John Cayley wrote
>In the midst of what I believe is only a mildly interesting discussion
>about 'marketing' (marketing?! poets on a poetics list talking about
>marketing!? the world really did change, didn't it? and TB (the NL strain)
>hasn't caught hold yet??),
I am saddened that the ironies in (certainly) my use of the word were not
vivid enough.
On the other hand, when I publish I spend an enormous amount of time and
effort and money on trying to get work into the hands of people who would
be amazed, excited, energised by it. Somehow, I have to find ways of
letting them know that it exists. 'marketing' is a euphemism for 'lighting
a spark in the mind', maybe.
It is inordinately frustrating to me when really exciting work sits in
boxes in publishers' bedrooms. You may have an adequate list of readers who
whip every publication you produce off the shelves as soon as you produce
it, but even then there are always new audiences to find.
As a Small Press, I do find it strange that the distribution of the work is
classed as something poets need not consider. You are all being published
by big publishing houses now who take that responsibility off you, are you?
It seems to me that distribution has been one of the abiding questions of
the Small Press Movement - this work is worth seeing, how the hell do we
get people to see it. Why else do I waste my time struggling with the
stuff? Various strategies have been employed, from pumping out virtually
free stapled sheets to expensive glossy coffee table books. Various
magazines of immense value (Paul Buck's Curtains, it seems to me, was in
its time one of the most important and yet under valued magazines) have
folded through lack of adequate support, distribution mechanisms, and
funding.
Lawrence's irritation at the lack of audience for interesting work at SVP
is not a question of how much profit will be made but of the dissemination
of the material.
Maybe you feel the material we are handling is receiving adequate notice
nowadays, has found its niche?
My plea is for innovative ideas for dissemination of the work whether you
call it marketing or by some other word.
But maybe I am just stuck back in the seventies, and haven't realised that
we don't need to distribute our work, or discuss the contexts into which we
place it, these days.
It is not clarity that is desirable but force. Clarity is of no importance
because nobody listens and nobody knows what you mean no matter what you
mean, nor how clearly you mean what you mean. But if you have vitality
enough of knowing enough of what you mean, somebody and sometime and
sometimes a great many will have to realize that you know what you mean and
so they will agree that you mean what you know, what you know you mean,
which is as near as anybody can come to understanding anyone.
GERTRUDE STEIN, >Four in America< Books for Libraries Press 1947
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