WRITER BEWARE'S 20 WORST AGENCIES LIST

Accumulated by Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America: SFWA

Reprinted by permission

I have seen this list in many places as well as discussions of its applicability. I cannot verify everything that is said here, but I have had emails from several of these agents, asking, in poorly written emails, if they could represent me. And when I looked them I on the web, I found many "beware" messages.

In any case, always carefully investigate any agent who wants to represent you. There are many good sources and lists around on the web, including Firstwriter.com. Also there are many books out there, the best being, in my opinion, Writers Digest Guide to Literary Agents and also Jeff Herman's Guide to Literary Agents.

In any case... if you get a soliciation for your work, be very very careful. If you are asked to pay a reading fee, don't... Legitimate agents do not ask for reading fees. Illegitimate ones, preying on our hopes and dreams, do.

Check out any agent or editor! It's easy to do these days.

Here the SFWA report. The SFWA is reputable and has been around since 1965. Check out their website and credentials at: http://www.sfwa.org/

This list, according to the SFWA website was updated: 8/28/06


Below (in alphabetical order by last name) is a list of the 20 literary agencies about which Writer Beware has received the greatest number of advisories/complaints over the past several years.

None of these agencies has a significant track record of sales to commercial (advance-paying) publishers, and most have virtually no documented and verified sales at all (book placements claimed by some of these agencies turn out to be "sales" to vanity publishers). All charge clients before a sale is made--whether directly, by levying fees such as reading or administrative fees, or indirectly, for editing or other adjunct services.

Writer Beware recommends that writers avoid questionable literary agencies, and instead query agencies that have verifiable track records of sales to commercial publishing houses.

While the 20 agencies listed here account for the bulk of the complaints we receive, they're just the tip of the iceberg. Writer Beware has files on nearly 400 questionable agencies, and we learn about a new one every few weeks.

We'll updating the list from time to time, as questionable agencies sometimes change their names, or sprout clones. Be sure to check back regularly.

* The Abacus Group Literary Agency
* Allred and Allred Literary Agents (refers clients to "book doctor" Victor West of Pacific Literary Services)
* Barbara Bauer Literary Agency
* Benedict Associates (also d/b/a B.A. Literary Agency)
* Sherwood Broome, Inc. (also d/b/a Stillwater Literary Agency, LLC)
* Capital Literary Agency (formerly American Literary Agents of Washington, Inc.; also d/b/a Washington Agency and Washington Literary Agency)
* Desert Rose Literary Agency
* Arthur Fleming Associates
* Finesse Literary Agency (also d/b/a/ Elite Finesse Literary Agency)
* 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, formerly Sydra-Techniques)
-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, Simply Nonfiction, and Michele Glance Rooney Literary Agency)
* Southeast Literary Agency
* Mark Sullivan Associates (also d/b/a New York Editors and Manhattan Literary)
* West Coast Literary Associates (also d/b/a California Literary Services)


Copyright © 2006 Victoria Strauss and A.C. Crispin.

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An Exercise in Point of View

In this exercise you are using an incident from your life as a jumping off point or doorway into the creative unconscious. You will have an opportunity to use two points of view, first your own and then another character’s.

Take an incident from your life in which you are absolutely certain that you are the injured party. The easiest way to do this is to use an argument or a fight, which automatically holds dramatic tension. Even though you are starting from the known, the key is not to be slavish to the known. Don’t try and copy “what happened.” Be loose, use dialogue and let the characters take on a life beyond your “memory.”

1. See the argument or fight in your mind’s eye as a scene from a movie.

2. Write the scene keeping to your point of view (POV). Use inner thought, dialogue and action. Inner thought is what define’s point of view. The other character speaks and acts, but all the inner thought belongs to you.

3. Put that scene aside and write another scene, this time using the other person’s point of view. Remember that writing from the other person’s POV means you disregard your POV. It is the other person’s inner thoughts and feelings that count.

Before you begin, it is important to be clear on point of view, which means getting inside the main character’s head, heart and gut, literally seeing the world through the character’s eyes. So when you are in the “bad guy’s” POV, be as true to that POV as you are to your own. An excellent example of this is Crime and Punishment where Dostoevsky has Raskolnikov, who is not a criminal, put an ax into his landlady’s head. Thus begins one of the greatest novel ever written. Did Dostoevsky have to put an ax into anyone’s head to write this? Clearly not. And neither do you. But Dostoevsky needed to experience Raskolnikov’s physical and psychological journey as a murderer as well as his emotional journey from darkness to redemption.

Writing from the imagination, “making up things” doesn’t mean that you’re childish, or worse, crazy. Know that in the cosmic realm of the imagination, you will find the truths passions, characters and stories for which your creativity hungers.

I will be exploring point of view in detail during the October 24 TeleSeminar, The Five Ingredients of the Scene.

Explore the TeleSeminar

Defanging the Inner Critic

Perhaps in time I shall learn to live more deeply and consistently in that undistracted center of being where the will does not intrude, and the sense of time passing is lost, or has no power over the imagination.
—Katherine Anne Porter


Imagine your conscious mind is tuned in to a radio station run by a single disc jockey, your Inner Critic, and you have no way to turn down the volume much less turn it off. In fact, you’ve grown so used to the constant talk from the Inner Critic, you hardly notice he’s ordering you about, commenting, passing judgment and evaluating just about everything you do or say; this is all so subtle and insidious that you don’t separate out the Inner Critic from other parts of you. The Inner Critic has become you—it seems as if the only time you can escape his badgering is when you sleep. There is a reason for this. When you sleep, your conscious mind shuts down. The dream state or intuitive right side of the brain, takes over.

The Inner Critic avoids the dream state like the plague. He can’t get a foothold in a place where there is no apparent logic, where things appear as images, feelings, sounds and colors. It should not be surprising, then, that your best stories, characters and plots, come from this place of dreams, where little is known and anything is possible. The problem is how to wrest control of the radio station from the Inner Critic so that you can give your Inner Writer some air time.

Learn how to Defang Your Inner Critic in Emily's Workbook, The Art of Fiction Writing. And now, when you join the mailing list of The Fiction Writer's Journey, you get the first two chapters of The Art of Fiction as a free download.
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