Recently I’ve been seeing a bunch of ads for writing contests in my Facebook feed. Plus I’ve been getting unsolicited mass emails advertising similar competitions. Some of them look pretty legit, but I couldn’t help asking myself why. If it’s such a great contest, why do they need to use spam to promote them? Why not contact me as an influencer and ask me to promote the contest here on the blog? (Many contest promoters do this and if the contest looks good, I add it to our “Opportunity Alerts” section at the bottom of each post. )
Then last week I saw a tweet from industry watchdog Victoria Strauss at Writer Beware saying much the same thing. She said she’d suddenly been hearing from a lot of writers who were getting direct solicitations from writing contests and she’s seeing the same stuff I am on Facebook. So I thought I should probably give our readers a heads-up.
Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog 
Reblogged this on Plaisted Publishing House and commented:
Authors BEWARE…Competition Scams
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, I’ve come across a few of these on line and seen people asking about them on the writing group I’m part of. I’m in the UK and haven’t seen a legitimate contest fee much over £12. Most hover somewhere between £5 and £10, with plenty being free.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, Chris.
LikeLike
Yes, I’ve been getting writing contest offers in my FB feed as well. I immediately felt they were scams.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Glad you found the article informative, Kathy 😃
LikeLike