All entry-fee charging literary competitions are intended to make money for their organisers.That's perfectly clear. It might not always be the only purpose of such comps, but in my view it's usually the main one, and that troubles me.

Honestly, given that the Bank Street Writers' one currently advertised bills itself as "International" ...

And it charges £3 for single entries...

Then goes and offers a top prize of, wait-for-it... £75....

Well, even factoring in that most poets are half-starving in garrets and have crazy notions of what £75 can buy (admittedly, in small, Third World nations such as Yorkshire, and blighted bits of Lancs such as Bolton, it's enough to buy a house!), the Bank Street prizes are not merely underwhelming - but downright mean!

And please, before anyone starts, I'm not singling the Bank Street lot out for particular censure. Loads of small writing groups offer prizes that are MISERLY.

£75!!!

That's a lot of meat and potato pies where I live.

I wouldn't pay to enter a comp. Very suspect way of making money in my view.

Then there are those competitions that ask you to keep your poems small and after telling you, you haven't won, ask to print your poem in a book of poetry which you can buy at a special discounted price...

They are just scams and it distresses me a little that even universities have started getting in on the act. Offering a first prize of thousands of pounds only means that more people will enter the competition. Universities are businesses, if they thought they were going to lose money they wouldn't do it. They are therefore making money on the back of many people, some of whom would never have a cat in hell's chance of winning. And you always get some bullshit statement afterwards saying 'The standard of the poetry entered was very high'. It's exploitation, pure and simple.

Perhaps the people who should be most ashamed with regard to these practices are the poets who judge them. Every time they cast aside the poor or mediocre work of some deluded entrant they should look into their own hearts and ask if they really believe that those people were parted from their pennies in an ethical way.

I detest the idea of people thinking its okay to make a lot of money by diddling a lot of other people out of a comparatively small amount. Shame on them. At least bookmakers and the National Lottery gives everyone an equal chance.

I apologise for sitting on the fence on this one....

Let me just put forth the question then:

If competitions should be free to enter, how do the organisers re-coup the costs they incur?


Even the small competitions that I run for TWF, incur costs. The prizes for the competitions I have run cost around £5 each (and there were 3 prizes). Advertising the competition in the web arena is easy and free, but at events I need to print off flyers, entry forms etc. Let's say the cost of those is just 1 black and 1 colour printer cartridge that works out at £50. Then there are certificates and postage of the prizes, which admitedly isn't too expensive, but let's say £12. For the one competition it has cost me £67. That is without even considering the cost of time to sift through around 200 entries and streamline them to a shortlist of 15.

Now I have no objection to paying that out on a small competition, and I suppose if I'd have found people to donate prizes or sponsor the competition I could have cut the cost. Regardless, now imagine a competition on a larger scale. If you were running it and put a lot of effort into promotion does £3 still seem like a lot? I'd say no.

Of course I haven't even gotten into the performance competitions, which I know full well Mr. Regan has paid to enter. £3 to enter a small competition with a top prize of just £50, for example. Is that unfair? Well no, that money will go toward funding the prizes and, in some instances keeping a group or organiser able to go on.


Is paying to enter competitions a scam?


Sorry, I've got to say no. Whilst I'm sure that scams do exist and/or some competitions are fixed; but for many organisers charging for entry is a way to offer a bigger prize and/or more prizes.

I have just read, on the front page of WOL, that Cinnamon Press are extending the deadline for their competitions.
Purely out of curiosity I had a look, and was staggered to find that the entrance fee is £16, whilst the PRIZE is £100.

I make no wonder they've extended the dates for entry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Although, to be fair, it's £100 plus publication in pamphlet form.