Help Editors Contact us Privacy Report Terms About

About


The overview

PoetBay is a poetry website where you can publish your poems and short stories.

This website started as a project to provide a safe haven for authors. The ambition is to make PoetBay a meeting place for English-speaking/writing authors interested in publishing and improving their writing. One of the most important aspects is to enable authors to receive feedback on their works and thereby develop their skills.

The hope is also to provide a positive climate where you can enjoy the company of like-minded companions.

The backstory

PoetBay was born in 2005 and is a translated copy of a popular Swedish website for publishing poetry and short stories which saw its online beginnings in 2003 (also still active today). From 2005 to 2007, both websites were still managed by their creator, Johannes, until he very unfortunately had to leave his projects for personal reasons. The two websites have long ago not been associated (and are now completely different), but we feel it's an important part of PoetBay's past that can't go unmentioned.

From 2007 to 2009, PoetBay was in a bit of an uncertain limbo acquiring a few different new owners who, for whatever reasons, didn't last very long in pursuing the project. Around the end of 2009, things became critical and it was apparent to every PoetBay member that the website was in real danger of going offline permanently.

In order to avoid that fate, a long-time member of the site jumped in to save it by first buying it and then by figuring out how to make the whole thing work! This sort of technical knowledge was unknown to her as the new owner (Anna, 2009-2020). Also out of a desire to not see our beloved PoetBay disappear, the current owner (who has been a long-time member of the site) along with another long-time member reached out to Anna to volunteer their technical support (2009- ).

They all figured it out together and so here is PoetBay still around today.

It's with a lot of pride that we've been able to keep PoetBay going for the community all of these years and that we continue to be able to do so. For as long as our wonderful PoetBay community will want to use the site is for how long we'll carry on.

The volunteer model at PoetBay

PoetBay isn't a business. It solely relies on, the community's contributions in order to keep it online, along with the volunteer participation of members who give of their time to help manage community-based parts of the site. It's a personal project born out of love for writing and for the joy of sharing about it with others. Our only goal is to make that possible for all writers out there.

In exchange for our members' volunteer financial contributions, we offer the Supporter account which gives members access to more functionalities on the site and also removes any account limits. In addition, we also in our free time maintain the website, offer support to our members, as well as continue to develop and improve the website for the community.

In a nutshell, PoetBay is a collaborative effort between the members, the volunteer members, and the administrators.

The people behind PoetBay

For current information about these details, visit the Editorial Team's presentation page.

The Free account

Because PoetBay uses considerable resources such as bandwidth, internet servers, and databases, we place limits on our regular Free accounts to ensure not too many of our limited resources are being used. Had we more means, these limits wouldn't be necessary, but unfortunately, it's not PoetBay's situation at this time.

The Free account provides these following features, which will allow you to :

  • Write and publish 5 texts per week (texts can be selected by the Editors to be featured on the home page)
  • Write and save a total of 125* texts in your archive
  • Send 25 private messages per week
  • Save 100 private messages in each of your boxes
  • Create poetic writing challenges for the community
  • View which of your texts has been applauded by others

* once you reach that limit, you'll need to delete some of your texts in order to make room in your account to save new texts. Optionally, you can upgrade to a Supporter account to remove the limits and obtain extra features.

There is also our Persona feature which is available to all PoetBay members. This means that all authors who have a creative persona are allowed to open a second Free account in that persona's name.

The only basic conditions are :

  • to contact the Editorial Team before its creation,
  • provide a mention by way of a message* clearly indicating on the secondary account's presentation page that it's a second account.

* the required message is in order to remove/avoid confusions in the community and make it clear the account doesn't belong to a completely new member who has newly arrived to the site.

The Supporter account

It is entirely voluntary to financially contribute and it is not a requirement for being a member of PoetBay. If you enjoy the site, and if you wish, you may choose to contribute as a supportive member to help cover the yearly online costs and obtain a Supporter account . There are two options of contribution : 3 months or 12 months (if renewed before expiry, 4 months and 13 months).

The Supporter account provides these following features, which will allow you to :

  • Write and publish an unlimited number of texts per week (texts can be selected by the Editors to be featured on the home page)
  • Write and save an unlimited number of texts in your archive
  • Send an unlimited number of messages per week
  • Save 500 private messages in each of your boxes
  • Write an extended & more decorated presentation
  • Create a unique address for your page, ex.: www.poetbay.com/bill
  • Create books from your texts with a picture cover (books can be selected by the Editors to be featured on the home page)
  • Create poetic writing challenges for the community
  • Present your art or photography as exhibitions (pictures from exhibitions can be selected by the Editors to be featured on the home page)
  • Illustrate your texts with images
  • View a log of visitors to your page
  • View which of your texts has been bookmarked and/or applauded by others

If you wish to contribute, it is simple. From your account on your My Page, click the link inviting you to obtain a Supporter account and become a supportive member. All payment transactions are handled by PayPal.