Flattery, Thy Name is Spam
Cool site. Great info. Let’s be friends. Such knowledge in possession of. I am bookmarking your site. You will pursue your studies! Discount drugs. From the writers who gave us fortune cookies and lost treasure to be claimed in faraway lands, we have a new form of spam more insidious than billboard advertisements of yesteryear ( Gamble! Smoke Kools!) Flattery.
Writers may be especially vulnerable to this approach. They endure much on the road to celebrity status. Who’s your agent? Oh, I’m represented by Kelly who turns out to be Martha ( We love your work. We cash your check. Let’s be friends.)
Writers Needed! Have you seen this ad? It’s true. Not spam, not ripoff. Don’t send money. Major publisher wants more stuff to read! Hurry. There is a contest underway whose deadline for receiving unpublished fiction has been extended ninety days. The original deadline was 12-31-06. The entrance fee is 85 US Dollars. According to a press release from the organizers, Simon & Schuster will publish three winning manuscripts. There is a $100,000 prize.
The problem? Not enough submissions. The Sobol Award will give us a hundred grand for uploading a manuscript to people we don’t know. Hell, this is what we do, right? In principal this is a great idea. Literary agents should try this approach. Send manuscript: we’ll give you a hundred grand! Picture that ad in Writers Marketplace: not spam, not ripoff! For 100,000 dollars I will enclose a SASE.
Is the Sobol Award legit? From my studies of economics I remember this: negative cash flow brings a tear to the eye. Prize money totals $ 150,000 for the top two awards. If 2000 people enter paying 85 bucks apiece that totals $170,000. 4000 entrants equals $340,000. To be self-sustaining they need numbers, in this case, manuscripts. Imbedded in their needs are the seeds of conflict. As the number of manuscripts increase, the chances of winning decrease. How does an organization manage to evaluate thousands of manuscripts when the sole criterion for entry is $85? Will the deadline be extended into perpetuity?
I don’t know the answer. I think writers have been sucker punched so often that we’re leery of fantastic offers. There are legitimate contests for novelists out there and many more for screenwriters. If you’re the prize winner of Defiance Ohio, go for it. Otherwise beware.