Welcome to Literary Rambles! While you’re rambling around and exploring the site enter for a chance to win:

Editor Cassandra Brown Critique through June 18th

Debut Author Giveaway Hop through June 19th

THE DISTANCE TO HOME through June 25th

STICKS & STONES through July 2nd

Agent Spotlight: Adam Friedstein

This week's Agent Spotlight features Adam Friedstein of Anderson Literary Management, LLC.

NOTE: I've received a report that Mr. Friedstein is no longer with Anderson Literary. You may want to hold off on querying. Will post details when I have them - 2/14/12.

Adam Friedstein About: “Adam grew up on the North Shore of Massachusetts and holds a B.A. in Comparative Literature from Bard College.

“He began his publishing career in 2005 at Writers House, later going on to the foreign rights department at Harold Ober Associates, and most recently Trident Media Group where he worked with agents Ellen Levine, Alex Glass, and Melissa Flashman and authors such as Christopher Andersen, Russell Banks, Stanley Fish, and Matt Bondurant.

“He’s looking for books that make statements, books with captivating characters and loud voices, books with unique perspectives on the familiarity of adolescence and adulthood, specifically debut literary fiction, literary thrillers, young adult fiction and narrative and serious nonfiction, including memoir, popular science, and pop-culture books.” (Link)

Status: Accepting submissions.

What He's Looking For:

From his bio:

“He’s looking for books that make statements, books with captivating characters and loud voices, books with unique perspectives on the familiarity of adolescence and adulthood, specifically debut literary fiction, literary thrillers, young adult fiction and narrative and serious nonfiction, including memoir, popular science, and pop-culture books.” (Link)

From Guide to Literary Agents on YA:

“I have never been a big sci-fi or fantasy guy. I do go for YA on the historical side. I like YA on the darker, older side as well—quirky stories that remind me of the pathos of adolescence in a creative way. (Link)

(See his interview with GLA for more info on the adult genres he reps.)

What He Isn't Looking For:

Plays, screenplays, science fiction, cookbooks, gardening, craft books, picture books. (Link)

He does NOT want supernatural YA (info via e-mail).

Quotables:

About the Agency:

"Anderson Literary Management is the culmination of Kathleen Anderson’s three decades of publishing experience, thirteen of those years as an agent, seventeen as an editor. In 1995, she made the unorthodox decision (at the time, which is commonplace now) to “jump the fence” and leave institutional publishing for the entrepreneurial world of agenting. The decision was prescient because, in fairly short order, her authors gained international reputations on the back of her established tenure as an editor. It was a liberating move, allowing her to become more closely aligned with the discovery of authors and manage their artistic development. Her literary acumen attracted writers of all stripes without the restrictions of working for a single imprint of a publishing house. Now ALM represents authors to the industry as a whole. This time, however, it’s on our own terms, with writers that reflect our many and varied passions in life.” (Link)

“We are committed, spunky, empathetic communicators, representing authors who are truth-tellers as well as story-tellers. We foster long-term relationships based on integrity, sound business practices, mutual respect, and companionship. We represent authors, not books – meaning, we manage and nurture the careers and ideas of writers over many books, not just on a book-by-book basis – and we remain active as partners throughout the publishing process. We orchestrate publishing and media deals worldwide involving factors both personal and professional, because matching writers with the right people to publish, film, and stage their work is our key to their success.” (Link)

Pet-Peeves:

Receiving submissions for genres he doesn’t rep, multiple book submissions, and form queries (info via e-mail).

Editorial Agent?

Yes, very much! He does a lot of editorial work with his clients and really enjoys that aspect of what he does. (info via e-mail).

Web Presence:

Anderson Literary website (his info is not up yet).

LinkedIn.

QueryTracker.

Clients:

There is a list of Anderson Literary Management clients on the website. Mr. Friedstein has a growing list he is actively submitting.

