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[Agency] Betsy Amster Literary Enterprises

Undercover

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Not sure if you queried Mary or not, but she was my agent a while back. I only had her for 6 months and we parted ways mutually. Well, she had mentioned it first. She was a sweet agent, but there were some things that were a disappointment. Like she only sent my ms. to a handful of places and she seem to have lost interest after that. Plus I had another ms. that she wasn't even interested in taking a look at.

She was only doing the agent thing part time and was considering retiring. Don't know what the case is now, but she was very professional and always responsive. Plus she was a good experience in helping me revise it.

Good Luck to you. Hope it works out.
 

MokoBunny

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Not sure if you queried Mary or not, but she was my agent a while back. I only had her for 6 months and we parted ways mutually. Well, she had mentioned it first. She was a sweet agent, but there were some things that were a disappointment. Like she only sent my ms. to a handful of places and she seem to have lost interest after that. Plus I had another ms. that she wasn't even interested in taking a look at.

She was only doing the agent thing part time and was considering retiring. Don't know what the case is now, but she was very professional and always responsive. Plus she was a good experience in helping me revise it.

Good Luck to you. Hope it works out.

I got a request for a full from Mary. She asked me to mail her a hard copy of the ms to her house, I was wondering if that was normal? I'm a little nervous about her now after reading Undercover's experience with her though.
 

Undercover

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Don't be Moko, she's a great agent to have. Yes, it's normal for some agents to request a hard copy. She did it with me when requesting mine. As I said before, she's very responsive and always, always professional. The only thing with mine was she didn't seem interested after my ms. made the rounds. But that's not something to be alarmed of. I will admit, she was very supportive when I revised, giving me lots and lots of feedback.

And technically she did connect me with a good publisher (Leap Books) She just walked away from the deal because there wasn't any advance.

I do hope it works out for you, good luck, send that puppy when you can!
 

MokoBunny

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Don't be Moko, she's a great agent to have. Yes, it's normal for some agents to request a hard copy. She did it with me when requesting mine. As I said before, she's very responsive and always, always professional. The only thing with mine was she didn't seem interested after my ms. made the rounds. But that's not something to be alarmed of. I will admit, she was very supportive when I revised, giving me lots and lots of feedback.

And technically she did connect me with a good publisher (Leap Books) She just walked away from the deal because there wasn't any advance.

I do hope it works out for you, good luck, send that puppy when you can!

Thanks so much, I feel a lot less nervous now.
 

brasiliareview

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Ms. Amster's site is down, but I was able to query her through her AAR page. I received an auto-response so I'm guessing she's still active.
 

Debbie V

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Last post here is pretty old. Anyone have anything more recent to say about Mary Cummings?
 

zmethos

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Mary Cummings liked my query (called it "fun") and requested the first 25 pages of the manuscript, the final 25 pages, and a full synopsis... I duly sent it off a month ago. How long should I wait before following up? I should probably not count the holidays, since many agents took much-needed breaks then...
 

waylander

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3 months is regarded as a standard period before a nudge
 

zmethos

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Thank you, Waylander! That's what I thought, I just wasn't sure if (1) partials are different from fulls, and (2) I should pad the time by not counting the week or so of Christmas/New Year's.
 

arkady

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The Betsy Amster agency website now has this warning:

"We do not represent children’s books, romances, screenplays, poetry, westerns, fantasy, horror, science fiction, techno thrillers, spy capers, apocalyptic scenarios, self-published books, or political or religious arguments."
 

A.P.M.

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Yep, I'm with Mary and now an author of Great River, no long Betsy Amster. Mary was the children's book agent and she took her authors with her. I think Betsy was more literary fiction.