|
..."Anyone can enter and anyone can win $25,000" easy enough to state because it is a general statement, no?
Poetry. Con? Part Two: Vanity Press Anthologies
Does this sound to good to be true ?
Free Poetry Contest - $58,000 in Prizes! You can win cash prizes with free amateur contests, read our magazine and poem of the day, view ultimate poetry links and learn how to get published and....
Poetry Wanted - Cash and Prizes Submit your inspirational poem to the popular American Poets Society free poetry contest. Anyone can enter and anyone can win $25,000 in cash and prizes. You can also read poetry online... (Ummm, that is a novel idea):)
Pen Pushers Publication - Poetry Publisher. Pen Pushers invites you to send your unpublished poem. If it meets our standards, we'll publish it in one of our upcoming anthologies and on our Web site, and be eligible for a $1,000 prize...
Question: poetryamerica.com, www.poetry-contest.com, poetry.com, what do these sites have in common???
Answer: They offer incredible opportunities and prizes with a slight catch, it is really too good to be true .
The claims: "World's Best Poetry Contest: Up to $20,000 in prizes! Become a Published Poet!"
The reality: How is a struggling writer, a stay at home mom, a junior high school student or an elementary school child able to distinguish reputable contests from the not-so-reputable? It isn't easy, when websites and advertisement seduce us with names like "National Library of Poetry", "Institute of Contemporary American Poetry" or "International Poetry Hall of Fame" (sound pretty 'impressive' don't they?)
The National Library of Poetry and The International Library of Poetry are two of several organizations of poor repute associated with the infamous Poetry.com that operate under the internet domains poetry.com, poetryamerica.com, www.poetry-contest.com and poets.com. In recent months this organization and it's affiliations have de-emphasized the National Library of Poetry name in favor of the "International" Library of Poetry.
Serious poets, editors and publishers consider the International Library of Poetry contests and their affiliated organizations to be unethical, and their free poetry contests a scam/sham purposely designed for no other reason than to prey upon trusting and unwary amateur poets, senior citizens, teens and elementary school students by relieving them of their money.
Currently, the above affiliations are found under the internet domains "www.poetry.com" and "www.poets.com"
--International Library of Poetry
--National Library of Poetry
--Poetry.com
--International Society of Poets
--International Poetry Hall of Fame
--Watermark Press
--Famous Poets Society
--American Poetry
Submissions to at least three different free poetry contest web sites will result in entered poems being channeled to Famous Poets Society. Be advised that Famous Poets Society has done business under at least 12 different names and 13 different addresses:
Hollywood's Famous Poets Society
Celestial Arts
F P S
Famous Poets Society
New Jersey Rainbow Poets
New York Poetry Alliance
Texas Poetry Alliance
Free Poetry Contest
International Library of Famous Poets
Quarterly Poetry Contest
Reno Fine Arts Institute
Florida Literary Guild
1626 North Wilcox Avenue Suite 126 Hollywood CA 90028
421 North Rodeo Drive Suite 15-544 Beverly Hills CA 90210
7095 Hollywood Blvd. Suite 730 Hollywood CA 90028
P.O. Box 949 Lawndale CA 90260
103 N. Wood Ave., Suite 70, Linden, NJ 07036
Box 1588, New York, NY 10116-1588
1712 E. Riverside Dr., Suite 147, Austin, Texas 78741
PMB250, 2219 W Olive Ave., Burbank, CA 91506
11314 Ventura Blvd. Studio City CA 91604
1257 Siskiyou Blvd., PMB 4, Ashland, Ore. 97520
1762 Ashland Street, Ashland OR 97520
316 California Ave., Suite 626, Reno, Nevada, 89509-1669
3232 SW 35th Boulevard, Suite 156, Box 147035, Gainesville, Fla., 32614-7035
(310) 289 - 4534
(800) 763 - 8762
(800) 763 - 8792
(323) 962 - 8873
(541) 488 - 0510
John Campbell, the genius behind Famous Poets Society, along with several members of his family, ran an almost identical poetry contest scheme back in the 1980s called World of Poetry.
John Campbell has allegedly been known to use the names:
John Cambell
John Hamilton
Richard Cambell
Richard Huntington
Dr. Richard Huntington
Chuck ________
John Webber
Poetry.com folks are now involved with another "endeavor", they are also interesed in photography. See their sites for the International Library of Photography. Familiar tactics, right?
Under the infamous Deering Publication Scams are the following businesses: Deering Literary Agency, Northwest Publishing, Commonwealth Publishing and Sovereign Publications
Remember Sparrowgrass? Here is a disclaimer by the owners of the site which formerly hosted "Sparrowgrass Poetry Contests":
Sparrowgrass Poetry is no longer our client. We have been contacted by many of their clients claiming fraudlent business practices. We have no knowledge of their practices as we were only hosting their site. To contact them, please contact Prospect Press (the company that paid Sparrowgrasses webhosting fees). They are currently hosted by Net Now Technologies. If Prospect Press will not contact you, their host may have information on how to contact them. (Note: If you did "publish" work on their sites or enter their contests, I would venture to say it really was a no-win situation. Don't be discouraged, you were not alone.
For some people, falling for these buisness tactics, proves to be among their "most embarrassing moments", and those who have not invested large sums of money, can sometimes find the humor in their naivity - like Dave Barry, who wrote:
.."Oh, I know what some of you are thinking. You're thinking, "Dave, you wienerhead, they don't really think you're a leading poet. They got your name from some mailing list, and they'll publish any drivel you send in, because what they REALLY want to do is throw a book together and then sell it to a bunch of pathetic loser wannabe 'poets' for some absurdly inflated price like $50."
Excerpt from article by Dave Barry -- Knight-Ridder Newspapers --
Butterflies are free but your National Library of Poetry Anthology (by many other names)will cost you big bucks, followed by humiliation and disappointment, when you discover you've been another one of thousands of victims of manipulative advertisement and prolific sales enticements.
See: "National Library of Poetry--A Scam That Doesn't Scan" -- an article by Jenijoy La Belle in AWP Chronicle, Vol 30, No 3, page 30, December 1997. Author considers the ethicality of mass- produced poetry anthologies.
Take Action. You don't have to stand by & watch while the NLP empties unsuspecting pockets. Here are some things that you can do. If you have work on any of the above listed sites, contact the main office in Owenmills, Maryland and tell them to remove all of your work from their site. To insure they respect your request, stay online while they remove your posts from their websites.
Contact:
Consumer Protection Division
Office of the Maryland Attorney General
200 St. Paul Place, 16th Floor
Baltimore, MD 21202
Attorney General (toll-free): 1-888-743-0023
You may also contact:
The Better Business Bureau
of Greater Maryland, Inc.
2100 Huntington Ave.
Baltimore, MD 21211-3215
Writer's Alerts and to report incidents online:
http://www.sfwa.org/Beware/general.html
The Writers’ Center in Bethesda MD (www.writer.org)
http://fox61.trb.com/news/wtic-73102poetryscam,0,3289258.story
Note: ABC TV's 20/20 Exposé on The National Library of Poetry -- "tip-off on a rip-off" -- an entire second grade class received identical acceptance letters for their poems.
If you have been paying close attention, you will notice these sites are advertised on MSN communities, usually in the header on the main page of personal websites.
(Personally, I claim no responsibility for any content posted by MSN.)
Deborah Russell, 2000 (revised) 2003
|
