jove14
·Hi.
My experience with my first submission with a literary agent didn’t go too well.
I feel as though I have been well and truly robbed and I don’t know what to do about it.
Those who haven’t read Terrified!!!
Please read this link: https://omegaforums.net/threads/terrified.110724/
Let me explain a little, I was ready to submit my first manuscript to a literary agent.
The very first thing I did and it turned out to be a very wise one indeed was to create a new e-mail address and I would be using this exclusively for submissions to Literary agents etc.
I did all of the research over the last couple of months on the net and I even bought The Writers handbook and The Writers & Artist handbook and I had a good read of them both.
All good up to now.
So after all of the research and reading I chose a literary agent, Eve White of London. ( I did realize at the time I would have to try many times before someone said it was good enough to publish as a book ) The feedback on the net for Eve White was good so I took the plunge and filled in the on-line submission form with all of my details and I attached my manuscript for a would be book titled; Stowaway. That’s when I put up Terrified!!! on Omega forums. I sat back and waited and waited, two weeks passed and nothing! On their website it said that they will let you know one way or another if your submission is good enough to be published within a week. So I e-mailed them asking had they as yet had a look through my work. I got a reply from Sarah who said that Sorry but we cannot find your submission, would I please attach it and my details and reply on her e-mail.
This I did and within a couple of days I got an e-mail saying sorry but it’s not going to be one for us. Fair enough I did expect this to happen.
But it’s what happened next bothered me, a great deal!
I received an e-mail from a Jake Molton at Olympia Publishers asking me how many illustrations I would need for my new book!
I contacted Eve Whites office and they said that they have Not given Olympia publishing either my details or any of my work but they suggested he may have bought some of my info from Google. On Jake Moltons e-mail he did not refer to the title of my would be book so I told him a little white lie, I said which book are you referring to as I had sent a few out recently ( I had sent out just Stowaway only to Eve White). He replied that he was referring to Stowaway! I replied and asked him to be honest with me, where did you get the title of my book from as I had not contacted you directly. ( bear in mind my new email address and I had Not contacted him directly I had merely replied to his earlier question).
His reply shocked me and I am still very bothered by it. He said that I had contacted him directly and he had the proof. He then sent me a copy of the on-line submission form that he say’s I filled in on Olympia publishing’s web page.
Copy of e-mail from Olympia publishing:
“Your work was submitted via our online form on March 9th. You gave us your details including your name, email address, and other information such as your address and contact details. You also provided your manuscript and a synopsis and cover letter, as we request on our site. I will forward the automated email I received once your submission was sent online.
You should have received an automated email on March 9th, which may have ended up in your junk folder.
With the greatest respect, in previous instances where an author has not remembered submitting, they had simply forgotten they had submitted to us. Most came back after locating the automated email from us. To be frank, I don’t really see how any company would benefit from sharing your work with us, so I don’t believe this is very likely”.
I did not receive an automated e-mail from them, the first e-mail from them was on 1/4/2020, I submitted my manuscript to Eve White on 9/3/2020.
All of my details including full address mobile number e-mail address etc are on the copy of the form he has sent me plus he has my manuscript. Let me reiterate, I did not contact them directly, they contacted me! Nowhere in my new e-mail account or in any of my other e-mail accounts can I find that I have contacted them first! I had never even heard of Olympia publishing up to then and I most certainly would not have contacted a publisher first I would have gone through a Literary agent.
To top it off, Olympia publishing don’t have a particularly good name, they want your money and make promises they don’t keep, before contacting them I would have researched them!
Check this link out; https://writersdisease.net/2015/09/16/olympia-publishers-and-the-art-of-the-soft-scam/
The only conclusions I can draw from this are; either someone at Eve White has given or sold all of my details and my manuscript to Olympia or the link I clicked on Eve White’s page went directly to Olympia publishing as it had been hacked!
This was my very first submission and this experience has spoiled it for me. I have wrote a series of five manuscripts about Dragons a very lengthy book about a romantic (romantic maybe not the correct choice of word I used as it reads a bit like 50 Shades of Gray!) antique dealer and this last one which I submitted to Eve White is about a young man who saves the lives of three children from a sinking ship. I am at present part way through another about a time travelling science professor from Manchester.
But and it’s a very big but this has put me off getting any of my books (would be book’s) published! I don’t have the funds to either use a publisher directly or to self publish, hence using a literary agent.
I have not been able to write anything since this happened.
Can I please have your thoughts on this?
Who do I contact about this?
Joe.
PS.
I hope you are all keeping well at this difficult time.
