Poet Power!

by Tom Williams

The following chapters are from WOL Associate Editor Tom Williams' new book, Poet Power! The Practical Poet's Complete Guide to Getting Published (and Self-Published). Those interested in further information on Tom's book can go to his website at http://www.PubMart.com. WOL subscribers may take a 20% discount when ordering this book.

Chapter Two: A Poet’s Crash Course in the Economics of Publishing

What is going on in the office and in the mind of the publisher or editor on whose desk the postman deposits your packet of poems? The answer to this question is basic to your publishing strategy, and to help you understand it I hereby offer this Poet’s Crash Course in the Economics of Publishing.

Until you truly comprehend and accept the rules of the game, you will be like a player who has devoted his life to fruitlessly trying to win a game whose rules he does not understand. And that, my friends, is quite a handicap.

The first, and most important rule of the game is simply this: publishing is a business. The corollary to this rule is that what gets published is most often what is good for business. Like the professional in any other business, the goal of the publisher is to make a profit and stay in business. People who work as publishers use these profits to buy groceries, pay the rent and send the children off to college, just like the rest of us. They also use these profits to publish more books like yours.

A Risky Business
Publishing is a risky business. I became a publisher because I loved the business, and I suspect that many if not most publishers—especially in the smaller houses, share that motivation. Why else would they set out on such a perilous occupation. Pitfalls and dangers beset the unwary publisher on every side. The opportunity for financial loss is every bit as great—and usually greater—than the chance of gain.

The successful publisher truly lives by his wits. He guesses which books are likely to find favor with the reading public, which books are likely to build the reputation of his press, and he publishes them. He decides which articles are likely to interest the readers of his magazine and he buys them. He is often on the lookout for specialty items, including poems, that will be meaningful to his specific readership and he buys these too.

In making these decisions the publisher/editor relies on his intuition and experience. If he misjudges too often, there is no profit, no groceries, no rent, no college tuition for the kids. Hence, since no one can afford to stay in a business that doesn’t bring in enough money to live on, there is no longer a publisher.

Those Free Enterprise Twins: Risk and Profit
The free enterprise system is built on the twin pillars of risk and profit. You risk what you have—money, time, talent—in the hope of gaining far more than you risk. But it doesn’t always work. In this way it is a little like a loaded shotgun. The trusty, old double barrel can be used to hunt for game and stock the family larder. But misjudge a step and stumble, and that same reliable tool can shoot your foot off.

I go into all this so that you, as a poet, can put yourself for a moment into the editor’s or publisher’s shoes. For them, everything is always at risk As they practice their profession they stand to make a profit. But they also may shoot themselves in the foot. This really smarts, and most publishers will do everything they can to avoid having it happen to them.

Most of us literary types don’t really understand—or perhaps just don’t think about—the risk/profit basis of business in general and the publishing business in particular. Before I became a publisher I was a college professor. If I taught well, there was a check at the end of the month. If I taught badly, there was a check at the end of the month. When I didn’t teach all summer long there was still a check at the end of the month. My financial reward for the work I was doing was not directly related to the level of success I had achieved in it. The good fairy might as well have put my money in the departmental mailbox.

And then. . . . I resigned my tenured professorship to become a publisher.

It was quite a revelation, as abrupt and sudden a reality bath as anyone has ever taken. When I performed badly, I got no check The good fairy had taken a permanent leave of absence. Moreover, I had to pay out some of the money I had already received to cover current overhead and keep the doors open. If I took time off, I did not get paid. And no matter how well business was going at any given time, there lurked in the background the cold, sobering all -too-true knowledge that things could (and would) go awry whenever they took a notion to do so. A book could bomb. Subscriptions could fall off. Postal rates could rise and eat up my profits. A competitor could come into the arena and dilute my market share ruinously. Or my building could burn down, or I could have a heart attack and not be able to continue in business.

Obviously I was betting that more good things than bad would happen to me and, on balance, this has been true. But it took constant attention and alertness to market opportunities and danger signals to bring this result about. Even in the best of times I was— and still am—constantly aware that every decision I make about what I accept for publication affects me and my business directly, as well as the well-being of those who depend on me. These basic human realities constitute the everyday furnishings of every editor’s office, right along with the desk, the chair and the word-processor. And it is into this office that your poems arrive, unsolicited.

