Writing, Self-Publishing, Book Marketing

The short answer, NO!

Wordclay’s contests are completely legit.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Of course a Wordclay employee would say that the contest isn’t a scam … why should we believe you?!”

Well, I’d like to present some evidence that proves Wordclay’s Writing Contests are not scams.

Exhibit A: Look at our first contests, the Poetry Contests, as an example. The Single Poem and Book of Poetry contests were both completely free to enter, and the results are readily available. We’ve made massive amounts of information available to you on the winners at Wordclay’s Contest Connection as well was the this blog. Extensive follow-up rarely occurs with scams.

Exhibit B: Our very own blog contributor, Justin, posted interviews he conducted with both Grand Prize winners Brenda Mirsky and Jamie Crawford. As you read the interviews, you can even see comments from Mirsky’s family members. You’ll see that we never tried to “pull a fast one” on the participants. The prizes were given without hesitation, and we never badgered or bullied anyone into additional services. Winning the book length contest only require additional costs if the winner chose to purchase additional services – but it’s really an all-inclusive package. (Mirsky’s book is currently still in production, but we can hardly wait to announce its availability soon!)

Exhibit C: Wordclay is currently spreading the word about the upcoming contest deadline on numerous traffic Web sites, including StumbleUpon, WOW!, Protagonize, Today’s Woman, FaithWriters and Storiesville, among others. It’s doubtful that a writing contest scam would care about the diversity of their submissions enough to put the time in to conduct research, or bother to spend the money on advertising.

Exhibit D: Wordclay started a series called Best Modern Voices, a printed book which all finalists receive for free, because we want to feature our best submissions. Seems like an awful lot of work to convince people of a scam. And, the first in the series, Best Modern Voices, Volume 1: A Poetry Anthology, is now available through our bookstore for an extremely low and affordable cost, as opposed to the outrageous prices you’d expect from a contest designed to rip people off.

Despite the above exhibits, you may remain unconvinced. Or, you have questions about our ability to host a free contest as well as our intentions. Truth be told, there are countless writing contest scams infecting the Internet every day, and who can blame you nowadays for being a bit skeptical when submitting your work?

And, in addition to being skeptical about contest sponsors, maybe you’re still not so sure about this whole self-publishing industry to begin with. How can you tell which DIY self-publishing companies are trustworthy? All I can say is the Wordclay constantly tries to elevate self-publishing to feasible, even lucrative status with resources such as:

(1) free services such as Claim Your Space and publishing through the wizard

(2) free marketing information and templates at the Genre Lounge, free whitepapers on the Web site, free forums and interactions here at the company blog ( http://freeself-publishing.com )

(3) free contests that allow emerging writers to easily submit their poems and stories online alongside established authors, with the real possibility of publication.

Plus, it’s part of the Author Solutions Inc. family, a well-known, established company. And, if you want even more proof, Wordclay is meets all BBBOnLine participation and Better Business Bureau membership standards.

That said, the question remains: what’s true about your suspicions?

Submission guidelines: We’re still learning the ropes. As we continue hosting writing contests, we’ll continue to perfect our submission process to make things easier, clearer and more enjoyable for everyone.

And, it’s true that we are human and do make mistakes. We were recently informed that in our Terms and Conditions of the Short Story Contests, it listed the date of announcing the winners as “June 31, 2008,” when there are only 30 days in June. It’s in no way a scam, just a mistake and we apologize for the error.

Registration Information: Yes, of course, we store your name and e-mail address when you register with Wordclay, but we do not sell your information. We have a Privacy Policy in place that explains exactly how your information is used, but mostly, it just means that you might get an e-mail from us once in a while, from which of course, you can always opt out. 

So, you might still be wondering why we would host a contest for free.  Good question. The truth is we’re a bit crazy, and we like writers. Is that so bad?

We also are a relatively new company and a writing contest is a nice welcome to our existing authors, and raise awareness of Wordclay in the writing community. I think every writer should be educated about how easily they can publish a book, and although Wordclay may not be the best option for every single writer out there, we’re definitely a good fit for many.

Hopefully this post will clear the air and address the questions of the skeptics in the room. For those who are still skeptical, I dare you to enter the contest. That way, you can see for yourself that it’s not a trick. Just a contest!

-Angie