Danielle Smith just started accepting last January, so I understand why there isn't anything about her at her new agency, but has anyone querying yet? She's children's.
Looks promising, but I'm checking.
Looks promising, but I'm checking.
Hi, if you or someone you know was represented by Danielle Smith (previously of Fuse Literary and Red Fox Literary, most recently of Lupine Grove, her own agency), this post is important to you.
PSA: hey, if you have ever worked with (or know someone who worked with) the agent Danielle Smith, it was discovered a couple of days ago that she forged offer letters to her clients (and counselled her clients not to take them) (I do not know what the end goal was).
all the authors/illustrators (and also editors) that she deceived and betrayed have my support and my rage. this is grotesque and devastating. i'm so sorry you are dealing with this. my DMs are open for advice or venting, and i am open to queries.
Do a twitter search on her. She's being accused of fraud, of forging offer letters and asking her clients not to sign them. All over twitter.
I think I can sort of see what she was trying for. She lies and makes up offers from publishers (presumably publishers the writers have heard of) so that her clients think that she's a great agent, working hard for them.
To cover the fact that these aren't real offers, she tells her clients not to sign them (and, probably, not to contact the publishers), I would guess on the grounds that these are only first offers, expressions of interest, and that she can do better for the clients, if they are patient.
Thus giving the impression that not only is she a good agent, but that she's fighting hard for them.
Presumably this keeps people on her client list, which makes her look good, and, if she's got enough clients, makes some sales.
she was actually quite envious of the Lupine Grove line up of illustrators
Well that makes me look like a knob, back in 2017, ACK!
I don't know what was going wrong with her, to push her to such ridiculous lengths, forging publisher offers, no doubt there's much more to this story. She had some VERY successful Author and Illustrator clients and really good sales to publishers like Viking, Scholastic. What the heck snapped?
Danielle Smith just started accepting last January, so I understand why there isn't anything about her at her new agency, but has anyone querying yet? She's children's. Looks promising, but I'm checking.
Danielle Smith, a children's book agent who founded her own agency — Lupine Grove Creative — was outed this week for falsifying offer letters from publishers for her clients. She would show the letters to her clients and then advise them not to accept the offer (because it didn't exist!!).
Her website is now defunct and she has scrubbed her profiles from the Manuscript Wish List site, etc.