Rant: Twenty Worst Literary Agents

Absolute Write is both a Web site, and a community for writers. Perhaps the most well-known part of the site is the forum, known as the Absolute Write Water Cooler. Don't try to go there; you can't right now, because of a malicious scammer with a bad temper.

Among other things, the Absolute Write Water Cooler has been vital in informing new and naive writers of various cons and scams, ranging from fake publishers like PublishAmerica, to scam agents who don't actually ever get anything really published by a commercial consumer publisher.

Recently, Absolute Write's Water Cooler had a thread about a list of the Twenty Worst Agents. This list is

a list of the 20 literary agencies about which Writer Beware has received the greatest number of advisories/complaints over the past several years.

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

The original source of the list of worst agents, information which was very very carefully collected, verified, and documented, is another writers' advocacy site, Writer Beware, a service of the Science Fiction Writers of America's Committee on Writing Scams. One of those "agents" is Barbara Bauer, of the Barbara Bauer Literary Agency. On Tuesday May 24, Barbara Bauer made a telephone call to the tiny ISP who hosted Absolute Write, and bullied them into taking the site off-line. You can read all about it here. The ISP blocked access to all of Absolute Write after giving the owner of Absolute Write a mere hour to backup the forum and other files, in response to idiotic threats from Bauer. Threats related to the content of a single thread about the Twenty Worst Agents. Please notice; there was nothing in that thread that was untrue. Bauer really isn't a genuine, successful professional agent. I mean, it's not like Barbara Bauer has actually placed real clients with real books with real editors who see that they're published and placed in real stores where people can buy the books. The nonsensical content on her Web site makes it pretty clear that she's totally clueless about publishing and editors.

But right now, Absolute Write is temporarily off the Web, as they seek a new host with some spine and a little nous.

And just because Bauer thinks she's bigger than the Net, I'm going to post Writers Beware's list of the Twenty Worst Agents here.

• 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)

Technorati Tags:BarbaraBauer, Top 20 Worst Agents