How can a writer spot an amateur, marginal or incompetent agent?
Victoria: Amateur, marginal, and incompetent agents actually greatly outnumber dishonest agents. Unlike dishonest agents, they don’t mean to scam you, and often are very well-intentioned. But because they don’t have the skills that an agent’s job requires, the bottom line for writers is the same as with a scammer: no sale. How to spot them? Watch out for fees. Incompetent agents often charge fees or offer paid editing services—not because they’re trying to cheat their clients, but because they don’t know any better, or because they’re not selling manuscripts to publishers and don’t have any other way to keep their businesses afloat. Watch out for an agent who has been in business for more than a year and has no sales, or whose “track record” consists of book placements with no-advance publishers. Amateur agents don’t have the expertise to sell manuscripts to publishers, so they typically have no track records, or else claim “sales” to questionable publishers (such as PublishAmerica, wh
