Future Tense Press:
I’m sort of embarrassed but proud at the same time that I created
and built Future Tense pretty much by myself. I didn’t know any writers
at all when I started. I hadn’t even read much at that point. I met a
bunch of writers when I moved to Portland and got more serious about
writing and publishing. Then I started working at Powell’s in late 1997
and took over with coordinating events a year later. I’ve also been in
charge of the small press literary buying. Besides all that, I started
writing more book reviews and publishing in bigger venues at the start
of the new century. I also started editing this sporadic series of
books for Manic D Press a couple of years ago and that’s a whole other
angle for Future Tense. I’m in a lucky position where I know a lot of
people in the book world and I’m meeting new people all the time.
Everyone from zinesters to editors at major publishing houses.
New Michigan Press:
Well, like many of the others here, I was a writer first. Maybe. I
make my living as a professor, where I teach in the MFA program at the
University of Arizona. I never really know how to introduce myself to
others, or how to describe myself: writer-teacher-editor?
Teacher-writer-designer? Etc. For me my teaching life overlaps
significantly with my writing life, and both feed the other. And both
draw from my interests in publications, editorial work, and design.
I’ve always been involved in publishing others. This started in college
where I somehow became editor of our college litmag, which had an
incredible $40,000 a year budget (still insane and amazing—they have a
stellar literary magazine and creative writing program which intertwine
I am sure). When I was editing Catch the web was just
starting to take off so I established the first website for the
journal, and we published some original work online. I designed that
site in Netscape Composer, unfortunately enough. A lot of stuff
blinked. It was pretty rad. This was in 1996. Then I went on to get my
MA in English at Iowa State University where the graduate literary
magazine, unfortunately named Sketch, was defunct. Compadres and I brought that back to life, and I started another online litmag there called knotgrass which was pretty decent, albeit small. I ended up at the University of Alabama for my MFA where I lucked into working on Black Warrior Review,
interned at the University of Alabama Press doing book design, and did
broadsides for the reading series. After I left BWR I started my
journal DIAGRAM, which I
continue with today, and started up New Michigan Press in more
seriousness. I was debating going on to an editorial or design job, but
then I got a teaching job, and my first two books got picked up, and
the teaching allowed me to really focus on all the stuff I wanted to
focus on, editorial and writing and design and internetty and
everything.
Tameme:
I'm a writer, poet and literary translator (specializing in
contemporary Mexican literature). You can read oodles about my own work
on my website. I founded Tameme
as a bilingual (Spanish / English) literary journal back in the late
1990s, in the wake of NAFTA. The journal published many Mexican,
American, and Canadian writers, all in English/ Spanish format,
including Edwidge Danticat, A. Manette Ansay, Margaret Atwood, W.D.
Snodgrass, Guillermo Samperio, Juan Villoro, and so many more. You can
read about the history of Tameme as a journal here.
Dancing Girl Press:
I’ve been writing since high school and went on to study English
and theatre at a small Midwest liberal school, scribbling what I
thought was good poetry the entire time but with only vague aspirations
toward any sort of literary career (and no real idea how to go about
it). I convinced myself I intended to teach by the time I finished,
and went on to get my MA in Literature from DePaul, but decided at some
point that I didn’t have the temperament for teaching, and decided to
just get some sort of employment that wouldn’t be too draining mentally
and allow me to focus on writing…all of which, of course, landed me in
a couple library jobs. In the summer of 2001, I was working at
Columbia College (where I still work today) and found myself spending
long stretches in front a computer on the circulation desk at work...
Up til then, I had been submitting poems with a couple of small
successes to print journals, but that year I discovered the world of
online journals, and of course wanted ever so badly to start my own.
wicked alice published its first issue in September that year, and grew
larger over the next couple of years. In fall of 2003, I started
plotting to start a chapbook press, which, if nothing else, would get
my own chapbook out there. (I’d had a chapbook accepted in 2002 by a
small, local press, but it was still in production and I was impatient
since I was doing a lot of readings where people who wanted books were
walking away empty handed....) I also thought that a print companion
to the online stuff would be a great idea. I had started taking
classes in the MFA program at Columbia, and my second semester, wound
up in a Small Press Publishing course over in the Fiction Writing
Department. My project at that point, was a compendium of the best of
wicked alice. I decided to do a trial run with my own chap, Bloody Mary
in terms of layout, costs, printing, design, & production. Once
I successfully had done that, it was only a matter of time before I
began looking for other books to publish and it took off from there…I
still occasionally publish some of my own work, since I believe in the
strongly in self-publication and the DIY ethos (mostly little
chapbooks for my own amusement or special book art projects…) but now
try to devote most of our fiscal resources to publishing other writers
since I’ve found some excellent presses (like New Michigan on this very
panel) thankfully willing publish my own projects.
Greying Ghost Press:
Not sure if anything in my background pertains to the literary
world. Other than I’m a used book buyer who spends a good chunk of the
day thinking about books and bits and pieces of poems. I’ve been doing
Greying Ghost officially for about a year now and before that I did an
online journal called Pettycoat Relaxer.
Kitchen Press:
I’m a poet. My first full length collection, A Million in Prizes, is forthcoming from New Issues Press in spring 2009, and a new chapbook, Voir Dire, will be published by Rope-a-Dope Press in December 2008. My previous chapbooks are [Summer insular] (horse less press, 2007) and You Being You by Proxy (Kitchen Press, 2005). I was Editor of LIT
magazine for a couple years, and I learned how to actually make a
chapbook in a workshop I took with Fanny Howe as well as in a class
with Shanna Compton that was specifically about learning how to make
chapbooks.
Dan:
I’m going to end up jumping around a bit here – dipping into the
business aspect of the publishing world from time to time. What sort
of print runs are you publishing? Do you keep track of First vs.
Second print runs, and so on?
Future Tense Press:
Occasionally I will publish a paperback book but it’s mostly
chapbooks for me and I usually start with 200. I just use standard
photocopy places so it’s easy for me to just go in and crank out a few
more whenever they’re needed, even if that means just making ten more
of something. I’m pretty bad at keeping track of print runs and how
many I sell of something. I’m pretty good at estimating though.
