Thread: So, I've just been sent an email telling me I've been "nominated" for a "best story award," though the email doesn't list a specific thing I've written and it's not clear if this is for a novel or a short story. It also asks you to "submit your entry" by clicking a link.
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To say the least, this reads as a shoddy, ill-advised business practice at best and an outright scam at worst. For starters, you don't send someone an email telling them they've ALREADY BEEN NOMINATED when what you MEAN is, "we want you to nominate yourself and also pay us."
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What feels even shadier is the fact that the *preview* of the email they send contains ENTIRELY DIFFERENT INFORMATION to what's contained in the actual body.
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Here is how the email shows up in my inbox: with text that suggests a "friend, reader or relative" has nominated my work, but with the sentence sadly tailing off before we can learn just WHAT has been nominated.pic.twitter.com/9zmJove7vX
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But when you actually OPEN the email, NONE of that text appears. Instead, you get this:pic.twitter.com/Oj2m9oYXHD
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Note in particular the emphasis on the fact that, according to this email, YOU ARE ALREADY NOMINATED, such that you can put it in your bio. But when you click the link? A COMPLETELY different story.
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NOT ONLY is there a whole section on “Why Should You Join Our Contest?” - which, given the claim that you’re ALREADY nominated, is a flat-out contradiction - but they also want to charge you for the privilege.pic.twitter.com/2TlEXQJqTn
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Currently, the “reading fee” is “discounted” because CHRISTMAS. Makes you wonder what they’re charging the rest of the time.pic.twitter.com/peVkfT3oo2
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Note the positioning of MOAR WINNERS ALL THE TIME UNLIKE THOSE YEARLY AWARDS THAT MAKE YOU *WAIT* OMG as a prestige point. This from a site that uses the word "distinguished" (according to who?) FOUR TIMES on the main page alone.
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Also note that, once again, there's dissonance between the body text of the main webpage and what appears in the mouseover and in the tab header of the website, both of which describe the contest as "exclusive" - something it DEMONSTRABLY ISN'T, given self-entry & monthly wins.pic.twitter.com/jd0BZFimix
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Like, this is some ugly, duplicitous shit. And even as someone with only the most tenuous, secular-atheist connection to Christmas as a meaningful holiday, using a December 25th mailout - so being nominated seems like a PRESENT - while then offering "discounted fees" is SKEEVY AF
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Also, let's back up to the apparent
@nytimes supporting quote used in the email body, as shown in screenshots earlier in this thread: "The prestige of such literary awards is immense for an author... awards drive up sales."Show this thread -
Typing the first line of that quote + "NY Times" into Google reveals, yes, a real NY Times article - one that was published in 1992, in reference to the National Book Award & Pulitzer Prize. IT'S A TWENTY-FUCKING-FIVE YEAR OLD ARTICLE YOU GUYS.http://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/16/business/the-media-business-even-in-book-awards-to-victors-go-the-spoils.html …
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The fact that this "award" is for something called the "New York Literary Magazine" is, of course, I'm sure, a mere coincidence, and NOT AT ALL a brazen ambush marketing tactic to make people think this site and the NY Times are related by including a 25-year-old quote.
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And then there's the pull quotes displayed next to the "distinguished award seal" and a pic of the trophy you might win, thereby directly implying that the quotes are about THIS award IN PARTICULAR. Except that, uh. They're not.
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This quote, from the Author Pub website, is easily findable: it comes from a blog post that literally doesn't mention this award at all, but is rather talking about award nominations in general. http://www.author.pub/Improving-book-sales.html …pic.twitter.com/xaONEBsnSM
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This quote, from Writers Digest, is likewise about the generic value of awards; however, it also mentions a few specific examples, none of which relate to THIS award. https://www.writersdigestshop.com/writing-contests …pic.twitter.com/xs7FbvUIec
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This quote from John Macrae, however, is a real doozy - not only is his quote, in context, talking about the National Book Critics Circle award, but the NY Times piece from which it comes was published in - wait for it - NINETEEN EIGHTY THREE. http://www.nytimes.com/1983/04/15/books/publishing-do-prizes-sell-books.html …pic.twitter.com/QHzow048M1
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This Independent Publisher quote is happily more recent, being from 2014, but still: it has jack shit to do with this SPECIFIC award. http://www.independentpublisher.com/ipland/SellMoreBooks_2014.pdf …pic.twitter.com/xweabUGQEK
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Have they managed to repurpose the same 1992 NY Times quote from the body of their email on their main page, too? Why, yes. Yes they have. http://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/16/business/the-media-business-even-in-book-awards-to-victors-go-the-spoils.html …pic.twitter.com/dsJx5nLcEu
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And then there's this quote, supposedly from agent
@julietpickering at @BFLAgency - though you'll note both her name and the agency's are misspelled. Her quote was specifically about awards helping publishers take on short story collections. http://www.thereviewreview.net/publishing-tips/always-winner-benefits-entering-writing-cont …pic.twitter.com/j2lB545bXw
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So, to recap: of the six pull quotes featured prominently at the top of the site, NOT A SINGLE ONE refers to the actual NY Literary Magazine Best Story Award.
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It's also worth glancing at their "Author Success" page, which lists - again - a number of quotes from the same articles used earlier, implying them to be the successes of THIS award, mixed in with others which seem, quite demonstrably, to be about other awards entirely.pic.twitter.com/Qq0UkVC7p9
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In conclusion, if you've received an email from these people, STEER CLEAR. This is a fucking scam operation if ever I've seen one, founded solely on the idea that ANY award nomination, no matter how obscure or dubious, might net someone an agent or a publisher.
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