Every day thousands of poets get scammed by contests and publishers. The scams do all they can to get poets and other writers to submit their poetry, but end up having to pay so much money for awards, conferences, and books.
Poetry.com is the most famous scam. Poets are lured in with the hopes of big money and no entry fee. THen poets get accepted and the poet has to pay before the poem can be published, then they are told they are a semi-finalist and need to pay money to receive the award.
Poets need to make themselves knowledgable about such scams. They should do research, check out the sponsors and see if they are legit. Do research on scams and see what have been signaled as a scam and rip young poets off.
Ask yourself "if they offer $20,000 but no fee, how are they funded?"
Don't let yourself get sucked in...
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Good point and warning. I always ask myself if I am that good (I am) and if I am good why should I be the one to pay. You like my work and want to give me an award...then GIVE me the award, don't make me pay for it. Thanks for the post.
all truths are easy to understand once discovered; the point is to discover them ~galileo
Yeah, they are a big scam. They got me about 5 years ago...2 of my poems are on Poetry.com. I refused to pay for anything tho. I was jus pissed off that they basically took my copyright...or that they made it look like I was keeping my copyright, but had me hand it to them. argh!
Hey, I might as well post them on my blog...since my copyright has pretty much been taken anyway. Go to my blog to read em...
~pyrochica
I submitted my poem to Poetry.com and I was put in one of their books, yes I had to pay for the book, but I am excited that I have been published. As long as I get my poetry out there, I'm willing to pay the price, at least any price within reason
This isn't good. most professional journals don't make you pay to get published and some even pay you for your pieces.