Re: a professional ms. reader weighs in....
When Newsflash first posted here, Jim Macdonald said,
"'Newsflash' has just given some spectacularly bad advice. ... Pay no attention to him or her. He or she doesn't have your best interests at heart." Victoria Strauss said,
"What Jim Said. ... This is B.S. on so many levels it's not even worth doing a point-by-point." My only disagreement with these two veteran scamhunters is the part about it not being worth a full rebuttal. This thing Newsflash has posted is a staggering piece of disinformation.
(Note: just for convenience, I've flipped a coin and decided to refer to Newsflash as he and him.)
If you're an aspiring writer who wants to learn more about how publishing and agents work, there's something you need to understand from the get-go. Newsflash here is a villain, the hard-to-find real thing, and I (who have seen many scammers) was genuinely shocked when I first read that post of his. It isn't just a little bit wrong. It's false in part and in whole. It paints a picture of agenting and publishing that has no resemblance to the real thing, and is meant to drive you into the arms of con men and thieves.
I think Newsflash has ties to the movie industry, and has based this fantasia on movie industry practices. For all I know, there may well be people who make a good living reading slush screenplays for movie studios. I've often heard it said of that industry that few people in it want to actually have to read anything. (Also, it's a movie thing to refer to the material accompanying a submission as "coverage". I've never heard it called that in the book industry.)
However, the same is not true of the book industry. The people who work there are readers, first and last. I once went to a cocktail party for a visiting big-name author at that author's agent's flossy Upper East Side apartment. I walked into her entry hall and was just about to ask where I could put my shoulderbag -- I was taking a manuscript home with me -- when I turned the corner and saw, piled in the center of the floor in the next room, a mountain of shoulderbags almost as tall as I was, and about two-thirds as wide as the room. Everyone at that party worked in publishing, and every one of them was toting books or manuscripts home with them to read. It made quite a heap.
You can't make a living in the publishing industry as a manuscript reader because there's no substitute for reading a book. A screenplay is just the starting point for the movie it may become. A book is
these words, set down on the paper in
this order, and no description or synopsis can convey the experience of reading it. An agent who takes on a client, or an editor who buys their work, will have to sit down and read the book, all the way through, possibly more than once. And since the agents and editors know that that's what's going to happen anyway, what use could they have for a highly-paid "professional reader" rendering high-priced professional opinons? Agents and editors
are the industry's professional readers. (Along with copyeditors and reviewers; but they don't come into this.)
In the publishing industry, freelance manuscript readers are a gross screening device for books that look like they might have something going for them -- submissions from real agents of authors you've never heard of, the surviving fraction of books from the slushpile that look sort of promising, a book from an old pro who left writing twenty years ago and is now trying to resurrect his long-interred career -- that sort of thing.
The pay is awful. Some houses and editors are still paying $25 for reading an entire book and writing a reasonably detailed report on it, though these days $50 is more common and $100 is not unheard-of. Still, that works out to a derisory hourly rate. Usually, manuscript reading is something youngsters with editorial ambitions do to get experience and bring themselves to the attention of the editorial community. I've only ever known one person who made their living just as a manuscript reader, and she was a Brit who led a poverty-stricken life in subsidized council housing, and was an incredibly fast reader. She was also young enough to have as much energy as any two or three other people. Needless to say, she's since moved on to other things.
Here's the real newsflash: nobody works in publishing who doesn't love books. The pay is low, the hours are long, the employment uncertain. The following joke is a reliable laugh-getter around people in the industry:
Q.Tell me again why we work in publishing?
A. For the money, the power, and the glamour.
As I said, the picture Newsflash paints has no resemblance to reality. It's audacious. I've never seen anyone try pull something quite like this before.
I believe Newsflash is some variety of publishing scammer, and that he's presenting this false version of how agenting works to make his own business practices seem more reasonable. I can't prove it, but there aren't many other reasons for someone to cook up such an elaborate fraud and try to pass it off as reality. I also think that while he may be aware of the existence of professional manuscript readers in the movie industry, that doesn't necessarily mean he's one of them.
Onward to the point-by-point commentary:
a professional ms. reader weighs in....
