Poetry.com is a Scam Site?
Written by Jay on May 28, 2008 – -
I don’t know how many people have heard of poetry.com, but it’s a poetry site in which people can “publish” their poems and are entered for a chance to win prizes in these contests. But I recently stumbled upon a interesting article stating that poetry.com is in fact a scam.
Eliteskills.com has dedicated it’s entire website on how you can spot and avoid writing scams; and it features poetry.com is a scam.
I mean, poetry.com is probably the most well-known poetry sites on the web now but if you ever go there or if you’re already a registered user, you must have some doubts about it. Some of that stuff seems too good to be true, and if you want your poems published, bam!, you have to purchase their book.
A small excerpt from Elite Skills:
“Poetry.com is a fraud publishing organization that features it’s online writing contest. It literally accepts 100% of applicants as ‘Semi-finalists’ in their ‘international poetry competition’ and sends a letter to the poor victims. The letter is full of flattery saying that you are a wonderful poet and the ’sectional committee’ or ‘panel of judges’ has decided your poetry is good enough to be published. They ask a ‘modest’ payment of $50 plus extra if you want your page on a page of it’s own. Publishing only those who paid, 6000 poems per book at $50-$75 a poem with 60 books published a year is a lot of $$$$.”
Also, “Poetry.com does NOT publish your work if you do not pay for the book.
Poetry.com publishes 50+ books a year and does NOT sell them anywhere other than to the victims of their scam.”
Now, before I read Eliteskills.com’s scam article, I actually had discussions with others years ago about the site. And guess what? One of my good friends submitted his “suppose-to-be-copyrighted” poem to poetry.com and of course, he never won the contest but soon after, he saw the same exact poem published in a Hallmark card.
Coincidence? I think not. And yes, he showed me his original and the card, and I think I believe him over a constantly accused scam site.
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Posted in Random | 8 Comments »
June 2nd, 2008 at
“One of my good friends submitted his “suppose-to-be-copyrighted” poem to poetry.com and of course, he never won the contest but soon after, he saw the same exact poem published in a Hallmark card.”
Hmmmm, seems like an awfully funny coincidence that he saw that. Your friend’s poem was SO GOOD that an international corporation had to plagiarize it. You see, Hallmark do not have any good ideas of their own. They have to prey on nobody poets and are willing to commit crimes to do so.
Does this not strike you as the least bit peculiar?
As to the article, there’s no money in poetry anyway. It’s a mug’s game.
June 3rd, 2008 at
Hi, I stumbled across your post and I have to say that I too was a victim of poetry.com. What a joke they are sending me a letter to say my poetry was the best they’ve ever read. Please, and of course the small print stated about the purchase of a book with my poem in it. I didn’t pay for the book, and years later I feel that it’s a shame that sites like that give hope to writers when really all they are doing is wasting their time.
Amanda
June 23rd, 2008 at
wow. poetry.com has been around for many years now… i remember the time when i received my mail from them saying the same things that you just said, about how my poem’s good enough etc. etc. i wanted to buy the book but i couldn’t afford it but my grandma contributed some cash for me to get it…but i never was able to… good thing though. =)
chinnys last blog post..do not over cook.
December 18th, 2008 at
I have a poetry site called http://www.suckypoems.com and for a while I was getting spammed with their crap. To top it off they were advertising with adwords which showed up on my adsense. I actually contributed some a poem which was rejected. If you visit my site, you’ll understand why. I guess they try and stay at least a little real.
January 30th, 2009 at
Poetry.com is not Scam, yet it is a real. They publish articles after supervising them in books, online as well as in CDs.
July 24th, 2009 at
I used to think it was a real deal so I sent in a lot of my poetry. But then they were all getting “published” but yet they never appeared in any of the books. Only one poem was placed in a book and that was because I bought that book. Now that I want to find the poem for personal reasons, I can’t find the website. It seems Lulu has that URL. Did they go under or something?
September 2nd, 2009 at
how can i get my poems I wrote and entrusted these people with. please let me know. I understand that this to many of us is an example of nasty, greedy behavior etc. etc… so can anyone please tell me how to retrieve those “award winning poems” away and back to where they are from.
thank you.
November 5th, 2009 at
I to have fell victim and and concerned with receiving my poems that I have wrote to these people for the last 9 years. Can you please help me find the answer to whom I may call and chew out for that. This is so unfair to everyone envolved in this and I think we should stand together and give them one back