Former literary agency refuses to take me down from their website

Erik Thurman

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Hey all!

About a year ago, my former literary agency and I parted ways less than amicably after a breach of contract on my former agents contracts. I'll spare too many details, but it involved eight co-authors and I needing an Authors' Guild attorney to step in to even get the agency head to respond to letters of termination and to release our work. Part of the agreement at the time was to wipe us all off the website, especially since the agency never sold any of our work (except for one person).


Now that I'm back on the query and submissions trail, this has become a great nuisance to discover that I'm still 'currently represented' on the agency's website. I've had two agents so far question that I'm still represented by my former agency (implying that I'm going behind my former agent's back), and I've had one editor mistakenly contact the agency in order to reach me. Emails to the agency continue to be ignored.

A disclaimer on my website has helped to some degree in curbing some of these issues, but the problem remains--how do I get rid of this nightmare of a literary agency for good, and move on with my career?
 

Perks

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Is the agency still functioning? And what happened when you contacted them, reminding them to remove your names?
 

Toothpaste

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Ugh how terribly frustrating, I'm so sorry. Aside from trying to get them to take your name down which I think you should continue to do, maybe it makes sense to just be very upfront about it as you query. "I should note that once upon a time I was represented by [Agency] and while we parted ways [x number] months ago, I am still listed on their website as a client. I feel it important to assure you I am not a client of theirs anymore, and that I am not querying behind their back."

Or something to that effect. I dunno. What do others think?
 

Erik Thurman

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@Perks Oh I get nothing but radio silence from them, along with the rest of the other eight former clients. Which is disappointing since it does them no favors to keep any of us on--we wouldn't be giving glowing reviews for sure.

@Toothpaste I used to actually include something like this on the query, but then I felt it got wordy and was distracting from the overall pitch. The topic usually comes up later when the agent is interviewing me anyways (as it should) It's just something I like to preempt if possible, since it's never appealing to someone who is considering taking on a new client that doesn't have nice things to say about a professional colleague.
 
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Perks

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That's crazy. All I can recommend is what Toothpaste did - add a brief line in your query about it. What a pain.
 

shadowwalker

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IDK but perhaps contact their ISP/website host? Possibly contact the FTC (for false advertising/misrepresentation/etc). ??
 

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You said a letter from an Author's Guild attorney helped last time. Can you try that again?

In the meantime, I agree that putting a long explanation in the query could become a distraction. What about just noting that you used to be represented by the other agency, without going into any details? That way, if the agent sees you on the website, it'll be clear that it's just outdated information, and you can always explain things later.
 

Old Hack

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I second the suggestion to get the Authors' Guild involved again.

Is the agency in question a member of any agents' societies? If so, contact them: this is not how agents are meant to behave.

You could, of course, write to any trade papers which they might read: we have The Bookseller in the UK, and there are bound to be US equivalents. I'm not sure that making a noise about this yet will help: get that letter sent from the Authors' Guild first, and contact the literary agency associations too.

It's not good of them. Not at all.