Preditors and Editors ™
A guide to publishers and publishing services for serious writers since 1997.
P&E's Rating Criteria
Special Circumstances
P&E accepts entry and membership into some private boards and resources to further its ability in keeping pace with current industry problems. However, P&E will not recommend any site that claims it is legitimate because P&E is a member. Such claims would imply that P&E has been bought off.
Normally, P&E responds to almost all complaints. As of 6 May 2006, P&E will not respond individually to author blitzes, particularly those organized by a business that's dissatisfied with a recommendation by P&E concerning them.
2/20/07 - Identity disclosures. P&E does not divulge the names of anonymous posters in other sites such as Miss Snark or A Gent's Outlook even when it knows their identity. Please don't ask P&E for such information.
4/11/07 - P&E has been asked if our recommendations may be quoted on sites P&E recommends. We think that's a good idea. To further that, we're offering a GIF button that may be posted by those businesses that P&E recommends. So, if you're recommended and wish a copy, please contact P&E by email. We'll reply with a customized copy you may freely use.
12/8/07 - While P&E does take positive emails into consideration when reviewing ratings, it does not give a preponderance of those (an author blitz) the ability to overcome a negative rating brought about by documentation.
5/20/08 - Other sites are welcome to copy and use P&E's criteria for their own rating purposes.
3/10/10 - Threats of physical violence are grounds for being not recommended for all areas.
3/20/10: One bookstore is now charging self-published writers for shelf space. P&E is currently analyzing this development before it condemns, accepts, or recommends such action. At present, P&E is concerned about bookstores charging for the space and also receiving a cut from the sale. We would like to hear from authors on this.
1/29/13 - Anyone who engages in trashing an author's work(s) in a critique or review for the purpose of then approaching them with a referral to an editing service or publisher that can supposedly do better.
As of February 2001, agent/agency ratings of "Not recommended" are based on one or more of the following criteria:
- Charges a fee up front, regardless of nomenclature or reason. This includes optional fees. This will not include fees which are placed into audited trust funds that are monitored by a state agency. (modified 3/7/05)
- Excessive copying fees charged back to the writer. This includes tacking on a percentage for labor or handling unless the agency will deduct that labor or handling fee from their commission since not doing so would be equivalent to being paid twice. (modified 2/17/05)
- Owns any amount of interest in an editing service. Note: an agency can receive a "Editing advisory" instead of "Not recommended" provided it has achieved professional sales to royalty-paying commercial publishers and states openly and boldly that representation is not conditioned upon using its in-house editing service. (modified 10/10/09)
- Recommends specific editing services by name without being asked. P&E recognizes that agents will be asked on occasion because they're expected to know who is actually good in the publishing business. We would prefer agents suggest more than one qualified editing service so there is no appearance of steering. (modified 8/18/03)
- Agencies that suggest editing is needed and offer to supply an editing source if the writer needs one will be marked as questionable with a red ?. (added 5/30/11)
- Shares writer names with an editing service.
- Owns any amount of interest in a non-royalty paying publishing house. A "Conflict Advisory" is issued for those known to own publishing interest, but have accomplished sales to other royalty-paying publishing houses. (added 11/10/02)
- Promotes subsidy or vanity contracts to authors. (modified 6/10/05)
- Found guilty of fraud or other crime relevant to writers and publishing.
- Offers a contract slanted heavily against the writer.
- "Shotguns" manuscripts at inappropriate publishers rather than using knowledge and personal contact. P&E recognizes that agents will use multiple submissions, but expects those to be appropriate markets for the manuscript in question. (modified 1/13/04)
- Requires writers to join an organization in order to gain additional promotional tools. (added 5/8/03)
- Requires writers to submit through a clearinghouse, such as an editing service. (added 6/28/03)
- Requires writers to attend conventions at writer expense. (added 7/14/03)
- Uses material without permission. By this, P&E means whole articles, usually related to writing though not limited to just that topic, and not to reasonable quotations under the doctrine of fair use provided proper attribution is included. (added 8/19/03)
- Fails to perform according to contract. For agents, this does not mean failing to make a sale. It applies to other conditions such as proper disbursement of royalties after any sale is made or failing to notify the writer of submission information. (added 1/12/04)
- Owns any amount of interest in a publicity service: an agency can receive a "Publicity advisory" instead of "Not recommended" provided it has achieved professional sales to royalty-paying publishers and states openly and boldly that representation is not conditioned upon using its in-house publicity service. (added 11/22/04)
- Recommends specific publicity services by name without being asked. P&E recognizes that agents and publishers will be asked on occasion because they're expected to know who is actually good in the publishing industry. We would prefer that they suggest more than one qualified publicity service so that there is no appearance of steering. (modified 7/19/06)
- Shares writer names with a publicity service. (added 11/22/04)
- Engages in evasive answers when asked for facts or other data concerning their business. (added 2/12/06)
- Authors have a right to know where their work was submitted. Agencies unwilling to divulge such information to their own clients will receive a negative recommendation from P&E. (added 4/2/06)
- Engages in spamming. (added 7/27/06)
- Sells its guidelines or proposal structures for authors to follow in submitting to them. (added 8/21/06)
- Charges expenses back to the writer after those occur without providing the original receipts to the writers. Those expenses become legitimate tax-deductible expenses for the writer at that point and not for the agency. P&E urges writers to report this to the IRS if receipts are not provided. (added 12/12/06)
- Posts praise of themselves in forums without identifying themselves properly. (added 20 May 08)
- Places writers with literary agencies which then represent the writers to publishers. This represents a middleman operation that essentially produces nothing and is subject to much abuse as it may be related to one of the agencies and thus be an attempt to get around reading fees and would be inclined to accept all writers regardless of acceptability to trade publishers. Agencies doing this will not be recommended. (added 7/11/10)
Agents and agencies will not be given "recommended" ratings based on one or more of the following criteria:
- Offers representation only to dump the writer/manuscript after minimal efforts within a short span of time (added 10/1/03) generally six months or less.
