I'm Trying to Get a Book Published! discussion

read the list of literary agents, and please tell me some agents that aren't already on the list. :)

I'm googling this site and all I'm getting is stuff like "THIS IS A SCAM!" So I'd say don't submit to them.

I guess it's time for me to chime in. My book The Legend of Witch Bane was accepted by this agency for representation. However it was under their children's books division (WL Children's Agency). My contract expired with them a couple of months ago.

As it goes, the reason why nothing ever came of our partnership is because I didn't give them the green light to shop my book around. For the most part they were very professional and seemed to be what they claimed to be. My only reservation came from the fact that they wanted me to have my book edited. However, I have already spent over $1500 between 2 different editors on my book and was reluctant to shell out more money to have my book edited for a 3rd time. WL Agency has their own team of editors who can do the job, but the cost to have them perform a 3rd edit on my book was more than I could bear at the time.

Had I went ahead and gotten my book professionally for a 3rd time, they would likely have started to shop my book around. Or at least that was the promise made to me.

If you want to know my honest opinion, I am not sure what to think about WL. On one hand, they were professional when dealing with me. On the other hand, they did not bother to invest the time to edit my book for me. If an agency is so confident in an author's work, why wouldn't they invest the resources to have the book edited? Worse, why did they allow my contract to expire without ever contacting me to see if I was still interested in having them represent my work?

According to WL, they don't get paid until a book deal is signed with a publisher. So it was my responsibility to pay to have my book edited. But this is the same case with all agents. No legitimate agent will accept money from an author until a book deal is signed after which they take their percentage of the royalties earned from book sales.

This was the only real red flag that I noticed with WL. I chose not to proceed with them until I can learn more about what reputable agents do to support the authors they represent.

I cannot tell you guys whether or not you should submit your work to WL. Just bear in mind that if they do decide to represent your work, once you sign a contract with them, you can no longer submit your work to anyone else until the term of the contract expires.

Thanks for the info. :)
I don't think I'll submit to them ... from what I saw on Google a lot of people who have submitted to them weren't satisfied.

NEVER EVER pay an agent to edit or do anything other than mail stuff for you!!! EVER. If they ask for money for editing, I don't care how professional they sound, they are scam artists. Check out Preditors and Editors and never pay an agent any upfront money. They get their payment when they sell your book. Even the mail payments should come after acceptance by a publisher, I believe.

I agree. :) And Preditors and Editors is very useful.

According to Preditors and Editors, WL is strongly not recommended.

Victoria wrote: "NEVER EVER pay an agent to edit or do anything other than mail stuff for you!!! EVER. If they ask for money for editing, I don't care how professional they sound, they are scam artists. Check out P..."

Which is exactly why I didn't bother with WL. Any literary agent worth his or her salt is going to find a way to get the author's work edited. The fact that they have their own team of editors who work for a fee is a red flag.

It is interesting to note that when I visited their newly redesigned website, there is no mention of them taking author's manuscripts to power lunches, which is the traditional way books are sold to publishers. This information was not posted when they chose to represent my book. Another red flag IMHO.

I disagree with Victoria on one point. You shouldn't be paying an agent to mail anything for you either. Plenty of disreputable agents are scamming authors out of money that way too.

Actually, the mailing expense is listed in a number of reputable places including Writers Market. The cost of mailing and the cost of copying pages are frequently picked up by the author, but not until after a sale has been made. Again, follow your instincts and try Absolute Water Cooler and Preditors and Editors for info. Good luck!

Victoria wrote: "Again, follow your instincts..."

Very sage advice. Although I concede to the point that there is a mailing expense involved with some literary agencies, many authors have been cheated out of their money through disreputable agents under the guise of mailing expense. Even in that matter discretion is advised. The point is if something doesn't feel right, you should not send any money to an agent (for any reason at all) until you know exactly how that money is going to be spent. In this case, the cost of mailing material would be the only acceptable expense. But again, even that should be scrutinized to the very last detail.

Agreed! Better to be safe....

Oh! I found a literary agency! I was looking around at info on an author I like, and apparantly his agent is Aaron Priest. And I searched for that, and found the website for the agency. They have four agents. This is the site

http://aaronpriest.com/index.html

hang on, I'll give the agent query links.

Lucy Childs (http://agentquery.com/agent.aspx?agen...)

Aaron Priest (http://agentquery.com/agent.aspx?agen...)

Lisa Erbach Vance (http://agentquery.com/agent.aspx?agen...)

Nicole Kenealy (http://agentquery.com/agent.aspx?agen...)

thanks roni! i'll add those to the list. :)

what about the backgrounds of those agents?
just curiuos...lol

lol, i don't know. but i recommend looking them up on preditors & editors. (http://anotherealm.com/prededitors/)

preditor....editor...same basic thing right?

ahh no. it's a joke. "preditor" is like "predator" ... lol

okay...

haha. punny. :P