I'm Cyle Young, a literary agent and author known as Dadventurer61.
My agenting journey started with Hartline Literary, but because I wanted to represent authors in all markets, I founded the C.Y.L.E. agency (Cyle Young Literary Elite). I believe in helping writers grow their brands to reach their target audience of readers. I'm a member of the AALA and to date, we've sold over 400 books for our clients to publishing houses ranging in size from small to the Big Five.
We're in the process of revamping and updating the website, so excuse us during our update.
Here are some links to our most visited pages:
Here are some links to our most visited pages:
During the lockdown, I spent time playing video games with my kids, which turned into my Dadventurer brand: "A clean gaming stream from a former Michigan football player and dad who loves games and gaming with his kids."
I've grown my platform to over 250K followers on Tik Tok, 66K on YouTube, and 205K on Facebook. This led to me becoming one of Free Fire's top US influencers, in the Free Fire gaming community.
It's been an amazing ride. For more resources, click here.
We're Proud to Represent a Variety of Books in Multiple Genres.
I'm a proud member of the Association of Literary Agents.
See my page here.
Meet the Agents
When I started the C.Y.L.E. agency, I was a lone agent. After guest teaching for Taylor University's writing program, an opportunity presented itself to allow some of the college students to intern at C.Y.L.E. and learn the inside of the publishing industry.
The Jr Agents attended conferences, signed clients, and successfully placed books with publishing houses. While a couple of that group remain as agents to this day, others went on to pursue their writing and one now has her dream job as a Managing Editor at a traditional publishing house.
As other authors of Cyle have networked and grown within the industry, some of them have chosen to pursue other paths in publishing, with one client owning her own traditional publishing house, and others have become agents with C.Y.L.E.
Several of the Jr. Agents attended our first North Carolina Christian Writers Conference hosted by Serious Writer.
Andy Clapp was born and raised in Liberty, North Carolina. After graduating from Southern Alamance High School, he attended the University of Mount Olive, where he played tennis. Andy is currently pursuing his Master's Degree at Liberty University.
Andy is a multi-award-winning author and has been represented by Cyle Young since they met at a writers conference several years ago. Andy started agenting in 2022. He lives with his wife Crystal and their three beautiful kids.
Bethany Jett is a multi-award-winning traditionally-published author, ghostwriter, and marketing strategist who earned top honors in her master’s program, where she earned her MFA in Communications focusing on Marketing and PR.
Bethany became one of Cyle's clients in 2017, as well as his Serious Writer, Inc. business partner. In 2022, after several years of running a consulting company focusing on book proposals and marketing, Bethany joined the C.Y.L.E. agency as a jr. agent.
Bethany is obsessed with planners, "The Office," and #cleanTok. She's married to her college sweetheart. They live outside of D.C. raising three sons and two fluffy Pomeranians.
Antwan Houser is a dedicated leader who loves working with and impacting the lives of youth and young adults in all facets of life. He is passionate about youth and young adults formerly serving as Youth Pastor at Mount Pisgah MBC and currently serving as the minister over the Young Adult Ministry at Emmanuel MBC in Indianapolis, IN.
After publishing his first two books under the C.Y.L.E. agency representation, Antwan came onboard the C.Y.L.E. agency as a jr. agent.
Antwan is a Pastor and United States Navy Veteran, member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Incorporated, member of the Indianapolis Urban League as well as a Member of the Indiana Rotary Club. He has earned five degrees and is married with three children.
Del Duduit is a bestselling author and teaches classes on how to write a devotional and the right way to land big name on your book. Cyle became Del's agent several years ago and recently contracted another book deal for his sports series. In 2021, Del joined the C.Y.L.E. agency as an agent.
Del holds a position with a major nonprofit organization, so he is only accepting requested submissions.
Things to Know
Commissions: Agents get paid when your project sells. Never pay an agent because the agent gets paid by the publisher when you get paid. The industry standard is 15% commissions for books and up to 20% for film rights. There is a risk that the agent will never be paid for their time, because remember, the majority of the work your agent does happens before your book is sold.
Rights: Agents do not own your rights, they represent your rights. One aspect of an agent's job is to assist with your contract negotiations to ensure that you're getting the best deal when you sell the rights to your book to a publisher.
Sales:
Agents are not the decision-makers at the publishing houses. You work with an agent because you rely on their contacts within the industry and their work behind-the-scenes keeping up with the trends and knowing what publishers are looking for. Your project might not sell, so it might be smart to have more than one manuscript that you're working on.
Editing:
Every agent works differently within their strengths. While some agents will edit your manuscript, it should not be the expectation, and you should not pay your agent for editing services on books they're representing. It's important to understand how your agent works to know if you'll be a good fit. It's your responsibility to have a polished manuscript, which may mean hiring an editor to go through the manuscript prior to querying.
Video Submission Process
When I started the literary agency, the amount of queries pouring in was overwhelming, many of which were for genres I didn't acquire and were sent to 900 other agents in one mass email (something that happens to every agent).
I decided to kill two birds with one stone: slow the flow of submissions from people who weren't paying attention to the guidelines and educate at the same time. As part of our submission guidelines, I filmed a series of short videos that explained more in detail who I was, what I looking for, and how to tell if we would be a good fit.
Each video contained a keyword. After watching all three videos, writers would have more information to make an informed a decision, as well as the key phrase that pushed them to the top of the submissions inbox.
Some writers loved it (and got faster replies as a result). Our team loved it because it cut down on the "shotgun emails" they had to wade through.
Unfortunately, not everyone loved it, so complaints about "red flags" and our "weird submissions process" started floating around. Ultimately, we ended the videos process for submissions, but as a result, it may take longer for your query to be seen.
Agents Repping Agents
Many times you'll see people discuss agents repping other agents as a "red flag" in the industry. You can read the story above about how an internship opportunity for college students led to several of them becoming agents, authors, and one is now working in her dream position as managing editor for a traditional publishing house.
I think of agents representing agents like this: If you went to a dentist to get your teeth cleaned and found out your hygenist chose to get her teeth cleaned by a different dentist, how much faith would you have in the dentist you're seeing?
In other words, while some agencies have agents who only rep other agents (and that might be a red flag), I'm proud that clients I've represented (and continue to represent) chose to work with me when they decided to move into an agenting role. Currently, only a couple of our agents actually represent another agent, but all were part of the C.Y.L.E. agency before they began their own agenting career.
