FanStory

So there are word count limits on various submissions that are not properly labeled as limits rather they say "recommended". There will be an non-descriptive error, that will require you to contact support. The site itself is a technical nightmare, the banner reads "Since 2000" which is roughly the last time the site appears to have been updated. It wont let you try to submit until AFTER you have paid a significant subscription fee.

The site is unintuitive, technically faulty, and intentionally obstructive. I lost $100USD, DO NOT USE THIS SITE.

The site itself is fine. However, my issues with Fanstory are how challenging (or more accurately, impossible) they make cancelling a subscription. I signed up directly with a credit card, not PayPal. While on PayPal, there are ways to individually cancel, there is no such option on credit card. The site does NOT have a mange subscription option or anything of the sortd. Naturally, I sent multiple emails over the months to try and get my money back; they have literally replied to none of them. I first contacted them about cancelling 5 months ago in September, and have frustratingly watched $10USD drain out of my account each month for a site I do not use. Unless you intend to sign up for life, I wouldn't recommend this website.

I think the majority of the five star reviews given to FanStory on this site were written by the guy who owns it. Either that, or by people who have not yet figured out what a scam it is, and are thrilled by the "fluff" reviews other members provide as a means of earning themselves points they can use to promote their own work. Please carefully read the post of those who rated FanStory three stars or less, because they tell the true story. In any case, don't waste any money joining this site or paying to have your work promoted. See how well the site works for you if you aren't pumping money into it, and make your own decision after figuring out how it really works.

I was excited to try out FanStory, especially for their competitions, quick feedback, and "great people"--as noted in several reviews on this forum. Long story short: the website is... not good. The writing on the website is... not good. I hate to say that any writing is bad, but the site encourages bland, dentist-office-poster poetry. I've attached some examples below of what poetry looks like on the site. (There are also short stories, novelettes, novellas, and novels). I do not mean to bash any writer--I just think it is important for potential clients to see what kind of community they're joining.

I might also note that there are lots of highly insensitive poems about current events. I have read several haikus about George Floyd's murder, and other's about Breonna Taylor's. They are badly done and highly insensitive. If this matters to you, the site also pumps out Christian content. Lots of poems about prayer, repentance, faith.

And more so, as many of these reviews have mentioned, the site is a total scam. I recommend reading Mike P.'s review, "The more you spend, the higher you rank as a 'writer'?". You have to pay at least fifty or sixty dollars to even be noticed, and the reviews you receive will be bland, overly general, and not at all critical. I have NEVER seen someone give less than five stars. I think, also, for a price as steep as sixty dollars, one might expect at least a semblance of a nice website. It seems like it hasn't been updated since 2010--links lead to blank pages, fonts never match, and the site in general functions badly.

As a young writer, FanStory has been discouraging. The site encourages writers to tuck away their individuality and pay for attention. It's a breeding ground for stupendously mediocre work, churned out over and over again. I recommend finding another site to publish your work: perhaps HelloPoetry, AllPoetry, Medium, or Scribophile.

Paid for a month to check out the site's features, and it was a sad experience. From what I gathered, the more you spend there, the more coverage your own writing pieces receive, thus the more reviews and rank, awards, etc come your way in return.

Plus strange activities go on that did not seem ethical or honest to me. For example, within minutes of a contest voting booth going live, you can see top"writers" pieces be chosen in seconds - note the reviewers supposedly read ALL the entries in that amount of time, which is literally not possible. Newbies who did not pay to promote their entries, of course, were not at the top in this type voting scheme.(For more on the points/ $$ and member $$, read other feedback//reviews all over the web on FanStory).

Often feedback is weird, too. Example: you need to write a minimum of 150 characters on poems of maybe 2 lines in order for it to"count" towards rank and earn you points, member $, etc. Not much to say, so you have to get creative and write more than the writer did, at times. See more in other reviews.

Not a serious site for writers at all, in my humble opinion. It's not fair that the more $$ you have to spend there, the "better" writer you are? Not.

I recommend this: if you seek $ and credits, write to publish, sending your work to publishers, both online and off.
A magazine, blog or other credit would be much more valuable, and wouldn't cost anything except your time writing, which you'd do anyway at FanStory.

You can join writers' groups for real critique, too, and not get the "fluff" here.

A complete and total joke. I have to think that the ballot box was stuffed considering all the favorable reviews (C'mon, 5 stars that often?) As others have stated, it is not cost effective to belong to this site if you want constructive feedback... way too expensive.

By the way, I signed up -- and paid for -- for two years (as it was cheaper). When I reached my one year anniversary, Fanstory told me it was time to renew my membership. When I told them I had paid for two years (check their records) good old Tom basically told me to "prove it." Can you imagine that... they supposedly DON'T have the records of member transactions? I think it was simply a ploy to get me to pay again, if I couldn't provide proof that I had indeed paid for two years. I was able to prove I had paid for the second year, which really didn't matter at that point because I told them what they could do with their con-game disguised as a writing site.

