How to Spot a Fake Literary Agency

As if writers didn’t have enough to contend with, the past couple of years have seen a huge rise in scammers posing as literary agencies.

I’m not talking here about the imposters who “borrow” the names of real agents and agencies (though they are certainly part of the same problem)–but about scammers who set up entirely fake literary agencies as fronts for extracting money from writers.

Reputable literary agents do occasionally reach out to authors whose work they’ve seen to ask if the author is represented or to invite a submission. But this is rare. Reputable literary agents are buried in queries; they don’t have a pressing need to scout for more.

For scammers, on the other hand, solicitation is their main way of recruiting clients. There are so many solicitation scams these days that you should be extremely cautious of any out-of-the-blue publishing- or movie rights-related contact that isn’t directly traceable to a query you sent or submission you made.

Many fake literary agency solicitations are relatively easy to recognize because of how flagrantly bogus they are–demanding upfront fees of various types, selling junky PR services, shilling re-publication packages, and often laced with bad grammar (most solicitation scams come from overseas)–none of which is typical of real, reputable literary agents.

But what if you get a credible-seeming email like this?

It’s literate. It’s personalized. It doesn’t demand money. It even offers a plausible-seeming explanation for how the “agent” came across your work (though if you check, you’ll discover that there’s no authors’ group by that exact name). Sure, no real agent would have a position as “Supervisor for Traditional Publishing Acquisition”, since traditional publishing acquisition is all agents do; in fact it’s unlikely that a non-fake agent would use the term “traditional publisher” at all, since that’s the only kind of publisher agents deal with, and needs no special mention. But inexperienced authors may not know this.

How, then, to investigate whether the approach is real or fake?

EVALUATING AGENTS AND AGENCY WEBSITES

The first step: do a websearch on the name of the “agent” to see if you can confirm a) if they exist, and b) if they are actually an agent. Media mentions, deal reports, conference attendance, social media feeds, MSWL requests, presence on QueryTracker or Publishers Marketplace–all can provide confirmation.

What about the agent in the solicitation above? Googling “Jordan Reed” or “Jordan Reed + agent” yields many results for football player Jordan Reed, but none at all for literary agent Jordan Reed. That should make you wary. A real agent–even a very new one–will have at least some online footprint. A fake agent, on the other hand, exists only to provide the appearance of verisimilitude; they have no independent existence, and you’re unlikely to find any reference to them beyond the solicitation you received, or, perhaps, the fake agency’s website.

Next: check the agency’s website. Agency websites vary hugely in design and scope, but the website of a reputable agency will include most or all of these elements:

• The names and biographies of member agents
• A client list
• Recent sales, in the form of book covers, announcements, news releases, and the like
• Clear submission guidelines
• Information on agency history–when it was founded, by whom, etc.

Some examples, which I’ve picked at random: The Bent Agency, Sanford J. Greenburger Associates, Bradford Literary Agency, Joelle Delbourgo Associates.

Since they aren’t actually engaged in the business of selling manuscripts to publishers, the websites of fake agencies often lack much of this information. Or some of the information may appear to be present, but is either false or not what it seems. Fake agency websites also often offer services that reputable agencies don’t, such as publishing packages and/or junk marketing (press releases, video trailers, social media advertising, paid reviews and interviews, and the like).

Take the “agency” in the solicitation above: Oculus Literary. Warning signs appear on the first page, in the form of typos and peculiar capitalization. Agent names are nowhere to be found; ditto for a client list. There’s a contact button but no submission guidelines. Plus, in bonus bogosity: the books featured on the home page don’t actually exist, and although Oculus claims it has been in business since 2004, its web domain was only registered this past July.

Unfortunately, fake agency websites aren’t always so obvious.

Scammers learn and change. A year ago, most fake agency websites looked like Oculus Literary’s, and were pretty easily identifiable as scams. Increasingly, though, fake agencies incorporate some of the elements real agencies do–a lineup of book covers, agent names, client websites. Examples: Tyler Literary, Remarkable Pages, 20/Twenty Literary Group, WritersValue, Literary Guard, Diverse Content Literary, Quantum Discovery.

And then there are the agency fakers that really go all in on subterfuge, with elaborate websites featuring traditionally-published books, detailed submission guidelines, agent bios and photos, even claims to work with co-agents for subsidiary rights sales. Examples: AG Literary, The Literary Firm, Collins Literary Guild. (UPDATE: AG Literary now has a carbon copy, Syntax Literary. See the more detailed update below.)

These can be especially confusing, because at first glance their websites look almost exactly like those of genuine agencies. But scammers are lazy, and they assume that writers are stupid. Even very authentic-seeming websites tend to fall apart with just a little digging.

UNMASKING THE MORE ELABORATE FAKES

I don’t mean to plunge you into a shadowy world where every literary agency is suspect. Most are exactly what they appear to be. The cautions in this post apply primarily when you already have one major warning sign in hand: an out-of-the-blue solicitation from the agency. In fact, you’re unlikely to encounter a fake literary agent any other way.

Below is a series of suggestions that should help you penetrate even the most devious deceptions.

Research some of the books/authors/testimonials that appear on the website to see if you can confirm who agents them. A websearch may turn up the author’s name on an agency client list. Sales announcements and book reviews may mention the author’s agent, and the author may reveal who represents them on their website. QueryTracker’s Who Reps Whom resource may give you the answer, and if you’re a member of Publishers Marketplace, you can check their Who Represents database.