While it's always possible that there may be one or two people out there who've cut some kind of deal or found some kind of niche, in general there's no such job descrption as a professional freelance manuscript reader in the legitimate publishing industry.
I read manuscripts for a lot of major agents in New York and they pay very well. I make my living at it.
Hoo boy. If agents paid rates like that, they'd take all our freelance readers away, and the editorial assistants would be doing reading for them after hours. Needless to say, that's not happening. From this we can infer that agents aren't paying premium rates for fee reading, and thus that Newsflash can't be making a living at it, and thus that Newsflash lies like a rug.
Nope. No way. Nobody pays top rates to have their raw slush read. They won't even pay to have it shipped to readers.
-- and I read their top, best-selling clients.
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
Agents and authors have relationships. They talk about stuff. Many agents do at least an initial edit on at least some of their manuscripts. Agents also need to be able to talk to editors about these books in detail. If they can't do that, they aren't earning their commission. No agent is going to risk a lucrative relationship with a top client by fobbing off their manuscripts on some nameless freelance reader.
In short, this is further evidence that Newsflash is spinning his story out of thin air.
So when writers log on to these forums and say, don't pay a reader's fee, ever --
Here we get to the heart of the matter. Know what? You shouldn't pay reading fees, ever. There's a reason they're the mark of a scammer.
and then say, you should only want an agent who's read your work and loves it,
That's true too. You should. What that description amounts to is an agent who's doing his or her job, and who genuinely believes your work is good. If your agent doesn't believe your work is good, why should they expect it to sell? And if they don't expect it to sell, where do they expect to make their money? There's only one other answer to that question: by ripping off their authors. So yeah, it matters whether your agent loves your work.
what they don't realize is that agents don't read. Nada. Period.
This is calumny, and an outrageous lie. I've
never, ever known a real agent who didn't read, in depth and in quantity. There may be some who go through spells where they perhaps don't read as much as they should, but that's a relative measure in a reading-saturated lifestyle. You can't work as an agent if you don't read.
Most agents don't have a clue. They’re business people. They might read twenty or so pages of a manuscript and then turn to the "coverage" to tell them what to think.
Agents are by definition businesspeople. Successful legitimate agents tend to be very clueful indeed. However, the bit about them getting their opinions from the "coverage" is simply bizarre. Again, that may be the way the movie industry does it.
Come to think of it, I've never actually met an agent who was truly passionate about a book. Any book.
Mark this: Newsflash is admitting he's never met a real agent, because I've never met one who
wasn't passionate about their books. It's like asking a retiree about her grandkids. Newsflash has been hanging out with the Wrong Sort of Agents.
They just want to believe they can sell it.
They want to believe it's good enough to sell. If all they cared about was money, they'd be working in a different industry.
And that's a very difficult thing to do these days. Especially with an unknown, uncelebrated writer.
Scammers always play up the difficulty of getting published because they want writers to believe they're their only hope. How hard is it really? If you've written a publishable book, not that hard. If you haven't, it's unlikely you'll sell the book to a real publishing house, and paying a reading fee to some sleazebag isn't going to increase your chances.
And publishers only seem to want to buy what they don't have to edit --
Mendacious jerk. First, publishers don't edit. Editors edit. That's a stunningly basic error for someone to make who claims to know the industry.
Second, editors do most assuredly edit -- it's part of the job -- and publishers buy books that their editors tell them will require editing. More than one buying decision has, near its end, a long conversation between the editor and the writer in which they figure out whether they can work together during the editing and rewriting process, and sort out what's going to be required of them both.
Scammers are the single biggest source of the idea that editors don't edit, and they push it for the same reason they push the idea that it's impossible to sell a first novel: to make their own services and demands seem more reasonable.
-- so that means agents are stuck with the job of helping writers achieve a professional level of craft.
Many -- most? -- legitimate agents do help their authors learn their craft. Some put a great deal of work into it. And, just like professional editors, real agents do it for free.
And that's an ongoing investment that few agents can afford and those who can are going to be highly selective on whom they spend that money on.
