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.
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. =)
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