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Originally Posted by NickSpalding
If agents shouldn't start charging for submitting work, maybe others could.
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Well, as great as the idea is, there comes two problems with this idea. First, "you pay us" vs traditional "we pay you" agent systems are one of the key tools to determining the difference between predators and true agents. The second is I fear that if agents forced you to pay for every time you submitted to them, only the really bad manuscripts would be submitted to them, because they would be done by the people who thought they were "all that". Having seen my publisher working with a few of his more "problematic" authors, I know just how big some egos can get. And the worst part is, the bigger the ego, the worse the book tends to be. I don't know if egotism is a natural defense mechanism for rampant insecurity due to intimate knowledge of one's inferiorities and shortcomings, but it sure seems like it.
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A group of publishing industry professionals with some spare time could club together, start a website that unpublished authors can submit their work to for evaluation, criticism and proofing ... before they send to the agents and publishers.
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Well, the idea is sound, but that's what writers groups are for. Or at least in theory they are. But I guess for people with a lack of connections to such groups, something like that would be a good thing. In fact, it may actually at some point in time prove to be a door towards getting picked up by the big houses, as some of the paid editors might forward your manuscript up to a publishing house who then picks you up.