I read something very interesting today, while doing my near-daily dose of "how to get published" research. It was an article about sites like Rosedog.com, Authorlink, and other online forums that offer to post your work in order to attract the attention of both agents and editors. There is a fee, which varies from quite small (approx. $15) to hefty (a couple hundred). According to the article's author, who interviewed both agents and editors, most either didn't even know that these forums existed, or said that they didn't waste their time looking at them. Their reasons included, "We already have too big a slush pile to go through," and "Most of the posts on these sites are too amateurish to wade through." These sites, when questioned for the same article, either couldn't or wouldn't provide clear statistics on author success; those that did respond had results skewed by including vanity publishing.
I actually did join Rosedog, which was one of the cheaper ones. I can vouch that I have not received one piece of email from an interested editor or agent. Now, this could be because I suck, but I think it is more likely that the only other people visiting the site are other wannabe discovered writers.
I just wanted to post this to let folks that may be planning to invest (i.e., waste) their money on one of these forums, don't bother. A better investment would be reputable books on how to craft queries, synopses, and outlines.
Posted by Rahl22 (Member # 1411) on :
Thanks for the heads-up, although I was already pretty sure that a medium like that would be pretty ineffective.
Posted by srhowen (Member # 462) on :
I have been telling people this for some time. Preditors and Editors has a page warning of them as well.