$40,000 FieldReport Award Deadline is Sunday

[foggycity]

You have until midnight Sunday (PST) to post your true-life story of 2,500 words or less on www.fieldreport.com. FieldReport is a new web site that awards significant cash prizes for the best in personal writing. This call for submissions is for FieldReport's pre-launch beta period, and the deadline is approaching fast.

Prizes are awarded at noon PST on July 1, 2008. To enter, go to www.fieldreport.com <http://www.fieldreport.com>  and type in the password “truelife” (the word, not the quotes). To submit, each participant must create a login and rate other pieces on the site. All submissions must be true (nonfiction) stories that actually happened to the author.
 
First prize: $20,000 for the top-rated story of true-life experience, as determined by quality rankings of the FieldReport community of reviewers. Category prizes: $1,000 for the top-rated story in each of 17 story categories and 2,000 for the winning story in two categories: Brush With Fame, and Travel + Nature.

Good luck and thank you for participating in our beta contest. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to email us at info@fieldreport.com.

[Xerika]

Dear Mr/Mrs/Ms Foggycity,

I do believe you should be more subtle with your scams as this is rather too obvious.

Firstly, you insult serious writers by giving them a few days' notice for your deadline.

Secondly, I visited your webshite [sic] and decided not to enter your 'password' as there is no  reason for that unless you want to delve deeper until you discover my credit card number, etc.

Thirdly, $40,000 in prize money is most unlikely for a 2,500 word piece.

Goodbye and thanks for all the sloblocks [anagram].

P.S. Merely my opinion of course, but I doubt there'll be many MWC members that will take you up on this as they are all far too intelligent to fall for it.

[Wurdsmyth]

Hee hee, brilliant reply, Xerika 

It's about time these flippin' scamsters got their comeuppance - successfully defeated by the deadly blows of wit, intelligence and devastatingly sharp prose! Aha! Take that, you scoundrels!! 

Wurdsmyth x

[Big T]

Dear Mr/Mrs/Ms Foggycity,

I do believe you should be more subtle with your scams as this is rather too obvious.

Firstly, you insult serious writers by giving them a few days' notice for your deadline.

Secondly, I visited your webshite [sic] and decided not to enter your 'password' as there is no  reason for that unless you want to delve deeper until you discover my credit card number, etc.

Thirdly, $40,000 in prize money is most unlikely for a 2,500 word piece.

Goodbye and thanks for all the sloblocks [anagram].

P.S. Merely my opinion of course, but I doubt there'll be many MWC members that will take you up on this as they are all far too intelligent to fall for it.

I can see the earthquake in Greece did have an epicenter!
Thanks for 'heads-up' Xerika, I was going to take a peek ... not now!

[foggycity]

My name is Stephanie Losee and I am the editorial director for FieldReport. I am an author and journalist who lives in San Francisco; I invite you to Google me or visit my website (www.stephanielosee.com) to verify that I am a real person.

We at FieldReport have received many skeptical reactions like yours to our call for submissions. If you look earlier on this string, you will see that this is not, in fact, our first post on My Writers Circle. We posted the deadline for the contest in May and the purpose of my current post is to remind the readers of the forum that there are not many days left to enter the contest.

FieldReport is conducting a pre-launch beta contest for true-life stories, which is why the site is currently password-protected. If you go to the site and type the password truelife, you can look up the launch team under About Us. You will see that everyone there has a long track record in business, tech, or journalism.

We take pride in the fact that even our pre-launch beta contest award is richer than any other on the Net. First prize is $20,000, and there are 17 category prizes totaling another $20,000. Winners are ranked by users on the site through a blind-reviewing process. There is no fee to enter the contest. Just read 5 pieces, rate them, and you can post.

Since there are so few people on the site during our pre-launch beta, the odds that any individual writer will win the prize are high. I encourage you to try. And although there are only a few days left, many writers have a true-life story or blog of something that happened to them lying around. If you have a piece on hand that you haven't placed or can't place elsewhere, and it's 2,500 words or less (shorter pieces tend to do better, by the way), you can still enter.

