LITERARY AGENTS

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Page updated/links checked: 2/21/25

Introduction
The Scammer: Dishonest Agents
The Schmagent: Amateur, Marginal, and Incompetent Agents
Telling Questionable From Reputable
**A Special Warning: Fake Literary Agency Scams**
Agents Who Are Also Publishers
Additional Cautions
One Last, Very Important Thing
Resources

Introduction

Do you need a literary agent in order to find a publisher?

If you’re planning on submitting to small presses, probably not. Many small presses are willing to work directly with authors–no agent required. (For more information on small presses, see the Small Presses page.)

But if your goal is selling book-length fiction or general nonfiction to a Big 5 publishing house or a larger independent, the answer is yes. Sifting through manuscript submissions was once the job of editors, but for several decades now it has been literary agents who are the first line of gatekeeping for much of the traditional publishing industry. Many large publishers’ imprints are entirely closed to unagented work, and those that do accept unagented submissions may give them extremely low priority.

Additionally, an agent’s job goes far beyond the sale of manuscripts. Agents negotiate advances and publishing contracts to their clients’ advantage, and are experienced in marketing subsidiary rights, such as translation and film rights. They handle clients’ writing income and make sure that publishers’ payment and reporting is on track. They keep current with editors’ tastes and needs, know when new imprints are starting up and when established ones are downsizing, stay abreast of changing corporate policies, keep track of who’s newly hired and who just got fired or laid off. Just as important, agents serve as writers’ advocates in the complex and competitive world of publishing.

There are many successful literary agents who provide excellent service to their clients. Unfortunately, there are also many dishonest or incompetent agents who relieve writers of money, waste their time, and can damage their careers.

This page is mostly devoted to information and warnings about the latter. But to recognize bad practice you need to be familiar with good practice–so what follows includes plenty of information about the good guys as well.

The Scammer: Dishonest Literary Agents

Dishonest agents prey on writers by charging upfront fees, promoting their own paid services, engaging in kickback schemes, shilling for vanity publishers, and running agencies that are merely fronts for paid services or more serious fraud, such as fake publishing contract offers requiring upfront payment. These agents’ income doesn’t derive from selling manuscripts to publishers, but from extracting money from writers.

Examples of dishonest agenting practice, drawn from Writer Beware’s files:

  • Requiring a reading fee with a submission. In the distant past, some reputable agents did charge reading fees–but this practice was  so extensively abused that most professional agents’ trade groups prohibit it for members. (For more on reading fees and their abuse, see The Case Against Reading Fees, from Writer Beware’s blog.) Reading fees are uncommon these days, but if you encounter an agent who requires them, it’s a warning sign.
  • Requiring an upfront “marketing” or “submission” or other fee on contract signing. Reputable agents do expect writers to reimburse some of the expense of submitting manuscripts, but they bill these after they’re incurred, or deduct them from authors’ income. They don’t charge them upfront.
  • Requiring potential clients to buy a critique or manuscript assessment. Reputable agents don’t make the purchase of services a condition of representation.
  • Editing bait-and-switch. You query the agent for representation, but instead they offer to edit your book for a fee, or refer you to a self-owned editing service. Again, a conflict of interest (and, if they don’t disclose their ownership of the service, dishonest). Some self-styled agencies are actually editing schemes in disguise.
  • Placing clients with fee-charging publishers. A kickback may be involved–some fee-based publishers pay finders’ fees–or the agent may have a financial interest in the publisher. Good agents only deal with publishers that pay their writers.
  • Posing as an agency in order to sell services. Fake agents solicit authors with offers of representation or “endorsement” to publishers…but in order for that to happen, authors must buy a publishing package, or a video trailer, or some other expensive product. Such agents are really just fronts for selling services of little or no value, and authors who buy into their schemes are often targeted for more serious fraud. (For more on fake agencies, see A Special Warning, below.)

The Schmagent: Amateur, Marginal, and Incompetent Literary Agents

There are no licensing requirements or competency standards for literary agents. Anyone who feels like it can set up an agency, whether or not they’re qualified to represent manuscripts to publishers. And many do.

Amateur and unqualified agents (or schmagents, as they’re known in the writing community) are often motivated by odd and unrealistic assumptions, such as the notion that agenting is an easy home business or a way to get rich. 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 ignored their submissions or sent them form rejections. Some simply love books and authors, and want to be part of that world.