- Demands any interminable agency clauses
covering written works they no longer represent or that outlive their representation. (added 4/28/11)
Sales will be rated as of January 2004 based upon the following criteria:
- $ - has one or more verified sales to a legitimate royalty-paying publisher. Sales to vanity and subsidy publishers are not eligible for this notation. Weasel worded listings of books will not be verified as sales. Agents must state their sales, at least some of them.
- $ - has represented one or more manuscripts in negotiations, but has no verified sales.
P&E will not recommend against an agency or publisher for offering paid critiques so long as those are not conditioned as part of the reading for submissions. P&E considers it entirely proper and not a conflict of interest to mention in a response after a reading that the agent or publisher offers a critique for a fee. P&E recognizes that agents are not required to state in critique form why they are rejecting a manuscript. Any author wishing such information is technically asking for more time from an agent or publisher because it requires additional time to prepare a critique in writing. Agents and publishers have a right to be compensated for giving time beyond any reading. (added 8/5/04)
P&E does not have a double-secret not recommended category though there are a few businesses that would easily qualify if P&E had such a category. In other words, we post all recommendations issued by P&E regardless of whether the recommendations are negative or positive. Visitors to P&E should not interpret our words to mean anything other than what P&E states. (added 6/20/12)
As of March 2011, P&E will rate galleries as Not Recommended for the following reasons:
- Charges a fee to artists for showing their work as well as a commission on what sells. P&E understands commissions are necessary, but both are not acceptable together.
As of February 2001, Book publishing and Periodicals' ratings of "Not Recommended" are based upon one or more of the following criteria:
- Charges a reading fee, regardless of nomenclature. (modified 8/10/09)
- Charges author/artist for a copy of the book/publication in which the author's/artist's work is featured. Note: this does not apply to additional copies the author might order for personal use. (added 6/21/02)
- Promotes subsidy contracts.
- Does not respond to submissions.
- Owns any amount of interest in an editing service for which it charges its own authors. Note: P&E will not apply this to periodicals whose editors do not charge for what they do on accepted submissions if they are charging only for work that is not eligible for their publication. For example, editors for a periodical that does not have any interest in publishing novels will not cause their periodical to be unfavorably recommended if they limit their editing services-for-pay to novels. P&E recommends that the editing service make this clear to prospective clients in order to avoid any conflict of interest. (modified 6/9/04)
- Recommends specific editing services by name. P&E recognizes that publishers will be asked on occasion because they're expected to know who is actually good in the publishing business. We would prefer that publishers suggest more than one qualified editing service so that there is no appearance of steering. Agencies that suggest editing is needed and offer to supply an editing source if the writer needs one will be marked as questionable with a red ?.(modified 5/30/11)
- Shares writer names with an editing service.
- Found guilty of fraud or other crime relevant to writers and publishing.
- Offers a contract slanted heavily against the writer.
- Fails to pay for published work within stated contract obligations.