Most of the magazines, journals, chapbooks and other periodicals that publish poetry are brought out by relatively small companies that, in order to stay in business, must watch their finances closely. But even they are not the only ones at risk. Bigger fish than they are in harm’s way as well. I once heard an enthusiastic young editor/ publisher describe the start-up that he was then involved in. He gave us a detailed plan for the publication of his new Southern Magazine. The idea was that a magazine with a focus on the South and with a new journalism style and an aggressive editorial policy, in the style of Texas Monthly or Esquire, would generate subscriptions and advertising sales sufficient to turn a profit. The project was not under-financed. There was five million dollars in operating capital in the bank. The articles in the magazine proved to be first rate. Yet within three years the project ran out of gas. The five million was gone, and advertising revenues were not producing adequate cash flow to produce the hoped-for profit. The originating editor’s name disappeared from the masthead. The magazine was sold to another company and its name and character were changed.

Publishing Magazines: A Financial Tightrope Act
Profits are slim in the magazine business. Most operate on the tiniest of profit margins. They barely manage to produce the positive cash flow that enables them to stay in business. And even this is often accomplished by paying editors, artists and especially writers (as you well know) as little money as possible—sometimes nothing at all.

Subscription and single copy (newsstand) sales of almost all magazines do not return a profit. Selling subscriptions by mail is expensive. Few readers renew their subscriptions automatically. To get them to do so requires an additional series of mailings. In fact, cash received from subscription sales and newsstand sales is barely adequate to support the cost of subscriber maintenance and the high cost of mailing out the magazines themselves.

Thus, when the editor reads through your submissions he will have very important questions in his mind in addition to the one about the quality of your writing. Assuming that your poem is well written, he will ask himself such questions as these:

o Will my readers understand this poem?

o Will my readers like this poem and react positively to it?

o Will this poem pull its weight in creating positive reader reactions to my magazine?

o Is its subject matter in keeping with the editorial slant of my magazine?

o Is it short enough to fit easily into available fill space?

o Is the poet someone whose name my readers will recognize and react positively to?

o Can I do more for my magazine by using this poem than I can by putting something else in the same space?

o Does this poem interest me? (In the case of little magazines—and even the prestigious, small circulation reviews—the editor may well have hobbyhorse preferences that don’t necessarily show up in the writer’s guidelines he or she furnishes.)

Publishing in Book Form
It is difficult under any circumstances for an unknown poet to find a publisher for a book of verse. Without requisite marketing skills and a clear understanding of the economics of book publishing it is virtually impossible. The reason is simple. With very few exceptions books of poetry do not make any money.

Here’s the way book publishing works. The publisher brings out a paperback book of verse. He can sell it, at the most, for $10. Since he has learned that even the best verse does not sell very well, he has printed no more than 1000 copies and very likely—especially in the case of small press—just 500. This means that he does not realize any economy of scale in the manufacture of his books. As a result, the production cost per copy of the book is relatively high.

If the publisher knows his stuff and gets the best prices available, he can get the 500 copies printed and bound for, say, $1500, or $3 a book. He will have paid a typesetter 300 or so dollars. He has paid someone to paste the book up and ready it for printing. He has office overhead, billing expenses and distribution expense. An artist will earn an additional $200 for a cover design. The publisher then pays the bookstores and wholesalers who sell his book at least 50% of the cover price and sometimes more.

Thus, if he sells every copy available to him for sale (450, since 50 will have been mailed out for review) he will gross $4500.

o Of that $4500 he pays his retailers their 50% discount, leaving him $2250.

o Of that $2250 he will lose $250 to bad debts and spoilage, leaving $2000.

o Yet he has paid the printer $1500, the typesetter $300, the cover artist $200. He will allow 10% of the gross for general office expense and overhead. All of this totals $2450. The result: in the best of all possible worlds the publisher loses $450 on a book of poems even when he successfully sells every available copy of the first edition.

