S P E C I A L R E P O R T
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 a story of poetry contests and big money. Here are the experiences of Theresa Coleman in her own words describing her dealings with the International Library of Poetry . (Questions are from Charlie Hughes of Wind Publications.)
THERESA: 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?
THERESA: 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 at the convention?
THERESA: Unfortunately...yes. There were plenty of children there because they had a special prize of a $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. The "fee" for attending did NOT include anyone's air fare, hotel costs, or food, other than the two lousy "dinners."
QUESTION: What percentage of those who attended were satisfied with the convention?
THERESA: 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?
THERESA: 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?
THERESA:
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?
THERESA: 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.
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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 participate in their contest and conventions.
Dear friends and poets, the only way this sort of operation can be stopped is through education. 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 rip-offs.
( 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.)
This web page is provided as a service to all poets and writers. Copyright © 2000 by Wind Publications and Theresa Coleman.
