Phony agents

Beware 'agents' asking for cash up-front - a cautionary tale from Richard Lea for The Guardian's Culture Vulture blog.

Earlier this month a number of authors who had signed contracts with the Hill and Hill literary agency, supposedly based in Edinburgh, received an email telling them that the agency's operations had been "frozen", blaming adverse coverage in writers' forums such as Absolute Write.

These writers had all paid upfront fees of about £100 to an agent calling himself Christopher Hill, who promised to submit their work to major publishing houses and send bi-weekly reports on their progress. And at least some of them were doing rather well - or so it seemed ...