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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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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