Help needed on finding the right agent/agency

Hi, Green eyes and welcome!


First, put ANY thought of contacting Stylus right out of your head! They are a total rip-off! Please run fast and hard in the other direction from them!

But to set your mind at ease, no, a quality agent will never, ever consider stealing your book ideas. Their goal is to make money FROM your ideas, through commissions. They want to sell the book for the most money possible, so that THEY can earn the most money possible. A good agent will probably charge you 10-15% of whatever you earn on the book. So, if they sell your book to a publisher for $10,000, they keep $1,000-$1,500.

The first thing you will want to do is visit this thread:

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=792

You'll quickly find that Stylus (aka ST Literary, along with other aliases) has a very bad reputation on this forum. But there are plenty of good agents on this list too.

I'd recommend that you pick up a copy of Writer's Market, which is a book put out by Writer's Digest magazine every year. They also have a website where you can get info. You should DEFINITELY take a look at the Association of Author Representatives website. While not every good agent is a member, many are, and they have signed an agreement to be ethical, as well as not to charge fees to read or edit your manuscript. This is a link to a very good page about what you should expect from an agent and the questions you should ask one who might offer to represent your work. You can also search for a member agent by the genre you write, or the area where you live.

http://www.aar-online.org/mc/page.do?sitePageId=10336

It's definitely a good idea to have an agent for a fiction novel. Just take the time to educate yourself. There's not a thing wrong with taking the same amount of time to find the right agent and publisher as it took to write the book. Sometimes authors get in a hurry to find the quickest deal, but that's not always the best deal. Take it slow and learn how publishing works.

Good luck!

Green eyes said:

Hey guys,

I need someone to ease my mind on this issue. My fantasy book is original and unique as some who have read it say, but I'm not really ready to pitch it. I don't know who to trust out their, or whether agents would take advantage of my ideas. I'm quite skeptical on this topic to tell the truth. I thought coming up with ideas was challenging, but I'm not a person to trust just anybody and let them take a look at my work. I've heard of many agents taking advantage of young freelancers and other types of writers, and I really don't want to be one of them. I'm posting a site that you can take a look at, but I'm not sure if I really want to trust to it. They recomend getting a copyright before sending in my work, but I don't know if that would do any good. Could someone with experience help me with this issue? I've worked for three years strait, just on the first book, and I don't know how to go about it in a way that will ease the stress that I have on pitching it to someone I dont really even know. http://www.stylusagency.com/

I'd be very greatful for any assistance you could give me, thanks.

Green eyes.

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Oh, boy... Stylus Lit? Check the Bewares and Backgrounds section of this forum, there are several threads dedicated to Stylus/ST Literary.

You don't need to "get a copyright" for you book, since if you've written the book, you already have one. That's how the law works in almost every country. You can officially register a copyright if you're in the United States, but good publishers will do this for you anyway.

The sort of agent that takes advantage of inexperienced writers won't steal the work and sell it without paying you. That's so much trouble - and publishers are so likely to find out - that they might as well just go with honest work. Instead, ripoff agents will charge all kinds of fees and never sell the work.

Green eyes said:

My fantasy book is original and unique as some who have read it say, but I'm not really ready to pitch it. I don't know who to trust out their, or whether agents would take advantage of my ideas.

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Your work won't be stolen. A good agent wouldn't risk her reputation this way. A bad agent is probably only interested in your money. (And if he did try to steal your work--which he won't--doesn't have the skills or contacts to do anything with it anyway.)

They recomend getting a copyright before sending in my work, but I don't know if that would do any good.

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As has been pointed out, you are fully protected by copyright law from the moment you write something down. As an additional step, you can register your copyright with the US Copyright Office--registration gives you the right to sue in court if your work is infringed. But theft of unpublished book manuscripts is so rare as to be functionally nonexistent. It's not till your work is exposed to a wide audience--i.e., published--that you need to worry (and at that point your publisher should register for you, at its own expense). It's really not necessary to register copyright for unpublished work.

More info, including some prevalent myths about copyright, is here.

Please don't take offense, but your message contains several basic spelling errors. If this is indicative of the writing in your manuscript, I think you may not yet be ready to submit your work.

- Victoria

check out questionable agents at preditors and editors too. it's a good resource. www.anotherealm.com/prededitors/

Another good resource for good agents is www.agentquery.com