But agenting is not an entry-level position. It requires a range of specialized expertise–such as the ability to judge marketable manuscripts (not as easy as you might think) and a knowledge of publishing contract terminology (much of which is unlike other contract terminology)–as well as contacts within the publishing industry (publishing is still very much a business of personal connections). 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.

Agents are most likely to become successful if they’ve actually worked in publishing, or trained at a reputable literary agency. People who come to agenting without that kind of professional background are at a significant disadvantage. (For more on this very important issue, see my article on the value of experience.)

Many schmagents are well-intentioned, and make good-faith efforts to place their clients’ work. However, their low level of competence means there are steep odds against them ever selling anything–or if they do, ever managing to move beyond marginal status. Unskilled agents may have peculiar or nonstandard business practices (for instance, using clients’ own query letters), and are more likely to place their clients with questionable publishers or publishers with poor contracts and business practices. A poor sales record can also be an incentive to charge fees or sell services in order to keep the business afloat.

A growing number of marginal agents specialize in placing books with non-advance-paying small presses that mostly accept submissions directly from authors. There’s nothing wrong with placing books with solid small presses–but the real test of an agent’s skill is opening doors an author can’t. Why pay an agent 15% of your royalties for a book you probably could have placed yourself?

Given large publishers’ “agented only” policies, many writers feel it’s acceptable to settle for a less-than-qualified agent, on the theory that any agent is better than none. This is a mistake.

Editors and their assistants are well aware of schmagents, and know how to spot them. It’s one reason they prefer to work with agents they know, either personally or by reputation. The word “Agent” on a letterhead or in a signature line guarantees no special attention if the editor doesn’t recognize the agent’s name. And if the agent is obviously unprofessional–submitting work that doesn’t fit the publisher’s guidelines, for instance, or submitting multiple manuscripts at once–it’s likely they will simply be ignored.

For more on schmagents and the damage they can do to your career, see this blog post from Kristin Nelson (an excellent agent).

Telling a Questionable Literary Agent From a Reputable One

Overwhelmed? I don’t blame you. But in reality, it’s not difficult to tell a good agent from a bad one. The tips below will help.

Standard agenting practice is pretty much the same from country to country, genre to genre, and market to market–so these guidelines apply no matter where you’re from or what sort of books you write.

Established literary agents (in business for a year or more) should have a verifiable track record of sales to advance-paying publishers, and be willing to disclose it.

A robust history of selling books to 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 reputable publishers, and who has experience selling books in your own subject or genre.

Just having a track record is not enough. An agent’s track record tells the story not only of where they have placed books, but of where they are capable of placing books. Where an agent has sold, in other words, is a good predictor of where they will sell. This is why you want an agent whose track record is a good match for your own goals as a writer. If your dream is publication with one of the Big 5 publishers, for example, an agent who has sold mostly to smaller presses may be entirely reputable but is probably not the best fit.

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 is true if you want to publish with larger houses, but the second is a myth–and a pernicious one, because it motivates many writers to settle for marginal or incompetent agents. Having previous publishing credits when you’re querying may be a plus, but it’s not a requirement. 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 regularly report their sales to industry venues like Publishers Marketplace and Publisher’s Weekly. Others don’t, or do so only sporadically. And not all agents disclose full client rosters. But at a minimum, any reputable agent’s or agency’s website should include a list of books that the agent or agency has recently sold. (You may be able to expand this information with a websearch, or by checking agent directories such as QueryTracker–see the Resources section for more suggestions).

If you can’t find any sales, or most of the agent’s clients are unpublished, be cautious. (An exception: a brand-new agency, but see the caution below). And be suspicious if an agent claims that client and/or sales information is confidential. The agent may be trying to hide the fact that they have a poor success rate, or that they deal with disreputable publishers. There’s no reason for an agent to keep their track record secret: it’s a form of advertising, after all.

Be sure also to check that claimed sales are real sales. Questionable agents may lie about their track records, claiming sales made by others or citing nonexistent authors and titles. Alternatively, the titles may be genuine, but the books may have been placed with disreputable publishers (for an example, see Faking a Track Record, from Writer Beware’s blog) or with small publishers that don’t typically work with agents.

