Writer's Market - This is supposed to be a go-to resource for writers with information about markets, agents, etc. But it requires a subscription that you have to pay for, and some of the entries are far from detailed enough. It should be used as merely a starting point.
This website, when working, has its value. It's not the best, technically, but it's largely usable.
EXCEPT FOR THIS: the search function, by which you find markets (and also by which you review updated information on known markets) HAS NOT WORKED FOR MONTHS. Let me restate that, so you can digest it. The site does not produce ANY usable information right now, and hasn't for >at least< two months... probably more like three months.
Guess which function is the only function working on this site? Yup, it's the subscription ordering function. I can't think of a single business entity that would accept a single day of non-function; much less weeks and months. And is there >any< reference to the outage on their site, so at least a consumer can know what's going on? Nope, none.
I will be demanding a full refund today, and I hope >all< their subscribers do the same. It's ridiculous, unprofessional, infuriating and embarrassing.
I ordered 2 books from them, 1 which included 1 year access to the writers market.com. After 1 month, and 2 emails to them, they still haven not sent my item, and not responded to my customer service emails. The item was preorder, and they changed the date it was going to ship from aug 8 to sept 8, and never notified the customers. If i had known it was going to be shipped in sept, i would not have ordered book, as it missed my deadline. I also ordered another book (not on backorder) which was never received. I managed to call and get it "straightened out"- but it is inexcusable to me that customer service wont respond to missing orders that were paid for. The response from the customer service rep i talked to on phone, was a generic "sorry for the delay, we've been overwhelmed with requests". It is unreasonable to me to not get back to a customer weeks after they ordered something. Wont order from them again.
Answer: They are probably not a scam, per se, but they have been non-working functionally for months now. Which makes them a non-legit company.