Poetry Scam or not? This is the big question. We have received many emails about poetry.com and asking why we have not covered this
poetry scam. Well truth be told, we are not so sure we would classify it as a cut and dry scam, but we do think their “marketing” tactics are deceptive.
In a nutshell here is how it works: They send you a series of emails where they identify you as a nominated poet for an awards dinner. The emails discuss the top prize, and the award show. It also goes through various costs to attend the show, and you can then purchase various membership packages and award packages.. In addition, the email series states that because you are nominated, they deem your poetry worthy of publishing in one of their books. They ask for about $50 to publish the poem, and apparently more to have it published on its own page.
There are several accusations that the poetry books that they publish aren’t readily available at book stores. Apparently it is very hard to purchase outside of their Web site. However, these books are published and sent to the people that pay for them.
Pretty straightforward, so where is the rub? Well apparently everyone gets nominated, and many people feel duped because it is not the honor it appears to be. In addition, there are claims that if you don’t pay to have your poem published, it never gets published. We don’t consider this a poetry scam, because apparently there actually is an awards show, there is a published book (several a year) and participants do receive what they are promised. Then, technically they are doing what they say they do. The end result, is just that what they receive is not the quality that they expected, but there are not any laws against that.
Bottom line; always know what you are signing up for, especially when there is money involved.