- Requires authors to purchase books by themselves or by other authors it has published. (modified 2/14/05)
- Requires writers to attend conventions at writer expense. (added 7/14/03)
- Requires writers to furnish lists of friends and relatives for marketing purposes especially when the majority of promotion and marketing is aimed at that group rather than the buying public at large. P&E believes they shouldn't even ask, either. (added 7/14/03)
- Uses material without permission. By this, P&E means whole articles, usually related to writing though not limited to just that topic, and not to reasonable quotations under the doctrine of fair use provided proper attribution is included unless the contributor asks not to be mentioned. (modified 1/13/04)
- Fails to perform according to contract. (added 1/12/04)
- Uses what amounts to bait and switch tactics by claiming in their guidelines to pay advances and then offering a subsidy/vanity contract instead. (added 7/29/04)
- Charges a setup fee to authors for publishing when that fee is not mentioned in their submission guidelines. Writers should not be ambushed when they receive a contract. Charging such fees effectively changes what publishers are offering to a situation where the author is taking all the risks on their behalf. P&E will also consider publishers charging setup fees to be vanity houses. (modified 1/1/08)
- Owns any amount of interest in a publicity service: a publisher can receive a "Publicity advisory" instead of "Not recommended" provided it states openly and boldly that publication is not conditioned upon using its in-house publicity service. This does not apply to free reviews. (modified 10/16/07)
- Recommends specific publicity services by name without being asked. P&E recognizes that agents and publishers will be asked on occasion because they're expected to know who is actually good in the publishing industry. We would prefer that they suggest more than one qualified publicity service so that there is no appearance of steering. (modified 7/19/06)
- Shares writer names with a publicity service, vanity publisher, or self-publisher. (modified 9/21/07)
- Engages in stalling tactics, especially when the author has been promised a publication date on which any paid-by-the-author services or promotions were based. This includes selling some or all of your business assets to another company with the same or mostly the same officers. (added 5/12/05)
- Engages in tactics meant to scare writers into silence so that they cannot get their complaints heard or resolved. One such tactic is the existence of a contract section stating that authors who disparage the business will be fined by the business. (added 5/12/05)
- Does not use or offer ISBNs to its authors for their books. (added 12/2/05)
- Engages in evasive answers when asked for facts or other data concerning their business. (added 2/12/06)
- Pays or offers to pay for referrals from agencies, particularly of authors the agency turned down. (added 7/19/06)
- Engages in spamming. (added 7/27/06)
- Fails to answer or ignores legitimate questions from their contracted writers. (added 23 Apr 08)
- Posts praise of themselves in forums without identifying themselves properly. (added 20 May 08)
- Whose contracts demand transfer of copyright from the authors and claim it's temporary. (added 13 Sep 08)
- Demands a fee from the author in order to terminate a book contract. P&E has no objections to a publisher wanting back an advance when an author fails to provide an acceptable manuscript. (added 8/23/09)
- As of November 2005, chat rooms and forums that are closed and monitored to prevent opposing opinions will not be granted a "recommended" status from P&E.
- Forums that deliberately hide legitimate discussions from the public by moving those behind password protection or delete those discussions will be given "not recommended" status. This does not apply to spam attack postings or discussions that take place to begin with inside protected areas. Nor does it apply to posts moved to an appropriate topic that is still publicly available or to posts deleted by their originators. (modified 9/24/06)
- Forums that deliberately change without permission what some other poster has stated in a legitimate forum, other than substituting character marks to replace clearly offensive terms, will not receive recommended status. (added 8/4/06)
- Chats that ban individuals for participating in legitimate discussions, especially when the discussion hinges on a publishing industry business that one side is unwilling to see challenged or criticized will be "not recommended". This does not apply to the banning of individuals for actions not related to a legitimate discussion. In other words, an individual who participates and also posts spam can still be banned because of the spamming. (added 8/4/06)
- Forums that pay posters in order to populate their topics will not receive recommended status. (added 9/24/06)
- Posts praise of themselves in forums without identifying themselves properly. (added 20 May 08)
As of May 2005, Contest ratings of "Not Recommended" are based upon one or more of the following criteria:
- P&E does not recommend any contests with entry fees.
- Contests in which the rules change without adequate notification to the participants. (added 5/17/05)
- Contests without a statement in its rules that the contest rules are subject to change. (added 5/17/05)
- Contests which award a prize to an employee or employee family member, to include trusts in their names. (added 5/17/05)
- Engages in evasive answers when asked for facts or other data concerning their business. (added 2/12/06)
- Engages in spamming. (added 7/27/06)
- Posts praise of themselves in forums without identifying themselves properly. (added 20 May 08)
As of August 2003, Editing, Indexing, & Software ratings of "Not Recommended" are based upon one or more of the following criteria:
- Forwards a bill to an author for editing work that was not authorized by that author.
- Receives writer information from literary agencies. All contact should be initiated by the writers.
- Uses material without permission. By this, P&E means whole articles, usually related to writing though not limited to just that topic, and not to reasonable quotations under the doctrine of fair use provided proper attribution is included unless the contributor asks not to be mentioned. (modified 1/13/04)
- Fails to perform according to contract. (added 1/12/04)
- Engages in evasive answers when asked for facts or other data concerning their business. (added 2/12/06)
- Engages in spamming. (added 7/27/06)
- Engages in offering referral fees in exchange for names from publishers or literary agencies or writer forums (not inclusive). (added 6/21/07)
- Posts praise of themselves in forums without identifying themselves properly. (added 20 May 08)
As of April 2007, "recommended" ratings from P&E will not be given to editing serives that:
- Do not offer a sample edit of at least one page from the manuscript they propose to edit. (P&E believes doing a sample chapter is too much and can lead to abuse by unethical individuals.)
