Are you familiar with these agents/agencies?

[Sea Star]

Does anyone have any experience with, or any knowledge of, either the Desert Rose Agency or the St. Literary Agency, both of which are willing to look at your work & possibly represent you?

How does one go about screening out the bad agents from the good? Is there a list floating around somewhere of who to trust & who to stay away from? Thanks for any help on this subject! Miralee

[wgjones3]

S.T. has a bad vibe all over the net.

How I check an agent is like this:

Go here: http://www.agentresearch.com/

Go to their services page, and sign up for their free agent verification. They'll give you a general page about whether the agency is legit.


Also, go here: http://www.anotherealm.com/prededitors/

Look up the agency. P&E has a really good reputation in the writing community.


Also, check here: http://www.sfwa.org/beware/


And finally, go here: http://www.google.com and search out the agency yourself. Odds are if nothing shows up at all except their website, then they've not been around long enough to make a name. Since there's really no rules regulating literary agencies just about anybody can call themselves an agent. No agent is better than having a bad agent.

Hope that helps.


One last thing. No matter what they say, no matter how convincing their sales pitch is, real agents don't charge up-front fees. Stay away from anyone who does. Real agents earn their money by selling your book, not by accepting you as a client.

[AngelAzariah]

_____I was with ST for a time, great waist of cash. If you feel like getting half (Blank) answers to your qustions, having no proff of what they have done, and being sent zerox forms of (Blank) to ask for more cash, by all means try them out.
_____I'll tell you the truth right off. Publishers with great report wont take you in unless you have an agent they respect, and an agent they respect wont take you in unless you have already been published. The writing market sucks, it's the truth, but I keep plucking away at it.
_____I'm bitter with the big dogs, I will admit it. I could rave on and on. Mr. Jones here has given you a very good answer though. If you still want to seek out an agent, it's the way to go.

[Sea Star]

Thank you both for your very helpful replies. I especially appreciate the web site links and info on checking out agents before pursuing a relationship with any of them.

I do have a question about one suggestion that you made? You said:
Look up the agency. P&E has a really good reputation in the writing community.

Which agency are you saying to look up? Is it actually called P&E, or is that short for something else?

I have heard your warning about staying away from agents who charge up front fees, from more than one person, very good advice. The only time I've heard that is acceptable is regarding the two web sites (ECPA First Edition being one) where you pay $80. to post your work & some of the big publishing houses have scouts checking the sites. I know that Zondervan mentions them on their web site in that regard. Have you ever heard of any actual good results coming from paying & posting there? Again, thank you for your willingness to help! Miralee

[wgjones3]

Click the link and check out the name of the site. ;)

[DrRita]

If you have questions about any particular agency or publisher you can e-mail Victoria Strauss directly at P&E and she will get back to you. She frequents absolutewrite, a writing forum www.absolutewrite.com/forums/ where she has a forum just for that purpose.

[Sea Star]

Dr. Rita, thank you for the follow up on P&E, as well as yours, wgjones3! I did check out P&E....hadn't had a chance yet when I wrote that last question so I see it's very self explanatory. I didn't see either of the two agencies listed that I mentioned in my first post, but will take your word for the poor rep. of St. Literary Agency & stay away. These links are going in my file & I'll refer to them often, thank you yet again!

[wgjones3]

S.T. has a huge listing in P&E:

S.T. Literary Agency: Charges fee. Poor contract. Not recommended. a literary agency also known as Sydra-Techniques, an agency representing literary works and screenplays.

Public Service Announcement Regarding S.T. Literary Agency

Hello, Writers:

Have you had experience with S.T. Literary Agency? Writer Beware wants to know about it.

If you have been a client of S.T. Literary Agency, please write us about your experience in either email or hardcopy.

Please tell us about:

1. What fees you were charged, and what they were for.

2. What communications you received from S.T. while you were a client.

3. What S.T. Literary Agency told you they were going to do for you as a result of the fees you paid, or what they claimed they had already done as a result of the fees you paid.

Please be prepared to provide documentation for what you tell us.

Also, please provide full contact information...your name, address, phone number. (Writer Beware keeps all correspondence in confidence, unless we receive your permission to divulge information provided.)

We realize that this "agency" has caused feelings to run high, so a brief caveat is in order. Writer Beware is not interested in receiving opinions, rants, or hearsay about S.T. Literary Agency. Please stick with facts that can be documented.

You can reach Writer Beware by email at:

beware@sfwa.org

Our mailing address is:

Victoria Strauss
P.O. Box 1216
Amherst, MA 01004

Writing to us will help Writer Beware to do our job -- help writers avoid questionable agents and publishers.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Best,

-Ann C. Crispin
Chair, SFWA Committee on Writing Scams
Writer Beware
www.writerbeware.com

Desert Rose has a standard listing:

Desert Rose Literary Agency: Charges fee. Not recommended. A literary agency.

[wgjones3]

ECPA First Edition & Writer's Edge are the $80 sites you were talking about, I believe.

This is a fairly unique phenomenon to Christian publishing. I've used Writer's Edge (back when the fee was only $35) and received very good advice from it. But, I could have gotten the advice here for free had this site existed back in '97 (and had I had internet access).

Basically, unless things have changed, ECPA accepts everyone who pays to be listed and puts their story summary into their newsletter, Writer's Edge filters out projects that it deems unpublishable and only sends a list of potentially publishable projects to publishers.

Neither of these services guarantee anything beyond a listing in their newsletter (or in the case of Writer's Edge, a detailed letter explaining why your work was rejected if, in fact, it was rejected).

I won't weigh in either way at this point as to whether the service is worth it or not. What I will say is, if you choose one, choose Writer's Edge--at least there is a bar you must pass to gain inclusion. Also check the sample newsletter on the Writer's Edge site (they have archives or samples or something; I've seen them before) before you decide to send them anything.

[Sea Star]

I checked under the agents tab, went to the "S" link & must be totally blind, as I am not seeing St. Literary Agency listed at all. Your info you cut & pasted was excellent, I'll find it eventually, probably scanned it in too much of a hurry or I'm in the wrong section entirely.

Also, thank you for the helpful advice on First Edition and Writer's Edge, that was the second one I was referring to. I am not to the point of taking that step yet, but it's helpful to have the additional information. I agree, I have received helpful input from this site & free is a very good thing! Like most people, I don't have an abundance of money growing in my back yard, so will check it out before dropping any cash.

I am keeping all the posts from this thread & so appreciate all the insight & wisdom shared! Thank you! Miralee

[DrRita]

Miralee,
Here's three more links


http://www.aar-online.org/mc/page.do

http://www.stevelaube.com/index.html (I know he's a Christian and reputable but I'm not sure if he handles non-fiction)

http://literaryagents.org/

[wgjones3]

For some reason, I've never been able to find that AAR page before. Thanks for the link Doc. !thumbsup!

[firstacts]

Bill,

I had contact with St. Literary - they had a disclaimer that prevents me from copying the content and sending on However, on the plus side - no reading fees - 10% commission.

On the negative side - they want administrative fees ahead of time that would be take from your accepted work. I asked specifically for the names of authors they have been successful in getting contracts for - they listed three (none of which I was familiar with).

Didn't submit anything so I never saw a contract - red flags when they asked for administration fees up front.

Glenn :)

[DrRita]

Miralee,

Try here http://absolutewrite.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=22 and I'm sure you'll find out info about them. This is the forum V. Strauss moderages on Absolutewrite.com. Hopefully you'll be able to find out. If the threads don't contain what you need to know just click on victoria strauss and send her an e-mail. blessings.