ABOUT WRITER BEWARE
Who
Are We?
Writer Beware is the public face of the Science
Fiction and Fantasy
Writers of America's Committee on Writing
Scams. Like many genre-focused professional writers' groups, SFWA is
concerned not just with issues that affect
professional authors, but with the problems and pitfalls that face
aspiring writers. The Committee on Writing Scams,
and the Writer Beware website, founded in 1998, reflect that concern.
Although SFWA is a USA-based organization of science fiction and
fantasy
writers, the Committee's efforts aren't
limited by country or genre. We've designed the Writer Beware website
so it can be used by any writer, regardless
of subject, style, genre, or nationality.
Writer Beware is a volunteer effort, run by a number of intrepid
fraud-hunters--most of whom, because of the
nature of their work, prefer to remain anonymous. Showing their faces
to the world and taking the heat, however
(are they crazy, or just dedicated?), are:
A.C. Crispin, founder and Chair of SFWA's Committee on Writing Scams,
has been active in SFWA since 1983. She served as Eastern Regional
Director for almost ten years, and as Vice-President for two more. Her
more than twenty novels include the bestselling Han Solo Trilogy; top-selling
Star Trek novels Yesterday's
Son, Time for Yesterday, The Eyes of the Beholders,
and Sarek; and, most recently, the original fantasy novel Storms
of Destiny. She also has many freelance credits, including
articles in Writer's
Digest and the SFWA Bulletin.
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Victoria Strauss, co-founder and Vice-Chair of SFWA's Committee on
Writing Scams, is the author of seven fantasy novels, including The
Burning Land and The Awakened City. She’s a regular book
reviewer for a number of publications, including Fantasy
magazine and SF Site, and her
articles on writing have appeared in Writer’s Digest and
elsewhere. In 2006, she served as a judge for
the World Fantasy Awards. She's the webmistress of the Writer Beware
website, which she also
created, and maintains the Writer Beware database.
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Richard C. White is the author of a fantasy novel, Gauntlet Dark
Legacy: Paths of Evil, as well as several short stories and
novellas, and an original comic series that's currently being marketed
to publishers. Among other interesting jobs, he has worked as a
journalist, a substitute teacher, an
independent comics publisher, an analyst for the
military, and, currently, as a technical writer. Rich is an active
member of SFWA.
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What
Does Writer Beware Do?
Writer Beware conducts a variety of activities
revolving around the effort to raise awareness of the prevalence
of literary fraud.
 We
maintain and continually update the Writer
Beware website with the latest information on literary schemes
and frauds, and the most up-to-date information on what writers can do
to protect themselves.
We
constantly research the
problems we discuss, reading trade publications, newspapers, and other
sources,
and subscribing to professional newsletters and mailing lists in order
to keep current with issues and changes
in the publishing industry. We're in regular touch with legitimate
agents and editors, so we can better contrast
their business practices to the nonstandard practices we warn against.
We
maintain an extensive
database of questionable
agents, publishers and independent editors. This database has been
assembled thanks to the hundreds of writers and publishing
professionals who have contacted us to share their experiences
and to provide us with documentation (correspondence, contracts,
brochures, and other material). Our database is
the most complete of its kind in the world.
To give an idea of the scale of
our data collection: When Writer
Beware was founded in 1998, we had just under 100 names in our
database. We now have more than 600, and add a new one, on average,
every two weeks.
We
offer a free research
service for writers with
questions about agents, publishers, and others (e-mail us at beware@sfwa.org). The
information we provide on questionable agents and publishers
is supported by multiple similar advisories and complaints from
writers, by
documentation, or, in most cases, by both.
We
assist law enforcement
agencies with
investigations of questionable agents, publishers, and others. Both
A.C. Crispin and Victoria Strauss qualify as expert witnesses.
We
help build public
awareness of literary
fraud by writing articles (our work has appeared in the SFWA
Bulletin and Writers' Digest, among others), appearing at
writers' conventions, conducting workshops
and classes, participating in online writers' discussion groups
and
message boards, and maintaining a popular blog.
