Poetry Book Publishers

 

Poetry book publishers will look more favourably on your work if you have accreditation in workshops, commissions and publications in serious poetry outlets. To understand why this is so, consider the poetry publishing scene.

Professional poets earn far more from reviewing, adjudicating competitions, giving talks, running workshops, and/or appearing on radio than from royalties on their publications.

And if poetry doesn't pay, nor very handsomely do other forms of literature. In Britain, around 70,000 new books are published every year, of which 6,000 are novels. Of these only some 20% have any claim to literary respectability. Returns are generally poor, and often in inverse proportion to the time and effort expended.

Of course there are big-earners, multimillionaires even, but in 1988 only some 300 full-time novelists made in excess of £8,000 p.a., with another 300 supplementing income from journalism, and another 900 supplementing income from some other literary activity. Figures from other countries are equally depressing (e.g. 1250, 750 and 1750 respectively for the States), and will not have improved recently.

With royalties around 10% at best, writers must learn to mechanically turn out a commercial product or starve. Seventy-five percent of serious writers in the States earn no money at all from their work, ever.

Much more dismal are the proceeds from poetry publishing. A few specialist publishers (e.g. Anvil, Carcanet, Bloodaxe) do turn in respectable figures, but in general poetry is not handled at all (the great majority, e.g. Corgi, HarperCollins, Hodder and Stoughton), is subsidized by sales elsewhere (e.g. Faber and Faber, Peter Owen, OUP) or supported by regional grants (e.g. Peterloo).

 

On the whole, writers do not have outgoing personalities, and special efforts are needed to market them, Betjeman being a notable exception. Many poets, dodging between welfare and dead-end jobs, cultivate a hand-me-down appearance that establishes street cred but does nothing to inspire confidence in the larger world. Moreover, as poetry is the most severely literary of the arts, it does not translate readily to films, TV programmes or mini-series, so that even this last hope of the struggling writer is closed to poets.

 

Amateur practitioners generally self-publish, laying out some £400-£1000 for 200-500 copies of their collection, and getting back perhaps some £200 after a great deal of effort.

 

You'll find more information, and Internet references on ocasopress.

 

email us   |   about poetry magic   | siteplan

 

Site Navigation


General

 

Publishing


Advanced Section


Poets