Agent With Style

Agent With Style was one of the biggest print zine publishers and zine agents in fandom. It was run by Mysti Frank, and was in business from 1986 to roughly 2015. The site remained up, taking fans' money, until August 2020.
During the pre-internet era, Agent With Style was one of the biggest suppliers of fan fiction. Frank published her own zines, but as time went on, also became a large distributor and agent for others' zines, sometimes with their publisher's explicit permission, and sometimes without. Frank was voracious in her hunt for new material, as well as old material to reissue, and fans counted on her huge empire for their fic fix.
Frank sold zines through the website via the postal service and in person at conventions.A list of 2000-05 cons posted at the website is here, a 2001 list is here.
While many fans were happy with, and in some cases desperate, for what Agent With Style supplied, other fans were upset by many of Frank's practices of poor editing, shoddy business practices, and what many fans felt to be greed and dishonesty. Frank's business put media fans in a challenging spot; they wanted what she was selling but did not want to rock the boat that supplied the goods they craved.
Frank's business, once a monolith, began to see a decline as technology and fannish customs changed. Agent With Style's business was greatly affected by the internet. On the positive side, online communication acted as a conduit for visibility and marketing for the business. However, the internet negatively impacted the business thanks to fans' new ability to consume fan fiction for free, rather than pay money for print zines. The internet also provided a platform for more accessible communication and less isolation; fans who were unhappy and angry with Agent With Style gained an increased ability to tell others.
Agent With Style kept taking money but stopped filling orders and communicating with fans sometime around 2014, or perhaps a bit later. By 2015, the business was dead in the water, and Frank had disappeared, taking all monies, as well as many, many original proofs and documents regarding the zines she'd agented with her.
Despite the fact the Agent With Style business webpage appears to be active, this publisher is no longer in business. includes fan discussion at Frank's public Facebook page: 
==Some Historical Dates==
There was a lot of cross-pollination between "Agent With Style" and Frank's zine publishing business Whatever You Do, Don't Press! (first zine published was in 1988). At some point, the latter morphed into "Agent With Style." "Agent With Style's" Facebook page says the site "began in 1986" AWS's Facebook page (accessed June 19, 2910) which probably reflects Frank's combining of the two presses. This 1986 date, however, is a bit perplexing, as her first known published zine was Chalk and Cheese in 1988.
The title "Agent With Style" was first used in 1997, and it was an offline business. From August 8, 1997, posted to a Pros mailing list: "Since I've been writing this privately for several weeks now, I'd like to make a list-wide announcement, if I may: THE FOLLOW ZINES ARE OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS:" -- from Mysti Frank at CI5 Mailing List, listed were Chalk and Cheese #18, Sinful Simon, Come to Your Senses #4 and #5, Scared Senseless, and Sentry Duty #2, all but "Chalk and Cheese" were not Pros, which was an example of some very scattershot advertising.In November 1997, Frank began requesting checks to be sent to "Agent With Style": "Please make all checks and money orders in US funds out to "Mystery Frank" and send to: Agent With Style, Mysti Frank" -- her November 11, 1997 ad for Chalk and Cheese #18 at CI5 Mailing List
The site started taking credit cards in July 1998.a 1999 or earlier blurb: "We accept Master Card, Visa, and Discover. You can either fill out our secure order form below, send us your name as it appears on the card, the card number and expiration date by snail mail, or call us with the information at [redacted]. The answering machine on this line is secure and accessible only by Agent With Style employees. This information will be kept strictly confidential and will be destroyed upon completion of the transaction, if you wish. Conversely, you may leave your information on file with us, and whenever you wish to order some zines, you can simply send us the titles you'd like, we'll debit your card that amount and send out your zines immediately. There is a 5% processing fee on domestic (U.S.) credit card orders and an 8% processing fee on foreign credit card orders." --Wayback link to AWS The domain name for "Agent With Style" was registered on September 4, 1998."Domain Name: AGENTWITHSTYLE.COM
 Registry Domain ID: 1916704_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
 Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.networksolutions.com
 Registrar URL: http://networksolutions.com
 Updated Date: 2011-09-03T12:41:44Z
 Creation Date: 1998-09-04T04:00:00Z
 Registry Expiry Date: 2020-09-03T04:00:00Z
 Registrar: Network Solutions, LLC.
