Poetry Scams

Browsing through my bookmarked blogs this morning, I read an excellent post by Victoria Strauss over at Writer Beware Blogs! In Evaluating Literary Contests, Ms. Strauss covers all the bases, so I really don't have much to add.

I already gave my two cents in the comment chain, but my comment there brought a slew of memories to mind, I like to share here. (And it all dovetails nicely with yesterday's post.)

My chief experience in the world of literary scammers deals specifically with poetry scams. I was young and naïve at the time. I had no clue people would actively try to screw other people. Whoa, was I ever gullible. (Or as Bugs Bunny always said it - Gull A Bull.) Back then I was cranking out poems, and whipping them off to every contest I could find in the back of a certain writing magazine which shall remain nameless (to protect the innocent--namely ME.) I was a teenager at the time, so I didn't have any money to enter legit contests, but if it was free, they were getting an entry from me.

And I was getting offer after offer to be published. I mean, like, WOW. Unfortunately, all of the offers came with a nice letter saying I would be published in X Anthology, which I had to purchase myself for only $39.95 (or $49.95, or $59.95). Now, they weren't saying I had to buy the book to be published in it--that's a no-no. They were merely telling me I was published in the book, and if I wanted to see my poem in print, then I had to cough up the dough. I wasn't making enough babysitting money to shell out that kind of cash, so I shrugged and felt wonderful about my poems being in print somewhere, even if I couldn't see the pretty leatherbound edition for myself.

Until one anthology was offered for $12.95. Now that was more my price range. I gave the cash to my mother who kindly wrote a check to these people. 6-8 weeks later, my copy of the anthology arrived. I was glowing. I flipped to the page and there was my poem. *happy sigh*

Later I read a few of the other poems. My pride and joy was stuffed in amongst some of the purest crap ever published. (Looking back, my pride and joy was pretty crappy, too, but that's the point here.) Once my joy wore off, I looked at the book itself. It's a paperback, typeset in the oldest font known to man, the cover art looks like something my child could have done when she was 8.

I wonder if I'd bought one of those $59.95 leatherbound ones, would the quality have been better?