New literary agents (in business less than a year) should have relevant professional backgrounds.

The one circumstance in which it’s OK for an agent not to have a track record is if they are 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 and subsidiary rights sales–an agent needs a solid knowledge of the publishing industry and contacts within it, both of which are best acquired by actually working in publishing or training at another reputable agency. Someone coming to agenting from a non-publishing-related background and doesn’t have these skills may take a very long time to get up to speed–if 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 article on why new agents need relevant professional experience.

Be wary if the agent’s website doesn’t offer a biography, or if the agency doesn’t reveal its agents and their experience–and also if the biographies are vague and lack verifiable specifics. Be sure also that an agent who claims to be new really is new. Some questionable agents/agencies try to excuse a wretched track record by saying that they’re new, when in fact they’ve been in business for years.

As a general rule of thumb, a new agent should begin making regular sales within a year of starting up.

It’s advantageous for agents to maintain membership in a professional literary agents’ organization.

The USA, Canada, England, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, and France all have professional agents’ trade organizations (for the organizations’ websites, see the Resources section, below), most of which require members to adhere to codes of ethics that help to ensure fair practice. In some cases, members must also demonstrate a degree of professional achievement before they’re allowed to join, such as having made a minimum number of sales or having worked at an agency for a certain number of years.

Non-membership is by no means an indication that an agent is questionable. Many successful agents choose not to join trade groups, or haven’t been in business long enough to qualify.

Nor is membership a guarantee of quality. Writer Beware has received serious complaints about some members of the Association of American Literary Agents (formerly the Association of Authors Representatives), the trade group for US-based agents.

To make themselves look more reputable, questionable agents sometimes cite membership in other groups, such as the Independent Book Publishers Association, the Better Business Bureau, or local writers’ clubs. None of these are relevant to agenting, and they indicate absolutely nothing about an agent’s success, skill, or honesty. (There’s more information on irrelevant memberships at Writer Beware’s blog.)

A note about the Writers’ Guild of America: for film agents, membership in the WGA is important, not just because WGA signatories agree to ethical practice, but because 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.

Literary agents should not charge upfront fees.

An agent’s income should derive from commissions on sales, not from fees charged to clients.

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 not only highly motivated to sell the author’s work, but also to negotiate the most lucrative possible deal. An agent who makes money prior to a sale substantially diminishes their incentive to pursue legitimate publication.

Writer Beware defines a fee as any charge–excluding commissions and certain submission-related costs–that’s a requirement for submission or representation, that must be paid by every client or potential client, and that is due upfront (before service is rendered) or billed on a recurring basis. For example, a reading or evaluation fee that accompanies submission, a critique fee as a condition of representation, a retainer or representation or administrative fee due on contract signing, a submission or materials fee billed in advance of expenditure or as an ongoing regular charge.

It isn’t only your bank account 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 hundreds of 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 reaching into their clients’ pockets. For writers, though, there’s little difference between a scam agent and an incompetent one. The end result is the same: a lighter wallet and 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, courier fees, ARCs and finished books to send to foreign agents, and the like.  Standard practice, however, is to allow these expenses to accrue and deduct them from the author’s income, or to bill them after they’re incurred. Before the internet, these expenses could really mount up, but with most business done electronically now, such costs are usually minimal.

For an extended discussion of the kinds of fees you may encounter and the rationales that go with them, see The Truth About Literary Agents’ Fees.

Literary agents should not bait-and-switch.

For example, you query for representation but instead are steered toward the agent’s own (paid) editing services (a conflict of interest: more on that below). Or you’re offered representation but discover that there’s some sort of expensive fee you have to pay or service you have to buy in order for publishers to be interested in you (there’s a whole category of scams that specialize in that kind of bait-and-switch–see A Special Warning, below).

For book agents, commissions should not be more than 15% for domestic sales and 20-30% for co-agented or foreign sales.

Some agents–mostly questionable, but a few legitimate ones as well–justify domestic commissions (commissions on sales made in the agent’s home country) of 18% or 20% or even more by claiming that it’s more costly to represent new writers. Do you really want an agent who penalizes you for being new?

Conversely, you may run across a book agent who charges a lower-than-standard commission. Sometimes this is a sign of inexperience, but a lower commission rate may be intended to sweeten the impact of an upfront fee.