New Michigan Press:
It depends on the title. We do print runs of around 500 usually. We
do keep track of the print runs; though we are in the process of
switching technologies with this current year of chapbooks to
perfect-bound, four-color cover, 5” x 8” (or in one case 5.5” x 8.5”)
books. And we’re going to be producing them using digital printing/POD
technology so this may render the idea of a print run obsolete. Not to
say we’re completely abandoning the saddle-stitched chapbooks since we
may well do more of them, but we’re excited about this transition
(especially since the production costs are the same, the distribution
is significantly improved, and the artifact of the book is increasingly
cool).
Tameme:
We do offset printing (not digital or print-on-demand), so the more
we print, the cheaper it is per unit, and it quickly becomes less a
question of how much does it cost to print, but what are the freight
and storage costs? (Um, is there room in the garage?) But we're talking
literary chapbooks here. The numbers are in-line with what most
literary journals do. Approximately 1,000.
Dancing Girl Press:
Since I do all the printing and assembly myself, we usually do
about 100 out of the gate, maybe more depending on how many copies the
author wants initially . After that, I pretty much just keep making
them in small batches for as long as there is a demand for them. A
couple things have been limited, special projects involving finite
materials, authors who request a limited editions (usually because a
full-length book is imminent.). I see the value in making things
special limited editions, a culture of rarity, but I also believe more
firmly in spreading the work as far and wide as possible. I usually
leave it up to the author, once those initial 100 are gone as to
whether I’ll continue to do more
We have a couple chaps that are well over 300 copies printed…
Greying Ghost Press:
I like doing small initial print runs, usually between 50-75 copies.
I like the small print runs because I do everything (printing, cutting,
folding etc) myself by hand. And with small print runs you can
experiment more with design and packaging, giving the whole project a
very intimate feel. For me, if I were to do larger print runs, because
I’m usually strapped for time, the project might get watered down and
look a bit generic. And obviously, with a small print run, I can keep
the costs down.
As for the second part of the question, in the event that a
chapbooks sells out, any future print runs would be up to the author.
I’ve met some writers who like the idea of having just that brief
burst. Others want their work to soldier on. I can see the merits of
both sides. Personally, if a book sells well and there’s enough of a
demand, I have no qualms about printing more (depending on time and
costs and scheduling…) with slightly less fancy packaging.
Kitchen Press:
My print runs are essentially print-on-demand. If someone orders a
book, I make it and send it out. The only book I printed a second
edition of was my own You Being You by Proxy, but that’s because I wound up making some revisions to a few poems after I had initially published the book.
Dan:
You have made the decision to publish chapbooks as opposed to books
with full spines? What factors led to that decision? Have you
discovered anything about the chapbook form since beginning your
publishing endeavor that you hadn’t really thought of before you
started?
Future Tense Press:
It’s mainly a financial issue for me. I can’t afford to shell out a
couple grand to print a “real book” and besides, I like short books. I
like reading them and I certainly would rather be responsible for
editing and proofreading 40 pages instead of 200. It makes my job
easier. Some people think it’s unusual that I focus on fiction and
nonfiction prose for the chapbooks I publish (most people assume you
publish poetry if it’s a chapbook), but for those kinds of writers that
are lesser-known, I think 40 pages or so is a good introduction. People
don’t mind paying five bucks to try out a writer they haven’t read much
of. It’s like a taster sampler. Plus, yeah, I like the handmade quality
of the chapbook. I’ve staple nearly all the chapbooks I’ve published
myself.
New Michigan Press:
I’ve always been more enamored of the chapbook form than the book,
especially for poetry, which is about 85% of what we publish. It’s a
more manageable project as a reader and writer, I think, and I like the
heft of that sized project in the hands and in the brain. And we’ve
seen the chapbook start to really come back as a form this decade,
particularly in poetry, but also increasingly in prose. I think there’s
more of this DIY aesthetic starting to return to publishing as the
tools and technology is more obviously within reach and as writers and
readers start to get a little disillusioned with mass market
publishing. A chapbook is more intimate, more of an artifact, often, a
one-of-a-kind, a private experience, a limited edition.
Tameme:
Two reasons. First, because a smaller book --- a chapbook --- is so
much cheaper. It's cheaper to print, it's cheaper to ship from the
printers, cheaper to mail to buyers, cheaper to give away (our policy
is to be generous with review copies, especially to bloggers), and it's
less time consuming for all involved in the production, few of whom are
paid. Second: An additional and very crucial advantage over a journal
(what we did before) or say, an anthology (which is what the journal
really was) is that the chapbook is more appealing for the author. They
have something that focuses exclusively on their work, and they can
sell it--- as it's cheaper than a book with a spine--- relatively
easily at their own events. And again, as we are able to send out more
review copies than we would otherwise, it brings their work that much
more visibility.
Dancing Girl Press:
Initially, it was just a matter of money and resources. My usual
budget for a chapbook is about $100 for paper, cardstock, toner,
postage for review & promo copies and such… There wasn’t really an
option for anything else at the time (actually there is now with POD,
which I am taking advantage of as well for some future projects, but
it’s still far more cost effective and manageable to print them
myself.) Plus, I like having more firmly handed control over things.
I’ve also sort of fallen in love with chapbooks as objects and have a
massive personal collection. I’m also interested in stretching
boundaries of what a chapbook is and can be... I’ve also discovered
that sometimes, these slim little volumes are where some of the most
exciting poetry I’m reading is coming from. There’s a certain amount
of risk possibility when things are on such a small scale. I like
being able to give newer, less well-known poets a publication
opportunity, even though we may only sell a handful of copies
initially, than have to only publish books I feel will be big sellers,
a pressure I would definitely feel if I were paying a couple thousand
to finance a book…I initially just funded the press out of pocket, but
eventually we broke even, then started to turn a profit, which helps to
pay for publishing more books and rent on the studio space, which got
the entire operation out of my dining room, which was starting to get a
little nuts...
Greying Ghost Press:
For me, it’s a matter of how much time I have and what my budget
looks like. I’m the type that likes to do everything in-house so I tend
to rely heavily on stapling. I have nightmares about having an outside
company print and bind a book only to have it come out looking
different than I’d pictured it. One thing I’ve learned is that
chapbooks can be produced at relatively low costs. And that just
because something didn’t cost much to make, can still look beautiful
and professional. I’ve been reading a lot of books about the history of
bookbinding and typography. A great source has been “The Elements of
Typographic Style” by Robert Bringhurst. He says that proper typography
is essential—it’s the duty of the publisher to accurately represent the
text while maintaining a level of invisibility. And its true because
when I get a chapbook in the mail that looks hastily thrown together
(i.e. poor font on untrimmed copier paper) I immediately have a
negative reaction which isn’t the fault of the writer. My job is to
make things look smooth enough so the reader doesn’t get distracted
(while not breaking the bank to do so).
