The Grift Mill

I Know What I Said

True story: I had a different topic planned for you today.

This is normal for me, I change it up all the time. I’m flexible. Agile, even. Shelf Life is a snapshot of whatever writing, editing, publishing, reading, or related topic is foremost in my mind when I am writing it (usually late on a Monday or Wednesday night). Thus, plan though I may (there is an editorial calendar), topics get preempted when I hyperfixate on something else. I have an article on the Marie Lu Realms of Ruin NFT situation that has got bumped back so many times that it’s no longer germane to the industry zeitgeist so now I have to hold onto it until another big-name author or publisher puts a foot wrong in that space.

Then I went to Paper Cuts, an excellent monthly writers’ group, and the topic came up of how to tell when someone in the publishing industry is trying to scam you. I had a lot more to say on the topic so now you have to listen to it. These are the breaks. I’m sorry; I don’t make the rules. 

I acknowledge that many writers feel embittered toward or suspicious of the publishing industry and those folks may see any publishing industry–related opportunity as a scam. As in: “Publishers, editors, and literary agents are people who stand between the author and money.” That’s fine if someone feels that way, but is not the topic of today’s article. Proceeding from the understanding that traditional publishing is not, itself, entirely a scam, today’s Shelf Life is about how to tell when a particular publishing opportunity is a scam.

It’s challenging because there’s a caveat to any rule of thumb. Sometimes I see people helpfully offer, “A legitimate publisher will never approach you for a manuscript, you have to approach them.” This is almost universally true in fiction—except when you have a runaway hit self-pub on your hands like The Martian. And it’s not true at all in certain nonfiction markets. 

How about, “The money always flows to the author from the publisher and never in the opposite direction?” That is always true in a legitimate, traditional book publishing operation. But what about a contest with an entry fee? Or a literary or scholarly journal with a submission fee?

Sometimes catching a scammer is as easy as googling and sometimes not. It’s harder all the time to tell what is a legitimate, traditional publisher, reputable literary agent, or prestigious contest. Anyone can set up a professional-looking website using Squarespace or Wix and call themself an agent or a publisher. Herewith, general guidance followed by suggestions for dealing with different types of entities you’ll encounter in the industry.

In General

In the traditional publishing model, two things are almost always true:

• Money goes from the publisher to the author and not the other way around.

• Publishing industry professionals do not solicit authors; instead, authors query publishing professionals.

There are exceptions to both of these truisms, to which I alluded above.

Anyone in the publishing industry who cold approaches you with an offer that includes giving them money is scamming you. A publisher contacts you because they want to publish your book if you’ll subsidize the production cost? Scam. An agent contacts you and asks you to submit a query and then they offer feedback on your submission in exchange for money? Scam. A publisher wants to publish you but only if you buy their editing first? Scam. An editor saw your short story on your blog and thinks it might be able to win the contest he’s hosting and the entry fee is only $20? Scam.

Sometimes, there is a legitimate reason to pay a reading fee or a submission fee (to be considered by a journal) or an entry fee (to participate in a contest). Note that not all journals and contests charge these fees but some do.

Legitimate, traditional publishers of books do not charge fees for any of the following: To accept a query; to read a submission; to provide editorial feedback; to provide production services for your manuscript such as copyediting and proofreading; for printing and distributing your book; or for marketing. If a book publisher wants money from an author, that is a hybrid press, subsidy press, or vanity press (more on those in a previous Shelf Life). That is not a traditional publisher. Traditional publishers of books do not take money from authors.

When might a publishing industry professional approach an author instead of the other way around? When the author has something of demonstrated value that the publisher would like to capitalize on. This could mean a person who is famous enough that their name can sell books (as in a textbook publisher approaching a well-known academic or a biographer approaching a famous political figure) or it could mean a self-published property or title is such a runaway success that a publisher has taken notice and makes an offer to help the author achieve further sales and recognition (this has happened to, for instance, EL James with Fifty Shades of Grey, Andy Weir with The Martian, and Hugh Howey with Wool).

