This was first posted to Facebook in a shorter version, but in case it will prove helpful to someone, I’m posting it to my blog as well.
Writer friends: Scam Alert! I got this email July 16th from someone (or a bot) claiming to be a literary agent at a new agency seeking clients. All kinds of red flags are present and waving here, so let’s go over them:
-Literary agents do not contact you. They go through professional sites like the MSWL, or will be part of industry-specific publications announcing their new roles and what they are looking for (like the Published to Death blog, etc.)
-There is a mismatch in the way the company name is spelled: in the body of the email, she says it’s the Serenity Literary Agency. In the signature and email address, it’s “Serendity.” A literary agent would not misspell their agency name.
-She says the website is under construction. Nope. Any reputable place would make sure it had a functioning website FIRST, before its agents spoke with potential clients. It would be independently searchable, for people to confirm details, look at the agency’s mission statement and list of agents, etc.
-The email address is a gmail address. A literary agency would buy a domain name (yes, it’s fine and normal for some small presses to have gmail addresses, I get it, but a literary agency would have its own domain, like “agentyagent@superagency.com”).
-She says she came across my “profile,” but doesn’t say where. A real person would be specific: “When I was on Instagram, I liked your comment on X post and clicked on your profile, and from there went to your website” or whatever.
-She says nothing SPECIFIC about my work. Not “I loved your ghost story collection, in fact I love ghosts all day every day; do you have a manuscript about ghosts available?” No agent is going to be like “Hey, throw whatever at me.” They are very selective, in real life, and invest a lot of time into their clients. Which, again, is why they won’t reach out to authors out of the blue. That is not a thing.
-There’s no mention of her capabilities. No list of accomplishments, or other clients, or publishers she’s worked with.
-There is no additional contact information listed in the signature of the email. No phone number, other professional website, anything.
-There is no record of where she DID work. A literary agent, even a new one, will tell you something about their past professional experience.
-Her last name is hyphenated, yet she forgets to capitalize the second last name where the email lists the sender. A literary agent would know to capitalize their own name. They understand proper nouns.
-I was so distracted by the other red flags that it took me a minute to note this one as well–she can’t make up her mind about the company. She says she’s a literary agent looking for clients, but also, she’s part of a small press looking for books to publish. Are you a press or a literary agency, Emma? Huh? YOU DON’T KNOW.
I did try to look this person up, because that is the first thing I do when I get suspicious emails. If it had been real, I would have written back to politely inform them that I am very happy with my current representation (shoutout to Tobias Literary Agency). But it IS a scam, and these are people (or bots, but there are people behind them) who prey on writers, thinking they will jump at an offer of representation without doing their homework.
Be careful out there, friends, and watch out for each other.
rebeccacuthbert.com 