I thought I would say hello. I just signed up here yesterday, mainly to make a post and found myself browsing around the forums. Interesting site! So far, in the literary field, I think that I have found most of the scam artists or agencies only out for your money. So I will list a few of them here and hope that none of you will have dealings with any of them.
I got here through a Google search on The New York Literary Agency. BAD, VERY BAD AGENCY! AVOID!!! They ask for money and once you say no, I'm not paying it, they drop you like a hot potato. They are in with a group of them under The Literary Agency Group, Inc. (not to be confused with the legitimate agency The Literary Group, International) Other agencies to AVOID within this group are: The Children's Literary Agency, The Christian Literary Agency, The Poet's Literary Agency, ST Literary, (or Stylus Literary, it's changed names three times) and The Screenplay Agency. As for myself I notified the right people as to the supposed scam these agencies lay out there, and hope that they will find enough information to close them down.
Anyone dealing with Publish America, be prepared to spend a lot of money to do your own publicity, and then hope you sell more than the copies you buy from them to promote your book..... been there did that, and still have another year to wait for the contract to be over. Also, it came to my attention a few weeks back that Barnes and Noble stopped buying PA books because of grammatical and spelling errors that each book seems to contain. That and that little law suit against PA by Britannica. So if you have trouble buying your own books from B & N, that could be why.
Also, avoid poetry.com. They only take your poetry and put it in an anthology that they will be glad to sell you for a price. You can get the anthology with YOUR poem in it, as well as buy plaques, mugs, cards... the list goes on. Neither PA or Poetry.com are considered as published works with the REAL publishers. So in short, no matter how many publications you have with either of them, they don't count.
I really didn't get on here to complain, but you guys might as well know about some of the ones to avoid dealing with. I will keep looking around and see where I fit in the best. I write fiction, and have the one PA book published (woo hoo) and am currently looking for a LEGITIMATE agent to represent my second novel.
I got here through a Google search on The New York Literary Agency. BAD, VERY BAD AGENCY! AVOID!!! They ask for money and once you say no, I'm not paying it, they drop you like a hot potato. They are in with a group of them under The Literary Agency Group, Inc. (not to be confused with the legitimate agency The Literary Group, International) Other agencies to AVOID within this group are: The Children's Literary Agency, The Christian Literary Agency, The Poet's Literary Agency, ST Literary, (or Stylus Literary, it's changed names three times) and The Screenplay Agency. As for myself I notified the right people as to the supposed scam these agencies lay out there, and hope that they will find enough information to close them down.
Anyone dealing with Publish America, be prepared to spend a lot of money to do your own publicity, and then hope you sell more than the copies you buy from them to promote your book..... been there did that, and still have another year to wait for the contract to be over. Also, it came to my attention a few weeks back that Barnes and Noble stopped buying PA books because of grammatical and spelling errors that each book seems to contain. That and that little law suit against PA by Britannica. So if you have trouble buying your own books from B & N, that could be why.
Also, avoid poetry.com. They only take your poetry and put it in an anthology that they will be glad to sell you for a price. You can get the anthology with YOUR poem in it, as well as buy plaques, mugs, cards... the list goes on. Neither PA or Poetry.com are considered as published works with the REAL publishers. So in short, no matter how many publications you have with either of them, they don't count.
I really didn't get on here to complain, but you guys might as well know about some of the ones to avoid dealing with. I will keep looking around and see where I fit in the best. I write fiction, and have the one PA book published (woo hoo) and am currently looking for a LEGITIMATE agent to represent my second novel.