Agent Hunt & Bewares

It's simple Lori--tons of research. Thankfully we have the internet. Makes it a lot easier, and I'm sure you're aware of P&E site along with others.

Good luck with your shopping.

Keep track of the scam agents?

I'm having a difficult enough time just finding legit agents in my genre.

When you're querying, join Publishers Marketplace for a month and look up the deals of all the agents you're considering. You can follow their track record. (Granted, not all agents post their deals, and that's sometimes telling in itself).

I agree. Research. I don't have the top worst agent list memorized but if I hear of an agent I don't otherwise associate with a legit agency, I check that list.

Cross referencing is key.

I read Publisher's Lunch (free) and I am starting to recognize names and deals. Cause "non-scam" is not enough. Can they sell books? That is the key. The Bewares forum here is truly a lifesaver....again not to just root out scam agents but to be aware of how long an agent takes to reply if at all. I'm going to a conference soon and they have some agents scheduled to take pitches. Unfortunately my research does not show that these agents have recent sales with books like mine. I may not waste my time or theirs. We'll see. I am at the very beginning of my agent search, and right now "warm, breathing and non-scam" is not enough.

The other thing that is important about research is how else can one personalize a query? I have sent out a scant handful of queries, and I have heard back on four. One was a rejection and three were requests for partials. What did the three that resulted in partial requests have in common? They were personalized. I had either met these agents previously or I have read their blogs (I mean every entry!), read their clients' books, etc. In my opinion (and feel free to laugh at my naivete), if you can just erase one agent's name and type in a new one to send a query, you haven't done your homework. Everyone of my queries is individualized (except for the one I got an auto-reject for!). Yeah, it's time consuming, but I am getting requests from the agents I really feel can sell my book for me and help me launch a career.

Whether I can get past the partial stage is another issue.

The easy way? Well, start a new thread in Bewares and Background checks, of course.

Sure, it annoys some people and a few mods (who have to move the thread) but it sure beats making a mistake.

I've gotten to the point where I simply assume anyone with any interest in anything I wrote is a scammer. It's easier that way...and usually correct.

Birol said:

Yeah, I know research. Believe me, I do it, but at a certain point, I should have a mental (or other) checklist developed that clicks when I run across a name that says Bad Idea Run Away Quickly. Because, let's face it, we're going to keep running across the same names as we look for agents and who wants to continually research the same agent names already encountered, looked into, and decided would just not be a good idea. Not just not suitable or not an A-list agent, but a Bad Idea all the way around.

In conversations with other writers, don't you have some sort of red flag that raises up in your brain when they mention their agent's name if you've already looked into it and discovered it's a scam in order to prevent you from looking into it again?

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Perhaps you can keep a cheat sheet of "less than reputable agents" near your list of good agents you've already submitted to.

kristie911 said:

I've gotten to the point where I simply assume anyone with any interest in anything I wrote is a scammer. It's easier that way...and usually correct.

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Sort of: "I wouldn't join a club that would have me for a member"? I know the feeling, but if you give in to that, you've given up. Hang in there.

Birol said:

Yeah, I know research. Believe me, I do it, but at a certain point, I should have a mental (or other) checklist developed that clicks when I run across a name that says Bad Idea Run Away Quickly. Because, let's face it, we're going to keep running across the same names as we look for agents and who wants to continually research the same agent names already encountered, looked into, and decided would just not be a good idea. Not just not suitable or not an A-list agent, but a Bad Idea all the way around.

In conversations with other writers, don't you have some sort of red flag that raises up in your brain when they mention their agent's name if you've already looked into it and discovered it's a scam in order to prevent you from looking into it again?

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I think you can, but only to a certain point. The scam agents alter the names of their companies and it can be hard for a writer to keep track of the various incarnations of these charlatans. There are a few that can spring to mind but I could not memorize the Beware list.

My brain can only hold so much information. The rest of it at least I know where to look it up.

Knowing where to find the answers is half the battle and I am so grateful for the watchdogs out there.

My first stop is always the RWA website to look at their list (since it's my genre). If they aren't there, I check out P&E. If they still aren't there, I poke around here. After that, I assume the worst.

Of course, the RWA list is pretty big, so I have to admit, I've never actually gotten to the worst yet.

Birol said:

In conversations with other writers, don't you have some sort of red flag that raises up in your brain when they mention their agent's name if you've already looked into it and discovered it's a scam in order to prevent you from looking into it again?