Newsflash seems to have the idea that agents never do any work for which they don't directly and immediately get paid. This is another major falsehood. Real agents do that all the time. They read books by authors they don't wind up representing. Some do helpful critiques on books that may or may not wind up selling. They sort out tedious problems arising from books that are still in print for which they're the agent of record, even though the author has since moved on to another agent, and the commissions on what the book is earning would hardly buy lunch at McDonald's. Sure, they're selective about where they spend their time and other resources. Everyone is. But that doesn't mean you're obliged to go to scammers, and it doesn't make their services a benefit to you.
I'm not going to say anything about that
"on whom they spend that money on." Not not not.
Anyway, I started out reading for so-called "reading fee agents" --
Since I can tell from various remarks he makes that Newsflash didn't work for Scott Meredith, which was the only legit agency that ever did fee reading, the sole thing that sentence can mean is that Newsflash's "experience" consists of working with crooks. He got his training from scammers, and is a cheap con artist and a thief. He's trying to tell you that it's normal for authors to be robbed by people like him. It isn't. That's not the way the world works, and you'll do yourself no good by giving any credence to what he says.
-- and the one big advantage for a writer to pay an agent a reading fee is that the author will get to see the report. And if you're book is good (well written, etc) and the reader recommends it, then there's a very good chance that the "reading fee agent" will take it on. Why wouldn't they?
This is wholly irrelevant. If your book is good, you find out about it by having the agent agree to represent you. The primary benefit of doing business with an agent is not that they send you kindly book reports about how wonderful your manuscript is; you can get that from your mom. The point of an agent is that they sell your book to a publisher on a pure commission basis.
Before I move on, there are a couple more implicit falsehoods here that I'd like to point out. One is that there's any necessary relationship between a laudatory fee-reading report and the quality of your work. These outfits
always tell you that you show promise but you need their help. They say that to authors who are at the most optimistic estimate years away from being published, and they also say it to writers whose books are splendid just as they are, and should have no trouble finding a real agent and a real publisher.
Fee-reading reports will say anything and mean nothing. They're written for a desperately vulnerable audience by professional liars who don't give a damn about the writers or their books. Some scam agents use very nearly the same letters for all their clients, good and bad, technothriller and bodice-ripper and pink-flannel squeakybook.
Another implicit falsehood is that there's any connection between the results of the reader's report and the author's being accepted by for representation by the agent. If you're a big enough sucker to pay them reading fees, there's no question that they'll take you on. They never turn down anyone who pays. Getting people to give them money is the beginning and ending of their line of business.
And frankly, the bigger agencies who don't charge reading fees are still paying reading fees --
I've never heard of agents doing that; and as I noted above, if there were, they'd be taking the freelance readers away from the publishing houses. Besides, if publishing were competing with agents for freelance readers, publishers would undoubtedly be paying higher rates than they do.
Newsflash doesn't know jack about real publishing and real agenting. He doesn't even know jack about freelance manuscript reading, which is an entry-level freelance gig. I have to wonder whether he's even in New York, as he claims.
-- so they simply aren't going to accept a ms. from an unknown unless they have a very compelling reason to do so.
The usual reason they accept a manuscript from an unknown, which is a thing that happens all the time, is that it's a good book.
And the most compelling reason I know is that the author is a close friend of a client. Or, the author is a celebrity. Or the author is well connected to someone in the industry.
Hoo boy. There's your Hollywood hanger-on talking.
All those circumstances will get your manuscript looked at, but sending an agent a good manuscript will do it too. None of those circumstances will necessarily get you a contract, but writing a good book will. And while it's true that if a sufficiently big celebrity wants a book to happen, someone will give them a contract, that's no skin off your nose; you might be the author who gets hired to write it.
Otherwise, good luck getting a large, non reading-fee agency to even offer to look at your manuscript.
He lies, he lies, lord how he lies. And no marvel that he does; his stock in trade is the wonderfully mistaken idea that if your writing hasn't yet developed to the point where it will attract an agent, it will somehow fare better in the hands of an agency that never makes any sales, and whose only source of income is the fees they charge their authors.
Real agents are constantly looking at manuscripts from unknowns. It's one of the things they do. Some agents are more open to slush submissions than others, but the only ones I know of who don't look at potential new clients are either full up and don't want to take on an assistant, or are looking to get out of the business or retire.
