youngwriters.co.uk > Reviews (2)

I never thought much of it when my daughter came home from school talking about entering a poetry competition, after all kids are always entering these type of things and they very rarely win. I was really surprised a few weeks later when an envelope came through the door telling me that my girl was a winner in the poetry competition and was going to be published in an anthology of the best young Scottish writers. I have always known that my girl is bright as well as beautiful, after all she takes after her mum but here was outside proof that she was smarter and more talented than the average kid!

I had to fill out a consent form to allow her poem to be published and send it back to young writers and then my girl would be a published writer. I was a bit concerned that she did not get given a free copy of the book, we had to pay £15 for that but since this was a competition organised through the school then it had to be genuine, after all surely the school wouldn't fall for a scam.

When my daughter went back to school to share her news with her classmates she discovered that they were all winners too. Either her school is so brilliant that it produces a huge amount of talented writers or the school has fallen for some kind of vanity publishing scam. Yup, you've guessed it, the school had been duped by this company too.

Youngwriters.co.uk is part of the Forward Press Ltd company who claim to be the largest publishers of new poetry in the world. This does not mean they are the publishers of the best new poetry in the world, simply that they run loads of competitions where everyone is a winner and gets published for a fee, in other words vanity publishing. Their main competitions seem to be run through primary schools where they woo the teachers with offers of free books of poetry if their pupils are winners as well as certificates and bookmarks for the kids who enter.

I have no objection to vanity publishing, it is really nice to have a copy of your or your child's work bound into a proper book as a keepsake, what I do object to is competitions where everyone is a winner and where the company is not honest and upfront about things before you enter. The website is vague about the competitions only promising that the best writers will receive a prize and be published and that all entrants will get a bookmark.

The school were full of apologies about the competition. Once the parents had been told out child's poems were to be published then we felt obliged to buy a book and the school negotiated a bulk deal where they would buy the books for £10 each passing on the savings to us. When the book arrived it was hardly worth the money, the 193 page paperback has a nice cover but with only one poem per page, some of them only 5 lines long, there is not much reading in there and of course I was only interested in the one page where my daughters poem was. A quick search of "Little Laureates" (the name of the book produced) shows 450 books being published in that series over the past couple of years each selling for £14.

99. Assuming most parents will buy at least one copy of the book you can see how this company make their money.

If you get told that your child's school is entering a competition run by www.youngwriters.co.uk then make sure you are aware that it is a vanity publishing scam and not a genuine competition. If the school wants to run their own poetry competition and get the kids work bound in a book form then there are sites like www.lulu.com where you can self publish for a small fee and still have a nice book to show for your efforts.

Please note that there is more than one organisation which goes under the name Young Writers, the one I am talking about in this review has a website at www.youngwriters.co.uk.

My daughter has asked me to print her poem here.

Colours by Jodie, age 11

Red is a brave and courageous feeling like the bullfighters in Spain
Orange is a hot and fiery feeling like the deepest parts of Hell
Yellow is a mad and crazy feeling like when I've drunk loads of Irn-Bru
Green is a happy, nourished feeling like the well fed lands of Earth
Blue is a lonely, abandoned feeling like a stray with no one to love
Indigo is a royal, rich feeling like the Queen sitting on her throne
Violet is a thinking, inventing feeling like building a million pound model

Colours are like a jail you can never escape.