What’s Expected of a Poet? About Poetry Book Promotion, what kind of sales numbers to expect, and how much promo is enough?

On Facebook today, Rattle editor and poet Tim Green posted the following:

“In five years, Red Hen Press has sold 105 copies of my book. This doesn’t include my own copies that I’ve sold at readings, around 200, but still—105 copies, despite the fact that it’s a fairly good book, and that I have a fairly large “platform” within the poetry community. More people will read this Facebook post in the next 20 minutes than will have read that book. This is why I don’t get all that jazzed about publishing anymore.

To put it another way: When I think about having published a book, my primary emotion is guilt.”

I’m writing this post as I think there is a big bunch of poets out there who feel exactly like Tim. What, exactly, are reasonable sales expectations for a poetry book? What kind of promotion can your publisher reasonably expect you to do, and what is up to the publisher? What kinds of things are out of the author’s hands totally? I’m going to go into what we can and can’t do, and get really honest about my own experiences.

I hope I am not shocking and crushing any new poet’s dreams here, but Tim’s number, around 300 total sales over five years, is fairly normal for poetry book sales. It’s rare for a poetry book to break 1,000 copies, rarer still to get to 10,000, and only people who win the gigantic prizes and former Poet Laureates make it higher than that. Your Mary Olivers, your Billy Collins, and this month’s Poets & Writers poster lady poet, Louise Gluck, they sell poetry books in numbers that make a profit for non-POD printing runs. The rest of us? Well, it’s more normal to struggle than not to struggle.

As I’m gearing up to promote my 4th (!!) book, I’m wondering about what I’ve learned, how I can apply that, and what is the smartest, least expensive in terms of time, energy, and money path for promoting poetry? (I’ve also got an essay on this very topic in the new 2015 Poet’s Market, if I can shill a bit within an article about shilling…) I’m thinking every book has had different successes. My bestselling book, in case you’re curious, is still my first one – not sure why, if it’s more accessible, closer to the zeitgeist, whatever. All three of my publishers have been small, independent presses without a PR department or much funding for things like ads, tours, etc. I think that’s probably the norm for most poets.

So think in advance about what you’re willing to do, what you can afford to do (traveling for readings can get expensive in a hurry, even if you’re lucky enough to snag a few paid readings), and how much energy you have and for how long you plan to promote your book. I noticed that last year, for instance, was the first year for Unexplained Fevers, and the seventh year for Becoming the Villainess, and Becoming the Villainess still outsold Unexplained Fevers, even though I was actively promoting the new book. There’s something “momentum”-y about poetry book sales, once it starts taking off it starts to have its own life. That’s what you want, FYI, that’s what we get when we’re lucky.

If you teach, if you’re an editor, you may have a better “platform” from which to sell books. But it’s not an automatic thing, you still have to send out your e-mail announcements to your e-mail lists, send out your postcards, go sell books at AWP, set up your readings where you’re pretty sure you have an audience like your hometown, etc. You don’t control the critical reception for your book, either, although you can help send out review copies yourself to interested reviewers, or make sure you provide your publisher a list of likely review places. You may not be able to afford – especially in this economy – a cross-country reading tour. The last two books, I sure couldn’t! But the good news is, maybe now, those things aren’t necessary. Maybe social media and online ads are replacing some of the old-fashioned promotion techniques. I don’t know!

And the bad thing is, the thing that can create the kind of angst Tim talked about, is that no one ever really tells you, “This is enough. You’ve done enough.” Even poets with successful books (or that I consider pretty darn successful) feel that pressure. When do you give yourself a break? In my case, with my second book for instance, She Returns to the Floating World, I was very ill for the main time I should have been promoting the book, like, in the hospital a lot sick, and my publisher, a very sweet and smart woman, also got sick, and passed away very soon after the book came out. It wasn’t my top priority, and it couldn’t be hers, either, quite rightly. So even though I loved that book, and I loved my publisher, I just wasn’t able to do what was necessary to make the book really hit. I feel like I’m still working to get the word out about Unexplained Fevers. I don’t feel like I’ve done enough for that book yet.

I’d love to hear about your experiences and your advice on poetry book sales, promotion, and general feelings of guilt about not doing enough. I was reminded that once, publishers had PR people, they funded tours, they bought ads in big magazines. Now, only the few and far between can afford to do that, and they only do it for a few of their books. So a lot more comes back on us, the writers.