Finding an Agent-2: Writer Beware's Top 10 List

Writer Beware keeps an updated online list of the worst agents out there. They have compiled a list of the twenty literary agents with the worst reputations at their site: these are the most notorious of the past two decades.

From that listing, here are Writer Beware's top ten:

The Abacus Group Literary Agency
Allred and Allred Literary Agents (refers clients to "book doctor" Victor West of Pacific Literary Services)
Barbara Bauer Literary Agency
Benedict Associates (also d/b/a B.A. Literary Agency)
Sherwood Broome, Inc. (also d/b/a Stillwater Literary Agency, LLC)
Capital Literary Agency (formerly American Literary Agents of Washington, Inc.; also d/b/a Washington Agency and Washington Literary Agency)
Desert Rose Literary Agency
Arthur Fleming Associates
Finesse Literary Agency (also d/b/a/ Elite Finesse Literary Agency)
Brock Gannon Literary Agency

The full list: http://www.sfwa.org/beware/twentyworst.html
Writer Beware's Writer Alert Page: http://www.sfwa.org/beware/
Writer Beware's FAQ: http://www.sfwa.org/beware/overview.html

Finding an Agent-1

AgentQuery
www.agentquery.com
List of agents, the site appears to be choosey about who they include - reputable agents only.

Agent Research & Evaluation News
www.agentresearch.com/news.html
Articles on agents and deals.

Agent Research & Evaluation Verification Service
www.agentresearch.com/agent_ver.html
You can check out an agent's reputation here - as well as sales he/she has made, things like that.

Association of Authors' Representatives
www.aar-online.org
AAR is the professional trade group for agents in the US. The site has a membership list, and the AAR Code of Ethics is published on the site. Good to know.

Preditors & Editors
www.anotherealm.com/prededitors
Online site listing evildoing agents and their schemes.

Publisher's Lunch
www.publishersmarketplace.com/lunch/free
Free version - nice, but the subscription does provide so much more. For free, you get a daily email providing publishing news; once a week, the email gives you a listing of recent deals. Get the subscription from Publishers' Marketplace.

Publishers Marketplace
www.publishersmarketplace.com
Great site. Deals in an organized manner, going back several years. Agents can be researched here. It may not have all the scoop, but it does have a lot.

Publishers Weekly
www.publishersweekly.com
Online version of the magazine. You have to subscribe. Expensive.

Writer Beware
www.writerbeware.org
Science Fiction Writers' Association site that gives lots of info about agents, as well as publishers and the like. You don't have to be a science fiction writer to appreciate the great info here -- it's a great service that SFWA provides, akin to Preditors & Editors (see above).

Reading Great Writing-4 (Online Magazines)

Vanity Fair provides some excellent examples of good writing at its website, including:

Dominick Dunne on Truman Capote

Alex Shoumatoff on Reinhold Messner

The New Yorker has a nice online archive.

Reading Great Writing-3 (First Sentences)

From the Radcliffe list (below), some of the first sentences. After that, some greats that didn't make their list. Ford Madox Ford -- more people need to read his work.

In Cold Blood, Truman Capote:
The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call "out there."

Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie:
I was born in the city of Bombay... once upon a time.

White Noise, by Don Delillo:
The station wagon's arrived at noon, a long shining line that coursed through the west campus.

Death Comes for the Archbishop, by Willa Cather:
One afternoon in the autumn of 1851 a solitary horseman, followed by a pack-mule, was pushing through an arid stretch of country somewhere in central New Mexico.

The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett:
Samuel Spade's jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth.

Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell:
Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.

The Color Purple, by Alice Walker:
I am fourteen years old.

Ulysses, by James Joyce:
Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.

Lord of the Flies, by William Golding:
The boy with fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began to pick his way toward the lagoon.

All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren:
To get there you follow Highway 58, going northeast out of the city, and it is a good highway and new.

The World According to Garp, by John Irving:
Garp's mother, Jenny Fields, was arrested in Boston in 1942 for wounding a man in a movie theater.

Rebecca, by Daphne DuMaurier:
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.

The Beautiful and the Damned, by F. Scott Fitzgerald:
In 1913, when Anthony Patch was twenty-five, two years were already gone since irony, the Holy Ghost of this later day, had, theoretically at least, descended upon him.

