Don't Get Fleeced

Because I've been at this writing / publishing thing since 2004, I sometimes forget that there are people out there who are new to it all. 

On FB this morning, a woman was looking for help on one of the book pages I follow.  She's trying to get her daughter's novel published and had recently been contacted by a firm wanting to represent the book.  They were asking like 600-1000 pounds for different publication packages.  She'd tried to look them up online, but she could only find their site and links they'd put out about themselves.

Ding ding ding.  There are three reasons right there to walk away.

1)  Reputable companies do not contact writers out of the blue.  Real agents and publishers have too much going on to send letters out to unknown and untested and unpublished authors. 

2)  Reputable companies to not charge to 'represent' you.  You may see charges if you're self-publishing through a vanity press, but they're not representing you.  They're doing the work to make your book a book - editing, covers, etc.  And even then, you have to watch them like a hawk.  Research the hell out of them to make sure you're not getting taken.  If this is a literary agent, which I suspect it is, you NEVER pay them.  They make money by getting a cut of your royalties after the book is published. 

3)  Reputable companies have a wide web presence with loads of people saying good things about them.  Disreputable companies may have a wide web presence as well, but generally people are saying bad things about them.  This one, not having much of a web presence at all?  Well, they must be a pop-up that hasn't been caught by the scam hunters yet.

Someone in comments posted a link to Writer Beware. There's a good source for finding out about scammers.  And if you don't see the company on their site, I think you can contact them about it. 

I commented with a shortened version of the above.  I hope she walks away.  She was smart enough to do some research and to ask about it online, so there's hope.  So many authors don't do the work and get taken for loads of money.  It always makes me sad to hear about another new author getting scammed. 

I used to get crap like that in my inbox regularly.  I still get it, but it's fewer and farther between now.  Mark it as spam, go to the spam box, and delete it.  Do not engage.  Walk away.

Publishing is a long, hard road, fraught with potholes.  There is no easier path you can take.  No yellow brick road you can skip along to reach the Emerald City of publication.  And anyone who tells you they have a shortcut is a conman trying to fleece you. 

Wasted Time, Wasted Effort

The other day I needed to clean out a Pendaflex folder so I could sort my spreadsheet work into it.  (Why buy a new one when you have old ones you aren't using?)  In the folder were query materials.  Pages and pages of printouts from back when I was querying that I'd stuff into a folder to try and keep track of it all. 

Queries sent, responses... err, rejections, agents to query, publishers to submit to and the results of those efforts.  In that folder alone were probably 150-200 pieces of paper.  And that's only one small portion of the things I submitted.  I can't even begin to imagine how many pages would be there if I kept everything and stacked it all in one pile.  Reams worth.

None of which did me any damn good.  Ten years worth of effort.  Ten... years.  2004-2014.

All the hours I spent researching agents to make sure they were what I wanted and I had what they wanted and that I was meeting all their various requirements for submission.  The various versions of query letters typed and edited and worried over.  So much time. 

I don't even want to try to do the math on how much time I spent just on the querying/submitting stuff.  Thinking about it makes me want to weep because all of it was wasted.  (Let's not even talk about the money wasted on stamps, envelopes and paper for outgoing hardcopy queries and for SASEs which always contained rejection letters.)

Ten years and countless dollars wasted. 

But I need to remember it.  Every time I get down about the lack of sales, I need to remember the ten years of no sales and no chance at any sales because the door to traditional publishing was being slammed in my face.  Every morning when I don't feel like posting another damn marketing thing to one more FB group, I need to remember that I am getting sales from those efforts as opposed to the monumental wasted effort I was putting out before to gain no sales whatsoever. 

So, maybe I shouldn't shred this pile of queries and rejections. 

ROFL... right.  Those suckers are toast.  It'll be another wasted effort, but it'll be one I'll enjoy.  ;o)

Never again. 

Yet Another Reason to Never Have an Agent

I know I live in a hole, but I totally missed the hullabaloo surrounding a literary agency, their bookkeeper, and a bunch of authors earlier this year. 

Go here, read this and follow the links.  It's quite an education.

If you're disinclined to do all that, here it is in a nutshell.

Literary agency has bookkeeper to take care of all the financial stuff, including dispersing author royalties.  Bookkeeper has side business slash charitable foundation.  Bookkeeper's side thing is tanking, so he 'borrows' money from the literary agency.  Over the course of 7 years, bookkeeper steals over $3 MILLION dollars. 

Author who was hit the hardest assumes his money is drying up because of piracy and slow sales. 

Gah.

I'm filing this one under 'Yet Another Reason to Never Have an Agent'.

