What would you do? (And other discussions)

I don't think this will get enough discussion to be worth a whole post on its own, so once we've talked about it, please throw in other questions, or similar things to discuss.

On livejournal this morning, I came across this post:
Click Here

What do you people think?

I really don't want to pay to submit my work for someone who will reap the benefits. It's probably a good deal for people not looking to make money from writing or even caring about becoming a published author. But as wanting to become a more "serious" writer, I don't think that would be a very good idea in itself.

As stated in one of the comments, money should always flow to the author. There are a few exception. For example, if you pay an outside editor to edit your work. Also authors will often spend money on their book's promotion since publisher's rarely have a good budget for it but that's completely up to the author and that money would never go to a publisher. It's just self-promotion. But, as far as agents, publishers, and publishing house editors go, you should never have to pay anything. The administration costs thing is BS. To me, that sends up a red flag that says: "I'm not sure I'm going to make enough money on this to cover the publishing costs." No thank you.

One word *SCAM* run away from this as fast as you can.

I've read about this before (carbon copy of that ad) in the Poetry version of 'The artists and writer's handbook'

googled fred nerk and it comes up as an aussie version of 'john doe' in wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Doe

Exactly. Money flows to the writer! NOT the other way around.

I agree. SCAM. Run for the hills.