The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame:
The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum:
Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife.

Why aren't these on the Radcliffe List?

The Good Soldier, by Ford Madox Ford:
This is the saddest story I have ever heard.

Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry:
When Augustus came out on the porch the blue pigs were eating a rattlesnake -- not a very big one.

A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving:
I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice -- not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany.

Cold Mountain, by Richard Frazier:
At the first gesture of morning, flies began stirring.

A Wrinkle in Time, by Mag L'Engle:
It was a dark and stormy night.

Double Indemnity, by James M. Cain:
I drove out to Glendale to put three new truck drivers on a brewery company bond, and then I remembered this renewal over in Hollywoodland.

The Screwtape Letters, by CS Lewis:
My dear Wormwood, I note what you say about guiding your patient's reading and taking care that he sees a good deal of his materialist friend.

Reading Great Writing-2 (Apple)

Johnny Apple died recently. While most will recall his work as war correspondent for the New York Times, for me, it's his work as a travel writer that first comes to mind.

Apple's Europe and Apple's America are great reads -- beautiful and eloquent without being elitist. You can read excerpts of America at Amazon.com; Apple's Europe is rather hard to find -- if you stumble upon a copy, grab it.

First sentence, Apple's America:
Boston is one of the oldest American cities, a repository of our national past, yet it has shown an extraordinary capacity to look to the future and reinvent itself when needed.

Reading Great Writing-1

According to the Radcliffe Publishing Course, these are the top 100 English-language novels of the 20th Century (banned or challenged books having been bold-faced by the American Library Association):

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
The Grapes of Wrath, John Stein****
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
The Color Purple, Alice Walker
Ulysses, James Joyce
Beloved, Toni Morrison
The Lord of the Flies, William Golding
1984, George Orwell
The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
Lolita, Vladmir Nabokov
Of Mice and Men, John Stein****
Charlotte's Web, EB White
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
Catch-22, Joseph Heller
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Animal Farm, George Orwell
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner
A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
Winnie-the-Pooh, AA Milne
Their Eyes were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison
Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
Native Son, Richard Wright
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut
For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway
On the Road, Jack Kerouac
The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
The Call of the Wild, Jack London
To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
Portrait of a Lady, Henry James
Go Tell it on the Mountain, James Baldwin
The World According to Garp, John Irving
All the King's Men, Robert Penn Warren
A Room with a View , EM Forster
The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
Schindler's List, Thomas Keneally
The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
Finnegans Wake, James Joyce
The Jungle, Upton Sinclair
Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Frank L. Baum
Lady Chatterley's Lover, DH Lawrence
A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
The Awakening, Kate Chopin
My Antonia, Willa Cather
Howard's End, EM Forster
In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
Franny and Zooey, JD Salinger
Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
Jazz, Toni Morrison
Sophie's Choice, William Styron
Absalom, Absalom!, William Faulkner
Passage to India, EM Forster
Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
A Good Man is Hard to Find, Flannery O'Connor
Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Orlando, Virginia Woolf
Sons and Lovers, DH Lawrence
Bonfire of the Vanities, Thomas Wolfe
Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
A Separate Peace, John Knowles
Light in August, William Faulkner
The Wings of the Dove, Henry James
Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
A Hithchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
Women in Love, DH Lawrence
Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe
In Our Time, Ernest Hemingway
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein
The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett
The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer
The Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
White Noise, Don DeLillo
O Pioneers!, Willa Cather
Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
The War of the Worlds, HG Wells
Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad
The Bostonians, Henry James
An American Tragedy, Theodore Dreiser
Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather
The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
The French Lieutenant's Woman, John Fowles
Babbitt, Sinclair Lewis
Kim, Rudyard Kipling
The Beautiful and the Damned, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Rabbit, Run, John Updike
Where Angels Fear to Tread, EM Forster
Main Street, Sinclair Lewis
Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

Watching the Deals-6

Two major deals were reported within the past two weeks: first, A Travel Guide to Heaven author and priest Anthony DeStefano's next two spiritual/religion books were sold for "in the six figures," and second, St.Martin's will publish NYT bestselling author/former attorney Stephen Coonts' next two hardcover thrillers featuring Tommy Carmellini.

