[Neva]

Anyone here familiar with poetry.com?<br>
I entered an old poem I wrote when I was trying to do the whole GPT thing. Since then I've recieved two letters by mail. First one stating that my poem would be published in a book and that I was a semi-finalist. The book has over 200 poems in it. What a great way to make $! Get aspiring poets to submit and then publish their work and ask them to buy their own work for only $70! And of course their family will want to purchse their work too so why not buy a full case for $370! The second letter told me my poem was awarded the editor's choice award and then offered me more items to purchase, a spoken workds CD and my poem on a plaque. I think I'll just keep my money and let the poem continue to sit in an old journal stored away.<br>
Anyone else dealt with this website before? Any info on it?

 

[GiggleBirds]

So, what, they're not paying you or at least giving you a copy of the book?! <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/irked.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="irked">: How screwy. But congrats on having a great poem! <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/lol.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="lol">

 

[Ubelle]

Yeah I've dealt with them before too. I submitted a poem I wrote in Highschool and the same thing happened( buy the book, plaque. I did this a few years ago and I still get letters, etc from them. I was even "invited" to join them for a reading of my poem in Orlando, I just had to pay for the dinner, the flight & hotel...<br><br>
I think it's their standard oporating procedure, like the OP said to make some money. Sounds similiar to vanity publishing, but at least you usually know going into those.<br><br>
I've ignored the correspondence and it's tapered off, I still get e-mail invited to submit another poem to the latest contest though, I've ignored those too <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/smile.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="smile"><br><br>
I haven't been looking for any other publishing methods (too busy), but I'm sure they are out there.

 

[willowsmom]

It's a scam. I have so many poems there, and I received the letters...and I sent them a check. I never got the book.

 

[folkypoet]

<img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/lol.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="lol"> Oh, yeah - scamarama!<br><br>
Several years ago, just for fun, we sent in a poem my youngest brother had written when he was 8-years-old. Man, it won all sorts of awards! They wanted him to buy the books, attend the gala, and basically hand them his life savings - which probably amounted to about $8.63.<br><br>
I wonder if he kept all those letters....<br><br>
His poem (for anyone interested):<br><br><b>The Mushroom Tree</b><br><br>
The mushroom tree is pink.<br>
It's big and has leaves like dollar bills<br>
that anyone could take<br>
if they wanted.<br>
Suddenly, everyone is rich<br>
with one hundred dollar bills<br>
that are always growing on the mushroom tree.<br>
Pink dollar bills.<br>
All the stores start taking pink bills,<br>
making new slots in the register drawers.<br>
The mushroom tree is poisonous.<br>
It talks.<br>
It talks all the time.<br>
"Take my pink hundred dollar bills.<br>
Trim up my chili-bowl hair-cut<br>
and I'll give you <b>35 HUNDRED</b>.<br>
I'll give you 35 hundred dollars."<br>
The pink tree is happy because he is<br>
as big as the Earth.<br>
He is the Earth.<br>
The Earth is pink hundred dollar bills<br>
fallen from the mushroom tree.<br><br><img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/ROTFLMAO.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="rotflmao"> He was probably 12 when we sent it in, and he loved getting all those letters telling him what a fabulous poet he was and begging him to purchase this and that. He knew it was a crock, but he enjoyed it, all the same.

 

[vanessab23]

same goes for picture.com....SCAM!!!!!!!!!