Be wary if a literary agent refers you to an outside company for paid services.

A reputable agent may occasionally suggest that 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 can be perfectly legitimate, though you should do some careful thinking before choosing this often very expensive option. (For more on the pros and cons of independent editing, see the Editors and Editing page.)

But questionable editing schemes do exist, and receiving an editing referral should always prompt further research, especially if a particular editor or editing service is recommended. The agent or agency may own the editing service, running it under another name or at a different address in order to conceal the connection. Or there may be a kickback arrangement, with the editor or service giving the agent a percentage of whatever you wind up paying.

The same goes for referrals to fee-charging publishers and assisted self-publishing services, which sometimes provide finder’s fees to agents (and others) who send clients their way.

Right now, also, there are large numbers of fake literary agencies that are fronts for selling marketing, editing, and publishing services. These “agencies” may claim to offer commission-only representation, but there will always be some good or service you have to purchase in order for that to happen, with the “agency” conveniently able to provide it, or referring you to a “trusted company” (in reality, the scam for which the fake agency is a front). For more on this extremely common type of scam, see A Special Warning, below.

Be cautious if a literary agent doubles as a paid editor or as a publisher–especially if those services are offered to clients or prospective clients.

There’s serious potential conflict of interest here. If an agent can make money from editing your manuscript, how can you be sure that the recommendation to edit is in your best interest? (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 eventual commission). If an agent can profit from becoming your publisher, where’s the incentive to offer your manuscript to other publishers, or to keep sending out your manuscript after a number of rejections?

This is a complicated issue, because in today’s highly competitive publishing environment, everyone is looking for new revenue streams, and the lines between agents, publishers, editors, and publicists–once sharply separate–have become blurred.

A growing number of successful agents have associated editing, consulting, or publishing businesses, and agents’ trade associations are acknowledging this with changing codes of conduct. For example, the Association of American Literary Agents recently revised its Canon of Ethics to address the question of how agents can ethically offer paid editing services.

Ideally, the agent will maintain a wall between these different functions: clients of the agency will never be offered editing or publication, and those who are edited or published will never be offered representation. But not always. So while an agent who offers adjunct services or has an associated business of some sort may not be disreputable, you do need to consider the possibility that your best interests may not be served.

See the Agents Who Are Also Publishers section, below, for a more detailed discussion of this important issue.

A real agent is very unlikely to contact you directly.

Like publishers, literary agents expect authors to come to them. They don’t typically reach out on their own. As with so much in the publishing industry, you can never say never–but it really is extremely rare for an agent to contact an author who didn’t contact them first.

For scammers, on the other hand, direct solicitation is their main way of acquiring clients. And plenty of scammers these days pose as literary agents in order to trick writers into handing over money. Such scammers are aggressive solicitors, via both email and phone.

Unless you can directly tie it to a query or contact you made, an out-of-the-blue email or phone call from someone purporting to be an agent is highly likely to be a scam.

A real agent will not pre-shop your work.

A common technique for scammers and fake agents who direct-solicit writers is to claim that they’ve already approached publishers on your behalf and one or more publisher is interested in your work–which of course they can submit for you.

Beware: this is almost always a scam. Real agents don’t submit or query work for writers they don’t already represent. Such claims are bait, intended to make you more receptive to the scammer’s demand for money.

An agent’s correspondence and/or websites should be free of grammatical errors and typos.

This may sound obvious. But you’d be surprised how many questionable agents produce error-ridden documents or maintain inadequately proofread websites. English-language errors can be a marker for scams that come from overseas.

Be alert for unprofessional practice.

Publishers don’t want fancy packaging–author photos, lengthy bios, cover mockups–and no matter what you’ve heard, a novel submitted to a major publisher doesn’t need a marketing plan. (Some smaller publishers, which rely on their authors to do much of the promotional work, do want to see marketing plans–but the bigger publishers don’t, and those are the ones your agent should be approaching.)

Nor should an agent use your query letter, or make you create your own submission package, or tell you that you need to get reviews or blurbs to accompany your submission (and especially, they should not try to make you pay for such things).

If your agent does any of the above, be wary: they may not be dishonest, but they probably aren’t very competent.

