Flying Like Hummingbirds Exciting the Air Around Them MARKETING YOUR CHAPS WITH LIMITED IF ANY HELP FROM THE PUBLISHER by Jennifer Bosveld President, Pudding House Publications Most publishers are decreasing actions they take in order to sell the books they publish. Even many large presses no longer pay for or arrange readings and signings—if the presentations I’ve seen on Book TV and at conferences are an indication. Unless the author is a big name or the topic of the book is hot enough that high sales are guaranteed, the publishers of most titles do little advertising. They allow their publications list to do the work. Some publishers have catalogues but for those of us who publish and release year-round, catalogues don't work; they would be obsolete before printed, much less distributed. For the purposes of this article, let us talk about chapbook publishing since that’s the majority of Pudding House products. Chapbooks have their own set of realities. HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO MAKE A CHAPBOOK? Possible profit margin has everything to do with whether a company has anything left to invest in marketing and advertising. There is little monetary profit for the publisher in chapbook publication. I have known some exceptions. Here are some factors. If you see a $10 cover price on a paper saddle-stitched chapbook, you could be tempted to think that’s a fairly hefty price for something you could use as a placemat if it doesn’t sell after you ran it off at Kinkos for a buck. Add to that printing cost the cost of stapling, then front trim (which my local Kinkos does not do well and we don't use this trashy approach to chapbook publishing), and you have a cost so far of perhaps on average $2.50. But the majority of the cost of a chapbook is not the printing. Remember that, we’ll come back to it. HOW DID YOU GET HERE? Now many of us came along through some naive track involving poor rhymes and trite concepts, into a writers’ group that woke us up somewhat, or through some state poetry organization, perhaps the college and creative writing pathway, and then some low percentage of us might have been eventually published in The Southern Review, Poetry, Hobnuppers Catch, etc. At some time before that we had enough beginner-to-mid-range published poems that we decided to self-publish a chapbook. We selected, typed, revised, edited, pasted-up (so far you haven’t had to write a check for anything much) and took the little prize to a quick print and you had something to sell at your readings. This is self-publishing; there’s nothing wrong with this. It’s honest. It’s artistic if you do it artistically. It’s a beginning, and for some writers it’s a way of life for decades and serves them well. You pay, you play. IT MATTERS HOW YOU PUBLISH What if you want a “real publishing company’s” name on the book? A company everybody’s heard of and respects? You pay. One way or another. You either pay with your checkbook if you haven’t gotten good yet and go the non-respected vanity/subsidy route, or you pay with your checkbook the right way by taking classes, buying books on writing, taking workshops in order to improve your craft so that a decent publisher will want to risk her company resources on you. One way or another, you pay. It is not an honorable option to pay up front to a publisher (as far as I’m concerned). Vanity and subsidy publishing doesn’t go hand-in-hand with an editor or publisher who chose your work above others based on its merit. A publisher is not reputable if they want your money upfront before saying yes. Vanity and subsidy publishers say yes because you’re willing to pay them to publish you. The quality of the work makes little to no difference. These enterprises care nothing about “literature” or quality of the read. Avoid them. It will not only cost you money, but it will cost you a better reputation. Co-publishing is a mixed bag and can often be a “vanity” situation as well. In my opinion if the publisher needs assurance that you’re going to buy (at wholesale even) a quantity of your books before he will say yes, that’s vanity publishing no matter what anybody chooses to call it. You don’t get it unless you’re willing to pay for it. This looks like the world’s oldest occupation to me. If it is a matter of assuring a larger print run based on your purchase of additional copies, well, that makes sense. But that should be a deal for after the publisher's offer to publish. And you should feel free to take only the free copies they offer you which can be wise if you never give readings and have no way to get the chapbook in front of people. (Honestly, if this is the case I have to wonder about your passion.) The poet you have become will help you draw the line. My suggestions about marketing and advertising are based on dealing with legitimate publishing operations in America today—especially one that is an independent small press. That’s Pudding House. HOW WE RUN THINGS AT PUDDING HOUSE When we were first starting out in the early ’80s I had a cushiony government job, a regular paycheck coming in, and the magazines and books I published were funded by my day