There are many sites far more worthy of your hard earned dollars (and they will require far less of them too). Try writing.com, scribophile, and others. Just stay away from Fanstory. Your best interests are the LAST thing on their collective little minds!

I have come away feeling incredibly disillusioned with this website, and would warn anybody who thinks that they will 'improve' their writing and meet serious, professional people on this website to enrol in a writing course at an institute or university instead. I was primarily attracted to this website for its writing contests and the hope of encountering some good writing, but soon discovered its ugly side. Although the site claims that contests can be entered "for free", this is false and misleading. The site runs on a little capitalist system, where its members each have an account made up of a virtual currency - called "member dollars". These dollars can be earned by writing reviews on newly-posted stories or poems from other users, with new content paying a larger amount of currency to the reviewer (as an incentive for their input) in comparison to an older poem, which pays almost nothing and is thus pointless to review. This is how the 'five-minute feedback' promise by the website is achieved, but I find it utterly exploitative - reviewers of new content are motivated by the amount of currency they will be paid, and will hastily write a comment, often vague, positive and offering no real criticism, in order to earn the proffered amount of currency so they can pay the fees required to submit entries to contests or 'promote' their writing on the website. Thus, they are not actually reviewing the material for its merit, but for the virtual money it pays. The amount earned by a user in reviewing a piece, whether old or new, is disproportionately low in comparison to the fees required to enter a contest - a review will pay around 40-70 member cents, for example, but an entry fee for a contest will typically be around 5.00 member dollars for more. This means that you'll be reviewing other people's work more than what you'd paid your membership fee to do - writing and sharing your own work, and thus the membership becomes more of a job or responsibility than a source of fun or satisfaction. The only alternative to reviewing is to buy virtual currency over PayPal with real money, which should ring alarm bells about the nature this website.
The content I was made to review to earn a decent amount of currency was almost always poor or downright atrocious, and I often felt embarrassed and slightly sickened to be reading it. Many poems I read that had won contests were often clichéd and lame, and would not merit publication or praise in any decent or professional literary circle. The website also appeared largely composed of retirees or housewives who wanted to dabble in writing, rather than improve their craft or write on serious subjects, producing repetitive and boring poetry preoccupied with subjects such as fields of flowers, the ocean, loving embraces, ad infinitum... it is definitely not a place that will produce the next Sylvia Plath or Robert Frost! I made a comment on my profile complaining of the poor quality of the writing on the website and the positive reviews it got, only to be firmly reproved by one user who invoked the example of Dan Brown as proof that "one man's trash can be another's treasure". Be that as it may, it still provided no excuse as to why many writers on the website were using improper grammar and clichéd, sentimental themes. Other users agreed with thIS user's claims of the subjectivity of writing. However, I still think my concerns were founded and well-evidenced and that Dan Brown is complete rubbish, not serious literature.
To conclude, I must say that this website completely violates the creative spirit of writing - it will try to claim a profit from its users regardless of the quality or merit of their work. While FanStory sounds like a nice idea, it still has all the faults of a business firm - exploitation of its members (who effectively get sucked in to become workers), those who are willing to spend money have the most power and benefits etc. Even though you will pay quite a hefty membership fee considering what you get out of the website, it requires you to give back time and effort in doing something you didn't pay to do. As an example, it's like if YouTube suddenly required its users to review random videos from others, in order for us to be allowed to post our own videos. Wouldn't that encourage people to leave vacuous and pointless comments when reviewing, such as "This is good", as they are forced to watch content they are not interested in in order to make a personal gain? This is exactly what happens on FanStory - things are reviewed for the profit, not because a user likes a poem and wants to review it on its own merit.
All in all, it is a business designed to extract maximum profit from its users with little concern for creative merit or quality of writing. It's features may sound attractive and it may sound like a website genuinely interested in helping writers and making a collaborative community, but it completely hides the fact that it is a profit-making scheme.

The site is run by a megalomaniac and, unless you're ga-ga, wealthy or have oodles of time to spare (mayhaps doing porridge) or all three, is to be avoided!
Referring to a post by Aaron F earlier in this thread, regarding 'eats, shoots and leaves', i was banned for two days for bringing this blatant plagiarism to the attention of the aforementioned megalomaniac, Tom Ens, and, as Indie S. Said in a previous post, the little hitlerite makes the rules as he goes along, wringing his hands all the way to the bank. It is obvious to an amoeba's braincell he has no interest in poetry and writing. He's a moneygrabbing egoist. But, if you simply want a good ego trip and have the money but no talent, then, go for it!
Mind, having now dredged several writing sites, they're all pretty much the same, and should be avoided if you wish to improve as a writer.
Instead, why not send me £20! It'll save you lots of money and you'll be able to write like what i do and be as good as i do in know thyme a tall! Whoop-whoop!

Before signing up, I had a serious look at this site and was frankly horrified. I came away thinking there had to be some reason this guy is still in business. After a quick look at Alexa, I see that the majority of members are older people who have somehow been tricked into thinking writers should pay to publish their work. No, no, no. Sites like this are using people. They are NOT doing you a favor by publishing your work. If you want to learn how to write, you shouldn't be listening to reviews from others with no idea. If you want to be a writer, take a real course, learn your craft, and get paid for your work. If you don't care about quality and want people to stroke your ego for bad work, then maybe this is the site for you but it's going to cost you plenty in time and dollars.

