scammer agents

[julesjones]

I am annoyed, as are quite a number of writers today. Why are we annoyed? Because...

A group of sf folk do a sterling job in keeping track of scam literary agents and publishers, those people who through incompetence or active malice prey on the hopes of writers who don't know that you do not pay to be published. Writer Beware recently released a list of the Twenty Worst Agents. This stuff is all documented--they have bulging files of verified complaints against these agents. The list promptly propagated around writerly corners of the net, to the horror and outrage of one of the agents listed. Barbara Bauer is not happy because if a potential victim has the nous to Google on her name, they will discover that a lot of her former clients are not happy with her. She has been pursuing those who have posted this list, including trying to get Tor editor Teresa Nielsen Hayden fired by phoning a senior executive at Tor's parent company and claiming that TNH had libelled her on a Tor company website.

Barbara Bauer's latest action in trying to squash any discussion of her business practices is to make a threatening phone call to the webhost of popular writers' forum Absolute Write. The webhost owner panicked and pulled the plug, not just kicking the site off but denying the site owners access to their own database. As of early this afternoon it does look as if the forum archives can be saved, but for a few hours there it looked as if a major resource had been destroyed. Full report of Barbara Bauer's latest intimidation tactics can be found at Making Light.

ETA: There is now a Technorati tag for bloggers to use to tag posts relating to this, the better that Technorati may catalogue them:
http://technorati.com/tag/BarbaraBauer
used like so:
Barbara Bauer

Comments

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I assume they've found a new host by now, but if they haven't...

[julesjones]

They're already on it, and expect to be up again in a day or so. But this is what they'd need, according to Teresa:
"Here's what I'm told AW requires of a new host: 100-150 Gigabytes per month in traffic, plus 2 Gigabytes more of space, plus running a very active webboard based on MySql and a bunch of scripts."

[horace-hamster.livejournal.com]

I wonder how long it'll take Barbara Bauer to figure out that it's been a self defeating act. Looks like pretty much every one of the thousands of Absolute Writer denizens, members, lurkers, and hanger-out-ers have blogged about this. Barbara's cooked her own goose.

[julesjones]

You'd think she'd have learnt the first time. *This* time she gets Google-bombed... (see Jim's post).

[horace-hamster.livejournal.com]

since she posts her email address on her website, there's also no reason she can't be email-bombed. I've done my part (see my blog)! Go for it...tell her just how much of a plonker she is :-)

[emmyjag.livejournal.com]

Not sure how people posting comments about their personal experiences with this Barbara Bauer counts as libel, and Tor likely has a corporate lawyer who has told her so. I'm of the opinion that having the opportunity to take advantage of someone doesnt mean you need avail yourself of it. Its upsetting and disappointing to hear of people who are trying to make it in the world get ripped off by unscrupulous people. However, the information on how do go about things properly is out there, if you take the time to find it. Hopefully, aspiring authors are savvy enough to belong to several writer's groups/forums/etc. and know what's going on. I'll forward this info to everyone I know and request they do the same. Gotta love the underground.

[julesjones]

Thanks. A good place to point people at is the Writers Beware webpage at SFWA: http://www.sfwa.org/beware/

It's a good basic primer on how not to get scammed. I keep saying that I'm going to update my links page - this is one of the links that will be at the top of the list.

You cruel people...

[seawasp]

... bloodsucking parasitic weasels still need to make a living!

Re: You cruel people...

[julesjones]

:->

I could have been even more horrid -- I could have given the name of the craven ISP. The one whose representative has made a very big fool of himself in the Making Light thread. :-> He was pouting and stamping his feet, following it with "and I'm sure you'll take this post down". He should be so lucky. The Making Light crew believe in giving fools enough rope to hang themselves with...

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

If one googles for Barbara Bauer, there's enough horrid links on the first page to make any punter think twice.

[julesjones]

That's what she's afraid of. This isn't the first time she's pulled a stunt like this - Barbara Bauer has a long history of threatening people who talk about her dubious busines practices. The Twenty Worst Agents list has *really* got her wound up, though. Scam literary agents really don't like being exposed.