We welcome questions, comments, and especially
documentation. Here's how to contact us:
- Email: beware@sfwa.org
- Fax: 413-549-6363
- Snail mail: PO Box 1216, Amherst MA 01004.
If you send us documentation (correspondence,
contracts, invoices, brochures, etc.), SFWA will gladly reimburse your
photocopying and/or postage expense.
Correspondence and documentation sent to Writer Beware is held
in strictest confidence. Your name and contact information will
never be
shared, publicly posted, or otherwise disclosed except to appropriate
law enforcement
agencies, in response to an enforceable subpoena, or as directed by
counsel, and
only on special request.
Writer Beware does not accept donations.
I'm often asked what Writer
Beware considers "questionable". What kinds of practices define a
questionable agent or publisher? How do we
distinguish between writers with genuine complaints and those who are
just angry at being rejected, or who had unrealistic ideas about what
an agent or
publisher could or should accomplish? Is any
complaint, no matter how small, enough to put an agent or publisher on
our watchlist?
We define “questionable” as nonstandard practice not in writers’ best
interest. This includes:
Fees of various kinds
(agents who charge reading fees, evaluation fees, retainers,
“marketing” or “submission” fees;
publishers that require writers to pre-purchase books or to pay
for some
aspect of the publication process)
Conflicts
of interest
(agents or
publishers that recommend their own paid editing services, agents who
send writers to
publishing operations they own, independent editors who pay kickbacks
for referrals)
Abusive
or nonstandard
contract terms
(for instance, an agent who claims an inappropriate financial interest
in a client’s future work, or a publisher that
pays royalties on net profit)
Unprofessional
practices
(for instance, agents who
“blitz” submit or use their clients’ own query letters, publishers that
make
writers responsible for getting their own books into bookstores,
independent
editors who claim that manuscripts have to be “professionally” edited
in order to
be competitive)
Nonperformance
(agents who’ve been
in business for more than a year and still have no sales, publishers
that don’t
fulfill their contractual obligations)
Dubious
qualifications
(an agent,
publisher, or independent editor who sets up in business without a
relevant
professional background--such people are often well-intentioned but
simply have no
idea how to do the job)
Most of the
reports we receive
involve one or more of the issues
outlined above. We ask writers to substantiate their reports with
documentation
wherever possible (letters, e-mails, contracts, websites, brochures,
publicity
information, etc.) and we don't start a file on an agent,
publisher, or independent editor unless we've received at least two
substantially similar reports, or a single report with documentation.
Most of
our files contain at
least a dozen separate reports. Many contain a lot more. Our largest
file (which, sadly, gets
bigger every week) has hundreds of reports.
Occasionally we hear from people who have general gripes about the
submission process, or are upset by something that's fairly
routine--long turnaround times, for instance, or failure to return
manuscripts. These
things aren’t enough to put someone on our watchlist--while they’re
regrettable, they happen a lot, and writers have to be prepared to deal
with them. We
also sometimes hear from writers who are angry that an agent didn't
manage to sell
their book, or didn't call them often enough with updates, or sent a
dismissive
rejection letter. We don’t often regard issues like these as
documentable complaints, because they're general problems that anyone
can encounter
in the ordinary run of things (and often involve unrealistic
expectations on
the writer’s part). Occasionally, with multiple similar reports, they
do
add up to a pattern, and if so we feel a warning is in order. But
that's rare.
So we’re very careful to distinguish between genuine bad practice and
writers’ sour grapes, and to back up our warnings with as much
documentation as possible. We want to provide balanced information that
writers can
depend on, and to do this, we must be as responsible in our data
collection and
our dissemination of information as we expect agents, publishers, and
independent editors to be in their business dealings.
She's the Koi Wonder, of
course, piscine superheroine and fraud-hunter extraordinaire (thanks,
Brenda). We'd tell you more, but we're afraid it's classified.
Except for
graphics, and where specifically indicated, all
Writer Beware contents copyright © 1998-2008 Victoria Strauss
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