Black Hawk Literary Agency, LLC / Black Hawk Enterprises, LLC (Jan L. Kardys)

Need Real Info On Jan Kardys

does anyone have any real information on Jan Kardys? That is, has anyone delt with her directly and can tell about their experiences. I discovered her through P&E and want someone who can tell me something real instead of gossip.

DED said:

... I was wearing a t-shirt that said, "Ask me about my book."

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REALLY? May I ask what reason you had for having such a shirt made up? I'm extremely interested.

DED:
She's in the midst of a career change. After years of working in publishing "protecting the publisher from the author" she felt that she needed to switch sides and "give something back" to writers.

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According to her announcements page here, she's been giving the "You've Written A Book, Now What?" presentation since at least February 26th 2007. That means that her career change has now been going on for almost 3 years and there is STILL no evidence of professional sales.

In fact, it's worth pointing out that the Announcements Page, which you would expect to see hold details of her latest sales or what her authors are doing, only contains details of her lectures and seminars. That is not, I would suggest, a positive sign.

According to her biography here, her role at those publisher she's worked to was on the contracts side, so I can see why she would describe herself as "protecting the publisher from the author" because that would have been her job as a lawyer - to ensure that the contract was as much in her employer's favour as possible.

Judging from her biography though, she has no experience at editing manuscripts and no experience of selling to acquiring editors.

For someone who wants to "give something back" to writers, you'd think she'd spend more time selling her client's work than going out promoting her agency and tips on submitting to agents.

DED:
(She didn't use this as an opportunity to pitch herself though. In fact, she commented that she had 50 ms to read going back to November).

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Did she mention how many contractual negotiations she's currently doing for her client's work or who she's negotiating with?

DED:
She plugged this place, even told people to write it down.

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:shrug:

Doesn't mean anything one way or another. There are plenty of agents out there with no sales who recommend sites like AW.

DED:
At no point in her presentation did she pitch some side service that she was promoting. No offers of "we've got an editorial staff on board that if you pay $$$ will get your manuscript in tip top shape."

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And I wouldn't expect her to. There's nothing on her website talking about paid services and that hasn't been raised as a concern. The problem is with her apparent lack of any commercial sales in the 3 years that she's been an agent.

DED:
If she was an unscrupulous person, I believe she would've seen me as prey and pounced.

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Again, no one has said that she's a scammer. The problem is with her ability to make a sale.

GirlTigger:
That is, has anyone delt with her directly and can tell about their experiences. I discovered her through P&E and want someone who can tell me something real instead of gossip.

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Hi, GirlTigger, and welcome to AW.

What do you think has been said on this thread that's gossip? Everything in the posts here is derived from emails that Jan has sent out, what's on her own website and what she's telling people during her conferences.

If you're looking for an agent then sales history is everything. A bad agent is worse than no agent.

If you are aware of any commercial sales from this agency, then please let us know.

MM

Hi, all!

I recalled this thread and thought I'd pop in with my own stats, for whatever they're worth, re: querying with a letter only (no sample pages or synopsis included.)

I am currently querying my first novel, and have so far sent queries to fifty agents. Of those fifty, nineteen requested a query letter only -- they'd request sample pages and/or a synopsis only if the letter interested them. All of these agents were carefully researched before I queried -- all represent authors who have "name recognition", all have major sales in the past year, all have secured multiple-book contracts for their debut clients in the past three years, and all represent at least two authors who write full-time. Most of these nineteen agents are names you would recognize immediately as "good agents" if I disclosed them.

This very well may be a difference between US and UK industries, of course, as was suggested in this thread. With the exception of one Canadian agency, all I've queried so far have been in the US.

Anyway -- since somebody in this thread was questioning whether a legitimate agent would ask for a query letter only, I hoped my own experience might help clear that question up for other readers.

I am still not making any claims about the agent in question. I know nothing about her. It's always a good idea to thoroughly research an agent before you query. My personal criteria are: Number of sales in the past year, especially to the major publishing houses; number of significant deals in the past three years; what kind of contracts they've secured for their debut novelists; how many clients I recognize (which means I've probably read their books and liked them); and how many of their clients have a career in writing fiction (which indicates to me that the agent knows how to manage a career.) Your own criteria may vary. Publisher's Marketplace is invaluable for this kind of research!

I queried her back in Dec 2009 and I just got an email this morning that she would like to see my entire manuscript. I've queried 38 agents and only had 15 response, 12 of them were rejections. Interest dried up with the few that had asked for partials, although I don't believe one of the "agents" was legit because I found a thread about them here (sadly after I'd queried them). I know the biggest lesson is to reseach agents first but now I'm kinda stuck. What should I do? Send her my ms and see what happens? Or wait to see what an improved query letter and better researched agents could do?

Your thoughts

My thoughts are, if she hasn't made any sales why are you bothering with her?

That's a small amount of rejections in the grand scheme of things. Keep querying agents and publishers with track records. Get your query critiqued in the SYW area if you think it'll help, although getting a few partial requests is a good sign itself.

