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Contests : Contests to Avoid
We suggest you avoid the following contests and organizations. Many appear to be disguised vanity publishers, whose goal is to sell you expensive personalized products and attract you to conferences. Others may charge you membership or service fees for which the benefits are questionable, or which can be obtained elsewhere for free. Winning prizes from these organizations will add little to your resume, and may even make you look amateurish to publishers and other poets.
The Amherst Society
Cader Publishing
Circle of Poets
Famous Poets Society
Iliad Press (an imprint of Cader Publishing)
Iliad Literary Awards Program
International Library of Photography (aka Picture.com, affiliated with Poetry.com, read public comments)
International Library of Poetry (aka Poetry.com)
International Poetry Hall of Fame (aka Poetry.com)
International Society of Poets (aka Poetry.com)
JMW Publishing Company
League of American Poets (poetryamerica.com)
The National Archives
The Nashville International Song and Lyric Competition (aka Paramount Group)
National Library of Poetry (aka Poetry.com)
Noble House (an affiliate of Watermark Press and Poetry.com, see a spoof contest entry and response)
Paramount Group
Picture.com (aka International Library of Photography, affiliated with Poetry.com, read public comments)
Poetry.com (see spoof contest entries and responses, see convention report)
Poetry Laureates
Poetry Press
Poetry Revival Contest
Poetry Unlimited
The Poets' Guild
PoetsOnly.com (see spoof contest entry and response; appears to be defunct)
The Poets' Workshop (www.poets.com, aka Poetry.com)
Sparrowgrass Poetry Forum
Stamford Research
TA.TI. Edizioni
Watermark Press (aka Poetry.com)
White Oak Press (aka Poetry America)
The most common pitch is to make poets buy their anthologies as a condition of publication. Publishers in this category include: Famous Poets Society, Sparrowgrass Poetry Forum, The Amherst Society, The Poets' Guild, Poetry Press, Poetry Unlimited, The National Archives, and JMW Publishing. Others try to sell you services, such as manuscript editing or agency representation.
Poetry.com aggressively markets anthologies and products, and goes beyond. They invite poets to expensive "conferences" where they are to receive "awards". We have read several hair-raising stories of poets furious after being lured to one of these affairs. Some attendees do report that they enjoy meeting their fellow poets, but there are many, many other conferences
and festivals where you can do this, at less cost and where excellence is truly honored.
Poetry.com operates under the following names: Poets.com, the National Library of Poetry, the International Library of Poetry, the International Society of Poets, Watermark Press, and the International Poetry Hall of Fame. It also appears to be affiliated with Noble House.
Vanity contests are characterized by low standards, and are willing to publish most of the submissions they receive (typically half or more). They primarily market their publications to the contestants themselves, often at high prices. Few copies are sold to independent buyers or libraries. A vanity contest is not necessarily a "scam". It may well disclose its terms and selection procedures fully and accurately. Nevertheless, all of the contests above are a waste of your time. There are plenty of better ones to submit to, selective contests that want to promote good work to a wider audience.
More Scam-Fighting Resources
Warning signs of a bad poetry contest
Sites that warn against scams
Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest - No Fee
This contest, sponsored by Winning Writers, seeks the best parody poem sent to a 'vanity contest' as a joke. There is no fee to enter. Over $3,000 in cash prizes will be awarded, including a top prize of $1,359. Submissions accepted August 15-April 1. See the guidelines.
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The Poets Literary Agency - Avoid
We feel this site is a bad deal for poets because it misrepresents how the poetry publishing market works. Reputable publishing houses use contests and open submission periods to find new poets. The use of agents is very rare. The trade shows and mass mailings that Poets Literary Agency mentions may be valuable for commercial nonfiction, but are not a normal publicity channel for poetry. Moreover, their critique fee (reported to be $74 as of October 2006) is suspiciously high, especially when it's not obvious that the staff has any literary (as opposed to marketing) credentials.
High-Priced Book Promotion Services
Poets and other small press authors should be on the lookout for marketing schemes that charge high fees for book publicity services of dubious value. Winning Writers newsletter editor Jendi Reiter, author of the poetry collection A Talent for Sadness (Turning Point Books, 2003), recently received a mass-mailed sales pitch from Airleaf Publishing & Book Selling. Headed "A National Campaign for A Talent for Sadness!", the letter purported to be a "special invitation" to participate in a national publicity campaign, including television commercials, full-color glossy newspaper inserts, interviews on local radio shows, and telemarketing calls encouraging bookstores to stock her book. All for the rock-bottom price of...$6,996.