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I've had the twenty worst list tattooed on my forearm. Not a solution for everyone, I suspect.

Writer Beware:
http://www.sfwa.org/beware/


___________________
Sharon
http://www.saaustin.net

kristie911 said:

I've gotten to the point where I simply assume anyone with any interest in anything I wrote is a scammer. It's easier that way...and usually correct.

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I'm at the point where if anyone ANYONE! shows any interest in my stuff, I'm going to give them a big hug and sign on the dotted line, scammer or not.

Shadow_Ferret said:

I'm at the point where if anyone ANYONE! shows any interest in my stuff, I'm going to give them a big hug and sign on the dotted line, scammer or not.

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Bad decision. This is why scammers are able to exist in the first place: they feed on the desperate and the disillusioned.

A cautionary tale

An internet search is indispensable! That's how I discovered AW, looking for some additional information on an agent who left me with a funny feeling.

I actually think it's easier to avoid the out-and-out scammers. It's the "grey area" agents that are tougher. Like this one.

This was at the very beginning of my agent search. It was a heady feeling to immediately have someone so enthusiastic about the subject of my book! I'd found her through Publishers Marketplace and considered her a decent, though probably "B List" choice. She had only a few sales and wasn't a member of AAR, though she adhered to their standards. But she had some interests that overlapped with my book. (Note: my first mistake was to query someone like this so early in the process.)

She asked to read a big chunk of the book. I fully expected to receive feedback and requests for revisions. But the warmth and enthusiasm of her e-mails evaporated when we spoke by phone. She across as very critical and heavy handed. I knew I couldn't work with someone who made me uncomfortable, no matter how valid her criticisms. (And some were.) And I couldn't tell for sure if she was making a provisional offer. (She was, it turns out.) We backed away from each other--politely,with thanks and good wishes.

Then I did what I should have done earlier, a google search. Found a thread on AW (some of it's still there, but the older and more critical parts are gone.) People documented the same kind of disconcerting experiences. Victoria Strauss reported having had questions raised for some years about this agent. Nothing unethical, not a scammer--but lots of question marks. Several people reported interactions like mine. Initial enthusiasm, working together without a contract to revise--and then getting dropped suddenly. And the big question, so few sales after a fair number of years in business.

The moral: do your research beforehand, especially an internet search, maybe an AW post. Also, trust your "gut" --if something feels wrong, it probably is! An agent could be ok, but just not a good match for you.

And yes, I did persist in my agent search, eventually signed with a solid New York agent.

So, a cautionary tale I hope is helpful.

Susan

Shadow_Ferret said:

I'm at the point where if anyone ANYONE! shows any interest in my stuff, I'm going to give them a big hug and sign on the dotted line, scammer or not.

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Will Lavender said:

Bad decision. This is why scammers are able to exist in the first place: they feed on the desperate and the disillusioned.

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Dang! Shadow Ferret will never make it as a humor writer.

Julie Worth said:

Dang! Shadow Ferret will never make it as a humor writer.

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Perhaps SF was being sarcastic, but there's an object lesson in his post nonetheless. We've got a whole forum on this board pretty much devoted to people who thought, at some point in time, "I want to get published so badly that I would sign with ANYONE."

It's at the top of the Bewares board.

Susan B said:

An internet search is indispensable! That's how I discovered AW, looking for some additional information on an agent who left me with a funny feeling.

I actually think it's easier to avoid the out-and-out scammers. It's the "grey area" agents that are tougher. Like this one.

This was at the very beginning of my agent search. It was a heady feeling to immediately have someone so enthusiastic about the subject of my book! I'd found her through Publishers Marketplace and considered her a decent, though probably "B List" choice. She had only a few sales and wasn't a member of AAR, though she adhered to their standards. But she had some interests that overlapped with my book. (Note: my first mistake was to query someone like this so early in the process.)

She asked to read a big chunk of the book. I fully expected to receive feedback and requests for revisions. But the warmth and enthusiasm of her e-mails evaporated when we spoke by phone. She across as very critical and heavy handed. I knew I couldn't work with someone who made me uncomfortable, no matter how valid her criticisms. (And some were.) And I couldn't tell for sure if she was making a provisional offer. (She was, it turns out.) We backed away from each other--politely,with thanks and good wishes.

