I saw this posted on the AgentQuery website. I guess someone got a response from Lindstrom Literary Management, LLC and this is what it said:
Thanks for your submission, but I'm afraid I won't be taking on new clients as a literary agent. The last two or three years have been tough ones and it's almost impossible to place a new author with the mainstream publishers in the current market.Reading between the lines...perhaps this is very bad for new authors seeking agents. Ah well...if you just murder your two-year-old daughter and get off on it by having a superstar defense team working pro bono because of the high profile nature of the case, then you'll get a huge book deal and movie rights and make more money than an innocent, hard-working middle-class person in America will ever make over his entire career. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, google "Casey Anthony book deal" and read. And shame on you for not knowing about this.
So I am changing my business from Lindstrom Literary to Flying Pig Media. The information will be up on my new website -- www.flyingpigmedia.com -- shortly.
With Flying Pig, I'll be working as a publishing consultant helping authors to self-publish -- or as I prefer, publish independently. I'll be offering services from craft/content editing to management of the publishing process to book marketing.
I am not, I repeat not, talking about going to traditional vanity or self-publishing companies.
If you're interested, I'll add your email to my mailing list and will keep you posted. I expect Flying Pig Media's website to be up within the next four weeks.
I really hate it that idiots and monsters have a better chance of getting book deals than actual good and hardworking writers do! Like completely moronic sports starts who can hardly even talk coherently, getting book deals for biographies. Makes me mad!!
ReplyDeleteThis is real? I can't believe it. How discouraging. :(
ReplyDeleteI can see a lot of agents going this route. and i expect the bigger agencies will also slim down somewhat. Freaks and weirdos will of course always have a place at the table. Ho hum.
ReplyDeletemood
Oh well, that's the business. Once something is in demand, you can bet your last dollar the sharks will bite. And HARD!
ReplyDeleteIt is a shame people who have not an iota of knowledge regarding the writing process stand to make more than actual writers do. But one wise man wrote (can't remember where): "The works the industry acquires and sells might seem frivolous and derivative, but they sell, hence the publisher makes money. What they then do is use those funds to acquire new writers--folks like you and me. Consider it the grand circle of literary life."
Amen to whom ever wrote this. ^_^
Interesting times. If you see publishing as an ocean, then the seascape is more turbulent than ever before, there are no longer any reliable stars in the sky to navigate by, the sun rises where it shouldn't and sets where it once rose, and tidal waves and rogue currents are the order of the day. No-one out there seems to have a reliable compass, and any maps that exist have long since been proven useless.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that in times like these we writers have no choice but to come up with heavy-handed and obvious metaphors...
It's appalling all around isn't it?--The Casey part.
ReplyDeleteThis is depressing. Though the idea of "when pigs fly" is kind of funny. Like "you'll get a book deal, when pigs fly."
ReplyDeleteThat's probably been true for a while now. I heard they're offering Maria Shriver a $15 million advance! Jesus God, that's a lot of money for a cuckold's memoirs. At least she didn't murder anyone, so that's good.
ReplyDeleteBut it's like with "Transformers 3": when the public demands crap they'll get crap by the bucketful. If they simply didn't buy books from murderers or cheats then publishers would stop printing those books.
The U.S.A. rewards crime. The guy that hacked into the Sony Playstation network a few months back is working for Facebook now for six figures.
ReplyDeleteThe guy that hacked the Wii remote was hired by Microsoft to develop the Kinect.
The guy that jailbroke the Apple iPhone was hired by Apple for a six figure job.
Casey Anthony murdered her daughter and gets rich from it.
Capitalism. Plain and simple.
The thing I find interesting about the agent news (yes Raquel it is real) is that this is an honest up-front letter to a client. Maybe a lot of form rejections are coming because other agencies haven't been able to sell anything and just haven't admitted that yet. It made me start to look at the last sales made on some agencies out of curiosity. Some of them have no activity for 2011 at all...like going on 8 months without a recent deal.
And Americans will buy her book .... disgusting!
ReplyDeleteI hate our celebrity obsessed culture... in fact I hate that we consider somebody like that a celebrity.
ReplyDeleteAs for the agents--it's really interesting. I've been participating in some author chats and EVERYBODY is gung-ho self-pub. The problem is the vast majority are 'I just finished my book, now I want to self-pub' instead of understanding how much work a novel still needs at that point. It is going to get harder to break through the thickening layer of crap, even if you have a great book, if publishers aren't looking. I think services like this agent is switching to may indeed be the next wave--help to do it RIGHT instead of doing it all alone.
Wow! Really? Both the letter and the news about Case Anthony make me nauseated. I'm not quite sure what to think. I think I need time to process. Grrrr!
ReplyDeleteDisturbing on all levels...Good thing I write because I love it. (Would be nice to make money at it, but we all have to have a dream, right?!)
ReplyDeleteBummer!
ReplyDeleteI love the flying pig name though. That's great stuff.
You know... I was really upset about Miss Belle Vita, but then I realized that the wheel is probably turning so slowly because it's huge.
ReplyDeleteWhen she's at the bottom, I'll almost pity her. Almost.
As for the agent, I'm suspecting that more people will follow. Which is why I'm glad that I won't need to query right now, because I get to keep an eye on developments without having my story affected.
:-)
This agent seems very shady, pitching his new business in a rejection letter. Maybe he thinks he can make more $$ helping clients self-publish, and so he doesn't even bother trying to get them traditionally published anymore.
ReplyDeleteThe tide is turning with self-publishing, though. If this author writes genre fare, that could be a more lucrative route.
And the only thing more depressing than Casey Anthony getting a multimillion-dollar book deal is that millions of people will buy it.
I'm not surprised about the agent thing, but got had a giggle at "when pigs fly"
ReplyDeleteI agree with phil. It is absolutely depressing than so many people buy these types of books. Why do folks support this sort of thing? *sigh* They get these deals because there is an audience for it. Such a shame.
Ugh. sorry my comment above is so full of typos. Geesh-I must be tired. Whoopsie.
ReplyDeleteI think this says even more about the culture as a whole than it does about publishing. We're doomed.
ReplyDeleteA lot of agents seem to be going this route. I'm not convinced it's a good thing for writers. If they are going to go the self-pub route, why not keep all the profits for themselves?
ReplyDeleteHow interesting! She's not the first agent to go this route. I read something about this on nathan bransford's blog a bit ago...
ReplyDelete