Also, it should be filed under 'Never Trust Anyone Else With Your Money'.  There should've been a dozen sets of eyes watching everything the bookkeeper did, the agency did, etc.  And with the millions of dollars we're talking, a bit of it should've been set aside to pay for a yearly audit.  But no one thought of it and now the agency is bankrupt and the hardest hit author is nearly broke. 

Think about that.  Broke after having several best selling novels and a freakin' hit movie people quote on a regular basis.

So, please, if you're selling enough books to warrant having someone else touch your money, watch them like a freakin' hawk.  If you're not selling that many books, but you have an agent, watch them like a freakin' hawk.  Doesn't matter how awesome and nice and trustworthy you think they are.  Money like that is awfully tempting to a certain type of person.  And there are times when you can't tell if the person you're trusting is that 'certain type of person' until it's too damn late to do anything about it.

I know it's a pain in the ass, and in a rational world, it wouldn't be this way.  But we don't live in a rational world these days.  Not sure if it was ever rational in my lifetime.  =o\

And, yes, despite all the effort and headaches of being an independent author, I'm so glad I don't have an agent.  Now, if there were just a way to audit Amazon...  but that's a post for another time.  At some point, though, you just have to trust and hope the Big A isn't quietly screwing its authors.  Because it would be so easy for them to do...  :shudder:

Distance Yourself Now... I'm About to Say Some Things

This past week there was something of a kerfluffle in the writing community.  It seems that an unpublished writer had the unmitigated gall to let his frustrations overflow onto his blog.  And it got picked up by the agent he addressed by name.  And it went from one place to another, leaving a swath of nastiness everywhere it went.

I read the blog.  And I understood where the guy was coming from.  What author trying to break into traditional publishing hasn't had similar thoughts tapdance across their mind?  Oh, sure, he made reference to the agent's weight a few times.  That's not kosher, dude.  It's ad hominem and you're probably smarter than that.  Other than the references to her appearance, though, I didn't see what the problem was.

Unless the problem is voicing your opinions about the old boy network out loud and in a very public way. Shhhh, don't do it.  Don't say it.  Stay quiet.  Know your place.  Children should be seen and not...  Ahem.

I had more of a problem with everyone who felt the need to dogpile on this guy.  I saw 'how to kill your career' and 'what not to do' and 'how to get blacklisted*'. I also saw people saying things about him that made what he said about the agent tame.  And other admonitions to distance oneself from this behavior lest one piss off the industry. It was like a herd of wildebeest shunning a member of the herd they perceived as standing out, and kicking it as they stampeded by, so it couldn't follow them and so that the lion would eat it first.

Perhaps right now you're thinking 'No, B.E.!  Don't! Shhhh.'  Eh.  I don't think any of this will kill my career.  Readers don't really give a rat's ass what goes on behind the locked doors of the hallowed halls of traditional publishing.  Two years ago, I said 'Fuck this shit' and went out on my own anyway.  I'm less than lint in the corner to the traditional publishing houses. My career is as a self-published author.  The only way they can kill that is if they make it impossible for anyone to self-publish.  (And they're trying that, but I don't think they'll succeed.)

After all I've seen and all I know, I don't want to be traditionally published anymore.  Not unless something changes drastically.  Writers NEEDED agents once upon a time.  They had contacts we could never hope to aspire to having - chiefly editors at the traditional publishers.  Then again, once upon a time, writers could submit directly to those publishers and have at least a hope of someone there reading their work.  But that's not the way the world worked once computers came around and people could write more easily than ever before.  Once that happened, the publishers were flooded with submissions.  And in email submissions and the flood became a deluge.  The publishers needed agents to stem the tide and writers needed agents to get their work in front of those publishers.  And ultimately in the hands of readers.

Then came self-publishing.  Oh, writers still need agents if they want to be traditionally published.  But there's no reason why that's their only hope of finding readers.  Creator straight to market.  No one else in the way.  Clean.  Pure. 

I think what's this guy's real problem was was believing he had any chance with the agents who swim in the traditional publishing pool.  He'd already had 300+ rejections from them.  Spending money to attend a speed-dating session where he'd get more of the same is just self-immolation.  Let it go, dude.  They don't want you and they probably never will.  And that's okay.  Take the money and time you would've spent on trying to slip in through their keyhole and put your books out there yourself.  If your writing is any good, you'll sell books.  Find a good editor.  Find a capable cover artist.  Set your work free.  Maybe you won't sell 'bestseller list' numbers.  Maybe you won't be able to retire to a villa in sunny Spain (or whatever your dreams are).  But your books will be out there and people will be reading them.

And that's the point.  Isn't it?


*Years ago, I was assured there was no 'blacklist' in the publishing industry.  Ri-ight.