The Lee Shore Agency

[Elisa]

Just curious if anyone has had any experience with this agency. I sent them a query, they requested my script, and now, they've asked for some minor rewrites and then said they may be interested in offering representation when the rewrites are made.

In the meantime, their own web site references some complaints lodged against them from novelists, so of course, I had to research them to see what that was all about. The complaints (all from 2002) make them seem like an agency to avoid, yet my experience with them to this point has been fine. Plus, I only know about the complaints b/c their own site addressed them directly.

So, my long-winded question, is - has anyone dealt with them on the screenwriting side? I'm curious to see what I learn before I send them the rewritten script. Thank you!

[James D. Macdonald]

What have they actually sold to anyone?

[Joe Calabrese]

According to my database, they have not been involved in any screenplay sale going back three years.

[Joe Calabrese]

Just curious if anyone has had any experience with this agency. I sent them a query, they requested my script, and now, they've asked for some minor rewrites and then said they may be interested in offering representation when the rewrites are made.You go and tell them you will be glad to do any rewrites a buying producer or studio requests.

[JustinoXXV]

You go and tell them you will be glad to do any rewrites a buying producer or studio requests.

I haven't read Elisa's script. But if she does have some minor flaws in the script that need to be addressed, then rewriting them would be for her sake, not the so called agent's.

If the script is perfectly fine, then Joe's comments stand.

[Joe Calabrese]

I was being sarcastic. I wouldn't do a rewrite for anyone's benefit unless it was for my benefit as well. In this case, the sign me or pay me.

Now if William Morris called me and asked for a rewrite before they would sign me, that's a horse of a different color, but when a small Pennsylvania agency asks for it, I got to wonder. They should sign you first, shop it and then you do rewrites based on the feedback. That's just the norm.

[Optimus]

Why would anyone send their script to a crappy agency in Pennsylvania?

If you want your script to make it to Hollywood, you're sending it in the wrong direction.

[JustinoXXV]

I didn't even bother to google the Lee Shore Agency.

Well, it has two very bad things about it. No history of SALES of screenplays, and it isn't in Los Angeles (or secondarily, NY).

I agree with you, Joe. The original poster should find a better agency. If it looks like they really have someone lined up for you, there's no harm in letting them submit on your behalf. But at this point, keep your options open and keep shopping around for something better.

[victoriastrauss]

Just curious if anyone has had any experience with this agency.Writer Beware has gotten many complaints about the Lee Shore Agency. It bills monthly for submissions expenses (this is not standard: reputable agents allow expenses to accrue, and reimburse themselves from the writer's advance), and in the past charged reading fees--a thoroughly discredited practice that's prohibited by both the AAR and the WGA. It also promotes its own paid editing services to clients (a conflict of interest--if the agent can benefit financially by the recommendation to edit, how can the writer trust that the recommendation is in his/her best interest?), and has worked with fraudulent vanity publishers, including the now-defunct Commonwealth Publications (http://www.sfwa.org/beware/cases.html#Publishers) and Northwest Publishing (http://www.sfwa.org/beware/cases.html#Northwest) (whose owner was convicted on more than 30 counts of fraud), and Press-Tige Publishing (http://www.sfwa.org/beware/general.html#Alert) (whose owner was just indicted on 13 fraud counts). These publishers were known for paying kickbacks to agents who referred writers to them.

Cynthia Sterling, owner of Lee Shore, also owns Sterling House, a vanity publishing company that offers contracts requiring writers to pre-purchase large numbers of their own books (this often winds up being much more expensive than a straightforward vanity publishing deal). I've documentation showing that Sterling House contracts have been offered to Lee Shore clients, sometimes without disclosure of the relationship.

A few years ago, I and a co-author conducted a survey of editors at major publishing houses in connection with an article we were writing. We were told by several of them that they ignore Lee Shore's submissions because they are so often inappropriate or substandard.

I'm not aware that Lee Shore has any recent record of commercial book sales. I'm not aware that it has ever sold a script.

- Victoria

[Elisa]

Thank you, Everyone. I didn't push them for their sales history because there was no firm representation offer as of yet. And while I didn't intend to look for an agent in PA, they had a listing on MovieBytes Who's Buying What, and they were somehow tied to a production company, so I figured why not query?

After I read the negative stuff out there, I actually expected them to call scamming me for money upfront. But they didn't, and the minor rewrites they mentioned actually made sense and were minimal (and I may make whether I resubmit to them or not). I'm trying to complete a different script right now and not ready to switch gears back to the original script, so I told them it would be a few weeks before I could even begin to address this. But it peaked my curiosity to see if anyone knew anything about them. Thank you for the replies!

[salvatore50]

I met Lee Shore aka Cynthia Sterling aka Cindy Semmelsburger in Pittsburgh about 15 years ago.

She just strarted working for an agent who was a sportswriter and had published a book about the Pirate's Willie Stargill.

I found an ad in the Des Moines Sunday Register: "Literary Agency seeking new writers."

They asked to see the first fifty pages of my novel for a $50 fee and I would at least get a critique of my work.

What I had was 100 pages of a novel that I had just begun. I had no writing skills, totally raw stuff.

Cindy responded to my first 50 with a beautifully designed letterhead on cotton rag to send the rest of my script ASAP!

My heart jumped. I called and said it wasn't ready. Then I drove out to Pittsburgh to meet them. (tiny cluttered office, totally uninmpressive0.

When I finished my novel I called Cindy and was informed that the agent ran off with all the reading fees and left her stuck.

She said she would honor reading my novel without the fee. Afterwards, I get this big dog and pony show how they will represent me if I get the script edited by them and that would cost me $1,000.

I laughed.

I followed her career to Lee Shore and asked for their brochure. Super hoopla! Welll done hoopla but what they do is rope the writer's in with rewrites and then tell them they can only do a vanity press.

I'm not even sure if Cindy Semmelsburger has ever sold a legitimate script.