While overpriced publicity services are nothing new, we felt this personalized letter crossed an ethical line by creating a false appearance of selectivity. "We recently discovered A Talent for Sadness and we believe it has the potential to be a national bestseller. Your book comes highly recommended and is precisely the kind of book we have had the most success selling." Well, gee. We'd like to think so, but poetry books that aren't written by pop stars or ex-presidents rarely achieve that level of commercial success. The total mismatch between these extravagant promises and the type of book being promoted makes us very suspicious of Airleaf's claim that "we have invited a very select group of authors and are accepting just the first 25." More likely they generated a letter like this for everyone on their mailing list who had a book out, similar to Poetry.com's "semifinalist" letters. (See the website, Airleaf Victims Fight Back!)
Even leaving aside the dishonesty, we feel services like these are generally not a good investment. It's better to do your own targeted research on the bookstores, local radio and TV stations, and performance spaces that would be most appropriate for promoting your book, instead of wasting money on a mass-mailing to markets that aren't appropriate for you. For far less money than Airleaf is charging, you can hire an assistant to help you schedule readings and network with booksellers, if you don't have time to do everything yourself. Pick up a copy of Carolyn Howard-Johnson's The Frugal Book Promoter for some creative ideas.
Brien Jones, formerly an "author consultant" at Airleaf, is now the principal of two similar companies, Jones Harvest Publishing and Author Celebrity Associates, both of Bloomington, Indiana. We suggest you avoid these companies as well.
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Franklin Publishing: Unfavorable Terms
In July 2007, a subscriber queried us about whether Franklin Publishing, an independent (and apparently for-profit) publisher of social science and business journals, was a scam. We found their website to be up-front about the terms of publication and the fees charged to authors, but we would still advise authors to avoid this publisher.
Franklin's website states: "Review copies are not available. Authors receive a 15% discount on single issue and annual subscriptions. Author's copies are not available. Authors retain ownership of all manuscripts and therefore no contracts are signed with authors. We do not provide free copies of books, journals, or articles printed in journals or books. Authors are paid for their manuscripts by receiving a 15% discount on books or journals that they purchase." Their journals typically cost $600 for an annual subscription or $60 per issue.
Reputable academic and trade publishers provide a certain number of contributors' copies and reprints at no charge. We refrain from calling Franklin a scam because we have no way to assess how selective their "peer review" process is, but it appears to be primarily a vanity press to generate publication credits, and probably carries little prestige as compared to legitimate academic journals.
Creative Communication: A Special Case
We have received inquiries about whether the poetry and essay contests sponsored by Creative Communication are deceptive in the manner of Poetry.com. Creative Communication does have some of the characteristics of a vanity contest:
Low selectivity (45% of entrants are published)
Except for the top winners, published authors are not given a free copy of the anthology
Advertisements emphasize the large aggregate value of the prizes awarded ($70,000 annually); a diligent search of their website reveals that the value of most individual prizes is under $100
Short line limits permit more poems to be packed into the anthology, creating many more potential customers
In their defense, Creative Communication editor Tom Worthen was responsive to our questions, sending us materials to demonstrate the value of his enterprise. We are satisfied that this contest is not a scam.
Unlike poetry.com, Creative Communication is upfront about the contestant's status, does not flatter authors with misleading "semifinalist" letters, and does not use publication as a lure to sell ancillary products (plaques, trophies, etc.) apart from the anthology. In addition, if five or more students from a teacher's class are accepted into the anthology, the teacher gets a free copy. On the other hand, only 55% of the entries are rejected. Most legitimate contests reject 90% or more of the entries they receive. Where the Creative Communication acceptance letter claims that "most" contestants' poems are rejected, this is a stretch.
We found value in the Creative Communication Poetic Power online newsletter, which shares creative ideas from poetry teachers nationwide. The newsletter contains useful writing exercises and advice for getting students to appreciate poetry. Creative Communication also provides grants (averaging $250 each) to schools for poetry education.
Still, we cannot recommend their contests without reservation. The work in their anthologies was generally amateurish. In particular, we were concerned that the older students were writing below grade level. They did not demonstrate the psychological and verbal sophistication that one finds in the winners of more prestigious youth contests, such as the Poetry Society of America's Louise Louis/Emily F. Bourne Student Poetry Award or the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award from the UK's Poetry Society. Winning a Creative Communication contest is unlikely to provide much lift to a young author's career.
Worthen says that he accepts so many poems because he feels that an accessible contest encourages young writers. It's true that seeing one's work in print can be gratifying when one is starting out. However, as the student learns to distinguish between good and bad poetry, and perhaps becomes disillusioned with the quality of the anthology, will such "self-esteem awards" ultimately be counterproductive, making him doubt the value of any praise he receives? Alternately, will the winners become satisfied with their work as it is, rather than exert themselves to meet a more rigorous challenge? Before recommending this contest to their students, teachers should order a sample anthology and decide whether it furthers their objectives.
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