While Tommy Carmellini can claim his own series beginning with 2004's Liars and Thieves, he has appeared as a major character in several of Coonts' Jake Grafton novels: Cuba, Hong Kong, America, Liberty, as well as Coonts' latest on the shelf, Traitor. Obviously, the major deal involves an expansion of the Tommy Carmellini series.



Recent Romances Sold:

RITA award-winner Beth Pattillo's THE SWEETGUM KNIT LIT SOCIETY, in which five women find faith and healing through their knitting and their novels, to Dudley Delffs at WaterBrook Press, in a two-book deal, for publication in spring 2008, by Jenny Bent at Trident Media Group (NA).

Syrie James's THE LOST MEMOIRS OF JANE AUSTEN, written in a modernized Jane Austen style that weaves fact and fiction together seamlessly, and in which Jane Austen meets Mr. Ashford, falls in love, and has just the relationship her legions of fans and readers might wish for the beloved spinster, to Lucia Macro at Avon, in a good deal, at auction, by Tamar Ellman at the Laura Dail Literary Agency (NA). Good deal = $100,000 - $250,000.

Lucinda Betts's SHE BEAST, an anthology of erotic romances where each story features a woman shape shifter; HORSE PLAY, a single-author, paranormal erotic romance anthology; and MYTHOS, a multi-authored, paranormal erotic romance anthology, to Hilary Sares at Kensington Aphrodisia, in a nice deal, by Faith Hamlin at Sanford J. Greenburger Associates (world). Nice deal = $1 - $49,000.

NYT bestselling author Lynsay Sands's three untitled historical romances, to Erika Tsang at Avon, in a good deal, by Jenny Bent at Trident Media Group (World English). Good deal = $100,000 - $250,000.

Marjorie M. Liu's four untitled paranormal romance novels, to Chris Keeslar at Dorchester Leisure, in a good deal, by Lucienne Diver of Spectrum Literary Agency. Good deal = $100,000 - $250,000.

Doreen Rainey's FOOLISH PRIDE, about an unlikely couple who team up to stop their siblings from marrying, only to find themselves fighting their own attraction, to Evette Porter at Harlequin's Kimani, in a nice deal, in a two-book deal, by Pamela Harty of The Knight Agency. Nice deal = $1 - $49,000.

Maxine Billing's IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH, the sequel to The Breaking Point, in which a couple will see just how strong their marriage is when the husband is faced with a serious health condition, again to Glenda Howard at Kimani, in a nice deal, in a two-book deal, by Pamela Harty of The Knight Agency. Nice deal = $1 - $49,000.

AND ONLY TO DECEIVE author Tasha Alexander's next two novels of historical suspense featuring a Victorian aristocrat, to Jennifer Civiletto of William Morrow, by Anne Hawkins at John Hawkins & Associates.

Writing as Dawn MacTavish, Dawn Thompson's THE MARSH HAWK, for publication in July 2007, THE PRIVATEER, and PRISONER OF THE FLAMES, both for publication in 2008, to Chris Keeslar at Dorchester, in a nice deal. Nice deal = $1 - $49,000.

Recent Mysteries Sold:

Kathryn Lilley's DYING TO BE THIN: A Fat City Mystery, in which a spunky television reporter travels to Durham, NC, "Diet Capital of the World," to enter a clinic and achieve that "on-air look," but she soon finds the inside story on a murder investigation when one of the doctors ends up dead, to Kristen Weber at NAL, in a nice deal, in a three-book deal, by Kim Lionetti at BookEnds(World). Nice deal = $1 -$49,000.

Claudia Bishop's holiday-themed Hemlock Falls mystery, to Natalee Rosenstein at Berkley Prime Crime, in a nice deal, by Lucienne Diver of Spectrum Literary Agency. Nice deal = $1 - $49,000.

Emmy-nominated star of The Young and The Restless Eileen Davidson and author Robert J. Randisi's THE YEARNING TIDE, set in the world of soap operas, to Kristen Weber at NAL, in a two-book deal, by Dominick Abel at Dominick Abel Associates (World English).

Ashna Graves's DEATH PANS OUT, debut featuring a recovering breast cancer victim who instead of resting and recovering from a double mastectomy, finds herself drawn into deadly, decades-old secrets of an old mining outpost, as she tries to unravel the enigma of her long-missing uncle, to Robert Rosenwald at Poisoned Pen Press, by Sorche Fairbank of Fairbank Literary Representation.