Thanks for the input Le Blanc. I think I've got my query worked out now and I'm definitely going to attempt a round 2... that is after I do some major research.

Thank you Libbie for listing some of your criteria used in your searches. I plan to put some of those to good use in my own info compilation! Because I really do want to find the right agent for my material... and my career. But it's a learn as you go process, so I'm glad I've got advise like yours and everyone else's here.

Appreciate the help!

Tying threads together: Manuscript Editing Solutions, LLC

Black Hawk Literary Agency [Jan Kardys]

I didn't see this one on the AW list, but I thought this one looked interesting. It's Jan Kardys from the Black Hawk Literary Agency. Has anyone had dealings with her?

http://www.jankardys.com/BlackHawk_Literary_Agency.html

I just received a LinkedIn request from Jan Kardys. (I have an account but I'm not doing much with it.) Reading her profile, I see this interesting addition to her resume:

In addition to Black Hawk Literary Agency and Unicorn Writers Conference, my new company is Unicorn for Writers LLC - 40 different services for writers. We (Jeanne Rogers and myself) will handle editing, one page summary, competition evaluation, permissions, copyrights, subsidiary rights, social media packages and other services.

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Momento Mori said:

Really? I thougt it was more usual for them to ask for a query letter and sample pages so if the query letter's not brilliant, they can take a quick look at the writing.

MM

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The other way around. They want the sample pages in case the query's good. If the query isn't intriguing and well-written, they don't bother reading any further.

I sent a query letter to Jan and received a request for a manuscript. I just got an email which opened as follows: After reading through your manuscript, I have some suggestions. Firstly, you have a writer's voice, which keeps a pace that is necessary for this type of literary fiction, a strong point in your novel. You must have read some Murakami at some point, and if not, I would read some of his prose to hone your own narrative even more.

Nice flattering opening, right? There were then a couple of sentences about my manuscript.

The email ultimately ended with this: Overall I am impressed with your prose and think that this story is commercially viable, however currently this novel needs more work than I'm willing to put into it and therefore, I can't represent you as your agent. I hope that my brief suggestions are helpful to you in some way. If you are looking for more ways to improve your work, I can refer you to Black Hawk Literary Agency's sister company, Unicorn for Writers', which provides writers with over 40 different services to help enable you to publish your work or find a traditional publisher, as well as copy editing etc. I've attached some information about the company in the email. If you have any questions, feel free to email me.

You may be interested in the seventh Unicorn Writers’ Conference, March 25, 2017 at Reid Castle, Manhattanville College, Purchase, N.Y.
The $325 cost includes access to five different workshops every hour, three excellent meals, and gifts.
And if you’re like one of the 95% of our conference participants who are willing to invest a bit more, you can purchase 30-minute one-on-one meetings with NYC editors and over 35 literary agents. There are few if any other opportunities to have these busy pros read 40 pages of your manuscript (before the conference) and then discuss your words with you for half an hour. (One busy writer last year had six one-on-ones.)

I read the PDF documents that were attached and was astonished at the prices. What a great idea for a business. Become an agent, own a publishing company, pretend you like a book but suggest you get some help from your publishing company. Sweet! BTW Black Hawk publishing is not recommended by P&E.

Congratulations on avoiding the trap.

Sounds like she was trying to butter you up for her services. NO thanks! Like Filigree said, it's good you passed.

This thread seems to have been dead for a while, but for anyone still thinking about Jan Kardys, I got almost the exact same email, word for word, as greghansen did. My email also included a handy dandy payment plan since "many writers can't afford editorial services." How nice.
The icing on the cake is the editor for Unicorn for Writers who graciously took the time to attach some of her comments spelled my last name wrong numerous times. My last name's only five letters. At least spell it right if you're trying to butter me up. If a writer sent a query letter to an agent and spelled that agent's name wrong, do you think she would even read the rest of the query? Unprofessional.

greghansen said:

You may be interested in the seventh Unicorn Writers’ Conference, March 25, 2017 at Reid Castle, Manhattanville College, Purchase, N.Y.
The $325 cost includes access to five different workshops every hour, three excellent meals, and gifts.
And if you’re like one of the 95% of our conference participants who are willing to invest a bit more, you can purchase 30-minute one-on-one meetings with NYC editors and over 35 literary agents. There are few if any other opportunities to have these busy pros read 40 pages of your manuscript (before the conference) and then discuss your words with you for half an hour. (One busy writer last year had six one-on-ones.)[/I]

I read the PDF documents that were attached and was astonished at the prices. What a great idea for a business. Become an agent, own a publishing company, pretend you like a book but suggest you get some help from your publishing company. Sweet! BTW Black Hawk publishing is not recommended by P&E.

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Sneaking in to say that this used to be a good conference but I was on the faculty this year (2017) and many of us--speakers, agents, editors, etc--have still not been paid for our time. If you are invited to speak, I wouldn't go.

I'm very upset to hear she was recommending the conference to people who queried her. I did not realize she was also a literary agent until recently (when emailing about the money she owes me).