At 03:50 PM 7/6/98 +0000, in a really terrific post Peter Riley observed and
asked:
>Equipage (a "desk-top" publisher) published and sold 300 copies of
>Barry MacSweeney's PEARL. What's the difference between an edition of 300
>from Chatto and an edition of 300 from Equipage?
Well, there is a difference, and PR spells much of it out: the _kind_ of
distribution; (some) library-purchasing agents will automatically order
books published by Chatto, so there's a (perhaps small?) difference in
readership; if a book is published by Chatto the TLS (or whoever) is more
likely to notice it and even review it -- especially since the readers for
publishers like Chatto are (I guess -- certainly this is true in North
America) often connected (whatever that word may mean) with the Reviews.
It's also more likely that a small bookshop _might_ pick up a couple of
copies of a book from Chatto and stick it on the shelves, where it's likely
that it would do the same with one from Equipage. This makes a difference to
those who have yet to learn about excellent (and at times struggling)
specialist poetry bookshops like Am Here (in the US) and Peter Riley (in the
UK), the bulk of whose business is through mail-order rather than the much
simpler over-the-counter...
Overall, I'd say a general reader (whatever that creature might be) is more
likely to have heard of ther writer published by the estimable Mr. Chatto
than of the writer published by the estimable Mr. Mengham. What effect this
possible blow to the writer's vanity might have, of course, is moot, and
must vary greatly from writer to writer. It's probably more distressing to
the reader (like me) who wants to get hold of stuff but never hears of it
till it's gone, than it is to the writer, but I have absolutely no way of
knowing.
And of course PR, in his all too common experience with other writers at
Bologna, himself explains very clearly what some of the differences are.
Witness Andrew Crozier (and a host of others). I find it hard to believe
that in many (other) cases such struggling in the wilderness is not
damaging: "Why? What has dogged us?" Bunting asked Zukofsky in 1950. That's
not an idle question, as many of postings on this list have shown.
Now I return to my lurk.
Peter
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Peter Quartermain
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