Well, if we're going to set the record straight, let's do it, shall we? If an author has been part of a watchdog site for 13 years & honestly cares about the well-being of other authors, she might register on a site like this for 2 reasons: 1) curiosity about her own pitching & the site's effectiveness, & 2) concern about whether the site throws authors into the path of agents and publishers who they'd be better off avoiding. What I found was that there were only 2 people requesting off this site so far. One was a publisher who opened a month ago. One is a publisher who is reported by the owner of Writer Beware to have a bad contract (the report is on Absolute Write. It's easy to figure this out with only 2 publishers to research). It is ridiculous to suggest I was not registered on the site, when I had information you could see only after registering, or that A. Sage wasn't clearly Sage Collins (or, for that matter, that any author couldn't use a pseudonym on either twitter or while pitching their books in any fashion).
At the time I asked the question, the owner had no language on here about how agents and publishers are vetted or about how authors should research anyone who requests. He added the former during our conversation and more detail about it here. He added the latter after 600 words ranting about...me. But the important point you should take from this, authors, is to research any request you get better than he is doing.
There are 2 publishers requesting on here. It would take about 5 minutes each to find out why I warned against them; less, considering I told him to check out AW, and he's been linked to it many times in the past few days. Checking out the WB thumbs-down list is a good start, but that only has the worst of the worst. It doesn't even have some of the biggest agency scandals happening now--frex: an agent who has been sending out novels to publishers before he tells the author he wants to offer rep, spams editors so nobody will work with him, and makes up false contracts so authors will sign with a self-publishing assistance house, thinking it's a publisher. He's not on the thumbs-down list, so he would be approved for this site (to be clear, I'm not saying he currently is). Authors, do your research!
I'd hope a publisher with a bad contract is obviously not one you want to sign with. Let's talk about inexperienced agencies and publishers. An author gets 1 shot at first publication rights. An inexperienced publisher is, first of all, an unknown. They might do everything right, somehow, but you can't know that because they have nothing out there to research. But publishers who come in with no experience (notice, I'm not talking about new houses with people who have experience in the publishing business) are likely to have poor editing, poor distribution, & poor marketing. Once your book's published, you've lost those rights forever. Why not go with a publisher with experience and a track record you can see, and know what you're getting into? As for an inexperienced agent, if they're not working with an experienced agent, they will almost certainly not have any connections to good publishers (trade or small press). They also might not be versed in what a good contract looks like, and do damage to the author's book and career. Why would an author want to sign with an agent who couldn't do more than they could themselves?
It's hard to put that into a tweet, but surely someone who is developing a "better" way to pitch to agents & publishers would be interested in protecting those authors from experiences that would be bad for their novels. They wouldn't point to other pitching places as examples of why they shouldn't be responsible for that, right? They would want to research a publisher before literally inviting them to use the site, right? They would want to do the research into each individual approval themselves, right? Especially when there are only 2 publishers right now, requesting from the site. Seems easy enough to research. And then on a one-by-one basis as agents and publishers sign up. That have to be personally approved by the administrator. Wouldn't approving them seem to....approve of them?
Of course, unknown bad eggs might slip through. A few months ago, there were no reports of a few bad agents who recently came to light, including the one I talked about above. (I don't name him here because he's not known to be connected to the site, & is litigious, and I wasn't looking to get the site shut down). Even if the admin was diligent about protecting authors, authors should also be diligent about researching anyone who requests. Even a good agent or publisher might not be the right one for you.
Upon pointing out ways in which an agent or publisher might be bad for authors that aren't considered "fraud" (and I lament that it's on the authors to be subject to fraud before the admin will do something about protecting the next author from anyone but the most extremely bad agencies and publishers), I was blocked from the admin's twitter feed. So while he claims to want feedback, apparently only to the extent where he can add a line to the FAQ and call it done. Anything more is "aggressive" and, according to the comment above, "bullying."
Perhaps this comment will never show up. Perhaps I'll be blocked from the site. That's the admin's right. He owns the site, & it's his to display only what he wants to allow to display. But it would speak volumes to *me* about where the priorities of the site are, if that were to happen.
Lots of love,
Sage, aka "Saco," aka Sage Collins, aka A. Sage
It was such "bullying" behavior that he changed his FAQ after you mentioned your concern about certain things?
IMNSHO, if it claims "agents and publishers will find you!!1!" then it's a display site. Doesn't matter if it asks for whole work, excerpt, or what. And should it ever ask for money too, then, well, that's a whole 'nother level of Bad Idea.