Koi Wonder
The Koi Wonder		   WRITER BEWARE

Warnings About Literary Fraud and Other Schemes, Scams, and Pitfalls That Target Writers
Alerts for Writers
 Case
Studies 		Contests and Anthologies Copyright Electronic publishing Independent Editors Print on Demand Vanity Publishers Writers' Services

There are many views on the question of whether or not a writer needs an agent to make a first sale. Some people think a new writer's energy is best spent on submitting directly to publishers. Others feel that, with more and more publishers closing their doors to unagented submissions, a new writer stands a better chance if she seeks an agent first. (For the record, I think that if you want to sell a book to one of the large publishing houses, an agent is essential. Here's why.)

But there's no disagreement on the fact that after that first sale is made, a good agent is a tremendous boon to a writer's career. Agents have industry contacts and inside knowledge that most writers don't possess. They keep current with editors' tastes and needs, know what new imprints are starting up and which ones are downsizing, stay abreast of changing corporate policies, keep track of who's newly hired and who just got fired. They negotiate advances and publishing contracts to their clients' advantage, and are experienced in marketing subsidiary rights. Just as important, agents serve as writers' advocates in the increasingly complex and competitive world of publishing.

There are many successful literary agents who provide excellent representation to their clients. Unfortunately, there are also many dishonest and incompetent ones, who relieve writers of money and waste their time--and sometimes damage their careers by squandering submission opportunities or brokering contracts with bad publishers. A few decades ago, such agents weren't terribly common. These days, due to changes in the publishing industry that have made agents the principal gatekeepers of the publishing world, they are legion.

Dishonest Agents

Dishonest agents prey on writers by charging fees, promoting their own paid services, engaging in kickback referral schemes, and misrepresenting their knowledge and expertise. These agents don't earn their income by selling manuscripts to publishers, but by extracting money from their clients.

Dishonest agents may "represent" hundreds of writers, turning them over twice a year with a six-month contract that requires $250 or more in upfront fees. They may be fronts for editing services, recommending editing to every writer who queries, and charging thousands of dollars for critiques performed by unqualified minimum-wage employees. They may own vanity publishers, into which clients are funneled once they've racked up enough rejections to become desperate.

Some examples of dishonest agenting practice, drawn from Writer Beware's files:
  • Requiring a reading fee with a submission. In the past, some reputable agents did charge reading fees--but this practice has been so extensively abused that professional agents' trade groups prohibit it for members.

  • Requiring a "marketing" or "submission" fee on contract signing. This is frequently just a sneaky way to get around the stigma of a reading fee.

  • Requiring an evaluation fee with submission, with the promise of a detailed critique. Also easy to abuse, and also prohibited by agents' trade groups. The critiques are often little more than form letters full of generic how-to advice. Fee-chargers concerned to present a more legitimate front may make the fee optional for writers who are willing to skip the critique--but don't be fooled. Reputable agents don't sell critiques, even on an optional basis.

  • Offering writers a choice of providing a large number of manuscript copies at their own expense, or paying an upfront "marketing" fee. The idea here is to dodge the appearance of fee-charging by giving writers an option. The agent knows, however, that copying is so expensive that the fee will look like a bargain. 

  • Running a contest that's a scheme for funneling writers into a fee-charging agency or an editing service.

  • Selling "adjunct" services--website design, slots in a catalog supposedly brought to major book fairs, pre-publication publicity (you don't need publicity until you have a published book to publicize), book cover mockups (publishers create their own book covers), illustrations for children's books (publishers prefer to match writers and illustrators themselves).The more money an agent makes this way, the less important it becomes for him or her to earn a commission by selling your book.

  • Frequent referrals to a freelance editor or editorial service. A kickback scheme may be involved, with the agent getting a percentage of what you pay the editor.

  • Offering or requiring the agent's own paid editing services. This is a conflict of interest. If the agent can make money by recommending editing, how can you trust that the recommendation is in your best interest? Some agencies are no more than fronts for editing schemes.

  • Offering pay-to-publish contracts. Good agents only deal with publishers that pay you. Again, kickbacks may be involved, or the agent himself may own the publisher (sometimes under another name, to disguise the connection).
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Amateur, Marginal, and Incompetent Agents

There are no licensing requirements or competency standards for literary agents. Anyone who feels like it can set themselves up as an agent, whether or not they're qualified  to do so. The result is a large number of amateur, incompetent, and marginal agents.

Amateur agents are often motivated by odd and unrealistic assumptions, such as the notion that publishing is lucrative or that agenting is an easy home business. Some believe they can transfer skills from a career in advertising, sales, or academia. Many are frustrated writers who think they can do a better job than all the heartless people who sent them form rejection letters.