Other things that turn editors off: emails to “Dear Editor” (your agent may not know the editor personally, but they should at least know the editor’s name), bundled queries or submissions (several manuscripts pitched or submitted at the same time), shotgun submissions (submissions that have obviously been sent to a laundry list of publishers), poorly-targeted submissions that aren’t a match for the publisher’s focus. Any of these will immediately identify a submission as coming from an unprofessional source.

Be wary of literary agents who claim to specialize in new writers.

Such agents may be fee-chargers looking to collect from inexperienced beginners, or amateur agents with good intentions but few skills. Successful agents’ lists usually contain only a small percentage of new writers.

Be wary of literary agents who are 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 who claim to represent poets are nearly always either dishonest operators looking to charge a fee, or amateurs who lack knowledge of the realities of the industry.

Be wary of literary agents who claim they can sell your self-published book to Hollywood.

Many fake agency scams target self-published authors with promises of Hollywood glory (sometimes even claiming to already have major movie studios interested). But as with their offers of publisher representation, this is merely a scheme for selling something: a screenplay, a treatment, a pitch deck, a “cinematic trailer”…all falsely pitched as required by film producers.

Be wary of literary agents who advertise.

Most reputable agents have websites, and many have entries in popular writers’ guides or online directories. But reputable agents don’t buy Google ads or sponsored links, or solicit submissions on Craigslist, or call for clients in classified ads in writers’ magazines or local free papers. An agent you encounter through such avenues is probably a scammer.

Be wary of literary agents who offer extravagant praise or inflated promises, and of their opposite, agents who paint 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 they feel 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.

Watch out for agents whose contracts contains clauses absolving the agency of responsibility if your book doesn’t sell.

A Special Warning: Fake Literary Agent Scams

The past few years have seen a rise of a particularly pernicious fraud: scammers posing as literary agents and agencies in order to trick writers into paying for expensive and often fraudulent services.

Based overseas, primarily in the Philippines, these scams employ spoofed phone numbers and false business addresses to convince authors that they are located in the USA, UK, or Canada. They claim to work on commission–no upfront fees!–yet somehow you will always have to pay for something: editing, a marketing campaign, having your book re-published or “re-branded”, or services that are entirely bogus: book returns insurance, book “licensing”, an “international book seal”. You may be referred to a separate company for delivery of these services, but in reality, it’s all one operation and the “agency” is just a front.

This post from Writer Beware’s blog takes a detailed look at one such fraud: Anatomy of a Fake Literary Agency Scam.

Some scammers go even farther, impersonating real, reputable literary agents and film companies and movie directors to hoodwink writers into handing over cash. One scammer invented an entire stable of imaginary agents (complete with websites), who shilled equally bogus publishing and film “offers” that require writers to make large outlays of cash.

The main targets for these scams are self- and small press-published writers. Writer Beware has heard from writers who’ve paid thousands for services that were never delivered, or, if delivered, were substandard. Writers are subjected to intense pressure to spend more money, or targeted for fraudulent publishing or film rights offers requiring large upfront fees. Once the writer starts asking questions, or the scammer judges that they are tapped out, the scammer ghosts them, leaving them high and dry.

Fortunately, fake agency scams share a cluster of characteristics that make them reasonably easy to identify–and avoid. (You can also check Writer Beware’s Overseas Scams List for a full roster of all the Philippine fake agency and publishing scams we’ve identified to date.)

– Cold-call solicitations by phone and email. Fake agency scammers are big on out-of-the-blue phone calls and emails hawking their services. Often they’ll (falsely) claim your book has been recommended to them by some prestigious group, or discovered by one of their book scouts, or evaluated by a literary organization or traditional publisher.

Solicitation is the number one sign of a scam these days. As noted above, real literary agents only rarely reach out to authors they don’t already represent. For scammers, on the other hand, it’s their main way of acquiring clients. Unless you can positively trace it to a submission you made or a query you sent, any out-of-the-blue solicitation related to publishing or agent representation should be treated with caution.

– Re-publishing or “re-branding” offers. The solicitation may purport to be from a literary agent wanting to represent you, but what’s actually being sold is re-publication of your self- or small press-published book. (Remember: real literary agents don’t require writers to pay anything or buy anything as a condition of representation.)

