AuthorAdvance (formerly Litmatch.net)

Dave, you should be very proud of P&E. It must help thousands of writers, and is required reading for any writer researching an agent. It is one of the "Quick-Click" tools I mentioned above.

Dave, I didn't mean P&E, which is in a class by itself, and (IMO) an essential tool for writers looking to vet agents' reputations.

Specifically, I was talking about websites that claim to help you "match" your work to appropriate agents, including LitMatch, QueryTracker, Firstwriter, 1000literaryagents.com, AuthorConnect, and, yes, AgentQuery. I'm not saying that writers shouldn't use them, but they should be aware of the sites' limitations.

- Victoria

With being out of date; I bought the Writers and artists yearbook this year, I sent queries to a handful of agencies from there and was then e-mailed by one of them to tell me that they no longer catered for fiction. So it's not just websites that carry wrong and out of date information. Websites cost nothing to peruse, but the yearbook certainly did.

As long as Andrew wants our communications in the full light of day...

...here is my response:


Andrew,

In accordance with our policies, I will remove the requested information from our site. Of course, we would prefer to work with you to ensure that the information on our site is correct, and will be happy to do so at any time in the future should you reconsider your position.

Regarding your allegation of infringement, none has taken place. The only information that appears in your LitMatch profile is a collection of facts, and facts cannot copyrighted. No quotes were taken from your website (even though, properly attributed, they would be considered "fair use").

Having established that, I'm sure you understand how a public allegation like the one you have made on the AbsoluteWrite message board, however unfounded, can be damaging to the good reputation we have worked so hard to establish. In order to put this matter behind us, we believe a public apology on your part is appropriate and necessary.

Sincerely,

Christopher Hawkins
www.litmatch.net

I appreciate the cooperation of Christopher Hawkins and www.litmatch.net in removing the information regarding my firm from his site as I requested.

I agree with all those here that trusting one source is not enough, unless that source happens to be the firm's own website. And that is the problem with these "aggregators" of information, some of whom may be infringing copyright. You might say that a site is merely taking the facts. But the courts have definitely said that the organization of the facts can be copyrighted. Also, my concern is more that the facts are not complete. A site could say that I'm interested in "fantasy," but that is only correct in the broadest-possible terms. My site says I'm interested in:

Urban Fantasy

Humorous Fantasy in the Terry Pratchett vein

Contemporary Women's Fantasy that would more likely be put in the Romance section

Epic, Tolkien Fantasy

Obviously the writing has to be really great. If writing science fiction, you really need to know your science. If writing fantasy, you need to be original. I may say I want epic, Tolkien fantasy, but if your book is just a clone of something already out there, it won't fly.

As always, compelling characters are vastly important. If you can't make your reader invest emotionally in your characters, your book will not sell. If you can, let me hear from you.​

I submit there is a huge difference between "fantasy" and what' I've described above. And that's why primary resources are better than secondary.

Thanks.

Z

Andrew Zack said:

I submit there is a huge difference between "fantasy" and what' I've described above.

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Really? In what category of fantasy are you NOT interested? Because you seem to cover them all, according to your own site--urban, humorous, women's, and traditional epic.

I can't think of any fantasy I've ever read that couldn't be described as falling into at least one of those categories.

I haven't used LitMatch, but I love AgentQuery. So long as an agent reference list isn't showcasing scam artists, I think they are extremely valuable.

Yes, their proper use is as a sorting device and springboard to further research. Sure, some writers will impatiently use the info "as is" instead of looking further. But the value they provide to the writers who use them properly far outweighs the potential for some extra, inappropriate queries making their way across an agent's desk. Of course, this is my writer's pov coming through--obviously those extra queries are a serious problem to Mr Zack.

His frustration with queries that continue to flow even after he has shut down to accepting them temporarily or changed his address is certainly concerning--much like trying to get something fixed on one's credit rating, and the credit organizations keep quoting each other, over-riding the individual attempts to correct.

And if Elodie's flippant comment that she is "too busy" to go "hunting high and low" for agent addresses is anything to go by, there are plenty of writers who think visiting an agent website for specifics is too much trouble. This is something I can't understand, but I accept that it exists. No wonder Mr Zack is annoyed. (Elodie, I don't mean this as an attack--I'm just honestly flummoxed by that point of view. Perhaps you were exagerating for humorous effect. Or perhaps I misunderstood what you meant. You said addresses, which I assume to mean mailing addresses. Do you really take them off the reference site without double checking the agent's own? Or did you mean web addresses, as a first step to more research?)

