Young Writers - A poetry odyssey 2007

dogblanket

I am so sorry but this is definitely a scam. A very proud friend of mine told me that she had received a letter to say that her son had won a competition. Later that day another friend told me that her daughter had won the same competition and so did another parent and another and yes indeed another. If it is a genuine competition why are the parents having to pay for these books and why are so many children winners? It would be more honest to just tell the parents that they have an opportunity to have their children published. Where the winning is I don't know if you have to pay for the prize! There were a lot of disappointed parents that day, thinking that theirs was the only child that had won. I am so glad that my child does not attend the school as I would not be parting with £18. He has been published by another company; a short story in a book that cost £6, no competition just vanity publishing. I hope I don't sound too sour because it is great that children are getting their writing out there but I don't like to feel that people are getting ripped off.

lisa_prince

right so you recieve the certificate and your over the moon, but by any chance have any of you realised your child was tricked into doing a poem to win the school a sum of £1000 for there work and had no knowledge of it, yet we are asked t buy the books at a ridiculous price, ive informed my daughters school this morning that i recieved a certificat for my daughters poem she submitted and they say many of there pupils have had there poems published yet i still find it a disgrace that the teachers and the young writers themselves are using our children without their knowledge for a competition where the school enefits yet our child recieves nothing but a bill for the book

sandsferguson

Wow is this still going??
I was published in this in about the year 2000/2001 or so!

Well done anyway!

Space_Captain

All very fishy. I can't post links but a google search of Return of the 'People's Publisher brings up a news article about the company behind this.

Avoid it and spread the word to other parents.

ponyem

We too recently recieved a letter, saying that our daughter's story had been chosen for publication.. When I contacted the school they said that they had been told that many of the children had been selected and they were not sure if it was a scam.

Surely the schools should not be submitting our children's stories, along with full private addresses to companies that have not been thoroughly checked?

Space_Captain

ponyem wrote: »

We too recently recieved a letter, saying that our daughter's story had been chosen for publication.. When I contacted the school they said that they had been told that many of the children had been selected and they were not sure if it was a scam.

Surely the schools should not be submitting our children's stories, along with full private addresses to companies that have not been thoroughly checked?

Our school wasn't interested in warning parents. I believe they get a cut of the profits.

Matryoshka

Both my kids are winners too :rotfl::rotfl:

doolols

This is a difficult one. Being a writer, and having been involved in publishing, I'm aware of this company, and many others with similar names based in Peterborough.

Is it a scam? IMO, it is. It preys on the attitude of parents and children. "Your child is a winner in a national poetry competition". There is immediate pressure on the proud parent / guardian / grandparent to buy the book, so as to not disappoint the child.

I've just had a letter / certificate shown to me by a proud neighbour, and tried to let them down gently - but to ask in the school how many in the class were "winners".

I have self-published my works, and books are delivered to my doorstep for half the price that this company charge. But as long as parents are aware, that there is a small element of competition (the more pupils' work they publish, the more books they sell, the more money they make), and that the books are overpriced, then everything is fine.

Anyone want to enter my writing competition?

mmoalem

i think this is a scam - a legal one but a scam none the less. along with various other "educational" activities in my kids school the pattern is make the kid/parent proud than charge an arm and a leg.
if it was a 20 year old young writer who is trying to get published maybe but my kid is 5. DO NOT BUY!
we need to be active in eliminating these scamers who exploit the schools system to reach parents. I will not accept posters of disney dolls for sale in my school and this is not any different despite the "educational" language used in the letters.
what can we do?
1.we can buy 10 copies each and return them under distance selling regulation - once printed these books are useless for the scammers
2.ask the school boards to ban commercial entities from providing services which parents needs to pay for directly
3. ask the local authority to ban schools from doing the same
4. complain to trading standards?

this people make my blood boil... there must be a way to make their business less profitable by making sure other parents are aware

cagsd

It's not exactly a scam, but I think it's misleading. My son was really excited when he was in year 7 (last year) when he came home and told me his poem had been "selected" to be published in an anthology, like all you above we were given the form to fill in and they wanted £15.99 per book plus P+P - I grudgingly gave in and ordered one as he was so excited, but when it came his was literally one of about 1000 poems in the book, and there were at least 20 other members of his form also published, so it was hardly a select competition.

Since then, he has been sent a further 2 certificates saying more work has been published, so obviously they're expecting us to have bought 2 more anthologies, but I drew the line at the first one. Just haven't got that sort of cash to throw around on a book that'll never be looked at (the first one is gathering dust on his book shelf!)

So while it's not exactly a scam - the kids' poems/stories DO get published - it's more of a very clever marketing ploy to sell lots of copies of overpriced books!!