But agenting is not an entry-level position. You can't just grow into the job with a bit of effort and a great attitude. Nor are skills acquired in other professions necessarily helpful--agenting does involve selling, for instance, but it's a very different sort of selling, and done in a very different context, from corporate or commercial sales. To become a successful agent, you need a range of highly specialized expertise, such as an understanding of publishing contract terms and a knowledge of the issues associated with selling subsidiary rights, as well as contacts within the publishing industry (publishing is still very much a back-room, schmooze-over-lunch business). Both are best acquired by actually working in publishing or for a reputable literary agency. People who come to agenting without this kind of background are at a significant disadvantage.

Amateur agents may be genuinely well-intentioned. Many make a good-faith effort to place their clients' work. However, their low skill level makes it unlikely that they'll sell anything--or if they do, that they'll ever manage to move beyond marginal status. Their poor sales records are a major incentive to charge fees in order to keep their businesses afloat, and they may have peculiar business practices (for instance, Writer Beware knows of one marginal agent who requires his clients to critique each other's manuscripts; another uses her clients' own query letters). They're also likely to place their clients with questionable publishers--not just because they don't know better, but because these are often the only publishers that are willing to deal with incompetent agents.

Given commercial publishers' increasing refusal to consider unagented manuscripts, many writers feel it's OK to settle for a marginal or amateur agent, on the theory that any agent is better than none. This is a mistake. Editors and their assistants are well aware of how many bad agents there are; it's one reason they prefer to work with agents they know, either personally or by reputation. The word "Agent" on a letterhead guarantees no special attention if the editor doesn't recognize the agent's name. Many editors give unknown agents only slightly more priority than unagented authors.

Also, amateur and incompetent agents often aren't able to screen out substandard work, or don't adequately research the editors to whom they submit, or use obviously unprofessional approaches (form letters, bundled queries, shotgun submissions--see below). Editors remember agents who behave unprofessionally or who send them bad material. At best, these agents' submissions will be treated as slush. At worst, they will be ignored.


Ten Percent of Nothing: The Case of the Literary Agent From Hell

Professor Jim Fisher's expose of Dorothy Deering of the Deering Literary Agency/Sovereign Publications, whose long-running literary con game defrauded hundreds of writers of millions of dollars. An engrossing study of a classic scam, this book is also an excellent examination of how writers become caught up in such schemes. It's a valuable warning for new writers, and highly recommended by Writer Beware. 		Ten Percent of Nothing

Telling Questionable From Reputable

Overwhelmed? I don't blame you. But in reality, it's quite easy to tell a good agent from a bad one. The tips below will help. Also see my post on this subject from Writer Beware's blog: It's NOT a Jungle Out There.

Note that standard agenting practice is pretty much the same from country to country, genre to genre, and industry to industry--so these basic rules apply no matter where you're from or what sort of books you write.

An agent should have a verifiable track record of commercial book sales, and be willing to disclose it.

A robust history of selling books to commercial (advance-paying) publishers is the single best indication of an agent's effectiveness and expertise. You want an agent who is selling regularly to a variety of commercial publishers (a reasonable minimum standard is the Association of Authors' Representatives' requirement for new members--at least 10 sales within the past 18 months), and who has experience selling books in your subject or genre.

You may have heard that "you can't get published without an agent, and you can't get an agent unless you've been published." The first, sadly, is increasingly true, but the second is a myth--and a pernicious one, because it pushes many writers into the arms of dishonest and incompetent agents. Previous publication credits will certainly make you stand out in the slush pile, but they're not a requirement for finding a good agent. No successful agent will refuse to consider a promising manuscript just because its author hasn't published before.

Agencies' policies on track record disclosure vary. Some agents won't reveal books that are under contract but not yet released, and many won't provide complete client lists. And few agents will disclose client contact information, so it's probably not worthwhile to ask for references. But at a minimum, any reputable agent should be willing to give you a list of recently-published books that she has sold. If she has a website, look for the information there.

If an agent refuses to answer questions about sales, or tells you that sales information is confidential, be wary. She may be trying to hide the fact that the agency has a poor success rate, or deals with disreputable publishers. Be sure also to check that sales are legitimate. Many questionable agents lie about their track records, claiming sales they haven't made or citing nonexistent authors and titles. Alternatively, the titles may be genuine, but the books may have been placed with bad publishers. The growth of the Internet has fueled a vast proliferation of such publishers--a windfall for marginal and dishonest agents, who now can easily acquire a legitimate-sounding "track record".