Because these success stories exist, predatory publishers will reach out to self-published authors with a solicitation implying they found your work and they think it’s an undiscovered gem. Below is an adaptation a real scam email a peer recently received (with specifics redacted):

Hey there, [Author], 

You don’t know me but I love [Your Book Title] and I’m really amazed by how original your story and your excellent writing. That’s something you just don’t see every day in [your specific genre]. What really blew me away was how relatable [Character Name] was. I’ve been reading your series on Wattpad for a while so when my company asked me to recommend writers for [platform name], I thought of you right away.

The letter continued on in that vein for a few more paragraphs. The person who received the letter asked whether this was a scam. This is a barely customized form letter that wants to trick writers into a predatory contract with a disreputable content mill.

Agents and publishers receive thousands of queries and submissions per year; some receive tens of thousands. The working hours they have to devote to finding the next big thing are spent considering those queries and submissions. They are not spending their working hours trawling through internet content looking for undiscovered gems that might not even be for sale. A property has to go extremely viral on the internet, or become a high-earning bestseller if self-published, to attract their notice.

Realistically speaking if that’s not the property you have—meaning, it’s not getting millions of clicks or already generating a decent income for yourself through book sales—then no one knocking on your door offering to help you sell it is doing you a favor.

To vet any unsolicited offer you receive, look at what you are being asked for and what you are being offered. If someone cold calls you and wants money from you, that’s a scam. There is no time when that will ever not be a scam in this industry. 

If someone cold-contacts you and wants to offer money to you, find out everything you can about the organization they represent. Check it out on the SFWA’s Writer Beware. Find out who else they represent and see what’s going on with those other authors: Are they successful? Can you find their books in your local public library? In your local Barnes & Noble? (Remember, anyone can list a book for sale on Amazon; a book’s availability on Amazon does not suggest that it was traditionally published.)

Agents

Agents are tricky because you have a few different kinds of people in this arena besides the actual agents. There are people posing as literary agents who will ask for a fee to read your query or submission or try to sell you editorial advice on your submission. 

There are also people who don’t understand what agenting is and think they would be good at it so they hang out a shingle and wait for queries. With no track record and no agency support, they don’t get any queries so they go hunting. While well-intentioned, these folks do not have the skills or connections needed to be a literary agent. At minimum, an agent must have: 

1. The ability to distinguish a marketable manuscript from one that is just enjoyable reading; 

2. A deep understanding of publishing contracts, rights, and permissions with a smattering of media law; and 

3. A roster of editors at traditional publishing companies who are interested in their opinion on manuscripts.

Those are not skills you can learn in any school or in any industry outside of the publishing industry or maybe the entertainment industry.

To vet an agent, look for:

• What sales have they made in the last 18 months? Meaning, what books have they sold and to which publishers. Are these publishers you’d be proud to publish with? Have they sold to a variety of publishers or to only one publisher again and again? Working with only one publisher means this may be a freelance rainmaker for a subsidy press.

• What is their industry experience? How did they come by the skills to be a literary agent? Did they come up through an agency as an assistant? Did they work at a publishing house? 

• Who do they work for? Does this agent work for an agency? If so, it’s easy to find out if the agency is reputable; just check their roster of authors. If the agent works for themself or is the head of their own agency, just make sure their credentials from items 1 and 2 are impeccable. A junior agent at a major agency isn’t a red flag for me but a self-employed agent better have an excellent track record and impressive experience.

Publishers

A traditional publisher will not come asking for your manuscript unless you’re already a well-known person, either generally (like Britney Spears, a household name) or within a specific field (like Tim Gowers, who you may not have heard of if you’re not a mathematician). If neither of those categories describes you, the publisher is not going to come looking for you. You have to take your work to them.

