Northern Lights Literary Services / NorLights Press

I responded to her email and asked her where I could find an editor. She recommended her editing service.

That's a conflict of interest. If a recommendation to edit will make money for the person doing the recommending, how can you trust that it's in your best interest?

Could you contact me at [email protected]? Thanks.

- Victoria

Run, Rosepressey, run!

Do NOT go towards the light. It is not your time yet.

Northern Lights/Sammy

I sent a query before I saw the negative posts. I liked her website. I'll let you know how it goes.

FYI...Information on this agent below from an article on writersdigest.com plus the link

http://www.writersdigest.com/articles/sambuchino_secret_agents.asp

Northern Lights Literary Services, 306 North Center Valley Road, Sandpoint ID 83864. northernlightsls.com. Est. 2005. Member agents: Sammie Justesen (fiction and nonfiction); Vorris Dee Justesen (business and current affairs). Stats: 35% of clients are new/unpublished writers. Represents 90% nonfiction books, 10% novels. Needs: nonfiction (animals, biography/autobiography, business/economics, child guidance/parenting, cooking/foods/nutrition, crafts/hobbies, current affairs, ethnic/cultural interests, health/medicine, how-to, memoirs, nature/environment, new age/metaphysics, popular culture, psychology, religious/inspirational, self-help/personal improvement, sports, true crime/investigative, women's issues/studies); fiction (action/adventure, detective/police/crime, ethnic, family saga, feminist, glitz, historical, mainstream/contemporary, mystery/suspense, psychic/supernatural, regional, religious/inspirational, romance, thriller, women's). How to contact: Query by mail with SASE, outline/proposal, synopsis, 3 sample chapters and author bio. E-queries preferred. Responds in 2 months to queries, 2 months to mss. Returns materials only with SASE. Accepts simultaneous submissions. Recent sales: Unraveling the Mystery of Fibroamyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome by Daniel Dantini (Addicus); Boots ÔN Beans by Roy "Boots" Reynolds (Keokee); Special Effects by Michael Slone (Michael Wiese Productions); Rearview Regrets: Tips to Avoid Ticket Trouble With the Cops by Steve Pomper (Lyons Press). Tips: "If you're fortunate enough to find an agent who answers your query and asks for a printed manuscript, always include a letter and cover page containing your name, physical address, e-mail address and phone number. Be professional!"

Not sure I like her tip quote. Sounds a bit arrogant to me, especially for someone who is an apparent new kid on the block.

TampaTP said:

FYI...Information on this agent below from an article on writersdigest.com [...]

Recent sales: Unraveling the Mystery of Fibroamyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome by Daniel Dantini (Addicus);

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Which is a small medical-and-health publisher that accepts author submissions, no agent necessary.

Boots ÔN Beans by Roy "Boots" Reynolds (Keokee)

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Micropress which publishes books of regional interest to Idaho; once again, no agent necessary.

Special Effects by Michael Slone (Michael Wiese Productions)

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Not actually a publisher, these folks do produce film-related books and manuals in conjunction with their core business, which is running seminars and conferences for would-be filmmakers.

Rearview Regrets: Tips to Avoid Ticket Trouble With the Cops by Steve Pomper (Lyons Press).

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At last, a nationally distributed publisher! Lyons Press is an imprint of Globe Pequot Press. Which accepts unagented submissions.

I'm not sure what this agency's value-add is. Most people who are savvy enough to write a book should also be savvy enough to send it to local micropresses and/or niche publishers that accept unagented submissions. If not, a copy of Writer's Market would probably be just as helpful, yes?

I'm currently working with these guys to put out my first novel and I couldn't be happier. If anyone has any questions about them, feel free to post them here or PM/email me.

Northern Lights Literary Services: $ A literary agency. No longer offering editing services.
http://www.invirtuo.cc/prededitors/pealn.htm
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No $ on their agent on P&E, Sammie Justesen: http://www.anotherealm.com/prededitors/peals.htm
She appears to be a writer. Here's the result on amazon,
http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Sammie L. Justesen&page=1
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other results:
http://www.writers.net/agents/40024?PHPSESSID=9a8c5c6a15cdd93ab290dc5f4cd307c3

I recently had a chance to look at a Norlights Press contract. It's problematic, to say the least. Among the bigger issues:

- The grant term isn't stated. Is it a fixed term? Life of copyright? No way to tell. NEVER EVER sign a contract where there's no clearly stated grant term.

- It's an all-rights contract, even though there's no evidence the publisher is capable of licensing subsidiary rights.

- Norlights takes electronic rights as part of the primary grant of rights. Yet electronic royalties are mentioned in the royalties clause only for ebooks sold from the publisher's website (and the royalty is very low--15% of net). For all other sales, ebooks are included in the Subsidiary Rights clause--where, as part of the primary grant of rights, they should not be. However, a number of things that ARE subsidiary rights, and should be included in the Subsidiary Rights clause--reprint editions, book club editions, serial rights--appear in the Royalties clause (you don't generally get royalties on subrights, but rather a percentage of the licensing income). That's some bad and confusing contract language.

- The reversion clause is extremely vague, leaving the out of print declaration entirely to the publisher's discretion. Where digital editions exist, "out of print" should be tied to minimum sales or royalties over a specific period of time, to prevent the publisher from arguing that the existence of a digital file constitutes "in print" even if the book isn't selling. This is especially important with life-of-copyright contracts. With this contract, the publisher can hold rights indefinitely, and the author has absolutely no recourse.

- There's a Memorandum of Understanding at the end of the contract, in which Norlights identifies itself as POD only (there's absolutely nothing wrong with this, as long as the publisher functions in a professional manner--but it is a marker for small print runs) and indicates that it has a non-returnability policy (big problem for authors who hope to get their books into physical stores). Distribution is wholesale only, via Ingram.

- Victoria

Some other things in their contract that struck me as odd:

1. They'll provide 2 hours of free revision, and then they'll charge the author.
2. They'll charge authors $1,000 to create an Index if the book needs one.
3. If the publisher wants to revise the book at some point, they'll request that the author do so. If Author doesn't want to do the revision, they reserve the right to have someone else do it - and that someone else may be credited as co-author and will share in the royalties of the revised copy.
4. They state that their books are printed by Lighting Source - a POD printing company - which is fine. However, in the next clause, they insist they're not a POD, even though they admit to being identified as such within the industry. Two clauses down they state that their books will show up on stores' databases as POD and that may affect their decision to order their books.

The reason they show up as POD in all the databases is because they more than likely bought the Lightning Source package that includes printing and distributing their title information to the warehouse distributors.

priceless1 said:

They state that their books are printed by Lighting Source - a POD printing company - which is fine. However, in the next clause, they insist they're not a POD, even though they admit to being identified as such within the industry. Two clauses down they state that their books will show up on stores' databases as POD and that may affect their decision to order their books.

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In another clause, they state that they are not a vanity publisher--something that ought to go without saying for a professional trade publisher. Methinks there's a whole lotta protesting going on.

- Victoria

victoriastrauss said:

In another clause, they state that they are not a vanity publisher--something that ought to go without saying for a professional trade publisher. Methinks there's a whole lotta protesting going on.

- Victoria

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Heh, yes, I was going to add that because my thoughts were the same. If you aren't a vanity press, then why mention it? Hmm.