Kitchen Press:
Well, all Kitchen Press chapbooks do actually have spines. But I
know what you mean. Money was a big part of my reason for doing chaps
as opposed to perfect bound books. It’s a lot cheaper to make a
chapbook than a perfect bound book. Plus, I enjoy making chapbooks,
printing them myself, folding them and stapling them.
One of the main things I’ve learned about chapbooks is just how
thorough and complete they can be on their own. I think when I started
I saw chapbooks largely as stepping stones to full length books,
something to just give a reader a taste of things to come or generate
quick exposure for the poet—sort of like EPs are to LPs. But then I
started publishing chaps that were totally complete, stand alone works
of art that were every bit as strong as—often times stronger than—many
books I was reading.
In that sense, I think chapbooks are really in many ways the ideal
form for poetry. You can read them largely in one sitting and at the
same time be pulled into a whole new, exciting world, one that’s fully
formed.
Dan:
How many titles do you plan on publishing per year?
Future Tense Press:
I think the most I do is four. I usually aim for three. Because I
work full time and parent and write myself, there’s not as much time to
do Future Tense as I’d like. And I’m a control freak about it so I
won’t let anyone else edit or staple the books, or read through
submissions.
New Michigan Press:
We usually do about six chapbook titles a year, though we also print the DIAGRAM
anthologies, broadsides (maybe 10 or so a year), and occasional
quarter-chaps (sized to a quarter of a letter-size sheet folded), too.
It’s a manageable number for me to commit to, select, produce, and
promote, since this is only one of the endeavors I’m involved in.
Tameme:
One.
Dancing Girl Press:
I started out with the goal to publish 3-5 in 2004, but it’s grown
exponentially since then. I think we did 4 that year, 6 in 2005, 9 in
2006, 14 in 2007, and so far 12 with a bunch more to go in the next few
months. I doubled up on a lot of them this year, and usually am
working on two simultaneously these days. Next year, though I’m
planning on just 12 for the year….but then, I might do more depending
on my mood. Control freak that I am (and I am), I love the fact that I
do have the sort of freedom to take on as much work as I want and set
my own boundaries and budgets.
Greying Ghost Press:
As many as is reasonably and fiscally possible. There’s a fine
balance between publishing just enough and over-saturation. Nonetheless
I do have a rough goal of one or two books every couple months. That in
addition to a slew of broadsides and pamphlets. Some formally announced
and others sneaked in through the back door.
Kitchen Press:
I generally don’t have a plan for how many chaps I do per year, but I think so far it averages out to about 4 per year.
Dan:
Do you have an open submission process, or is work solicited, or do
you have contests? And do you prefer electronic submissions vs. hard
copy, or vice versa, or doesn’t it matter to you?
Future Tense Press:
Right now the Future Tense web site says we’re not accepting
submissions and it’s been like that most of the year. I usually do have
an open policy but almost half the people I’ve worked with are people
I’ve read somewhere and then solicited. Both ways are exciting for me
though. I like finding people in the email slush pile. I prefer email
queries first and then I might ask to see work but most of the time I
can tell from a query if it’s something I have time to look into
further. I’ve never had a Future Tense contest. I’m not sure I like
contests.
New Michigan Press:
We are open to queries year round, though we rarely read unsolicited
manuscripts during our contest season. For the most part, probably 85%
of the manuscripts we’ve published have come out of the submissions for
our yearly chapbook contest. We’ve moved the contest submissions online
because it’s a lot easier to track and manage the stacks, and since a
lot of our readers and editors are not local, it makes for an easier
reading experience. We still accept hardcopy submissions but they’re a
bit more of a pain for us to deal with.
Tameme:
It varies, but when we have a call for submissions we always post in
on the website, www.tameme.org Just click on "Someter / Submit".
Dancing Girl Press:
We have an open submission period every summer, from which I pull
about 75 % of what we publish. I like to pull in a lot of Chicago
authors, so I do a bit of soliciting in that arena, and sometimes from
wicked alice contributors. We only accept electronic submissions since
I have more than enough paper around --I’m drowning in it. I’m an
organization freak, so I have a little system of flags and e-mail
folders that help me log and track submissions. There’s a “yes” file,
a “maybe” file, and a “no thanks” file. If I’m interested, I’ll
advance it to the 2nd round of reading, print it out, carry it around a
bit, and finally make a decision.
Greying Ghost Press:
I read manuscripts all year round. No contests or windows of
opportunity. I understand the benefits of both, but with an open door
policy you can get a pretty eclectic sampling of the poets and writers
who are out there in the world. Plus I like the idea of a publisher who
puts out stuff by both the known and unknown. Seems less hoity-toity.
I prefer electronic subs—easier to format and less likely to get
lost. I would however recommend keeping all submissions and manuscripts
backed up some discs. Just in case there’re technological glitches
(computer crashes). Also, with electronic submissions, you can pick out
a portion of the text and email it with any questions to the writer
asap.
Kitchen Press:
At first I solicited work. Then people starting to write to ask if
they could email me manuscripts. If I had time, I’d say yes. Morgan
Lucas Schuldt did that, as did Mathias Svalina. I’ve also had poets
whose books I published recommend other poets to me. So a few books
have come about that way, Lily Brown’s Old With You and Sandra Simonds’ Tomorrow’s Bright Bracelets, both of which should be out by the new year.
Dan:
How do you go about designing and printing your books? Do you have
an in-house art person, do the authors get involved, is your printer
local?
Future Tense Press:
I think cover design is really important and I know a lot of
talented people who do great art or design. Sometimes the authors know
someone that can do a cover design too and if they’re good, I’ll give
them the go-ahead. That’s how Elizabeth Ellen’s cover was done—by an
artist friend she knew. Riley Michael Parker, my newest author did the
funny drawing on his chapbook. Mike Topp had one of his famous artist
friends do his cover. I asked Derek White from Calamari Press to do the
Gary Lutz cover. Pete McCracken, a good friend of mine in Portland who
happens to be a highly regarded designer, has done a few things for me
too.
