Poetry Dot CON !!!!

I got an email today from poetry.com stating my poem which I sent to them a year ago when I didn't know they were a CON site was happily accepted by them and I was given the opportunity of a lifetime...to buy my own poem in a collection of poetry book! UGGHHH

Today I received an email stating I have been nominated for Poet of the Year 2002!! All I have to do to go to the ceremony is pay $595, air fare and hotel accomodation to Washington 23rd-25th!!!

Is this a joke at my expense????

Reece

con at poetry.com

It's not so much a con as it is a self-funding vanity business. They say what they mean insofar as they actually do run a contest, and they do publish a collection, and they do have an awards ceremony. But you're right in that they use the money from the publication and sale of the collection to publish it, so if you are under the impression that you 'really' won something and that you are really getting some benefit from it, no, not really. In other words, it's possible that at poetry.com, 'everybody wins.'

Re: con at poetry.com

Got the same mail ... and the same feeling!!!

Good Poets Get Paid

The Writing and Poetry Mentors at
www.AskProfessors.com
say that good Poets, Authors, Reviewers, etc ALWAYS get paid for all their writing.

If you have to pay a publisher, think twice!

freelancer

Poetry.com

I've gotten dozens of those letters also and it always seems strange to me that they would send a person that lives in Baltimore MD a payment choice of $595 to stay in DC (which is 45 mins. away) to get an award that I have to pay for. I have warned several of my writers (I own PoeticJava Publishingwww.write4us.com ) against participating in this although I am grateful to them for giving me the opportunity to have some of my work posted on their site.

Con

Everyone i got the same letters. im 11 years old i post my poetry on that sight. i think its pretty good for my age but when i got those emails saying about the trip to california im like they must be joking. But i did order that book of poetry that published in but am i ever going to get it?

Poetry(Con)

Yes, It is a Con...

They, publish any-ones... Poetry...
I know. Because, I have been published
through them! They, even publish Giberish.

I was talking once to a very well known Artist,
He sent some garbage Poetry... to them...
Not, using any, names... He, said... they
offered to Publish is writing... in a Beautiful brown
bounded coffee table, top addition book!

Which, if you pay... them! They will publish it!

Re: Poetry(Con)

Is poetry-contest.com a scam as well?

it probably is...

...if they tell you you're a winner or an honorary mention whatever and then tell you it's only $xx for a copy of the wonderful book they're gonna publish your work in... and/or if they charge you a fee of any kind... it's awful, but there's so many of these scumbag outfits out there... if you want to know how good your poems are or if they need work, you can email me at: [email protected]

i mentor writers all over the world for free, no strings attached [but no prizes, either!!!]... love and hugs, maia

it IS!!!

sorry, honeybunch... just checked it out and sure enough, there were all those wonderful volumes of 'themed' poems for sale!... avoid them like the plague... m

Re: it IS!!!

Oh well. :lol Thank you!

poetry.com

yea, poetry.com is a crock of DOO-DOO. lol. i hate it. like the first time i wrote sumthin on there n submitted it for their little contests, it got back to me n said i was a winner n blah blah blah blah blah. n i was soooo excited but also very suprised, cauze..well... the poem SUCKED lol. n then i sent another poem in, which was pretty good,but i won w/ that poem too. n then another weird thing was this girl at school i guess sent her poem in too, n she brought that paper saying she won or w/e she brought it to school showing everyone, n thats when i knew it was a scam, cauze her "poem" was AWFUL. well thats all, n yes its a scam, i think its evil if ya ask me..real evil. pisses me off too lol . latas,
-brittany-celeste-

SCAM SLAM CAMPAIGN

>: I hate scammers. They s--k big time! I have been scanned so often since I started on the net that I'd like to spit bullets at the ones that took my money. Yes, that poetry outfit caught my butt too. Damn. Cause what makes me the maddest is that when you are a writer, or an artist or both (like me) you thrive on praise and acceptance of your work. These cruds no this and use this weakness of ours to their advantage. My advice after all the money I lost and ego that was bruised is, LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP!
Find out about the site before you accept any offer, take up any kind of relationship or become affiliated.
Wow! There sure are a lot of hurtful people out there!:\
:\
Bertie

Re: SCAM SLAM CAMPAIGN

seems like a lot of people have been scammed by poetry.com....me too! gosh it almost made me stop writing for a while! but naah that won't happen at any rate.... but there's gotta be some way to stop these scammers! any suggestions?