If a publisher wants money from you to publish your work, it is either a vanity press (also called a subsidy press) or a hybrid press. I discussed these types of presses in a previous Shelf Life so all I have to say on that subject here is, if you would like to pay someone to essentially self-publish your book for you, that’s what you will get. You will not be buying editorial, marketing, or distribution services equivalent to what you would get from a traditional publisher.

If a publisher (a company like Penguin Random House) or a platform (a company like Wattpad or Royal Road) wants money from you or wants you to assign them rights to your content, that is a scam (see my article on copyright for the difference between granting rights temporarily and assigning them permanently). Likewise, if a publisher or platform wants exclusive rights to something, they should not be asking for those forever or for an unreasonable amount of time. The platform that sent the scam letter I included above asked the writer to sign a contact to produce content for their platform, and only for their platform, for thirty years. That’s predatory.

Contests

Contests are tricky. You need to look carefully at what the contest entry requires from you and what the contest rewards you with in return should you win (and what happens if you do not win).

All kinds of organizations run writing contests. Some contests reward with publication, some with money, some with both. Some require an entry fee and some do not. None of those things definitely mean a contest is a scam or not a scam.

Most writing contests work like this: The submissions are first read by paid readers who select the best ones (possibly using a scoring sheet); then best are then read by the contest judges, who select the winners. The readers and the judges need to be paid for their work. That money either comes from the organization sponsoring the writing contest or it comes from the entry fees. 

Here’s what you need to consider when vetting contests:

• What is the prize? If it’s publication, make sure you understand exactly what that means. Publication in an anthology of winners? In print? On a website? How much traffic does that website get? A common scam is soliciting writing contest entries as a means of populating the solicitor’s website with content.

• Who are the judges? The prestige of a literary contest is measured by the prestige of the judges. Those judges should be successful authors or editors, and you should be able to independently verify that. Have they won industry awards for their writing or editing? Are they bestsellers in their own right?

• What rights do you grant to the contest organizer by entering and if you win? If the prize is they publish your work, are they asking for exclusive or nonexclusive rights? For how long? And if you don’t win, do they publish you on their website anyway? Do they retain rights to your manuscript even if you don’t win?

Journals and Anthologies

Publishing in a literary journal or anthology is a great way to get short fiction or poetry in front of readers, but not all journals and anthologies are created equal (surprise). Journals and anthologies can evaluated on a lot of criteria, but the following are the prime ones.

• How well do they pay for content? Most genres have an established rate of pay per word that is considered the “professional rate.” For example, the SFWA dictates the pro rate for science fiction and fantasy is $0.08 per word, while the HWA dictates $0.05 per word for horror. Journals may offer a pro rate payment; a cash payment less than the pro rate; a non-monetary payment like a complimentary print copy; or no payment.

• Do the stories they publish win awards? Think of the major awards for the genre in which you write. The Hugo for sci fi and fantasy; the Bram Stoker for horror; the VIVIAN for romance; the Pushcart for literary fiction. Has the journal you’re submitting to placed nominees? Have their stories been shortlisted? Have they won?

• Who has been published in this journal? Have any of the authors published in the journal or in previous editions of the anthology gone on to publish other things with other markets? Have you heard any of their names before?

Do they charge a submission fee? If there’s a fee, first make sure you understand what it’s for. Some journals offer editorial feedback on rejections for a fee—essentially this is the same as paying for editorial feedback but with an added kick in the teeth. Why not just hire an editor? Some journals charge a fee to cover the cost of readers, which can be legitimate if the fee is inexpensive. A submission fee subsidizing the cost of publishing is a red flag—that’s just vanity publishing for short fiction. Authors are never asked to subsidize the cost of publishing the journal or anthology in a legitimate publishing venture.

The easiest way to vet any provider of publishing services is to see who they have provided their services to in the past and see where those clients went. Who does this agent rep and what manuscripts have they sold? What books has this press published and where are they available? Have prior winners of a contest gone on to publish their work elsewhere? If none of the people this professional or organization has worked with in the past went on to the kind of success you’re looking for, there’s no reason to think you’ll be the first.

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