 Registrar IANA ID: 2
 Registrar Abuse Contact Email: abuse@web.com
 Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: 1.8003337680
 Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/eppclientTransferProhibited
 Name Server: NS1.ABAC.COM
 Name Server: NS2.ABAC.COM
 DNSSEC: unsigned
Last update of whois database: 2018-01-16T17:57:12Z" -- Whois, accessed January 16, 2018The domain name was updated on January 28, 2015. The registrar of the domain name, however, does not host the website. Network Solutions is the largest domain name registration service - they merely point the website "address" to the company that hosts the website files. Some people use the same registrar and the host, other people use different ones. "Agent With Style's website host is https://www.aplus.net/.
Around January 1999, the site went online. It had a major site overhaul in February 2001.
In late 2003, AWS added a fax machine,"We can now take orders by fax! Just fill out the order form, print it out and fax it to: (208) 567-8632. We've added a form where you can leave feedback about any of the zines you've bought from us. Let the authors, editors and other readers know what you think!" as well as a place for fans to leave feedback on zine stories. From the feedback form: "Please note that any profanity will be edited out, so if you can't think of another way to say it, we'll be happy to do it for you. Full names are not required, but do look nice, however, net names will be accepted. So....what did you think of that last zine you bought from us?" "If you have a question or aren't sure about something, please e-mail us at AWS Answer Department. But if you'd like to leave feedback about a zine, please do so below. And feel free to comment on as many zines as you like, but please fill out a form for each one. Filling out a form does not guarantee that your comments will be posted on the webpage, although there's an excellent chance they will. Any comments will be passed on to the editor or author concerned. Please note that any profanity will be edited out, so if you can't think of another way to say it, we'll be happy to do it for you. Full names are not required, but do look nice, however, net names will be accepted. So....what did you think of that last zine you bought from us?"
By the mid-to-late 2000s, activity at the site had slowed in recent years, and updates and announcements were few.
The last update to the site according to its "What's New" information was August 5, 2015. The last update to its Facebook page was August 9, 2015. The site has apparently been taking orders but not filling them since August 2015, perhaps earlier. While the site still accepts orders through Pay Pal, anyone ordering zines in 2015 and after has not received what they purchased."Put in a claim with Paypal. you will never see your zines. She's been totally out of fandom since August of '15." -- comment by Hindman at Facebook, January 11, 2017, see AWS Facebook page for other similar messages. See Site Closure.
During the first week of June 2016, at least one major zine publisher received an email (with a former Agent With Style employee email address) from "Casey Allen." Allen explained that she had been given the task of straightening out Agent With Styles' financial and fannish commitments, and had been given the job with little or no training/background/information. "Casey Allen," it was believed, was probably Mysti Frank herself. There were no further messages from Casey Allen after the initial contact.
==Some Insight into the Massive Volume and Scale of This Business==
Frank wrote in 2003: "...anytime you want to step up and take over, sending out 1,500 zine orders a month world-wide, going to more than 20 cons a year, putting out over fifteen zines a year and not really having a life, I'd be more than happy to trade with you. Just say the word." her comment at Dear Disreputable Zine Publisher (2003) A fan responded to this in 2003: "I had to wonder about her assertion that the income from her zine sales wouldn't pay even a quarter of her mortgage, when she later states that she sends out around 1,500 zines per month and pays $350 in just credit card and Paypal fees. Or that she does this 'part time', then later goes on about how it takes up all her time and she has 'no life' because of it." from [C C] at Dear Disreputable Zine Dealer
Frank also wrote in 2003 that she only charged takes on zines in Maryland because she had to pay taxes in Maryland. She added that "You don't want to know what we paid this past April!" stated on a mailing list, from MPH's notes, May 9, 2003
From Mysti Frank in 2005: "There are two -- a whopping *two* -- of us who handle more than 2,500 titles in dozens of fandoms and send out more than 300 orders *a week*. That's in and around our RL jobs and actually having a spare moment to go see a movie or visit with our 3-year-old granddaughter. I work on the webpage as often as I can, but I'm still about 400 zines behind in listing everything we have, and that's *just* listing the titles, a descriptive paragraph and a table of contents (if the zine has one) for each zine. It's been about eight years since I had the time to read every single zine we carry, so when listing the zines, I often have to ask the editors for a blurb or look through the zine and try to get the gist of the storyline so I can put it up on the website." Mysti Frank's partial response on a mailing list to fan who complained about the incompleteness of info regarding zines on her website. Posted October 13, 2005
