Let me lurch forth from my comfortable lurk to say briefly that I find
Stephen Pain's comment on us profiteers is arrant nonsense if it is not (to
be charitable) astonishingly naive. For just about a dozen years I ran a
small letterpress outfit Slug Press here in Vancouver; I do not think my
experience is at all unrepresentative. Among our productions were chapbooks
by several poets perhaps not all known to those on this list: George
Bowering, Sharon Thesen, Ric Caddel, among them, and about seventy
broadsides. None of these was a profitable venture, but that's not why we
did them.
Case in point: in 1978 a broadside by Louis Zukofsky, four colours,
facsimile of MS page from his notebook, An Alphabet of Subjects, 226
copies, 26 signed by Celia Z, 200 numbered for sale. We had hoped to sell
them all, and thus finance a booklet or two. They sold for $15 Canadian inc
p&p. Total sales so far approx 90; cost of printing and royalties, $1600
(US). P&p costs $5 each.
Yes. I received some money. It should not cost Stephen too much effort to
figure out how much.
Given the syntax and vocabulary of the following quotation from Stephen's
post, could Stephen please explain what he means by "profit" and by
"business" [to say nothing of "charity" and "fact"]? I'm sure Lawrence
Upton and Keston Sutherland and a whole host of others would be interested.
Personally I'm tired of Stephen's silly narrow-minded prejudice and pinched
spirit that leaves +love of poetry+ out of his witless equations.
Stephen wrote:
>I was pointing out that Lawrence Upton and other small publishers do
>profit from their sales, and that as it is a business, I'd like to look at the
>merchandise before buying it. You will see from a series of exchanges that
>I have always maintained that people do profit --and this holy than holy is
>a front. Lawrence countered in a long post. My point has always been that
>people do profit --and whether you like that or not --it is a fact. If you
>run a business without thinking of making a profit, then you are running a
>non-profit organization, or a charity, and I doubt if any of the small
>publishing concerns are charities.
Back to lurking, yes. Amd could we DROP this subject?
Peter
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Peter Quartermain
846 Keefer Street
Vancouver
B.C.
Canada V6A 1Y7
Voice : 604 255 8274
Fax: 255 8204
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