[W.F. Lantry]

Michael makes an excellent point, which is that sales often have to do with factors external to the actual work. The famous story of the Rubaiyat is perhaps the best example. If you haven't heard it: Fitzgerald himself paid to have 250 copies printed, intending to sell each for 5 shillings. As Pound says, "The English Rubaiyat was still-born." Something like a total of six copies were sold. After a couple years, the bookseller put it on the remainder table. Asking price: one penny. It just sat there. If Swinburne hadn't happened to pop in and rifle through the bargain books, we wouldn't even know the text existed. But he talked it up to Rossetti, who talked it up to his sister, who talked it up to...

External factors. Accidents and mindshare and word of mouth and reputation, sponsorship by those who have already benefited from such accidents. Of course, people who benefit from such things tell themselves "It was no accident."

Sometimes I think it's best to simply focus on "the long game," and not worry about immediate figures. But that requires patience, and I'm one of the most impatient people around...

Thanks,

Bill

[Ed Shacklee]

Originally Posted by W.F. Lantry

.
Sometimes I think it's best to simply focus on "the long game," and not worry about immediate figures. But that requires patience, and I'm one of the most impatient people around...

What is this "long game" of which you speak?

It can't be too long: by then, either the worms will be explaining deconstructionist theory to me, or I'll be ankle-deep in boiling lava, wishing I'd been a better sort while I was alive. In either case, at that point the "long game" of poetry -- the unlikely immortality of canon-ization, perhaps? -- won't mean that much to me, I'm guessing.

But I think what you mean by the "long game" is what I would call the short game: writing the best poems you can, and letting the chips fall where they may.

I'm saddened to learn that some wonderful books I found out about here and enjoyed reading have generated such modest sales figures, plus a little shocked. I've heard good accounts of many of you as readers, and some of the poems in these books are touching, vivid, or incredibly funny; if they are read. There must be an audience for books like these, unless the people in the English-speaking world have all been turned into sheep. So what is the problem?


Ed

[Tim Murphy]

External factors, or as I would say, luck. A revered feature writer at the Mpls Star Tribune gave me a three page spread in the Sunday Living section, and Ploughshare spent the summer in the Amazon top ten Minnesota list. I didn't contact him, he sought me out. Unfortunately, he is long since retired! I checked on the new books: Mortal Stakes, 470 and Hunter's Log, 370, 8/11 through 5/12, and 11/11 through 5/12, respectively, worse than I thought.

But booksellers don't buy like they used to. Barnes and Noble ordered 700 copies of my first book and returned none. The new books they order in batches of fifteen. Amazon doesn't even buy that many.

[David Anthony]

Originally Posted by Ed Shacklee

What is this "long game" of which you speak?



I'm saddened to learn that some wonderful books I found out about here and enjoyed reading have generated such modest sales figures, plus a little shocked. I've heard good accounts of many of you as readers, and some of the poems in these books are touching, vivid, or incredibly funny; if they are read. There must be an audience for books like these, unless the people in the English-speaking world have all been turned into sheep. So what is the problem?


Ed

That's a generous comment, Ed.
I think the best publicity for poetry is word-of-mouth recommendation, particularly for Kindle which is so easy and so cheap. So if you like it, as they say, tell your friends; if you don't , tell The Management.

Best,

David

[Steve Mangan]

Sales such as they are - surely offering them free on kindle or other ebook format rather than buying them yourselves to give to friends and family makes more (financial) sense; with a print on demand option for people who still like a book option. (With no profit, or rather, with much personal cost, is there a point in going any other way?).

Colin Stewart Jones has just made his haibun collection "Basho has left the buidling' a free internet download, with a request to donate the cover price of $2.49 if one feels it worth it. If it gathers a single donation one suspects that is more than many do:

http://www.facebook.com/BashoHasLeft...aibunfreeEBook

[Mario Pita]

I self-published my book "Lyrical Emissary" through Createspace last year and found that it made a top ten of poetry sales, I mean I can count on my ten fingers with some to spare, how many copies have sold. I have given away quite a lot though, and it’s availabe for free online. Even if the book is extraordinary (which is debatable), I am terrible at marketing and am more interested in my book being read by someone who might get something out of it than in making the 32 cent or so royalty. I have also published some books of poems by my mother (Juana Rosa Pita) through Createspace, and though she is well known in the Spanish speaking world and in Italy and has sold many more books through other publishers, the sales of the self-published (print on demand) books has been poor, probably because of that lack of marketing.

I have bought a few books by Spherians, but admittedly I am a library junkie and have gotten more at the university library which I am able to keep for more than a year. Since there are doubtless many others like me with library predilections, sales, at least for those with books in libraries, are not the only measure of readership…

[Maryann Corbett]

My thanks too, Ed.

You ask: So what is the problem? It's a question that could be answered from lots of angles. Some of them end up being rants we conduct here regularly and repeatedly: The audience for poetry is too small; there's a prejudice against formal poetry which makes it hard to get the needed publicity; there are too many books being marketed to a small audience. I'm not claiming to agree with any of these positions; I'm just reciting a few of them.