Then I did what I should have done earlier, a google search. Found a thread on AW (some of it's still there, but the older and more critical parts are gone.) People documented the same kind of disconcerting experiences. Victoria Strauss reported having had questions raised for some years about this agent. Nothing unethical, not a scammer--but lots of question marks. Several people reported interactions like mine. Initial enthusiasm, working together without a contract to revise--and then getting dropped suddenly. And the big question, so few sales after a fair number of years in business.

The moral: do your research beforehand, especially an internet search, maybe an AW post. Also, trust your "gut" --if something feels wrong, it probably is! An agent could be ok, but just not a good match for you.

And yes, I did persist in my agent search, eventually signed with a solid New York agent.

So, a cautionary tale I hope is helpful.

Susan

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Thanks for this post, Susan B.

Your post is a perfect example of why a writer probably shouldn't get into this thing where an agent is either Legit or a Scammer.

There's a wide, prickly gray area that can only be discerned through good research. Thankfully, this board and others make that research pretty easy to do.

Birol said:

I wasn't long into my research when I realized I should've recognized the name. The name has been listed in one of the better known threads in AW's own B&BC forum. Needless to say, I will not be sending them my manuscript, but it got me wondering how to keep track of all the scam agents that are out there. How do you do it?

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I don't. I always just researched any agent whose name I came across whenever the time came to submit. AgentQuery.com, P&E, and the B&BC board combined pretty much cover it all. If the B&BC board doesn't have the agent in the Index, then I'd start a new thread before sending out the query. The exception to the last one was if the agent's name and list of sales is all over the place (authors' sites, the agent's own site, other places).

Agents

You don't have to keep track of bad agents. You have to keep track of good agents, and doing so is pretty simple. Who are their clients, and what books have they sold to which publishers?

Jamesaritchie said:

You don't have to keep track of bad agents. You have to keep track of good agents, and doing so is pretty simple. Who are their clients, and what books have they sold to which publishers?

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Yeah! Why don't we have a list of the good agents? Someone should really keep a list of the agents who have sold multiple manuscripts to multiple publishers, and especially the ones where lightning has struck twice (or more). For some, we're able to tell when they've only sold a few books for one or two of their clients. We really need a checklist for agent validity: 1) years in business 2) number of clients, total 3) number of sold manuscripts per client 4) number of manuscripts sold this year...and so on.

We need an opinion from the experts as to how many manuscripts an agent has to sell to be considered a good agent. How many per year? Divided by how many clients they have? How do we know how many clients they have? What's considered a good rate of sales?

Karen Junker said:

Yeah! Why don't we have a list of the good agents? Someone should really keep a list of the agents who have sold multiple manuscripts to multiple publishers, and especially the ones where lightning has struck twice (or more). For some, we're able to tell when they've only sold a few books for one or two of their clients. We really need a checklist for agent validity: 1) years in business 2) number of clients, total 3) number of sold manuscripts per client 4) number of manuscripts sold this year...and so on.

We need an opinion from the experts as to how many manuscripts an agent has to sell to be considered a good agent. How many per year? Divided by how many clients they have? How do we know how many clients they have? What's considered a good rate of sales?

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Get started on that! I'll be querying in a year or two. Surely you'll be done by then?

Siddow said:

Get started on that! I'll be querying in a year or two. Surely you'll be done by then?

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I'd totally volunteer if I thought I could ever get anywhere with it. The trouble is, even the good agents don't always give public access to their information. Rats! And if an agent appears to be somewhat flaky and yet still has managed to sell some manuscripts for some of their clients - well, they were a good agent for those clients, at least!

That's why I don't go along with the theory that no agent is better than a bad agent. Sometimes an otherwise bad agent (and by 'bad' I only mean the ones who haven't got a lot of sales, not the outright scammers) can be good for a percentage of their clients. And I also don't agree with the theory that a sale to a publisher that doesn't require an agent doesn't count as a sale. Sometimes those agents get their clients a better deal than they would have gotten with the boilerplate contract or terms. The thing is, we don't always know. So, I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt.

I don't take the complaints of people who have fired a questionable agent completely seriously when their manuscripts remain unsold by any subsequent agent or efforts. They wouldn't have sold, no matter who their agent was. However, as a writer, I do take their complaints into consideration, even if it's with some skepticism. If I were willing to take the risk of remaining unsold just for the ego-stroke of being able to say I had an agent, I might still consider signing with someone who didn't have the stellar track record. 'Might' being the operative word.