Publishing is a weird business, even to someone on the outside like myself. Over the summer, I’ve watched a newish author run afoul of some alleged very bad behavior by a junior agent who should have known better, apparently abetted or condoned by a senior agent who *certainly* should have known better.
In this case, the junior agent went incommunicado with signed authors, ignored deadlines, lost project momentum, and now is leaving agenting for other professions. In the wake of the agent’s departure, the authors finally have their rights returned…but are missing the agent’s submissions logs to publishers.
This is such a big deal it should be bolded: they have no record of which publishers (if any) the agent approached on their behalf. Very few other agents are going to even talk to these authors, until there is a data trail of which submissions went to which publishers, when, and the eventual fate of the submission. It’s not worth the new agents’ effort, before the manuscripts in question gain the literary equivalent of a ‘clear title’.
This is almost the same level of Bad as unagented authors querying manuscripts to publishers at the same time they query agents. (It’s Agent first, Publisher second, unless the author wants to embarrass themselves and their agent by having the agent query a work the publisher already shot down from a direct submission.) But this stunt? It’s worse, because the authors followed rules. They queried, established a rapport with this agency, signed in good faith, and now may see their beloved projects dead to commercial publishing. I hope they get their list soon. I hope nothing else stands in their way to publication, whether commercial or self-publishing.
Authors: do your research. The author I mentioned above had access to information that could have indicated possible problems, and seems to have chosen not to credit it.