Earlier today I posted up a very useful link to a blog talking about the scams and pitfalls of some writing competitions and routes to publication. It is Sally Quilford's blog and so people may know her from her competition calendar. She would like people to add any horror stories or just plain traps into which writers have fallen, so that other writers can be warned. There are a lot of places out there that simply dress up a version of self-publishing and sell it to us all.
I won't print the link again - I am a little cheesed off because I think that someone probably reported it as spam, which it is clearly is not. They obviously had not looked at the blog. It's an interesting subject and one in which any budding writer should take an interest.
If you would like to access it, you just google Sally Quilford.