Re: SCAM SLAM CAMPAIGN

got one in the post and two in email..... was about to send them money for the print thing but then i found out that two other people had the same thing.... so i stoped right there...

at first i was very hapy and the letter gave me a boost of moral... being dyslexic and getting "selected" for an award for my poetry.... when i found out that they where just milking the cow i got so depressed for a long long time...

The Voicesnet contest is not a scam!

The Voicesnet contest is not a scam!

I am the contest director and we do a lot of good stuff at the site. Try us out at www.voicesnet.com and you will see. Anybody with doubts has not rubbed shoulders with any of our talented almost 1200 forum poets or our more than 3000 member mailing list.

Like I said, check out our details at www.voicesnet.com. We have nothing to do with poetry.com and do not run our contests like they do, if you check out the details.

We taking our judging very seriously and have declined almost 7000 poems in our first 15 months in business - sounds like a scam to me! Pardon my sarcasm.

Jeff Humphrey
Contest Director and Founder
Voicesnet.com

voicesnet

JJ. how many poems are received for each contest, and how many are published in the anthology?

In Contest and Selected

The cycle that closes today will have over 7000 poems judged (and yes, we actually read the poems and pick the best 70 or so from these and then the top 3).

About 700 will end up in the Anthology and these poets pay absolutely nothing to be in the book (and we don't try to sell vacation packages to them either - lol).

Hope this helps!

Jeff Humphrey
Founder and Contest Director
Voicesnet.com

How do you make money?

As I said on another part of this list there are only two sensible ways to get poetry published today: publish it yourself and give the books away or submit to one of the jillions of "little magazines" listed in "Writers Market." They will pay you if at all in copies of the magazine.

For poetry the internet is a poor reaource. Visit your local library and read the good poets, then take a course on writing at the nearby community college. Just having the urge is not nearly enough. Poetry is a difficult craft for which there are no monetary rewards.

Now my question to the fellow with the contest. How do you make money from your enterprise?

John Culleton
BS English, 1960

re: scam or not

can someone plz tell me if this ''poetsonly.com is a scam too.......be very grateful for replys...many thx miss D

yup!

all ya gotta do is take a quick look at their site and you'll see it just screams at ya, "we're here to fleece you, folks!... step right up and be the next in line to be taken for the fool you are if you truck with us!!!"

read the fine print and you'll probably find that they offer 'discounted' books or some other variant of the standard scam, along with that ubiquitous 'entrance fee' that is their bread and butter...

there are a few legit contests out there, but you'll find all the good ones are sponsored by on-the-up-and-up longtime respected magazines and/or publishers... and they won't offer to sell you anything!

love and hugs, maia

ps: if you want to know if your stuff is good enough to submit for publication, i mentor a lot of aspiring poets and i'll be glad to take a look... you can email me at: [email protected]

where to verify scams and what you can do about them

you can verify not just contests but publishers as well at www.writersweekly.com/war...nings.html (when i found it, it had been last updated on 25 june 2003)

their page on poetry.com is a veritable litany of woes, so i didn't add mine

poetry-contest.com, poetsonly.com, and voicesnet.com are not on their list. however, poetry-contest.com is listed as a scam on poemkingdom.com/exposed.shtml. i found it when i searched for "poetry-contest.com +scam". the same formula for poetsonly.com and voicesnet.com only led me back to this board. when i input just "poetry scam", google drowned me with 24,800 items.

at the end of writersweekly's page, they list other places where we can report non-paying publishers and scams that target writers, as well as suggested ways to fight back - short of scamming them in turn, of course...

All I can say is thank goodness I found this post today. I received my first post letter from poetry.con today and I was extremely excited and fully prepared to send them money. I don't think that will be happening now. *whew*

growing scam companies

In case no one has yet mentioned (at least I didn't see it above) "Noble House", be sure to avoid them at all costs! They look and sound impressive with their Empire State Bldg., London and Paris addresses, but they have nothing more than a single-page website with no links, no phone numbers and they DO NOT EXIST!! I've only been posting poetry online for two years and lamentably, I was victimized by them for about $80.00. So add one more to your list of "direct hits". p.s., I was put wise to poetry.com before they got a chance to scam me. Whew!

~erseguy

erseguy...

...post that warning in its own thread, willya?... sounds like all should be warned, and it'll be lost here after a few more posts... thanks for bringing it up... i mentor a lot of aspiring poets and it really burns me that so many have been 'taken'...

the worst damage is not the money so much, as the blow to fragile egos, when they realize the glowing words were just a scam and later find out their work needs a lot of work...

love and hugs, maia