[Michael Juster]

I thought I'd spread out a little here answering the questions to make it easier to have coherent threads. Tim: I'm glad you raised that point. First, you're absolutely right in everything you said. Second, there are consequences to your point. One is that if you are fortunate enough to have a book, you owe it, if not to yourself, to likeminded formalists and their supporters to go out and work like Hell to sell the book so that others will get published in the future. We have an exceedingly fragile infrastructure supporting our work, and I think we are a bit cavalier about the continuity of Story Line, The Formalist, Able Muse, and the other primary vehicles for our work. One of the reasons I made the impassioned plea here a few months ago for people to go out and start Powow-type groups is that people like Tim and Wil Mills with the new book out at Story Line don't have places to go to spread the word about their work and sell some books. So go out and do it like Rhina did!!!!

[Kate Benedict]

Ah, but what will your publisher do to get your book onto the shelves? I searched in vain in stores for Alicia's book. If it's not available in NYC, a prime market for poetry, where is the hope of selling copies? And will they publish your book in an affordable trade paper edition?

Barnes and Noble devotes a good deal of shelf space to poetry but the selections often seem out of whack somehow. Even when a "best-selling" poet sells out (Angelou, Olds), often you don't see the volume being reordered. U of Pitt threw a hissy fit when Collins wanted to use poems from his first book in his Random House New & Selected -- but really, how dare they, when you NEVER saw the Pitt book in stores. Fordham U at Lincoln Center has been running a po book contest for a couple of years now; I have yet to see one of those books for sale in the B&N across the street.

B&N.com and Amazon have the potential of being lifesaving for poetry but how to exploit this?

The sad fact is, the talents that make a poet don't always co-exist with rah-rah sales talents. It's the publisher's job to sell the book; that's what publishing means, getting it out there! Otherwise they are merely printers.

I fear that the publishers are hamstrung by a non-profit mentality instead of the gung-ho and go that is required. Selling 2,500 copies of a of prize-winning book should not be that daunting when you factor in chain stores, independent stores, dot coms, college stores, direct mail, direct email, and libraries. But then, they would need to devote some resources to selling, wouldn't they?

What is the equation? -- Poetry-never-sells mentality + Built-in windfall from contest fees = No sales effort at all?

[Tim Murphy]

Kate, Mike: I've had four trade publishers, first McDowell. He's never hired a marketing person, and that's why the press is imperilled. Robert expects the distributor to do the marketing, and that doesn't work. Ohio UP published Ploughshare, and they did much better, having a fine publicist named Richard Gilbert, marketers, etc. But they really hustled to sell 4500 copies. Very Far North is Waywiser in London, distributed by Dufours Editions over here. We'll see how that works out. I know we'll do well in the States, because as Mike charges us, "I work like hell," not for any financial consideration but out of sheer gratitude that anyone would pursue the impecunious business of publishing me. What excites me to no end though, is book four, which is really Alan's book. Longman is printing 55,000 copies of the Wulf. The anthology version will be read by literally millions of kids. They have 100 on-staff sales reps who are paid between $75,000 and $150,000 per year. Serious salesmen! Longman sells $50 million of literature per year. They're in a whole different league from my previous trade book publishers, and again, we'll see how it goes. Of course the Wulf is a great epic poem, and we contemporaries can't expect such efforts on our behalf.

Kate, the economics are simply ruinous, and the plain fact is that the poet has to do all the work. For no pay. I'm reading for Shameless O'Clawson, The Pow Wows (third time!) and Groliers in November. Total honoraria: $300. Plane ticket: $600. I'm asking American University for a paid gig, and Johns Hopkins likewise, in the hopes of hitting DC as well as Boston and maybe breaking even. So it goes.

On the other hand poetry is paid attention to by brilliant minds, few as they are. My guess is that 13 reviews are completed or in process for VFN, by the likes of Lake, Wakefield, Nicol, etc. This strikes me as a likelier strategy than my old one, hoping for posthumous publication!

[Michael Juster]

Kate: While I agree with you about the skillset mismatch, we still need to force ourselves to do it--the small presses just don't have the critical mass to do it for us. Barnes & Nobles is not going to put our books on the shelves until people ask for them, and people won't ask for them unless we create vehicles--reading series, radio shows, Internet sites, newspaper columns and the like--that expose new readers to what we want to write. And (to continue a friendly disagreement with my buddy Bob Clawson) we need specifically formal-friendly outlets because otherwise we're going to keep getting shut out.

[Robert J. Clawson]

Tim,

Shameless O'Clawson only persuades, shamelessly, the Acton Memorial Library to hold poetry readings. The library will pay you a $250 honorarium. Normally, the November reading is for local or regional poets who have no significant travel expenses and zero for lodging, so the $250 honorarium is one of the higher in this area. Anne Sexton, who got top dollar during her touring years, got paid zip to read to a full house at Sanders Theater, Harvard University. Harvard considered that it was her honor to read to them.

The matter of money varies wildly in this, as in any art. My wife just sold a painting for $4,000. Two weeks later it won first prize in a national show judged by the curator of the Guggenheims, worldwide. Had she not already sold the painting, its value would have jumped significantly.

After Sexton won the Pulitzer Prize, her fee jumped. I bring this up because Acton Memorial Library runs one other poetry event, Robert Creeley Day, which awards the Robert Creeley Prize. Creeley grew up in Acton and claims to have learned to read at the library. Creeley, whose fee runs up to $6K, read for nothing at Acton Memorial Library. On top of that, he received the Robert Creeley Award of $1K. With the $1K he was "obliged" to buy his selections for the AML collection. At the library discount, that's about $1,300 worth of books. He's just completed his selections and each bookplate bears his name and signature, a Robert Creeley Selection, 2001. Creeley loved doing this, because before we found out he grew up here, the library shelved NONE of his books. A townie without a shelf!

