IF IT QUACKS LIKE A DUCK...

Fellow Writers,

Faced with some spare time in the recent holiday season, I did what writers do when they're faced with spare time -- namely, search the Internet for a likely agent or publisher. Eureka! (Please forgive the excited exclamation mark/point.) The answer to my dreams! (Please see last parenthetical entry.) There on my computer monitor in living color was a web site seeking writers of all classifications. ALL, as in self-published, poetry, fiction and, you guessed it, non-fiction. They would take ten percent of your earnings, but hey, ten percent of something was better than six percent of nothing. Plus they would charge NO READING FEES. Not only that, but they had a web page filled with authors who'd published through this service and were eternally grateful.

With trembling fingers, I began to fill out their e-mail form, and included a glowing bio that would have made Hemingway blush. I was sure that as soon as this was received, these people would beg me to send my material. Did I mention they offered the assurance of a reply within three business days? Not weeks or months like other agencies and publishers, but three days! (Sorry for the taboo punctuation -- again.)

Unfortunately, before the bio was completely done, my wife called me to supper. Between bites, I was almost too excited to eat as I told her about this wonderful web site I'd discovered. After wolfing down my food half- tasted, I excused myself, eager to return and add all those wonderful things I'd thought of to include in the bio. Passing the Christmas tree on the way to the computer, I remember thinking, "Maybe there really is a Santa Claus".

Finally satisfied that whoever read this e-mail would probably nominate me for Sainthood, I took a deep breath with finger poised over the SEND key. But something stopped me from completing that action. An image of Santa Claus floated before me, then faded away. Next came a reality I'd discovered a long time ago. There are probably even more people trying to make money from writers than there are writers. That's when common sense whispered that if it looks to good to be true, it probably is.

I saved the e-mail in my DRAFT folder and did what I should have done first thing. Back to Google, but this time I searched on the name of the web site itself. Sure enough, multiple hits reported how this was not on the up and up. The guy kept changing the name of the agency whenever his scam hit the fan...as it were. The way it was described by those who had been burned was that after these people convinced you that you were the greatest writer since old Eddie Poe, they offered assurance that once your manuscript was edited, it was sure to be published and the money, plus recognition, would begin to pour in. What they wouldn't tell you, however, was that this guy coincidentally owned the company that would edit your material. Just under $100 a pop, multiplied by a few thousand gullible and hopeful pops, adds up to a bangful of bucks.

But could these reports really be talking about the exact same web site, even though the name was the same exact name? Noting that one of them described how the page of "authors" on the web site only contained first names, I re-checked. Yep. Why list authors by first name only? It this were on the up and up, obviously they'd include each author's entire name with pride.
My finally thread of hope floated away like a puff of threaded hope. Sigh. On the one hand, it was a relief that I found out before wasting my time and possibly even some money. On the other was the disappointment that what all writers are looking for, which is a one size fits all, easy way to publish, just doesn't exist. Welcome back to the reality of, "If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and spits feathers, it's probably a dead cow that's going to cost money that returns nothing but heartache."

Once again I'm reminded of the writers' motto, "Writing's easy, but selling the finished product requires a lot of hard work". Too bad there isn't an easier way. The moral of this trifling tale is, as always, writers beware.

Hmm, I wonder if Santa's zip code is on the Internet?