For immediate release: January 26, 1996

Literary Agent Organization to Ban Reading Fees by Members

The Association of Authors Representatives (AAR) has announced that effective
January 1, 1996, none of its approximately 300 members will be permitted to charge
reading fees to prospective clients.  This new ethical restriction replaces a policy
that permitted a few of the Association's members, who charged such fees before 
the AAR was formed in 1991, to continue to do so under strict guidelines and regulations.

The AAR adopted its total prohibition against charging reading fees, which are ostensibly
designed to defray the agent's costs in reading and responding to material submitted by 
prospective clients, because some non-AAR agents have used reading fees as a 
profit-making business practice that took advantage of gullible authors and because the
 AAR concluded that it was impossible to regulate the practice even when it was employed 
by ethical and honest agents.

In adopting its new prohibition, the AAR emphasized that no AAR member had ever been
found to have acted improperly or unethically in charging such fees.  Most of the AAR
members who previously charged such fees have announced that they will discontinue
the practice when the prohibition takes effect.