Glen and Karen Bledsoe --> articles --> Submissions --> How not to get burned
Articles Index: Site Index: Scam artists make their living by telling people what
they want to hear. And what unpublished writers want to
hear most is, "We want to publish you." An intense desire
to be published combined with lack of knowledge about the
publishing industry leaves novice writers vulnerable to
scam artists, from the "We'll publish your book!" vanity
publisher ads in the backs of magazines to full-scale
rip-off artists posing as agents. Educate yourself The best way to protect yourself against scams is to
educate yourself about the publishing industry. Read the
articles on this site and other legitimate author sites.
Read the books we recommend that appeal to you. Be sure
you are getting advice from either real authors whose
books you can find in a bricks-and-mortar bookstore, or
real editors with major publishers: that is to say,
people who are truly experts in their field because they
live it every day. Find out how the industry works, find
out the rules of the road, and use the information to
help you get published. Along the way you'll run into many people who will
tell you that the advice we're giving here is bunk, and
that they know the "real" secret to getting published.
Some of these are well-meaning but naive people who may
have had a bit of luck to begin with, perhaps a nibble
from an agent, or a book "published" by a vanity
publisher that has sold a few dozen copies. Others are
professional scammers. Both can get you into trouble and
cause you to waste time and money on fruitless
pursuits. It's also wise to educate yourself about the scam
artists that are out there. We recommend these
websites: Never, ever pay for "publication" or
representation Real publishers pay YOU for the right to make your
work public. Real agents get paid only when they sell
your work. Any company calls itself a "publisher" but
wants your money is a vanity press. Any agent who wants
you to pay a "reading fee" is a fee-charging agent and is
suspect. The exception to this rule is if you want to
self-publish. In that case, you MUST learn everything you
can about self-publication before you begin. Research
printing
and publication services, find out how to get a
copyright,
learn where you can buy an ISBN
number and bar code, find out about distribution,
develop a business plan and a marketing plan, find a good
copy editor, and be prepared to promote and market your
own book. Fee-charging "publishers" Vanity presses have a long history in the publishing
industry. They usually take out ads in writer's
magazines, with glowing text such as, "Get published
now!" or "Authors wanted!" Strictly speaking, a vanity
press is one that charges fees and has little or nothing
in the way of editorial selection. You send them the
book, you shell out several thousands of dollars, they
may create the cover art, they do the layout, they ship
you several boxes of books, and there you sit with your
books and no place to sell them. The line between vanity presses and legitimate
self-publishing blurs a bit when it comes to
print-on-demand (POD) services. Some of these services
are straightforward print shops for people who want to
self-publish. They may offer a range of services, from
layout to cover design to printing. The best ones allow
you to use the name of your own imprint (your own
publishing company). Many PODs, however, put their own
imprint on the book. A few PODs have gained the respect
of major booksellers, but most are still nothing more
than vanity presses. PODs with free or low-cost packages
can be useful if you plan on producing small numbers of
books, such as collection of family memoirs that your
relatives all want copies of. Before using any POD
service, do an online search on the phrase "POD reviews"
and find the latest reviews on POD services. A few
companies are very good, but most are mediocre to dismal,
so do your research thoroughly before signing anything.
If you want to self-publish, you're better off avoiding
vanity presses and PODs, creating your own publishing
company, and finding a good printing and distribution
service such as Books
Just Books. One of the worst cases of a fee-charging "publisher"
was the case of "Press-TIGE" publications, owned and
operated by scam artist Martha Ivery (who also operated
as a fee-charging scam agent under the name of Kelly
O'Donnell). In 2005, Ms. Ivery was
indicted
in federal court for multiple charges of fraud. In
short, over the course of more than a decade, Ivery
promised the moon, charged thousands, and delivered
nothing, bilking people out of their savings and creating
only heartbreak. Even POD services that do not charge fees may not be
worth an author's time. Science Fiction and Fantasy
Writers of America's "Writer
Beware" pages warn about PublishAmerica, a POD posing
as a "traditional" publisher but with next to no
selection criteria. See their review
of PublishAmerica. PublishAmerica has also been named
in a
lawsuit by several of its authors, who charge that
the company engages in misleading practices. Fee-charging agents We once read a post from a fee-charging agent on a
writer's board saying that the publishing industry has
become so competitive, and there are so many agents out
there competing for fewer and fewer publishing slots,
that the only way that agents can make it in today's
market is to charge fees. That agent is now long out of
business, so perhaps this agent simply couldn't make it
at all, fees or no. However, consider what this agent was
telling authors: "I'm not very good at selling
manuscripts, so I'll charge you money instead of making a
living on the commissions I get from actually selling
your work." Is this an agent you want working for you? Some agents also say that they use fees to "screen"
their manuscripts, stating that fees assure that only
serious authors send their work. This is pure bunk. While
a fee may indeed deter some authors, it is no guarantee
that the manuscripts that are sent are of better quality.
Poor writers can be serious about getting published as
are talented, experienced writers. And talented,
experienced writers have no use for fee-charging
agents. An agent who charges fees has already made money from
your work. The agent has far less incentive to actually
market your work than the agent who works strictly on
commission. A true commission-based agent works hard to
sell your manuscript. A fee-charging agent might work to
sell your manuscript, but if he or she needs money, it's
a whole lot easier to take out an ad in a magazine and
harvest more fees. Who would you rather have working for
you: an agent who is hungry to sell your work, or an
agent who is hungry to collect more clients and their
fees? One recent case of a scam agency was the Helping Hand,
a.k.a. Janet Kay & Associates agency, run by George
Harrison Titsworth and Janet Kay Titsworth in San Angelo,
Texas. The "agency" collected up-front fees for their
services, but did very little for their clients in
return. If they did anything, it was to send out blanket,
untargeted, inappropriate submissions. According an
article on Writer
Beware, at least one editor begged the agency to stop
sending manuscripts, and no records exist of any actual
sales. When the office was raided, law enforcement agents
found hundreds, if not thousands, of manuscripts still
sitting unopened in their envelopes, long after they'd
been received. The Titsworths were indicted by a grand
federal jury in December of 2004 on multiple cases of
fraud. Red flags When submitting, you always want to ask yourself: Is
this publisher or agent legitimate or not? Here are a few
red flags to look for: Ten
Percent of Nothing: The Case of the Literary Agent from Hell
Jim Fisher
Southern Illinois Press University, 2004
Jim Fisher exposes the world of scam agencies in this
searing book.
Glen and Karen Bledsoe --> articles --> Submissions --> How not to get burned
