[W.F. Lantry]

Originally Posted by Maryann Corbett

So am I just (yet again) weird in this regard? What's the evidence that more sales by small poetry publishers happen because of readings? (Or what else is going on here?)

Interesting question. What leads to sales? I have no idea, but it would be nice to find an answer...

Let's look at the top selling poetry books in the US from last week:

Swan by Mary Oliver (Beacon Press)
The Shadow of Sirius (paperback) by W. S. Merwin (Copper Canyon Press)
Thirst (paperback) by Mary Oliver (Beacon Press)
Evidence (paperback) by Mary Oliver (Beacon Press)
New and Selected Poems: Volume Two (paperback) by Mary Oliver (Beacon Press)
Ballistics (paperback) by Billy Collins (Random House)
The Trouble with Poetry and Other Poems (paperback) by Billy Collins (Random House)
Whitethorn by Jacqueline Osherow (Louisiana State University Press)
The Pleasures of the Damned: Poems, 1951-1993 (paperback) by Charles Bukowski (Ecco)
Human Chain by Seamus Heaney (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

The answer is pretty obvious. It's name recognition. What they used to call mindshare in the internet days, or before that, brand image identity. I'd venture to guess that just about everybody reading this message knows all of those names, with the possible exception of one (and there's a delicious irony in that exception, as she does LOTS of formal stuff: sonnets, villanelles, pentameter. And yet, a search of the entire history of this site yields precisely three threads in which she's mentioned!). Also, that one person who has four in the top ten? She's got some others in the top thirty: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/jour...temporary.html

Ok, so how does one build mindshare? It seems there are only a few ways: readings, publications, awards, articles lectures and reviews, buzz among readers. Are there any other ways?

But even reading attendance is dependent on mindshare. And somebody reading to 20 people at a local bookstore may sell a book to twenty percent of her audience, but that's still only four books sold. When Wilbur came to the Folger last spring, he likely got about the same percentage, but there were an awful lot of people there...

Of course, all of this talk about sales may be counterproductive, and we'd have to construct an "as above, so below" argument to say anything meaningful about small presses... most of the books on the top 30 come from established houses. But at first glance, it does look like readings are at least a substantial part of constructing whatever it is that does actually sell books...

Thanks,

Bill