10-01-2014, 04:17 PM
If there's prize money offered, I tend to think it's reasonable to ask for a small fee -- not many organisations which support poetry are extraordinarily wealthy. Several journals run contests to subsidise the cost of printing etc. Remember, most of these editors are already working for free.
It all comes down to researching the integrity of the organisation. If everyone who pays wins something -- like poetry.com's "your prize-winning poem will be published in an anthology that you can purchase for $645 plus postage and handling" -- then obviously you should steer clear. But coming from an editor's perspective, there's a lot of work involved in sorting through competition entries and ensuring equity, and it's often done for no financial recompense. All entry fees go toward the prize kitty and then, as I said earlier, into subsidising costs. Even an electronic journal has web hosting costs etc.
Automatically assuming that something is evil because there's money attached is almost the same kind of thinking that ensures that poetry remains an unsaleable commodity.
It all comes down to researching the integrity of the organisation. If everyone who pays wins something -- like poetry.com's "your prize-winning poem will be published in an anthology that you can purchase for $645 plus postage and handling" -- then obviously you should steer clear. But coming from an editor's perspective, there's a lot of work involved in sorting through competition entries and ensuring equity, and it's often done for no financial recompense. All entry fees go toward the prize kitty and then, as I said earlier, into subsidising costs. Even an electronic journal has web hosting costs etc.
Automatically assuming that something is evil because there's money attached is almost the same kind of thinking that ensures that poetry remains an unsaleable commodity.
It could be worse