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[Agency] Fuse Literary (formerly Foreword Literary)

Jonathan Dalar

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Foreword Literary is a brand new literary agency formed by agents from other established agencies, specifically the Larsen Pomada Literary Agency and Andrea Hurst & Associates.

Primary agents are Laurie McLean, Gordon Warnock, Pam van Hylckama, Jen Karsbaek, and Danielle Smith. They are experienced agents who bring a large number of clients with them in this move. All are on Twitter, and most blog extensively as well.

The agency advertises itself as a "hybrid" agency, with a goal to "blend the tried-and-true methods of traditional publishing with the brash new opportunities engendered by digital publishing, emerging technologies, and an evolving author-agent relationship."
 
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Jonathan Dalar

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Anything publishing-related describing itself as "hybrid" always makes me a little nervous.

- Victoria

Me too. It's sort of a new thing, and with it come a lot of bewares.

These guys do have legitimate credits, have been in the business for a while. The "hybrid" part, from what I've seen, is a separate arm that's designed to e-publish short stories. It appears to be for established authors, to "e-publish short fiction (10,000 to 20,000 words) and e-serials in the author’s genre to help build a brand."

It also seems to be very author-friendly by design: "We offer a 70/30 split on all the money we collect for these short titles, all sub rights are held by the author, and the right to publish the story again reverts back to the author after two years."

They do seem to be willing to pursue a number of different publishing options some agencies would not, such as e-publishing with Carina Press, etc.

There's a better look at what they're doing on the blog section of the website. And Victoria, I'd be interested in more of your comments and thoughts on this sort of thing.
 

A.P.M.

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I was very intrigued by the shiny newness and sent off a query to Pam.

Epublishing serials sounds cool, although I'm wondering what kind of genres they are looking for in that case. Certain genres do better as E-serials than others.

Edit: Query turned into a request for the first six chapters. Yay!
 
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Jonathan Dalar

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I follow a ton of agents, and the news of this launch absolutely exploded on my Twitter feed today. All kinds of very respected, viable agents lauding this new agency. I want to say they're bringing 63 clients over with them - that's the number I remember seeing - but it got lost in the chaos and I couldn't find it to verify. That feels like a decent number for three established and two new-ish agents.
 

Marika

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I queried Jen Karsbaek last night and got a request for a full.
 

Jonathan Dalar

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Following a Twitter chat with them, and am far more comfortable with their approach to "hybrid" publishing than before. They are still focused on traditional publishing, but want to be able to assist authors who want to do more than just that. They suspect only a few of their authors will take advantage of the e-short program, and that won't be a focus to push authors toward it, only there if they want it.

They do not consider Random House imprints Hydra and Alias to be good markets for authors, and would discourage authors from pursuing them. This is important, considering that "hybrid" approach.

All in all, they appear very much to be a traditional agency, but willing to expand into new and future markets when the author so desires it.

Thumbs up here.
 

LillyPu

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I'm planning on querying Gordon (he represents nonfiction and a small portion of fiction) with literary fiction.

On his page he writes: "In order to avoid a potential conflict of interest, I will not offer representation to freelance editorial or consulting clients."

I don't know what that means? Does he freelance edit?

Congratulations, Marika!! :)
 

AndreaGS

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A friend of mine is signed with Pam. Everything sounds above-board, and I think they have an interesting strategy. Nothing bad to report! :D
 

WriteStarfish

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Good luck, Marika! I also received a full request from Jen. They seem like an exciting new agency.
 

Marika

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Thanks, everyone! Good luck to you too, WriteStarfish.
 

DPRichard

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Queried Laurie on 3/5, passed on 3/11. So does anyone know if this agency is a no from one is a no from all or should I query one of the others?
 

WriteStarfish

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DPRichard- on a twitter feed, they mentioned that if one says no you can query another. Thanks, Marika!
 

Jonathan Dalar

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For those of you on Twitter, you can still (as of 3/13) search for #ask4word and get a pretty good indication of what they're doing and how they're doing it. There is some really great information on how they do business in that hashtag.