Eppie winner Penny Rudolph's LIFEBLOOD, the sequel to Thicker Than Blood, in which a recovering alcoholic discovers two young Mexican boys locked in a van in her parking garage, and stumbles onto a deadly organ harvesting ring involving illegal immigrants, again to Robert Rosenwald at Poisoned Pen Press, by Sorche Fairbank of Fairbank Literary Representation.

Rapper C-Murder's DEATH AROUND THE CORNER, the first title in the Vibe Street Lit franchise, to Laurie Parkin at Kensington, for publication in December 2006, by Rob Kenner on behalf of Vibe and Richard Joseph, on behalf of the author (NA).

Franklin prize-winning author Mary Anna Evans's EFFIGIES, the third in an archaeological mystery series, to Robert Rosenwald of Poisoned Pen Press, by Anne Hawkins at John Hawkins & Associates.

Recent Thrillers Sold:

NYT bestselling author Robert K. Tanenbaum's ESCAPE, the 20th book in his Butch Karp legal thriller series, another provocative and topical story which blisters the use of the insanity defense pushing the limits of the law and letting murderers go unpunished, to Roger Cooper at CDS Books for hardcover North American rights, and to his longtime paperback publisher Louise Burke at Pocket for paperback reprint, in a good deal, by Bob Diforio at D4EO Literary Agency, in association with Michael Hamilburg at the Mitchell J. Hamilburg Agency. Good deal = $100,000 - $250,000.

NYT bestseller Stephen Coonts' two new hardcover thrillers featuring Tommy Carmellini, to Matthew Shear at St. Martin's, in a major deal, by Robert Gottlieb at Trident Media Group (NA). Major deal = $500,000 and up.

Laura Caldwell's RED HOT LIES, featuring a sassy, redheaded trial lawyer who turns to sleuthing when her fiance disappears on the same day her big client is killed, to Margaret Marbury at Mira, in a good deal, in a three-book deal, by Maureen Walters at Curtis Brown. Good deal = $100,000 - $250,000.

Tom Cain's THE ACCIDENT MAN, introducing series hero, Daniel Carver - a good guy, who makes bad things happen to bad people, to Joshua Kendall at Viking, for publication in winter 2008, in a two-book deal, by Julian Alexander at Lucas Alexander Whitley (US).

BLACK FOR REMEMBRANCE author Carlene Thompsons's WHEN THE CLOCK STRIKES THREE, to Jennifer Weis at St. Martin's, in a very nice deal, in a two-book deal, by Pam Ahearn of Ahearn Agency (World). Very nice deal = $50,000 - $99,000.

Mark Terry's ANGELS FALLING, in which a terrorist group infiltrates the G8 Summit and holds the world's top 20 leaders hostage threatening to kill one every hour, and THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOWS, to Barbara Moore at Llewellyn, in a nice deal, by Irene Kraas at Kraas Literary Agency. Nice deal = $1 - $49,000.


Recent Religion/Spirituality Sales:

A Travel Guide to Heaven author Anthony DeStefano's next two books, to Doubleday Religion, in a six-figure deal, by Peter Miller at PMA Literary & Film Management.

Baylor University professor Thomas Kidd's A CHRISTIAN SPARTA, a religious history of the American Revolution, to Lara Heimert at Basic, by Giles Anderson at the Anderson Literary Agency (world).


Source: PublishersMarketplace.com

Amazon Author Blogs

Amazon Connect hosts author blogs, with RSS feeds. A long and growing list of participating authors is provided.

Two examples:
Sharyn McCrumb
Robin Lee Hatcher

Amazon Connects also offers customer "plogs" which it defines as "a personalized web log that appears on your customer home page. Every person's Plog is different (hence the name) and just like a blog, your Plog is sorted in reverse chronological order. Each post also gives you the opportunity to provide feedback to the sender as to whether you liked the post or not. This feedback loop means your Plog becomes even more relevant and interesting over time. Your Plog will appear if you are logged into our web site and is visible only to you."

Bottom line, your Amazon "plog" collects posts from various author blogs for you on your customer page. Same thing can be done directly to your email via an RSS feed option, if you prefer.

