[Agency] Scovil Galen Ghosh (formerly Scovil Chichak Galen)

pavtbr said:

I am still waiting for a response to my query on April 14. Hoping that's a good sign...

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Thanks pavtbr. My fingers are crossed for the both of us

I sent Ms. Behar a query today for my literary YA. Yeah, I'm a sucker for punishment. Changed the title, though. How does Leaping From Cliffs sound?

J.B.Kantt said:

When looking at the comments posted under Mr. Galen's page, there hasn't been any activity from him (in terms of querying) since mid-April. And he usually sends rejections to queries (even though the agency site says they don't necessarily do that). So I'm wondering if he's just SUPER busy at the moment and not responding to queries as frequently (or at all), or if my query didn't get to him, or something like that.

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Of the 365 people who have reported querying him in the last year to QueryTracker, 5 got requests, 55 got rejections, and 305 never heard anything back. (Statistically, that makes him a non-responder to me.)

His most recent rejection sent (reported to QueryTracker) was on 5/2 for a query sent on 4/30.

I queried Russel Galen on May 4th and he replied within an hour, requesting my MSS, which I sent. I'm still waiting for a reply *fingers crossed*

Russell has always been very responsive to me, even from the query stage. He's also a busy person with several of his authors having movies in the works. I'm not positive but I believe on their site, not responding is a rejection. The people that I know who were rejected by him received personalized emails with thoughts on why they were passed upon. Perhaps they were being closely considered. That would explain why some got rejections and some never heard anything back.

I recommend tracking an agent's activity not just through querytracker but also through publisher's marketplace. You would receive a much better picture of what the agent is doing.

Digging up this thread because, despite not being represented by him, I had a phenomenal experience with Russell Galen.

I queried Russell a while back and, within the same day, he asked me for my full. He rejected it then (my MC was too old for YA - and I agreed), but we were in contact for a while as I said I was going to make some changes and if he'd be interested in reading it again if I did. We talked about *a lot* of things, some related to the novel, some not really (we talked about Portugal for a while and the food, and cats, if you can believe it). He ended up telling me to check back with him in September because he was way too busy now.

But all the time, despite having rejected my MSS, he still replied and we had very long conversations. He didn't have to -- if he'd told me to STFU and GTFO I'd have understood, -- but he never did. He was always patient and extremely nice. He recommended readings he thought would improve my writing. He told me of certain writing techniques and that I should study them. I'm still young and inexperienced and don't have a book to my name, but he still talked to me. And, despite not taking me as a client, he helped me a lot and I will always be grateful for that.

This to say, Russell is one of the most amazing, impeccable guys out there. He is stellar and whoever gets him as an agent is probably great and totally deserves it (and if you're represented by him and are reading this, I'm totally jealous of you). Heck, he wasted so much of his time with me and, despite passing on my MSS for the moment and being one of the busiest agents, he still offered to look at it when he had less work. And not only that, he gave me very valuable advice that only improved my novel.

I really can't stress it enough: he is awesome. If you can get him, then you'll certainly be one step ahead.

Does anyone know if Mr. Jack Scovil is still taking submissions? I tried to send one, but it bounced back. [email protected] Thank you in advance for any help.

Thought I'd share my timeline here:

Queried Russell Galen with a SF/F manuscript: Jan 11, 2012
Full request from Rachel Kory: Jan 11, 2012
Revise and resubmit request: March 22, 2012
Sent revised manuscript: June 7, 2012
Offer of representation from Rachel: August 9, 2012

I accepted the offer and am very happy to be working with her!

Codeorange: Jack Scovil passed away in January. =(

Pinguichi: I had the exact same experience and it was an eye-opener. Not only did we talk about my ms, he went at length about how to be a sustainable writer.

Koyanagi: Grats and welcome!!

The three times I queried I got no-response on the first two, and a form rejection three months after the third time. I reluctantly concluded 'great agent, just not interested in my work'.

Queried Russel Galen on 12/4/12
Personal rejection from Rachel Kory on 12/5/12.

Said the storyline didn't really grip them and offered advice on the use of the New Adult category in the speculative field.

Sorry, Aggy.

I queried Ann Behar on 11/29 and got a request for the full on 11/30. So now I wait. It's a literary middle grade contemporary.

Queried Russell Galen Jan 22nd, got a response back from Rachel Kory, his assistant I presume, requesting a FULL(!!) today, Jan 25th. I am nervous but happy!!

I queried them back on Oct. 2. Not a word back from them so I nudged two weeks ago. Still nothing.

I will assume it is a no and move along.

I forgot to send a "please let me know if you received the manuscript" in the body of my email. Is it rude to immediately send another asking if they got it?

chris41336 said:

I forgot to send a "please let me know if you received the manuscript" in the body of my email. Is it rude to immediately send another asking if they got it?

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FWIW, Ann Behar responded with confirmation four days after I sent my full to her. I expect they may vary agent-to-agent, but it seems as though she makes a policy of confirming.

JoyMC said:

FWIW, Ann Behar responded with confirmation four days after I sent my full to her. I expect they may vary agent-to-agent, but it seems as though she makes a policy of confirming.

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I can confirm that they did the same for me. They really are a class act. Now if only EVERY agent could confirm something that important without request lol

Pinguicha said:

Digging up this thread because, despite not being represented by him, I had a phenomenal experience with Russell Galen.

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This was similar to my experience with him. He's one in a million.

I queried Russell Galen on 6/8. I tracked it in querytracker.net, and someone posted that they sent something on 6/24 and received a rejection on 7/2. Does this mean that he didn't receive mine? Or does he sometimes not respond to rejections?

I understand agents never sending rejection responses, but I'm confused by someone that would send some and not send others. My query letter needed some work, but it's not that bad.

My sense is that he doesn't respond to every query he receives, just some of them. I've queried him twice. The first time I got a personalized rejection and the second time I got no response.

I queried Russell Galen this morning. He responded a half hour later with a rejection (no real surprise). But he said it sounded great (great, he said great), the usual bit about getting so many queries, and he's sorry that he can't help.

It was one of the nicest rejections I've ever gotten, and leaves me feeling very encouraged.

Russ Galen is fast, he's helpful, and he's an excellent agent.

I'm going through Query Tracker, lining up possible query victims, er, targets, er, prospective agents. I've found that Rachel Kory is listed as an agent with Scovil Galen, and she's mentioned in this thread in several places, but she isn't mentioned as one of the agents on the website and she has her own website (where she indicates she's with SG.) I'm not being paranoid, just curious. Is there some form of legitimate relationship, like "Associate" or "Freelancer" where this happens?

I may simply be that updating the website is not a priority for the agency.

Angry Guy said:

I'm going through Query Tracker, lining up possible query victims, er, targets, er, prospective agents. I've found that Rachel Kory is listed as an agent with Scovil Galen, and she's mentioned in this thread in several places, but she isn't mentioned as one of the agents on the website and she has her own website (where she indicates she's with SG.) I'm not being paranoid, just curious. Is there some form of legitimate relationship, like "Associate" or "Freelancer" where this happens?

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My understanding was that she was (is?) Russel Galen's assistant, but is also building her own client list. At some point I would imagine he'll get a new assistant and she'll be a full agent at which point her name will be on the agency website as well.

(I believe this is also how Jennifer Udden of DMLA started out. She was an assistant to Donald Maass, then started building her own list to make the move to full agent.)

Aggy, speculating