Dilemma

I'm not qualified to give you any practical advice, macandal, - I leave that to others with experience of this type of situation - and it's not of course your place to pursue this particular thought of mine, but I wonder if the Agent has reasons for questioning whether this particular assistant was performing their duties correctly.

I think your best bet here is to be honest. The worst case scenario is that you tell her the assistant passed on it, and she says, "Oh, okay, well, best of luck to you, bye now." If that happens, you really haven't lost anything because she'd passed you on to the assistant anyway. On the other hand, she might say, "Well, I'm sorry to hear he wasn't interested, why not let me take a peek at it, hm?"

If you lie, and say you never heard from him, it will bite you in the *** later, when she bumps into him at Starbucks, casually mentions your name, and he goes, "Her? Oh, I told her I wasn't enamored."

Honesty really CAN be the best policy.

I think you should be honest. You're early in your stages of connecting with an agent/assitant/publisher. If you lie now, it will come to light, which could somewhat tarnish your character, in their eyes. These folks all know eachother, regardless of whether the Assistant works there are not. And besides, that agent may have someone else they can pass the ms to.

Honest is the best policy.

The author/agent relationship is based on trust. You expect your agent to tell you the truth, don't you?

Tell the truth. It's less confusing in the long term, because you tell the same story to everyone.

James D. Macdonald said:

Honest is the best policy.

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Or to state it more forcefully, dishonesty should never be an option. It has mouthparts that have a high affinity for one's backside.

My half gallon of gas worth...

BE honest with a small sales pitch.

"Why yes, he passed on my project, but it is still avaiable to you. Would you like a synopsis with the full submission?"

Just an naked salesman's thought.... Allen

(I could sell clothes at a nudist convention.)

I agree. Stick with honesty, but there's nothing saying that you can't add in a pitch.


"You know, I did hear back from [name]. Unfortunately, he passed on it. But I'd really love to have you take a look at it personally, since you're my absolute first choice as an agent, and I really think it's a good fit for you."

This is indeed a strange story.

You get an agent based on a partial, then take nine years to complete it. Sure, it’s a bit of a delay, but your agent seems to be understanding, perhaps because you flew thousands of miles to see her without an appointment. Or because she thought you were dead. She says leave it with me, and you say, well, it’s not quite finished.

Okay, she says, fixing herself a double scotch, send it when you're done. That’s safe enough, because surely one of you will be dead by that time!

So six months later you finish it, and as she’s not dead yet, you send it, cross-country. A week later you’re panicking—you haven’t heard anything! Should you call, or shouldn’t you? You ask around. Should I call? Some say yes, some say no. Eventually, chewing on a nail, you call anyway, and a couple of weeks later an assistant emails, saying the writing didn’t speak to him. Oh no! Maybe you shouldn’t have called.

How depressing!

But then that assistant, who was evidently an idiot, gets himself fired, and now the agent herself emails, wondering about that ms. And she asks an offhand question that unintentionally creates yet another dilemma: Now you can lie and get a second chance, or you can tell the truth and probably throw away ten years of your life!

And everyone except me is advising you to tell the truth. Because you don’t want to get off on the wrong foot!

Oy vey!

Good luck, macandal. Fingers crossed for you.

congrats!

I hope it goes well for you. Perhaps a great book deal is only a few emails and a signature away.

Allen

Julie Worth said:

And everyone except me is advising you to tell the truth. Because you don’t want to get off on the wrong foot!

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So, you'd be comfortable having a financial relationship with someone who wasn't a real stickler for honesty?

Honesty...

I think Macandal is now a poster child for "Honesty Is The Best Policy." Another reading with the original agent's personal request for that reading...I think this is a very positive step forward.

Yay!!

-Ann C Crispin

Julie Worth said:

Now you can lie and get a second chance, or you can tell the truth and probably throw away ten years of your life!

And everyone except me is advising you to tell the truth.

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Hey, maybe some day I'll get an agent who feels this way too, and then he can completely hose me. Yay!

And good luck to you, mac.

Aconite said:

So, you'd be comfortable having a financial relationship with someone who wasn't a real stickler for honesty?

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All this absolute honesty garbage! This particular case required what my mother used to call a white lie, a lie that does no one any harm. Some lies are good and necessary—they’re the grease that keeps society running.

Homework: Read the blurbs on the back of books. Find one without a single lie.

Oh for heaven's sake.

"No, you don't look fat in those pants" is not the same thing as "no, I never heard from your assistant, even though I clearly have." It's not the same in degree, it's not the same in circumstance, and it's not the same in potential consequences. Comparing the two is ludicrous.

Julie Worth said:

All this absolute honesty garbage! This particular case required what my mother used to call a white lie, a lie that does no one any harm. Some lies are good and necessary—they’re the grease that keeps society running.

Homework: Read the blurbs on the back of books. Find one without a single lie.

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And, it's okay to drive ten miles over the speed limit, and to fudge a little on income taxes, and if that bicycle over there isn't locked, the owner probably doesn't want it any more, and if the accountants can make the bottom line come out right, who cares if a little is skimmed from the kitty. Where is the line between white and non-white, and who determines it? Lies and other "dishonesties" don't come in colors.

Yes, I occasionally bend the truth, like all humans, but I don't make it a personal default condition (not since my teen years), and I never advise others to do so under any circumstances. I have enough trouble keeping myself in check.

I'm kind of blown away it would bother you that so many of us suggest the truth pathway. Please don't take this as a slam on you personally. I understand what you're saying, and as your personal decision, I can accept it. But you are telling someone else the best pathway is to be dishonest, and that bothers me, and obviously several others here.

Besides, what if that agent reads these threads??????

Take a look at your rejection letters, Neuro. I’ll bet every one of them has one or more lies. Do you think they really read and carefully considered your work? Hah! And now mac’s former agent is too old for him, and her plate is too full! Did both of these happen in the past week, you think? Did her hair turn white overnight?

White lies, that’s what they are.

Julie Worth said:

White lies, that’s what they are.

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It's not a lie to say "I'm sorry, we're not interested" instead of saying "Your manuscript sucks goats, and there's no way in hell we're going to rep it for you, good luck, buttmonkey!" They may well be not interested BECAUSE it sucks.

My integrity is a big part of who I am. It's highly unlikely that I'll start lying just because "hey, everyone ELSE does it."

YMMV.

CaoPaux said:

omission of pertinent fact.

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Yes, I often fail to admit that I have no publishing credits, or that I’ve queried a billion other agents. These would be relevant facts to many agents, I’m sure, who could save themselves the trouble of reading my submission. Yet, I am devious; I withhold those facts.

And that isn’t all! Often, in the middle of a negotiation, I’ll fail to admit that I’m just dying to have something (like a car I have to have because of some silly thing, like the color!) and that there’s no way I’m going to walk out. My omission of those relevant facts could cost the dealer thousands of dollars. Serious money!

Oh what a liar I am!