And yeah, I usually do the interior of my books at a photo copy
place. The covers, which are mostly in full color, are printed at a
place called Oregon Blue Print—they have great prices. I can get 100
covers on cardstock for $45.
As far as the chapbook layouts go, I use to do them and then I
started having different friends help me. The last couple of years,
I’ve had interns that I have done that (There is a publishing course
taught at Portland State University and they have students that intern
all over Portland). A couple of times the authors have even done it,
which is actually nice. They’re more inclined to fix mistakes!
New Michigan Press:
I do all the design for the books, though we try to work closely
with our authors on selecting cover art and making design decisions.
Most of the time the authors find and send us possible cover images,
and we’ll have some back and forth selecting an image that works for us
and the author, then do a set of cover designs, which go to the author.
There’s another back and forth with those, and with the interior
designs, and we eventually end up with a product that fits the general
design of our list (we have worked with a couple design templates that
we like quite a bit, and that give us some design integrity as a
series). We’ve worked with a bunch of printers, most recently a great
local outfit in Grand Rapids (our recent home). We’re using a different
printer for our new series who does digital printing and
print-on-demand (they’re not local), so we’ll see how that goes.
I should say that sometimes our writers have a stronger artistic
inclination. For instance, Kristy Bowen (here with us, of Dancing Girl)
pretty much did the entire cover of her chapbook, Feign
(which is stellar, by the way), on her own. As did Jason Bredle. I’m
not averse to letting go of the reins as long as they’re being held by
someone with vision and talent, and as long as the final result looks
New Michigan Pressy, and is up to our standards in terms of design.
Tameme:
For the covers, we've always gone to a professional graphic designer. We've worked very happily with both Kathleen Fetner and Ines Hilde
-- I can recommend them both. All of our titles feature a painting,
which the designer incorporates into the design. It's important that
the author be happy with the cover. That said, the covers need to be
in-lione with the "look" of the series. I'm really delighted with our
two most recent cover paintings, Edgar Soberon's "Aguacates" which was on Agustin Cadena's chapbook, and Elena Climent's "Tiled Window and Seashell with View to Mexico City"
which was on Jorge Fernandez Granados and translator John Oliver
Simon's chapbook. You can see the covers and read more about the
chapbooks on www.tameme.org. How do we go about printing them? I've
been happiest working with a printing broker. They know what they're
doing and they always get us the best deal.
Dancing Girl Press:
I am, embarrassingly enough, still laying these things out in
MSWord, a strategy which I have perfected over the years via trial and
error, and can do pretty expeditiously these days. I’ve been trying to
teach myself InDesign, but I don’t get enough time with it to do me
any good. I like Word because it’s the only program that will no doubt
be on any computer I work on in a given day (about 4 between work,
home, and the studio.) So I can work on layout at anytime, which is key
to actually getting them done. I guess I’m the in-house art person,
but I like it when the authors have something specific in mind that I
can use, and or definite ideas that I can work with to come up with
something in terms of image, color, texture., and well I guess I’m my
own printer as well. I do have a production assistant to help assemble
books and a couple volunteer helperson occasion , but most of the
design work and actual printing is me.
Greying Ghost Press:
I do everything in-house. I tend to do all the physical (cutting,
folding, sorting, etc.) and layout work. Plus having a wife who is a
graphic designer doesn’t hurt either. As for the physical printing, I
use an ordinary ink jet printer. I would like to pretend that I use all
this fancy equipment and software but the sad truth is that I’m doing
this on a HP printer from a Microsoft word document. Though I’m
currently learning InDesign, thanks to my wife. I must say that Word is
very underrated. Sometimes you have to work with what you’re given. As
for designing, I don’t really have any methods or specific way of doing
things. Trial and error would be a fitting description of how I do
things. I’ll work something out and if it sticks I go with it and if
not I’ll scrap the whole design. This has happened on the current
chapbook I’m working on. I had come up with a fairly straight forward
design, printed up the copies. Then a week later I went back to them
and something didn’t feel right. Something was off. So I started over.
I can never set myself to a definite layout (especially for the covers)
so I’m constantly changing and re-doing things. This is why a lot of
graying ghost titles have variations in covers and packaging.
Kitchen Press:
Josh Elliott designed the
covers for the first 5 books I published. Since then it’s been a little
catch-as-catch can. Mainly I turn to friends for design and cover art.
I’ve learned enough about InDesign that, if someone gives a jpg of
cover art, I can do the layout. I also see if the poet has someone in
mind to design his or her cover or to provide cover art.
It works pretty well this way. The poets, I hope, feel like they
have a more involved role in determining what their books will look
like, and I’m always getting new artists to help broaden the look of
the chapbooks I put out.
As far as printing, it’s just me, my laptop and my inkjet.
Dan:
Would you say there is a specific aesthetic to your publishing house? What do you perceive as your mission?
Future Tense Press:
I just like putting out books by people I want to read collections
by. Like, I couldn’t believe Elizabeth didn’t have a book out when I
published her. Charles Ullmann had this great series of How To things,
these weird little flash fiction things, and I wanted them in a book so
I made one. I do like finding new talent and giving them something to
show. But I’ve worked with veteran writers as well. I like to publish
things that have a similar maverick kind of feel but I don’t want to
publish just one kind of thing. I like to surprise our readers and keep
them guessing. I like publishing things that other places might be
afraid to. I like that I can go from a collection of dream-like flash
fiction (Magdalen Powers) to a collection of true stories by a punk
rock singer (Justin Maurer) to a funny novella by a Mexican-American
lesbian (Myriam Gurba) to a violent corporate satire by an unknown
writer (Riley Michael Parker) and that all those books are really fun
and excellent in their own ways.
New Michigan Press:
I think we tend towards publishing work that’s a bit playful with
form and genre more often than not. We certainly like publishing work
by authors who do not have full-length books, especially since we’ve
had good luck with a lot of our authors going on within a year or two
to win significant book prizes from Sarabande, University of Iowa
Press, and so on. We’d love to get more prose, but the vast majority of
what we see is poetry, probably because the chapbook is a form more
often used for poems. I started the press to publish work that really
got me going when I read it, and which was not being published
elsewhere, to try to make a home for stuff that I wish I could have
discovered on a bookshelf somewhere or in the pages of some sweet
journal.