If an agent is new, he should have a prior professional background in agenting or publishing.

The one circumstance in which it's OK for an agent not to have a track record is if he's just starting out. A new agent who is actively building a client list can be a good prospect for a new writer.

However, not all new agents are created equal. In order to target manuscripts appropriately and get attention from editors--not to mention, identify salable properties and effectively negotiate contracts--an agent needs personal contacts and an inside knowledge of the publishing industry. Someone coming to agenting from a non-publishing-related field is unlikely to have either, and may take a very long time to get up to speed--if indeed they ever do.

For a stronger discussion of this very important issue, see the section on amateur and incompetent agents above, as well as this post from Writer Beware's blog on why new agents need relevant professional experience.

Be sure also that an agent who claims to be new really is new. Some questionable agencies try to excuse a wretched track record by saying they're new, when in fact they've been in business for years. One agency we're tracking changes its name every couple of years so it can pretend to be "new." As a general rule of thumb, a new agent should begin making regular sales to a variety of publishers within a year or so of starting up.

It's advantageous for an agent to maintain membership in the Association of Authors' Representatives (USA), the Association of Authors' Agents (UK), or the Australian Literary Agents' Association.

These professional trade organizations require members to adhere to codes of ethics that help to ensure fair practice. Just as important, members must demonstrate professional competence before they're allowed to join.

Non-membership is by no means an indication that an agent is questionable. Some successful agents choose not to join trade groups, or haven't been in operation long enough to qualify. Membership is also not an infallible guarantee of quality--Writer Beware has received serious complaints about a few AAR members. Nor is any particular AAR, AAA, or ALAA member necessarily the right agent for you--a very different, but equally important, question from whether or not the agent is reputable. But you're certainly safest if you give AAR, AAA, or ALAA member agents priority on your query list.

To make themselves look more professional, some questionable agents cite membership in other groups, such as the Publishers' Marketing Association, the Better Business Bureau, or local writers' clubs. None of these are relevant to agenting, and say nothing whatsoever about an agent's success (or honesty). There's more information on irrelevant memberships at Writer Beware's blog.

A note about the WGA: for film agents, membership in the WGA is important, not just because WGA signatories agree to ethical practice, but because studios and production companies prefer to deal with them. However, WGA signatory rules don't protect book authors. WGA members aren't allowed to charge reading or editing fees for scripts, but they can charge them for other kinds of literary properties. Also, WGA signatories don't have to prove professional competence.

An agent should not charge an upfront fee.

An agent's income should derive from commissions on sales, and from no other source. Fee-charging violates the basic premise of the author-agent relationship: a shared financial interest in the sale of the author's manuscript. An agent who makes money only when the author does is highly motivated not just to sell the author's work, but to find the most lucrative possible deal. An agent who makes money before a sale has already realized a profit, diminishing the incentive to submit to legitimate publishers.

Writer Beware defines a fee as any charge that is a requirement for representation, and must be paid by every client, no matter what the circumstance (for instance, $250 due on contract signing, or $75 billed every month, or $30 charged per submission). Such fees include not just the familiar reading and evaluation fee, but the increasingly common marketing or submission fee, which supposedly represents an "advance" on the expenses the agent will incur in circulating your work, but in fact is often just a reading fee by a different name.

It isn't only your wallet that's at risk. There's an overwhelming correlation between fee-charging and a lousy track record of sales. Writer Beware has collected documentation on more than 400 agents who charge fees or engage in the abuses identified on this page, and of these, only a handful have anything approaching a genuine track record. Not all fee-charging, non-selling agents are dishonest--many are just inept, unable to keep their businesses going without charging fees. But for the writer, the end result is the same: no sale.

Note that most successful agents do expect their clients to bear some of the cost of submission--usually, expenses the agent wouldn't otherwise incur, such as photocopying, postage, long-distance phone calls, courier fees, and the like. Standard practice, however, is to allow these expenses to accrue and then deduct them from the author's income, or, less typically (and less desirably), to bill them after they are incurred.

For more on the kinds of fees you may encounter and the rationales that go with them, see Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Fees, below.

For book agents, commissions should not be more than 10-15% for domestic sales and 20-25% for co-agented or foreign sales, nor should an agent propose a remuneration agreement other than a straight commission on earnings.

Some agents--mostly questionable, but regrettably, a few legitimate ones as well--justify domestic commissions (commissions on sales made in the agent's home country) of 18% or 20% by claiming that it's more costly to represent new writers. That may be so, but do you really want an agent who penalizes you for being new? As always, track record is the bottom line--a successful agent is worth considering even if she charges a 20% domestic commission--but keep in mind that 10-15% is the prevailing standard, with 15% being the most common.