job. I didn’t have to count my labor—it was a hobby (though a passionate one) and I was willing to spend my lunch money and even the mortgage money on the little enterprise. Around 1989 I quit the reliable paycheck and devoted full time to Pudding House Publications and Pudding House Innovative Writers Programs. A huge risk. When you become a legitimate publishing operation all practices must change. At Pudding House Publications, we accept a manuscript for publication because we respect the work. (Note, please, that we also respect some work that we don’t choose for publication.) It might not be my poetry of preference, but I respect it. Usually I accept for overall artistic merit but also for style, message, or what it can accomplish for a variety of readers. If I accept a work, that means I think it should have an audience and the author deserves support. Even if I think I’ll never get an outside order from a bookstore, the poet doesn’t give readings, doesn’t teach, and has few friends or family, I might want to publish it if it is “good”—even though it will be lucky to get a print run of 100. At least the author will have some decent publication credits that he deserves. If the poet gets out—to conferences, workshops, open mics, and especially if he lands some featured readings, I’ll print more. Typically our first print run is some small number over what the author, our subscriber libraries, collectors, and archivists need while we keep finger to the wind and stay ready to reprint if there is demand. We try to always have some on hand. This is considerably better than publication-on-demand; it’s more like just-in-time inventory control. Most efficiently operated businesses today run things this way. We have printed fewer than 100 and as many as 1500 copies of a chapbook title over time. With nearly 1000 titles in print without any grant support or a warehouse to keep them in, some crucial business practices rule every decision at Pudding House. CHAPBOOKS EXIST TO MAKE ALL OF US RICH IN SPIRIT! Chapbooks increase a poet’s output. They are a wonderful supplement to the rest of your bibliography. One can even make a bit of a reputation off of a series of chapbooks. Nowadays, highly respected poets with full-length 4-color perfect bound books return to chapbooks for special projects—even as the bigger books are selling. I believe that “you never outgrow your need for chapbooks.” Chapbooks provide an affordable option for readers to own your work when they might not be able to afford a $24.95 book. A chapbook is a great way to release work on a particular theme or style. Chapbooks are easier to keep in print. Often, in time, large publishers are interested in compiling the poems from three to six chapbooks or more and put them in a full-length book. Chapbook credits can support tenure applications (depending on who the publisher is and sometimes the process for selecting manuscripts). They can also influence future publishing potential, invitations to give readings, and invitations to present. My chapbook, Jazz Kills the Paperboy, was a demonstration chapbook on the style I labeled and defined as “virtual journalism” and that led to classroom adoption at several university creative writing programs and more sales than a chapbook usually enjoys. In time, I revised Jazz into a full length book. The point I’m trying to make is that the pay-off for publishing a chapbook is most often not financial but rather emotional, honorary, or expands one’s status as a writer. Chapbook publications add to the dynamics of your life as a poet and they pump up your literary resume. I have for years helped people with their careers and have lectured on a re-definition of words like income, profit and loss, employment. This paragraph is loaded with income experiences that profit the writer at work. Financial “profit” is also a big possibility. Author wholesale programs at Pudding House allow an author to make up to $5.00 profit on every chapbook sold. NO RIDICULOUS EXPECTATIONS I can’t think of a chapbook that launched someone’s career or made them famous. Chapbook publishing might be the “what you do for love” element of your life as a poet. But don’t attempt to buy a reputation from a charlatan company pretending to be a publisher on your side. In fact they might be frauds who won’t even hawk your book at all. In time they might dump your inventory because you paid big time to cover their costs. No loss to that company, you’re out $8,000–20,000 for a collection with a company name on it that I disrespect so much that I’ll trash your review copy if you’re silly enough to send me one. Some vanity presses will eventually send you what they have left in the warehouse (watch out, by the way, for warehousing costs from these places). Ok, so let’s assume you’re dealing with a reputable outfit. What can you expect? We’re all different but there might be some norms. Pudding House makes the following offer to all authors rich or poor, widely published or not, and regardless of how many copies of the chap I think we’ll be able to sell. Many well known authors have said “oh, that’s certainly generous” and others have said “can’t I get a few more free copies?” My answer is the same for all authors. This is the deal. I insist on being fair. And by the way, our little profit is just about the same regardless of how many extra wholesale copies an author orders over their free copies. It costs us much more per book to do less. HERE’S WHAT YOU GET FROM PUDDING HOUSE: Publication 20 free copies ISBN number and inclusion in Bowker’s Books In Print Monitored inventory: we keep you in print, your name out there Listing on the www.puddinghouse.com website— we don’t take you off just because you or your book are old Inclusion in several special collections such as Kent State University Libraries SUNY/Buffalo The Ohio State University Brown University Poets House in Soho/NYC Pudding House archives and with independent collectors Generous discounts to independent bookstores, for classroom adoption, and for writers groups. Optional 100-piece email to addresses of your choice (we immediately destroy the list upon “send.” ) Bookstore-generated sales: prepay, no returns, generous discounts. KNOW YOUR PUBLISHER’S POLITICS We boycott the media monopoly (that’s another essay). If the poet wants to sell directly to The Big Bookstore, that’s their business and we don’t interfere though we encourage authors to support independent booksellers and have their readings there and at libraries, bars, community centers, casket companies and at other interesting venues. Be prepared to see your book listed with attitude or displayed with other collections that represent your publishing company’s editorial slant. WHAT YOU CAN DO TO GET YOUR CHAPBOOK SOLD Attend readings Participate in open mics, become known in your neighborhood/city as a poet Work on reading/delivery technique and presentation style Be a poet the audience wants to hear Let venue directors know you have a chapbook out now and are available as a featured reader At your readings, set up a good-looking display where people come into the room, not up front where you are. Most people won’t make it up there and therefore won’t see your book. Offer “special event” discounts if possible. This is not the same as casually taking $2 off the price here and there. We don't recommend that. Add a kicker line or blurb about your chap to your personal or professional stationery. (Thanks Warren Woessner) Copy the cover and some of the back info i.e. ISBN and price and make your own flyer. Send out your own direct mail announcement with order form so they can order from you. Some authors want the publisher to handle all orders, they think it looks better. I understand the feeling. But don’t do both. If we both take orders even the best of friends can easily opt not to buy in hopes that you think they bought from us. Some people are loaded with friends who buy what they write; others do not know this luxury. Sometimes that eagerness to support a friend is a cultural thing, social custom. Get local coverage in a newspaper if you have an angle, an interesting story that community members might be interested in. Do a press release and include a copy of the book when sending to the newspaper. If your book appeals to special interests, send press releases and samples to those folks, i.e. Vivian Shipley’s Fishing Poems went to a couple of gift shops around popular fishing spots. Al Ferber’s Gus went to a Union 76 Station counter where they sold some. REVIEWS Send out review copies if you feel like it but don’t do it haphazardly. Realize which places do not review chapbooks—don’t waste your resources there. Also, ask yourself what you really want and what is reasonable to expect. If almost any chapbook would be fortunate (?) enough to get a review in the KnockmBopm Monthly, know whether it’s likely to get slammed. Be careful what you ask for, you might get it is the Mark Twain quote I usually consider a blessing, but very often, not when it comes to reviews. We no longer send out review copies because in over 20 years of doing so we never received a negative review (thank you, cosmos) but those positive reviews rarely if ever sold books. When Rita Dove published a raving review of a Pudding House release in the Washington Post I think we received one sale from the praise and over 200 congratulatory time-consuming emails. READINGS AND PERFORMANCE—ARE NEARLY ALL THAT MATTER Readings, more than anything else, sell chapbooks. TEACHING FROM YOUR OWN TEXT Some of our author’s chapbooks are required or recommended reading for the courses they teach at colleges and universities. Before anyone gets up in arms over that, please consider: many poets are hired based on their publications, their style, the process they use, some manner about their discipline for which they’ve become famous or nearly so—an aspect of their profession that is so valuable that it is worth passing on to students. Might it be true that if a poet has so much to offer that they land a job teaching it, they certainly should be including their own work at least among “recommended reading” if not “required reading.” I have only recently come to this opinion. THE COST OF DOING BUSINESS Remember that $2.50 cost of printing a chapbook in my