Counting red flags:
"Dear Ms. xxxI’ve had a chance to review your submission and on first read, it seems likely that there is a market for it.
1. Identical form letter which pretends to respond to the specific submission.
I’d like to present it to our editorial board for possible representation on our Fall 2006 list
2. Grossly ignorant misuse of insider publishing industry terminology. Publishing houses have editorial boards and Fall 2006 lists. Agents don't. I suspect the word "representation" was originally "publication", and that this passage was copied from a letter sent by a publisher.
and will do so shortly, after we do a bit of preparatory work on it.
3. Agent is planning to do preparatory work on a manuscript whose author is not yet a client? GMFB. Agents don't do editing on spec. Note: This may be an attempt to soften up the author for the "professional editing" scam.
Let me jump right into a few custodial matters since I don’t know how familiar you are with the industry. Agents are the logical result of a purely financial twist in the structure of the publishing industry.
4. "This is standard industry practice" wordwooze.
5. That's an inaccurate explanation of why agents exist.
There are many prospective authors, few publishers and no one really knows what makes a best seller. Publishers rely on agents to be the first filter since they cannot afford to process hundreds of thousands of proposals for just a few spots. There’s the rub, you are competing against many other authors and nobody really knows if your book (or their book) will sell.
6. Agents, like editors, live and die by their ability to spot saleable books and authors. They can't be sure that a given book is going to be a bestseller, but they can certainly spot a commercial manuscript.
7. Publishers don't rely on agents to be their first filters. Agents act as first filters by default, because it's not in their interest to represent unsaleable authors.
8. Playing up the "your chances are one in a million" angle.
An Agency fee or commission of 15% plus expenses is standard in the industry.
9. Lying about money. Fifteen percent is semi-standard; "plus expenses" is not.
Some agents charge fees, we do not charge reading fees or on-going monthly fees. Our out-of-pocket expenses for a new book project are typically more than $1,000.
10. Grossly inappropriate expenses. If you're running up expenses in excess of $1,000 for run-of-the-mill books, what you're doing is not agenting. Also, ref. red flag #2: an agent wouldn't call it a "new book project". That's publisher-speak. An agent would call it a client, or a client's book.
This is not for the old standard ‘copying and postage’. Those who consider expenses in terms of copying and postage are still mired in the anachronistic, bye-gone days of publishing. We do most everything electronically, e.g. we set-up author web-pages as a reference and sales tool
11. Claiming to be the wave of the future.
12. Engaging in activities that are irrelevant to the basic work of agenting -- in this case, constructing author web pages.
as almost every publishing house has asked us to submit proposals electronically.
13. Lying about or seriously misunderstanding basic industry procedures. Some houses take electronic submissions. Most magazines do. But by and large, the industry still runs on hardcopy manuscripts, and there are many publishing houses that won't be open to submissions if you don't use them.
We have highly skilled people doing the guerilla marketing that creates a buzz about our clients. Just in the last month or so one author was on 60 minutes, one just came back from signing 350 copies at BEA, we've kicking off a campaign for a book coming out next month, half a dozen on radio, one quoted in a major Reuters piece, another half dozen in smaller pieces like USA Today etc. One author was recruited to and filmed a TV pilot.
5, 12, 13 passim. This is extremely bad. None of these activities have anything to do with agenting. Real agents don't do book marketing aimed at the general public. Agents sell books to publishers. It's the publishers who sell books to the general public. Also, promo done long before the book comes out is wasted.
With so much up-front effort our editorial board does often require a retainer from new clients to help defray these out-of pocket expenses.
14. Money flows toward the writer. Period. Real agents pay their own damned expenses.
This business practice, which is common in many professions, can be a snag for those who don't see any distinction between us and disreputable so-called agents who prey on unsuspecting authors by charging fees, providing no real service and offering no substantive opportunity for publication.
No kidding. I don't see any distinction either. Call this one #15: attempting to answer obvious objections in advance.
It’s not hard to distinguish between us and them. Charlatans have a brief life-span, no record of success and look for fees before looking at the material. In contrast, Wilson Devereux has been in business for over a decade, placed many first-time authors with respected houses and done the up-front work to determine the viability of an author’s project before offering a contract. By employing this approach we’re able to help unknown authors find a place in this highly competitive industry.
#15 continued. They're making it clear that they've been accused of being scammers. Real agents don't make all these protests. Real agents provide client lists, not vague reassurances that Books Have Been Sold.
Which leads us to the next step – in order to proceed, I need to get some additional information and set-up a phone call with you. Please advise me of your schedule over the next few weeks. I know people get busy with summer vacations about now, but we should be thinking in terms of approaching publishers in early September (because they’re back at in the office paying attention) and working backward, you can see that to make the September goal, we need to step lively.
I look forward to a stimulating and productive conversation with you.
16. No particular red flags there, but award one more for overall poor spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
I wouldn't touch these guys with a ten-foot pole.
