In my own experience, for relatively unknown authors (like most of us), a reading is what sells a book. For all the crowing & toot-toot-tooting I do up here when a new chapbook comes out from EXOT BOOKS, by far the largest share of sales is at a live reading. In other venues there's lots of back-patting and high-hatting, but not so much ponying-up. I must also say that I have yet to receive any sales after even the most glowing of reviews for an EXOT title--even, ahem, after Paul Stevens marvelous piece about Mike Alexander's brilliant We Internet In Different Voices.
Other than that, I second Orwn's remarks. It's one of the reasons I carry on with EXOT BOOKS: to give authors some sort of creative setting for their words. Just for the record I would never publish a book for which the author did not give explicit and enthusiastic approval of the visual design. More than any other form of publicity, especially for relative newcomers, I think design is paramount. I am appalled by the look of almost all the chapbooks I see.
Nemo
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