Another justification for a higher commission is a claim to provide additional career management services, or that the higher percentage covers the costs of submission, thus avoiding reimbursements. But if you want career management, you're probably better off with a reputable publicist (and wouldn't you rather your agent concentrated on selling your book?). And while an extra 3% or 5% of a low advance might accurately reflect submission expense, when you get into higher numbers you're talking way more than it could possibly cost to market a manuscript.

Conversely, you may run across a book agent who charges a lower-than-standard commission--in the UK or Australia, less than 10%, and in the USA, less than 15%. Sometimes this is a sign of inexperience, but often the lower commission rate is being offered to sweeten the impact of an upfront fee. There's more on "bargain" agents at Writer Beware's blog.

For script agents, commissions should not be more than 10%.

The WGA's Minimum Basic Agreement (a collective bargaining agreement that sets the terms under which WGA writers work with studios, agencies, and others) requires that agents charge a commission of not more than 10%. There's nothing to compel agents to comply with the MBA--but major studios don't generally deal with agents who don't.

An agent shouldn't refer you to an outside service for which you have to pay.

A kickback arrangement may be the incentive for such referrals. If an agent tells you your manuscript needs work and then recommends a specific editing service, the editing service may have promised to give the agent a percentage of whatever you wind up paying. The same goes for vanity publishers and fee-based print-on-demand self-publishing services, which often provide finder's fees to agents who persuade their clients to accept pay-to-publish contracts.

It's also possible that the agent may own the editing service or publisher, running it under under another name or at another address in order to conceal the connection. Some agencies are no more than fronts for editing or vanity publishing businesses.

Note that there are times when a reputable agent may suggest a writer hire an independent editor--for instance, for a salable project that needs developmental work that the author, in the agent's judgment, can't provide. Such recommendations are perfectly legitimate (though a writer should do some careful thinking before deciding to go this often very expensive route). But questionable editing schemes are common, and receiving an editing referral should always make you wary.

For more on the pros and cons of independent editing, see the Independent Editors page.

An agent shouldn't double as a paid editor, or as a publisher.

These are conflicts of interest. If an agent can make money from editing your manuscript, how can you be sure that a recommendation to edit is in your best interest? If an agent can profit from publishing your book himself, where's the incentive to offer your manuscript to advance-paying publishers?

Many agents do work with clients to edit and polish their manuscripts for submission. But they don't charge for this. It's part of the service covered by their commission.

An agent should not solicit you.

Sometimes a reputable agent will contact a writer whose work s/he's seen and liked. But this not common, and where it does happen, it usually involves published work. Good agents don't need to solicit: they already have more submissions than they can handle. If you subscribe to writers' magazines or register your copyright, you may be a target--fee-charging agents often purchase lists of names and addresses from these sources.

An agent's correspondence and/or website should be free of grammatical errors and typos.

This may sound obvious, but a literary professional should be able to write and spell correctly. It's amazing how many questionable agents produce error-ridden documents and websites.

Be alert for unprofessional practice.

Editors don't want to see author photos, and no matter what you've heard, a novel should not be accompanied by a "marketing plan." Nor should an agent ever use your query letter. If an agent requests any of these things from you, be wary: the agent may not be dishonest, but he probably doesn't know much about publishing.

Other things that turn editors off: form letters or postcards with boxes to check off and send back to indicate interest, "bundled" queries (several queries in the same envelope), "blitz" or shotgun submissions (submissions that have obviously been sent scattershot to a dozen or more publishers simultaneously), inclusion of cover mockups or sample illustrations (children's authors take note). Any of these will immediately identify a submission as coming from an unprofessional source.

Writer Beware's blog provides more detail on unprofessional submission practices.

Be wary of an agent who claims to specialize in new writers.

Such agents are often fee-chargers looking to collect from inexperienced beginners. Successful agents' lists usually contain only a small percentage of new writers.

Be wary of an agent who is looking for poets.

Apart from celebrity projects and writers who are already well-known, successful literary agents rarely represent poets. Even in the best of circumstances, poetry collections are a tough sell, and the poetry market, which is dominated by small presses, simply isn’t lucrative enough to make it worth most agents’ while. Literary agents whose guidelines say they represent poets, or that they're seeking poetry collections, are nearly always either unscrupulous operators looking to charge a fee, or amateurs who know nothing about the realities of the business.

Be wary of an agent who provides extravagant praise or inflated promises, and of her opposite, an agent who paints a dismal picture of your chances of success.