Real agents may not be willing to do anything for you, but what ripoff agents will do is worse than nothing. They steal your money, tell you lies, and leave you dispirited and confused. Even if real agents were everything Newsflash says -- and I promise you they're not -- fee readers and scam agents should still be avoided like the plague that they are.
Anyway, my point being, if you're going to pay a reading fee, don't immediately assume that you're being ripped off.
That's exactly what you should assume; and you'll be right, too.
Call the agent, ask them what you can expect for the fee --
Uh, right. I can just imagine that conversation:
"Hi! I just wanted to ask whether you were a cheap, heartless crook who's misrepresented himself and his services in order to pry a few hundred dollars out of me."
"Why, sure! Never been anything else. Glad you asked. Anything else I can clear up for you while you're here?"
"Do you have any real publishing contacts?"
"Nope, not a one. Industry people wouldn't have a drink with me if someone else paid for it. Why should they waste their time and credibility on me? It's not like they can't tell exactly what kind of business I'm running. And for that matter, why should I bother talking to them? I'm not in the book business, I'm in the collecting money from naive authors business. I don't expect I'll ever get an offer on any of the books I send them, and I wouldn't know what to do if I did."
"You don't make any sales?"
"Not unless you count vanity presses and POD outfits, and that only counts as 'sold' in the sense of 'sold down the river' or 'sold into Egypt'. I wouldn't know a standard publishing contract from my momma's Sunday tablecloth."
"Golly! That sure does clear things up. Thanks for your time!"
"No problem, son. Call any time."
Of course I'm making it up. A scam agent, making himself available to his clients? Pull the other one.
Onward.
--and ask for a list of their clients and recent sales.
The beauty part about claiming to be a fee reader rather than a scam agent is that you don't have to explain how it happens that you don't have any pro clients or real sales.
By paying the fee, you will get a report and a shot at being represented.
See above. All you get for paying a fee to scam agents is that you'll have paid a fee to scam agents. The report has nothing to do with it. Scam agents will take on anybody who pays.
But, by adamantly refusing to pay a fee, you may never get an agent to look at your work.
A flat-out lie. Newsflash is trying intimidate naive writers. Prudently and sensibly refusing to pay a fee to crooks like Newsflash and his cronies will have absolutely no effect, ever, on your chances of getting a real agent to look at your work. He's just trying to play on your fears.
Actually, come to think of it, refusing to pay reading fees to these parasites could marginally improve your chances with real agents. It means that if you do get real agents and publishers taking an interest in your work, there'll be no troublesome questions or ambiguities about who's agented what to whom when.
I know of one case where a respectable publishing house was startled to read in an industry publication that they'd bought a first novel from a scam agency. The editor had in fact found the book in the slush pile, liked it, and ended up buying it. But some sample chapters had at one point been posted on the scammers' display site -- brand-new author, didn't know any better -- so they were claiming credit. Fortunately, the editor inadvertently demonstrated that she hadn't seen it there. How? By having no idea what a display site was. Which was good, because things could have gotten sticky. The joyful flush of your first real sale is not the moment when you want to have a bunch of sleazeballs popping up to claim that they've been representing you and are now the agents of record for your book.
And consider the smaller agency who charges a fee.
They're sleazeballs too.
A reputable agent does so because they can't afford to charge off reading fees to their mega-sales clients because their break-thru mega-sales writers have all been vigorously courted and signed by the big agents.
That misrepresentation isn't in the same ballpark on the same planet orbiting the same sun in the same arm of the galaxy as the real state of affairs. This man knows nothing, repeat nothing, in sum nothing, about agents, agenting, professional writers, or the publishing industry.
Its a crummy situation all the way around but what are the alternatives?
Publishing has its problems, just like any other business, but on the list of alternatives, "going to a scammer like Newsflash" occurs well below options like "Hope that the human race is telepathically taken over by intelligent bees from Venus."
Signed, a reader by trade
Translation: Signed, a man who came here under false pretenses for the sole purpose of telling you a bunch of carefully concocted lies.
I see Newsflash has posted since I started writing this. No rest for the weary ...