Barbara Bauer's temper tantrum

I've been reading about the shutdown of the Absolute Write site via boingboing.

Short summary: literary "agent" Barbara Bauer was named on the twenty worst agencies list. She was not happy about this, called the isp hosting AW, threw a temper tantrum, and got AW shut down.

Funny thing is, there have been complaints about her being shady since at least 1997. Barbara Bauer is a scam agent who preys on new writers who are not familiar with publishing and threatens bloggers who complain about it.

Websites new authors should read:
Preditors & Editors
Writer Beware from SFWA
Neil Gaiman (one of my fave authors) has advice too.

I've seen other shady companies make threats after someone makes a world-wide complaint about their business on a website or in a forum. That does nothing to make me rethink my opinion. Threats are not good business practice, it is something that scammers do. Oh wait, and sometimes big organizations and corporations do it too.

If you are ever threatened about your online writing, visit Chilling Effects before taking it down.