Now, the library's poetry collection is wild with Creeley's mentors and cronies. A genuinely odd collection, sort of humpbacked. Presumably, as we continue the practice of presenting this award, the collection will balance out. This year the Robert Creeley Award goes to Galway Kinnell.

Kinnell's fee, because he isn't travelling far, is just $3K, plus travel and lodging expenses. He'll fill a 140-seat room, as did Creeley. It's a ticketed event, but free.

He'll also have less of a burden buying books (with Creeley Award/Kinnell 2002, signed bookplates), $500 this year. It's not easy for busy older people to spend the clerk-time required to select books.

Kinnell charges $6,000 "elsewhere." He's got a two-tier fee. His reputation, his reading skill, and his Pulitzer and National Book Award allow him to MAKE money reading.

The same is true with Billy Collins, who charges $8K per reading and is booked for 52 readings in 2002.

In order to raise the $$, AML has to use several funding agencies and its Friends Association. They've bought into the concept because it helps build the library's collection. Also, I've persuaded them to start building an endowment because I want them to be able to pay higher fees with greater ease, not only for the Creeley event, but also for the November event, which is currently stalled at $250, plus other events that I hope will develop.

Kinnell will read April 17 @ 7:30 in the Town Hall, Room 204. Tickets required.

Murphy will read sometime in November, as soon as the bastid sends me the DATE (which I've forgot). I'm pleased to note that my town library is paying almost 85% of his honoraria. We've never seen a North Dakotan.

Utterly Shameless O'Clawson

[Tim Murphy]

Hey Bob! I'm mightily grateful for the $250. That'll more than cover three nights' lodging with Rhina! I just donated my $500 honorarium from the Detroit Lakes library to purchase the Glasrud collection. Glasrud is a 90 year-old friend for whom my Dad and I helped fund an endowed lecture at Moorhead State University. Detroit Lakes is his home town. And I had a blast reading from the honorees of Soc's lecture: Sam Gwynn, Dave Mason, Charles Martin, Dana Gioia, Tim Steele, Dick Davis, and yours truly. That's how the game is played, and little Detroit Lakes now has a better library of contemporary formalism than has the university where the lecture is delivered. So Acton will be right up my alley.

[graywyvern]

a radical suggestion (somewhat off the point): what
if every poet wrote a book review every time they
published a poembook? i think at the moment the ratio
must be close to 1:1000...

[Caleb Murdock]

Interesting thread.

I don't think that people will start going into book stores and start asking for specific poetry books because it's just so much easier to find such books online. If the person looking for a book found out about it at a poetry reading, he already knows where to get it (from the author). If he found out about it from a review, then he can contact the publisher.

From what I've read about book publishing, it seems that no one makes any money off a book that sells only 5,000 copies. Publishers need to sell tens of thousands to make money, so there is little incentive to publicize. I think the real problem is that poetry as entertainment has been replaced by other media, and thus it has become less popular. In the last century, there was no TV, radio or high-fidelity equipment. For home entertainment, people were limited to games, singing, playing instruments, and reciting poetry. I frankly don't think that poetry will ever re-gain its wide popularity.

Oh my. I've just ratcheted up a star. I'm becoming more important.

[This message has been edited by Caleb Murdock (edited April 08, 2002).]

[Dichotomy]

I recently went poetry-book shopping at the local Barnes and Noble. I could not find any books by Michael Waters despite half a dozen by Maya Angelou and books on Emily Dickenson.

I did find them online at Amazon, but based on what has been said here, I think I will let my Barnes and Noble know about this deficiency in their poetry selection.

It's funny how they can sponsor poetry readings and SEE that there is a healthy interest in poetry yet do not bother to stock many books of "new" peotry. I couldn't find Simic or Strand either.

Christin

[Roger Slater]

The Barnes & Noble superstores in NYC tend to have surprisingly good poetry collections, though they definitely do go light on the New Formalists. But as far as that goes, the famed Gotham Book Mart ("Wise Men Fish Here"), which has a vast poetry selection, also did not have any Stallings, Espaillat, Sullivan or Murphy a few weeks ago when I visited, so it's hardly a problem unique to chain book stores.

But the B&N stores typically have at least 100 linear feet of shelf-space devoted to poetry, and the one near me probably has about 200 linear feet. When you consider that none of these books sells very well at all, and that B&N is a commercial enterprise, it's hard to imagine why they bother to keep such a decent stock. (I'll admit that sometimes I take a seat and read lots of their poetry books without buying them).

I ended up ordering Alicia's book on Amazon a few weeks ago. I got email yesterday telling me it's been shipped, so I might end up reading it before her reading next week in NYC. Without Amazon, I might not have been able to secure a copy of her book at all, so I'd say that Amazon filled a definite need and is a good thing for people, like poets, whose books are not best sellers.

By the way, as most of you probably know, the premium placements of books at B&N (e.g., books on tables, featured sections, end-caps at the end of aisles, etc.) are mostly bought and paid for by the publishers. It's not some clerk or store manager who decides what to put in the window, but someone who negotiated a cash payment or a major discount for bulk sales, etc. By the same token, books featured on Amazon's home page are not books that Jeff Bezos himself is recommending. They are books that someone paid someone to feature.