'Fun' Facts for New Writers
New writers are fresh meat for scamming sharks who circle the waters waiting to find the next person they can take advantage of by playing on their hopes.
Quick ways you can protect yourself:
1. Never participate in a 'contest' that asks you to pay to enter. Even if it's run for a few years, if it has a clause like, 'If the judges deem that no story is worthy, there will not be a first prize given,' they can take everyone's money and do ... nothing.
2. Never pay to have yourself published, whether in a magazine, online magazine, or a POD 'publisher' that doesn't admit it's actually a vanity press.
3. Never pay an agent any kind of fee. Real agents don't charge 'assessment' or 'reading' fees.
Bottom line - anything that asks you for money up front is suspect. They say, 'We love your work!' and flatter you. It's easy to get sucked in. But if they really loved it and found it marketable, they'd pay you.
[None of this has happened to me, and it's not gonna!]
Quick ways you can protect yourself:
1. Never participate in a 'contest' that asks you to pay to enter. Even if it's run for a few years, if it has a clause like, 'If the judges deem that no story is worthy, there will not be a first prize given,' they can take everyone's money and do ... nothing.
2. Never pay to have yourself published, whether in a magazine, online magazine, or a POD 'publisher' that doesn't admit it's actually a vanity press.
3. Never pay an agent any kind of fee. Real agents don't charge 'assessment' or 'reading' fees.
Bottom line - anything that asks you for money up front is suspect. They say, 'We love your work!' and flatter you. It's easy to get sucked in. But if they really loved it and found it marketable, they'd pay you.
[None of this has happened to me, and it's not gonna!]