WELL, LEST ANYONE READ THIS POST IN THE ARCHIVES AND NOT NOTICE THE DATE, I AM HEREBY ANNOUNCING, IN BIG LETTERS, THAT THE FOLLOWING WAS WRITTEN ON APRIL 1st, 2006. IT IS AN APRIL FOOL’S JOKE. JOKE. HA HA HA. DO NOT SEND US ANY CHECKS OR MANUSCRIPTS. THEY WILL BE RETURNED UNREAD AND UNCASHED. I’M LEAVING THE POST BECAUSE IT WAS FUN TO BE GOOFY HERE FOR ONCE. HAVE A GREAT APRIL 2nd, FOLKS!
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Hello, faithful blog readers! To thank you for your readership, Vic and I are announcing our newest, most exciting venture HERE first!
The Writer Beware Literary Agency!
Victoria and I have been associated with the publishing field for over 30 years between us, and we are POSITIVE we have the knowledge, the contacts, and the expertise to represent your work to publishers. We’ll be looking at all genres, though we may decide to specialize later, as business picks up. Naturally, we’re actively seeking science fiction and fantasy writers to represent. Our ad for the Writer Beware Literary Agency will be appearing starting next month in Writers Digest magazine, also in Literary Marketplace, Publisher’s Weekly, and the New York Times Book Review.
We’re so excited about this! It’s taken months of secret planning, but now we are “go for launch!”
So please send us your nonfiction books, novels, poetry collections, and short stories. We will query publishers on your behalf, using our intimate knowledge of the publishing field to target just the RIGHT market for you.
Please send your submissions, hard copy only, on white paper, printed on one side of the paper only, in black ink. Leave an inch margin all around, and please double-space your manuscript. No email submissions will be accepted at this time, though we’ll review this policy later if we don’t get enough writers submitting work in the first few months.
Oh, and with each submission, please enclose your check for $1000 dollars for the first six months of submission fees. This will guarantee you submissions to at least 10 carefully selected and vetted advance and royalty paying publishers.
We’re ready to get you published! Send those manuscripts and checks TODAY! Don’t delay!
-Ann C. Crispin
LOLOL!!!
How many submissions did you get?
Sadly, I imagine Ann and Victoria are far better qualified and could do a far better job than many of the real scammers out there…
I drank one of these first.
I’ll give you a cap, if you edit my manuscript “How Davinci Rosenberg faked the Mars Landing with his Friend Leonard”.
Oh dear,
“The lambs were weary and crying…”
-All in An April Evening
XDDDDD
Excellent April Fools joke! ^___^
Come on, cough it up. What are the books have you sold other than your own? No wait. You didn’t put out an address? Ah well. Guess I’ll just bypass ya. No future for a fake agency. :/
Ann, you had me going. I first thought, wow, they’d be EXCELLENT agents. Then I got to part about the ads, and I went Huh? The short story part got a loud WTF?
And then I remembered that you’re not stupid or shady. Good one! Happy Foolin’!
This announcement was not very convincing. The text was believable, but the typography was not. Even when this was the first time ever I see an article appear entirely in boldface in my RSS reader, small tricks like that are not enough to convince me. If you really, really want to succeed, never forget Comic Sans MS font, the true secret weapon of convincing announcements.
You will note I did not give an address for sending checks. That was on purpose.
If someone goes to the trouble of looking up an address for me or Victoria, and mailing a manuscript and check it will, of course, be returned unopened. Along with a “Miss Snark” type note, giving that clueless soul the “Lackwit of the Week” award.
(I figure Miss Snark has pretty much trademarked “nitwit.”)
-Ann C. Crispin
Wow, you had me fooled entirely until I came to the paragraph about the submissions fee.
Great joke ladies! 🙂
It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if your little April Fool’s Day joke backfires, cause there’s plenty of fools who’ll do just that… get that check in the mail! But all the same, it was a great laugh!
Now what are you going to do when someone actually e-mails you a copy of their book and PayPals $1000 into your account? 🙂
Whoa! SWEET!
You guys are so lucky! I have 62,000.00 stashed in the bank and the SAME number of unsold manuscripts under my bed. I was SO disappointed when Publish America turned me down on all of them but you guys give me NEW HOPE!!!
Just give me 24 hours to get everything packaged for the mail!
WOO HOO!!!
Okay, since you’ve had all the literary experiences in the world of publishing, here’s a question yall been dreading: What books have you sold so far other than your own?
Wow! This is a bargain compared to that Robin’s lady. I’m sending all my manuscripts in one envelope. Maybe you’ll give me a bulk discount.
Snort.
Cheap! I’m going to go tell all my friends about this!
ROFL.
Great post as usual, ladies!
OH. Okay, hanging head and laughing at myself. Forgot was freaking day it was.
Got me! LOL!
I’m sorry. But I guess you had to expect that kind of reaction, huh??
Wow! Just curious…Virginia seems to maintain a Writer Beware site warning against just such “literary agencies” that charge “submission fees.” As seen on the Writer Beware website (http://www.sfwa.org/beware/agents.html):
Requiring an upfront “submission” or “handling” fee. Such upfront charges aren’t standard practice among reputable agents, who let submission expenses accrue and deduct them from the client’s advance. Fees of this kind range from a few hundred dollars up into the thousands; the highest I’ve run across is $5,000 for just one year of representation.
So what is your excuse for doing exactly what you warn against? I’m confused. Just happened to follow links to this site, and as an author (with a legitimate, non-fee-charging agency backing me), I was more than surprised and appalled to see this!
Wow! Only $1,000? How can they afford to represent authors at that low, low bargain-basement price! As a totally unbiased industry insider, I have to say that this is the best agenting offer I’ve seen since last April 1st.