Murray's Literary Service (formerly Murray's Literary Agency) (Eunice Murray)

Anjulee · Jul 15, 2012

Cannot find anything on this agency here. The only thing is a listing on P&E, which doesn't have not recommended or recommended next to it.

She has a blogsite: http://murrayliteraryservice.blogspot.com/, which is not helpful at all. I have emailed her for a small list of sales to help, and I'm waiting on a response.

Does anyone have any useful information that they can share?

aliceshortcake · Jul 15, 2012

Says Eunice Murray:

Murray's Literary Agency was establish to help those who sat alone to write. This is a small agency with a big heart in helping new and beginning writers. I give to writers my own experience from writing and getting published. This Agency has two goals in mind - To keep the communication open between the publishing house and writers.- To make sure all contracts are proper and correct. We stand by the AAR standard of cannons, and there are no fees required.

I'm delighted to hear that the agency stands by the AAR standard of cannons - you can't be too careful with weapons of mass destruction - but Ms Murray's grasp of the English language leaves something to be desired. Competence, mainly:

Join us as South Florida Writers and Others will be discussing the right and wrong way to a great query letter.

This is an open discussion for all to join in, then ask the hard question what's a query letter anyway?

We have 5 steps that will help them to succeed in preparing their characters to use words.

I know that all authors has came across this situation where they can not find time to write.

Did you know that you will get rejected if your manuscript isn't properly formatted. Yes, you will.

At our meet up group on March 22, we will discuss the unique relationship between agents and authors. We will also discuss expenses versus fees. Our discussion will cover new agents as well as agents that have been in the business for over 15 years. We will get to the nitty gritty of the advantage of having a new agent as to having a more experience agent.

At the meet up we are discussing the four part of storytelling objectives. There are four unique contexts
and discrete mission for a scene . We divided them in two major plots and a midpoint, and the magic
of the great ending.

An agency will receive hundereds of manuscripts a month and when an agent request your manuscript, its not a contract offer.

http://murrayliteraryservice.blogspot.co.uk/

I could go on but it's too easy. Nowhere on her blog does Ms Murray give the title of her book(s), but a quick Amazon search turned up The Death of Lisa by Eunice R Murray, published by Xlibris in 2003. Even if this particular book isn't by writer-turned-agent Eunice Murray I'd be very surprised if her own work wasn't self/vanity published.

I'm a bit confused as to where this agency is based. According to WritersNet:

Eunice Murray
([email protected])

Agency: Murray's Literary Service
Camden, North Carolina, United States We represent serious writers, published and unpublished. We accept all genre except children illustration books.
Our agency represent 30 clients, 50% of clients are new/unpublished. This agency specialize in mystery and legal thrillers. We don't charge any reading fee.
How to Contact: Mail Query, plus 3 sample chapters to
Murray's Literary Service -P.O. Box 564 - Camden, NC 27921
1-252-202-0587 email [email protected]
Prior to becoming an agent, Eunice Murray was an editor/mystery writer. [An editor?!] Ms. Murray gives a 110% to her writers.

Memberships: Mystery Guide Of America Listed in Jeff Herman's directory of agents: No
Reading fee: No

http://www.writers.net/agents/44571

According to her blog:

Email [email protected]

Murray's Literary Service
2309 NW 15th St
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33311

It sounds like amateur hour to me.

sammyig · Jul 15, 2012

If you look at the listing on P&E for the literary agency specifically. So searching for Murray's Literary Service, the agency is listed as charging a fee.

Now, since her website says that they do not- they might have changed their spots over the years. I don't know. But I did notice that the listing for the agency alone has an address in North Carolina on the P&E site and Eunice Murray's agency is in Florida. So, they might be two different agencies with the same name.

I couldn't find where they sold any books to publishers.

Anjulee · Jul 15, 2012

sammyig said:
If you look at the listing on P&E for the literary agency specifically. So searching for Murray's Literary Service, the agency is listed as charging a fee.

Now, since her website says that they do not- they might have changed their spots over the years. I don't know.

They do charge fees for postage, photocopying and phonecalls, to which they wan't $200.00 sent in along with a year contract. This I found out through someone who had received one from them. I guess a little harder on the research produced some results. I don't know if that is standard or not to ask for the money before the charges are made, but I would like to know if she has any "real" sales for any clients she may have.

