Difficulties with distribution & the economic realities of publishing poetry

WARNING: Boring, possibly distressing post filled with generalities, which leaves out more than it includes, and that is also possibly redundant for many of you.

Clay Banes summarizes the trouble with poetry distribution, from the perspective of an independent bookseller, here. You should go look.

Before I worked in publishing, I worked in bookstores, both a big independent (BookPeople in Austin) and two chains (Hastings Records & Books in Austin and Barnes & Noble here in NYC). When I went to work in publishing, I first worked for a big corporate house (a division of Random House, now but not then owned by Bertelsmann) and then for Soft Skull.

So I have been thinking about this maddening problem for about a decade, as a bookseller, editor, publicist, assoc. publisher, and now as an author.

Small Press Distribution is a godsend--really, thank heaven for them!--but even what they are able to do is only a partial remedy. The chains such as Barnes & Noble (according to someone who works there now) can't be bothered to order from SPD, period. And the fees publishers are charged by SPD can be a problem for some presses too. Obviously SPD needs them to do what they do, but the presses are already having such a hard time they often can't afford them.

I'm not going to do more than mention the further problem of poetry's invisibility to bookbuyers at the chains and even the indies. Not all stores have the equivalent of Ray McDaniel or Clay Banes or Josh Corey (for example--I can actually think of several more good peeps! Thanks!) on staff. The chances are slim that bookbuyers not already interested in poetry will consider the section a high enough priority to look beyond (to use Clay's examples) Mary Oliver and Rumi. They simply don't have the time or economic incentive. It's not their job to be advocates.

All small publishers face this bleak situation. All the distributors and wholesalers--Ingram, Consortium, Publishers Group West, and even the much smaller Baker & Taylor, included--contract with publishers based on their annual sales. Too small = no dice. Gotta pay to play. And presses who are fortunate enough to sign with the bigger guys are generally prohibited from also working with SPD by exclusive contract.

The internet and direct-to-customer distribution will help some, for presses that can muster the resources for a website, fulfillment staff, and shipping. This is great news for micropublishers. And POD options just get better and better. I'm really encouraged by both of these things, and by the continuing trend of poets working to publish themselves and each other with care and dedication. But there're still a million miles to go.

Sadly, distribution is only one part of this nightmarish tale.

Above and beyond the cost of day-to-day operations of a press, in order to publish a book of poetry in the first place, an independent publisher* must find a way to pay...

1) the author, in the form of royalties (a percentage based on net revenues) or copies
2) the press staff (including editor, book designer, copyeditor, proofreader, production manager, and publicist usually)
3) permission fees for cover art, author photo, or reprinted material, if any
4) the printer and bindery for labor, cost of materials, and shipping
5) the distributor (which may also charge for warehousing, catalog fees, shipping, etc.)
6) wholesalers (like Ingram, Bookazine, etc.) for listing fees
7) marketing/advertising/publicity, including the cost of review copies and postage

...and has to figure out a way to do that for less than %50 of the retail price from the copies which are ordered AND SOLD (so minus returns, which she has to ship/warehouse again or remainder/destroy--that also costs $$), all without raising the retail price above what the market will bear. ($16 is about the max right now, for a standard poetry paperback?)

I'm quite sure I'm leaving something out.

Paper, printing and binding alone can run from $1 to $3 per copy, depending on various factors such as digital shortrun or offset process, paper, coverstock, binding materials, page count, trim size, and quantity (more copies = less per copy), etc. Every decision affects the unit cost. It can cost the same per unit to print a 48 pp. book of poetry as to print a 200 pp. novel. And guess which is more likely to sell out its printrun?

So what's left? Usually nothing, or less than nothing.

Some presses (think Knopf, Penguin, etc.) can afford to publish poetry at a loss for what's called a prestige factor. In other words, they don't usually make any money publishing poetry either.

Insane, isn't it?

And so are all the people who give it a shot anyway, all the publishers, all the booksellers, all the poets.

Now you know why.

Poetry is trapped in a system not designed to serve it. This shit is broken.

*Independent is defined as a for-profit press not supported by an institution, foundation or university, etc. Nonprofits typically receive 60-75% of their funding from foundation support. Lets all hope the goodwill money holds out.