Often, re-publishing or “re-branding” is presented as a pre-requisite to representing your book to traditional publishers, with the claim that traditional publishers won’t consider self-pubbed books unless they’re published to publishers’ “standards,” or that traditional publishers want to see certain types of reviews or sales performance before making a decision. This is ridiculous on its face: re-publishing an already-published book so it can be published a third time makes absolutely no sense, and in any case is not how the legitimate publishing business works.

Re-publishing/re-branding may have a price tag–anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars–or may be offered “free” with the purchase of something else, such as a PR campaign. Either way, it’s a gateway to your bank account. The scammer’s true aim, once they get you in the door, is to convince you to spend more money–whether through aggressive pressure to buy more and more services, or costly bait-and-switch schemes. Writer Beware has heard from authors who’ve lost enormous amounts to these schemes.

– Claims of expertise that can’t be verified (in the absence of staff and owner names), or that are provably false (for example, if the agency claims years of experience but their web domain was only registered a few months ago). Some fake agency scammers include rosters of fictitious agents on their websites, using stock or AI-generated photos (reverse image search engines like Google Lens or Tineye.com and AI detectors like Sightimage can help identify these) and made-up biographies, or stolen names of real agents and editors (a websearch will unmask this deception).

Always make sure you can independently verify any claims of accomplishments or success. If you can’t, or if the company’s website makes it impossible to do so because it provides no specifics, move on.

– English-language errors on websites and in emails. Fake agency scams are owned and staffed primarily by people for whom English is a second language. Although the advent of AI-assisted writing tools is making grammar and colloquial errors much less common on websites and in written text than they used to be, this is still an important marker that too many writers are willing to overlook.

– Phone solicitors with American-sounding names but foreign accents. Scam sales reps use Americanized aliases to disguise the fact that they are calling from overseas. They typically speak fluent English, but have Philippine accents (if you get enough scam calls, you’ll soon learn to recognize it).

– A catalog of junk marketing services, and heavy pressure to buy. In addition to selling re-publishing packages, many fake agency scams sell marketing: press releases, paid book reviews, book fair exhibits, Hollywood book-to-screen packages, vanity radio and TV interviews. These and more are junk marketing: PR services of dubious value and effectiveness that are cheap to provide and can be sold at a huge markup.

Again, reputable literary agents don’t sell marketing, so this is a sure scam marker. Even where they aren’t scams, such services aren’t a great investment.

For more tips on unmasking fraudsters, see How to Spot a Fake Literary Agency, from Writer Beware’s blog. Also see our Impersonation List, for the names of the most frequently impersonated literary agents and agencies.

Literary Agents Who Are Also Publishers

Until relatively recently, if you found an agency and a publisher co-existing under the same roof, you could automatically cross them both off your query list. Reputable agents did not double as publishers; agents who did double as publishers typically were running deceptive vanity operations, often double dipping by charging agency as well as publishing fees.

Those kinds of ripoff operations are still around. But thanks in part to the digital revolution, the lines have blurred in recent years. Some reputable agencies have branched out into publishing, self-publishing, and self-publishing assistance.

Some of these ventures focus on re-publishing clients’ backlists–books that have gone out of print and to which the authors have reverted rights. Others are a mix of backlist and original publishing for both clients and non-clients. Still others offer assistance to writers wishing to self-publish–in some cases limiting this to clients only, in other cases opening the service to the public.

From agents’ perspective, all of this makes good business sense. Most successful agencies are sitting on deep catalogs of backlist books, which, thanks to digital publishing, can be cheaply and profitably be brought back into circulation. And if a wonderful manuscript won’t sell despite diligent effort, why let it languish? Why not publish it, or help the client to self-publish?

Unfortunately, some troubling potential conflicts of interest arise here. If an agency has the ability to publish a client’s book itself, will it try as hard to market the book to traditional publishers? Will it give up sooner on a manuscript that doesn’t sell quickly? Also, how much might running a publishing division distract from the agency’s core activity of representing manuscripts to publishers? Your agent is supposed to be your advocate in publishing contract negotiations–but who advocates for you when it’s your agent offering the publishing contract?