Fandoms represented as of 2012:
21 Jump Street | Airwolf | Alexander/Hephaestion | Alias Smith and Jones | Alien Nation | Andromeda | Angel | Anime | Arrow | Artwork | The A-Team | Audio Books | The Avengers | Battlestar Galactica | The Beatles | Beauty and the Beast | Blake's 7 | Bonanza | Boston Legal | Brokeback Mountain | Buckaroo Banzai | Buffy the Vampire Slayer | Company Business | Criminal Minds | The Crow: Stairway to Heaven | Crusade | CSI: Las Vegas | CSI: Miami | CSI: New York | Dark Shadows | The Dead Zone | Demon Under Glass | Doctor Who | Donald Strachey Mysteries | The Dresden Files | Due South | Dune | Earth 2 | Earth: Final Conflict | Elizabethtown | Emergency! | The Equalizer | Fantastic Journey | Farscape | Filk | Firefly | The Flying Nun | Forever Knight | From Eroica with Love | The Fugitive | Fullmetal Alchemist | Garrison's Gorillas | The Ghost and Mrs. Muir | Gunsmoke | Hard Core Logo | Hardcastle and McCormick | Harry Potter | Hawaii Five-0 | Hellboy | High Chaparral | Highlander | Horatio Hornblower | House, M.D. | Houston Knights | I Spy | The Invisible Man | Jake and the Fatman | Jewelry | Keifer/Lou | Kindred: The Embraced | Knightrider | Kung Fu: The Legend Continues | Ladyhawke | Lancer | Law & Order | Law & Order: SVU | The Lone Gunmen | Lonesome Dove | Lord of the Rings | MacGyver | Magnificent 7 | Magnum, P.I. | The Man from U.N.C.L.E. | M*A*S*H* | The Master | Miami Vice | Mission: Impossible | Monk | Multimedia | Mutant X | Nash Bridges | NCIS | Nick Knight | Non-Fiction | Northern Exposure | Numb3rs | Once Upon a Time in Mexico | Original Fiction | Phantom of the Opera | The Phoenix | Pirates of the Caribbean | Planet of the Apes | Poetry | Poltergeist: The Legacy | The Pretender | Prey | The Professionals | Quantum Leap | Rat Patrol | The Real Ghostbusters | Relic Hunter | Riptide | Robin of Sherwood | Scarecrow and Mrs. King |Seaquest DSV | The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne | The Sentinel | Shadow Chasers | Sherlock Holmes |Simon and Simon | Smallville | Song Vids | Sons of Thunder | Space: Above and Beyond |Sports Night | Star Trek: The Original Series | Star Trek: Deep Space Nine | Star Trek: Enterprise | Star Trek: The Next Generation | Star Trek: Voyager | Star Wars | Stargate: Atlantis | Stargate SG-1 | Starsky and Hutch | Stingray | Supernatural | Sweeney Todd | Tales of the Gold Monkey | Torchwood | U.F.O. | V: The Series | Vampires | Van Helsing | Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea | War of the Worlds | The West Wing | White Collar | Without a Trace | Wild Wild West | Wiseguy | Xena: Warrior Princess | The X-Files | The X-Men | The Young Riders | Zorro
==Some History==
 
By 1994, Frank was sending formal letters of agreement to her contributors. From one author:
From Chalk and Cheese #16 (May 1997): 
Frank was also aggressively and constantly on the lookout for new authors who could contribute to her zines. One author remembers:
==Web Presence==
On or before Jan 1, 1998, Frank launched her "Agent With Style" website. A copy is archived here
An early online order form is here.
See: a sample 2012 home page for the site.
See: (2001-2015).
It had a Yahoo! Groups mailing list (created January 17, 2000) "To notify subscribers of any changes, new listings or brand new zines available on the Agent With Style webpage. Tired of wading through all the listing to find the new ones? Subscribe to this announcement-only list and never have to do that again!" (Unless you want to!) -- agentwithstyle and Facebook page (created October 12, 2009).Facebook Timeline
File:1999aws.JPG|an October 1998 homepage
==Requesting Zines to Sell==
From the website (2001-2016), "Want Us to Agent For You?": 
==The FAQ Page==
From the website (2001-2016):
==Creative Disclaimers==
This publisher included long, creative disclaimers/request for feedback in many zines.
 File:1999awsdisclaimer.jpg|from 1999, printed in the Sentinel zine, Nadir 
Image:cometoyoursenses8disclaimer.jpg|from 1998, printed in the Sentinel zine, Come to Your Senses #8
==The Shopping Cart That Never Happened ==
An announcement on the site's front page asked fans to be patient as a "shopping cart" was being planned was present from at least 2008 until the site's inactive status in 2015/2016. The shopping cart announcement: "NOTE -- We're in the process of installing a shopping cart on our site, and some listings will have an 'Add to Cart' button on them, and some will not."
One early mention of this shopping cart was printed in the zine Seasoned Timber in May 2008: "No bribes of someone to help with the database for the shopping cart were offered. Dammit. Laugh. Cry. Send LoCs!"
