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TriadaUS Literary Agency

Perks

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PurpleLady said:
RP,
Thank you for the clarification. I've seen requests for relatively short synopsis, but was not aware of the longer versions.

Appreciate the congratulations, too. Since I just began looking for an agent earlier this month, I consider myself lucky that this is the first bite I've had. I have submitted four queries to other agents, in hopes that I will catch a brass ring, so to speak. Haven't heard from any of them yet, but a couple have 8 - 12 week response times. In the meantime, I'll keep keeping on.

I imagine you've read this entire thread. My experience with Uwe is not posted here, because it would have been redundant. He's very pleasant and enthusiastic, but for first-timers, the TriadaUS experience can be an roller coaster ride. Good luck!
 

Sakamonda

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Roller-coaster ride

With all due respect to Perks, the publishing industry is a roller-coaster ride for EVERYONE, whether you are a first-timer or not. Uwe Stender shouldn't be singled out in that respect.
 

victoriastrauss

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Perks said:
My experience with Uwe is not posted here, because it would have been redundant. He's very pleasant and enthusiastic, but for first-timers, the TriadaUS experience can be an roller coaster ride.
How so? I'd be interested to know.

- Victoria
 

Perks

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Sakamonda said:
With all due respect to Perks, the publishing industry is a roller-coaster ride for EVERYONE, whether you are a first-timer or not. Uwe Stender shouldn't be singled out in that respect.

Actually, yes he should and he and I have spoken about what was mishandled in our correspondence. I found Uwe to be very enthusiastic, which can be good, but can also, when not tempered with enough professionalism, make an inherently grueling process more emotional than it needs to be.

I like Uwe and I wish him well and I hope that he finds a stride in this business. His zeal may well end up being the thing that brings him success. That being said, I stand by my caution to eager first-time authors in getting swept away on a wave of positive feedback that may outrun its ability to produce a working relationship.
 

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???

Perks, I still don't get what your concern with Uwe is. Are you a current/former client who was/is dissatisfied with his services, or just someone that he rejected?
 

Perks

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Sakamonda said:
Perks, I still don't get what your concern with Uwe is. Are you a current/former client who was/is dissatisfied with his services, or just someone that he rejected?

Cool, I get to quote myself! Never done that before. I expressed my concern last post:

I found Uwe to be very enthusiastic, which can be good, but can also, when not tempered with enough professionalism, make an inherently grueling process more emotional than it needs to be.

And to satisfy your curiousity, yes, my manuscript was ultimately rejected by Dr. Stender. I take no issue with that. It has happened before and is likely to happen again; such is the business. PurpleLady's very first agent contact being TriadaUS inspired me to comment here, based on my experience with Uwe Stender and TriadaUS. Hopefully all is well there and my concern is old news...
 

Sakamonda

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Okay. . .

So what you're saying, Perks, is that your concern is with the fact that Dr. Stender rejected you with courtesy and enthusiasm?

Sorry, that just doesn't compute. There are very few agents out there that will bother to give you any encouragement or positive feedback with a rejection; I would think the fact that Dr. Stender is always very courteous and enthusiastic even when he rejects people should be considered a good thing, especially considering how many agents just sent out form rejections or are even rude when they reject people. I think maybe you're just a little bitter at the rejection, even though it was done courteously?
 

Perks

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No, Sakamonda, that's not what I'm saying and I am not bitter with Uwe Stender. I have not posted the full account of my dealings with him here, precisely because I am not bitter. There was an issue of professionalism that, as a new author and perhaps because he was a new agent, made the experience a negative one. It wasn't that long ago, so I said what I did for PurpleLady's information since she is just out of the gate herself.

I am very happy for you that you are enjoying your relationship with TriadaUS. I hope that PurpleLady also has good things to report. Uwe's willingness to provide in-depth feedback is a wonderful thing. My post regarding the nature of the feedback and its ramifications is not a singularity on this thread. Hopefully it's just growing pains. But, even if that is the case, it is a kindness to alert a newbie to something that may color her perceptions of this process.

Are you done taking shots at me for having an opinion and experience that differs from yours?
 

Sakamonda

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Taking shots

I'm not taking shots at you, I just think it's highly immature to get upset about an agent's supposed unprofessionalism when the only thing he did was to reject you with courtesy----and a lot more courtesy than most agents are willing to give, mind you. Many agents will do little more than send form rejections---there are even some out there who will insult you outright. I would therefore think Uwe's style would be appreciated, not regarded as unprofessional. Perhaps when you've been rejected by a lot more agents (and all of us are before we find an agent who loves our work, believe me) you'll appreciate Uwe's style more. I did not sign with Uwe until after I'd been in the trenches searching for agents for a long time, and I found his style a breath of fresh air after all the callous and even nasty rejections I'd received.
 

Perks

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This is my last post on the matter.
the only thing he did was to reject you with courtesy
You have no idea what transpired between Uwe Stender and myself. Please admit that and then let it go.
Perhaps when you've been rejected by a lot more agents (and all of us are before we find an agent who loves our work, believe me) you'll appreciate Uwe's style more.
You have no idea where I am in the process of agent-hunting and manuscript-peddling. Let that one go too.
I found his style a breath of fresh air
I hope that gets your book published for you.