So why do some books of verse get published in spite of these discouraging facts?

o Sometimes the publisher is publicly supported, as is the case with a university press or a not-for-profit corporation, or has grant money to subsidize publication.

o Sometimes the publisher, who has other projects on which he is making money, brings out a book of verse for the love of it. I have done this myself. But you, as a poet, can’t count on it. It doesn’t happen every day.

o Sometimes (and this is more and more often the case, even with small presses and university presses of high reputation) the poet contributes to the expense of publication.

o Sometimes the poet has a known reputation for giving successful readings and for self-promotion, thereby convincing the publisher that an edition of a thousand or more copies can be sold and that he can at least break even on the project.

You Can Beat The Odds
And please bear in mind that all the while the publisher is expending his time and energy on your book of poems he is not doing the all the other things on which he depends for his livelihood.

These are the facts, the rules of the game. You ignore them at your peril. If you think that they stack the odds against you, you are absolutely right. Too many writers—and not just poets—do not really understand how publishing works, and, as a result, live in a fantasy world that has little to do with the realities of the publishing marketplace.

Chapter Ten: How to Sell Books at Autograph and Publication Parties

YOUR BOOK IS OUT. News releases have generated stories in your local newspaper and, with any luck, you have appeared in an interview slot on your local morning talk show. The time is ripe for a publication and autograph party. This event has a threefold purpose: it is an important PR and marketing event to promote your present and future work; and it is an important opportunity to sell a sizeable number of books; and it is a personal celebration.

To often, we are content to focus on the first of these events, as though a publication party were something that we merely attended as guest of honor, ready to soak up the praise of our families and friends. This is a great mistake. Such an event is not something that someone does to you and for you while you linger humbly in the background until the time comes to have the roses thrown your way. No, a very carefully planned and orchestrated publication party should achieve at least three important goals:

o Focus attention on you and your work and thus enhance your reputation and public visibility. To seek this visibility in not immodest, unworthy, or un-poetlike. It is, instead, your very stock-in-trade, the thing that will broaden your circle of influence and activity, and win more and more readers for your work. Poets live on grants, awards, appointments, fellowships, readings and presentation. It is your public visibility and reputation that will make these things possible for you. When writers of equal merit are in the running for a grant, the one whose name is most widely known has a decided advantage.

o Sell enough of your books to recoup up-front publication costs. If your book is a chapbook or one printed in a limited edition, this is not an unrealistic goal. A chapbook can be published for, say, $3.00. If you sell the book for $8.95, thirty-five guests who purchase an autographed copy can take you over the top.

o And, finally, experience the deserved pleasure of having your book published and available to others.

To accomplish these goals your autograph party must be as carefully planned and controlled an event as any you have ever been associated with. There is no room for the amateurish or the tentative.

You Can’t Leave It Up to Someone Else
The marketing of an artistic reputation or product (your book) requires all the basic knowhow that you have been absorbing from this book. Though you will be grateful to friends who offer to give a party for you, it is unlikely that any of them, unassisted, will possess the necessary skills to stage an effective marketing event.

This means that no matter who serves as the official host or hostess—whether an individual or a group—you will have to take charge of the arrangements and see that it is all done right. The autograph party has to be scheduled at the right time, the right people have to be invited, the evening planned so as to reach a climax when you want it to, and the purchase of your books made to seem as natural and inevitable as breathing.

You will begin planning your autograph party far in advance, even before the initial publication publicity appears. Nor is it necessary that you have only one of them. You may be able to arrange several in a larger town, or one in the town where you work and another in your home town. But the first of them will be the major one, the one that serves as a kickoff celebration for your new life as a published poet.

Who Will Sponsor Your Party?
Your publication/autograph party may be hosted by an individual or by a group. It may be given by:

o An arts council or society. This is a natural choice, if such a body exists in your town and is amenable to sponsoring the event. If you have been an active member, this will facilitate things. Such activities are always investments in your future. Sometimes, the Arts Council itself will not sponsor the event but will make its premises available to the publisher or to some other individual or group that wishes to do so. This adds a certain stamp of approval and unspoken endorsement to the event and to the quality of your book.

o A poetry society. In larger metropolitan areas there is often a privately endowed "poetry society" devoted to encouraging the work of local writers. Such a group may be willing to sponsor your party, especially if you have been active in its work.

o A writer’s club. Many writers clubs, though made of prose writers and poets, will still sponsor publications parties for their own members.

o Your publisher, as main sponsor or, better, as co-sponsor. Even if you have published the book yourself, there is still the publishing company name you have chosen on the bottom of the title page. In this case, invitations to your party can and should be issued in the name of the publisher.

o A friend. A friend may offer to give a party for you. This may be your "official" publication party, or it can be something as simple as a reception in your honor, given in addition to the main event. Even at a reception your books will be available and your three goals remain unchanged.

