ok, so I'm starting to think he's some sort of scammer . . . I came across him at a writer's conference and it wasn't until after attending one of his classes that I decided to add him to my pitch list. He seemed wickedly smart and a go-getter. I had previously pawed through his stats before the conference, so I did have some background on him. And honestly, i TRUSTED the writer's conference to VET their speakers before they agree to let them IN . . .

Anyway, I managed to hook all 3 of my agents I pitched to. I had spent years building my social media platform and building an audience for my book . . .

AKA, you can blame ME for everything.

Before he'd met me in early spring 2020, he was your fairly normal agent (whatever normal is). When I told him of my years of labor to build my own audience to market my writing to, and how i planned to sell everything, his eyes lit up (along with the other agents).

he was the first to reply back on my submitted work, and I had already decided that whichever agent came back with an answer first would be the one I'd pick. he signed me on, saying he had a publisher right off the batt for one of my works. I explained my long term marketing plans, and how i made money on social media.

(for the record, I wrote a book that agents kept telling me there was no market for, so I started a YouTube channel on it to test the waters. I was able to both show the market AND gain a prospective audience. That's the ONLY reason I started it.) I grew to over 60,000 followers.

I never heard from him again.

It was covid era, so i figured he was dealing with stuff backing up. I decided to take the time to work more on my manuscript and let him do his job. A bit over a year later, I saw an opportunity for one of my books, and sent it to him again telling him we need to jump on this. But I had a bad feeling in my stomach. . . . the contract stated he would contact me NO LESS than 4 times a year . . . he hadn't even ONCE!

So I did some digging. Turns out that summer he began plotting, and in the fall of 2020 started his own YouTube channel . . . seems like a conflict of interests, but as long as he's marketing my work I don't care.

BUT, I still have not heard from him. I might just end up terminating my contract. It will be his MAJOR loss. You see, my book is a children's book that deals with war . . . it's one of those rare jewels of a book. One that must be marketed at just the right moment, but will sell hundreds of thousands of copies worldwide. He will find out soon enough that social media as a job is a rabbit hole he does NOT want to go down. I do encourage everyone to have the start of something in social media. Either a blog or Facebook or Instagram. Not to build and amass a massive following, but to simply stay connected to your audience.

Editing youtube videos has given me insight into both my audience, and how to better edit my work.
-- WTFarm Girl

Profile Update: Closed to queries.

Thanks ashmore_brad

July 15, 2021. Closed to submissions. See https://cyleyoung.com/submissions/

I submitted to this guy once when I was really new to querying. Looking over his track record, I'd never do it again. He makes himself out to be this super special agent worth going through a YouTube maze to have the privilege of querying, only for most of his sales to be to a single small agency that accepts author submissions.

Don't query this guy.

EQ: 4/6/21

Fantasy 78k

adult com fantasy-mag realism, 88k 10/31/20

Was formerly represented by him. Would not recommend.

DO NOT SUBMIT TO AGENCY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
After sending them a proposal I worked on for 2 hours (not worth it, trust me), they rejected it within an hour.
Claim #1 - I had no social media links ANYWHERE when they were in the signature of the query letter email.
Claim #2 - Very uninteresting.
Very cruel & rude, I found. A literary agent should be looking over your proposal, taken proper time that is needed in order to do so, and reading over your chapters instead of rejecting just by one quick look. He even said that he's "getting away from the Christian genre because it doesn't sell as much anymore" where, on the bio of the Hartline website, it actually says otherwise.

I have a few friends who are agented under him. I do not recommend him as an agent.

His entire twitter activity for the past few months is just links to his gaming streams and other random BS. Weird.

Wow. His whole agency (C.Y.L.E) is sketchy. I checked PM and all his junior agents sold to the same (digital) publishing house (INtense), which may even be a side project of his.

This guy just wants everything to be as easy for him as possible. In part, it's an agent's job to give their authors a following. Building it on Twitter, FB, or through a blog takes an immense amount of time and it's very difficult to gain traction. Gaining thousands of followers on Twitter takes relentless tweets and retweets and most people don't have the time to do that and write.

Having a major publishing deal accelerates the process immensely. That's why people want an agent and a publishing deal because otherwise they're spinning their wheels trying to get people to read their books and blogs. But he wants authors to do all the heavy lifting ahead of time.

He comes across as a bit of a used car salesman/multi-level marketing type with dashes of con artist thrown in. I don't want to totally disparage the guy; maybe he's totally on the level once you get past his requirements, but I still get warning signals from his videos.

To submit, you must watch 3 indulgent, arrogant videos on his website to get a secret code. Even then, he's looking more at social media following than anything else. Not going to bother with him. The videos alone are exhausting to sit through.

Thank you for the clarification. We had a chance to dive in. We love the
descriptions, but are having a harder time connecting with the voice.
Unfortunately, since we don't take on as much fiction, we're not the
best fit. But thank you so much for thinking of us.

Sincerely,
The CYLE Team

Beware of this agent:

https://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?337606-C-Y-L-E-(Cyle-Young-Literary-Elites)