For example, the array of book covers on AG Literary’s homepage includes Carole Stivers’ The Mother Code, but Stivers is actually represented by Elisabeth Weed of The Book Group (whose agents have been the target of impersonation scams). Kevin Wilson’s Nothing to See Here is represented by Julie Barer, also of The Book Group. Similarly, The Literary Firm boasts a (inappropriately capitalized) testimonial by Bill Schweigart, author of The Devil’s Colony; Schweigart in fact is repped by Barbara Poelle, formerly of the Irene Goodman Agency, now of Word One Literary. (Schweigart has tweeted about TLF’s false claim.)

Of course, sometimes the fakery smacks you in the face, as in Collins Literary Guild’s claim to have repped E.B. White, J.R.R. Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis.

Do a websearch on the agents’ names. Most likely you won’t be able to find any reference to them beyond the website–which, as noted above, is highly suspicious. Alternatively, they may turn out to be real agents–but they actually work somewhere else. AG Literary claims Lisa Aballera as one of its agents…but she is in fact with Kimberly Cameron & Associates. Amy Collins is with Talcott Notch. Alexandra Levick is with Writers House.

If there are agent photos, use Google image search or Tineye.com to confirm who they belong to. Agent Max Ramirez of Collins Literary Guild turns out to be this Max Ramirez, director of digital sales for a West Coast media company. Collins Literary’s Donna Smith is a stock photo.

Of course, if the photos are AI-generated, an image search won’t find their sources. You may still be able to spot discrepancies, though. If you open the photo of The Literary Firm’s Trixie Summers in a new tab, you’ll see that the file name identifies her as Audrey Atwon. AI-generated images also often include subtle errors–strange hair, distorted features, background anomalies. Enlarge the photo of The Literary Firm’s Colton Ramsey (file name: Bryan Lee) to see how his hair pixelates at his forehead and his neck chain melds with his T-shirt collar.

Check domain registration information to see if the registration date matches the agency’s claims about itself. Does the agency say it was founded in 2018, but its web domain was only registered a few months ago? Not very plausible. Does the agency purport to represent books that its domain registration post-dates by decades–as with Collins Literary Guild, which didn’t exist prior to August 2023 but claims to have sold books published in the 1950s? Unlikely.

Phrase searches can be your friend. Agent bios on fake agency sites are often sloppily plagiarized from those of real agents. If you pick a distinctive sentence or phrase and search on it (in quotes), you may turn up the original source.

A few examples: The Literary Firm’s Cindy Smith has borrowed her bio from this feature on real agent Miriam Kriss. The bio of Collins Literary Firm’s Chloe McNeill has been stolen from Sanford Greenburger’s Wendi Gu. AG Literary’s Juan Lucas has appropriated part of the bio of Luke Janklow of Janklow & Nesbit Associates (and interpolated a typo).

(Scammers read this blog, and sometimes make changes in response, so depending on when you read this post, some of the linked info may have vanished or been altered.)

OTHER MARKERS OF FAKERY

Solicitations that claim the agent has reached out to major publishers and received interest, or has a contract already in hand. This is a writer’s dream, right? But reputable agents don’t reach out to publishers or submit work on behalf of writers they don’t represent.

Solicitations that claim the agent has discovered your work via recommendations or referrals from organizations that don’t provide recommendations or referrals, such as Amazon, the Independent Book Publishers Association, and the American Booksellers Association.

Solicitations that claim your book has been discovered or recommended but don’t say how or by whom, or cite anonymous “book scouts” or “evaluation specialists” or “talent coordinators”. In the rare event a real literary agent reaches out to you, they’ll be specific about how they encountered your work.

FINAL WORDS

It sucks that predators are so common, and writers have to be so careful. Who wants to always be on their guard, to always proceed from a standpoint of suspicion? In fact that’s something that can backfire. I often hear from writers who are worried that activities that have become pretty normal for reputable agents, such as offering paid workshops to the public or providing paid editing for non-clients, are scams.

But scammers are out there, and writers–like most individuals in creative endeavors, where there are a lot of people seeking entry and success is difficult to achieve–are vulnerable to those who offer shortcuts or cater to egos. All creatives crave validation and dream of being discovered. And scammers and con artists know how to exploit that.

Beyond the careful checking detailed above, writers need to become informed consumers. Writers really increase their vulnerability by not taking the time to learn about publishing and/or self-publishing before trying to publish (or attempting to learn online, which is a minefield unless you know enough to filter what you find). Educate yourself! The more you know about how publishing should work, the better prepared you’ll be to recognize bad practice, lies, and imposters when you encounter them.

UPDATE 2/26/24: In the kind of mitosis that is typical of Philippine scam operations, AG Literary has split in two: it now has a carbon copy called Syntax Literary, with the same false claims about repping books and movies, and many of the same fake staffers (including “founding partner” Colin Armitage), this time with AI-generated headshots.

Colin is currently sending out ChatGPT-created solicitations (you can tell from the excessively flowery and overly formal writing style, and also by the absence of English-language errors) claiming “exhilarating news: the 2024 HarperCollins book acquisition is officially open.” He wants you to know that he is a deeply sensitive dude who loves books so much he sometimes passes out while reading:

UPDATE 3/10/24: Both Syntax Literary’s and AG Literary’s domains/websites have been suspended. Someone must have complained. Syntax is still soliciting as of this writing, though, this time under the name of Gary Heidt, a real agent.