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Irene Goodman Literary Agency

Monet

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What's up with two agencies

1. Irene Goodman Literary Agency
2. Wieser & Elwell, Inc.

having the exact same address?

80 Fifth Avenue Suite 1101 NY NY 10011

also have found Wieser & Elwell, Inc. with same street/suite address but different zip --- 10010

puzzled - do they share an office?
 
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Crinklish

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There are several different agencies at that particular address...it's a suite of offices, and they share rent and conference room space.
 

Monet

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Thanks, all. The information is good to know. I thought for sure one of the addresses was incorrect.
 

Scrawler

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BTW- I got a nice rejection from the Irene Goodman agency. A standard, but very pleasantly worded "Dear Author" that icluded the line, "We also appreciate the hard work and diligence needed to get in the door, and we applaud your efforts." :) Below was a handwritten and complimentary note stating she would "be happy to look at future projects."
Such a nice way to say thanks but no thanks!
 

Edita A Petrick

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I thought I'd share this with the rest of you here. I queried this agency nearly 2 years ago - yep, 2 years ago since I keep records. The query concerned my police mystery novel, "Cold Scheme" - and I just received (March 19, 2007) reply from someone at the agency named Miriam Kriss, declining interest in the novel. It's a generic rejection but it's NOT an auto-reply which makes me wonder who's doing "cleaning-up" at the agency and more important, why...?

Dear Author,
I dislike having to send you a standard form letter as much as I'm sure you
dislike receiving one. Unfortunately, the volume of unsolicited mail
prevents us from giving more individual responses.
We did review your proposal, and for some reason we don't feel we can represent it. Some of them come close, and yours may well be one of those, but we do have our reasons for declining.
We also appreciate the hard work and diligence needed to get in the door, and we applaud your efforts. Since this is a highly subjective business, you may well find success elsewhere, and we wish you all the best with your writing.
Sincerely,
Miriam Kriss

Now, this particular novel's gone to publish as an e-book about 1 year ago. So, as for agents not being courteous and replying - positive or negative - this agency takes courtesy very seriously...honestly, I'm still chuckling about it. I mean 2 years...? Why bother?
 

waylander

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Miriam Kriss is one of the partners there.
 

Edita A Petrick

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It's just a rejection...dont read too much into it.


I know that - and that's not what made me laugh. But taking 2 years...to send e-mail...honestly, were I cleaning my files I wouldn't remember who sent me what after 2 years. In which case caution and sanity would prevail and I'd not bother replying at all. It's kind of silly. But plucky, I suppose....
 

HapiSofi

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Could be she was cleaning out her unanswered backlog. You may not care at this point, but another writer might be offended at the idea that they wouldn't want to hear a reply.
 

jkorzenko

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Miriam Kriss is top notch. I guess what they say about the height of a slush pile is true. LOL. I'd be chuckling, too, Edita. After three months, I normally mark that sub as a non-response R and move on.

J.
 

Scrawler

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I queried Irene Goodman and received a timely reply from Miriam Kriss. Her form letter included a hand written request to submit something else.
I've received 2 rejections over a year later- one a very poor quality copy of a form letter, the other a personal letter full of apologies, saying my query had been put in the wrong office.
 

janetbellinger

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It ook two years because they had a hard time deciding whether or not to represent your book. They came close to accepting it and maybe would have had they not found out it's already an ebook. Or maybe they don't know that but genuinely had trouble making a decision about it.
 

jthome1223

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I'll bet a pile of queries just got misplaced in a filing cabinet somewhere and they just now came across them. Before I signed with my agent, Irene Goodman requested a full from me -- and it only took about two weeks for that.

Two years! That must have been quite a shock! I got two rejections in the mail a year after I quit querying agents -- so I can relate a little bit. Funny how those rejections don't sting after you have representation!
 

Robin Bayne

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She ran a group-session at a conference I attended, and we went around the table and pitched our projects. One woman pitched poetry, which had been clearly marked *do no represent* in the guidelines, but Irene listened politely and then invited ALL of us to submit our manuscripts.

No big surprise when a form rejection came later. I felt like we were all just treated politely with no real consideration.
 

JeanneTGC

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I'm about to query this agency, and wondered if anyone had any info on this aspect of querying there only (I know they're legit).

On both Agent Query and Publisher's Marketplace, they indicate that snail mail queries are both accepted and preferred. On the agency's own website, it states that they only want emailed queries.

My initial reaction is to do what the agent's website says, but I just wanted to know if anyone's done snail mail query subs to them and had a good, bad or indifferent response.
 

clara bow

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My initial reaction is to do what the agent's website says, but I just wanted to know if anyone's done snail mail query subs to them and had a good, bad or indifferent response.


over the summer, i snail queried them and received the usual form rejection. my impression is that they recently switched to email preference.
 

RTH

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Interesting to note that this seems not uncommon with this agency; I sent a query to Ms. Kriss a good while back (4 or 5 months, I think?) and never had a response.

Maybe their office could use some improvement in its slush-pile organization strategies. :)
 

Moon Daughter

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Congrats, Barb! Keep us updated. I can't wait til' my manuscript is complete so I can send it to their agency.
 

picsbypat

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I once got a response from a publisher after 23 months, but i had moved in the time between my first submission and their response, so they may have lost my address.

Pat
 

Linda Adams

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My initial reaction is to do what the agent's website says, but I just wanted to know if anyone's done snail mail query subs to them and had a good, bad or indifferent response.

I did snail mail in January to them. Still haven't heard anything back. They must have updated the site because we would have sent it email at the time if the site said they preferred it.