I have to admire Salt’s industry in making the most of a publicity opportunity. No sooner do they have three poets nominated for the Forward Prize than they create a blog dedicated to the books and to anything else even vaguely related to them.
Makes you wonder what the other publishing houses are doing. Bloodaxe and Carcanet both have a page on their websites featuring their nomination. Arc, astonishingly, have nothing at all. Maybe their website designer is on holiday, as I’m sure they must be delighted at their nomination. Random House/Cape don’t seem to have mentioned their two nominations either. Nor have Faber & Faber. Nor have Picador. Strange – but it shows how hard it is to get poetry in the public eye when even some of the nominated poetry publishers don’t seem bothered.
21 comments:
Perhaps it's water out of a sub's glass to Cape, Faber and Picador that some of their poets should be nominated. Bloodaxe is a different matter: Neil Astley has been critical of the Forward's dominance by the above in the past.
Prize for non-activity by a poetry publisher online goes to Anvil: last update of their web site was two and a half years ago.
ABJ
Well, Bloodaxe does have the nomination prominently on its front page, and there's another page all about Jack Mapanje. But that's about it.
Yes, Chris has been right on it, I'll say that for him! And I think several Salt poets are busy supporting the nominees, too.
And as I said over at my place, I do think it's impressive that they've made such a showing. Small but mighty - and growing.
Anyway, off the cuff, Faber Picador and Cape publish so few new collections that, however many books the small presses have on the list, the Big Three have a proportionately larger number of books.
Like, Faber has 100% of its recent first collections on the list.
Andy, that is you, right? Anvil seems to be keeping a very low profile generally lately...
You'd think Anvil might at least acknowledge that Michael Hamburger has died. That's quite apart from questions of marketing. More just as a mark of respect.
And good point, Katy. I think the judges have been quite adventurous this year and that's been good to see, but the big three will always be there or there abouts.
To be fair to Anvil - they have lost their third staff member due to financial constraints. This does not negate Andy's point - they ought to be working on their website, and should have done while they had the extra staff. The two staff members are very good at what they do (editorial / layout and managerial / finance respectively). But neither is HTML savvy.
As I surmise, the main reason the big publishers do not have bespoke websites to promote their lists is that it encourages the flood of unsolicited submissions. It can't be stated highly enough what a huge amount or work it is dealing with many hundreds of manuscripts weekly - could amount to the equivalent of a couple of full time jobs if they did not keep a low profile and, in Picador's case, have a blanket no unsolicited submissions policy. And since, as I said before, only a tiny % of poets are encountered this way (none ever at Bloodaxe Neil claims), it makes sense to save thousands.
Rob, you suggested recently that Granta could do an annual poetry anthology (I think). Granta rarely publish or even mention poetry! And this is the reason - when they have published poems in the past, they get snowed under within days, posties with hernias, the lot!
Roddy, thanks for the info on Anvil. I have bought quite a few of their books in the last few years and they are always of a high standard, but I did wonder about the lack of web activity.
Interesting point too on why bigger publishers don't use the web, and I guess you're right.
It wasn't me that suggested Granta produce a poetry anthology (although I remember reading that, so it may have been someone on this blog). Of course, they do produce New Writing, which contains a fair bit of poetry - and not to miss a chance to advertise - this year, number 15 has two of my poems.
I guess they are deluged with submissions. In the New Writing intro this year, the two editors say they looked at 700 submissions, but these had been sifted out from an original pile - they don't offer a number for that one!
Aye, but were the Donut and Salt web sites created by their respective 1 or 2-person staff, or did they invest in someone else to do them?
If financial constraints are an issue these days, I'd suggest that this is a direct result of having a dead web site which is not representing an active business and generating income -- the two are connected, surely. The very reason that Chris H-E has focused so strongly on it, and to great effect.
If stats were gathered about sales from the Salt web site over the past 24 months compared to the Anvil site, I'm pretty sure the difference would amount to more than a web developer's fee.
ABJ
Salt's Web site is handled by me (Chris). There are two full time operational staff, me and Jen. We handle all functions, editorial management, sales and marketing (including Web marketing), publicity, finance, production & design. We collaborate with people, and we pay freelances to help with overseas marketing. It's hard work, but two people should be able to handle about 40-60 books a year.
The Web site, we've discovered, largely drives bookshop sales. Roughly speaking about £28K is direct and £52K is through bookshops here and in the USA and Oz.
Exactly! It seems like a no-brainer: if there are no in-house web development skills, an investment of £500-£1000 in a managed web site solution would surely pay for itself in a short space of time.
A lot less than paying an annual salary for a p-t member of staff.
ABJ
The Web is the single most important thing in developing profile for writers and the publisher. It has to be a central pillar of business strategy. Though it needs to be balanced within a wider business context. The Web is passive. To work, you have to drive people to your site. And direct sales aren't as scaleable as bookstore sales, so one has to find a balance between these operational pressures. However, without the Web, a business is stranded, and will possibly die.
Chris, here is a preview of the site I'm doing for Sandy: not quite finished yet, just waiting for content to be mailed over --
www.alexanderhutchison.com
ABJ
This certainly makes sense when I look at my own book-buying habits. I like to look at hard copies of a book I'm interested in, even if I first discover it through the Web. But if that's not possible, two or three poems on the Web are usually enough to convince me to buy or not buy.
If I browse an interesting book in a bookshop, or read a good poem in a magazine, I'll often check out other stuff by the same author later on the Web, and I often buy the books through the Web.
Andrew, nice site for Alexander Hutchison, by the way.
Nice site, Andrew. (Sandy’s a fantastic writer.)
Following on from what Rob said, Salt's catalogues are also a cut above most. The last one I got through the post had a poem from each collection (or at least, all of the collections that merited a full page). That's far more likely to make me buy a book than a lot of quotes from other poets, etc.
It worked too. I ordered Tobias Hill's collection on the strength of it
Nice to know I'm doing something right, Matt. Ta for the vote of confidence.
If you have a MySpace profile, pop over and join the Salt Shortlist here http://www.myspace.com/saltforwardprizes
Nice site, Andy.
Post a Comment