Tony is right about Salt getting good sales from bringing out 'long-
overdue compilations' etc. and yes, those books had a readership. It
all had a brilliant start, but to my mine they then blew it. There
have been numerous criticisms of Salt's various decisions floating
around over the past few years, many of them well founded (and some
from personal experience) and they don't need repeating here. I think
they simply spread their net too widely and so lost their initial
readership They published too much, without being able to back-up
individual books, and too much of what they began to publish turned
out to be bland - there are some great books in there - but they are
lost.
In my opinion they should have taken the chance and concentrated on
pushing the more exciting avant end of their list instead of trying to
be everything to everybody.
Tim A.
On 2 Jul 2011, at 00:00, Tony Frazer wrote:
> Not quite of this day, though. The statement was uttered (or typed)
> in 2009......
>
> And the books from the early 200s that he mentions were often long-
> overdue compilations of then almost-impossible-to-find poets of the
> older generation, who had an audience. There were only so many under-
> collected names like Chaloner, James and so forth.
>
> Tony
>
>
>
> On 1 Jul 2011, at 23:47, David Lace wrote:
>
>> Quote of the day by Chris Hamilton-Emery:
>>
>> "British avant-garde sales have dropped from a high in the early
>> millennium of around 200 units first year sales (for most, not all)
>> to around 50 or so, sometimes less. We just presumed that those
>> buying the avant-garde were buying other poets or other poetry or
>> simply buying elsewhere. There used to be a general market for
>> British avant works (never much taste for it in the USA), that's
>> disappeared for us now. It's making it almost impossible,
>> commercially, for us to publish new avant garde talent. Some books
>> have no demand at all now. It's just all dried up for us, really. I
>> guess that happens."
>>
>> http://z11.invisionfree.com/Poets_On_Fire/index.php?showtopic=1478&st=0
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