The official blog of Writer Beware® shines a bright light into the dark corners of the shadow-world of literary scams, schemes, and pitfalls. Also providing advice for writers, industry news, and commentary. Writer Beware® is sponsored by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association.
For context, see Part 1. Hill’s scam was an elaborate one, featuring personal contact with clients and voluminous written documents. On intake, clients received a detailed assessment of their manuscripts, covering elements such as target audience, plot structure, and grammar. Some of the assessments I’ve seen were individual, but most were based on a templateRead More
Over the past week, a firestorm has erupted on popular writers’ forum Absolute Write over Edinburgh-based literary agency Hill & Hill. On September 14th, Hill clients, many of whom had been told that publication offers with major publishers were imminent, were shocked to learn that the agency had shut down its website, terminated its UKRead More
This morning I sat down at my computer, credit card in hand, to book my train trip to Springfield, MA, where Victoria planned to pick me up on Thursday evening. Then both of us planned to attend the Martha Ivery/Kelly O’Donnell sentencing hearing in Albany on Friday morning. Well, as I searched the timetables, aRead More
Over the past few months there’s been quite a bit of discussion about the brand-new Sobol Award, most recently publicized in this AP article. Some people are thrilled at the enormous payout (prizes ranging from $100,000 for the winner to $1,000 for several runners-up, plus literary representation for the top 10 manuscripts). Others feel thatRead More
Hi folks. I’m finally home after vacation, my dad’s surgery, and Dragoncon. I taught my two workshops there, and attended several panels in the Writer’s Track. A couple of common mistakes caught my attention, either from Q&A in the Writing Track, or during the workshops. Here are some of the common problems writers seemed toRead More
This week, I’ve gotten two inquiries from writers about agencies with low commission rates (7% in one case, 10% in another). Both writers felt that the low commission was a positive sign–not just because the agents would get a smaller cut of the writers’ eventual income, but because it suggested to them that the agentsRead More