Every review I've found gives this site a 5/5 and extols the virtues of the free reviews you can get. But you only get them if you sign up, which costs money. And, more interestingly, most of the reviews have links to other reviews that create a loop effect, allowing you to go from one to the next to the next then back to the first. I think these are really just nothing more then creative ads.

Fanstory is fine if you keep your mouth shut regarding sexual predators and contest cheats soliciting votes. When I tried to bring this to the attention of the site owner Tom Ens, I was treated with contempt, had my work consigned to the fanstorian crematorium and my account suspended numerous times. He reactivated my account after supportive poems from other members. Today he finally deactivated my account permanently because I had once again written a cryptic poem regarding a cheat who had procured votes and won the month of the poetry contest. The contest cheat identified himself in a review of an open letter to Tom Ens from another fanstorian poet who had written a letter in my defence,. The result was; her account 'temporarily' suspended and as I have already said, mine being deactivated permanently. The ratings system is a con. All you have to do is look at the poor quality of poets in the top 10. In particular - Mrs Happy at no 7 and Righteous Riter at no 4. Righteous Riter posts homophobic posts, such as The Writing on The Wall and shows no poetic skill. Despite protest from a 'minority', Tom Ens refused to condemn the post, Sadly, the majority supported his homosexual rant. He recently wrote another purporting to be Jesus Christ himself! Barely one objection out of over 100 reviews. There are many members on this site who are genuinely lovely people, have integrity and are talented writers, but they are not given the recognition they deserve. When disgusting sexually offensive remarks were made by one, Tom Ens refused to suspend this member's account. He is one who purports to be a Rabbi, but is not even Jewish. Tom Ens simply deleted his offensive remarks, although I had asked them to stand so others could be warned. The owner of this site has two years membership paid by me, but of course will not refund my money. He makes the rules up as he goes along and has his favourites, i. E., the members who pay the most money to promote their inadequate works. BE WARY!

Here's the dark side, the REAL story about Scamstory:

As an extensively published, well-known writer and magazine editor for decades, and a one-time ''Top Ranked Number One Author" on the Fanstory site, I can tell you with authority that Fanstory is NOT a legitimate writing site. It's a narcissistic little online reality show run by spiteful, cowardly, no-talent schoolyard bullies. With a few notable exceptions, most of the writing there is pure unpublishable garbage.

Fanstory's owner and Supreme Ruler For Life, is a despotic, draconian internet scam-artist who rules his little fantasy kingdom through fear, intimidation, repression of intelligent thoughts and ideas, and the deliberate encouragement of competitive discord between members.

A big part of his well-developed strategy is to divide and rule, just like a dictatorship, keeping members in line under the constant threat of Big Brother watching. This maniac has gone so far as to imply that he monitors the private email accounts of members, in order to revoke their membership for violating his ''site terms'' and speaking out about his atrocities, even in private.

Fanstory is an Orwellian nightmare. It's owner works his malevolent internet con-game through obvious favoritism to a few no-talent cronies and the iron-fisted enforcement of all sorts of arbitrary little rules, regulations and ''site terms'' which are exclusively and entirely subject to his own personal interpretation and whims.

Like the Wizard of Oz, this creep has raked in a fortune by feeding the egos of lonely pensioners and the like, bleeding their Paypal accounts dry by charging them a fortune to ''promote'' their work on the site. The more money they spend, the higher they rise in ''rank'', despite the overall poor quality of their work.

It's nothing but a scam, feeding on peoples' vanity. It's a classic case of The Emperor's New Clothes, where the few intelligent members who know what a corrupt little farce it all is are bullied into silence under the constant threat of expulsion if they so much as make a peep.

He's gotten away with terrorizing his shivering minions like this from behind a curtain of anonymity for years. Most of the members don't even know that the draconian who threatens them with expulsion for the most petty of infractions on a daily basis is a real person. In his narcissistic little fantasy bubble of illusory omnipotence, this money-hungry weirdo and his unfortunate subjects seem to have lost touch with the reality that there are real consequences in the real world outside of Fanstory, where unprincipled scam-artists like this can and will be held accountable for their crimes.

I, for one, am in the process of initiating a lawsuit against this abomination of a ''writer's site'' and its owner, for the many absurd outrages committed against me and my work during my time as a ''Top Ranked'' member there.

If you're looking for a real, legitimate writer's workshop online, avoid Fanstory like the Black Hole of Calcutta. Its advertising policy borders on criminally misleading, and the whole thing just stinks to high heaven. Through massive amounts of false advertising, they manage to make it look all pretty and innocent on the surface, but the reality is as dark and corrupt as it gets. An ugly, unwholesome little nightmare!

If your are serious about your writing, don't drink the Fanstory Kool Aid. This site is the absolute pits!

*[personal information redacted by admin]