just recently.) He is also building his client list, though not quite as much as Maya. He also takes e-queries and is know for a very fast response time. (Did anyone see that he just sold a project for Smart B%^&ches?!?!)
Al Zuckerman takes on projects he likes because he certainly doesn't have to look for clients anymore. That being said, he is also the president of Writers House and I assume he has many administrative duties along with bing an agent. I don't know a ton about him because he doesn't rep my genre.
So there you go, some info on each agent. Beyond that, you really just need to make the decision yourself.
PS. Stephenie is absolutely amazing! I absolutely adore her work and she seems like such a down-to-earth person. My role-model in the world of writing.
I couldn't find anything that says Dan likes edgy, but I could have sworn that he does. Gah, now I'm going to go insane trying to find where he said it. Maybe somebody else will have better luck with finding that..
Good luck with the query, BTW. Popular by Association or something else?
G'day --
Just wanted to post an update regarding my situation -- if you read the beginning of this thread, you'll see that I replied to a request for an exclusive reading of a partial by offering future exclusivity (not retroactive) & asked Maya to e-mail me ASAP to let me know if this would be OK ...
And the answer is ...
...
?
In other words: No reply yet, although I believe that my package has surely reached its destination by now.
I still don't know if I did the "write" (heh-heh) thing -- was I really expected to tell other agents not to continue reading my partial? In any case, I'm glad I haven't been sitting on my hands waiting for that e-mail yes/no, because another agent (a notoriously slow-responder) did get back to me in the meantime with a request for chapters.
Also, does anyone know if Dan likes "edgy"?? Or does anyone know how I could find out. I've checked his PM page and over at agentquery, but I'm not sure.
Dan requested my full ms, then sent a very kind rejection email, explaining that he preferred edgier/darker work. My mystery novel isn't a cozy, but it's definitely on the lighter end of the spectrum. Hope this helps.