Avoiding scams - the Fake Literary Agent

You believe in your book, but man is it hard to find someone else who will even consider it. You have tried blind mailing hundreds of publishing companies, a vanity press or two, and self-publishing, but you are becoming tired. Maybe if you just find a literary agent to represent the book for you, then you could sit back in your easy chair and just wait for the checks to come sailing in.

If you are like most aspiring writers, you begin to do research in order to find a good agent to represent your book. You know all about avoiding fake publishing houses and vanity presses because you know that a traditional publisher will not charge you anything to publish your book. However, even a legitimate "no-fee" literary agent may charge you "fees." How can that be? Well, the "fees" a legitimate agent might charge are actually reimbursements for making copies of your 200 page novel and then sending it to publishers. So how do you know?

Well, first you have to look at how you found the agent. Did you check in a reliable resource such as the most recent Writers Market and then visit the agent's website directly? Or, did you type "literary agent" into Google search and click on the highest ranked sponsored one? If you did the latter, you are in trouble, since real literary agents do not advertise and would not be a sponsored link.

When you get to the website, does the agent list the books it has recently sold? If yes, are these books truly sold to traditional publishers and are they truly recent? You will have to do some research to find this information out, but legitimate agents will list recent books sold to legitimate, traditional publishers.

Does the agent have a street address or is the address online only? Real agents have real places of business.

Once you have queried the agent, and they contact you, do you have to pay money upfront in order to sign the contract? This money could be for any reason: publicity photos, editing, critiques, a website that is designed for you to promote your book--anything. Real agents don't have add-ons that cost money.

So, what kind of fees do real agents charge? Once you have signed the contract, the agent will go to work for you and start sending out queries and copies of manuscripts. At this point, they may ask to be reimbursed for the cost of making these copies and sending them. If your manuscript sells to the publisher, the agent take up to 25% of the money made from sales. If your literary agent is constantly asking you to pay for new add-on services that are more than standard copying/postage reimbursements, then you need to find a new agent.