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LATEST NEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

Latest News and Announcements


July 2008

Welcome to PublishersAndAgents.net!  We have had over 1000 clients, since starting the service nearly 6 years ago in July 2002.   We now have offices in L.A. in Santa Monica and Oakland, and shift operations between both locations.

Our separate page for success stories is growing, too, with many new published books.  See SUCCESS STORIES!!! for the latest signed books which have just come out or will be out later this year.  You can see over 240 kudos from past clients, too.

We have just added a database of booksellers from several organizations including the American Booksellers Association and Independent Booksellers Association -- about 1000, so you can contact them directly about selling or promoting your book.  

Plus we have added a database of about 300 book sales reps both in the U.S. and internationally, so you can arrange to have them represent your book. 

A big article with a photo appeared about our service on the front page of the Contra Costa Times business section.  Click on archives and put in the name of the writer Marton Dunai to see the article.

Based on requests from clients for strategies and sample letters for approaching editors, agents, and producers, we have written a new book -- SELL YOUR BOOK, SCRIPT, OR COLUMN.  It's only $10 in a PDF format and you can apply your purchase to your next order, so it's FREE!  Just click here for details.   Or if you want a printed copy, the book is available through Amazon or directly from iUniverse, though we can't apply the $10 discount to that

We are delighted to announce several more deals from writers.  See the success stories page for more details:

Gerald Kolpan's book Etta will be published by Ballantine in the Spring 2009, and he has just contributed a glowing testimonial, which you can see in our Kudos section.

 

Max Jameson just published his book Passage to Paradise with Tate Publishing.  It is a contemporary romance novel which tells the story of a young Iranian woman from a middle-class family in Tehran, who discovers her true love, loses it, struggles to overcome this loss, and finally gains the wisdom to reunite with her lost love again.  It is a translation of the work of an Iranian author Nazanin Safavi.  

Chet W. Sisk sold Seven Steps to Success I Learned from Homeless People to Stratford Press.  It describes what he learned after volunteering at a homeless shelter after he lost everything in the dot.com bust.  Previously he gained success and fortune as entrepreneur of a successful dot.com advertising agency, and then his second life began as a homeless center volunteer.

Ron and Carren Clem sold Loss of Innocence, the story of a daughter's journey into the underworld of meth addiction and her father's fight to bring her back to Virgin for publication in the US and UK.  It will be out in April 2007.

Tina Jacobson sold a book for a client Junia: The Search for the Missing Apostle by Rena Pederson, which came out in September from John Wiley.  Another September release was  Understanding Asset Allocation by Scott Frush which was published by McGraw-Hill.  Tim Leffel's book Make Your Travel Dollars Worth a Fortune from Travelers' Tales Publishing came out in August 2006.  And Micky Duxbury's book Making Room in Our Hearts: Keeping Family Ties Through Open Adoption was published by Routledge in October.  

Suzanne Hansen sold her book You'll Never Nanny in This Town Again to Crown after we helped her find a top agent.  The book was published in December 2005 and has gotten major press and made the NY Times Best Seller List.  As Suzanne's Website copy describes the book: "Hilarious and addictive, this chronicle of a small-town girl’s stint as a celebrity nanny reveals what really happens in the diaper trenches of Hollywood." Some of her clients have included Michael Ovitz, Debra Winger, Danny DeVito, and Rhea Perlman, and she offers an intriguing, entertaining mix of tales from the cribs of the rich and famous.  The book has recently sold TV rights to Twentieth Century Fox TV for production as a TV movie.  For more details, see her website at: www.hollywoodnanny.com.

Ben and Dale Midgley sold their book Golden Circle Secrets: How to Achieve Consistent Sales Success through Customer Values and Expectations to John Wiley.  The book is about applying the "golden rule" in business to gain more success.    It hit #1 in sales books on Amazon, too.

Another published book is from Wight Martindale: Inside the Cage: A Season at West 4th Street's Legendary Tournament with Simon & Schuster's Spotlight Entertainment division.  It's about one of the best know courts which attracts international talent scouts from all over the world to its tournament, now in its 25th year.  Way to go! 

