Darley Anderson Literary, TV and Film Agency / Darley Anderson Children's Book Agency

Piggybum. (love the name by the way.)

I had a request for a full manuscript from DA several years ago. They took it on (after asking for lots of changes--all good ones--and sent it out all the biggie UK publishers, who unfortunately all said no. Then the lady I dealt with retired and I, foolishly, didn't maintain contact with her successor. Let that be a lesson to you all.

So a request for a full doesn't necessarily mean you've got a sale but it does mean your work is good enough to be considered by a top-notch agency.

And that's brilliant in anyone's eyes.

Darley Anderson prefer fiction that's plot-led, pacy and fast moving. They're not on the look out for literary masterpieces. They go for sagas, romance and thrillers. That's not a complaint, by the way. They know what they're doing. They know their market inside out. They are agents for many well-known best-selling authors. I can't recommend them highly enough.

And do keep us informed on the outcome, Piggybum. I wish you all the luck in the world. You're doing brilliantly well.

Hello Piggybum, and congrats for getting a call fron a TOP agent! Good luck to you!

Actually, I'm in kind of the same boat. Another agent at Darley Anderson asked for my full ms a few weeks ago, god bless her. So I'm thinking, how long do agents take before they make a decision? A couple of months?

Hmm, this is odd.

I'm having problems with virus warnings. I have AVG free. I went into the site a week or so ago and I'm not saying it's linked directly to that site, but the timeframe seems similar.

Anybody know what to do about hundreds of warnings on AVG - I haven't tried to remove anything because I don't know what they will take with them (geek, I'm not)

I've got an ms ready to send them and can give them a call in the morning to warn about the trojan if anybody wants to provide more details?

I sent an email to them about it. I'll let you know what they say when I hear back.

Okay.

I was actually in the site about an hour ago and suddenly nearly all my pages shut down.
I've still got a bucket load of warnings in my vault so if anybody knows what the heck to do next I'd really appreciate it.

Signing off now ... it's been a long, long day!

regdog said:

Just want to post a be careful. I went to the Darley Andeson site today and my security system blocked a Trojan Horse that is on the site.

I'd like to let them know, but I don't want to go back to the site and risk a Trojan Horse

Click to expand...

If you scroll back on this thread, this isn't the first time somebody dropped a virus on their system. They need to get some defenses up.

i have a question concerning this agency.
i emailed them a query yesterday(pasted three chapters and the synopsis into the body) and received a reply this morning from "assistant" asking for the same thing ( a hard copy) via snail mail. To Whit:

Dear Jim DuBose,

Many thanks for your email.

Please do send us a hard copy of the first three consecutive chapters of your work, together with a one page synopsis, a covering letter and a SAE should it not be for us.


We look forward to receiving your work.

Best wishes,
DARLEY ANDERSON AGENCY


should i read anything into this, or is this just their system reiterating to me how to submit? the website states that you may submit the same material unsoliticed through snail mail. should i not have my hopes up?

thanks,
jim d

I wonder how plausible it is for a US author to submit to a UK-based agency? Internet and email have made the world much smaller, but still...

and this helps answer my question how???????

jimdubose said:

and this helps answer my question how???????

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Consider it a quest for a partial.....but I wouldn't get my hopes up. I've learned the hard way not to do that anymore.

Let us know what happens.

i never get my hopes up, when so many agencies ask for unsolicited partials, it makes requested partials not so special anymore

Laura Lond said:

I wonder how plausible it is for a US author to submit to a UK-based agency?

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I'm not sure about "plausible", but it's definitely feasible. I've got more than half a dozen submissions Over There, including a couple of requested partials. (Several agencies have been gracious enough to make an exception and allow me to e-mail my submission after I requested permission to do so.)

Of course it's impossible to predict any outcomes, but even though my story is as American as Will Rogers, that didn't seem to deter them at all.

Incidentally, I tried to e-mail Darley Anderson today, but my message got bounced back twice by that MAILER-DAEMON thingie. Guess I'll try again tomorrow.

My stuff is rather "international-minded," and I have been published overseas, so I guess it makes sense for me to submit to them. I guess it will be even funnier in my case: I lived in Europe and I had gotten published in the US, now I'm in the US and I've got a book deal with a publisher in Kiev, Ukraine. All I need now is a UK agent!!

jimdubose said:

i have a question concerning this agency.
i emailed them a query yesterday(pasted three chapters and the synopsis into the body) and received a reply this morning from "assistant" asking for the same thing ( a hard copy) via snail mail. To Whit:

Dear Jim DuBose,

Many thanks for your email.

Please do send us a hard copy of the first three consecutive chapters of your work, together with a one page synopsis, a covering letter and a SAE should it not be for us.


We look forward to receiving your work.

Best wishes,
DARLEY ANDERSON AGENCY


should i read anything into this, or is this just their system reiterating to me how to submit? the website states that you may submit the same material unsoliticed through snail mail. should i not have my hopes up?

thanks,
jim d

Click to expand...

I think they're just reminding you of their standard submission protocol and saying that they will consider submissions by writers outside the UK

Laura Lond said:

My stuff is rather "international-minded," and I have been published overseas, so I guess it makes sense for me to submit to them. I guess it will be even funnier in my case: I lived in Europe and I had gotten published in the US, now I'm in the US and I've got a book deal with a publisher in Kiev, Ukraine. All I need now is a UK agent!!

Click to expand...

Kiev?? Wow, sounds like you've really got it going on. Way cool. National boundaries are so parochial, anyway.

Actually it's far simpler than what people are speculating, they just don't accept email submissions. They are asking for you to snail mail the same stuff to them.

Nor is this a partial request, as you have already stated in your initial post, the standard submitting practice for Darley Anderson is, and I quote from their website:

"a query letter, including a brief bio, a synopsis, the first three chapters"


Basically they are happy to look at your stuff, as any other submitting author, so long as you send it to them snail mail as per their instructions on the website.

Anyway, there you go! Good luck with it!

I got the same thing when I equeried. I prefaced with I'm an American author and all, and I got the exact same thing. They were quick though and that's good.

I'm scared to even contemplate how much the postage would be. Oh, well, it might be worth it in the long run!

I have mailed my submission to them today, as well as to a bunch of US-based no-email agents. The postage wasn't too bad, I paid around $18 for everything - 6 medium to large envelopes, including the one to UK.

Thanks Laura. That's good to know it's not as bad as I thought.

Since the site is on the brief side right now, they are working on it, how do I discover which agent does which genre?

Or is this one of the send to agency, and they sort out who gets the query package?

Happy to follow directions

Middle grade / children's submissions can be addressed to Becky Stradwick. If your manuscript does not fall into that category, I guess you can just send it to the agency as a general submission.

Laura Lond said:

I have mailed my submission to them today, as well as to a bunch of US-based no-email agents. The postage wasn't too bad, I paid around $18 for everything - 6 medium to large envelopes, including the one to UK.

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How did you handle the return postage? Did you use IRCs?

I did not enclose return postage, I provided my email address instead. I think it is acceptable for a US-based author, and this agency did respond via email to several people.

That's good, since getting IRCs is such a pain in the butt I almost wonder if USPS is phasing them out. May I ask, did you ask them explicitly if they could reply by email or just include your email address?