Around 2010, it looked as if the reputable-agency-as-publisher was going to become a trend, prompting concern among writers’ advocacy organizations like the Authors Guild (see this 2011 post from Writer Beware’s blog for a look at the issue and the reaction to it). Fifteen years later, that actually hasn’t happened: it’s still fairly unusual for a reputable agency to also be a publisher or to have an associated or spinoff publishing or self-publishing division, or to provide publishing services in-house. But such ventures do exist. So it’s an issue that’s worth being aware of, in case you encounter it.

If you do, how to protect yourself? First and foremost, use the guidelines in the section above to make sure that you only submit to reputable agencies with verifiable track records. That will take care of much of the risk in one step.

If the agency has a publishing division, or an associated publisher or assisted self-publishing service, be aware of it, and think about how to respond if you’re offered or steered toward something other than straightforward representation. Think also about how you’d feel if the agency decided at some point that it had made enough submissions for you, and that publishing you itself was a better option.

Is there a wall between the different branches of the business? In other words, the agency doesn’t represent publishing clients, and agency clients aren’t offered publication. This is rare, but if it exists, it indicates that the agency is aware of the potential conflicts of interest and is taking steps to avoid them.

If the agency skips over representation entirely and offers you publication right off the bat, pause and take a breath. Is this really what you want? Just as important–if this agency likes your book enough to publish it, might another agency like it enough to represent it?

Warning bells should start ringing if you’re asked to pay. Some of the assisted self-publishing services offered by reputable agencies are fee-based (as opposed to commission-based). But vanity publishing (often described as “hybrid publishing” to make it seem more respectable) is a completely different matter, and a request for money should make you cautious.

Also a red flag: pressure. If the agent seems mostly interested in pushing you toward the associated publisher, with representation as an afterthought, ask yourself whose best interest is actually being served.

And if you’re thinking of accepting a publication offer from an agency, either as a first-timer or for your backlist, find someone qualified–and unaffiliated–to vet the contract for you. Don’t assume, just because it’s “your” agent, that you’re being offered the best deal.

Additional Cautions

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 into shape, or create those materials for you, or create a catalog or list that you must pay to be part of.

However,  submission services aren’t necessarily run by qualified people, and may not be skilled at creating queries or targeting appropriate editors and publishers (I’ve heard from many authors who’ve been contacted by vanity publishers after using submission services). This is especially true of the email query blast services, which essentially are spam. For the most part, submission services are a waste of money. (There’s more detail on this on the Writers Services page.)

Pitching 

Many writers’ conferences host manuscript pitch sessions, which are billed as a way to get your work in front of a literary agent without the hassle of querying. You may get useful advice from participating in one of these sessions, but don’t go into it hoping for an offer of representation; for the most part, the best you can expect is an invitation to submit (which you might have gotten if you’d queried the regular way).

Always research participating agents/editors before you sign up for one of these sessions; not all conferences do enough vetting. And think twice–or three times–before signing up for a pitch session that costs extra. These are not just moneymakers for the conference, but also, sometimes, for the agents, who get a cut (very similar to a reading fee).

Social media pitchfests, such as #pitmad and #pitchmas on X, have become increasingly popular over the past few years. Reputable and successful agents do participate–but so do marginal and amateur ones. Make sure to research any agent or editor who expresses interest in your pitch. (For more on social media pitching, see this helpful guide from author Eva Langston.)

Print market guides

Market guides such as Writer’s Market and Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook are good 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 may not be verified. Questionable agents are often listed in these publications. (Literary Marketplace, once the standard for the US publishing industry, is a particular offender. Avoid it). Don’t take a listing at face value; always do more research.

Online agent directories, listings, and databases

There are a number of helpful, vetted, up-to-date agent directories online, such as AgentQuery.com and QueryTracker.com. These can be a valuable adjunct to your agent search.

There are also listings and directories that are much less helpful. Some have been created by individuals with little knowledge of publishing, bizarre personal agendas, or something to sell. Others are databases where anyone can enter unscreened information. They’re likely to include large numbers of questionable agents, to omit large numbers of successful agents, to be out of date, or all three.

Beware also of “top” or “best” lists. Even if they aren’t just clickbait or paid advertising, they’re bound to be subjective, since, due to experience or interest or temperament or any number of factors, the best agent for one writer might be the worst agent for another.

