[wordup] Literary Scams (poetry.com and poets.com)

Tue Apr 2 14:19:54 EST 2002

This is pretty fucking lame.  Yet another reason for people to not trust
anything they find on the internet.  Below is the letter from one
disgruntled person, I found out about this because a friend was all
excited that his poem which he submitted to poetry.com had been selected
for publication one of their anthologies.

Adam.

From: http://windpub.org/literary.scams/ilp.htm

Big Money in Poetry
--    There are millions of dollars to be made in poetry    --
--    See how the International Library of Poetry does it    --

International Library of Poetry Convention

No fancy graphics on this web page -- just an ugly story of flattery,
deception, poetry contests, and big money.  Here are the experiences of
Theresa Coleman in her own words describing her dealings with the
so-called International Library of Poetry. (Questions are from Charlie
Hughes of Wind Publications.)

I have been victimized along with thousands of others this past weekend
by the "The International Society of Poets" (aka poetry.com) (aka
International Library of Poetry). I found their web site and submitted
several poems. Suddenly, my poetry became a BIG HIT and every poem I
submitted, became their choice for publication in their continuing
"Anthology series" of books. Then, I received a nomination for "Poet of
the Year 2000" and an invitation to attend their "Tenth Anniversary
International Society of Poets Convention and Symposium" to receive
several awards and read my poem in their competition for poet of the
year, with the Grand Prize being $5,000 and a book contract.

The event was held in Washington, DC, August 18th through the 20th,
2000. They charged each of us $595 to attend. I fell for their scam as
it appeared to be incredibly legitimate and even the Maryland Better
Business Bureau's information on them made it appear that they were
credible. The weekend was a fiasco from start to finish. In the letters
preceeding the convention, they assured us that the attendance would be
minimized to avoid "having crowds so that it would be more like a family
atmosphere," they lied. There were approximately four thousand in
attendance; we were spread out in NINE different hotels to accommodate
the massive crowd, ALL of which I found out AFTER arriving, were
nominated as poet of the year!

They made all kinds of promises for special events and meetings with
publishers and editors who were NOT there. They did feed us dinner for
two nights, one night was chicken and an infant's size portion of
vegetables with a 1" X 1" size piece of cake, the second night wasn't
much better with a piece of beef (disguised as steak, tougher than my
leather shoes) and the same sized portion of vegetables . . . BOTH
dinners were served with WATER ONLY, even upon request, we were denied
soft drinks. They did, however, supply a small cup of coffee with our
desert. Everyone received the same plaque and medal for being sucker
"Poets of Merit."

They invited so many poets that we had to read our poetry in a small
room (NOT on a stage as they wrote in their letters, and NOT in front of
Editors and publishers as they promised) all in one day. They split us
up into two groups, with each group divided into smaller groups of 40,
in which we were all sent to different rooms to read our contest entries
where WE were to be each others judges. We were given slips of paper and
WE had to write our favorite four poets, and in our room, the ISP
employee instructed us to first vote for ourselves and then fill in the
remaining three lines with other poets from our room! They had poets
still reading their poetry for the "contest" up until 3:30-4:30 on
Saturday. So, how in the heck did they make their choices for the
semifinalists and finalists by 5:30pm Saturday night? They only had an
hour, maybe an hour and a half to make all of their choices. They made
the announcement for the winners at the 5:30 dinner seating. IMPOSSIBLE!
This is one way we figured out that this whole ordeal was a scam. They
had to have already picked the semi's and finalists BEFORE the
competition! They knew who was going to receive awards probably before
the convention!

All of the attendees who were there for the first time, were promised an
"Induction Ceremony" to be inducted into the International Society of
Poets. There was NO ceremony, this is how they "inducted" us: At the
Friday night dinner, the M.C. asked for all of the people who were
attending their first convention, to stand. After we all stood up, he
waved his arm from one side of the room to the other and then said,
"Okay, you're all inducted. Sit back down." That was our "ceremony!"