Nancy Henderson Wurst, published her book with BenBella Books:
Able!: How One Company's Disabled Workforce Became the Key to Extraordinary Success.  
Nancy is a member of ASJA and Authors Guild, and has been published in numerous publications, including Parade, the New York Times, and Family Circle.  To read more about her book and press campaign, view the flyer about the book or her press release

We have recently expanded our service with connections to the national media and the media in major metropolitan markets.  We now have a 15,000+ database with contacts for newspapers, magazines, TV, and radio.  Details are at www.newsmediaconnection.com

Another recent addition to our family of connection services connects game and toy designers to the toy industry.  Find manufacturers or agents for your ideas.  For details: www.gameandtoyconnection.com.   Another new site is for people with gifts and stationery products: www.giftsandstationeryconnection.com, and we have also added a site for inventors seeking manufacturers for any type of product: www.inventorsconnection.net.

Other recently expanded services are these:

- A site which connects screenplay writers to producers, production companies and film agents at www.screenplaywritersconnection.com.  We have about 1700 film producers and production companies and 900 agents and managers in our database.  

- A new Website at www.filmconnection.biz, which includes directors, casting directors, distributors, entertainment attorneys, and coming soon, actors and actresses.

  • - A service that connects speakers and anyone with a story to tell to speakers bureaus and meeting planners.  We have over 300 speaker bureaus and over 7000 meeting planners with e-mails in our database. 
    For more details visit www.speakersconnection.org.

- A service that connects entrepreneurs with venture capitalists at www.venturecapitalconnection.com.   We have over 6000 contacts in our database.

- A service that connects songwriters with music publishers, record labels, and music agents and managers -- and now it includes all varieties of music. We have about 1500 contacts in our music databases.  Details are at www.songwritingconnection.com.

A major development contributing to our growth has been articles about us in a variety of publications, such as one in the Wall Street Journal by Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg: "Book Idea in an E-Mail Box."  As he writes:

      "Some businesses have even sprung up to help fledgling writers reach acquisition editors online. PublishersAndAgents  maintains an e-mail address database of 1,200 editors...The  service will send the pitches to an average of 300 to 400 editors at a time...
       "Erica Manfred used the service hoping to interest a major house in "The Doctor's Guide to Weight Loss Surgery...The service sent hundreds of e-mail queries and the timing was ripe...Three houses made formal offers; Bertelsmann's Bantam imprint published the book in August 2003...Ms.  Manfred's e-mail had essentially triggered an auction...
       "Gini Graham Scott, who owns PublishersAndAgents.net, says she has sent out queries on behalf of 200 clients.  She pays particular attention to what goes in the e-mail's subject line.  The phrase "fireman's wife" was what got Ms. Farren's pitch noticed.  'Get that wrong and people won't open your query,' says Ms. Scott."

Besides ongoing updates contributed by clients, we update our book editor and agent databases every few weeks -- adding about 30 new editors and 10 new agents every month plus dropping those that have retired.  Currently, we have about 1100 editors and 900 agents for adult books and 200 editors and 150 agents for children's books. These include editors who have signed the latest deals and some of the biggest agents with two dozen or more clients. 

Your query will target those agents or editors interested in your type of project.  For example, a general interest nonfiction book might be sent to about 300-350 editors; a popular business book to about 200-250 editors.  We target agents based on areas of interest, and can further target agents based on their size, location, and whether they are AAR members.  By popular request, we have added publishers and agents in the UK and Canada -- about 10% of our listings.

Our syndicate database includes about 300 syndicates, about 200 with e-mails, since many want initial submissions by mail with samples.  With our latest film industry update a few weeks ago, we have about 1750 producers and production companies and 1000 film agents and managers in our database, with most of these receptive to e-mails. The agents database includes an e-mail only list of about 600 agents and managers who represent film actors, actresses, and directors and can refer scripts to their clients.  We also have a database of film distributors, TV producers, directors, and lawyers.