I encourage you to send any questions you have to info@fieldreport.com. We are not a scam, we are a funded web launch. And we will never ask you your bank account information!
Regards,
Stephanie Losee for FieldReport

[Big T]

Guys ... I have been across and taken a look.
The site requires you to log in, the usual stuff of name, password and email address.
On entry it is evident that the site is well organised.
There are submissions that are available for you to read and, if you wish, review.
I did one review, received one 'review credit' ... have to figure out what this is for?
I was asked if I wanted to do another ... I declined at this time and logged out.

The website looks kosher to me ... and ... I was pleased to discover that the standard of writing is not bad!
Terms and conditions at the following link

http://www.fieldreport.com/legal/submissionagreement.htm

[Nick]

As a general comment, can I ask members not to be too hasty about jumping in with claims of 'scam' any time a new opportunity is posted here.

Obviously, everyone should apply their own 'due diligence' before submitting work, and especially before parting with any money (FieldReport aren't asking for any cash, by the way). And it is perfectly legitimate to ask questions about opportunities posted here if certain aspects are not clear.

However, I do NOT wish to see vituperative and unjustified attacks on people posting new opportunities here. For one thing, I am keen to attract more people to post details of writing opportunities on this site, so that all members may benefit. If potential publishers see this type of thing going on, they may well decide that MWC is not the place for them. Thus, members may lose out on hearing about new outlets for their work.

If you are genuinely concerned about the legitimacy of an opportunity, the best thing is to contact me or one of the moderators, and we will look into it. Or, if you have genuine evidence that something isn't right, you can of course post it. But please think very carefully before traducing anyone posting details of an opportunity here just because you don't like the look of it for some reason. This is not helpful to other members or the reputation of MWC in general.

Thank you 

Nick

[Xerika]

Point taken, Nick. My apologies to all concerned.

[SteveJ]

Merely my opinion of course, but I doubt there'll be many MWC members that will take you up on this as they are all far too intelligent to fall for it.

Aw, poop...I'd already written 2000 words... 

[Big T]

I've posted!

[domenic]

Stephanie Losee is a published author with Seal Press; which is part of the Perseus book group.
Seal press is a publisher of books by women for women...the other publishers take on fiction and non-fiction.
They have been around for many years...some members who have manuscripts ready to submit may want to look at this group.

[Xerika]

Domenic, next time I'll ask you first before I jump in feet first as you seem to know a lot about this sort of thing.

Mea culpa.

[eric]

Everybody knows I don't do research, so I didn't look at the website, but Stephanie sounds like a legitimate, stand-up person, and Dom and Nick both vouch.  I think this thing is legitimate and would be surprised if it is not as stated.

True that the outfit seems to want to throw money at us, which is at least a little unusual, but they don't seem to be breaking any laws or intruding where they should not.  Innocent till proven! 

T, you of all the 17 people I know have many interesting life stories, and I think this dealy-bobber sounds custom made for you.  Don't know what the competition is like, but I'll be very interested in seeing how you do.  Please keep us posted.

And Stephanie, if you happen to read this, thanks from a writer for thinking of us with your offer.

p.s., On a whim I looked at Stephanie's website and decided I liked her.  So I looked at the outfit's website just to verify what I said.  And you know what, I was right.  They're good.

[EloiseElaine]

I just wanted to log on and tell you that I was a category winner for Field Report. I received a $1000 check in the mail, which I deposited in the bank. Field Report is not a scam. And it is great fun to write, read, and rate. Many published writers are a part of the process and you will find that for the most part, the quality rises to the top. You should try it!
EE

[Gyppo]

That's good to hear, Eloise ;-)

You may have a bit more competition next time around now that the cynics and doubters have been reassured ;-)

Gyppo