Agent rejection letters

She added a page? As in, she wrote more of it or added a cover letter? And did she ask for permission? Were these pages ones you queried the agent with? What agency is this?

Perno morris said:

The agent requested the entire ms after waiting months after query. I was told by a best selling author that no publisher submissions are made before a contract.

Click to expand...

There are a few agents who work without a contract. Have you checked this agent out at any of the regular places? Agentquery or querytracker, for instance? Or here? (Also, is the work in English? Is the agent in the US?)

... seems like the agent wants to be sure they can sell you're ms before signing you and actually have a deal going. That's crazy to me, because for one thing if they decide not to rep you after several pitches to publishers you're stuck with an ms that's already been shopped, and that lowers it's value and will make future agents hesitant to sign you. If I were you I'd say later to this agent, pronto.

Perno morris said:

I am quickly finding out that it is had to tell the legitimate agent from those who just want my money.

Click to expand...

It's not hard to tell the difference. The ones who want money are not legitimate.

Check out this list of 20 agents and see if your agent is on it. These are not all the bad agents, just the most notorious.

And the illegits prey on desperate-to-be-published authors, also, so keep your feet on the ground and do your homework, as it seems you're doing, and you'll be just fine.

Check out each agency/agent you query, whether here, at QueryTracker, AgentQuery, Preditors and Editors, etc.

Good luck!

Em

Perno morris said:

I was told that it is a "young man's game". I am 77 years young and somewhat new to the electronic social networking world but all this seems to be a great help.

Click to expand...

Welcome to the "electronic social networking world"! And good luck on your writing endeavors!

Perno - just a heads up.... You know the first time you open your facebook account there's a message that pops up and says "You Have No Friends" ? This isn't a character note - it's just an invitation to add some names...

(I didn't realise that and I found it such frankly shattering news that I never went back to facebook - EVER. AGAIN.)

It's really easy:

A worthwhile agent has sold books that you've heard of.

Welcome Perno!

I'm so glad you told that agent you were not interested, especially when reading your later response that you believe they just wanted an editing fee.

A tip for you: an agent never ask for money up front, they make money from the sales of your book.

Go to http://anotherealm.com/prededitors/ and check out agents and publishers. This site is very user friendly.

Also, a good resource for researching agents: http://www.querytracker.net/ It's free and a great resource.

I'm on Facebook too and would love to be friends!

Perno morris said:

I already responded to the agent that I was not interested. The fact that the agent only sent ten pages and did't stop at the end of chapter one (nine pages) makes me believe that nothing was sent and the agent just wanted an editing fee. I appreciate any input from fellow authors. I taught creative writing for more than twenty years and this novel has been professionally edited. I am quickly finding out that it is had to tell the legitimate agent from those who just want my money.

Click to expand...

It's easy to tell a good agent from a scam agent. Any agent who asks for money upfront is a scam. If the agent asked for an editing fee, you found a scam agent. Never pay an agent to do anything. Her monet should always come from making a sale.

But that "professional editing" fee was also most likely a scam, as well.

There's nothing unusual about sending the first page of the next chapter. From my experience, sending the first page of the next chapter is a good thing. And many agents work without a contract. This is, in fact, the only kind of agent I use.

The other warning for this agent is that she should not only tell you which publishers she submitted your work to, she should always forward the actual rejections from the editors.

Perno morris said:

I already responded to the agent that I was not interested. The fact that the agent only sent ten pages and did't stop at the end of chapter one (nine pages) makes me believe that nothing was sent and the agent just wanted an editing fee. I appreciate any input from fellow authors. I taught creative writing for more than twenty years and this novel has been professionally edited. I am quickly finding out that it is had to tell the legitimate agent from those who just want my money.

Click to expand...

see, here is where it is important to give as much detail as you can.....you started by asking if it was odd the agent shopped an off number of pages, without any contract. You did not mention:

1. If you checked the agent out here or elsewhere (you were asked several times, even)

2. Where the agent shopped them to (you did reply with that info)

3. That they are a fee-charging service.

Any of those would have been red flags and we could have said more, sooner. #3 is arguably the mother of all red flags, though--if they are charging editing fees and they seem to be "almost able to sell your script", but not quite, you need to run, far and fast

Here's the thread on them.

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=752

Perno morris said:

The Aaland agency was the agency.

Click to expand...

They're the first one on the list of bad agents I linked to. Starting an agency name with two a's cuts both ways. You draw in more writers that way, but you also float to the top on any alphabetical list of scammers.