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Wednesday, June 30, 2010

WTF Wednesday: Query Pyramid Schemes


Okay, so I'm still in shock about this one. I've gotten the bogus emails from Nigeria before--you know the ones asking you to give them your bank account, so they can make a deposit of oh, 50oK or so, and then you'll magically get 10% of it for simply allowing them to transfer money through them. Actually, I got that one many years ago in snail mail as well.

So this morning through my post haze 3:30 am bedtime after Eclipse's Midnight Showing, I peer down at my iPhone to see the following email:

*I did decide to block out the agents names, this person's email, and phone number*

From: BLANK
To: BLANK
Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 2010 3:18:58 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central
Subject: Query from India

Hi there,


Greetings from India.

A recap, since that is needed, please.

In December, I landed myself three agents from the UK and US for my Indian reincarnation historical novel set in strife-torn, anarchic British Calcutta during 1885-1905.

They were BLANK of the Maggie McKernan Literary Agency in the UK, and Blank of the US.

I chose BLANK as she was absolutely fascinated by the book.

After several revisions, I suddenly got a mail from her day before yesterday saying she was opting out for personal reasons.

I am devastated since we had planned to begin submissions in July.

Over the phone, she told me that she was taking leave from agenting for an indefinite period because of some personal crisis.

She has, however, been kind enough to refer me to some of her colleagues but frankly, that does not excite me.

The novel, which was meant to hit NY next month and is at 98k words after revision, is thus now up again for rep.


Would you care to have a look, please?


BLANK says she has not submitted the MS anywhere.


I am willing, of course, to share all correspondence that I have had with Patty.

Thanks

BLANK


Deputy Editor

New Delhi, India

Ph: and ( Pl feel free to call anytime)*I blocked out their number.

--

WTF?

I mean, I'm not an agent.....I don't even play one on TV, so I'm not sure why this person is emailing me asking for representation. Not to mention, it's not actually SENT to me. WHAT?Plus, I love the line about how they're not too thrilled by being recommended to the agent's other colleagues. Um, why wouldn't you want to do that rather than having to start all over? It reeks of ick as well when showing all correspondance from the other agent. Um, does she know that? If she is an actual agent....I'm still half asleep people so I haven't done all the leg work!

Sighs....so, after getting this, I'm thinking there's enough wtf's to make it a weekly segment. And that is fairly frightening!!




















7 comments:

Kaitlin said...

That so amuses me. I hope it's fake, and not just someone woefully underknowledged about how things work, in which case, I'd feel bad for them!

Anonymous said...

Oh wow!

Now that is weird and totally WTF email!

Katie Ashley said...

I'm srsly hoping it's fake too. The very fact that it's not a YA book also has me wondering why they emailed me. I could understand if they saw my contact info on GotYA or AW or something. But srsly out of the blue like this? It's srsly bizarre!!

And so far one of the UK agents doesn't come up, lol.

Anonymous said...

Oh wow, that's a very, very weird email.

Elissa J. Hoole said...

ha! I'm afraid I may have fun composing an equally weird "form" rejection for an email like that. it would be a procrastination technique...I mean, creative writing exercise, lol.

Unknown said...

dude. creepy. I started getting the Nigeria-type emails at work now, and it just amazes me that THEY ACTUALLY WORK SOMETIMES. (Did you see that Dateline?) Bizarre stuff.

Oh, and there's definitely enough WTF in the world to fill every Wednesday!

Anonymous said...

That is a very bizarre message--why the query, unless your name resembles an agent's? I get strange email sometimes, and I delete it immediately. If a writer is sending me a polite, normal email through my social media sites, I'll respond with an email, a blog comment, a DM, or a tweet, but not for this sort of stuff. I've already had some crazies try to latch onto me through Twitter and FB just because they think I'm better off than them in the writing arena and can help them in some way.