Oh yikes, yeah, none of this is standard for the UK. I'm going to look at the About Us piece by piece, from the point of view of a British writer with a good few year's query trench experience....
Apologies to Ms Lawrie, if she read this -- what follows may seem harsh, but I've seen quite a few of scam agents in the UK and cannot risk other writers being preyed upon. If the below is a misunderstanding, I would be more than happy to discuss it and correct my initial views.
By now, you may have already submitted your work to several literary agencies and/or publishers and suffered rejection, or worse still, been ignored altogether. Consequently, you are likely to be either resigned to the fact that you may never be published or that you may have to self-publish in order for your work to be read – never a great idea.
Blanket statements (self-publishing is never a good idea? Really?) and targeting rejected writers in a state of limited options and desperation = red flag.
"We" is used throughout the site but the other team members are unnamed
have worked in the publishing industry for many years
conspicuous lack of specific credentials
and I have set up this agency to help combat the lethargy that has set into the industry surrounding new talent.
...and outright lies, implying the industry isn't interested in "new talent". Ugh.
At my previous agency I was fortunate enough to read work from extremely talented, albeit new writers and the vast majority of this excellent work was discarded.
Okay, so either the agency was a sham throwing away publishable work, or the underlying thing here is: "we are happy to take the work that's not good enough for other literary agencies" which isn't the mark of pride the seem to think it is.
Why? After many years I realised that literary agents and publishers are unwilling to take a risk with new authors no matter how talented and they have developed a complicated system of denying new authors access to the market. They do this to keep the sales of their existing authors at high levels, the thinking is that if there are too many similar authors the reader will inevitably choose different authors than their established clients.
This is completely predatory behavior, using a lie about market manipulation to scare writers into submitting. A reputable agency should not need to frighten you away from other agencies.
(Also, if they view publishers with this sort of negativity, why are they submitting to them? Do they have any publisher connections? There's no sales listed on their website, and all of the agencies and publishers she's worked with remain unnamed, so the answer seems clear.)
This, of course is true, however, I believe that the talent of a new author is just as valuable as that of an existing writer; perhaps more so. Consequently, this agency will champion new authors with publishers as much as possible and will guarantee three things;
Your work will be taken seriously and will always be read.
You will receive an acknowledgment of submission together with a full reply within six weeks.
There will be two clear outcomes from your submission: either we will ask you to submit a full manuscript for consideration by a publisher or alternatively you will receive a critique of your work written by an experienced publishing editor.
You will definitely not be ignored.
I have never seen a reputable agency that has the time to provide professional crits on all submissions.
That workload is unsustainable for an agency that makes it's commission out of selling manuscripts to publishers, which makes me concerned that they're planning to make money on the submission pile itself, with paid critique... which, it's worth noting considering posters have been asking about UK/US market differences, isn't as taboo in the UK as it is in the US.
In support of this, the FAQ page makes direct reference to 'experienced publishing editors' being on staff (no names given, no credentials provided). These editors have to make their wage somewhere in all of this.
Is there a charge to make a submission?
No, we do not charge a reading fee.
How long will it take to hear from you?
Either we will ask you to submit a full manuscript for consideration by a publisher or alternatively you will receive a critique of your work written by an experienced publishing editor within six weeks of your submission.
Submission page also accepts incomplete novels, which is not standard in any UK agency but is an accepted thing among certain editing service providers.
The promise of no reading fee is mentioned twice, both on the homepage and the FAQ, which is not necessarily a bad thing but in combination with the rest feels suspicious.
Sue Lawrie has no footprint online that I could find, which is highly unusually for a lady with such extensive experience in the publishing industry.
Red flags waving all over the shop with this one.
!!! No real Agent would sub to a pay to play press!