The other day I got a contract in the mail for one of my manuscripts. Whoop-de-doo right? Yeah, not so much. It's not that I've become so jaded that the sale of one of my stories doesn't send tingles down my legs. It's that they wanted me to pay them to publish the dang thing. Not kosher. Not at all. No matter how much they like my "fresh writing" and "riveting plot."

Warning Writer Wannabees: There are scammers in them there hills. Beware.

I read an article about three authors who buddied up to write the most horrific bit of prose possible. It was entitled Quoth the Cabbage, the story of a poor cabbage farmer in Russia. A group of escaped orphans hides in his cabbage patch, and lo and behold, small dolls emerge to help them. The farmer, the orphans, and the dolls begin the Russian Revolution. Of course they end up getting banished to Siberia, but there's a happy finale with the farmer, his family, and the orphans enjoying a warm bowl of sauerkraut.

The authors took only four days to compose this epic. The thing is, though, that they left out every second or third word, making it basically a fat pile of gibberish. Then to spice things up even more, they added in chunks of encyclopedia copy randomly and repeated large blocks of text.

They created a pen name--Richard Hulligan--and whipped up a goofy-butt query letter, then sent it out to five well-known agents and five unknowns. The five "real" agents kicked Mr. Hulligan to the curb. Three of the five unknown agents were less harsh, but still turned him down. But two of the agents asked to see the full, and when they did, they wrote back asking to represent Mr. Hulligan. . . for a fee, of course.

Here's the deal, all you starry-eyed writers -- just because an agent or an editor comes along saying nice things about your writing doesn't mean they're legit. It might be a money making scam, like the agents who wanted to sign Mr. Hulligan or the publishing company that sent me that recent contract. Unless you're self-publishing, you should never have to pay anyone to get your work published.

How do you know who's a Jabberwock and who's not? Ask around. Network. Check out Preditors & Editors. Read what others have to say on other blogs. What? Did I seriously just invite you to leave my blog and read others?

Yep. Information is power, baby. Be strong.