[New-Poetry] Re: Recommending Poetry Presses?

[David Baratier]

I agree "a little politesse goes a long way." You might want to consider using a signature. All of your e-mails so far (except for this one) have arrived on the list, and been backchanneled without anyway of knowing who sent it. I suppose I am old fashioned but when I have a discussion, and am not simply answering a simple question, I would at least like to know who I am addressing.
   
  To answer your question, there is a world of difference between self publishing and us printing the book. At least 450 copies in the first year on titles. More if real high profile reviews occur. More if they are willing to read and I set up a tour for them. More if they place in the top bracket for a national prize I nominate them for. More profit, as the author can buy the copies for 1/2 off which is substantially more profit per book than they would recieve self publishing. Most of places seem to give a person a little over $2 for selling a book on cafe press for a $14 title, we would give $7, plus 10% of the press run for free. Also that the book has 1000 copies plus overage printed all of which will find the light of day at some point. I see no comparison. 

Jason Quackenbush <jfq at myuw.net> wrote:
  Who am I? I'm the guy you were responding to on the New Poetry list. For
some reason, the response went straight to your email rather than to the
list. Do you usually respond that way to emails from people you don't
recognize? It's not a problem except that it came off as really rude
until I realized that the mail had been sent off list and that you
hadn't recognized my email address and you weren't asking "who are you"?
as in "why should I give a damn what you think?" so much as "why are you
sending me email?" One email writer to another, given the limitations of
electronic communications, a little politesse goes a long way.

And the crapshoot you is what i'm talking about. No press can guarantee
that they're going to get their authors reviewed in Poetry or the Times
Book Review or even teh Village Voice or the Stranger. That's what I was
talking about when I said "not everybody you publish gets the kind of
coverage you're talking about." For those people, what's the difference
between having the book out on a press versus hustling it themselves? I
really don't know is why i'm asking. I do know people who've self
published and sold in the kinds of numbers you're talking about with
your worst selling titles, although they tend to be touring performance
poets. Which I offer as evidence for my point that the worth of a book
doesn't have to do with who publishes it. The larger the publisher, the
more exposure you're going to get, true. But the larger the publisher
the harder it is to get their attention as well. Again, six and a half
dozen of the other. What does someone with a really good book that's
well put together and is willing to work hard to get people to see it
get from going with a small publisher other than a smaller share of the
profits (if any) and someone else to take on the printing costs?


David Baratier wrote:
> First, who are you?
> 
> Our worst selling books clear 500 in the first year, even for authors 
> who have no interest in promoting the book. How well they are reviewed 
> is a crapshoot, sometimes they take off, like Rachel M. Simon's first 
> book which was reviewed in Publisher's Weekly and Poetry plus a bunch 
> of others.
> 
> Perchik was friends with Paul Blackburn starting in the 40's and 
> started the reading series with him that became The (St. Marks) Poetry 
> Project, that is the Olson connection. I think Kennedy was through 
> Robert (?) Peterson who reviewed one of his books unexpectedly and 
> interested him in Si's work. It could have been through David Ignatow 
> also, I forget. Yale would have those files. The book is $30 but it is 
> also 612 pages. 
>
> */jfq at myuw.net/* wrote:
>
> It's a good point you make David, and I'm willing to modify my
> view to it can matter but it doesn't have to. But either way it's
> hard to get that attention and for a lot of people who have the
> will to do the work themselves it's six and a half dozen of the
> other which route you take. A press like yours does a lot of good
> work for your authors. But not everybody you publish gets the kind
> of coverage you're talking about, do they? Looking at the Pavement
> Saw page for Perchik, it strikes me that there are few people in
> the world whose work would garner endorsements from both Charles
> Olson (what's the provenance of that by the way? It looks like
> it's excerpted from a larger statement.) and XJ Kennedy.
>
> Anyway, you're definitely doing good work, because now I'm
> intrigued and will buy it whereas it had been off my radar before.
> Still, 30 bucks for a perfect bound trade paperback? I'm glad it's
> going to a good cause.
>
>
>
> On Sat, 19 Jan 2008, David Baratier wrote:
>
> > jfq at myuw.net wrote: It's what one does with the book and about
> the book, and the quality of the work in the book that makes it
> worthwhile or not. Not who publishes it.
> >
> >
> > ----------------------------
> > I disagree, I do not think an author, a "true poet," should find
> it necessary to focus on how to sell themselves. An author should
> not have to be concerned about what they do "with the book and
> about the book" after it appears. Perchik is a good example of a
> person who has no interest in reading, conducting workshops or
> anything else of that sort to promote his collections. His
> interest is in writing poems.
> >
> > My interest was in finding an audience for him after 50+ years
> of not having a substantial volume of record. To be able to talk
> with individuals throughout the US and strike up correspondences
> with people I've never met in Australia, New Zealand, England,
> Germany, Austria, Switzerland and so on and discuss notions of
> "punctive and typographical metonymy" found within the book was a
> joy. So was a review from a publishing hero of mine, Tony Frazier,
> in Shearsman. Or another in the London Times. Or the Library
> Journal. I spent a few years putting that collection together and
> if someone wants an editor who actually thinks about, edits, and
> questions the work, rather than just wanting it published by
> "somebody," we are one of those places. An active editor is
> important, who publishes it does matter.


Be well

David Baratier, Editor

Pavement Saw Press
321 Empire Street
Montpelier OH 43543
http://pavementsaw.org

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