Tameme:
Tameme's mission is to promote English-to-Spanish and
Spanish-to-English literary translation by publishing new writing from
North America— Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. The chapbooks celebrate
and disseminate this new writing and translation in an attractive and
affordable format.
Dancing Girl Press:
I would say our aesthetic leans heavily toward more experimental
writing by newer women poets , but I think even that experimentalism is
a sliding scale, from more traditionally lyric works with a bit of
innovation to very non-linear poetry/prose hybrid sort of pieces and
just all sorts of things that fall in between. I myself started out
more as a lyric and narrative driven poet, and occasionally I gravitate
toward things in that vein. I’ve been moving in my own tastes in
poetry further to the left, so I find fragmentation and circularity a
bid draw these days. I’m always looking for something that surprises
me.
Greying Ghost Press:
I don’t know. I can’t really say if there’s a specific aesthetic. I
try to give each book a handcrafted feel. I hope when someone buy a GG
chapbook they can sense that it made by hand with care. Overall, I try
to keep the text clean while still maintaining an old letterpress feel.
I try to never repeat myself. Plus, working as a used book buyer I see
a lot of shit that people read once and automatically decide to get rid
of. And that bums me out so I try and make things look classy and
interesting enough to guilt people into keeping the chapbooks on their
bookshelf.
Kitchen Press:
No, my aesthetic isn’t all that specific. I basically publish a)
what I enjoy and b) work that I feel is deserving of a home but might
not otherwise find one.
That said, my tastes tend to run more to the “experimental” side of
the spectrum. Above all I’m interested in work that is taking risks,
trying something different.
Dan:
What is your strategy for reviews – newspapers, literary websites, blogs, industry magazines, etc.?
Future Tense Press:
I usually send out a few copies to bloggers and a couple of
magazines. Local papers if the writer is local. Perhaps specialty
magazines and web sites when it applies (Gurba, for example, was
reviewed in all the big women’s mags). Our next book, about teaching
English in Japan (Embrace Your Insignificance by Bob Gaulke), will be
sent to a few teaching magazines and travel publications.
New Michigan Press:
We send out a bunch of review copies, but it’s tough to get
chapbooks reviewed in most places that publish literary reviews. I’m
honestly not sure it’s all that important, but it’s nice to see our
authors get noticed. Rain Taxi has an excellent chapbook review column
now, and we have had good luck getting our chapbooks featured on Poetry
Daily and Verse Daily, which makes a difference. Blogs tend to review
our chapbooks fairly often, which is certainly fine with us, and we do
like for our authors to get involved and give us suggestions where to
send chapbooks that might have a little better shot of being opened and
enjoyed. The promotional side of things is my least favorite as an
editor and publisher (and writer, and reader, to be honest). One hopes
that great work finds its own way in the world, though that’s probably
more than a little naïve, and sometimes you have to push it out of the
nest.
Tameme:
Tameme titles have gotten reviews --- Bloomsbury Review, El Paso
Times, and Multicultural Review, for example--- but that is not our
main goal in sending out review copies. Few traditional book review
venues even consider chapbooks. We're looking for word-of-mouth and
blog mentions and other recognitions and opportunities for our authors
and translators. So we focus on sending review copies to individuals---
influential poets, writers, literary translators, professors of
literature (especially Latin American literature) and a few journalists.
Dancing Girl Press:
I usually take my cues from the author as far as where to send
review copies-- anywhere the author thinks we might garner some sort of
coverage.. We’re still very much a word of mouth thing, so the
important thing is getting words in the right mouths via however you
can. The blogosphere has been great in terms of people talking up our
books, and we’ve had a few good reviews in online magazines, and a
couple in print. Since the internet is key to our distribution and
promotion, that’s where I focus a lot of promo efforts.
Greying Ghost Press:
A lot of interest in my press is garnered from online advertising. A
great website is Goodreads.com. From that website you can read a
handful of reviews and get ordering info quickly. There’s a fairly
rabid print-media fanbase there, and its growing. People who are a part
of that site love books and reading. And their reviews are fair.
There’s also the Press Press Press blog organized by Zach Schomburg
which has been very helpful as well. As far as reviews go, I don’t
think I’ve ever sent out copies specifically for review. The times are
such that everyone now has a blog or a social networking site with a
built in readership. So in essence, your customers are now the
literature critics. If I had a larger print run with more copies to
spare, I’m sure I’d alter my approach a bit.
Kitchen Press:
I focus my efforts on getting books reviewed on blogs and online
mags. Reviews are a significant part of promotion, I want them to reach
as many people as possible. Online is the best place I know to
accomplish that.
Dan:
One might assume that a chapbook publisher would have a small budget
and things would totally be up to the author to find support, but I
know I’ve seen at least a couple of you with tables at AWP the past
couple of years, and have seen stories about most of you as well. Just
how is your press going about finding publicity for your authors? Are
you supporting author reading tours? Sending out review copies?
Finding interviews for them? How involved do you feel you need your
authors to be in getting the word out, and do you find most of your
authors willing to go as far as you need them to?
Future Tense Press:
Whenever I put out someone’s book, I always tell the author that I
would love their help getting the word out. It helps immensely if a
writer can contact reviewers themselves and/or get his own interviews
and readings. Sometimes my intern can help with that stuff too.
I haven’t been to AWP yet but I’ve been to a couple of smaller
things around here. I think I get a little more publicity than some
other micropresses because I’ve been doing it for so long. I just know
a lot of people at this point, and a lot of people are familiar with
Future Tense. I was lucky to have a couple of my authors break out and
get deals with major publishers and that brought a lot of respect to
what I do. I think after I published the chapbook for Please Don’t Kill the Freshman
(in late 2001) and it got so much buzz and word-of-mouth, Future Tense
was all of a sudden this respected thing. After eleven years of
photocopying and stapling! That book and its wonderful author is the
highlight of my publishing career.
I think running a press is like running a record label. I was very
inspired by K records when I started, and later Sub Pop, Merge, and
Matador. I think a lot of small publishers are like that—the chapbooks
are like little records and you collect them because you trust the
label, you believe in the “brand.”