All those are things that can go wrong. Among the things that can go right, one of the best is getting attention from a newspaper. To do that, it helps to have a book that's "on message" in some way with a topic currently popular with general audiences (Rachel Hadas on having a spouse with dementia; Rachel Wetzsteon on a woman's struggle to balance independence and intelligence with relationships; Jehanne Dubrow on having a spouse at war; Tony Barnstone on the Greatest Generation and its experiences) and to push that message.

Am I thinking out loud about what I might do differently in future? Well, perhaps. While I think Breath Control has lots to say to "sandwich generation" women, I could do more to present it in that light.

[John Whitworth]

I think Mario has the right idea. Give 'em away, or at least sell at a loss. Get people to READ the thing. I used to be a bean counter, but since I have retired and live off the state I've decided the peanuts (or the beans) I make or lose from book sales are neither here nor there. I wrote a book about writing poetry. The celebrity Stephen Fry wrote another. Mine is much better but his has much better sales. The only thing to do is BE A CELEBRITY. How that is done I haven't yet ascertained. I will tell Spherians when I know.

I could gun down a lot of people but that seems rather extreme. Besides, I don't have a gun and wouldn't know how to shoot one if I did. Back to the drawing board.

Jorge Luis Borges used to carry round copies of his book of poems and stuff them in the overcoats of men who were having a shave or a haircut. Have you tried that?

[Ann Drysdale]

Know what, my friends? I've given up.

I write it, kiss it, bless it - and let it go, helping it into others' hands by whatever opportunities Tim's "luck" may present. I have no agenda.

Apart from parking the odd volume of "Between Dryden and Duffy" in bookshops, between Dryden and Duffy - to make my point that the volumes routinely bought-in by the shops are either classics or secondary-syllabus, I do no self-promotion. I have neither the skill nor the stomach for it.

When the publisher of my first four volumes went out of business, I helped to sort out the backlog of submissions and permissions and get all the remaining volumes to their particular poets. I have all mine, in waterproof storage boxes, raised above the floor on a contrivance of bricks and planks. They have become furniture.

I am registered with Nielsen and if anyone orders my book, they pass on the request. It happens from time to time and the shop (often via a supplier) insists on a one-third discount. This is the same discount I had as an author, so there goes any profit. I then have to mail the thing and am immediately into negative equity (if that's the expression in this case).

"Sale or Return" is a sad procedure, since if they ever are returned they are in an unsaleable condition, though I did recently get a very nice cheque in euro for some that I left with a bookshop in Ireland after a Festival appearance.

My sales are direct. Any money so come by is a bit of unexpected bunce and enjoyed as such. The best opportunity comes at readings, where I usually sell quite a few copies, but I have to get the things there and as I have no car and use public transport I have to stash 'em in a shopping trolley and arrive at the venue like a bag-woman. And, yes, I have on occasion been challenged at the door and once (Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea) been refused admission to my own reading since I was clearly an undesirable, trying to sneak in free for the open mic.

For me, one of the happiest ways of capitalising on my stockpile is the direct swap with fellow-poets. That way I get signed copies for the cost of the postage, as do my swappers. And to give books as gifts to people who will actually value them and, more importantly, read them, is a privilege I don't take lightly.

I don't see online publication as a threat to my sales figures and am proud to be chosen by editors abroad, who have introduced me to a readership that would otherwise have never heard of me.

Other, non-poetry books are no great generators of income, either. On the most recent ones, I have donated the royalties back to the publisher, they pay me in other people's books; and then there's that gonzo guidebook to Newport whose sales still haven't covered the advance... Heigh-ho.

[Janice D. Soderling]

What I have learned from this thread is to forget about any future book publication of my own work. What it all boils down to, for me, is that even if my work is good enough to publish (which one can't be sure of until the deed is done), the author has to promote it and it is a huge disadvantage not to live in an English-speaking country. Promoting an English-language book in Sweden isn't opportune.

We have a completely different system, similar to the one John mentioned. I think Canada is also the same.

Apart from the authors being eligible for working grants and subsidies, the state invests in writer welll-bding by buying books (especially those not expected to have a big market--such as poetry) to insure that they are put in the public libraries and thus available to the general public. The Swedish authors are entitled to money from library lending statistics.

In the US, it seems to be winner take all. Little room for the merited, talented struggling poet who needs a subsidy or a spouse to find writing time away from day jobs and family chores, but huge rewards for the firmly established. I don't begrudge them, heaven knows, who is more talented than A.E. Stallings who deserves every peso she gets. But it may be that I am ill-informed about options for talented beginners outside academia, which seems to be a kind of booster system all its own.

However our current government is extremely anti-culture and has set itself the task to dismantle much of the system in favor of corporate sponsoring as in sports (which also traditionally has been subsidized by the government). Pehaps that means conducting poetry reading in a tee-shirt that has ERICSON on the front and IKEA on the back and a hat imprinted with "Writers support the Conservative Party".

I think I will switch from writing poetry to translating poetry. There may be opportunity to cover some of my expenses if I do that--and do it well enough. Otherwise it is best to see poetizing as a hobby preferable to wine-tasting, or knitting teapot warmers.