Tree of Life Publishing / Mom's Choice Awards

[Rightah]

What is up with this contest?
Does this count as a scam? Or very naive people in charge?

Published writers had to pay $150.00 to enter and then the winner of this category turns out to be directly connected to two of the judges. His book was reviewed by one of their websites (which is linked to the other judges website) in March and from looking around the site I think he paid for the review? How is this fair to the other writers who entered?

Then it said unpublished winners receive a contract with a major publisher. Which, just revealed on the momschoiceawards.com site is Tree of Life Publishing which looks to be a self publisher/writer named Peter Parente.

This is the description from Book Expo website of Tree Of Life Publishing.
(They announced the winners from their booth at the Book Expo.)

"Company Description

Tree Of Life Publishing been able to create a model for their authors to successfully make a career doing what they set out to do. Be an author for a living. We have seen the model for success pertain to several genres with the key ingredients being a top quality product, a motivated author, and a publisher that is author friendly. The proven model was created by Peter Parente as an elementary school tour model and is still the foundation for author success in our company."

Are there any regulations for contests like this?
It seems that legit people are connected to it.
What do you think?

 

[James D. Macdonald]

Tree of Life Publishing is somehow linked to Children's Literary Agency, which is a branch of The Literary Agency Group, which is an umbrella organization created to shield Stylus Literary Agency, which is the new name for ST Literary Agency, which was formerly known as Sydra Techniques.

Whew!

The short version: Anything associated in any way with those organizations is suspect, if not tainted.

You can read a post from Peter Parente himself in this thread. Draw your own conclusions.

 

[reph]

You can read a post from Peter Parente himself in this thread. Draw your own conclusions.

From my drawing board–

Conclusion 1: Mr. Parente doesn't have anything of substance to say for himself. I can tell because he brags so much.

Conclusion 2: He doesn't handle logic well. I can tell because he said "I was the one who suggested they recommend editors because any one can edit grammar and spelling." If anyone (note: one word) can do that, then all writers can edit their own grammar and spelling, but they don't, do they?

 

[CaoPaux]

http://www.treeoflifepublishing.com/home.html The books labeled "Coming Spring 2006" have been published, but the Summer ones have not (and one has been subsequently self-published). Peter's second book is also missing in action.