Budget-wise, I can’t really pay for author tours but I will set up
readings if the author is traveling. Again, this is something I hope
the author will do to spread the word. Not just about the book, but
about him or her, and whatever they do next with whatever publisher. I
want to be a stepping stone to greater things for them. A launch pad. I
should say too, that although I don’t pay authors cash for their books,
I do give them copies of their own books as they need them (roughly 20%
of the print-run—for example, 40 copies of the first 200).
New Michigan Press:
I feel pretty strongly that we owe it to our writers to at the least
have a table at AWP, book signings there, maintain a strong website,
send out press releases to the media and to our list. We can maintain a
presence, because there’s nothing sadder than hoping your press will be
at AWP (it’s also a little depressing that small presses have become so
academic-centric, at least as far as AWP is an academic conference),
and trying in vain to find them. But it’s understandable. A lot of
editors are of course writers and have other commitments at AWP, so it
can be expensive to get people there to do things right. We like it and
feel it’s important, which is why we do it.
Beyond that we don’t have a lot of resources we can commit to it. We
do coordinate with bookstores for author readings and do direct
fulfillment if authors are setting up their own readings (which we
highly recommend). We’ve sponsored a couple readings, both locally, and
at conferences like AWP, which have gone well, though it’s a bit of a
rarity for us. We certainly send out a bunch of review copies and press
releases, but we have better luck when the authors are out there in
some way doing readings or at least suggesting more fruitful places for
us to send copies or information about their work. And I do what I can
behind the scenes to help support authors and recommend them to
academics who are in charge of a little bit of visiting writer money.
The last thing is that we do fairly often publish some of the work in
my magazine DIAGRAM (also
technically published by the New Michigan Press) as a way of helping to
promote it (and since I edit both, if I like the work, I usually want
to publish it in both places).
I think most of our authors are variably comfortable with doing the
self-promotion hustle thing, and rightly so. Some are excited and
really out there, and their books tend to be more visible, and others,
less so. We don’t put pressure on our authors, however; it’s really up
to them to decide how active they want to be in their own work. I feel
like this is pretty typical with smaller presses, especially in poetry
(though I can think of a couple great examples, particularly bigger
small presses like Graywolf, Sarabande, Copper Canyon, etc.). For me,
though, publishing the author’s work is enough. If it sells, great. If
not, we don’t worry much about it. We’ll keep the work in print and
promote it as we can and sooner or later people will discover it and
find their way to it.
Tameme:
We do the website, e-mail announcements (we have a large and
ever-growing list) , and send out 400-500 review copies of each title.
Most years, we also take a table at the Associated Writing Programs
bookfair. Do we need writers to be involved? The more the better! I was
thrilled when the author of our latest chapbook, Jorge Fernandez Granados, did a book launch with his translator, John Oliver Simon,
in
Mexico City. They also arranged to give readings elsewhere in Mexico
City and the nearby city of Puebla. As both a writer and an editor
myself, I have learned how much work it is to get the word out about a
book. It doesn't happen by magic, though we might like our readers to
think so. Web support is also crucial--- a website and a blog and also,
perhaps, something more such as facebook. A final word on this subject.
I always say, promoting your book is not "self-promotion." You are not
your book anymore than you are a donut--- if we're talking about your
donut shop. How ridiculous would it be to set up a donut shop and not
want to put a sign out front?
Dancing Girl Press:
I do what I can, but like in most poetry publishing the burden lies
with the poet, which is true I guess no matter how small the press,
chapbook or book publisher, what have you... We did share a table with
another feminist press in 2007 at AWP, which was good for getting a lot
of books into a lot of new hands, and I’m always hawking books at indie
craft fairs and book fairs locally. For local authors, we usually do a
big release reading, and they read at a lot of local events we’re
invited to be a part of, and when we occasionally have writers rolling
trough town, I’ll put some sort of reading together. I think all of
our authors are very good at handling the business of being a poet
promotion wise, almost all of them have websites, do readings in their
areas, have blogs, send out their own review copies in addition to what
we do. And of course, word of mouth is again very important, as we
publish more and more authors, more people hear about us, more people
encounter our poets and books…it grows exponentially…We’ve been lucky
to get some good exposure in places like Poets & Writers, so that makes us a little bit more visible..
Greying Ghost Press:
The answer to this part is mostly the same as the previous. Almost
all of the interest in GG titles has been drummed up through word of
mouth. Luckily there’s a lot of awesome folks in the small press
community so news travels fast. And the majority of these folks are
incredibly supportive and like to help each other out. I haven’t
explicitly asked an author to do any sort of promoting for their book.
Generally I send them 1/4th or 1/3rd of the print run as artist copies
and they can do whatever they’d like with those. Some may send some off
to reviewers and some may hand them out to their friends. It’s up to
them. I would love to have a reading tour. Maybe we could trash a hotel
room. No such thing as bad publicity.
Kitchen Press:
I’ve gone to AWP for three years now. The first time I went Kitchen
Press was part of a big reading that also involved LIT and Redivider.
It went really well and things started picking up form there. AWP is a
great place to do promotion.
Outside of that I send review copies out and do what I can to help
poets get readings, especially the ones that are perhaps lesser known.
But I find that the poets are also really good about promoting
themselves, getting readings, hitting me up for extra copies of their
books to bring with them to readings to sell.
I wish I had the funds to at least help send poets out on tours, but
these days not even the bigger independent publishers are able to do
that.
Dan:
Distribution. How are you getting your titles out into stores and
in front of potential buyer’s faces? Those of you with seasonal
subscription programs, can you explain them here and maybe suggest how
successful those programs have become?
Future Tense Press:
My distribution is small but effective. I sell a lot of stuff at
Powell’s. Again, I’m lucky to be in the position I’m in and we’re lucky
to be a bookstore where people actually come to find these weird little
small press things you can’t find anywhere. I do a good amount of stuff
through Amazon as well and my own web site and mail order. The only
distributor that I use these days is Last Gasp in San Francisco. I
don’t think they deal with many chapbooks really but I have friends
there, so I have a connection (they do sell zines and comics too).
Through them, I am able to get some of my titles into places like
Quimby’s, Atomic Books, and other stores like that. And then if the
authors live in a specific city where they can sell their chapbook at a
café or record store or something, that’s cool too. A couple of writers
that I’ve had in bands sell them when their band is on tour. Justin
Maurer sold a couple hundred of Don’t Take Your Life when Clorox Girls
toured Europe two years ago.