Reputable agents know better than to promise what can't be guaranteed, such as lucrative book contracts, movie deals, bestsellerdom, and the like. On the other hand, a reputable agent isn't going to take you on unless she feels there's a good chance of placing your manuscript. Excessive negativism is often a marginal or incompetent agent's way of rationalizing a poor track record.

Be wary of an agent who says he wants to sell your book idea to Hollywood.

Sales of dramatic rights for unpublished manuscripts are rare. When dramatic rights do sell, it's almost always after the book is published or under contract. The prospect of a Hollywood sale is usually a pipe dream offered to gullible writers by unscrupulous fee-chargers.


Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Fees

If you've queried agents based on the information in various popular market guides, or on information you found online, you may have had the experience of hearing from an agency that describes itself as non-fee-charging, but somehow wants you to give it money anyway. What's the deal? you ask yourself. Could there possibly be situations in which money paid upfront isn't actually a fee?

Writer Beware defines as a fee as any lump sum charge routinely made prior to the sale of a manuscript. No matter what the stated purpose of such a fee, it's not standard industry practice.

So what's going on? How can agents who want upfront money define themselves as non-fee-chargers? What's the big deal about fees, anyway?

Read on.

A Brief History of Fees

Once upon a time, quite a few agents charged reading fees. The rationale behind this was that it takes time to read and evaluate a manuscript, and why should an agent do it for free? This point of view is understandable, but it's not hard to see how it can lead to abuse--agents who invite submissions solely in order to obtain the reading fee. Eventually, abuse became so widespread that most professional agents' associations adopted policies prohibiting their members from charging reading fees.

Some agents, who wanted to profit from reading fees but to dodge the practice's increasingly bad reputation, attempted to sanitize their charges and add the appearance of value by throwing a critique into the mix. Thus evaluation fees were born. The idea was that writers wouldn't receive just a reading, but a written assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of their work and an explanation of why it was rejected. Wow! Who wouldn't want that, even if it cost a bit of money?

The problem was that most of these evaluations weren't especially useful. Often they were produced not by the agent, but by an inexperienced intern or unqualified minimum-wage employee. Typically, they consisted of some vague comments about plot and style, a few remarks about grammar and punctuation, and a hefty load of the sort of basic advice found in how-to-write books. Writer Beware has a file on one agent (now out of business) whose critiques were so generic they could apply to any manuscript--which was no accident, since he sent the same evaluation to everyone who paid his fee.

Still other agents, searching for a stigma-free way to obtain money upfront, came up with the notion of marketing fees. These fees go by many other names--submission, contract, processing, circulation, preparation, administrative, retainer--but basically the idea is the same: the writer is being asked in advance to defray the expense of marketing his or her work to publishers.

Some confusion arises here, because most reputable agents do expect clients to bear at least some of the cost of submission. So how do you tell a legitimate expense charge from a non-legitimate one?

Upfront Marketing Fees and Why You Shouldn't Pay Them

It's typical practice among reputable agents to expect their clients to reimburse some of the expenses related to the marketing of a manuscript--usually, expenses incurred on the client's behalf over and above the ordinary cost of doing business. These might include manuscript photocopying, postage/Fed Ex, long-distance calls to editors, advance reading copies or finished books sent to co-agents. Everything else--travel, legal fees, office supplies, rent, utilities, the editing assistance many agents offer to get manuscripts ready for submission--is absorbed as normal business overhead (in other words, it's covered by the agent's eventual commission). Applicable charges are accrued and reimbursed from the author's advance, or, less typically (and less desirably), billed to the author as they're incurred.

Questionable agents, on the other hand, want expense money immediately. They often expect you to pay not just for the expenses described above, but for every file folder, envelope, and paper clip, or for unnecessary extras such as photos, business cards, marketing plans, and fancy binders. Most commonly, they'll ask for a lump sum on contract signing. Less often, they'll require you to pay a monthly or quarterly fee, or levy a per-submission charge. Some will even charge you by the hour.

Such agents often promise to reimburse you if your book is sold. This may sound appealing, but really it's just a way to sweeten a demand for upfront money--and it's usually a safe promise, since most agents who charge marketing fees have no track records. As with reading fees, some agents who charge marketing fees are con artists, but most are simply inept. Either way, a marketing fee is a warning sign--if not of outright dishonesty, then of an unsuccessful business.