The Shopping Cart, in the end, was never created.
==Controversies==
Over the years, there have been complaints about unauthorized publication of fan fiction, unauthorized editing of submitted stories, selling bootleg print runs of agented zines, the poor production value of the zines themselves, of failures to account for zines sold, selling zines without permission, difficulty in getting property (including masters of their zines) returned, of unanswered emails, of false promises, poor bookkeeping, and general duplicitous actions.
One long 2003 discussion is Dear Disreputable Zine Publisher.
The majority of the comments on this Fanlore page are from 2001 and after. It is unknown if fan's concerns and complaints about Frank's decisions and behavior started to escalate after 2001 or if fans' access to the internet, and thus wider general communication, made comments and observations easier to find and respond to.
A fan in 2003 wrote: 
From a 2003 thread: 
Another 2003 comment: 
Some fans felt flattered that Frank offered to zine their fic,"I was just getting into online *fanfic* (as opposed to *fandom*), and I got one of the standard irritating emails (which, as a newbie to the whole net/zine thang, didn't strike me as irritating at the time), and sent off two stories, one slash, one gen." -- comment by deannie at Dear Disreputable Zine Publisher (2003) others felt she indiscriminately trawled for fic and being solicited by Frank was no distinct honor."Thank you very kindly for your sixth letter of sycophantic praise for my four-year-old story, and for your praise of my blog, which I hope you find a pleasure to read today... While I am happy that you enjoyed the story, assuming you've actually read it rather than simply calculating its popularity and possible profit margin, nothing has changed since your last request to put this story in a zine." - comment by merryish at Dear Disreputable Zine Publisher (2003)
Her site was easy to find and order from, and she advertised widely, so many newbies first found zines through her. She also was a very reliable and visible presence at conventions.
Many fans were probably unaware of the behind the scenes issues and complaints, something the arrival of the internet shined a brighter light upon.
As to why fans continued to submit and purchase fics and songtapes to the site? It was the biggest print zine site on the internet and in that respect, very powerful in terms of visibility and that of a gatekeeper, something that online fic started taking a bigger and bigger share from.
In 2003, a fan wrote: "I also wonder if there's been reluctance to actually a) say anything and therefore be the first up to the plate to make accusations or b) believe and therefore actually admit that The Person Who Was The Answer To Your Zine Sale Prayers was ripping you off, big time." timberwolfoz at Dear Disreputable Zine Publisher (2003) In 2008, a longtime fan somewhat jokingly described "Agent With Style" as a crack dealer; fans were afraid to rock the boat and cut off their, and others', source of fanfic.Mrs. Potato Head's personal recollection.
In 2003, Frank herself stated that she did the work because she was a hard worker doing a thankless task: "And anytime you want to step up and take over, sending out 1,500 zine orders a month world-wide, going to more than 20 cons a year, putting out over fifteen zines a year and not really having a life, I'd be more than happy to trade with you. Just say the word." her comment at Dear Disreputable Zine Publisher (2003) Another 2003 comment by Frank: "Not one -- not ONE of you -- has tried to do the agenting at the level I'm doing it at." her comment at Dear Disreputable Zine Publisher (2003)
Suzan Lovett commented in 2017:
Regarding the various specific sections below: some of the topics overlap.
===Profit===
Agent With Style sold a lot of zines and other fannish goods, and the amount of profit she made has been called into question on many occasions."I'm thinking about the attitude towards Mysti Frank, who makes her living from selling zines and is much reviled for it because it is so out of the fannish norm." -- (2004)
To give an idea of the scale of business:
A fan in 1997 commented that "... Mysti Frank ... cleared enough at MediaWestCon to buy a new effing laptop..." comments by Sandy Hereld on a private mailing list, quoted with permission (July 3, 1997)
From a fan in 2003: "I had to wonder about her assertion that the income from her zine sales wouldn't pay even a quarter of her mortgage, when she later states that she sends out around 1,500 zines per month and pays $350 in just credit card and Paypal fees. Or that she does this 'part time', then later goes on about how it takes up all her time and she has 'no life' because of it." from [C C] at Dear Disreputable Zine Dealer
From Mysti Frank in 2005: "There are two -- a whopping *two* -- of us who handle more than 2,500 titles in dozens of fandoms and send out more than 300 orders *a week*. That's in and around our RL jobs and actually having a spare moment to go see a movie or visit with our 3-year-old granddaughter. I work on the webpage as often as I can, but I'm still about 400 zines behind in listing everything we have, and that's *just* listing the titles, a descriptive paragraph and a table of contents (if the zine has one) for each zine. It's been about eight years since I had the time to read every single zine we carry, so when listing the zines, I often have to ask the editors for a blurb or look through the zine and try to get the gist of the storyline so I can put it up on the website." Mysti Frank's partial response on a mailing list to fan who complained about the incompleteness of info regarding zines on her website. Posted October 13, 2005
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===Selling Zines After She'd Been Requested Not To===
There have been many complaints of failures to account for zines sold and difficulty in getting copies of zines that they themselves had printed, along with masters of their zines back.
