A recurring, too-occasional theme on this blog is how writers can protect themselves from getting swindled, burgled, fleeced, taken, exploited, cheated and generally ripped-off. It's a big problem and it requires a lot of policing and advising and warning. In 1998, the Science Fiction Writers of America set up Writer Beware, a website intended to help educate writers — new ones, especially — to some of the pernicious practices that may be employed to get them to pay to have their writing published (instead of the other way around) or at least to not be paid when their writing is published.
Thanks to the efforts of author Lee Goldberg, who is probably too busy trotting 'round the globe to writers' conferences to have lunch with his ol' pal Mark, the Mystery Writers of America group has joined the battle, throwing support behind Writer Beware. Good for all of them.
Remember: The way this is supposed to work is that you write it and they pay you to publish it. You do not pay to have it published. You do not pay to have it agented or critiqued or submitted or anything of the sort. They pay you and they pay you on an agreed-upon amount on an agreed-upon schedule and in real money. No matter how badly you want to see your work in print.