I'll post in here if, and when, I recieve a response to my question about her sales history. Thanks so much for your replies.

aliceshortcake · Jul 15, 2012

sammyig said:
So, they might be two different agencies with the same name.

They might be, but it seems odd that whoever wrote the descriptions used the same kind of poor grammar.

Ms Murray also works as a designer and a paralegal, which leads me to wonder how much time she can devote to being a literary agent:

http://www.meetup.com/South-Florida-Home-and-Garden-Club/members/24190912/

Anjulee · Jul 15, 2012

aliceshortcake said:
Says Eunice Murray:

I'm a bit confused as to where this agency is based.

The return address on the person's envelope was the FL one.

aliceshortcake · Jul 15, 2012

A bit more Googling reveals that Eunice Murray of Fort Lauderdale is indeed the author of The Death of Lisa, that her home town is Camden, and that she isn't on intimate terms with the dictionary.

Anjulee · Jul 19, 2012

Still haven't heard from her on a client list. Beginning to wonder...

aliceshortcake · Jul 19, 2012

I honestly don't think there's much to wonder about. What could a part-time literary agent with a tenuous grasp of the English language do for your career?

Tigerlilly79 · Jul 21, 2012

Trust me. I've been to two of her meet ups and they were an absolute waste of time. She is not helpful or knowledgeable. She gives wrong information like "Always send your query letter as an attachment". When I told her that most agents want it in the body of the email unless otherwise noted, she ignored me. We also never got a clear answer about books she represented that were published. I wouldn't trust her with my work.

victoriastrauss · Jul 21, 2012

I've gotten several reports recently of this agency's upfront fees. As far as I can discover, it has no track record of sales (not surprisingly).

- Victoria

aliceshortcake · Jul 22, 2012

According to WritersNet, Ms Murray's own agent is Pia Hoffman of Sunshine Literary Agency:

http://www.writers.net/writers/27761

The same site names Sunshine as a non-recommended fee charger. Perhaps Ms Murray learned from Sunshine's example...and as we already know, Ms Murray's novel The Death of Lisa was published through Xlibris.

I did a Google search for Ms Murray's clients and could only find one, Dave Edlund:

http://www.petersavagenovels.com/blog/

kyliecheung · Sep 9, 2012

I know this was from a while ago, but I'd just like to say I'm so happy I found this! I got a response from Eunice Murray asking me to mail my whole manuscript to the given Florida address which I found strange considering the query I sent her was an old, unedited and terrible one that was worst of all addressed to the wrong agency, which sort of made an alarm go off. But after taking a second look at the blogsite, I went to her profile and she has a thousand equally poorly (terribly actually) written as the blog for her agency.

It's disappointing naturally as I was so excited for a good response, but I am just so grateful I found out in time what the agency really was (and how apparently she's an interior and fashion designer... what?).

But my question is, would you say Murray's literary agency is an outright scam or just incompetent (all the grammar errors and poor advice at meets)?

Thank you.

victoriastrauss · Sep 10, 2012

kyliecheung said:
But my question is, would you say Murray's literary agency is an outright scam or just incompetent (all the grammar errors and poor advice at meets)?

Just based on the information I've gotten from writers, and on Murray's website, my guess would be massively ignorant and incompetent rather than scammish. With the meetups, it looks to me as if she's heavily invested in Literary Agent: the Role-Playing Game.

Of course, from the client's perspective, there's not much difference between an incompetent and a scammer: you still wind up with a smaller bank account and no book sale.

- Victoria

PVish · Sep 10, 2012

As Eunice Murray Business Group, her Blogger profile lists an astounding number of blogs about many different subjects, from a nail and facial clinic to a debt counseling service. Interesting ads on her literary agency blog—Trafford, Dorrance, etc.

Teacherhst · Oct 6, 2012

I recently received a contract in the mail from this agent. It does ask for 200 dollars up front and states that if the author has an issue with it, do not contact the agency. I found this a bit insulting considering I assume most agents wish to know their clients.

In the end, I decided to keep my money and continue querying.