From my surfing through the author blogs, these aren't kept current -- and most authors with an interest in blogging have their own blogs at this point.

Watching the Deals-5

Nancy Atherton's Aunt Dimity series continues with the sale of two more in the series. A cozy mystery series that is sometimes called romantic suspense as well as gothic, Aunt Dimity is a ghost providing supernatural assistance to the protagonist, Lori Sheppard. The first in the series broke all the rules, and got a rating of "5" (superb) from MysteryGuide.com.

Recent Romances Sold:

Stacey Kayne's BRIDE OF SHADOW CANYON, a second western historical romance, to Linda Fildew at Harlequin Historicals, in a nice deal, by Kim Lionetti at BookEnds. "Nice deal" means $1 - $49,000.00.

Larissa Ione's DEMON E.R: Dark Pleasure, the first in a paranormal series in which a demon doctor in an underworld hospital and the woman who hunts his kind must join forces to stop an enemy who would kill them both, to Melanie Murray for Warner Forever, by Roberta Brown of the Brown Literary Agency (world).

Tess Stimson's THE ADULTERY CLUB and THE INFIDELITY CHAIN, which have been sold to ten territories, to Caitlin Alexander at Bantam Dell, for six figures, at auction, by Carole Blake at Blake Friedmann (US).

Recent Mysteries Sold:

Nancy Atherton's AUNT DIMITY books, thirteen and fourteen in the series, to Rakia Clark at Viking Penguin, in a good deal, by Meg Ruley and Annelise Robey at the Jane Rotrosen Agency (NA). "Good deal" means $100,000 - $250,000.00.

Olen Steinhauer's VICTORY SQUARE, the fifth and concluding book in the Yalta Boulevard crime series, set in 1989 at the end of the Cold War, to Kelley Ragland at Minotaur, in a very nice deal, in a two-book deal, by Matt Williams of The Gernert Company (world English). "Very nice deal" means $50,000 - $99,000.00.

Edgar and Shamus Award nominee Parnell Hall's HITMAN: A Stanley Hastings Mystery, to Claiborne Hancock at Pegasus, in a nice deal (world).


Recent Thrillers Sold:

From Perri O'Shaughnessy (the pen-name of sisters Pamela and Mary), two more suspense thrillers, following Maggie Crawford to Pocket, for publication beginning in 2008, by Nancy Yost at Lowenstein-Yost.

John Olson's FOSSIL HUNTER, an Indiana-Jones-style thriller that explores the Intelligent Design controversy from the points of view of two field scientists working in the strife-torn countries of Iraq and Pakistan, to Karen Watson at Tyndale, in a nice deal, for publication in fall 2007, by Steve Laube at the Steve Laube Agency (world).

Write A Book Fast: In a Week, Two Weeks, a Month

Lots of people do this: put the pressure on themselves to write a book fast. After all, Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road in three weeks. (Kerouac's famous first draft in its scroll format is pictured here.)

First, there are the groups, that provide help and support.

1. NaNoWriMo stands for "National Novel Writing Month," with a website, forums, and a national following. Lots of books actually get written during this time period (in 2005, there were 59,000 participants and 9769 winners). You "win" NaNoWriMo by writing 50,000 words by midnight on November 30th. Every year, there are many winners. No awards are given; however, each winner gets an official "Winner" web icon and certificate. During the month, there are open forums, where lots of good advice is shared on writing, grammar, and other helpful topics.

2. BIW is similar to NaNoWriMo, but it is for those interested in writing a book in a week. The site is coordinated with a Yahoo Group, and on the first full week of the month, participants go for it. They are scheduled a year in advance. For 2006, the remaining three BIWs are: Oct 2 - 8; Nov 6 - 12; and Dec 4 - 10. The site is run by published authors, includes a chat room, and has a great list of helpful sites.

Second, there are online articles by writers who share their tips on fast writing.

3. Romance writer Elizabeth Rose wrote her first published novel (Eden's Garden) in two weeks, and provides the steps to do write a book in one month in two great posts: How to Write a Book in a Month, part one and part two.

4. Writer John Coyne offers How to Write A Novel in 100 Days or Less, with excellent, practical advice for each step along the way.

2011 Update: I may have found the book for me where you learn to outline and write your novel in 90 days, read about it here.