The Top Twenty Worst Agents

I mentioned the SFWA’s list of top twenty worst agents in a previous post.

This list has become a rather big deal lately with the whole Barbara Bauer and Absolute Write site takedown. As part of the retaliation of sorts, devoted AWers have posted all over the blogosphere about the takedown and linking BB to the SFWA’s top twenty list.

It’s a good idea, but a bit limited in scope.

Barbara Bauer is but one agent on that list. There are 19 other agents on that list who are also scammers. They also should be getting attention and linked to the list along with BB. We want people who do searches on these agencies to find the list. We want the list to show up in searches. We want to help educate innocent writers and prevent them from being scammed by all the scammers, not just BB. We don’t want any more victims.

Since we know better, it’s up to us to see that the innocents are protected.

In that vein, I’m linking the lot of them to the top twenty list. I would encourage all y’all to do the same.

And here it is, the SFWA’s list of top twenty worst agents that they know of.

Below 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.

Note that 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.

• 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.
• Capital Literary Agency (formerly American Literary Agents of Washington, 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, 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
• West Coast Literary Associates (also d/b/a California Literary Services)

Similar Posts:

• Even more sites talking about the AbsoluteWrite Takedown
• AbsoluteWrite the update
• The whole kerfuffle started with…
• Time-release GoogleBomb against literary scammers
• Barbara Bauer issues literary awards

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Tagged as: AW, scams