I know from experience that the Wild Wide World of Publishing can be frightening and overwhelming. There are agents out there that are not really agents but scammers ready to suck your bank account dry, there are publishers that say they will publish your book but in fact will never once look upon your baby, A.K.A. book. There are sharks out there that will swallow you whole if you are not careful.
Not to worry, there are resources that are there to help us writers determine who the villains are in the publishing industry. Those people are the wonderful of Writer Beware, they are located at www.sfwa.org. There they receive complaints about agencies, agents, publishers, contests, and other pitfalls that target writers and they also post the results of court cases on their web site and blog. Very handy-dany. I have noticed that some of the agencies and agents and even self publishing publishers listed in the Writer's Market are listed on their web-site for complaints, and court ligation's. Always double check before you send out your well formed query and of course before you agree to sign any contract or PAY any amount of money to anyone. (A good rule to remember is that a decent agent will not require you to pay any amount for a reading, query or anything else up front.)
My golden rule is to google the agent, the agency and check the Better Business Bureau. Use your common sense first. If a deal seems to good to be true, it usually is. DO NOT BE AFRAID TO ASK QUESTIONS!! There are no stupid questions.
No comments:
Post a Comment