Generally, we limit the number of clients to 2 or 3 a day for each database to provide a high-quality individualized, personal service and limit the number of queries sent to contacts.  We have found that consulting about how to write an effective letter and how to respond to replies from editors, agents, and producers is an extremely important part of this service for many writers.   We can further assist you with consulting on selecting an agent or publisher, strategizing your follow-up when you get a large response, and writing proposals. 

If you go to our Kudos section, you'll see comments from over 210 clients who have used our service for nonfiction, fiction, children's books, articles, columns, and screenplays.  A number of these clients have books that have been published by some of the big six publishers in New York (including Random House, Simon & Schuster, and Hyperion) and some signed with top agents, including at William Morris and ICM.  One client who signed with a top agent sold her book to a major publisher for a big advance within 3 weeks of using the service.  Another client sent a raving letter to dozens of writers' publications and Web sites. 

After four years, our success rate for a query leading to a signing with an agent, publisher, or producer is about 75%.  This includes sales to some of the biggest in the industry. 

One agent we work with has used our service 7 times to expand his contacts with nonfiction and fiction book editors.  He has also sent out 2 queries to producers and production companies about scripts based on novels he is representing.  He has had several dozen responses from each mailing and made several sales.

One big success is the sale of A Survival Guide for Working with Humans to AMACOM published in February 2004. Recently it went into its second printing and is being translated for sale in Thailand, Spain, and China.  AMACOM published a follow-up book A Survival Guide for Working with Bad Bosses in November 2005 -- and so far, it's been selected by several editors as one of the top ten business or career books of 2005.  A third book in the series is A Survival Guide to Managing Employees from Hell, out in November 2006, and in April 2007 AMACOM will be publishing 30 Days to a More Powerful Memory.  Plus the books have done so well, that there is now a fifth book with AMACOM: Disagreements, Disputes, and All Out War, with two more books under contract: Enjoy! 101 Ways to Have More Fun in Your Work and Life  (Fall 2008) and Want It, See It, Get It  (Spring 2009)

Another success is the sale of Do You Look Like Your Dog? to Broadway Books, a division of Random House, based on the website of the same name.  The book was published in January 2004 and was featured on Good Morning America.  We also used an e-query to producers and production companies to find TV producers interested in turning Do You Look Like Your Dog into a television show.    

Still another success is Homicide by the Rich and Famous which is being pitched through an agent based in Beverly Hills.  It was sold via a query to Greenwood Press and was published in March 2005, and was published as a paperback by Berkley books in September 2006.  Still other sales from queries include:

- A Law for My Daughter with Kate Weaver, a co-written project with Kate Weaver, signed by Stanley Isaac Productions.

- When I Grow Up I Want to Be a Sturgeon: The Wrong Things that Kids Write sold to Sasquatch Books, out in September 2006, which has its own Web site at www.kidsmistakes.com

Several publishers are considering our children's books, too.

So, as we've found, the query process can be very effective, when you have a strong manuscript and write a strong compelling query (and we can help with that, since after writing or editing over 850 queries and sending them out, we have learned what works). 

Here are some of the results we know about  from e-mails to us from clients (since we don't do a formal survey): 
      - 220+ writers found agents
      - 60+ writers found publishers
      - 8 writers had articles and columns picked up by a syndicate
      - 80 screenplay writers have had scripts under consideration by dozens of
                producers or production companies
      - 20 self-published book authors found a publishers interested in republishing 
                their books, and 3 sold their books to some of the biggest U.S. publishers
      - and most of our other clients have books and columns under consideration
                by editors, agents, and producers
      (See kudos for some of their comments - about 240 listed).

A good approach some clients use is to first pitch their articles or columns to the syndicates and newswires using an e-query or postal query. Then, if that doesn't work, because finding representation by a syndicate is so competitive, they try self-syndication.

For tips on how to market and promote what you write, see our articles in our marketing tips section.  For links to other Web sites and suggested books, visit our section on resources