Hell, all they need to do is pick up Jeff Hermann's Guide to Agents and Editors which is a good basic, cover all your basis guide.

This is not always true. We didn't get back to them on time one year, and all sorts of ridiculous stuff got put in our entry at K. -- like, we published poetry and YA and sci-fi, none of which was remotely true.

Urk. But at the very least, IIRC, he has basic stuff in there about good agents not charging reading fees and blah, blah, blah.

Oh, that's probably true, yeah. Um, I seem to still have a wee grudge. Oops.

And remember, Allyson, for every author who sweated blood to get a book written, there *are* plenty of crazies out there who type up something barely comprehensible and think it's the next bestseller. Don't make the mistake of thinking every would-be author is just like you, believe me.

Not that anyone deserves to be ripped off, as Barb said. But there are plenty of absolute wackos out there -- some of whom think it makes them special, for instance, to send in a manuscript on tiny scraps of paper with individual sentences on them, in a gallon-size baggie.

I know you're right Amy. I've never had to sift through a slush-pile, just very small scale garbage scripts people occasionally send me in a crazy-ass attempt to get to Tim or David Fury. And it's wacko stuff for sure.

I think I'm just identifying with the wackos a little bit, maybe. It seemed TOO easy for me to get published right out of the gate, too easy to get some love on this second attempt at publishing.

It colors my assumptions and I feel like a fortunate hack, and hey, everyone with spellcheck is just as good as I! Which is how I got into the horrible co-writer sitch I am digging myself out of.

I'm stuck in the "there but for the grace of dog" mindset when i read about these scammers.

I'm stuck in the "there but for the grace of dog" mindset when i read about these scammers.

A) You're not a hack. Stop that now, please.

B) I feel sorry for a lot of them. But I feel sorrier for, say, senior citizens who get scammed out of their social security. Like Barb says, you need to do your homework before you enter into any kind of a business agreement, especially when you're paying for services.

Eh. It'll never go away. Years o' therapy yada yada.

Reading through threads of people who got scammed, a lot of it seems like earnest fools. It's never those pretentious assholes who rail at agents and editors who are of course just too thick to understand pure genius! You know, the dicks who have been polishing their 200,000 word Great American Novel for twenty years, are too important to adhere to submission guidelines, and then send hatemail to agencies for ignoring their stream-of-consciousness-style tome about a basement dweller who saves all of human kind with his super-sperm, or something? That guy. That guy never loses thousands to these asshats.

There's no justice.

Ah, you mean Cliff Burns.

Is that the dude Connie Neil pointed out awhile back?

Yep-- the one who completely went off on the publishing industry for not recognizing his genius.

I haven't done extensive reading or researching about getting an agent, but a fee like that would send my red flag meter off the chart. Some of that may be natural paranoia though.

Reading about getting published just drives me nuts. Every time I read something it makes it sound like it's impossible. Then I read writing tips, open up a nearby fantasy novel and often these two things do not match. I think this is why I just tell myself to not do much research and just revise. I use the tips that sound right, but don't worry about following everything. Maybe one day I'll just record myself reading it and have my own podcast, who knows. I've enjoyed putting it together so I don't feel especially do or die about getting published.

Anyhow, I'm definitely in a low confidence phase. But I have to remember, this is not the last revision and for that matter very few words that existed in my rough draft have made it into this revision. To a large extent this is still a pretty rough draft. I think my writing is too thin, but I have to balance that vs. word count. Also, I think I have too many weak sentences, but it's not as bad as the original draft.