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On occasion, Preditors & Editors (P&E) receives complaints from its visitors about some agents having sales not being shown in the P&E listings. Of course, we revisit the agent's site to verify that there are sales at last. After all, this kind of complaint is only registered for those that don't have the magical black dollar sign within their listings. That's the sign P&E used to show that the agency has verified sales. P&E doesn't put that symbol beside a listing name without doing some checking.
So, we revisit the agent's site and what do we find? We find weasel words or weasel phrases. Some agents will note that a particular book is one they represented. Another will point to publishers as those who've worked with their clients and to book titles that they've helped publish. On the surface, these seem to indicate sales, but they're weasel words and phrases. There is only one word that signifies a sale and that is when the agent indicates books sold, the operative word being sold.
So, why are those weasel words? Well, all agents represent books, but not all books get sold. And of those that do, it's not always sold by the agent claiming representation. That's because the author could have sold the book and then asked the agent to represent the manuscript in negotiations. Or the agent could have represented it, then parted ways with the author who then got it sold by another agent or through the author's own efforts.
Likewise, pointing to publishers as businesses that worked with the agent's clients doesn't mean sold. At the very least, it means the publisher received a submission and nothing more. It doesn't mean the agent sold the book, either. It said the publisher worked with the agent's clients, but it doesn't distinguish whether those clients were represented by the agent to any of those publishers. Nor does it indicate whether the publisher bought a manuscript from any of those clients.
And again, claiming to have helped publish a particular book does not mean selling it. That can mean the agent recommended another agent, helped edit the manuscript, or simply mentioned a publisher name that the author should try and guess what? The book sold and the author scored. So, the statement simply doesn't mean that it was sold. It could, but without verification that the agent was actually the one who sold the manuscript, it remains a weasel word phrase.
So, what serves writers best? Do we accept weasel words or do we limit our verification to only those books that agents claim they sold and can be verified as sold by them? We know what some agents would prefer, but we believe writers want the best and most accurate listings in P&E even if it means leaving some agents without verification because they used weasel words.
By the way, P&E doesn't just accept sales information from a decade ago. We look for recent sales. If the agency doesn't have sales within the last year or two, then what good are they? Writers need agents who are selling now, who know the market now, and who aren't resting on their laurels.