Blazevox Scandal Has Me Thinking About Poetry Sales (and Book Sales in General)
So yesterday this bizarre and frankly fascinating thing happened while I was out blissfully walking around giant cedars and gasping at local waterfalls (Weeks Falls and then Snoqualamie Falls) and generally ignoring all poetry-related business…
A little press called Blazevox sent out some letters telling authors their books had been accepted but they needed to pay a $250 fee for them to be published. Certainly not the first or last time such a thing had happened, but it rubbed some folks the wrong way, then those folks blogged about it, then there was a lot of fighting on Facebook, then Blazevox’s editor (who, among other things, really needs to run spell check on his professional correspondence, if he learned nothing else from the blowup – really, poets are super bitchy about typos) announced on their web site that he was closing down the press.
So, my problem with the whole discussion was how the editor – and lots of other folks – made the assumption from the beginning that they can’t make any money from poetry or poetry books, and that that’s just a given. Hmph. I don’t think it’s a given. If maybe the press researches some marketing techniques, or does a little more PR work, maybe their books will sell better. Most poetry presses do very little in terms of trying to market their books. Those who make even a little effort probably have slightly better sales. Yes, I know Borders just went under – also from bad management decisions – and that e-books outsell paper books – and I know that poetry has never been terribly profitable. But there’s some weird elitist undertones to the conversation, as in, “Those silly masses of people out there will never be capable of liking or understanding poetry, so we need to get our support from the writers,” which really doesn’t make any sense to me. Why do we assume more people can’t or won’t like poetry IF THEY ARE EXPOSED TO IT CORRECTLY. Which means, not by an English teacher who hates poetry already who grudgingly makes students write terrible sonnets and teaches them about some eighteenth century dead guy, but, you know, real contemporary poets who are fun and enjoyable to read and don’t make you want to rip your own eyes from your head. I think Matthea Harvey is awfully fun to read, and would be for any random high school kid or college kid, and Denise Duhamel too. A lot of my friends write poetry that’s fun to read, fun to hear, fun to perform. The question is, why aren’t more poets (and poetry publishers) more ambitious about getting poetry out to more people who aren’t already poets or poetry lovers? A non-poet friend of mine who was a former VP of marketing at a Fortune 500 company asked me, so what do poets do to, you know, get the word out about their work? Well, I answered timidly, we wait til a college asks us to come out and read, and sometimes we read for free at coffee shops and little bookstores. Needless to say, she was not impressed with this plan – it’s not very practical if you want to really reach people who don’t already love poetry. So what should we be doing?
Also, for the record, my two small presses (bless you, Steel Toe Books and Kitsune Books) never asked me for money to publish my books. If you are a beginning poet and you don’t know this, there are publishers out there who will not ask you for money and will still publish your book. Yes, contest fees are a reality – but there are presses that still have no-fee open readings. And the way to help support them? It is to buy their books now before they go under. So, the rallying call is: if you like books and poetry, buy some books! From publishers who support their authors and don’t ask them to incur expenses themselves! Encourage your friends and family to go to some poetry readings, fall in love with poetry, and buy books themselves. I took my seventeen-year-old brother (and his gang of scary-looking-punk friends) to a Louise Gluck reading once, and he still has his signed copy of Meadowlands. You never know what’s going to connect with readers.
Holiday Weekend Bits
Open Books has a very kind write-up (plus a sample poem) of She Returns to the Floating World here.
If you are interested in reviewing She Returns to the Floating World, well, now’s your chance – Rattle has a copy and is looking for a reviewer! Info here: http://rattle.com/blog/available/
Had a chance to entertain my poet friend N (newly arrived from the East Bay back the NW) and show her around Woodinville (including the two potbellied pigs at the Herbfarm garden!) during pitch perfect sunny-low-humidity-mountain-is-out Seattle weather. It was a beautiful day and lovely to visit.
Now we are considering going to visit one of the local waterfalls. (It was either that and ick, clean up the house and work. Not appropriate activities for Labor Day Weekend, especially with this kind of weather.)
And I’ve set up a reading in October with my artist friend Deborah Scott and her latest exhibit. I’ll post more about her fairy-tale-themed exhibit soon!