I am a disabled Veteran and live on a very small pension and Social
Security Disability pay. I had to borrow the nearly $1,500 to attend
this conference. It will take me over a year to pay all the money back.
Not to mention, I did not have clothing suitable for such an event, so
there went another $300.00! I am requesting a refund, although I'm sure
they will fight me on it. There were hundreds of people who were signing
petitions for a "Class Action Law Suit," but how do we go about it? What
can I do?

I cried like a baby after realizing that I was just ripped off, knowing
how long it will take me to pay back all the money I borrowed, and
thinking that maybe I'm not worthy of any award for the heartfelt poetry
that I write. I am so humiliated and ashamed that I don't know if I'll
ever write again, never mind entering another contest. It was truly a
learning experience, and they were right about one thing . . . it was an
experience I will NEVER forget!

Organizations like this SHOULD NOT be permitted to continue preying on
innocent people and robbing them of money most of us didn't have and had
to borrow. PLEASE HELP me to expose them! Thank you for taking the time
to hear my grievance. I was one of the 200+ semifinalists (they said
there would only be a maximum of forty), and the prize was supposed to
be $250.00, instead, I received a check for $50.00 lousy dollars which I
won't cash until I attempt to get my refund. I don't want to accept
money from them, giving them an excuse to say that I agreed to the
circumstances and the way they handled this entire farce.

QUESTION: "Did you meet any people at the convention who came from other
countries?

ANSWER: Yes. I met several people from Switzerland, Jamaica, India,
Africa, Canada, New Zealand, England, The Netherlands, and quite a few
more that I can't recall.

QUESTION: Were any children or teenagers sucked into the convention
scam?

ANSWER: Unfortunately...yes. There were plenty of children there because
they had a special $1,000 scholarship for the "Young Poet of the Year."
I sat at a table at dinner the first night with two nine year olds and
their parents. The mothers were furious because they obviously had to
pay to escort their children. They did say that they were given a
$100.00 reduction in the cost, which means they had to pay the "guest
fee" of $475.00, less the $100.00, which came to $375.00 for each parent
just to accompany their children. There were A LOT of "young poets" at
this convention. This, mind you, did not include the air fare or hotel
charges. Those charges came out of everyone's pockets. The "fee" for
attending did NOT include anyone's airfare, hotel costs, or food, other
than the two lousy "dinners."

QUESTION: What percentage of those who attended were satisfied with the
convention?

ANSWER: I don't recall talking to anyone who was satisfied. I'm sure
some might have been, but I surely didn't meet any of them. And I'm sure
the eleven finalists were satisfied since they are the only ones who
benefited. The "Grand Prize winner" received a check for $5,000 and a
limited number of books in a book publishing contract with . . . guess
who? WaterMark Press. The remaining finalists, received a smaller number
of books printed in their "book contract" and a check also, but I'm not
sure how much they were awarded.

The Grand Prize Winner of the $5,000 was TeeDie Tremble. It just so
happens that I looked up her name on the website to read what kind of
poem was better than anyone else's. Guess what? She is not listed on
their website! The Grand Prize Winner" does NOT even have a single poem
on their website. Her name is not to be found. Is she a REAL poet? Or,
is she possibly one of their employees who pretended to be a poet just
so they wouldn't have to actually give out the Grand prize? I believe
the latter, although I cannot prove it, yet the point remains . . . why
isn't she on their website like all of the other poets?  (Editor's
note--Since the posting of this web page we have found Teedie Tremble's
work on the poetry.com web site.  We also saw a recording of her
performance of her "award-winning" poem.  While it was entertaining, it
grossly exceeded the 20 line limit required of contest entrants. Her
poem also contained words which would be rejected by the computer that
monitors the poetry.com on-line submissions.)

QUESTION: How many poems are published in one of their anthologies?