Sales:

As of this posting, Mr. Friedstein does not appear to be a member of Publisher’s Marketplace. He reports, via e-mail, that he does not have any sales yet (new agent!) but is actively submitting his clients.

NOTE: PM is usually not a complete representation of sales.

Query Methods:

E-mail: Yes.

Snail-Mail: Yes.

Online-Form: No.

Submission Guidelines (always verify):

For fiction, creative nonfiction, and memoir, send a query letter, a brief 1-3 page synopsis, and up to 50 pages of material. Include a SASE if sending via snail-mail.

For nonfiction, send a query letter, proposal, and up to three chapters. Include a SASE if sending via snail-mail.

See the Anderson Literary Management website for complete up-to-date submission guidelines. See this interview on the Guide to Literary Agents blog for info on submitting via e-mail.

Query Tips:

“I don't hate synopses, though I do prefer to experience a story for myself, especially if it's already piqued my interest with a well-written and creative pitch.” (Link)

Response Times:

The agency has a stated response time of minutes to six weeks on queries. Mr. Friedstein seems to honor this with most responses falling within days to a week. There are occasional instances up to the six-week mark, however. Requested material seems to get a response within a month or two.

What's the Buzz?

Adam Friedstein is a relatively new agent but has worked in the publishing industry since 2005. He does not have any sales yet but has a list of clients he is actively submitting. I’ve seen mention that the agency has a team philosophy, suggesting Mr. Friedstein has the knowledge and experience of his colleagues to offer on top of his own. Wishing him many sales in the coming year!

You can find him at the Writer’s Digest conference in January, The DFW Conference in February, and The Write Stuff Conference in March 2011.

Worth Your Time:

Interviews:

Agent Advice Interview with Adam Friedstein at the Guide to Literary Agents Blog (08/2010).

Around the Web:

Adam Friedstein on P&E.

Anderson Literary Management on P&E.

Anderson Literary Management on AbsoluteWrite.

Contact:

Please see the Anderson Literary Management website and Mr. Friedstein’s interview on the Guide to Literary Agents blog for contact and query information.

***

Have any experience with this agent? See something that needs updating? Please leave a comment or e-mail me at agentspotlight(at)gmail(dot)com

Note: These agent profiles presently focus on agents who accept children's fiction. They are not interviews. Please take the time to verify anything you might use here before querying an agent. The information found herein is subject to change.

7 comments:

  1. Thanks for the info! It's always good to consider another agent for "the list". :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for another great spotlight even though he's not one for my list.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for the great spotlight!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yay - a graduate of Bard College! I know Bard; it's a good school. Thanks for the profile!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thank you for commenting, Donea, Natalie, Renae, and Ishta! Best to you, if you query.

    Mr. Friedstein has reviewed his profile. He'd like to stress that he isn't looking for supernatural YA.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. do you how i could access some on line info on Adam Friestein, sent him my manuscript but he hsa left that agency

      Delete
    2. Robert,

      I still haven't heard if he's moved to another agency or is out of the business all together.

      A former client made a comment on QueryTracker that he disappeared with no word and no explanation from the agency, so I'm leaning toward just taking his profile down.

      Delete
http://www.literaryrambles.com/2010/12/agent-spotlight-adam-friedstein.html
www.literaryrambles.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2016-26
226108
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:USCM6FSFLDOQU2Q6IC4QV7DFF6RHTGML
<urn:uuid:6968e423-c287-4d43-8a3e-a819833287e4>
2016-06-29T18:11:37Z
209.85.232.121
sha1:IV24JKIORLIU7LD4WLQPBT4KSSQXDDBP
<urn:uuid:420984d1-f290-4352-ac93-0cbde9f2f3d8>
http://www.literaryrambles.com/2010/12/agent-spotlight-adam-friedstein.html
response
<urn:uuid:b99e50a1-b7a0-42d6-8974-5daa865949ac>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2016-26
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for June 2016
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf