Writers Beware--Scams Abound!

It sounded so good! My heart leapt as I read and reread the email I’d received after sending in a sample of my work. What hard working writer wouldn’t be thrilled to read these words about their very own work? Read this excerpt that I have copied and pasted here from the actual email I received from The Screenplay Agency:

[[Thank you for everything that we have received from you thus far. Our review team believes that your Book-To-Film Adaptation has commercial potential and we would like to proceed further with you. We believe we would like to represent you. Our VP of the Book-To-Film division is a veteran Hollywood screenwriter with produced credits including the feature films "Three Wishes" and :The Seventh Sign", among others. Having also worked as a producer, she knows the in's and out's of screenplay development from both sides of the table. This is the process that she has designed and refined over many years of experience. We may have given you these statistics before, but as you may know, Wever half of movies today (some say 75%) are screenplay adaptations of novels, non-fiction books, short stories, news, magazine articles, or comic books. Screenplay adaptations based on published source material outnumber original scripts by a wide margin. Screenplay adaptations are the most common, lucrative and sought-after medium in the entire film and TV industries. However, there are two special considerations that you must understand and agree to: What Are The Two Steps of a Successful Book-To-Film Pitch?

"You never get a second chance to make a first impression." It is important that we ready both ourselves and your work for pitching successfully to the screenplay world. Also, because the movie industry is very closed to outsiders, we must recruit a different team of professionals to assist with preparing your manuscript for the pitching process. There are two basic steps in the pitching process, 1) a strategic "coverage report", and 2) a "pitch sheet".

The Coverage Report usually takes the editor 1-2 hours and is $95... The Pitch sheet takes about three hours of the editors time and is $189. If you request them both at the same time, the total cost is discounted to $245. If you need to split the payments to make them more manageable, they will typically do so because we referred you. PLEASE NOTE: WE ARE NOT ASKING FOR MONEY. We want you to have a critique by a qualified industry professional.

MANY AUTHORS MISUNDERSTAND THIS SIMPLE REQUEST. We don't want you to pay us, we want you to have a critique to start our relationship so that we can start from the same page. (If I told you the number of writers that accuse us of using this to take their money, you would be flabbergasted.) Many authors ask, "why we don't do the critique and pitch as part of our Agency duties?".

As I mentioned earlier, my review as the acquisitions manager is more cut and dried, pass or fail.. It says, we're interested, and now what's the next step? In today's competitive world we must focus almost entirely on our core competency, which is selling your work. Our company relies on editors and outside editors to work with you to bring your work to industry standards. We are not editors, we are sales professionals. We contract out all... ]]

(And Blah Blah Blah.)

WELL...

That’s enough so that you get the idea. It goes on to explain why you should dish out the money to make it so your work is in the right form, through this agency, to be accepted by professionals in the film industry. Compelling, but they’re not a real agency, and their only interest in you is to latch onto your money. And one reason I had gotten this far with them in the first place is that right up front--they said they did not ask for money. They would only get paid whenever I got paid.

Of couse, they try to get around that in this letter by saying the money is going to referrals--experienced professionals who will help get your writing sold by critiquing and changing the book into a screenplay.

        Luckily, I didn’t send them any money. I did pay attention to the unwanted red flags that waved furiously in my head. First I did a little research by Googling “Literary Agency Scams” and was shocked by all the information about this and other scams that feed on unwary writers.  Try it and see. The very “agency” about which I initially had such high hopes was listed many, many times among those scams to avoid. And there ARE lists—long ones.

Needless to say, even though I didn't send them any money, I felt a little foolish for having even gotten that far and very angry that they prey on writers just like you and me. They must be making a substantial amount of money to have such an ongoing and sophisticated racket. Here are some pointers from one of those sites that I Googled for more information:

“How to Spot Literary Agency Scams:

1. You receive a publication letter from your agent, offering you the best publication deal, though there is a minor payment involved.
2. The literary agent can represent you, but your work seems less refined and they recommend an editing service for your work.
3. Your literary agent believes your work has extreme potential and is rejoiced to represent you.
4. A publisher mails you detailing their publication options and the fees involved in each.
5. A literary agent mails you their options.
6. You ask for references of works sold at the agency and the agency either says it’s secretive or gives a list of quite obscure unverifiable authors or books.
7. The agency’s or publisher’s website or correspondence is full of grammar and punctuation errors.

       If any of these happen with you, steer clear of the company fast. Reputable literary agents or publishers never approach writers. A publishing company always believes they are above new writers, and they will not publish new writers at their money. Co-publication is also something that you may avoid—this includes vanity press.”

And so I repeat: Before you ever decide to send money (which you shouldn’t EVER do anyway!!!) to anyone claiming to be a literary agent of any kind, a good thing to do is to Google literary agency scams. You’ll be shocked at the number of sites and warnings that come up—but read a few. We writers need to educate ourselves and resist falling prey to these amoral scam artists.

For lists of authentic literary agents you can get a copy of the current “Writer’s Market” or other well-known compilation. These books aren’t cheap, but hey—it’s cheaper than losing a few hundred bucks to someone who’s a complete fake.

        Good luck and good writing!