Some supposed directories or matching services are outright scams, such as SearchingForPublishers.com or FindPublishingHelp.com, which claim to match you with the best publishing resources, but are really designed to steer you into the clutches of vanity publishers and self-publishing service providers. For more on this type of scam, see How Predatory Companies Are Trying to Hijack Your Publisher Search, from Writer Beware’s blog.

One Last, Very Important Thing

If I could only give one piece of advice to new writers, it would be this: EDUCATE YOURSELF!

In the search for an agent (and for a publisher), knowledge is both your most useful tool and your best defense. The more you know about publishing, and how things should work, the better able you’ll be to spot a scam or bad business practice, the less likely it is that you’ll be taken advantage of, and the more likely it is that you’ll be able to submit your work effectively and appropriately.

If more writers took the time to build a store of publishing knowledge before beginning the quest for an agent or publisher–rather than just diving in and trying to learn on the fly–Writer Beware’s work would be much diminished. I hear every day from authors who’ve made mistakes they could easily have avoided if they’d only done enough research ahead of time.

Even if you’re on fire to get your manuscript out there, take a breath, step back, and do some reading…and not online, where misinformation abounds. The internet is an invaluable research tool, but it is also an ocean of bad, ignorant, and just plain crazy information and advice–not to mention scammers buying sponsored links on Google. It’s safe to use for your agent search only if you know how to filter what you find. And it’s hard to do that unless you already have a decent knowledge base.

Go to a bookstore or library (yes, I know, very old school), and spend some time in the section where books on writing are shelved. There are many excellent how-to-get-published books that will help you learn the basics (do choose the most up-to-date ones, though). Please don’t skip this step; it really is one of the best investments in your future career that you will ever make.

Resources

Tools to Help You Evaluate Literary Agents

  • E-mail Writer Beware. Over the past 20+ years, Writer Beware has assembled an enormous archive of information on agents and agent practice, including the bad 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, and we’ll take a look at what information can be found online and let you know what we think.
  • A great place to ask questions about agents (and publishers) and find comments and warnings: the Bewares, Recommendations, and Background Check forum at the Absolute Write Water Cooler message board. (Absolute Write is an aggressively moderated writers’ community, and as such has generated a fair amount of resentment and negative comment–but the Bewares forum is a treasure trove of info.)
  • QueryTracker, a large and very active agent directory, allows comments on its agent listings. These can often be enlightening. (The folks who run QueryTracker also run QueryManager, a streamlined way for writers to submit queries and agents/publishers to receive them.)
  • Scammers are increasingly impersonating real, reputable literary agents and agencies. If a purported agent contacts you out of the blue, check Writer Beware’s Impersonation List to see if they’ve been a target.

Resources for Agent Hunting

  • How to Find a Literary Agent For Your Book, a step-by-step guide from author and editor Jane Friedman. Jane’s website is a deep and fantastic resource on all aspects of publishing, self-publishing, and writing.
  • AgentQuery is a large, searchable agent directory. User comments aren’t allowed, but the agent profiles can be very detailed.
  • Agent Match, a service from Jericho Writers, is another searchable database of over 1,500 agents from the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. There’s a fee for membership, but you can try it for free to see if you like it.
  • 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, even more if you’re willing to pay for a subscription.
  • The Association of American Literary Agents (AALA) (formerly the Association of Authors Representatives/AAR) is open to agents who’ve been in business for at least two years. Its website includes a list of member agents and a Canon of Ethics that excludes reading and evaluation fees, secret profits, and referral fees.
  • The professional association for literary agents in the UK is the Association of Authors’ Agents (AAA). It’s open to agents are actively representing clients and can provide evidence of those activities. Its website includes a list of member agents and its Code of Practice, which identifies and excludes various conflicts of interest.
  • Publishers Weekly 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.)
  • Quill & Quire, Canada’s magazine of book news and reviews, includes an informative Deals section.

General Information on Literary Agents and Agenting

  • You’re about to get a call from an agent who’s interested in representing you. What questions should you ask? Suggestions from authors Alexa Donne and Ann Zhao, and literary agent Jessica Faust.
  • Literary agents are writers’ representatives…but writers often are reluctant to negotiate or speak up because they fear being too demanding. This interview with two established agents focuses on agent ethics, and what rights writers have in the author-agent relationship.

Author-Agent Agreements

Up Close and Personal — Scammers, Schmagents, and Fakers