New Michigan Press:
We sell direct to bookstores, and our titles are probably carried in
a dozen places at any given time, though I’m looking to try to get
distributed by SPD, or perhaps as part of this new series, through
Ingram (though we’re baby potatoes to them). That’s part of the
potential of the print-on-demand/digital publishing world, because our
particular printer has connections with Amazon and Ingram, and so
bookstores can order books. We’ve started (as of 2006) doing a series
subscription for each year’s series. This came at the suggestion of one
of our authors, and it’s a good one. I’m more inclined to subscribe to
a series from a press (like Clear Cut, for instance, whose books are
beautiful and reliably interesting), because then you don’t need to do
the work to track them down individually. We offer six for $35, or
something like that, which makes them a good deal. We’ve had good luck
with this and I think it’s smart. A couple of our authors routinely buy
a yearly subscription for friends and family at Christmas, which I
think is also a great idea. We might try to do more of a push for this
in 2008. It would be a great Christmas present for me, for instance
(hint, hint, readers). And I think we have a lot of people who order
one or two of our chapbooks, and then more, so it’s like we are getting
a nice following, which is helpful.
Tameme:
There is always more to do.
Dancing Girl Press:
Our primary means of distribution is online and this works very
well, whether people get them through our main website or our etsy
store. I have a firm belief that traditional big box bookstores don’t
serve poetry very well, and even many smaller ones, unless they are
dedicated more to the art than the bottom line are strapped. There are
a few notable exceptions to this, including Quimby’s here in Chicago,
with it’s huge offering of DIY published and indie books and zines,
Woodland Pattern in Milwaukee, and it’s devotion to poetry, Beyond
Baroque in LA, etc.. We have books on consignment in these, as well
other similar stores that appreciate chapbooks and independent
publishing, but 90% of our sales are still online. We do offer yearly
subscription, and we have a handful of them. Since we publish so many
books I’ve been sending them out in batches, three or so books every
couple of months…..plus, if someone subscribes they get everything
about 30% cheaper than ordinary list price. This is just our first
year with it, so it will be interesting to see if it grows…
Greying Ghost Press:
Right now I don’t have any distribution, which I’m glad about. I get
a lot of books into people’s hand through word of mouth. I have one or
two bookstores that I do some consignments with. I guess my point here
is that as long as the writing is legit and great, people will find a
way to get their hands on a copy. It’s like the thrill of the hunt! My
print runs are rather low so I’m not stuck with a lot of overstock. My
operation here is very grassroots. I’m a firm believer in karma so I’m
not adverse to giving away a couple free copies after a reading. This
usually resonates well with folks. Honestly. The last thing I’d want to
do is run this thing like a business. Yeah I know it technically is a
business and I have to keep track of sales and costs and whatnot. But
at the end of the day I’d want people to associate the press with the
writing and the authors. Its all about the authors so whatever I can do
spread the word, I’ll do.
Kitchen Press:
Reviews, as well as sending comp copies to people I know who will
mention the book on their blogs. Most people purchase the books through
paypal, so I’m able to see their email addresses and add them to my
Kitchen Press contact list. Every person that orders is another person
I can let know about new titles. Plus, I have a Kitchen Press group on
Facebook. It has about 200 members.
Dan:
Have you investigated other formats for publishing the titles? Audio, e-books, etc.? Any decisions in those areas?
Future Tense Press:
I haven’t done e-books or audio books, but I should mention that the
book I’m about to publish is a new avenue for Future Tense. We’re going
to use Lightning Source, the print on demand company from Ingram. It’s
for the Bob Gaulke book, which is about 130 pages. I can’t staple that
many pages! And I can’t afford to toss a bunch of money to a printer so
we’re going to do the Lightning Source thing and print up the first 100
or so and then keep going as it sells. I’ve seen a lot of Lightning
Source books and they’ve been really good and much improved the past
couple years.
New Michigan Press:
Not really. From a readerly standpoint, I have almost no interest in
e-books or audio versions of something that’s meant to be a traditional
book or chapbook. My feeling is that an e-book ought to really be doing
something with its e-bookness, or else it’s a real mismatch between
form and content. As, really, books should do something with their
bookness (be beautiful artifacts, be nicely designed, be readable, be
convenient and comfortable to hold). I suppose we would consider doing
something audio if we accepted an audio chapbook. Though that’s far
enough outside of my comfort zone that I don’t know if I’d be able to
do it justice. But I wouldn’t rule it out. As, I suppose, I wouldn’t
rule out doing an electronic format if it was necessarily taking
advantage of that electronicness. But for the time being I think it’s
important to give a shout-out to the old and wonderful and reliable
technology of the physical book.
Tameme:
Not seriously, because the chapbook format is the most appropriate
for Tameme at this time. That said, I have noticed some interesting
things others are doing. The other day, poet Christine Boyka Kluge recently tipped me off about wigleaf, an on-line flash fiction journal. I'm enchanted by the possibilities of video. Charles Jensen,
for example, makes little films out of poems. There are letterpress
chapbooks--- I saw some gorgeous ones at the most recent AWP bookfair.
We could go smaller: pamphlet, broadsides, postcards. Or bigger:
murals. Write in sand, chisel into stone. The possibilities are
infinite.
Dancing Girl Press:
I’m particularly interested in ways to sort of expand the notion of chapbook. We’ve done a few projects involving photography (Scenes from the Body & the upcoming Robyn Art book), an envelope full of poems and ephemera (at the hotel andromeda) , a collection of cards in a box (Secret Meanings of Greek Letters),
and a box of love letter poems (Billet Doux.) We are publishing a
booklength project this winter that’s poetry and photography, which
will be a new venture. As someone with a foot in both worlds, I’m
always looking for ways to marry words and visual art, so a plotting
broadsides and new book art oriented projects all the time…
Greying Ghost Press:
I’ve been thinking of an affordable way to do poetry cassettes.
Either recording readings or having someone record themselves reading
and sending it to me. I have a strong fondness for cassettes and a
general dislike for cds. I would also like to publish more broadsides
and mini-chapbooks (for long poems or short fiction). E-books? Probably
not. Too kitschy.
Kitchen Press:
I’ll be publishing the first Kitchen Press echap in the next few months. It’s by Rauan Klassnik, whose first book, Holy Land, is totally killer.