Okay, nearly done here. I would recommend that you go through this thread and count posts that support my experience versus the ones that support yours. The good news is that your tenacity should serve you well in this business. In this case, though, it does not prove me wrong. A caution to PurpleLady with regards to her imminent dealings with TriadaUS is not mudslinging. There are several people on this thread who have formed an overall negative opinion after having dealt with Uwe and his associate. That's what this forum is about.

It is very important that you share your positive evaluation, just please afford others the same courtesy and let the chips fall where they may. When you have your five book deal from Doubleday in hand, then we will know that it was growing pains, sour grapes, bad luck or a combination of all three that sculpted our assessment of TriadaUS, Uwe Stender and his associate.
 

Sakamonda

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Sour grapes

Perks, I re-read the posts you refer to and like you, the few that had negative things to say are writers Uwe Stender rejected. Frankly, writers who a legitimate agent rejected have very little credibility to criticize how good/not good an agent Uwe might be. Clients who have had their work represented by him are far better judges of whether Dr. Stender is an effective agent or not.

Funny, all of those Stender rejects on this thread thought well enough of Dr. Stender to submit their work to him; it's only after he rejected their work that the posters have negative things to say. Seems like pretty much classic sour grapes to me.

That said, I hope all of these writers are able to find suitable represenatation. But Perks, it is both immature and unprofessional to disparage an agent just for rejecting you. If you were a client and he had screwed up a contract deal on you or stiffed you on royalty splits or something, then that would be a legit complaint---but agents have the right to accept/reject who they wish when seeking new clients, and it goes without saying that this is a highly subjective business---an agent rejection doesn't mean your work is bad or isn't marketable, it just means that particular agent didn't think your work would work for them (i.e., make them $$). That's just par for the course.

And you would be far better to advise posters that rejections are the norm and frequently given in this business, and that they are to be expected----rather than steer a writer away from a potentially good agent for their work just because that agent happened to reject you. Again, sour grapes.
 
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victoriastrauss

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Sakamonda said:
Funny, all of those Stender rejects on this thread thought well enough of Dr. Stender to submit their work to him; it's only after he rejected their work that the posters have negative things to say. Seems like pretty much classic sour grapes to me.
From what I've heard from a couple of writers who didn't wind up working with Dr. Stender, one problem lies with Dr. Stender's use of an associate to evaluate manuscripts. According to both these writers, one of whom provided me with documentation, the associate's feedback was extremely unprofessional and suggested s/he didn't have a lot of familiarity with the genres of the books in question. Reports like this are one reason that I continue to be somewhat skeptical of this agency.

But Perks, it is both immature and unprofessional to disparage an agent just for rejecting you.
I think that if you read Perks's posts more carefully, you'll see that he or she isn't doing this at all. Perks stated quite clearly that the issue wasn't rejection, it was unprofessional behavior during the submissions process.

- Victoria
 

Sakamonda

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But. . .

Victoria, while I think all the work that Writer Beware does is TERRIFIC, I am surprised that you would take issue with the fact that any agency uses associates to evaluate manuscripts, when virtually all agencies of any size do this; whether to process the large volumes of slush or to manage certain genres. I know in my agent search, 90% of the agencies I queried used associates for the first couple levels of the selection process (queries, partials, even the first reads on fulls). If it's Writer Beware's policy to question the use of associate agents, then most literary agencies would be considered bad, wouldn't they?
 

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Sakamonda said:
Victoria, while I think all the work that Writer Beware does is TERRIFIC, I am surprised that you would take issue with the fact that any agency uses associates to evaluate manuscripts, when virtually all agencies of any size do this; whether to process the large volumes of slush or to manage certain genres. I know in my agent search, 90% of the agencies I queried used associates for the first couple levels of the selection process (queries, partials, even the first reads on fulls). If it's Writer Beware's policy to question the use of associate agents, then most literary agencies would be considered bad, wouldn't they?

But Victoria said:
the associate's feedback was extremely unprofessional and suggested s/he didn't have a lot of familiarity with the genres of the books in question.

Which says, to me, that it's not so much the use of an associate, but the use of an associate who doesn't know diddly about the genres s/he is screening and that the feedback from said associate was unprofessional. Associates are, indeed, part of the industry, but it helps if they know what they're doing. An agent with MBA started out reading slush and assisting the agents, and had familiarity with a wide variety of genres. She's now agent to several big name authors (Anne Perry is, or was, one of them). Uwe Stender might be better off using someone more familiar with the process, but the associate might also be learning as s/he goes. Maybe they've been friends for a long time--hard to say.
 

aruna

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Sakamonda, I interpreted Victoria's post to mean that this particular associate's work was unprofessional, not that she was against associates in general:

From what I've heard from a couple of writers who didn't wind up working with Dr. Stender, one problem lies with Dr. Stender's use of an associate to evaluate manuscripts. According to both these writers, one of whom provided me with documentation, the associate's feedback was extremely unprofessional and suggested s/he didn't have a lot of familiarity with the genres of the books in question.
 

