I am once again asking people who want to be literary agents not to open their own literary agencies when their qualifications for doing so are “I have an English degree and I love books!”

I’ve been digging into a schmagency, and here are a few of the red flags I found:

1. The owner’s lack of any experience whatsoever in book publishing;
2. The agency’s 103 deals on PM, three of which are to Big Five publishers;
3. 3. The fact that this agency opened in 2016 and has 22 employees, none of whom list any experience in book publishing that I saw;

4. Multiple agents’ QueryManager forms ask querying writers whether they’re only interested in working with major publishers, which, in my view, translates to “We don’t have (m)any contacts at major publishers”;

5. The owner spams her own QueryTracker profile’s comments with links to agency news under a pen name, burying any and all comments critical of her and her agency. Need I go on?

If you’re querying or will be soon and you can’t tell legitimate agents from schmagents, please feel free to DM me names, and I’ll help guide you toward the better ones. We have to look out for one another.