Scam artists, whee!

[bladespark]

I know that several of you reading this have ambitions to be real writers someday, or to at least publish one book. Well, the amazing Pat Elrod, whose work I adore to death, happens to blog. And I happen to read her blog, and today she happened to post a list of the 20 worst literary agents. A real, honest agent will take a cut when your book sells. A scammer, however, will ask for money up front. There may be some exceptions to that rule, but apparently it's pretty solid. And there are some real low-down scammers out there who take advantage of would-be authors. So, for your benefit, I re-post the 20 worst literary agents list, and encourage you to pass it on.

The Abacus Group Literary Agency
Allred and Allred Literary Agents (refers clients to "book doctor" Victor West of Pacific Literary Services)
Capital Literary Agency (formerly American Literary Agents of Washington, Inc.)
Barbara Bauer Literary Agency
Benedict & Associates (also d/b/a B.A. Literary Agency)
Sherwood Broome, Inc.
Desert Rose Literary Agency
Arthur Fleming Associates
Finesse Literary Agency (Karen Carr)
Brock Gannon Literary Agency
Harris Literary Agency
The Literary Agency Group, which includes the following:
Children's Literary Agency
Christian Literary Agency
New York Literary Agency
Poets Literary Agency
The Screenplay Agency
Stylus Literary Agency (formerly ST Literary Agency)
Writers Literary & Publishing Services Company (the editing arm of the above-mentioned agencies)
Martin-McLean Literary Associates
Mocknick Productions Literary Agency, Inc.
B.K. Nelson, Inc.
The Robins Agency (Cris Robins)
Michele Rooney Literary Agency (also d/b/a Creative Literary Agency and Simply Nonfiction)
Southeast Literary Agency
Mark Sullivan Associates
West Coast Literary Associates (also d/b/a California Literary Services)

The entire Pat Elrod post on the subject, with some apporpriate and rather amusing documentation on Barbara Bauer in particular, can be found here: http://p-n-elrod.livejournal.com/11606.html

Comments

[lacy.livejournal.com]

Many thanks for posting that. I'm actually hoping to complete my novel by the end of the year (still a lot of work to go..) but I had been wondering if there might be some people to avoid when looking for a good agent.

[bobkat357.livejournal.com]

I hope to get a story online myself but I am hopelessly Texan so my grammer is rough but trough college its getting beeter cool post

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

Add Sherwood to the list but I think they might be in jail due to mail fraud and the federal government not liking that.