You want to know how bad scam agents can get? How about taking money from writers to represent them? (Note: if you are paying your agent, then they are not your agent and you are not their client, you are their mark.) This is how most scam agents work. But take it a step further: imagine an agent who takes that money and doesn’t even submit the manuscripts to any publishers. Imagine, furthermore, that said agent writes regular reports on how the book is doing with the publishers. Since the publishers never received any manuscripts, obviously there is never any news to report to the authors. Imagine, then, that said agent writes fake reports from publishers, and is so remote from the industry that the fake reports are full of rubbish that no publisher would ever write.

This agent is Christopher Hill, and the story of his scam has been told by Kate Hyde of HarperCollins and by Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware, who first unveiled the scam. Hyde was alerted to the scam by a rush of queries from unpublished authors asking why they had not heard back from the “Chief Editor”, a position which does not exist at HarperCollins, about their submissions, no record of which can be found in the HarperCollins files.

The most interesting thing about this story can be found in the comments. A large number of writers who were taken in by Christopher Hill have written in. There are unpublished writers who came across Hill more or less by accident, such as “Millie”:

Hill’s were the first agent I contacted, with my first ms so I got carried away on my ego…I knew nothing of the industry, I sent Hills a query rather than a submission and before I knew it I was being sucked in. Now I’ve been spat out, I’m trying to find a reputable agent.

One’s sympathy runs deep for these writers. Others, like David McKenzie Bell, deal with their disappointment with an “older but wiser” sort of resignation:

My latest Bulletin at the end of August said that Spyglass had decided to make an offer for my screenplay. I was obviously “over the moon”. Well, it would appear that I’ve been landed with a bump on the head. Don’t really know what to do, I’ll probably try to get in touch with Spyglass. I’ll keep you informed.

But, you know, a common thread among the Hill victims is a strain of what can only be described as, well, cluelessness. From Edward:

I am one of the victims of Christopher Hill…If there are any real literary agents out there who would care to review my Manuscripts, please contact me.

No, Edward. You don’t ask agents to query you about manuscripts. You find agents and submit queries yourself. It would be nice to put this down to inexperience with the publishing industry, but no, it’s genuine cluelessness. I don’t care if you’ve never even heard of publishing before, who would honestly expect agents to do this? You might as well ask Stephen Spielberg to drop round to your flat because you’ve heard he’s casting for his next movie and you’d like a part. And you don’t write manuscript with a capital M unless it’s the first word of a sentence or you’re talking about the original copy of Genesis hand-written by god himself.

Sometimes the cluelessness evolves into egotistical ranting, as from Bettine:

The publishing industry must accept some of the blame for this. While they are grabbing at big sales for trash written by celebrities and ghost-written autobiographies of juvenile stars the unknown imaginative or creative writers are completely ignored. Do publishers feel no responsibility for encouraging new writers?

I’d like to ask Bettine how she thinks the first novels by J.K. Rowling, Alexander McCall Smith, and Alice Sebold appeared in bookshops. Actual publishers had nothing to do with it. Must have been the First-Time Author Pixie. And then there’s Gladys:

Having worked hard at improving my writing I had already self-published a few books, I know from feedback that I can write, and write very well, even if publishers are only interested in books with huge market potential. For eighteen months Hill lifted my self-esteem and helped me to believe in my talent, and to concentate on writing rather than the many tasks involved with self-publishing. Hill has made nothing out of his folly, rather he has paid dearly for his own dashed dreams. I have gained so much.

No, Gladys, Mr Hill did not help you. You don’t know how well you can write from feedback about your self-published books. Publishers are not only interested in books with huge market potential. You gained nothing from Hill apart from false hope and misdirection, which you seem reluctant to abandon. The only dreams of Hill’s that were dashed were that he could spin this scam indefinitely. I’m sorry to be so short, dear Gladys and Bettine, but as much as Hill’s scam disgusts me, I am almost as frustrated by the trite self-deception and scapegoating of professional publishers. Accept that you were conned. Get angry with Hill, not a bunch of publishers who never even received your manuscripts. Move on. If you are any good, you will be published. Eventually.

So here’s some brief advice on how not to get conned by a scam agent:

1. Read the SFWA’s Writer Beware pages.
2. Read Making Light every day.
3. Read Miss Snark every day.
4. Reject what Victoria Strauss calls the twin demons of denial and desperation, or to put it more bluntly,
5. Don’t be clueless.