[2001]:
[2006]:
[2010]:
:: On September 21, 2010, Dargelos, the author of White Rabbit, left a message on Fanlore indicating that she has withdrawn permission for the zine to be sold in print format by Agent With Style and is taking steps to remove the story from online archives via the Wayback Machine. Also see, Talk:Dargelos.
[2011]:
===Printing Quality===
[2013]: 
[2015]: 
=== Recording Quality===
Regarding vids in 2000: Originally, copies of Escapade vid shows were mastered, duplicated, and mailed directly to convention attendees on behalf of the concom by staff member Kandy Fong. At one point, she supplied some of these high-quality tapes to Mysti Frank to sell at cons Kandy herself wasn't attending, but after learning that Mysti had inflated the prices and kept the profits, Kandy rescinded any permission for Mysti to copy, distribute, sell, or in any way be associated with Escapade con tapes.from Escapade/Escapade 2000
In April 2014, it was discovered that Mysti had been making and selling lower-quality Escapade tape copies without the concom's or vidders' knowledge or permission, and also without including any of the vidder credits that Kandy had originally provided. Concom member Charlotte Hill then contacted Mysti and asked her to stop distributing tapes in order to protect the quality and reputation of both the vidders and the vid show.from Escapade/Escapade 2000
===Not Receiving Trib Copies or Masters===
A fan in 2001 broadcast her displeasure on a many zine, Highlander, Sentinel and other mailing lists, saying she'd asked Frank to stop selling Chronicles of the Heart #1. She wanted fans to know that any copies of this zine "Agent With Style" was selling at cons should be considered a bootleg, and sold without the publisher's permission. The reasons she had pulled her zines from "Agent With Style's" website were due to inaccurate and duplicitous recounting of funds, profit, late checks, and general duplicitousness. The fan also relayed a long, detailed recount of trying to get her zine masters returned, of countless emails that were never responded to, were responded to with promises that weren't kept, and were responded to with "nasty grams." The fan said she'd hoped to keep this issue private, but felt forced to now alert everyone on public mailing lists.Mrs. Potato Head's notes and general recollections.
[2003]: 
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[2016]: 
=== Quality of Editing, Revisions Without Permission, and Publishing Without Permission===
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[2004]:
:In October 2004, a fan recounted her powerful frustration about unauthorized changes that Mysti Frank had made to her story in "Seasoned Timber #3." She described how Mysti had made over 47 unapproved changes to her story [mainly adding epithets], putting in what the fan felt to be "clichés and awkward phrasing" into her story. Mysti, she said, agreed to add a vague errata to the zine, but the fan felt that this was a terrible solution, saying that it made the poor writing to be the fan's fault and that the fan would never know if fans were reading the version with the errata or the version without. The fan said she'd wished Mysti would have just put in an errata that said she'd made changes without the fan's consent. " I still think it's incredible that an editor would actually put cliches and awkward phrasing INTO a story, rather than take them out." from MPH's notes
[2004]:
:The author of the fictin in A Little Bit of Cyn was upset at the changes made by Mysti without her consent to the stories in this zine. One was the addition of epithets, the addition of the word "cock," and many other changes that the author discovered when using a computer program to merge the versions of her submitted original text and the text that was eventually printed. The author stated it shocked "hell out of me," and that so many changes were made in one of the stories it didn't even feel like hers anymore.MPH's notes, 2004
[2005]: 
[2008]: 
===Content Quality and/or Labeling, Incomplete Info on the Website===
[1993]:
 
[2003]: 
[2003]: 
[Comments by Mysti Frank 2005]:
[2007]: 
===Outing of Legal Names/Not Respecting Changes in Pseuds===
In June 2001, a fan angrily took Frank to task on a mailing list for not only not returning the masters for her zines, not responding to or sending rude emails, but also outing her real name. The fan wrote that Frank had done it on purpose out of anger and when confronted, told her ""And sorry, I just posted also on the lists, using your real name since you decided to take everything public. If you're going to so open, I am, too." Mrs. Potato Head's notes and personal recollection.
