Interview with Marie Gauthier, Director of Sales & Marketing for Tupelo Press, and PR for Poets

It’s April, National Poetry Month, it’s almost AWP (I hope you guys who are going are going to post all the exciting stories and pictures!) so it’s time to think about poetry. I’m going to feature some interviews with poets this month, starting with this one!

I’m very excited today to post this interview with Marie Gauthier, terrific poet, author of Hunger All Inside and the Director of Sales and Marketing for Tupelo Press. She also runs The Collected Poets reading series. I am so grateful she was willing to share some of her expertise about ways you can help your press sell your book of poetry, ways to connect with readers, and how the book industry is changing. I know I for one struggle (especially now that I’m thirty days into my new book’s official debut) with what is helpful, what is annoying, and new ways to reach people! As you may know from reading this blog, I’m very interested in how we poets can effectively promote not just our own poetry, but poetry in general. Happy National Poetry Month!

1. As the Director of Sales and Marketing for Tupelo Press, what kind of PR would you say worked the best for poetry book sales? Review copies, PR kits, postcards, e-mails? I know Tupelo has also created “Study Guides” for its books, among other innovative ideas…

MG: The idea is to make it as easy as possible for people to support you and buy your book. For a straight-up sales bump, nothing beats a mention on the internet — via social media, or a well-designed e-mail — something easily shared, with a cover image and link to purchase.
At Tupelo, we’ve redoubled our efforts to work with our authors on the Reader’s Companions (RCs). Available as free PDFs on the Tupelo website, they’re written by the authors themselves, and then edited with just as much care as the books we publish. The RCs are very useful for attracting course adoptions, or poet-in-the-school programs, as well as the general reader who’s simply interested in a deeper engagement.
Review copies are still really important. Reviews can be long in coming, but attention builds on itself, one review leads to another as more readers find your work. While we’re judicious and realistic, we still send as many review copies as we can.
You have to take the long view. Poetry sales and prose sales are different animals. A poetry book doesn’t “age” on the bookstore (virtual or actual) shelf at the same accelerated pace as a prose book.

2. What’s the one thing that you think authors can do to help their publishers boost their books sales? And what’s the one thing they should avoid?

MG: Maintain a web site. Link to your publisher. Simple things that make it easy for potential readers to find and buy your book. Also, when you think about giving readings, consider asking friends or family to host a salon, or book party. Sometimes people can be intimidated by the idea of a poetry reading, but will attend something less formal and more their idea of fun. Less book, more party. Make a mini-book tour of it if you can, traveling from home to home, party to party.
Avoid spending all your review copy capital by giving away free copies to family and friends! Give them a cut rate if you like, but allow them to acknowledge the hard work you’ve put into your art by paying you, or your publisher, for it.

3. How different was it for you to try to do PR for your own book compared to doing PR for the books at Tupelo Press?

MG: Oh, it’s so much more difficult to promote your own work than it is to promote someone else’s. All the angst and insecurity is your own. Doing PR requires a sense of proportion and a sense of humor. For yourself, exponentially so.

4. As the PR and publishing businesses are changing (social media, distribution changes, Amazon, etc…) how are you changing what you do for poetry books in particular?

MG: Tupelo is different from most small presses in that we have commission sales reps who make sales calls on independent bookstores all across the country. In addition to distributing our books via SPD, Ingram, and Baker & Taylor, we actively self-distribute, and manage our relationship with Amazon directly. We’ve taken a very hands-on approach to handling sales, and while it’s been a positive experience, it continues to be a challenge.

5. Okay, here’s the real question…can you talk a little about how hard you think it is to sell a book of poetry, and what poets and publishers can do to make it a little easier?

MG: It is hard to sell a book of poetry. At full price. To strangers. And relations! You can’t take poor sales to heart. But all things being equal (quality of the work, etc.), I’ve noted that the poets whose books sell regularly tend to be active members of some sort of poetry community. Translation: poets who take joy in all aspects of poetry, who are interested in other poets and other poems beyond their own, who seek out ways to be involved. As in most things in life, you should be giving as much, if not more, than you receive. Which is to say, sales are a natural progression of your own engagement with others. For example, someone who spends a portion of her time writing reviews of poetry books is more likely to find her own book reviewed. It’s not about networking, but about having a personal stake in the poetry community.