Updated November 10, 2009
| With a background in academia, Scott Mendel has worked in publishing since the early 1990s, first as a magazine editor and freelance technical writer and then as an Associate and, ultimately, the Vice President and Director of the late Jane Jordan Browne’s Chicago-based literary agency. In November 2002, he opened the Mendel Media Group in New York.Scott holds a bachelor’s degree, Summa cum laude, from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. He earned a master’s degree in English language and literature from the University of Chicago, and is completing his Ph.D. at that institution, with a doctoral dissertation on American Yiddish literature and the meaning of the category, “American literature.”Scott has taught literature, English, and Yiddish at a number of institutions, including the Choate-Rosemary Hall Preparatory School in Connecticut, the Hyde Park Cluster of Theological Seminaries in Chicago, Bowdoin College, the University of Chicago, and the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he most recently held an appointment as Lecturer in Jewish Studies.He wrote the book A Prosecutor’s Guide to Hate Crime, which was published through a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, and which has been in print in new editions for several years. He has been the Managing Editor of a monthly and quarterly health care magazine, Positively Aware, and editor of the Maine literary journal, the Quill, which began publishing in 1897. Scott has written a produced play, several works of fiction, and many book columns, news articles, and opinion pieces.
We represent nonfiction writers in most subject areas, from biography and serious history to health and relationships. Our nonfiction clientele includes individual authors and institutions whose works, collections, archives, researchers and/or policy experts contribute to important public discussions and debates. We also represent more light-hearted nonfiction projects, when they suit the market particularly well. The agency’s fiction writers principally write historical and contemporary multicultural fiction, contemporary thrillers and mainstream women’s fiction. We help our clients develop their projects, and we market those projects to U.S. publishing houses. We negotiate all contracts to our clients’ works and keep track of monies due them, and we serve as their champions and career advisors. Both critical and commercial success are as important to us as they are to our clients. We want writing to be the source of a significant portion of our individual clients’ incomes. We also want our institutional clients’ works to support their missions financially as well as intellectually. In addition, wherever possible and preferable we reserve and represent the subsidiary rights to our clients’ properties, including magazine and newspaper serialization, translation and other foreign rights, film and television development, audio book, large-print, book club, and merchandising rights. We always aim to multiply our clients’ incomes by making strategic decisions about licensing and sub-licensing as many of those rights as possible. In accordance with the Canon of Ethics of the Association of Authors Representatives, we charge our clients no reading fees.
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| We represent: ADULT NONFICTION * Biography * Current Affairs * Economics * History * Humor/Gift/Novelty * Jewish Topics * Media/Entertainment * Mind/Body/Spirit * Politics * Popular Science * Self-Help/How-To ADULT FICTION * Inspirational * Literary Fiction * Multicultural Fiction – African-American Fiction – Asian-American Fiction – African Fiction – Immigrant Literature – Latin American Fiction – Middle-Eastern Fiction * Mysteries/Thrillers * Women’s Fiction JUVENILE / YOUNG ADULT * Picture Books * Chapter Books * Young Adult Fiction * Young Adult Non-Fiction |
We do not represent: We do not represent screenwriters, poets, or software developers, unless they are creating works derived from a literary work we have already developed and marketed.
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Submission Guidelines |
About Submitting Manuscripts & Proposals QUESTION #1: Are you taking on new clients? Yes, but most new clients of the agency are experienced, professional authors, including journalists and academics who have a history of publication, in book form or otherwise, or author-experts with serious credentials and established media access in their areas of expertise. In most cases, a new client will have a polished book proposal or manuscript already in hand. QUESTION #2: How should I send in my query? Please do not send inquiries by email or fax. Instead, please follow the procedure below. If we want to read more, we’ll ask for it by email or phone. If you would like a response, in the event we can’t take on your project or don’t want to read more, you should include a pre-addressed return mailer with sufficient return postage already affixed for the return of your materials — or just include a standard self-addressed stamped envelope, in which case we’ll respond with a note but discard the submitted materials. Fiction queries: If you have a novel you would like to submit, please send the first twenty pages and a synopsis by regular post to the address above, along with a detailed letter about your publication history and the history of the project, if it has been submitted previously to publishers or other agents. Nonfiction queries: If you have a completed nonfiction book proposal and sample chapters, you should mail those by regular post to the address above, along with a detailed letter about your publication history and the history of the project, if it has been submitted previously to any publishers or other agents. You can download guidelines about writing a book proposal here. QUESTION #3: Did you receive my query? Why haven’t I heard back? We try to respond within a few weeks to all queries that include a self-addressed stamped envelope or other return mailer. Sometimes we fall behind a bit, but eventually we get to them all. If you have not received any response to your query, the most likely reasons are that it was not delivered or it did not include a return mailer. In any case, however, please do not call or email to inquire about your query, as there is no way for us to track individual submissions.Scott Andrew Mendel, Managing Partner Mendel Media Group, LLC 115 West 30th Street, Suite 800 * New York, NY 10001 (646)239-9896 voice * (212)685-4717 fax
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