Cost
Legitimate agents do not charge reading or other upfront fees (e.g. retainers), or bill authors for most operating expenses. They also will not place their clients' work with a vanity or subsidy press. Both these practices may indicate that the author is dealing with a scam agent. Traditionally representation agreements between agents and clients were simply verbal; however, an increasing percentage of agents are offering written contracts to make the terms explicit. Another questionable practice consists of referring the author to a so-called "professional editor" or "book doctor" who is in collusion with the agent. The ensuing edit may or may not be appropriate, or of professional quality, and is almost always expensive.
Read more about this topic: Literary Agent
Famous quotes containing the word cost:
“One must always be aware, to notice—even though the cost of noticing is to become responsible.”
—Thylias Moss, African American poet. As quoted in the Wall Street Journal (May 12, 1994)
“It breedeth no small offence and scandal to see and consider upon the one part the curiosity and cost bestowed by all sorts of men upon their private houses; and on the other part the unclean and negligent order and spare keeping of the houses of prayer by permitting open decays and ruins of coverings of walls and windows, and by appointing unmeet and unseemly tables with foul cloths for the communion of the sacrament.”
—Elizabeth I (1533–1603)
“The President has paid dear for his White House. It has commonly cost him all his peace, and the best of his manly attributes. To preserve for a short time so conspicuous an appearance before the world, he is content to eat dust before the real masters who stand erect behind the throne.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)