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Author Agency

fsmfarms

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Does anyone know anything about them or experiences/positive or negative?
The company does not actively pursue manuscript, I had fwd to them. They gave me a wonderful free edit, but I have decide to self publish.
 
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shaldna

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have you got a link to their website. The only one I could find were these guys:

http://www.authoragency.com/

I had a quick look around and it seems to be more of an evaluation service rather than an agency.

This line
'Book Agents through Author Agency will assist authors in selecting the best and
most cost effective way to publish and market their book(s).'

Was quite telling. It suggests that they are aimed more towards self publishers, which isn't what you want to hear from an agent.
 
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Momento Mori

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It's a weird mix of agenting and self-publishing but there's no information on agents they've helped set up authors with or commercial publishers they have helped get publishing deals with. There's also a certain degree of misinformation on the site about how commercial publishing works, which could be suggested to encourage people to go down the self-publishing route, e.g.:

Author Agency Website:
Advances are modest for new authors who do not have an established following

Not true. A mate of mine got a USD 50,000 one book deal from Harper Collins and he has no following at all, another friend of mine for a USD400,000 2 book deal a few years ago (again, debut novel with no following).

Author Agency Website:
Marketing is often the authors responsibility, as stated in most contracts

Authors should always be prepared to get involved, but even new authors will find their publishers do a certain amount of marketing for them - even if it's just arranging printing of stuff like bookmarks etc.

Author Agency Website:
If your books don’t sell after the initial launch, they’ll be off bookshelves within months

That depends on how bad the sales are.

Author Agency Website:
The publisher can take your book out of print whenever they want to

No, the terms on which a book can go out of print will be set out in the contract and usually tied into a rights reversion to the author.

Author Agency Website:
If your book does bad, and you wanted to write a second but your publisher won’t publish it, getting another deal is almost impossible with bad sales.

This depends on how bad the sales are versus the advance paid to the author. If a publisher paid a fortune for a book and it tanked, then yes, getting a deal for another book will be harder (but then, you did get paid a fortunate up front). The truth is that a book would have to do spectacularly badly to deny you the chance of another deal because in general, most publishers make money from books even if the books don't go into royalties for the author.

Basically, this looks to be a pay to play outfit with an agent submission service tagged on (which I don't see any benefit of). Why on earth would you want to submit a manuscript there?

MM
 
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Momento Mori

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victoriastrauss
I have a very strong hunch about who this is.

Having taken a further look at the website, I wonder if it's one of those companies with a real spring (or bounce) in its step ...

fsmfarms:
I have been asked u submit manuscript.

How did Author Agency get in touch with you? Had you found them referenced somewhere and sent in a query?

MM
 

MysteryRiter

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I just want to say that this is probably the most unappealing name ever for an agency...
ETA: They claim to have 20+ years of agenting and publishing experience and yet, no bios, just a phony looking picture of a group of people smiling in front of a white backdrop. You have to wonder...
 
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Unimportant

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It's a pretty safe bet that if you submit your manuscript to them, they'll offer you one of their packages -- which range in cost (to you) from $700 to $6300.
 

shaldna

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I have a very strong hunch about who this is. I'm going to do some more investigating, and let y'all know. For now....avoid.

- Victoria

What would we do without you?
 

CaoPaux

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Did you ever find anything, Victoria? Both FB and Tw ceased in '12. (Memoir mentioned in last tweet self-pubbed Jan '14.)

ETA: If this is still an active concern, it's at best a submission service, so I'm reIndexing accordingly.
 
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