- Do not offer an estimate on how long the job requires, subject to plus or minus 10%.
- Do not offer an editing plan prior to contract signing.
- Do not offer a written contract specifying payment timing and amounts, what kind of editing is to be performed, how cancellations will be handled, and a clear definition of any editing terminology.
Same criteria used for Book Publishers and Distributors.
As of August 2003, Organization ratings of "Not Recommended" are based upon one or more of the following criteria:
- Membership is required by a publisher or literary agency in order to be published or gain representation.
- Receives writer information from publishers, editing services, or literary agencies before the writer has applied for membership. All contact should be initiated by the writers.
- Uses material without permission. By this, P&E means whole articles, usually related to writing though not limited to just that topic, and not to reasonable quotations under the doctrine of fair use provided proper attribution is included unless the contributor asks not to be mentioned. (modified 1/13/04)
- Engages in evasive answers when asked for facts or other data concerning their business. (added 2/12/06)
- Engages in spamming. (added 7/27/06)
- Posts praise of themselves in forums without identifying themselves properly. (added 20 May 08)
As of May 2003, reviewer ratings of "Not recommended" are based on one or more of the following criteria:
- Charges a fee to writers or their publishers, regardless of reason. Some services beyond what is initially offered freely may be charged for provided the free service is not based upon later purchase of any options. This would include posting the review in a non-paying outlet by the reviewer. P&E recognizes that some outlets, such as Amazon, do not pay for reviews yet do feature them. (modified 6/7/10)
- Asks for a free book to review and does not publish the review in a recognized public forum within three months unless a later date is agreed upon. The forum can be a recognized review web site, magazine, anthology of reviews, the publisher's web site, or even the author's personal web site. Note: the review, however, does not have to be favorable. (modified 6/9/04)
- Uses material without permission. By this, P&E means whole articles, usually related to writing though not limited to just that topic, and not to reasonable quotations under the doctrine of fair use provided proper attribution is included unless the contributor asks not to be mentioned. (modified 1/13/04)
- Engages in evasive answers when asked for facts or other data concerning their business. (added 2/12/06)
- Engages in spamming. (added 7/27/06)
- Posts praise of themselves in forums without identifying themselves properly. (added 20 May 08)
As of April 2003, promotional ratings of "Not recommended" are based on one or more of the following criteria:
- Claims that its representation can assist in obtaining a publishing acceptance or agent representation. P&E will treat such claims as falling within its agenting guidelines.
- Requires writers to furnish lists of friends and relatives for marketing purposes especially when the majority of promotion and marketing is aimed at that group rather than the buying public at large. P&E believes they shouldn't even ask, either. (added 7/14/03)
- Uses material without permission. By this, P&E means whole articles, usually related to writing though not limited to just that topic, and not to reasonable quotations under the doctrine of fair use provided proper attribution is included unless the contributor asks not to be mentioned. (modified 1/13/04)
- Fails to perform according to contract. (added 1/12/04)
- Charges authors instead of the media for services such as interviews and online chats. (added 1/31/06)
- Engages in evasive answers when asked for facts or other data concerning their business. (added 2/12/06)
- Engages in spamming. (added 7/27/06)
- Posts praise of themselves in forums without identifying themselves properly. (added 20 May 08)
P&E will not base an unfavorable recommendation upon any publishing business or service for including a blurb or ad about their goods or services within their correspondence. Nor will P&E react against an editor or agent promoting his own book in correspondence with writers. (added 6/9/04)
As of August 2003, Resource ratings of "Not Recommended" are based upon one or more of the following criteria:
- Uses material without permission. By this, P&E means whole articles, usually related to writing though not limited to just that topic, and not to reasonable quotations under the doctrine of fair use provided proper attribution is included unless the contributor asks not to be mentioned. (modified 1/13/04)
As of January 2005, Workshop ratings of "Not Recommended" are based upon one or more of the following criteria:
- Claims the right to use material presented within the workshop beyond reasonable expectation as in the following example:
By providing any Content to our web site you agree to grant to us a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive right and license (including any moral rights or other necessary rights) to use, display, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, distribute, perform, promote, archive, translate, and to create derivative works and compilations, in whole or in part. Such license will apply with respect to any form, media, technology known or later developed;
- Engages in evasive answers when asked for facts or other data concerning their business. (added 2/12/06)
- Posts praise of themselves in forums without identifying themselves properly. (added 20 May 08)
