A Jack Straw Reading at University Bookstore, A Poem Feature, and Pondering Publishers…

All righty, enough sad posts for this week. Thanks to Bridle Path Press who is featuring two of my Robot Scientist Daughter poems this week here. They’re only up for a few more days so hurry and catch them!

I’m reading at the UW University Bookstore downtown tonight at 7 PM as part of the Jack Straw Writers reading series with terrific poets Daemond Arrindell and Larry Crist. Show up if you can – it’ll be a good show!

Pondering Publishers…

So, my next book will be my fourth, and I wish I had a ton of wisdom to share now about how to go about choosing a publisher for your poetry book. It seems like, yes, there’s the contest system, there’s open submissions (which sometimes still charge fees,) and there are presses that take submissions any time. It seems the larger poetry presses are reading less, but small poetry presses are proliferating, thank goodness, so maybe that makes up for it. At last week’s twitter #poetparty, I asked poets about what they looked for in a press. Not only am I thinking about how to decide where to publish my own next book, but I’m thinking in terms of starting a small press myself someday soon. Here are some of the top answers:

• Input or say in the cover art. That was really a high priority for a lot of poets, and with good reason – a lot of people pick up a book of poetry (or not) because of the cover.
• Distribution didn’t seem as important to most poets at the twitter poetparty as it does to me. I think now that distribution – even if the three main ways books are sold by poets is either at readings, on Amazon, or directly through the press’s web site – is an important consideration when you sign up with a press. You want your book to get out into the world.
• A good working relationship with the editor. Yes, that does seem important. I often send to presses because I like the editor’s voice.
• Royalty rates, author copies, longevity of press, and how the press markets their books were also considerations. I like to see that the press is active on social media, has an e-mail newsletter where they promote their books, and that it has a decent, easy-to-navigate web site. Does the press do e-books? Have their books won major prizes recently (see below…)
• Something that wasn’t brought up but strikes me as important as someone who has done this three times…how willing is the press to send out review copies? How many prizes will they send your book to, and are they willing to send copies/pay fees? For poetry books, getting attention is tough, and getting any kind of prize recognition and reviews really helps get the word out.

What else do you think are the most important things to think about when a poet signs up with a press? Yes, you can also say “the press accepted my manuscript” as an important consideration, but I think that we need to think beyond “they like my work” to what the press is going to do for the book once it’s published (or not.) There was also a discussion of POD versus traditional print run, self-publishing versus traditional publishing, and options in-between. The publishing world is changing, and the poetry publishing world in particular is kind of morphing before our eyes, and it’s our job to keep up as well as we can.