First, let me remind Georgina of one thing she said in her first post:
Georgina Orr said:
WE HAVE CONTACTED THESE PEOPLE NUMEROUS TIMES AND OFFERED TO ANSWER THEIR QUESTIONS ON A PUBLIC FORUM FOR THE BEST INTEREST OF THE INDUSTRY AND THE WRITERS. They have refused or ignored our requests. What does that tell you?
Now....
Georgina Orr said:
In response to the reactions that my posting ofl ast week has generated.....
Looking forward to your response, Georgina!
LAG is a privately owned company and our business model is working for our authors.
Outstanding! Could you name some of the authors it's worked for?
No, wait, I've found some.... a list of more books allegedly sold by Children's Literary Agency!
Some books we've sold are: The Worry Stone and Fiddlin' Sam, for Marianna Dengler. Gift of the Dove and a four-book series, Tales From the Bayou, for Betty Hager. Twin Pickle, for Ann Doro.
This comes from http://www.writers.net/forum/read.php?f=10&i=125162&t=125097
Interestingly, Georgina here claimed that they'd sold four books (and the authors had sold two of them), but here this other representative of CLA was claiming eight books.
Well, let's see what we've got:
The Worry Stone by Marianna Dengler, Rising Moon Books, 1996
Fiddlin' Sam by Marianna Dengler, Rising Moon Books, 1999
Gift of the Dove by Betty Hager, Zondervan, 1991
Old Jake and the Pirates Treasure (Tales from the Bayou #1) by Betty Hager, Zondervan, 1994
Marcie and the Shrimp Boat Adventure (Tales from the Bayou #2) by Betty Hager, Zondervan, 1994
Miss Tilly and the Haunted Mansion (Tales from the Bayou #3) by Betty Hager, Zondervan, 1994
Marcy and the Monster of the Bayou (Tales from the Bayou #4) by Betty Hager, Zondervan, 1994
Twin Pickle by Ann Doro, Henry Holt and Company, 1996
Hmmm....those books were all published long before Children's Literary Agency was founded. All but one were published before Sydra Techniques was founded.
It looks very much as if Children's Literary Agency had nothing to do with selling any of them.
We are more concerned about the authors that we are currently representing than we are about people who choose to make defamatory statements about us and so I am not prepared to waste time replying to any of these posts which do no more than nit pick.
Nothing more than nit pick? I'd think that "You've never sold a book to anyone in your life, you're lying about where your office is located, and your boss is an adjudged scammer" are a bit more than "nit picks."
It is unlikely that I will attempt to carry on a meaningful discussion with people who have already made up their mind.
But you can
change my mind, Georgina! And how about the lurkers, the people who come here to research Children's Literary Agency. You can answer the SPECIFC questions, like you promised!
My time, and my company's time is better spent selling and pitching for our authors.
Is it really? I mean, c'mon, if you were spending your time pitching and selling your authors you'd have sold one or two of them by now, wouldn't you?
Listen: You say you have those 68 "open discusssions" going. If you were just batting .100 (and being in severe danger of getting sent back to the minors) you'd sell 7 of 'em by the end of the year. That would be close to twice as many as you claim you've made in your history. How about it, Georgina, come back next year and tell us about your six or seven new sales this year. I mean, you're devoting your time and your company's time to selling them....
Unless you're a total fraud and con artist, that is.
Sincerely yours,
Georgina Orr, VP Corporate Affairs
Literary Agency Group
G'bye, Georgina. And here I thought you wanted to set the record straight. After all, those other message boards (that you are unwilling or unable to name) delete your posts and block your rebuttal posts. Why not take this golden opportunity?
For the record, here are some of the SPECIFIC questions (as she demanded) that Georgina won't/can't answer:
- How much does your typical client wind up spending?
- What are the names of your agents?
- What is their prior experience in publishing?
- How many sales have you made to commercial publishing houses? Please give the names of the authors, the titles of the books,and the publishing houses they were sold to.
- Isn't the main, number one complaint people seem to have that they can't find any evidence of you guys selling a book?
- Wouldn't the best way to take the wind out of the sails of the "creepy and scary" people be to prove that you've sold a book somewhere, to someone?
- Which editors do you work with most often? Which do you know best?
- What is the name of the publisher who complimented you on the "fair job" you did for your author?
- How can a "third party critique" be done by a "sister company?"
- Is Writer's Literary and Publishing Services (the "sister" company you recommend for "independent 3rd party critiques") in fact owned by Robert Fletcher?
- Is My Editor Is A Saint (another "sister" company that provides editing) in fact owned by Robert Fletcher?
- If he doesn't own these companies, does he get a cut of their income?
- Are you (meaning any of the agencies under the "umbrella" of The Literary Agency Group Inc.) offering vanity publishing deals to clients via Peter Parente's Tree of Life Publishing?
- Is Robert Fletcher an owner or co-owner of Tree of Life Publishing?
- If Robert Fletcher is not an owner or co-owner of Tree of Life Publishing, does he get a cut of the income from clients you steer into publishing deals?
- What is the exact nature of the relationship between The Literary Agency Group, its principals and subsidiaries, and The Lighthouse Press of Deerfield Beach, FL, its principals and subsidiaries?
- With which publishers have you made deals?
- Why is it that real agents make it so easy to find them? Why do they announce their deals? Why do they post their addresses and phone numbers? Why don't you?
- "Pulling their own weight"? "Something for nothing"? Shouldn't words like 'quality' or 'marketability' be putting in something of an appearance there?
- Isn't it true that Children's Literary Agency was created solely to take some heat off Stylus (ST) Literary Agency?
- Isn't it a fact that no one knows you in any role?
- Are you aware that Writer Beware and Preditors & Editors don't sell ads?
- "People ...for whom" you "haven't been successful" is "nearly everyone," isn't it?
- Do you ask your writers to pay an editing fee most times?
- Is four deals in seven years what you're boasting of?
- Given that fifty percent of that four deals you claim were made by the authors themselves: What did they need you for?
- Do you offer a contract to everyone who writes to you?
- What's your physical address?
- Where is the New York office?
- What's your phone number?
- Who are your neighbors on the left and right?
- Could you please describe the sign in the lobby of your building? What material is it made of? Where's it located?
- Where is the security guard's station?
- What do you see directly across the street when you walk out of the building's lobby?
- What happened to the WGA number that Robert Fletcher inherited from Sid Buck, the original owner of Sydra-Techniques?
- When will you be filing that lawsuit against Victoria?
- Robert Fletcher has claimed to be a Chemical Engineer. Where did he earn his degree? What year?
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