Confessions

Here is a horrifying story about a poet working to get her book (not) published with Cider House Press. I wonder what other presses are as disreputable?

Here is a full disclosure post about Publishing Genius Press that I probably shouldn't write. But I know that the only people who read this blog pretty much already like PG, so what the heck.

It's scary. Running Publishing Genius, I know I make a lot of mistakes. I know that PG is just a little guy in the tiny world of small presses, not even as big as Cider House, but I also know I do way more than I can handle. This is the source of most of my mistakes. Between running the PDF Chapbook series, publishing print books, and editing Baltimore Is Reads, I don't have as much time as I'd like to spend on each project. Probably the best of these three publishing projects is Baltimore Is Reads; the outdoor journal model is unparalleled. It makes a lot of sense to me to hang poems around a city for passersby to appreciate with a glance, and then to document this on the Internet using the web journal format. It's what good businesses are supposed to do -- find a new and creative way to provide something that everyone else is doing. I just don't get enough time to spend hanging up the poems and then I start to feel guilty. I don't know why I can't manage a publication that runs 10-15 poets twice a year. I figure I spend about 30% of my time budgeted for BIR feeling guilty.

I think I haven't even told some of the people who are in the summer issue that their work has been accepted and published. That's pretty ridiculous. I think it's just Kathy Cottle I haven't told. I'll tell her tonight.

The biggest mistake I have made is with an author who's work I accepted for a print chapbook. It was a really nice MS that I conceived and approached him for. He had submitted some work for BIR and I liked it a lot and asked him if he could put a chapbook together. He did, quickly. It was great -- smart, fun material. But I didn't have a sense that he and I were lining up conceptually in terms of "the business" (his sales expectations far exceeded mine), and I got sort of turned off by the project. I kept putting it off. I put it off for a ridiculous amount of time. In fact, I had completed the layout of the book and secured the artist we had agreed on for the cover. It was always practically done. For some reason I couldn't muster up the energy to print them out and put them together (this was in the staple-stitch days of PG). Something else always came up, people dying and stuff, and I felt bad for not communicating with the author. Finally, he pulled the book. I don't blame him. I was happy for him, because he ended up getting a deal with a bigger, student-operated house where he'll probably get some good attention.

One of the problems here was that I didn't provide a "contract" to him up front. "Contract" schmontract -- there's no real contract in the PG universe. I can barely envision a scenario wherein I'd have to engage lawyers to prosecute any sort of breach of contract. I mean, isn't one of the best elements of the small press world that its inhabitants are reasonable, down to earth people who can work out problems amicably? So I don't do contracts, but after dealing with this author I realized that certain terms need to be agreed upon from the start. These terms include publication runs, the author's responsibilities/privileges in terms of art and design, payment details, and a timeline (among other things). Working out these factors are helpful for both parties, publisher and author. With PG's most recently completed project there was no discussion of money from the start, which made it really difficult for me to figure out how many contributor copies to provide. I'm certain I gave him too many, but then he turned around and made a huge purchase that really bolstered the P&L. That's the best thing that could have happened, and it happened because he's an awesome guy. I just got really lucky, especially because every press runs with a lot of differences. I recently learned that a pretty major poetry press, with titles by some impressive names, actually charges the poets to publish their book. And I was surprised to learn that BlazeVOX runs POD. These things are inconceivable to me, but it typifies the array of back-end models that authors have no way of knowing or thinking about when they sign on with a press. These are reasons that "contracts" are indispensible.

Anyway, back to all my problems.

Having the book withdrawn was bad enough. Even worse is that I still haven't removed it from the website's catalog. This isn't just because I'm a bad manager, though, it's because I'm a bad web master. Somehow it was easier for me to learn HTML coding than it was to figure out how to pirate and use a design program that would allow me to make a unified website. Crap, I really need to get on that. I'd like to hire someone to manage the website for me -- I'd love a professional and concise page like the one at Hawthorne Books -- but I don't want to relinquish control. That's the stupidest thing, because obviously, as with the case of the un-updated catalog, I'm not controlling it myself.

Marketing? What's that? And I'm lousy with distribution, too, but I'm starting to work up a deal with SPD. In this regard, I'm great at hating Amazon. Amazon is the reason you pay a lot for books.

I have an impressive system for handling PG's finances, but my submission database leaves a submission database to be desired. It's a miracle anything gets published at all.

I've wasted some money buying ISBNs individually. This is because I didn't used to think that PG was going to be a big thing. Now I want it to be a big thing because I feel I owe that to the authors I've published. I can't let Stephanie Barber's book fade away. I need people to start respecting the artwork of David NeSmith, please. David Daniel's published so many books with St. Martin's I'd feel like an idiot if I can't make his book work for me for several years. And what good will it do any of these people if PG goes belly up? But in order to keep the press on the right tracks, I have to shell out large sums of money. I'm not even close to rich, so this is sometimes a challenge. It made sense to pay $50 for one ISBN and barcode rather than spending a few hundred for a batch of 10. I've since learned all the reasons not to do that. I mean, I was informed of the reasons previously, but I didn't know in a practical sense why I'd regret it.

Ultimately, here's the main thing: right now I shouldn't be writing this. I should be finishing my long letter to Shane Jones about his manuscript so he can get to work shining his book for its February release. It took me two weeks longer than I expected to finish my suggested edits because "crap came up." I think part of this is because I procrastinate, but I think it's more actual that I set unreasonable expectations. Like, I intended to work on Shane's MS while I was camping with my family. That would have worked great on our trip three years ago when my nieces and nephews were boring babies, but this year they kept wanting to swim and ride bikes. So I started to feel really guilty that I fell behind schedule and then the task became a stressor rather than the exciting fun it had been. So I'm going to finish this post, since I've come so far, and then I'm going to get my letter off to Shane, who is awesome.

Some people in the past couple weeks have mentioned an interest in being on the Publishing Genius board of directors. I wonder if they were serious? I'm starting to understand the reasons why these formalities are necessary. I'm going to start taking applications for executive positions in my company. I just heard on NPR that in three hours CEOs make as much money as minimum wage laborers make in a year.

I welcome you to share your grievances with PG or any other press in the comments. I'm also interested in hearing about whatever business details you've brokered yourself, be you publisher or author.