My experience with my first submission with a literary agent didn’t go too well.
I feel as though I have been well and truly robbed and I don’t know what to do about it.
Those who haven’t read Terrified!!!
Please read this link: https://omegaforums.net/threads/terrified.110724/
Let me explain a little, I was ready to submit my first manuscript to a literary agent.
The very first thing I did and it turned out to be a very wise one indeed was to create a new e-mail address and I would be using this exclusively for submissions to Literary agents etc.
I did all of the research over the last couple of months on the net and I even bought The Writers handbook and The Writers & Artist handbook and I had a good read of them both.
All good up to now.
So after all of the research and reading I chose a literary agent, Eve White of London. ( I did realize at the time I would have to try many times before someone said it was good enough to publish as a book ) The feedback on the net for Eve White was good so I took the plunge and filled in the on-line submission form with all of my details and I attached my manuscript for a would be book titled; Stowaway. That’s when I put up Terrified!!! on Omega forums. I sat back and waited and waited, two weeks passed and nothing! On their website it said that they will let you know one way or another if your submission is good enough to be published within a week. So I e-mailed them asking had they as yet had a look through my work. I got a reply from Sarah who said that Sorry but we cannot find your submission, would I please attach it and my details and reply on her e-mail.
This I did and within a couple of days I got an e-mail saying sorry but it’s not going to be one for us. Fair enough I did expect this to happen.
But it’s what happened next bothered me, a great deal!
I received an e-mail from a Jake Molton at Olympia Publishers asking me how many illustrations I would need for my new book!
I contacted Eve Whites office and they said that they have Not given Olympia publishing either my details or any of my work but they suggested he may have bought some of my info from Google. On Jake Moltons e-mail he did not refer to the title of my would be book so I told him a little white lie, I said which book are you referring to as I had sent a few out recently ( I had sent out just Stowaway only to Eve White). He replied that he was referring to Stowaway! I replied and asked him to be honest with me, where did you get the title of my book from as I had not contacted you directly. ( bear in mind my new email address and I had Not contacted him directly I had merely replied to his earlier question).
His reply shocked me and I am still very bothered by it. He said that I had contacted him directly and he had the proof. He then sent me a copy of the on-line submission form that he say’s I filled in on Olympia publishing’s web page.
Copy of e-mail from Olympia publishing:
“Your work was submitted via our online form on March 9th. You gave us your details including your name, email address, and other information such as your address and contact details. You also provided your manuscript and a synopsis and cover letter, as we request on our site. I will forward the automated email I received once your submission was sent online.
You should have received an automated email on March 9th, which may have ended up in your junk folder.
With the greatest respect, in previous instances where an author has not remembered submitting, they had simply forgotten they had submitted to us. Most came back after locating the automated email from us. To be frank, I don’t really see how any company would benefit from sharing your work with us, so I don’t believe this is very likely”.
I did not receive an automated e-mail from them, the first e-mail from them was on 1/4/2020, I submitted my manuscript to Eve White on 9/3/2020.
All of my details including full address mobile number e-mail address etc are on the copy of the form he has sent me plus he has my manuscript. Let me reiterate, I did not contact them directly, they contacted me! Nowhere in my new e-mail account or in any of my other e-mail accounts can I find that I have contacted them first! I had never even heard of Olympia publishing up to then and I most certainly would not have contacted a publisher first I would have gone through a Literary agent.
To top it off, Olympia publishing don’t have a particularly good name, they want your money and make promises they don’t keep, before contacting them I would have researched them!
Check this link out; https://writersdisease.net/2015/09/16/olympia-publishers-and-the-art-of-the-soft-scam/
The only conclusions I can draw from this are; either someone at Eve White has given or sold all of my details and my manuscript to Olympia or the link I clicked on Eve White’s page went directly to Olympia publishing as it had been hacked!
This was my very first submission and this experience has spoiled it for me. I have wrote a series of five manuscripts about Dragons a very lengthy book about a romantic (romantic maybe not the correct choice of word I used as it reads a bit like 50 Shades of Gray!) antique dealer and this last one which I submitted to Eve White is about a young man who saves the lives of three children from a sinking ship. I am at present part way through another about a time travelling science professor from Manchester.
But and it’s a very big but this has put me off getting any of my books (would be book’s) published! I don’t have the funds to either use a publisher directly or to self publish, hence using a literary agent.
I have not been able to write anything since this happened.
Can I please have your thoughts on this?
Who do I contact about this?
Joe.
PS.
I hope you are all keeping well at this difficult time.