Re: Robins Agency, St. Louis, MO
This agency emailed me several weeks after I'd queried, saying they were following up, since I hadn't responded to their request for the first three and final three chapters of my novel. (In fact, this was the first email I’d received from them.) That kind of follow up was so unusual that I did a little research, and what I found concerned me. So I wrote Cris, asking several question about the agency, and this is what she said, in part:
"Third, as to our sales; well, the truth is I used to tell the world what our sales were in detail. And every single time I did, someone would call the publisher and yell at them because they bought someone else’s' book and not theirs. So, I quit doing it. Why would I cause a publisher grief when I didn't have to?"
A marvelous piece of nonsense!
When I told her I didn't buy that, she got snitty, saying she didn’t care what I thought. Well, she might not care, but what I think is they have no sales at all, in spite of what her 2004 entry in Herman’s guide implies: “Whether we sold 30 or 130 [last year] doesn’t mean we can sell yours or can’t.”