opening? Wrong. That’s the cost in coins out of pocket if YOU do it. It comes nowhere near the cost of doing hundreds and thousands of chapbooks week after week, just being here for you and your possibilities, paying a staff, doing the accounting, paying the taxes, paying the lawyer to assure we're professional at tax time, keeping high quality fresh paper in stock, maintaining computers and printers and copiers and saddle-stitchers (they're a pain in the ass) and websites, . . .the toner the programs the cabinets for holding the books the staff hours for logging them on many data bases like Bowker Books in Print, etc. (Breathe, Jennifer). Mine is a company, not a spare-time interest. I pay my staff well. We have at least 12 hard-working hours of professional labor in production work in each chapbook: transferring your disk to our computer (often there are problems including translation problems), writing/formatting business page, designing back cover and other pages, doing layout, perhaps some proofreading and/or editing suggestions, letter writing/emails...communicating with authors, researching art, designing art for cover, printing, folding, binding, trimming, packaging, mailing, listing on Books in Print, shipping to pre-sales, collectors, library archives, updating website and other tasks I’ve forgotten at this writing. The estimated cost per copy (each book) is $5 or $6 on average. If we give a 50% discount to authors (this is based on quantity—10% to 50%) then we might be realizing a so-called profit of under fifty cents. So we try to be as efficient as possible in production. The more letters, emails, and phone conversations we have with authors, the higher our costs; yet, a personal relationship with our authors is important to us. It's an interesting balancing act. Since we are an independent private press, we are not a 501(c)3 organization and don’t request grants or other support for chapbooks. Our history of thriving is unbelievably based solely on sales. And we have been thriving. Of course, remember, that I define “income” differently than television does and I am happy with just what we need and a little of what we want. Conferences, book fairs, workshops, readings, special events, college bookstores/adoptions, and website sales are enough to sustain a small press with sound operating practices and moderate expectations. Less than 2% of our sales are from traditional bookstores. Not even a trace percentage are from libraries and we wish we had time to connect with more libraries because we know they'd want what we produce. We do not opt to spend our time on that, unfortunately. So we're grateful for the several libraries that do buy a copy of everything we publish. If we had to add “marketing” and advertising into our budget, we would have been out of business 15 years ago. Aha! So there it is! PLAYING WITH TOES The so-called “marketing,” if there is to be much, is usually left to the author for chapbook products. If you have the energy, follow some of the suggestions I offered under the WHAT YOU CAN DO paragraph. If you don’t have the energy or the chutzpah to assertively, much less aggressively, sell your wares, be happy that you have still another title in print, that you have 20 free copies (or 2 or 100 depending upon the press), and get on with your new work. You’re only as great as what you’re writing NOW. Let your chapbook have its life. Get it out there, show up for it, but write the new work—always. “This little pig went to market, this little pig stayed home, this little pig had roast beef, this little pig had none, this little pig cried wee wee wee wee all the way home.” Go to market, have roast beef or a gourmet salad, sing all the way home. Your present is yours to design. Something wonderful is about to happen to you. Get out there so that your most exciting future possible can find you. Jennifer Bosveld, President Pudding House Publications 81 Shadymere Lane Columbus Ohio 43213 PS We no longer have a walk-in office. We operate in the electrons. But we’re here for you. If you’re one of my authors I care much about what happens to your chapbook and your career AC (“After Chapbook”). Stay in touch. Tell us the story of your chapbook. Now there’s an idea. SEND US THE STORY OF YOUR CHAPBOOK’S LIFE I invite our chapbook authors to email 100 to 1000 word overviews of how they’ve created a successful experience with their Pudding House chapbook. Where do those colorful little things hover? Where do they feed and nest and look good? How can we find them? Or are they elusive as hummingbirds and nearly that rare to find exciting the air around them? Maybe I’ll post a few of these stories. ________________________________________________ Jennifer, My collection, Barbara Crooker’s Greatest Hits: 1980-2002 got sent to Garrison Keillor, who decided to read a poem from it on the air (The Writers’ Almanac) August 29, 2003! I loved your article on chapbook marketing, and plan to use it for a workshop I’m teaching on how to put a chapbook together, this September—thanks for writing it, it’s excellent! best, Barbara Crooker __________________________________________________ |