From the perspective of a writer who used such a reference site as a valuable first step to finding an agent, I don't see what the alternative is. How is a writer of urban or Tolkienesque fantasy, for example, to know to look at Mr Zack's website, without some form of reference telling him or her that Mr Zack is an agent and, generally, what he represents? As others have pointed out, both printed references and online ones have the trouble of going out-of-date. Mr Zack, is your proposal that all references should be boycotted/avoided, or that there should be one or two centralized ones only?

Also, Mr Zack, you said that an agent's preference for only showcasing their latest sales should be respected. I respectfully disagree. An agent's history of past sales is important for a writer to know when evaluating whether someone is the right agent for them.

IceCreamEmpress said:

Really? In what category of fantasy are you NOT interested? Because you seem to cover them all, according to your own site--urban, humorous, women's, and traditional epic.

I can't think of any fantasy I've ever read that couldn't be described as falling into at least one of those categories.

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I don't see historical fantasy listed there, FWIW.

Emily Winslow said:

Also, Mr Zack, you said that an agent's preference for only showcasing their latest sales should be respected. I respectfully disagree. An agent's history of past sales is important for a writer to know when evaluating whether someone is the right agent for them.

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I've seen The Zack Company's database of sales. It's impressive. It's not unreasonable for Andrew to prefer to list only some recent sales. Even at that, it's an extra workload on him to just list those and keep it current. His time is best used mostly for selling, not updating web pages.

DaveKuzminski said:

I've seen The Zack Company's database of sales. It's impressive. It's not unreasonable for Andrew to prefer to list only some recent sales. Even at that, it's an extra workload on him to just list those and keep it current. His time is best used mostly for selling, not updating web pages.

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I didn't mean that he is obligated to do so himself. I meant that if an outside source continues listing older sales, this is good for writers, to see an agent's body of work more fully. He disagreed with that premise (at least, that's how I read his post) and said that outside sources are doing something wrong in reporting older sales that are no longer posted on the agent's personal website.

Certainly Mr Zack is entitled to showcase whatever he wishes. I was disagreeing with that selective showcasing extending to other websites. Sales of books are facts, and I believe that it's good for writers for those facts to be available. I don't know why their availability to writers would be objectionable.

That's okay Emily, I wouldn't take this as an attack.
I'm an impatient person and to be honest, although I love writing my novels, I hate all of the rigmarole of hunting for agents, finding out how much of a synopsis they want, printing it all out and sending it off etc., I find this all so tediously boring. Hunting for agencies via the artists and writers handbook or on the internet is boring to me too.
Anything that would make some of this process a little easier for me is a godsend; so having as many literary agents as possible on one website is great, it means that I can look at the one site (using it like a telephone directory) and then go into further detail via the agencies own websites to see if they are taking on the kind of material that I write, that's all.


Elodie

Emily Winslow said:

And if Elodie's flippant comment that she is "too busy" to go "hunting high and low" for agent addresses is anything to go by, there are plenty of writers who think visiting an agent website for specifics is too much trouble. This is something I can't understand, but I accept that it exists. No wonder Mr Zack is annoyed. (Elodie, I don't mean this as an attack--I'm just honestly flummoxed by that point of view. Perhaps you were exagerating for humorous effect. Or perhaps I misunderstood what you meant. You said addresses, which I assume to mean mailing addresses. Do you really take them off the reference site without double checking the agent's own? Or did you mean web addresses, as a first step to more research?)

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I agree... the writing *is* the fun part. Here's to having fun!

Elodie-Caroline said:

That's okay Emily, I wouldn't take this as an attack.
I'm an impatient person and to be honest, although I love writing my novels, I hate all of the rigmarole of hunting for agents, finding out how much of a synopsis they want, printing it all out and sending it off etc., I find this all so tediously boring. Hunting for agencies via the artists and writers handbook or on the internet is boring to me too.
Anything that would make some of this process a little easier for me is a godsend; so having as many literary agents as possible on one website is great, it means that I can look at the one site (using it like a telephone directory) and then go into further detail via the agencies own websites to see if they are taking on the kind of material that I write, that's all.


Elodie

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I just signed up on litmatch and came here because I felt it was one of those too good to be true (at least for the price). My concerns are allayed and I appreciate being able to track my queries. As some are by snail mail and some by e-mail, its nice to have an online source that is current to keep track of my most recent rejections.

I do keep a record but, as I make submissions both from work and from home, the online tracking makes it easier to keep current. I'll consider litmatch, like this site, P&E, and others as a resource where I can cross check info.