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.
Most of you visiting here will probably be aware of the most recent antics of “literary agent” Barbara Bauer, serial cease-and-desister and Big Number 3 on Writer Beware’s Twenty Worst Agents list. (If I seem a bit behind the eight ball with this post, I wasn’t aware of any of this till yesterday evening. IRead More
Yesterday I spent six hours at the Book Expo America, wandering around the gargantuan DC Convention Center. I had been to the convention before, back when it was still the American Booksellers Association, known as the ABA. I remembered enough from my previous time there to bring a tote bag. One tote bag wasn’t enough.Read More
A lot of you will probably already have heard of AuthorHouse’s recent troubles. According to yesterday’s Publishers Weekly, a Kansas jury has found the POD publisher guilty of publishing a book that libeled bestselling author Rebecca Brandewyne (Paperback Poison: the Romance Writer and the Hit Man by Brandewyne’s ex-husband Gary D. Brock and his currentRead More
Hi, my friends: Lately I’ve been dealing with family illness while trying to make significant progress on my new novel, Winds of Vengeance, so I haven’t been around much. I really appreciate Victoria stepping in and blogging so excellently. Since I’m in the middle of a major project — well, I consider writing an epicRead More
One post back, I wrote about this guy who’s scattering scurrilous messages around the Internet about me and Dave Kuzminski. At the time, I’d only found two of these, but in fact there are more–five in all. Here’s another one. And another one. And still another one. Guess what. We still don’t care. Since ol’Read More
In 1999, I started getting complaints about a guy with the unfortunate name of George Harrison Titsworth, who ran an agency called Helping Hand Literary Service in San Angelo, Texas. Mr. Titsworth sought clients by placing ads like this one in free weekly papers such as Pennysaver:
WRITERS WANTED by literary agent that specializes in getting unpublished writers published. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, children's. Free evaluation. Helping Hand Literary Services.
Writers who ignored the multiple red flags (real agents don't advertise; real agents don't represent poetry) and submitted to Helping Hand got an offer of representation, complete with a glowing acceptance letter. "I don't normally have this much to say about a submission," the letter began (and yes, every potential client got the same letter, customized with their name and book title). "You are a talented writer with a great deal of potential...Plus, it doesn't hurt a bit that I found 117 [or 150, or 200, depending on the letter] publishers that buy material like yours."