And in case you missed it the first time, Escape Into Life calls my poems “heat sparking” – go check out their digest!
Say Anything Thursday
September 1, or Say Anything Day!
Well, for all you folks who are still in love with Say Anything, Cameron Crowe has posted new deleted scenes from the original script on his blog. I love this movie more now than I did when I first watched it, because I understand some of the subtext of talking about success in blue collar, Boeing-dependent Puget Sound. (This was pre-Microsoft-taking-over-Redmond, of course.)
It’s September, so no more “it’s August, the last summer month in the Northwest” procrastination is allowed. In the last 24 hours, I revised my “Robot Scientist’s Daughter” manuscript, updated the acknowledgments page (three accepted poems since last month!) and sent out a packet of poems. This makes me feel like less of a slacker and more like a real writer.
I am still working on my gigantic job application for desired academic job #1, and I’ve gotten into a sticky wicket where I’m wondering whether the sample syllabus should be my actual syllabus from classes I’ve taught or something else? (Anyone out there with advice, I’d be grateful to hear! Like, do they really need all of the grading and ethics information on there, or just the content stuff?) It also requires a writing sample (do I use poems from both books, or new work?) and a letter of something called a “commitments to creative writing and poetics” statement (no idea what something like that is supposed to contain. And I call myself a book critic!) Whew! My tech writing job applications are way easier to do.
I’ve been angsty about whether I’m doing enough to promote the new book, and how much is too much, and how many readings to schedule and where, and I realized that though having a book come out is something to celebrate, it can also provoke a lot of anxiety. My first Seattle reading will be on the 25th of September at Open Books, my very favorite bookstore of all time, so if you’re my friend and will be Seattle that day, come by and wish me luck! Or better yet, stay for the reading (at 3 PM.) I’m putting together the reading list for that, too, and practicing the new poems out loud. I heard Obama will be in our fair town that day, and I told him it would only be a 45 minute reading, and afterwards we could go out for gelato, so I hope he shows 🙂 I think it would be good for poetry and for presidents if presidents went to more poetry readings. Plus, I’ll read about politically important subjects like nuclear environmental challenges. Fun for everyone!
Today I’m nervous also about going to the dentist for multiple fillings (ouch!) and excited about seeing my friend N who is back in town tomorrow. It’s always good to see old friends. Not sure I can say the same about the fillings!
Tuesday Confession: In Which Things Don’t Get Done, Feminisms, and Closed Doors
Updated: I had two nice poetry world things happen today that caused me to rethink my grumpy post, so I decided to delete the evidence of grumpiness. For those of you who missed it, sorry!
PS You should still read Celia’s excellent post, I am a Feminist poet, here. I think all that stuff still applies.
Positive Movement Versus the Whirlwind
So instead I try to make headway on my projects at hand. Having no classes this quarter, I’m applying for part-time contract work and teaching jobs. I’m working right now on a bear of an application that requires pages of statements and samples. I try to make a little headway each day. I’m also working on a book review of a difficult book. Yesterday I wrote two paragraphs of the review, not too substantial, I’m afraid, but enough to say: I made some positive motion on it. I finished a poetry consult project. I’m trying to create a sane reading schedule this fall, but of course all the readings want to fall on the same weekends, invitations to read out of town inevitably all come for the same three day period. I’m excited for the upcoming readings – the chance to finally introduce my new little book to the public, officially – but of course, nervous as well. How will these poems play to an audience? Which poems should I choose for which reading? I’m trying to design afternoon workshops for teenagers, a talk for community colleges on superheroes and mythology, and something on speculative poetry for a general audience. I’m trying my hand at a little fiction, and I’m still writing poems on radioactive elements (apparently, I thought I was done, but I actually wasn’t. The news on Fukushima makes it seem alarmingly relevant and demanding all over again.)
Jeannine Hall Gailey served as the second Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington and the author of Becoming the Villainess, She Returns to the Floating World, Unexplained Fevers, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, and winner of the Moon City Press Book Prize and SFPA’s Elgin Award, Field Guide to the End of the World. Her latest, Flare, Corona from BOA Editions, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. She’s also the author of PR for Poets, a Guidebook to Publicity and Marketing. Her work has been featured on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac, Verse Daily and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. Her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Poetry, and JAMA.
