Barbara Bauer, you just picked the wrong fight

For my non-writer friends, let me bring you up to speed. When you write a novel and you want to sell it, you can't just send it straight to the publisher (well, you can, but that don't mean they're gonna read it). You have to get yourself an agent. There are millions of people trying to be writers. The number who ever get published is much smaller. That the sort of situation that just screams "grift me baby!". By which I mean there are a lot of scammers who pretend to be agents in order to bilk naive young writers out of their money by insisting they need to pay "office fees" or for "editorial services" or the like (hint: your agent gets a percentage of what you earn when he or she sells your book, and they don't see a penny before that happens).

Writers Beware is a group (started by two sci-fi writers as it happens) that has worked for years now compiling reports of bogus agents and getting the word out. If you're looking to query your novel with agents, it behooves you to check out their website first (and Preditors and Editors). A few weeks back, Writers Beware put out a list of the twenty worst offenders (most are scam artists, others are just overwhelmingly incompetent - what good is an agent that can't sell your book?).

Here's the list:

The Abacus Group Literary Agency
Allred and Allred Literary Agents (refers clients to "book doctor" Victor West of Pacific Literary Services)
Capital Literary Agency (formerly American Literary Agents of Washington, Inc.)
Barbara Bauer Literary Agency
Benedict & Associates (also d/b/a B.A. Literary Agency)
Sherwood Broome, Inc.
Desert Rose Literary Agency
Arthur Fleming Associates
Finesse Literary Agency (Karen Carr)
Brock Gannon Literary Agency
Harris Literary Agency
The Literary Agency Group, which includes the following:
Children's Literary Agency
Christian Literary Agency
New York Literary Agency
Poets Literary Agency
The Screenplay Agency
Stylus Literary Agency (formerly ST Literary Agency)
Writers Literary & Publishing Services Company (the editing arm of the above-mentioned agencies)
Martin-McLean Literary Associates
Mocknick Productions Literary Agency, Inc.
B.K. Nelson, Inc.
The Robins Agency (Cris Robins)
Michelle Rooney Literary Agency (also d/b/a Creative Literary Agency and Simply Nonfiction)
Southeast Literary Agency
Mark Sullivan Associates
West Coast Literary Associates (also d/b/a California Literary Services)

Writers Beware aren't stupid; they expected the people on this list to stir up trouble. So they asked that every dessiminate the list all over the internet. Post it everywhere! (Go ahead! Copy/paste this to your own blogs and web pages). They can't shut us all down!

Barbara Bauer has already tried to cease-and-desist websites who post this list with her name on it. Yesterday she finally came across one that caved: Absolute Write. Not the people running the website, mind you, but the ISP that hosts it.

You want some trouble? Shut down the message boards where writers go to chat. How are we going to procrastinate with writing if we can't chat? Actually, these boards have been around for a long, long time. I've lurked there myself, never posted. Way too immense for my tastes. But in this situation, "immense" also means "full of valuable information". The data's not gone, but it's not reachable to the rest of us by the magic of the internet.

That should change soon. The writers are pissed. Many options are being bandied about on how to resurrect the site using an ISP with a back bone (and more legal know-how, not so easily punked by a con-woman).

Do you know what googlebombing is? It's when we all get together and say the same thing on our blogs and websites, so when someone googles, say, Barbara Bauer, all they get is her name on this list of scam artists. Care to join me? All you have to do is mention her by name, and link her name to http://www.sfwa.org/beware/twentyworst.html. Show her what happens when you try to come between writers and their boards!

(Oh yeah, and freedom of speech. Woo-hoo!)