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Q: I am
interested in learning about upfront charges by agents to handle
your work. If one is on a limited budget - who isn't? - do all
agents request an upfront fee for reading work?
A: Author
Holly Lisle says, "The instant an agent tells you that he
charges a fee to evaluate your manuscript, RUN - do not walk -
in the opposite direction. NO REPUTABLE AGENT charges a reading
or evaluation fee. The AAR (Association of Author
Representatives) forbids its signatories from doing so, just as
it works in other ways to uphold the ethics of the field. Good
agents are signatories of the AAR. Real agents make their money
by taking a commission when they sell your books. They, like
real publishers, take you on because they believe in you and in
your work. They read your material, they say to themselves, ‘I
can sell this writer's work and make enough money from my
fifteen percent to make it worth my while. I can see this writer
becoming something special in the field, and I can help him get
there.’
“Ripoff
agents feed you the following lines - ‘I charge a $50 processing
fee. If the manuscript is sold, the fee is refunded. If the
manuscript is not ready to be submitted, the writer gets a
professional critique as to what must be done to the
manuscript.’ Oh, lucky you. Or, ‘$60 reading fee for first
three chapters and outline or synopsis - but only when I request
this material once I've read the query letter. Fees for reading
complete manuscript are on a sliding scale.’ Gee. How generous.
(These come from actual agent entries in a popular writers'
guide to agents, publishers, etc.)
“Here is
the unspoken translation to the agent's reason for requiring a
reading fee. ‘I absolutely suck as an agent. I cannot make as
much money off of my sales of books for my clients as I can by
ripping off naive writers who don't know that my job as an agent
should be to sell books and make money for my clients, and that
my search for new clients should be part of my cost for doing
business, just as the writer's investment of time, talent,
office supplies and postage is part of his. Furthermore, I have
the ethics of the scum you scrape off the underside of a dead
tree, and I've found that P.T. Barnum was right: There is a
sucker born every minute. I'm out to milk my share of them.’
“Never pay
an agent a reading fee. Never work with an agent who charges
reading fees. There are no exceptions to this rule."
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