Reading and evaluation fees used to be the commonest form of fee, but these days the marketing fee is the one you're most likely to encounter. It allows questionable agents to present an appearance of legitimacy (since "everyone knows" that agents expect clients to bear some of the cost of submission), and has the added benefit of enabling fee-chargers to use semantic trickery to distract writers from the fact that they're being asked to hand over cash upfront (hey, it's not a fee, it's an advance on expense reimbursement!). Many agents who formerly charged reading or evaluation fees have switched to marketing fees, and among the dozens of new fee-chargers who set themselves up in business every year, the marketing fee is the fee of choice.

Billings and Other Out-of-Pocket Charges

Until just a few years ago, accruing expenses was the prevailing practice among reputable agents. Being asked to pay any out-of-pocket expense prior to a manuscript sale was a major warning sign of a bad agent. But things aren't static in the publishing industry. Practices and parameters are constantly changing. These days, more and more reputable agents are asking authors to provide all full manuscript copies at their own expense, or billing submission costs as they are incurred.

This raises a problem. Given the similarity of these relatively new practices among some reputable agents to the exploitive techniques that questionable agents have been using for years, how can you tell whether or not an agent who wants you to pay out-of-pocket is reputable?

Look for any or all of these warning signs.

No track record. Track record (or, if the agent is new, prior professional agenting or publishing experience) is the acid test for any agent. If the agent who wants you to make your own manuscript copies, or to pay a monthly bill, has a verifiable history of selling books to commercial publishers, she's probably worth your consideration (though remember that many agents still don't expect you to pay out of pocket prior to a sale). If she doesn't have a track record, forget her (and why would you approach an agent without a track record, anyway?).

Asking for an excessive number of manuscript or proposal copies. A reputable agent may ask you to provide two or three or five full manuscript or proposal copies at the outset, or to agree to provide them as needed. Unless the agent is conducting an auction, however, more than this should prompt caution. Agents who ask for 10, 15, or even 30 full copies may be planning a shotgun submission of your unsolicited manuscript to a (possibly ill-targeted) laundry list of publishers. This is totally unprofessional. Tear your money up instead, and throw it out the window--at least you'll be able to see where it goes.

An option to provide copies or pay a fee.  Some questionable agents give clients the option of paying an upfront fee or providing a large number of copies at their own expense. Usually, this is a bait-and-switch tactic: it'd be so expensive to make all those copies that the fee looks like a bargain.

A monthly expense cap. A questionable agent's contract may declare that you'll never be charged more than $50 (or $75, or $100) per month. Odds are the agency will treat this like a blank check, and you'll be charged that amount or close to it every single month. (Note: a monthly expense cap is not the same thing as a general expense cap--an amount above which your permission must be sought for any single expenditure. The latter is a standard part of an author-agent agreement.)

Excessive billings. As noted above, reputable agents charge only for expenses over and above the regular cost of doing business. If an agent tells you it's her policy to bill submission expenses, find out exactly what those expenses will include, or ask for a sample bill so you can see what she considers reimbursible. If she expects you to pay for things like stationary and envelopes, or if she includes items like business cards and photos, be wary.

A per-submission charge. Some questionable agents charge a set amount per submission. Included may be not just materials, but an hourly charge (reputable agents do not bill by the hour). A per-submission fee is a warning sign of an incompetent or dishonest agent.

A promise of a set number of submissions every month, regardless of whether you've heard back from earlier submissions. This is a sign of amateurism. An experienced agent may make several submissions at once, but will wait to hear back from whoever is currently reading before submitting again.

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Additional Cautions

Manuscript display sites

These websites promise to bring you to the attention of literary agents and/or publishers and/or movie producers by displaying a synopsis and a chapter or two of your book or screenplay, sometimes with a biography, photo, or other information. Often a fee is required, and usually your submission will be displayed for a limited time.

The theory is that editors, literary agents, and producers are eager to visit a website where pre-screened work is available for their perusal--thus enabling writers who use display sites to escape the slushpile. However, most reputable editors and agents and producers are overwhelmed with paper submissions, and have no reason to go online to look for more. Worse, a display site is a ready-made recruiting ground for literary sharks. Writer Beware has received many reports from writers who've been approached by questionable agents and publishers as a result of a display site listing.

For a more detailed discussion, see Writers' Services.

Submission services

A submission service promises, for a fee, to approach publishers or agents on your behalf. Some simply send off your query and/or sample material; others offer editorial services to get your submission materials into shape, or will create those materials for you, from query letter to synopsis. Sometimes part of the service offered is the "packaging" of your submission with a picture of you, a bio, a sample marketing plan, and so on (this is why some submission services misleadingly call themselves "book packagers", a term that means something quite different in the real world of publishing).

