•• $80 Article contest!! ••

It's very unprofessional to start labelling people as scammers. Especially as your accusations are completely unfounded.

It will do your reputation much harm and you will begin to find it difficult to do business online where your reputation counts for a lot.

 

Hello,

Thanks everyone for your interest in this Trout Fishing article contest. I am looking forward to receiving your entry.

The prizes

1st position - $50
2nd position - $20
3rd position - $10

Topics

# Trout Fishing Accessories
# Trout Fishing Clothing
# Trout Fishing Flies
# Trout Fishing DVDs and Books
# Trout Fishing Fly Boxes
# Trout Fishing Fly Line Backing
# Trout Fishing Fly Lines
# Trout Fishing Nets
# Trout Fishing Reels
# Trout Fishing Rods
# Trout Fishing Sunglasses
# Trout Fishing Tippets
# Trout Fishing Waders And Boots
# Trout Fishing Tackle Bag

Recommendations

In this contest it will be better to focus in on a particular aspect of one of these topics rather than talking about the topic in general.

Feel free to PM me the title of your article before you start writing it. I will tell you if it looks like a good title/topic.

I will answer any questions that you have about the contest or the style of articles. Just PM me!

Format

You can PM me your article or email it to me as a word document. The email to submit articles to is .

Rules

By entering this competition you agree to the rules.
Articles must be unique.
Articles must be 500 words minimum, 750 maximum.
Each participant can enter the competition as many times as they wish.
Payment will be made by Paypal but is flexible if you wish to have payment by another method such as cheque.
The contest will end at midnight, on Sunday 12th April 2009. The winners usernames will be displayed in the forum thread within 48 hours of the contest ending.

Article must have been written by the entrant and copyright held by the entrant.
When you submit your article the copyright passes into my ownership.

Thanks everyone who has already registered!

Good luck !!
Notting

 

How are you going to determine the winner when there are several sub categories? Usually a contest entails one subject and whoever masters the topic or whatever would win.

Interesting angle I must say..

 

Its a contest..if you send him your articles, then their his, of course his ploy is to get as many articles as he can, award those that are the best, and still use the other ones...otherwise why not just go over to the content creation and hire you want to write your articles. Its a contest, if you do not want him to have your aritlces, then do not participate in the contest, its fairly simple. this is no different then the other "logo/banners/image" contents, of course they are going to keep and use anything they can, because they are trying to get as much content as they can before the contest ends, its simple.

This sums it up:

"When you submit your article the copyright passes into my ownership."

 

To everyone who plans to join:

If you think you are an extremely good writer and have full confidence that you are going to win, then by all means go ahead, but if you are not 100% sure of your skills as a writer and not in favor of the "copyright" rule given, then don't join. It'll just be a waste of time for you anyway.

 

This might not be a scam, but it is unethical and unfair to the non-winners.

Just a few thoughts:

1. How do you judge which article is the best and how will a writer knows that the winning article is actually better than his or her submission?
2. Will you be posting the winning article on the forum so that we can see that it is actually THE best entry? Maybe with an image file of the article?
3. How do we know that the winning entry is not actually a friend of yours with a rubbish article? (I think that's where no. 2 is fair)
4. If you think that 75% of the writers on DP are crap, surely 75% of the entries are crap too? Why do you need to keep the copyrights to these crappy articles anyway? To correct the mistakes and use the articles again?

I think that this is a clever way to make money. You can possibly get hundreds of articles for a mere $80. Very clever but very unethical too. Only $80 to get all the contents you need for a Trout Fishing website. This is true because the OP has made it clear that he will use the non-winners' articles on his websites.

I think the fairest thing to do is to pay the the winners their prizes and buy the articles / entries that you like at a fixed price. And of course, leave the crappy articles alone. At least the writers get to re-use their articles even if you don't like it.

Just my two cents though.

 

I would recommend that you let writers retain copyrights to their works. When you aren't paying them for the copyrights, how can you retain rights to the works? You cannot publish the work for which you aren't paying for! the writers efforts and time are wasted if you aren't paying them! I truly agree with Senobia and ToTellAStory on this point! Certainly! You know you are exploiting gullible writers here who think $50 / $80 is a great amount! I wished the writers knew your ploy!

I don't think this is a scam but sheer exploitation of dp forums and it's writers!

 

And what will you do with the articles that don't win?
Do you know that content is king? why are you trying to get my King for nothing?

 

Were the 'winners' ever announced?

 

on the 12th supposedly..

 

Ladies and Gentlemen,

This contest has now come to an end. It certainly sparked some controversy amongst the DP community.

Obviously $50 was not enough to tempt people to enter the contest and there were no entries!!

Thanks
Notting

 

What is the fuss all about???

The buyer wants quality content and he has found an effective way to weed out the "Indian writters" who want dollors in exchange for good articles they write in spotless inglish that is speechless.

He is not forcing Wall Street writers to enter his contest. ALSO, scam is when you cheat. He has clearly stated that he will own the copyrights; I don't see cheating here.

I'm a writer and don't see foul play. All I see is a shrewd buyer who wants quality content and a little more. Have you seen American Idol? A bunch of people sing on the show but only one wins. According to you the rest of them should ask for similar remuneration or sue the company and ask their screen time + singing talent to be taken off air. (They own the copyright and they never won! Why should the production house benefit from them?).

I'm sleepy but I think i got my point across.

 

Actually, this is a poor example. The singers on American Idol are not singing their own songs. The writers or copyright holders of the songs that are sung on the show however do get paid for the use of what they wrote, regardless of who wins the show.