Sakamonda

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Okay

Okay, I guess I see what Victoria's saying now.

That said, I've only dealt with Uwe directly, and all contact I've had with him has been absolutely professional and first-rate. I have not had any contact with this associate myself, although my newest novel manuscript was supposedly also read by him/her before Uwe read it.

However, if I had a nickel for all the nasty, rude, and unprofessional behavior I encountered from other agencies (all/most of them AAR) during my own agent search, I would have a quite large pile of money. This is a tough business on agents, too, and I guess that's why some of them behave the way they do (not that I'm condoning it) but there are plenty of "superstar" agents who don't exactly behave politely in their dealings with potential clients. Remember that the new novelist is really just a starving urchin begging for whatever crumbs the publishing world throws his/her way. . .
 

dragonjax

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Sakamonda said:
Funny, all of those Stender rejects on this thread thought well enough of Dr. Stender to submit their work to him; it's only after he rejected their work that the posters have negative things to say. Seems like pretty much classic sour grapes to me.
This isn't true, Sak. Uwe didn't reject my full MS. After his reader sent feedback on it, Uwe said this was "Promising." *I* was the one who chose not to pursue it any further, because I strongly disagreed with his reader's feedback.

I like Uwe very much, and I am rooting for him as well as his clients, two of whom I know. If more agents were as nice as Uwe, I'm sure that would go far to penetrate the Agent Mystique that has many writers nervous about dealing with agents. Uwe is a gentleman, and I wish him nothing but the best.

Please do not make such sweeping accusations about those of us who posted about our experiences with Uwe and TriadaUS.
 

Sakamonda

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Sorry. . .

It would appear that I misread Dragonjax's earlier post. Sorry about that and thank you for clarifying.

But some of the others do appear to be angry just for being rejected. All rejections sting, it's true. But it's part and parcel of the writing business, like it or not.
 

three seven

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Sakamonda said:
But some of the others do appear to be angry just for being rejected. All rejections sting, it's true. But it's part and parcel of the writing business, like it or not.
Rejections? Part and parcel of the writing business? When did this happen and who authorised it?

Sakamonda, you seem to be under the impression that you're privy to some secret insider knowledge that your fellow members have yet to discover. A quick look elsewhere on the boards, however, may shine some much-needed light on our attitude to rejections.

Try to remember that there are people here who know the full stories behind some of these 'sour grapes', and who consider it bad form for you to wade in half-cocked and start calling people names.
 

Sakamonda

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Sorry, but. . .

I stand by my comments. I just have a hard time sympathizing with people who whine about rejections, when rejections are a daily occurrence in any serious writer's life. There just isn't much in most of the posters' comments to make me think it's more than that---whining. If they want to post more information to the contrary, it's their prerogative to do so---or not. But as it stands now, that's my opinion. Anyone is free to disagree with me, but it's still my opinion that it's sour grapes for being rejected.
 

three seven

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I can only assume one of three things:

1) You've read and understood what everyone's said but you've chosen to ignore it and demonstrate your unparallelled wisdom and experience by calling everyone else an idiot.

2) You've read the words that support your argument and ignored the rest.

3) You're Uwe Stender('s associate).

Based on your comments in the PA thread, I'm leaning towards the first option.
 

Sakamonda

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In response

Three Seven, I would fall under category:

4) An intelligent, experienced, independent-thinking professional whose opinion just happens to be different from yours.

By the way, Three Seven, I _never_ called anyone an idiot. But _you_ just did. I never engaged in personal attacks on people whose opinions are different from my own. But _you_ just did.

I stand by my opinions, and anyone is free to disagree with me. But I don't engage in personal attacks, and I never called anyone any names, so I don't see why anyone else has to.
 

Sakamonda

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And since you're bringing up that evil scammer PA. . .

By the way Three Seven, the fact that you bring up my comments on the PA thread as being some kind of problem leads me to believe you are a PA author? Am I right?
 

three seven

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Sakamonda said:
An intelligent, experienced, independent-thinking professional
Professional what, exactly?

whose opinion just happens to be different from yours.
That I know considerably more about at least one case in point than you do is not an opinion, it's a fact.

I _never_ called anyone an idiot. But _you_ just did. I never engaged in personal attacks on people whose opinions are different from my own. But _you_ just did.
If you'd like to show me where I called someone an idiot, I'll review it. And I'm not personally attacking you over a difference of opinion. My issue with you has nothing to do with your opinion of Uwe Stender - I'm personally attacking you for your high-and-mighty attitude and your refusal to listen to what you're being told.

I never called anyone any names
No, I do beg your pardon - you merely alluded to their bitterness, patronised them with your assumed greater knowledge and dismissed their actions as immature having deliberately misinterpreted them to suit your own agenda.

By the way Three Seven, the fact that you bring up my comments on the PA thread as being some kind of problem leads me to believe you are a PA author? Am I right?
No, you're not. See a pattern yet?

I referred to your PA comments purely as further illustration of your derisive attitude towards this community and its members. And yet again, you've drawn conclusions without reference to the facts.