Fans have also complained about Frank's refusal to remove full names off of the "Agent With Style" webpage when requested to do so. Decades later, there are still names there that fans have asked multiple times to be redacted or changed.Mrs. Potato Head's personal recollection
A fan in 2001, astolat, posted a comment to Prospect-L, saying "feel free to repost this. :/" In the message, she said that she'd submitted a story to Mysti Frank some time ago to a zine. Despite the fact that she'd always posted under her pseudonym, Frank printed the story using her real name. Not only was this real name in the print zine, it was also on Agent With Style's website. astolat said she'd written Frank five times over the last two to three years and had never gotten a reply nor was the change made to the zine or the website. astolat said that she strongly urged other fans not to submit anything to Frank until she deals with this outing issue.paraphrased message posted to Prospect-L, August 9, 2001 In 2003, astolat wrote: "I'm the person who had problems with Mysti using my real name on a zine story and in the website listing and not removing it. Anyone who's interested in my comments on the topic can see my lj entry on the subject, since this thread is getting gigantic." from Dear Disreputable Zine PublisherReply from Frank at Dear Disreputable Zine Publisher: "One person asked me to change her real name to a psuedonym on the table-of-contents listing on my webpage, which I did immediately in March, 2001. She continued to harrass me about it; I continued to tell her I *had* changed it. She finally complained on a mailing list in August, 2001, so I repeated that I *had* taken her name off the webpage months ago. It turns out that she was repeatedly accessing the search engine on my webpage rather than looking at the listing directly. The search engine, since it was free, hadn't updated itself in several months, even though I had requested that service from the company. Had she simply looked at the actual listing, she would have seen that I complied immediately. Yet the rumor still persists. Did she say she was sorry in the same public forum she had used to accuse me? Of course not. Did she even apologize in private e-mail? No. And as you can see from my various posts, even though I know many of your real names, I'm not using them because that would be a breach of confidence. Since I understand the need to keep real names hidden sometime, I am always willing to make *any* changes to names when asked."
===Postage Scam===
A fan in 2016 recounted how Frank would refuse to combine shipping packages and costs, a common courtesy. Frank would then ultimately send several zines together in single package and pocket the full shipping costs.comment at Zinelist, June 8, 2016
===Communication===
Frank was known for ignoring emails and letters from zine eds and writers asking for clarification regarding money and product. There have also been many complaints of rude, abusive emails from Frank to fans after Frank had been directly questioned about business practices.}}
===Fiction Publishing Rights Permission===
While "the rules" changed over the years, Frank kept a tight hold on submitted fiction early on.
By 1994, Frank was sending formal letters of agreement to her contributors. From one author:
This contradicts what she said three years later regarding the submissions to Chalk and Cheese #18: 
===The Hawaiian Request===
In March 2007, Mysti Frank asked for fan donations to take a vacation:
Mysti posted this message to various mailing lists, including Prospect-L:
From the zine Supernatural Virtual Season #5:
Some fan response to this request focused on Frank's "entitlement." One excerpt: 
Frank's response that same day (March 12, 2007), posted to Prospect-L: 
== Website Problems -- Failure to Deliver Products Paid For: 2015 and Onwards==
Despite the fact the webpage appears to be active, this publisher is no longer in business. Do not send payment to this zine publisher.
As of 2015, Mysti Frank has disappeared and has not settled accounts with customers beforehand—she owes customers their paid-for zines—she owes publishers their sales receipts, zine masters, and their preprinted copies—she owes authors and artists their trib copies, and agreements regarding future publications—as well as many other financial obligations.
From an undated note at another zine publisher's website: 
A February 22, 2016 repost from Zinelist: 
There are many comments on Agent With Style's Facebook page that complain about non-delivery of goods and no communication beginning in 2015. Some samples:
* "Mysti I need you to contact me. I've been trying to reach you for months."
* "I spent over $230 on zines that never appeared!!!! I want my money back!!!"
* "Hi, I ordered a zine from you awhile back and have heard nothing...if you aren't going to send it to me can I have a refund please? I don't have money to throw away and a zine is a special treat for me. Please contact me."
* "To who it may concern! I had gave you money through Pay Pal for some Fanzines. I have not received my Fanzines, But you received my Money. I was told by others that I am not the only one that has had this problem.I have tried several times to contact you. you did not return my Message."