Key Questions
When someone expresses an interest in giving an autograph party for you, ask yourself if this person is capable of putting together the event with your help (make sure that they will accept your help). Ask yourself the following questions:

o Do they have the space?

o Do they have the social clout?

o If an organization, does it have an active membership?

o Are they willing, with your help, to send out large numbers of invitations?

o Can they schedule the autograph party at a time of day most conducive to the best attendance?

You need positive answers to most of these questions, if possible. If your sponsor does not check out against these success criteria, go ahead, but be prepared to do even more of the work yourself. If the person who makes the offer is a good friend, but not right for the big party, suggest a reception instead.

The Guest List
You will send invitations to the most extensive guest list possible. To do this do not hesitate to offer to help with the costs of printing invitations or postage, if you believe that this will facilitate things.

Your host (or host organization) will undoubtedly rely on you to provide names and addresses of those whom you wish to invite. You should include the following persons on your list:

o Your own family, friends and acquaintances. These are essentially people who, though they may not be interested in poetry, are surely interested in you and who will come to be a part of the celebration.

o Members of the local arts council.

o Members of any local writers clubs to which you belong.

o Media representatives and contacts.

o Library and bookstore people, especially independent booksellers.

o Other published writers and would-be writers of your acquaintance.

o Town dignitaries and politicos of note.

o Business associates or others with whom you do business, particularly those for whom you are an important customer. The printer, typesetter, artists, etc., from whom you bought services in getting your book out are prime candidates. Don’t forget your lawyer, accountant, physician and other professionals who count you as a customer.

Be sure to cross-reference these lists to eliminate duplicates. Also eliminate names of individuals who, for one reason or another, you just don’t want to show up at the affair. The names you have left will constitute your basic invitation list.

Invitations will be mailed out approximately two weeks in advance. This is not the kind of event anyone is likely to postpone a vacation trip for, so you want the invitation to arrive close enough to the date of the event to be easily remembered.

Regrets only are solicited so that those who might have forgotten to respond to an RSVP will feel free to stop by for congratulations and a glass of wine or a cocktail.

The News Release
You will send a news release to the social editor and to the book editor (if any) of your local newspaper telling of the upcoming event. Your goal is to get it reported as a social event of importance just a few days before the party itself—preferably on the preceding Sunday. This article will serve to remind those who received invitations of the time and place of the event, and it will serve to enhance the event and increase attendance at it.

The Best Time of Day
What is the best time for your autograph party? Well, you want both husband and wife to attend, if possible. You don’t want to conflict with more (to the guest) important social commitments. You want to fit in easily with personal schedules.

I have found that an event scheduled from five until seven or seven-thirty, on a week-day night, works best. Of the available week-days experience shows that Tuesday and Thursday work best. The time slot is easily manageable. Business persons can stop by on the way home from work, dressed in their business clothes. Wives and husbands can easily meet at the party location. And the time commitment is limited enough to assure anyone that the event, though pleasant enough, is not likely to monopolize their evening.

Correctly organized, however, and with a good mix of guests, autograph parties have a way of becoming more enjoyable than most imagined they would be, and guests linger longer (and buy more books) than they expected to.

The Best Location
While a friend who is sponsoring your party may be quite willing to have it in her home, this may not be the best choice. Some public place, preferably arts-related, works better than a private residence.

I think this is true because individuals who simply want to drop in can do so more easily when the autograph party is taking place in a public place. They do not feel as obliged to go home from work, and shower and change as they would if attending a cocktail party in someone’s home. Attendance will be greater. Such a location, too, helps focus attention on you as poet and allays any reservations an individual might have about the promotional aspects of the evening. In the absence of other available locations, however, a quite successful evening can be planned at a home.