 

[MommytoB]

I agree Scam. You know they make profit off all of other ppl poems - which the ppl who did the poem for 'their work should get a percent of what the profits they sell from the poem in the book they publish if it contains the work of poem. Then plus, why should anyone have to pay for a 'book' that their poem has contained. They are also under the Noble House Publish Co. Too.<br><br>
Watch out for Famous Poetry Society too. They actually are even doubly worse here is why they send out this brochure thing of getting to have a buffet with a award ceremony get to meet all these speakers . I never had ever filled out anything to get down there but boy did I think about it but after I went to ripoffreport.com I saw the 'stories' of how some group of poetry ppl got scammed to pay an airfare and to have paid for a cost of registration that says was for room & board to look for a ceremony - to end up getting stranded and to have a hotel to say hey nothing was here and we don't have any vacancy open - so those ppl take their 'registration money for hotel & ceremony cost which is like 600$-800$ and they do that 'every single year. So then they are at a time of looking for a place to 'stay' and at a loss of that amount of money. Besides proably not having that much money on them since they proably expected 'free big type of buffet meals' since it advertised in the brochure.

 

[BelovedK]

Definate scam, I agree. I have a boatload of poetry on there (under BelovedK) and got one of those letters. I found it a good place to get feedback, but would never send a check to <b>pay</b> for a book that i'm published in (supposedly) the books aren't cheap either <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/irked.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="irked">:

 

[BelovedK]

<div style="margin:20px;margin-top:5px;">
<div class="smallfont" style="margin-bottom:2px;">Quote:</div>
<table border="0" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="0" width="99%"><tr><td class="alt2" style="border:1px inset;">
<div>Originally Posted by <strong>folkypoet</strong> <a href="/community/forum/post/6572291"><img alt="View Post" class="inlineimg" src="/community/img/forum/go_quote.gif" style="border:0px solid;"></a></div>
<div style="font-style:italic;"><img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/lol.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="lol"> Oh, yeah - scamarama!<br><br>
Several years ago, just for fun, we sent in a poem my youngest brother had written when he was 8-years-old. Man, it won all sorts of awards! They wanted him to buy the books, attend the gala, and basically hand them his life savings - which probably amounted to about $8.63.<br><br>
I wonder if he kept all those letters....<br><br>
His poem (for anyone interested):<br><br><b>The Mushroom Tree</b><br><br>
The mushroom tree is pink.<br>
It's big and has leaves like dollar bills<br>
that anyone could take<br>
if they wanted.<br>
Suddenly, everyone is rich<br>
with one hundred dollar bills<br>
that are always growing on the mushroom tree.<br>
Pink dollar bills.<br>
All the stores start taking pink bills,<br>
making new slots in the register drawers.<br>
The mushroom tree is poisonous.<br>
It talks.<br>
It talks all the time.<br>
"Take my pink hundred dollar bills.<br>
Trim up my chili-bowl hair-cut<br>
and I'll give you <b>35 HUNDRED</b>.<br>
I'll give you 35 hundred dollars."<br>
The pink tree is happy because he is<br>
as big as the Earth.<br>
He is the Earth.<br>
The Earth is pink hundred dollar bills<br>
fallen from the mushroom tree.<br><br><img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/ROTFLMAO.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="rotflmao"> He was probably 12 when we sent it in, and he loved getting all those letters telling him what a fabulous poet he was and begging him to purchase this and that. He knew it was a crock, but he enjoyed it, all the same.</div>
</td>
</tr></table></div>
<img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/biglaugh.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="laugh">: good one!!

 

[moonfirefaery]

Poetry.com is a huge scam. They don't read or judge the poems. Everyone is a semifinalist. They just want to make money off of you and your poetry by generically glorifying your poem. There are a lot of scam sites out there. Here is a very informative page about a few of the most common poetry scams: <a href="http://windpub.com/literary.scams/endall.htm" target="_blank">http://windpub.com/literary.scams/endall.htm</a> I know how exciting it is to get a letter from them. They had me all excited back when I was about 14 and got a letter from them...but everyone who posts there gets a letter.<br><br>
On the other hand, the Poetry Society of America has a huge list of resources for poets, including a list of Poetry publishers that you can solicit to publish your poems in chapbooks and literary journals/magazines/newsletters/e-zines or entire book manuscripts. Your best bet is to start with individual/small groups of poems being published in multi-author releases, then work your way up to an entire manuscript.