Blogs by Todd Cheney
My agent is the pits
8/5/2004 4:21:01 PM
I recently was stupid enough to pay a literary agent. They have real sales to legitimate publishers, but I still don't trust them because of their bad reputation.
The name of the agency is ST Literary. If you haven't signed with them, but are considering it, I highly recommend you do not go with them unless ALL other, better possibilities are exhausted first.
I'm not saying this out of any sort of vendetta, but the facts speak for themselves. I haven't terminated my contract with them as of yet and as far as I know, they are still willing to work with me.
Here is a list of my problems with them:
1. They attach a rider calling for confidentiality on many of their emails. Sometimes it's understandable, but after reading the rider, I think you'll agree it's legal mish-mash with no purpose.
2. They have so far charged me fees totaling $269.00 USD. Part of this was a website that supposedly costed $79.00. But if you search sydra-techniques at Google.com, you'll see similar websites. I could've done better for free. There aren't even any links and they claim it's solely for their agents' use. Excuse me? What's with the $79.00 charge anyway? Also, the 10 manuscripts they claim to be sending out come at $14 a piece. That's another $140.
3. They say they are going to send out 10 copies of my manuscripts to publishers, but have not said what their plan is regarding this. I'm going to continue to hound them until I get some clear cut answers, or see the rejection letters from said publishers, or some form of physical, reliable proof that they are doing what they said they would.
4. The president of ST Literary was formerly in a supposed record/digital company named ByteAudio. ByteAudio sold stock illegally in the state of Washington in the year 2000. Double negative here, not only was he involved in prior fraud for which he was fined $50,000 and restitution, he also has a background in Internet business ventures and not publishing per se. (As far as I know)
5. ST farms their 'back office' stuff out to a company called RapidPublishing. These are the people I actually paid. They claim that they are a Florida Corporation, but the Paypal bill says they are in California, lists a California phone number and zip code (starts with a 9). Hello? Can you say shady? I thought you could!
In addition, I asked the RapidPublishing info email address a few qusetions, and not only did he refuse to answer, he became immediately hostile! Even to simple questions like "Who owns RapidPublishing?" "What is your actual business?" and "What is your affiliation with ST Literary?"
6. Despite ST's claims of being responsive to questions, they have responded to only the questions they felt they had to! Excuse me? Don't you care about me? I paid you (or RapidPublishing who refuses to answer my questions!) to do a service and now you won't answer my questions about said service? What kind of a business are you running anyway?
For instance: I asked them what the 6044 suffix meant in their URL line for the site they set up for me. No answer, not even a peep. Either they don't know, or are hiding something from me. Does that mean I'm the six thousand forty-fourth idiot to fall for their BS? If so, I'd like to know.
7. Acquisitions' Jill Mast appears to be interested in everything. Why wouldn't she be interested? The more clients brought in, the more money, right? They say they have read my manuscript, and yet, not one person has called, emailed or otherwise expressed any sort of reservations about the material contained therein! You'd think they'd at least have something to say about it if they'd read it, such as "Good job on this one, our reader liked the part where you... etc." or "Our reader thinks you could improve this scene." From what I can tell, they've just given it a thumbs up or thumbs down, not what you would call a careful evaluation.
8. One of their main authors and references, Paul Anderson, has several books published. Most of these are through Doyle Publishing, a self-publisher! So much for legitimacy there. But I have to give Paul props for his karate book. It looks legit to me. Search his name and karate kata and you should find it.
9. Administrative Employee Leslie Williams is supposedly a real estate agent in Boca Raton. Moonlighting anyone? I wonder which job she puts first? How's that for conflict of interest?
Now, the other side of the story:
1. ST claims to have relationships with many producers and publishers. For a partial list, see Quietpoly.
2. Robert Fletcher sued Writers.net for comments made about him on that discussion board. Comments were subsequently removed. Comments included posting his address and phone number, a slew of negative statements and others. (I'm not sure if this is actually a positive but at least it shows that RF isn't totally impotent.)
3. ST has one verified sale that I know about and can check on. It's a non-fiction book involving an Italian tour guide.
4. They had a booth at the Chicago Book Expo 2004 and plan on going to Expos in Germany and possibly London.
5. In the same Quietpoly interview, Fletcher claims other sales. (But doesn't post them on the website. Why not? I'd think that'd be the first place! Check out other agent's sites and you'll see what I mean.)
So make up your own mind about these guys. I won't trust them again until they offer physical proof they are doing what they said they would. I mean letters sent via post office, not emails! And they should have my addresses by now, for both home and school. If not, then they should ask again.
TC
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