After
last month's delay to the closing date, the final deadline for firstwriter.com's
Fifth International Poetry Competition is fast
approaching. The last entries will be accepted on November 1, 2006, and there
will be no further extensions! If
you haven't yet entered your poems for your chance to win £500
(that's nearly $1,000) you can enter online now in seconds
by going to
https://www.firstwriter.com/competitions/poetry_competition.shtml.
As well as the £500 first prize
there are prizes of $150 for the best US runner-up, and £100
for the best runner-up from the UK. All winners and
ten special commendations will also receive firstwriter.com
vouchers worth $30 / £20, which can be used to take out an
annual subscription to firstwriter.com for free, giving full access to
our database of over 650 literary
agencies, over 650 magazines,
over 600 publishers,
and over 200 constantly-changing competitions (you can start
enjoying all these benefits now by clicking
here).
For as long as there have been writers eager to get published, there have
been con artists ready to prey upon them for a quick buck. Nowadays, the
internet is rife with phony literary
agencies offering writers false hope in return for a small (or not-so-small) sum
of money. In this article I'll look at some of the ways you can spot a dodgy
agency, and avoid your time,
money, and aspirations being abused. While none of the points below guarantee by
themselves that an agency is dubious, together they can make a compelling case,
and they should all make you tread a little more cautiously.
Fees
The first thing to look out for is up-front fees. Most agents work on a
commission basis: once they have sold your book they will take a percentage of
the proceeds. That means they don't get anything unless they make a success of
your book. If you're being asked to pay money before publication, then slow down
and take stock. The fees you can be asked for can take a number of forms:
1)
Reading Fees: Traditionally, some agents have charged reading fees.
This was based on the perfectly reasonable notion that if an agent was to expend
a lot of their valuable time reading your manuscript then they ought to get paid for it (after all, lawyers
get paid for their time, don't they?). The only problem was that con artists
quickly cottoned onto this as a way to make a fast buck. They didn't bother reading the manuscripts and they
never accepted any – they just charged a "reading fee" for sending out
rejection letters. Because of this, the industry associations for literary agencies (the AAR in the United
States and the
AAA in the United Kingdom) require in their codes of ethics that no reading fee
is charged.
There are respectable agents who charge reading fees (sometimes as a way of
discouraging
unwanted submissions) but you should always proceed with extreme caution when
approaching any
agent who charges reading fees.
2)
Fees for
representation: In an effort to try and evade the
stigma of reading fees, some scams will proudly
pronounce that they don't charge them – but when the
contract comes through you find you're asked to pay a
fee for your representation. Unlike the previous scams,
these ones do accept manuscripts – in fact
they accept
everything. The results for the writer are even worse: the prices are
usually higher, and you will have to sign a contract
that will tie up your book with an agent who will do
nothing to sell it.
3)
Contributions towards postal/admin costs: This is the really tricky one, as
lots of
perfectly reputable agents will ask for authors to cover some costs, such as
photocopying and posting of manuscripts. Unfortunately, it can also be used by scams to milk
authors for small
amounts of money over a long period of time, asking for contributions towards
costs of
manuscripts that they never actually send anywhere. It's very hard to pick this
one out in
advance (other than by using some of the other tips below), but if you're in a
situation where
you're paying an agent to send out submissions you should ensure that you're
receiving a
regular, detailed report of who they are being sent to. If it doesn't seem to be
getting
anywhere, follow up these reports and make sure that the people listed really
have received
your manuscript (and that the people even exist – which is not always the
case!).
4)
Editorial services: This is the latest trick from scam agencies that want to
appear
reputable. They don't charge any fees themselves, but tell you that your work
will be accepted as long as you pay to have it edited – then refer you to a specific editor
who is, of
course, working in partnership with the "agency" and shares the proceeds with
them. It's
perfectly reasonable for an agency to ask you to get your work edited if they
feel it needs
it, but if they try and force you to use a specific editor then be wary. Even be
cautious if they offer you a range of editors to choose from – they may
all be in cahoots with the "agent", or they may even be the same person
operating under different aliases. See how your potential agent reacts if
you find and suggest an editor yourself. They may insist you use an editor
they suggest because they know and trust them – and this again my be entirely genuine – but you should
definitely proceed with caution.
If you're searching for agents on
firstwriter.com you can tick the "No Fees"
box, and this
will remove all the agents known to charge up-front fees from your results. If
you are ever
asked for money from an agent not listed as a fee-charger, please let us know
immediately so
we can update the listing accordingly.
Agent's focus
You can tell a lot about an agency's intent by what their focus is. A genuine
agency will be
focused on its current list of clients and their books (that's how they make
their money)
– submissions from wannabe writers will usually be an unwelcome
distraction. Scam
agencies, however, will be focused on unpublished authors and receiving
submissions.
1)
Advertising for submissions: If an agency is actively advertising for
submissions (often
they will do this through Google Adwords, which may appear as text ads on Google
itself or
other sites affiliated with Google) then this should ring alarm bells. Author
submissions are
for most agents a nuisance – so why is this agency willing to pay for
advertising in an
effort to receive more? There are some legitimate reasons – if the agency
is new, or
expanding into new areas, then they may wish to advertise for submissions, but
these instances
are few and far between, and usually for limited periods only. The trouble, of
course, is that
such rare legitimate instances offer an unusually rich opportunity for wannabe
writers. To
judge whether such an opportunity could be your big break or break your bank
you'll need to
bear in mind the other tips in this article – but always proceed with
caution.
2)
Agency website: If the agency has a website (and most scams will have) this
can provide
clues about what their real interests are. Any agency will give priority to
whatever makes it
money. In the case of respectable agencies this will be their current clients
and their books.