* "I HAVE TRIED TO CONTACT YOU AT YOUR WEBSITE ABOUT MY ORDER 3 TIMES!!!! AND BEEN IGNORED ALL 3 TIMES!!!! YOU ARE NOT COMING ACROSS AS A RELIABLE BUSINESS!!!!!! THESE SITE IS UNRELIABLE!!! I SUBMITTED 2 ORDERS 2 MONTHS AGO!!! THEY TOOK MY -MONEY, IGNORE ALL MY E-MAILS AND NEVER SENT MY FANZINES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
* "I also have an order problem. Ordered in jan. Yet to receive. Money down the drain." comments at AgentWithStyle Facebook
===Zine Agents Withdraw Permissions: May 2016===
While some zine publishers had previously stated that Agent With Style would no longer be allowed to sell their zines as early as 2006,One example was Ashton Press in 2006. Another example was GriffinSong Press in 2007. a mass exodus occurred in 2016.
From Elan Press: 
From The Presses: 
From Ancient's Gate: 
From Ashton Press: 
From MKASHEF Enterprises: 
===Hindman's Open Letter: February 2016===
Hindman posted the open letter below to Mysti Frank's Facebook page on February 28, 2016.Beth Singer reposted it to her own Facebook page on February 29, 2016, along with a reminder to fans that since Agent With Style was out of business, Singer would be very happy to sell zines to fans. -- Doctor Beth's Facebook Page, February 29, 2016
===Metamorphoses Press' Open Letter: May 2016===
This letter by Metamorphoses Press and TM Alexander was posted in two places: Facebook: AWS archive link for the post at Facebook: AWS and Facebook:Metamorphoses Press.archive link for the post at Facebook: Metamorphoses Press
This open letter was followed by a list of 46 zine titles, representing about 57 zine issues.
===Requiem's Open Letter: June 2016===
This letter by Requiem Publications was posted in many places, these are two: Facebook: AWS archive link for the post at Facebook: AWS. and Facebook: Requiem.archive link for the post at Facebook: Requiem.
This open letter was followed by a list of 168 zine titles, representing about 238 zine issues.
===Thief in Fandom: Agent With Style's 1997 Now-Ironic Open Letter===
In 1996, Peg Kennedy took over Bill Hupe's zine publishing and agenting empire, calling her new publishing company New Leaf Productions.
In a July 3, 1997 open letter, Mysti Frank, owner of "Agent With Style," ranted about Peg Kennedy's inability/refusal to fulfill financial and fannish obligations, something Frank duplicated in her own zine publishing and agenting business roughly seventeen years later.
This letter was sent far and wide. Some recipients: Virgule-L, the Quantum Leap slash list, Senad, and the Sentinel list gen mailing list.
Mysti Frank's 1997 letter to fans:
See Thief in Fandom for more context, including a follow-up letter by Frank, as well as some fan responses.
==General Reactions and Reviews==
===1999===
* From the author's notes on the online version of White Rabbit: "Thanks too, to [...] Agent with Style – who stepped forward and took a great load of work off of me by agreeing to print and agent this puppy."
===2000===
* "Agent with Style... Yes, she's a wee bit pricey, but she is reliable and agents for a lot of people and for several fandoms; I think it's worth paying the extra for the convenience of credit card payment to abroad and the certainty of getting your zines." from DIAL #14
* "As regards Agent With Style I've used them several times and found them to be prompt. It's a way to get zines otherwise not available, and to be honest I don't find their prices too bad. The normal price for K/S zines from the various publishers is $26/$28, and AWS's media zines run from $19-30, so it's much the same. Perhaps someone not used to paying $26 regularly for zines might be shocked but I've done it in K/S for so many years AWS doesn't seem overpriced." from Discovered in a Letterbox #16
* "I would also like to thank Mysti Frank for agenting my zines. Mysti, you're all doll!! And please feel free to visit her website for more great zine deals." from The Alternate Sentinel, author's introduction
===2001===
* "I hope you get [the zines you ordered]. Personally, I wouldn't buy from Agent With Style. Or if I did, it would be in person, at a con, and not via mail order. I hear nothing but complaints about their mail order service. :-( Shayney at Mary Rottler & Lynn Syck , July 7, 2001
===2003===
* "geez, people. the thought occurs to me; get a life. if you don't like the way mysti does business, then don't do business with her. i want to say, right here and now, that i've never had a problem, and i've never witnesses anyone else having one. it's too easy to go online and say she did this or she did that, but, y'know,i take it all with a grain of salt. i wasn't there. i don't have a any firsthand accounts from people i trust. so, as far as i'm concerned, it didn't happen. the best way to judge accusations like this is through my own experience, and it's been fine. even good mysti has always delivered what she said she would (even when i was a rank newbie and didn't know shit). i find her a reasonable editor. she gets good art for my work, which thrills me. if her great crime is making money off zines, then, gods, let's tie her to a stake and burn her! better make it a fucking *big* stake, though, 'cuz we'll have to include all those fan artists out there as well. the ones that sell their work. at cons. sometimes at *gen* cons (heaven preserve us!) if fanfic writers are noodling with copyrights, what the heck do you call *that*? using a person's actual likeness and making money from it, rather than writing about characters. sure, i sometimes think it would be nice to have a cut of that money. once in a while i wonder what she made off something like panther tales. but, hey, i signed up for it knowing the facts. i can deal." , comment by saraid, September 7, 2003