What kind of public place? I recommend that arrangements be made to have the event in the reception area, say, of the local museum of art or in the facilities of the local arts council. In your area other such locations may be possible. You may also consider renting space, if it is affordable, in a local hotel or motel, but I would do this only if nothing else was available and if the space itself was often used by the community for receptions and similar events.

Keep the area as small as you can relative to the number of people you expect to serve. (No more that 50% of those invited, in all likelihood, will attend.) It is far better to have more people in a smaller space than the same number of guests lost in the expanse of a ballroom.

The Physical Arrangements
Do not spread out over too large an area. Provide a table of attractive but affordable hors d’oeuvres somewhere near the center of the area where you wish the bulk of the guests to congregate. The kind you can buy ready-made at many grocery store delicatessen departments or even at wholesale houses like Sam’s Club or Costco are perfectly suitable. To one side you will position a table where someone will serve white wine or perhaps simple cocktails, depending on your personal tastes and budget. But it is important to have one or the other of these beverages. Punch will be available for the nondrinkers.

Not too distant from the food and drink—but far enough away to be perceived as a separate center of attention—will be a table on which your books are stacked, along with a poster board and easel with an enlargement of the cover, quotes from reviewers and perhaps a "Congratulations" banner of some kind. This table will be the center of book sales as the reception progresses. Someone will be present at this table at all times to handle the money, make change, etc. You do not want to do this yourself. The sales table should be positioned so that guests leaving the party will be aware of its presence, since they will have to pass close by.

Another small table will be set up with a single chair. At this table you will sign books purchased by the guests and brought to you. Most writers sign on the title page, near the place where their name is printed. Always ask for whom the book is being bought, and be sure to check the spelling of unfamiliar names. You can sign simply, "Best wishes to ....," followed by your name and the date.

Signing and the Selling
At about six or six fifteen (if you started up at five) the crowd will peak before starting to thin out a little. At this moment the host will get the attention of the crowd, welcome the guests and thank them for coming, tell about you and your book (using information you have provided) and offer a toast. You will respond, briefly. Your host will then announce that you will be available to autograph this first edition (this phrase has strong sell-power) of your books as they are brought to you. Then she bids the guests to continue the celebration.

At this point you have to let the guests know what to do. For most if not all of them this will be the first autograph party they have been to. They will not know what is expected of them. You will have to show them by example. Arrange for several friends to purchase copies (real purchases or not) at this time. They need to pull out the bucks and get change so that others will know what is to be done. Then they will take their books to you for signing. After the signing they will proudly show their copy off to other guests at the party.

All this can be done quite naturally, and it is absolutely essential to initiate the process of getting book sales going.

Bookstore Parties
Occasionally you see an ad for a bookstore autograph signing. An author will be present to sign copies of books bought there by customers. These sometimes work, at the right place and time, and with a very well-known author. But they are a great gamble, and usually fail to attract the crowds that you need to be successful.

Nobody is free to go by the store during business hours, and in the late afternoon, when all the world is at home enjoying an end-of-the-day cocktail, who wants to go to a shopping mall to watch some poet sign a book?

And there’s nothing lonelier than an autograph party to which no one comes.

Don’t depend on bookstore autograph parties alone unless you are very well-known in the community and unless the community is a very unusual one it its support of literature and the arts. I might try it in a bookstore on Harvard Square or in downtown Chapel Hill, but unless I was supported by a folk singer, a band and a group of ethnic dancers I would not count on success even then.

-- TW
©1999 Tom Williams

Dr. Tom Williams is author of 11 non-fiction books and scores of magazine articles in national and regional magazines from Esquire to Writer's Digest. He is the former editor and publisher magazines and community newspapers and is editor-in-chief of his own book publishing company, Venture Press. His two latest books are Kitchen-Table Publisher: How to Make $100,000 a Year Publishing City and Regional Magazines, Weeklies, Shoppers and Guidebooks (5th Edition) and Poet Power: The Practical Poet's Complete Guide to Getting Published and to Self-Publication. For more information, visit his web site at http://www.PubMart.com.