Dan:
How important do you feel your press’s website is? Do you have any specific plans for the website – podcasts, videos, etc.?
Future Tense Press:
I think the web site is crucial, especially nowadays. I only wish I
could maintain my site better. I had a friend running it for years and
then I started to do it myself more recently. I’m not a tech-wiz. I
think a lot of newer presses have it easier now though, because you can
build sites or blogs much easier now. I don’t have plans for videos or
podcasts now but I do like the video idea, so maybe there will be a
Youtube channel we’ll start up. Besides the web site though, I also
have a Myspace page for Future Tense and I usually hype Future Tense
stuff on my Facebook and Goodreads pages as well.
New Michigan Press:
I’m not uninterested in more author-related content on the website—I
see how this stuff is useful for writers and for authors of full-length
books, but I also don’t see it as being in any way essential. There’s
something almost a little old-timey about publishing chapbooks that
feels out of sync with the poetry bus, for instance, or videos, or
author blogs. And half our authors have their own blogs anyhow.
Probably we could do more, though, with our website, which is pretty
static, and hasn’t really gotten a makeover in a long time. If we were
to grow the press and do full-length books, for instance (which is
always dangling just a little ways off for me in my ability to commit
to that, because I think publishing full-lengths comes with a
responsibility to make a stronger commitment to our titles—the nice
thing about being small-small, on the fringe, really, is that there’s
an element of fly-by-nightness that’s appealing, of being a small
project, essentially of one mind. I’m thinking of the press that C.D.
Wright used to (?) run, possibly with her husband—there was something
etheric about it, *****
Tameme:
It's more influential than the journal and chapbooks themselves. We
get a lot of traffic, and it seems our links page www.tameme.org/links
has been very helpful to many people over the years.
Dancing Girl Press:
I think the website is pretty much the crux of the operation, since
it’s our primary means of distribution, and much depends on getting
people to it. Our online zine, wicked alice, is a part of this, as is
blogging and our online shop... Podcasts and videos are probably far
beyond my technical abilities at the moment, since I have a
serviceable, but limited knowledge of even basic web design, but are
interesting to consider.
Greying Ghost Press:
Right now our website is very plain and bare-boned. I’d like it to
be a bit more sexy and laid out better. Maybe have more author
interaction. Hopefully in the future we’ll figure something out. But to
answer the question, the website is important for me because it’s the
easiest and sometimes the only way folks can get the chapbooks. It
makes the press only a click away for anyone. Plus the technology is
such that anyone with a small amount of web savvy can start up a blog
with a few paypal buttons. This is pretty much how greying ghost got
started. Just a dude in his house with a printer and a blog!
Kitchen Press:
Kitchen Press has a blog, and I’d say it’s absolutely vital. Without
it, the press never would have gotten off the ground. I have a second
blog that serves a book store. Equally as vital.
Dan:
How far into the future are you thinking as a publisher? Do you
have authors signed for your next catalogue? Farther down the line
than that? Do you plan on continuing with the same number of titles
per year indefinitely or is there a ramping up rate you have planned
out?
Future Tense Press:
I usually have a year or so planned out ahead. Sometimes those plans
are kind of tenuous though. Like, I am just waiting on a couple of
writers to send me some kind of manuscript before I really say,
Okay—your book is coming out in May of next year. Right now, I’m
getting ready to do the Bob Gaulke book and then around the end of the
year or early 2009, I’ll be doing a book by Chelsea Martin, a super
talented young writer and artist from Oakland. And there will be a new
book in the Manic D/Future Tense series next year as well.
New Michigan Press:
Right now I’m happy with the size and scope of the operation. Six
titles a year is reasonable for me and my schedule and writing and
reading and life. Doing more would require more institutionalness, more
organization, more hierarchy, and more work, generally. I don’t think I
could do it at this point. And I’m happy with the quality of what we
are doing right now. I feel like we’ve made a difference with the
writers we’ve published, and we have our own readership. One of our
writers recently emailed me having heard NMP described as a
taste-maker, which made me entirely pleased with the project.
Tameme:
Future plans? …. are simmering…
Dancing Girl Press:
I’m right now in the midst of reading submissions for our
publication schedule next year, so by the end of October, I hope to
have it all laid out. I don’t really like to plan much further in
advance than that. As I mentioned before, we’ll be scaling back just a
little from the deluge of titles this year, largely just for my own
personal time crunch reasons with all the other plates I have in the
air—working full time, making things for and running the Etsy shop, my
own writing and artwork…
Greying Ghost Press:
No real schedule. I’m usually thinking two or three chapbooks ahead
which is helpful for me because a lot of my paper and packaging
material comes from flea markets and thrift stores. In that sense I
need to have an idea of what I’d like to attempt with a chapbook in
case I see something interesting. As for the number of titles per year
I’d like to publish, I can’t really give a specific number. I’d like to
publish one or two every couple months, so in that sense I can safely
assume I’d publish 10-12 chapbooks a year. That would be in addiction
to the broadsides and pamphlets.
Kitchen Press:
I have 4 more titles planned, 2 of which I’ll hopefully have out by the new year, and 2 that will appear in 2009.
I’m actually considering scaling back my output. My wife and I are
expecting twins at the end of January, so I’ll definitely be taking 2
or 3 months off to adjust to our new lives. I also might be getting
involved in a press with some friends to publish full length books.
Regardless, I plan to keep Kitchen Press going indefinitely.
Dan:
I’d really like to once again thank everybody that participated in this. I hope you had a good time.
Future Tense Press:
Thanks, Dan. I also want give props to some of the other great
chapbook publishers out there: Cloverfield, So New Media, Sunnyoutside,
Ugly Duckling, and Rose Metal Press!
New Michigan Press:
Thanks for concentrating on the chapbook as a form and these good people here involved in its propagation.
Tameme:
Warmest thanks to you, Dan. Blog on!
Dancing Girl Press:
Thank YOU. It’s nice to be in such awesome company.
Greying Ghost Press:
Can’t wait to read everyone’s responses! Thanks Dan!
Kitchen Press:
Thanks. It’s been fun.
Dan:
A last note, I highly recommend titles from each and every
one of these publishers – I have not read a chapbook from any of them
that I didn’t really enjoy, and I’m frequently amazed at just how nice
the books themselves are. Please go out and support them.
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