(no subject)

[julesjones]

As you've probably noticed by now, the meme de jour in the writing-orientated section of the blogosphere is scam literary agent Barbara Bauer's latest attempt to intimidate and silence those who discuss her business ethics or lack thereof. The moral of this story is "do not meddle in the affairs of geeks, for they are unsubtle and will Googlebomb you". Trying to take down a very popular site used by thousands of people who are or who wish to learn to be capable of influencing others by the use of language is a really bad move. When a number of those people are long time netheads who know how to spread the word, and are armour-plated against take-down attempts directed at them in turn, it is suicidal stupidity. There are now hundreds of blogs with links to the Writer Beware list of the twenty worst literary agents, the one on which Barbara Bauer's name is featured. Nice going, Barbara.

To add to this little tale of woe, it would appear that the webhost owner may have had an ulterior motive in caving so quickly to Bauer's threats. She's decided to bring her own writers' forum website back up, one that might find Absolute Write competition. This is, of course, entirely unconnected with her decision to pull Absolute Write on an hour's notice. I'm deliberately not linking at this point, but you can find the gory details in the Making Light coverage.

There's no reason to doubt that Barbara Bauer did threaten her, as Bauer has a track record of making such threats. As I mentioned in my post yesterday, part of Barbara Bauer's response to the initial posting of the writer Beware list of the twenty worst literary agents was to try to get Tor editor Teresa Nielsen Hayden sacked by making a false accusation that tnh had libelled her on a Tor company website. She has also sent threatening communications to at least one other writers' forum in the past, and has harrassed bloggers who posted the list when it made its first appearance. She's going to be kept very busy this time around.

I'm still annoyed. I've never posted on Absolute Write myself, as far as I can recall, but I've lurked there for years and I have found much useful information in the forums. It was, and with any luck will be, a valuable resource for the writing community.

That list in full as posted to Absolute Write is under the cut, just in case you've missed it so far. Besides, we might as well add to the woes of the other nineteen scammers on that list. :->


Below is a list of the 20 agents about which Writer Beware has received the greatest number of advisories/complaints during the past several years.

None of these agents has a significant track record of sales to commercial (advance-paying) publishers, and most have virtually no documented and verified sales at all (many sales claimed by these agents turn out to be vanity publishers). All charge clients before a sale is made, whether directly, by charging fees such as reading or administrative fees, or indirectly, for "editing services."

Writer Beware suggests that writers searching for agents avoid questionable agents, and instead query agents who have actual track records of sales to commercial publishing houses.

THE LIST:

* The Abacus Group Literary Agency
* Allred and Allred Literary Agents (refers clients to "book doctor" Victor West of Pacific Literary Services)
* Capital Literary Agency (formerly American Literary Agents of Washington, Inc.)
* Barbara Bauer Literary Agency
* Benedict & Associates (also d/b/a B.A. Literary Agency)
* Sherwood Broome, Inc.
* Desert Rose Literary Agency
* Arthur Fleming Associates
* Finesse Literary Agency (Karen Carr)
* Brock Gannon Literary Agency
* Harris Literary Agency
* The Literary Agency Group, which includes the following:
Children's Literary Agency
Christian Literary Agency
New York Literary Agency
Poets Literary Agency
The Screenplay Agency
Stylus Literary Agency (formerly ST Literary Agency)
Writers Literary & Publishing Services Company (the editing arm of the above-mentioned agencies)

* Martin-McLean Literary Associates
* Mocknick Productions Literary Agency, Inc.
* B.K. Nelson, Inc.
* The Robins Agency (Cris Robins)
* Michele Rooney Literary Agency (also d/b/a Creative Literary Agency and Simply Nonfiction)
* Southeast Literary Agency
* Mark Sullivan Associates
* West Coast Literary Associates (also d/b/a California Literary Services)

- Victoria
__________________
Two of Eight
Website: www.victoriastrauss.com
Writer Beware: www.writerbeware.org
Writer Beware Blog: www.accrispin.blogspot.com

Comments

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Still only in third place on Google. Hopefully, it will catch up in the next couple of days.

[hafren.livejournal.com]

All that energy she spends chasing bloggers, you'd wonder when she finds time to attend to her clients' interests...

[julesjones]

There have been comments that if she put as much effort into being a real literary agent as she does into scamming people and squashing comment, she might actually be able to earn a living honestly