Dear All,

It's quite easy to hit a search 'publishing writings" on Google and getting hundreds of results that lead to numerous sites that claim to publish worthy content by budding writers... However it takes a keen eye and experience in the writing sphere to be able to judge which ones are authentic and which ones are not... There seem to be a lot of sites which have contests for story writing and poems with an entry fee of $5 and a winning prize of $400-$1000 many a times... Are all of these true? If anyone of you have had prior experience in submitting your work in such sites,please let me know... I wouldn't mind if I loose but I would rather loose in a fair battle than have my work lost in an oblivion of false hopes... Thanks in advance... If the mention of any site names seems like giving publicity unwillingly to those sites,please include the same as a private message to me...


Looking forward to a lot of help from stalwarts and experts in writing and other field... Thanks in advance

As a general rule, I'd say not to bother with competitions that have an entry fee. There are a couple of good ones that do, but make sure you recognise the names of the judges and see what proportion of the top entries get published and how widely.

Many magazines and newspapers will accept submissions from non-professional writers if they are of good quality. And they'll pay!

Zoetrope is the only legit one I can think of at the moment. Buy or check out from your library a book called Writer's Market [for the current year]. At the back are pages and pages of contests and info about entry requirements and if entry fees are necessary.