Wow. His whole agency (C.Y.L.E) is sketchy. I checked PM and all his junior agents sold to the same (digital) publishing house (INtense), which may even be a side project of his.

This guy just wants everything to be as easy for him as possible. In part, it's an agent's job to give their authors a following. Building it on Twitter, FB, or through a blog takes an immense amount of time and it's very difficult to gain traction. Gaining thousands of followers on Twitter takes relentless tweets and retweets and most people don't have the time to do that and write.

Having a major publishing deal accelerates the process immensely. That's why people want an agent and a publishing deal because otherwise they're spinning their wheels trying to get people to read their books and blogs. But he wants authors to do all the heavy lifting ahead of time.

He comes across as a bit of a used car salesman/multi-level marketing type with dashes of con artist thrown in. I don't want to totally disparage the guy; maybe he's totally on the level once you get past his requirements, but I still get warning signals from his videos.

To submit, you must watch 3 indulgent, arrogant videos on his website to get a secret code. Even then, he's looking more at social media following than anything else. Not going to bother with him. The videos alone are exhausting to sit through.

Thank you for the clarification. We had a chance to dive in. We love the
descriptions, but are having a harder time connecting with the voice.
Unfortunately, since we don't take on as much fiction, we're not the
best fit. But thank you so much for thinking of us.

Sincerely,
The CYLE Team

Beware of this agent:

https://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?337606-C-Y-L-E-(Cyle-Young-Literary-Elites)

I'm trying to submit to this agent, but the second of the three videos he wants me to watch isn't loading correctly. Based on the comments below about platform, it looks like he might not be a good fit for me anyway.

I queried Cyle last year with all 3 mss before he was listed here on Querytracker. Here are my stats for them:

EQ 2/19/18 (Venom)--same day rejection (Passed--mentioned I need to edit it more and work on show vs tell)

EQ 8/28/18 (Requery Venom)
ER 9/28/18 (Passed--not a good fit)

EQ 3/26/18 (Chain Reaction)
ER 4/29/18 (Platform rejection--need 10K followers.) I might requery him this summer since I've hit 10K followers in a year.

EQ 9/28/18 (Diplomatic Immunity)
ER 3/24/19 (Passed--same platform rejection.)

Wow I wish I read the comments before I submitted a query. If I get a response asking about social media I think I will just be honest and tell him that I have none. Submitted on 4/10/2019. Can't take it back I guess. Will update this when I get a response.

Genre: Dark Fantasy(I'm just going to put this because there is lots of death)
Word Count: 66,000

Was planning to query him, but based on the comments below, I've taken him off of my list. Really weird that he's so into social media numbers for genres like YA Fantasy.

EQ.
This agent does not want just established authors because I am an established author and all what he did was asking for more information of Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. It seems a little bit gross. He just want "media authors", not established authors.
Something I hated is the fact that in his email, he was just asking me for media. He never said anything about the book; good or bad. :(

It's fiction, it was YA fantasy. It's ridiculous that he wants a huge following if you've written fiction. He just wants authors that are already established it seems.

@slbynum3
Are you submitting nonfiction or fiction?

UPDATE: I was rejected 8/26/18, and he says I can resubmit once I 'have increased followers on social media'. I have 1200 followers on twitter. So like SpinyFirx said, querying him is a waste of time unless you're already famous. I surely won't be querying this agency again.

May work for you . . . but take note before you waste time watching his super-secret videos: this agent ONLY wants people who are ALREADY movers and shakers on (read: obsessed with) social media, as in having hundreds, thousands of blog-subscribers or Twitter followers. Never mind that a first-time author who spends all their time on social media probably won't be able to write anything worth reading . . .

And if somebody already had that kind of following, why would they even need an agent?

EQ: 8/6/18
ER: 8/13/18

84K Adult SF

Thank you for your submission. I must pass at this time. I will add you to the agency email list to provide you with information and resources for your writing journey.