Agents, Schmagents

I'm writing this as a blog post because I have to get it out of my system and I can't do that in 140 characters. It may come across as whining, which is fine by me; whining is a tradition with a long and distinguished history.

Last September I submitted a query to a literary agent. I'm British, so is the agent, my manuscript is written in British English using an A4 template, so I felt compelled to use A4 paper rather than American Letter size; as such I had to find somewhere to buy A4 - which took some doing, I can tell you.

Having done that I had to print the first three chapters, the cover letter, the synopsis and a one-page bio, then put the whole pile in a strong envelope and mail it to the UK.

I gave the agent nine weeks. There was no word, so I called and was told that (1) they couldn't tell me when they'd received the query because they didn't keep a log, and (2) their reader was at that time going through work that had arrived in April. This was November, and a little thumbnail calculation told me that the reader should get to mine sometime around April this year.

So like a fool I let it go. I decided that rather than bug them by calling too often, I'd wait until April then call if I hadn't received a response.

April went by and May appeared, and I hadn't received a response. Time to call. It took three calls over two days to get to talk to someone, and I was then told that according to the log, there was no record of my script.

Wait a minute; when I called in November there wasn't a log. Now there is?

So the guy said I should submit again. I asked him if, given the circumstances, I could send the material by email. He said that their crappy old system didn't handle email attachments so I'd have to send another print copy.

It sounded like an excuse. It sounded like a lie. Even if their system is so crappy that it can't handle email attachments - which sounds like bullshit - surely they have access to a real computer? Create a gmail account, give me the address, I send an email with the attachments, they get it, job done. And the thing about the log... the guy had checked the log for September, so they must have had it in place at that time; why was I told in November that they had no such log? Why was I not told that my query was not in the log? I could have sent it again right away, instead of wasting months.

I told the guy I would send the query again, but by the time I'd hung up I'd already decided that I wasn't going to.

That afternoon and evening I did another quick revision pass of my 'script, then yesterday I spent most of the day going through the UK agents listings in the Writers' & Artists' Yearbook, finding agents that handle the kind of book I've written, and looking up websites. I found seven agents that accept queries electronically, and I sent every one what they asked for. All of them say I should expect a response within eight weeks.

What really annoys me about the whole thing is that the original agency is not some two-bit operation; they handle some very well known names and they're pretty well respected. I chose them in the first place because they represent one of my favourite authors. But they can't or won't accept electronic submissions, and they won't return phone calls or answer emails.

I suspect they feel that by making writers jump through hoops to get the work to them, they'll filter out all but the most determined. Perhaps that's true - but just because someone's determined doesn't mean that they write well, and on the other hand I'm guessing that there are some really good writers out there who nevertheless aren't about to piss about with an agent that insists on paper submissions, especially when there are other agencies, with author lists just as impressive, who don't.

So going forward I've made a decision about agents. If they insist on paper submissions, they're not getting my work. If they can't respond to a query within the time they say they will, they're not getting my work. If they can't return phone calls or reply to emails, they're not getting my work. One agent has managed to sour my opinion of all agents, and that's not likely to change until I find one that I can trust.