ANSWER: The book that one of the phone operators in their service dept.
just so happened to have in front of her had 593 pages. It had six poems
per page, minimum. That equals 3,558 poems in that book alone. Now, if
each poet that was published in this book bought only ONE copy, at the
prerelease special price of $49.95 (regular price is $69.95), that would
come out to $177,722 PROFIT FROM ONE BOOK! Can you believe the money
these jerks are making off of unsuspecting people like me? And to think,
I was going to buy TWO copies! Thank God, I didn't buy any.

QUESTION: How many anthologies per year are published?

ANSWER:
1997-- 44 anthologies were made and published.
1998-- 78 anthologies were published. (Guess they had a good year!)
1999-- 52 anthologies were published. (That = one a week!)
2000-- 46 anthologies...as of August. There are 5 more that have no
release date yet, but I'm pretty confident that they will be published
this year, bringing the total so far this year to 51, and the year, as
you know, still has four more months to go, so the total could very well
rise above the mere 51.

You can very easily verify these numbers, as, I got them right off of
their website. Just go to "poetry.com" and click on "Anthologies" and it
lists the name of every book, and it's release date. I just printed out
all eight pages and then counted them up.

Editor's calculation of anthology income
-- an amazing estimate --
50 books/yr x 600 pages
x 6 poems/page x $50/book =
about $9 million each year

Or, let's do an alternate calculation--
The Greater Maryland Better Business Bureau reports that the ILP has
500,000 customers each year. If only half purchase a single $50 book,
that's $12.5 million.
Can that be possible?

QUESTION: You said about 4000 attended the convention. Where did this
number come from?

ANSWER: I have one of the papers that they sent us before the
convention. It says: "Over 750 poets are already registered. Only a few
spots left. Don't miss out!" This is "handwritten" but printed on the
page, making it appear that someone wrote it in, but it is clearly part
of the "document."

It is my guestimate, that there were approx. 4,000 people in attendance.
We had to have dinner in the largest rooms at the hotel (Omni Shoreham)
in two shifts. I believe that there were approx. 1,500 to 2,000 in each
shift seated for "dinner," but I was told that the capacity was only
1,600 at a time. I don't believe this though, as it was an ISP employee
who quoted that number. I used to be a chef's assistant and I consider
my estimate to be a little more accurate.

I asked another ILP employee how many were at the convention this year
and she said "almost 3,000." I then asked her if that number reflected
the guests also, and she said "No, I believe that was just the number of
poets." I asked her if they broke a record this year and she said "yes."
Editor's estimate of convention income --
2800 attendees x $600 registration fee =
$1.68 million
plus income from "guests" and parents

I cannot express the deep, emotional anguish this has caused me-- to
find out that I was part of a scam as large and out in plain sight as
this one. I almost feel like suing the BBB! I really believed that
finally, my day had come, and I was being honored for my poetic,
God-given talent. Now, I am so angry with them that I cannot express how
badly I would like to choke every one of those rip-off artists! After
researching for your questions, I am totally appalled that they have
remained in business for so long!

I honestly wish I could have found all this out before I got suckered
out of nearly $2,000. Hindsight is 20/20 they say, they are right.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Editor's note--
If the International Library of Poetry takes in approximately ten
million dollars in a year (a conservative estimate) they can certainly
afford to give out $58,000 in prize money-- that's about $6 prize money
for every thousand dollars income. Somebody is making some serious money
at that rate--  but not the unwitting poets who are hooked by this scam.

Dear friends and poets, the only way this sort of scam can be stopped is
through education. Tell your friends about this scam. Do a little
research and see how real publishing is done. Be involved with poetry
because you love it, not because you think you might win some money.

See the following web pages for information about how to publish poetry
with legitimate organizations: - page1 - page2  

-- Click HERE to see information on other literary scams.

( NOTE: Theresa Coleman's poems have been removed at her request from
poetry.com. She is not the Theresa Coleman who has poems on their
website.)