However, publishers aren't interested in fancy extras, and their inclusion will immediately identify your submission as coming from an unprofessional source. And submission services aren't necessarily run by qualified people, and may not be skilled at writing queries or targeting appropriate editors and publishers. This is especially true of the email query blast services like Bookblaster. And the fees can be huge--$1,000 and up. That's a lot to spend on something you could probably do just as effectively on your own.

For a more detailed discussion, see Writers' Services.

Writers' conferences

A writers' conference can be a great way to network and to learn. However, don't take it on faith that the agents and publishers who attend are reputable. The larger conferences do a pretty good job of making sure they invite only successful agents and editors, but smaller conferences aren't always so careful. Some fraudulent and marginal agents are regulars on the conference circuit.

This is an especial concern with conferences that host pitch sessions. Always research the agents/editors before you sign up for one of these sessions. And think twice--or three times--before signing up for a pitch session that costs you extra. These are not just moneymakers for the conference, but also, sometimes, for the agents and editors, who get a cut (very similar to a reading fee). The AAR prohibits its members from participating in such sessions.

Agents' websites

In the past, reputable agents were slow to go online. That has changed, but there are still successful agencies that don't maintain websites. So the fact that an agency doesn't have a website is not an indication that it isn't reputable. Equally, the fact that an agency maintains a website doesn't mean it's legitimate.

How to tell a reputable agent's website from a questionable one's? Good design is not a clue. Some questionables have exquisitely-designed websites, while some successful agents' sites are ugly and homemade-looking. A domain name also proves nothing. Most (though not all) reputable agents have their own domain names, but so do many questionables. A client list doesn't mean anything either, unless the clients are published.

Look for two things. First, a list of recent sales (including author, title, and publisher, so you can verify that the books exist). Questionable agents don't generally have track records, so their websites won't mention sales at all, or will make vague claims that can't be checked. Second, specific information on the agent's work experience and background. Questionable agents don't usually have relevant background, so their websites will not have a CV, or else will provide only the same vague claims.

There's a more detailed discussion of how to evaluate an agent's website at Writer Beware's blog.

Print market guides

Market guides such as Jeff Herman's Guide to Book Editors, Publishers, and Literary Agents are excellent sources of information. But an agent's inclusion in a market guide isn't a guarantee of reputability. Many guides are compiled by questionnaire, and the information on the questionnaires is cursorily checked, if at all. Questionable agents are often listed in these publications. Don't take a listing at face value; do more research.

Agent listings or databases on the Internet

Many of these are compiled by individuals with little knowledge of publishing, bizarre personal agendas, or something to sell. Or else they're databases where anyone can enter unscreened information. They are likely to include large numbers of questionable agents, to omit large numbers of successful agents, and to be seriously out of date. Bad enough if they're free--even worse if you have to pay a fee for membership. Print guides aren't perfect, but they are a better place to start your research.


Links

In the search for an agent, knowledge is your most useful tool and your best defense. If I could only give one piece of advice to new writers, it would be to EDUCATE YOURSELF! The more you know about the publishing industry, the less likely it is that you'll be taken advantage of. This post from Writer Beware's blog offers some suggestions for learning the ropes.

Below are resources to assist you.

Tools to Help You Evaluate Agents

  • E-mail Writer Beware. SFWA has assembled an archive of documentation on nearly 400 agents who engage in the practices we warn about above. Send us the names of agents you'd like to know about, and we'll summarize for you any data that's in our files. If we have no information on an agent, we'll let you know that too.

  • Agent Research & Evaluation, an agent-tracking service that provides various paid services, also offers a free agent verification feature that allows you to run a search on an agent's name. Search results are standardized and offer no specific detail, but they do let you know whether AR&E has picked up any sales and/or received any complaints.

  • Preditors and Editors provides lists of agents and publishers, with "not recommended" notations to indicate those who charge fees or engage in other writer abuses.

  • Google Groups is a searchable database of Usenet newsgroups, with message archives dating back to 1981. Writers often post agent questions or complaints to Usenet. If you're uncertain about an agent, do a search on his/her name here to see what you find.

  • A great place to ask questions about agents (and publishers) and find comments and warnings: the Bewares and Background Check message board at the Absolute Write Water Cooler, which is moderated by me.

  • Writer Beware's Thumbs Down Agency List: the twenty literary agencies about which Writer Beware has received the greatest number of advisories and complaints over the past several years.

  • Trying to discover whether an agent has a track record can seem like a daunting task, but there are a number of ways to go about it. My article, Researching an Agent's Track Record, suggests a procedure that incorporates a number of the resources listed above--plus some you may not know about.

  • Prof. Jim Fisher, of Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, is an expert on literary fraud who has written a book about one of the more notorious scams, the Deering Literary Agency (see the link at the top of the page). His website offers tips and information on assessing literary agents.

