Brock Gannon Literary Agency (not currently active).Allred and Allred Literary Agents (not currently active). The Aaland Agency (the alter ego of the now-defunct Abacus Group Literary Agency).One example: Clark, Mendelson, and Scott, whose previous incarnation, American Literary Agents of Washington Inc., vanished for several years when the proprietor went to jail, and re-emerged under the new name after he got out of prison. * Why do we continue to list agencies that aren’t currently active? Because questionable agents often return under new names. #Fineprint literary management internsihp update#We do update the list from time to time, as questionable agencies sometimes change their names, clone themselves, or go out of business. Writer Beware has files on hundreds of questionable agencies, both active and inactive. While the agencies listed here account for a substantial number of the complaints we’ve received, they’re just the tip of the iceberg. Misrepresentation of skill or experience–including representing themselves as competent to sell manuscripts despite poor or nonexistent track records, lying about sales, and claiming placements with vanity publishers as legitimate commercial sales. Unprofessional practices–such as sending form letters or postcards with boxes for editors to check off and return to indicate interest, “bundled” queries (several queries in the same envelope), “blitz” or shotgun submissions (submissions to a dozen or more publishers simultaneously, often without careful targeting), “packaging” a submission with unnecessary extras such as author photos, cover mockups, or sample illustrations.ħ. We also consider handshake agreements to be non-standard.Ħ. Nonstandard author-agent contract terms–including perpetual agency clauses, claiming commissions on clients’ future works even if the agency had no hand in selling them, billing clients for normal business overhead such as travel and entertainment. No or minimal track records–many of these agencies have never made a single sale to an advance-paying publisher.ĥ. Conflicts of interest–some agencies are under common ownership with editing services or vanity publishers, which are recommended to clients, often without disclosing the connection.Ĥ. Some of these agencies are no more than fronts for editing services.ģ. Paid editing or publishing referrals–including placing clients with vanity publishers, promoting their own paid editing services to clients (a conflict of interest), sending clients/potential clients to an outside editing service that pays kickbacks for referrals. Fee-charging–including reading fees, marketing or administrative fees, retainers, processing fees, and other forms of upfront or flat-rate charges that are made as a condition of representation.Ģ. All have two or more of the following abusive practices:ġ. THIS LIST MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT PERMISSION Contact Usīelow, in alphabetical order, is a list of the literary agencies (not all of them currently active*) about which Writer Beware has received the largest number of complaints over the years, or which, based on documentation we’ve collected, we consider to pose the most significant hazard for writers.
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