The website will concentrate on published titles and encouraging you to buy
them, and may have
a section on submission guidelines somewhere down the list. In the case of
scams, however, the
main focus will probably be author submissions. They will spend a lot of time
telling you how
focused they are on authors, and promoting new talent. There may even be a page
of
testimonials from satisfied clients – but a true agency wouldn't really
have any
motivation to include such a page. The only reason for such a page is to try and
ensnare more
authors – it doesn't sell books. Of course, if an agency is just starting
out and
doesn't have a client base then it may also have a website with no books to
promote, and a
concentration on author submissions. Again, you need to weigh this up with the
other factors
outlined in this article.
3)
Agency scope: If you're
searching for agents on
firstwriter.com you'll notice
that under
their name on the results page there is a string of keywords describing the kind
of work they
handle. For most agencies this is two or three lines long, as most agents
restrict their
activities to areas they know and are specialised in. However, sometimes you
will see listings
with what looks like an entire paragraph of keywords. This can often be a bad
sign. While
there are large agencies that have lots of agents covering a very broad scope,
the hungry
scammer who wants to lure as many authors as possible will often say they are
willing to
consider absolutely anything.
User feedback comments
The user feedback feature in firstwriter.com's database of literary agents can
be a great way
of picking out bad agents, but it's not as simple as just weighing up the number
of positive comments versus the number of negative ones. Sometimes bad agencies will have
more positive
comments than negative ones, but it's the kind of positive comments that
can give these agencies away, or at least arouse your suspicions. Here's how to get the most
out of the
feedback that's left:
1)
Read all the comments: Don't just take the number of positive or negative
comments as an
assessment of the agency. Often, positive comments can be every bit as damning
as negative
ones. For instance, I once saw a happy client leave a positive comment for an
agency,
reporting how, after paying the agent hundreds of pounds for representation, he
was told he
would never get his book published by a traditional publisher and was therefore
asked to pay
even more money to have it published by a vanity publisher. An absolutely
ludicrous situation,
but one which he was apparently pleased with. Anyone who read the comment,
however, would have
known to run a mile.
2)
Read between the lines: Scam agents will sometimes have lots of positive
feedback from
writers who are delighted with them simply because they have accepted their
manuscript. If you
see a listing with an unusually high number of writers reporting acceptance then
be cautious.
Why is this agency accepting so many people? Even if they're not a scam, it
suggests their
standards aren't very high. Will they really be able to represent your work
properly and give
it the attention it deserves if they have so many other new authors on their
books? Check the
dates of the comments and think about the frequency of them, bearing in mind
that only a
minority of people will probably take the time to leave feedback at all.
Finally, remember
that it's in the interests of scammers to respond quickly and be courteous and
accommodating
towards writers. They want your money, after all.
3)
Negative comments count double!: As we've seen above, there can be a number
of reasons for
not taking positive comments at face value, but negative comments are often more
straightforward. If you see an agency with 20+ positive comments from writers
who have been
accepted, and one negative comment from someone saying the agency charges fees
and is
disreputable, then the negative comment is the one to concentrate on. The
positive comments
are still giving you important information, but they're actually backing up the
negative one,
not contradicting it.
The more they want you, the less you should want them... The frustrating general rule which emerges from all this is that the more
interested an agency
seems to be in new authors, the more cautious you should be. A new author is a
huge risk for a
literary agency, so why would anyone want to seek them out or specialise in
them? If an agency
looks like it's trying to sell itself to new writers, beware. New writers
looking for an agent
often make the mistake of seeking out those most eager to receive submissions,
and most open
to unsolicited MSS and approaches by email, when in fact you are probably safer
submitting to
the curmudgeonly old dinosaur of an agent, who might begrudgingly accept a hard
copy synopsis
before scrawling "not for me" on it six months down the line. Golden
opportunities do
sometimes emerge, and you certainly shouldn't ignore them, but bear in mind the
warning signs
above when considering whether or not to approach them. All too often, the old adage
sticks:
if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Next month I'll continue this article from the opposite perspective, outlining
good practices
for seeking out respectable agents (click
here).
fwn
uses English spelling conventions.
Spellings such as "realise"
"colour", "theatre",
"cancelled", etc.
differ from other spelling conventions
but are nonetheless correct.
News:
New e-publisher seeks fiction submissions StarDust Press is a new, royalty-paying e-publisher actively seeking fiction submissions in all genres, from both published and
unpublished authors.
Magazine seeks fiction submissions Illiterate Magazine, an arts and literature magazine at The University of Colorado at Boulder, is now accepting fiction submissions for its fourth issue.
Submissions may be in any genre and can be up to 2,000 words long. Submissions are accepted by email only and there is no cost to submit.
"Empty nest" experiences test the elasticity of both heart and home. True stories or anecdotes are sought that explore your losses and discoveries, and the hope and humour that helped you survive it all.
For each original story published, a 50-word biography will be included about the author and a permission fee of $200 will be paid.
New
mystery flash fiction feature MysteryAuthors.com has launched a new quarterly flash fiction feature. Writers can submit original flash fiction between 100 and 1,500 words in the mystery genre. The theme for the December issue is "a mysterious holiday", and the deadline is November 15.
Submissions are accepted by email only, with no attachments. For
guidelines, click
here
Collaborative book-writing project bookhitch.com is launching a collaborative book-writing project. Anyone can write the next chapter in an effort to raise money for non-profit organisations.
The first chapter has been written and will go live at the end of the month. Visitors to the site read each chapter and submit their version of the next chapter, then vote which chapter comes next. The book will be brought to market with each author's name next to their chapter.
WriterOnLine is an e-publication dedicated to writers and lovers of writing.
Fiction, poetry, business and technical writing, how-tos, articles, reviews,
freelance markets, jobs for writers and much more, published bi-weekly.
Completely
renewed! Visit us at www.writer-on-line.com