Resources for Agent Hunting

  • My article, The Safest Way to Search for an Agent, recommends a procedure for agent-hunting that's designed to weed incompetent and dishonest agents out of your query list, as well as tips on querying and suggestions on how to use the resources below.

  • The Association of Authors' Representatives (AAR) is open to agents who've been in business for at least two years, and satisfy minimum sales criteria. Its website includes a list of member agents, suggested questions for authors to ask prospective agents, and a Canon of Ethics that excludes reading and evaluation fees, secret profits, and referral fees.

  • The professional association for agents in the UK is the Association of Authors' Agents (AAA). It's open to agents who've been actively representing clients for three years or more, and who satisfy minimum income requirements. Its website includes a list of member agents and its Code of Practice, which excludes reading fees.

  • The Australian Literary Agents' Association was incorporated in 2002. It's open to agents of at least three years' standing who satisfy minimum sales and/or income criteria. Its website includes a list of members and its Code of Practice, which excludes reading and editorial fees.

  • The New Zealand Association of Literary Agents is a trade group established to maintain professional standards and represent the interests of members. Its website includes a list of members.

  • As far as I know, there's no agents' association in Canada. The Writers' Union of Canda or the Canadian Authors Association may be able to help with agent information.

  • Many successful agents are members of Publishers Marketplace, where they post information on their interests, submission requirements, and sales. There's much useful information here, but be careful: there are also a few bad apples.

  • AgentQuery.com is a large, searchable database of agents that provides information on interests, submission requirements, background, and sales. Apart from the websites above, it's the only online agent listing resource that Writer Beware recommends (and check out the great articles, too.)

  • Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror sales announcements compiled from Locus magazine by writer Melinda Goodin--an excellent source of agent information for these genres.

  • For romance writers: recent agented romance sales, compiled by writer Karen Fox.

  • Publisher's Lunch is a daily e-mail newsletter with all the latest news about publishing worldwide, including recent book deals and who agented them. A full subscription costs, but the "lite" version is still free.

  • Publishers Weekly.com covers the international publishing scene, with an emphasis on the US market. (Full content is available only to subscribers, but searches on an agent's name will bring up "teaser" references if PW has reported a sale.)

  • Another good source of US/international publishing news: the online version of Publishing Trends. Its archives contain many informative articles.

  • Publishing News Online provides comprehensive information about the UK publishing market.

  • The Bookseller.com is another excellent source of information on the UK market.

  • Quill & Quire, Canada's magazine of book news and reviews, includes an informative Deals section.

  • Bookseller & Publisher provides info on the Australian publishing market.

General Information on Agents and Agenting

  • A number of established agents blog (usually anonymously), providing a treasure trove of information, right from the source. Some of my favorites:
    Miss Snark (this blog is no longer active, but the archives contain excellent information)
    Jennifer Jackson
    BookEnds, LLC
    Agent Obscura
    Pub Rants
    Lit Agent X
    Dystel and Goderich

  • From AuthorsontheWeb.com--a Literary Agent Roundtable, in which a number of successful agents provide insight into various agenting and publishing issues.

  • Agent Research & Evaluation's News page reprints informative articles on agents and agenting from AR&E's monthly newsletter, Talking Agents. The newsletter is pricey, but provides a wealth of information.

  • Targeting Agents: an informative article on how to target agent queries, by agent Ethan Ellenberg. There's excellent information here on assessing agents' track records.

  • Agent Jessica Faust on Bad Agents: how to recognize marginal and incompetent agents, and why they're as bad for your career as a dishonest agent.

  • Good and Bad Agents: advice in a similar vein from agent Rachel Vater.

  • Articles from the SFWA archives: Hunting for a Literary Agent by Chuck Rothman, and Hunting for an Agent by John E. Stith (includes a sample query letter and synopsis).

  • Agents: comprehensive, common-sense advice from author Laura Resnick about finding and working with (and without) an agent.

  • Questions About Literary Agents: an excellent FAQ from author Holly Lisle. (While you're there, check out the rest of Holly's site--it's chock full of terrific information for writers.)

  • Agents: A Guide by Harold C. Underdown. Geared to children's book authors, but useful for everyone.

  • A useful Agents FAQ from writer Tara K. Harper (there's lots of information at this site, including advice on query letters and contracts).

Author-Agent Agreements

Up Close and Personal -- Writers' Experiences With Questionable Agents

Except for graphics, and where specifically indicated, all Writer Beware contents copyright © 1998-2008 Victoria Strauss

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