NicolaD · Oct 6, 2012

Anjulee said:
They do charge fees for postage, photocopying and phonecalls, to which they wan't $200.00 sent in along with a year contract. This I found out through someone who had received one from them. I guess a little harder on the research produced some results. I don't know if that is standard or not to ask for the money before the charges are made, but I would like to know if she has any "real" sales for any clients she may have.

I'll post in here if, and when, I recieve a response to my question about her sales history. Thanks so much for your replies.

It's not standard. You shouldnt be charged for any expenses before a sale is made. In the electronic age postage and photocopying aren't nearly as significant as they used to be, so to set a random figure is very unusual. As is charging for a phonecall.

Tigerlilly79 · Oct 7, 2012

I'm telling you guys

Teacherhst said:
I recently received a contract in the mail from this agent. It does ask for 200 dollars up front and states that if the author has an issue with it, do not contact the agency. I found this a bit insulting considering I assume most agents wish to know their clients.

In the end, I decided to keep my money and continue querying.

I've been to one of her awful meetup groups. She told us that she puts the $200 into your account to use for the cost of sending out your manuscript to publishers and making copies and that most agents do this. She seems to be a very nice lady, but she doesn't know what she's talking about. Stay away!

aliceshortcake · Oct 9, 2012

WTF? From one of Murray's blogs, THE EARLY DORN OF LOVE:

TEHE EARLY DORN OF LOVE

We all know at the begining stage of falling in love, things are great, and nothing could be better. We all want those same feeling that we get during the early dorn of love througout our relationship. The question how do we keep the feeling that we first get during our relationship? We do it by not making drastic changes in ourlives. I know that you say this, but changes happens anyway. I agree with that, but we make changes in ourlives or do things to cause changes in our lives.

http://murray-designers.blogspot.co.uk/

I find it hard to believe that Ms Murray is a graduate of the University of Maryland, let alone that she worked as an editor.

Friendly Frog · Oct 9, 2012

What does 'dorn' mean? I'm familiar with 'dork' and 'dorm', but 'dorn' is not even in my dictionary. Could she be meaning 'dawn'?

(I'm not trying to be facetious, but I'm not a native English speaker so there will always be words I don't know yet.)

LindaJeanne · Oct 9, 2012

Friendly Frog said:
What does 'dorn' mean? I'm familiar with 'dork' and 'dorm', but 'dorn' is not even in my dictionary. Could she be meaning 'dawn'?

(I'm not trying to be facetious, but I'm not a native English speaker so there will always be words I don't know yet.)

I'd never heard of it before, either (and I am a native English speaker). But there are plenty of perfectly legitimate English words that I don't know, so I did some searching to see if this was one.

Here's what I was able to find:

A kind of thornback ray:
http://dictionary.webster.us/dorn
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thornback_ray

A Czech boardgame:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/26983/dorn

A German Black Metal band:
http://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Dorn/5136

And, according to
http://dictionary.babylon.com/dorn/
It's also

The German word for "Thorn"
The Gaelic word for "Fist"
An incredibly powerful Dark Elf in the Everquest MMORG

So I'm not sure what she means. :S

aliceshortcake · Oct 10, 2012

She must mean 'dawn'. At least it's just wrongly spelled - elsewhere she claims to work for a 'striving' business when she clearly means 'thriving'.

jaksen · Oct 10, 2012

Wow, this is so awful that if I just stumbled across this thread, I'd think it was either a parody or you guys were making this all up. It doesn't even read as awful; it reads as tragic.

But truth is often stranger than ...

aliceshortcake · Oct 10, 2012

It's certainly tragic for the unfortunate newbies who have paid Ms Murray $200 for her 'services'.

Laure de Sade · Oct 14, 2012

Phew! Thank God I read this thread. She asked me to mail my full. Postage costs alone from Australia are ~$50...

Murray's Literary Service (formerly Murray's Literary Agency) (Eunice Murray)

Wilde about Oscar

Vampire Connoisseur

Wilde about Oscar

Wilde about Oscar

Wilde about Oscar

Maybe I should see someone . . .

Writer Beware Goddess

Wilde about Oscar

Writer Beware Goddess

Cat hair collector

This will all make sense tomorrow

Maybe I should see someone . . .

Wilde about Oscar

Snarkenfaugister

On a small world west of wonder

Wilde about Oscar

Caped Codder

Wilde about Oscar