My dear fellow Poets, In your enthusiasm of getting your work published you can become a victim of unscrupulous literary predators out there,waiting to pounce on your vanity, so I am posting this newsletter to let you be aware of the facts out there.Unfortunately, there are people in the world who seek to get rich (and often succeed) preying on the new poet's vanity. One of the most common ways in which this is done involves massive poetry anthologies. Some accept one poem from every poet who enters their 'national' or 'international' contest! This is legal, of course. Next, they print these thousands of poems in tiny type in a massive book. And (here's how they make their money) they sell these big books to the poets and their proud families and friends--for equally big prices. Just think: if only 500 poets bought only one such book for $40, the take would be $20,000! Often it is much more--as proud and happy (and vain) new poets become the proud owners of a handsome copy of 'their first book.' It's mean and cruel; but it's commonplace--and new poets flock to these anthologies by the thousands.
So my dear fellow, be careful ! youn have been warned !

Mike