Great News! Well, not for me. At least it's not Scientology SPAM

Okay, I'm starting to get tired of Writers of the Future. I get an email every other day from them. All trying to sell their books and Hubbard's reprints. I know they're out there. I have a number of them in my library. You (Author Services Marketing People) tell me I have to think of WotF as a market, then please stop the SPAMming.

Today's email was

Contest Finalists Announced

Hello,

Hi, welcome to the internet and mail merge lists. You have my name, please address me as such.

I have some really exciting new news for you regarding our most recent winners and finalists for 2007.
Read on….

Oh, I will. I have a story into you all for last quarter's contest (that you're reading now). Oh, BTW, ellipses are only three (3) periods and no comma. There's no reason for the ellipses here.

First Quarter 2007 Contest Finalists Announced
The first quarter finalists for what will be published in Writers of the Future Volume 24 were just announced and the names for both the Writers and Illustrators Contests are included. From these names, the 1st quarter winners will be chosen:

WOTF First Quarter 2007 Finalists
Eugene Myers - New York, NY
Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon - Allendale, MI
David Parish-Whittaker - Encinitas, CA
Z.S. Adani - Boca Raton, FL
Laura Bradley Rede - Minneapolis, MN
Ayne Terceira - Gainesville, FL
Patrick Lundrigan - Boonton, NJ
January Mortimer - Middlesex, England

ILOF First Quarter 2007 Finalists
Stephen Stanley - Eugene, OR
Mark Koralchuk - Rostov-on-Don, Russia
Doronin Andrey Nikolaevich - Omsk, Russia
Diana Hsu - Middletown, NJ
Robert J. Hall, Jr. - Gilbertsville, NY
Alexandra Szweryn - Brisbane, Australia

Congratulations to all of you!

Well, uh, yeah, uh, congrats to all of them. But WTF? You posted this on your blog back on April 23 and First QTR results? That closed for submission Dec 31, 2006 and you should have known at the end of March 2007. Excuse me? How about 2nd QTR results, you know, the quarter that ended submissions March 31 and you should be reading your way through right now. This isn't "exciting news" this is stale news release with coffee stains, random scribbles, and phone number without a name and a missing corner-edge.

About the game of getting published, Writers of the Future judge Robert J. Sawyer says:

And here begins the "buy our book package and get five free gifts," no doubt one of which is a set of ginsu knives. And "game?" WTF are you? Are you tapped into the publishing world (I know Sawyer is, maybe you should have him write these emails). Don't you know that this phrase is a red waving flag that says, "high, we're a vanity press. We don't know any more about publishing than you do, but we'll convince you otherwise and take your money."

WotF has the best return (i.e. pay) for short SF/F fiction other than Playboy and more mainstream markets that sometimes print Spec Fic. I still qualify to submit stories. So I still submit. However, I'm rethinking that strategy. Yeah, winning would be a nice feather in the cap, as well as money in the bank, but if you keep acting this way, your reputation may not be worth it.