* "Some of the "feckin'" nonsense about Mysti is not that she makes money dealing zines. The objection I and many others have are about her questionable practices in the selling and publishing of zines. [...] Yes, there are those who have no problems whatsoever with Mysti. (I know of at least two publishers who are completely content with her and use her regularly.) However, these cases don't negate the negatives that I've heard and witnessed over the past several years and, honestly, I won't buy a thing from her and tend to warn anyone that asks of her reputation." , comment by shelaghc, September 7, 2003
===2005===
* "Worse, they're publishing [the zine] out of Agent With Style, which guarantees that I wouldn't be buying it, even if it were a pure McShep zine. (I really wish I'd saved that LJ discussion about the horrors of publishing with AWS before it was taken down; man, was that ever an eye opener. I already knew their editing sucked, but, wow.) ; archive link (April 5, 2005)
===2008===
* "Dear Disreputable Zine Publisher: Thank you very kindly for your sixth letter of sycophantic praise for my four-year-old story, and for your praise of my blog, which I hope you find a pleasure to read today. I am flattered by your excitement at finding my email address (which has not changed in four years, and which is the admin email address of a list which I run and of which you are a member). While I am happy that you enjoyed the story, assuming you've actually read it rather than simply calculating its popularity and possible profit margin, nothing has changed since your last request to put this story in a zine. As I said then, I still find you morally reprehensible—a parasite upon the back of fandom rather than a participant in fandom—and I still wouldn't let you publish another story of mine if you were the last zine publisher in an ever-expanding zine-starved Universe. Though it is true that you haven't cheated and lied to every single writer and artist I know, I am confident that this is merely an oversight on your part, due most likely to time constraints for which no one could hold you responsible. Still, thanks for checking in! I promise to alert you to any change in my value structure significant enough to allow me to work with you (though in that event I may be too busy holding all Middle Earth in my dark thrall to respond to email in a timely fashion). Please address any further correspondence to someone who actually did just discover fandom yesterday. No love, -- Merry [edited to add: Comments on this post are now disallowed due to the fact that there were waaaaaaay many of them and I was getting bored.]" Dear Disreputable Zine Publisher accessed November 19, 2008, a copy is archived here and here
* "I don't think we've ever actually tried actively shunning someone. We all whispered about Mysti Frank, we even spread information, but how many of us tried banning her from posting her ads on our lists? Or even calling for her to be banned? (And hey, guilty there myself.) From selling at our cons? Maybe shunning doesn't work, but I'm personally willing to give it the old college try." 2008 comment by cereta at 
* "She's said I can continue posting online (and if I was told no I just wouldn't do the zine). I hadn't even considered having a zine made until she e-mailed me to ask. I don't know what a 'trib' copy is and I don't use beta readers... She's said she'll be looking into getting artists for the covers, but she'll show them to me beforehand (the pictures that is, not the artists, lol). She also said if there was anyone in particular I wanted to just let her know. I know some people have had trouble with her Not to be nosy, but could you elaborate for me? Send it in a message to me if you prefer, but I'd really like to know what you mean by that. It makes me nervous. (In case nobody's noticed I'm very nervous about this now that I've agreed to it).comment by sarkywoman at , May 10, 2008
===2009===
* "I'd just like to point out that Zines Aren't Dead. I mean, it's a specialist practise, like radio drama, but people still do it! (I know, because Mysti Frank keeps spamming the few mailing lists I'm on!)" archive link (April 16, 2009)
===2011===
* "I want to thank Mysti Frank, Judith Proctor and Kathy Resch for publishing my stuff for many years. They've always been aboveboard and honest to and with me." comment by Melody C at , December 4, 2011
===2013===
* "I've ordered a few fanzines from them and received them very quickly, with no problem, but be warned some of them are pretty expensive."—Another fan replies: "Update: Good Heavens, I just checked out the Agent With Style site and they ARE expensive. I will use discretion in deciding which ones to get and proceed with caution." ; archive link
==Notes==
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