You Gotta Use What's Out There To Promote Your Books

Working under the assumption that we want more poetry books published, especially books by unknown and lesser-known poets by small independent presses, we should expect those presses to market their titles aggressively and we shouldn't hold it against them if they partake in promotion. If they don't, it's unlikely word will get out about the books and few sales will be made. If few sales are made, the money spent creating the books won't be recovered, and if the press can't (at the very least) break-even, it's going to be difficult for the press to continue publishing books. Some poets may find the economics of this distasteful -- there's this bizarre "we're supposed to be above it" attitude that bugs me. What we're supposed to be above is publishing a crappy book just because we know it'll sell well -- Faber & Faber should have been above publishing Billy Corgan.

But we should never be above getting the word out about good work -- no matter how commercially unviable it may seem. It's our responsibility to our authors to push the titles. Unless we want poetry publishers to be limited to university presses, presses owned by Bertlesman, Time Warner, etc., the handful of presses able to get grants, and the independently wealthy -- publishers must think of the bottom line. We must think creatively -- because we have small or no marketing budgets.

I'm very new (and green) at this and I'm trying lots of things to get publicity for the Bedside Guide -- and I'm thinking past the anthology -- how much attention I'm able to get for this will help garner attention for the single-author collections I plan to publish in the near future.

I'm making goofs, trying out things that don't seem to have an immediate (or any) impact, it's all very very early, too early to tell. As time goes on, I'm going to discuss some of the ways I've tried to market the anthology. I'm doing this to share my experiences with other small publishers and hopefully start a dialogue that I can learn from as well.

Jimmy brings up Amazon Lists. I'm not sure if he really has a beef or if he's just teasing -- no matter, I'm interested in it because it's one of the things I did to promote the anthology. And why not? It's free. It's being seen by people who are already looking at poetry books -- so it's targeted. Why shouldn't a editor take advantage of this? And why would a editor lamely title her list "Five books published by the press I work for?" -- she wants to pique readers' interest, not make them roll their eyes. Do we really have to be 100% transparent and disclose our entire backgrounds --even when it comes to "Listmania"? That editor could have created a bogus account or used a friend's and put together the list under a different name and flew completely under the radar. Would that be preferable? She used her name and referred to herself as "editor" -- I don't see the sneakiness (if that's what is being implied).

Here are my 3 Amazon Lists I put together a few weeks ago to promote the Bedside Guide -- it's too early to know how effective they are -- I know the lists are being viewed, although not by nearly as many as I would have expected:

Very Discreet Poets (wink wink) -- includes books by some of the contributors, it's my hope that people looking at books by these poets will discover they have work in the anthology

Poems For Your Valentine -- hoping to capitalize on the holiday

Intimate Evening Essentials -- hoping to capitalize on people getting busy -- surprisingly, this has been the least viewed list, shame, I spent the most time on it


Now if only I can get those jokers at Amazon to put the picture of the book cover up -- I've sent it to them three times.