I was going to take up some of Tim's points and reply to his post (and may 
still do, if I have the energy) but immediately after reading it, I found an 
email from amazon.com which led me to a series of activities which may 
relate to the whole question of the interaction of the Web and publishing. 
Not perhaps *immediately connected to the finding and publishing of 
contemporary poetry, but for what it's worth ...

The nice people at  amazon.com kindly informed me that:

"We've noticed that customers who have purchased or rated books by John 
Stephen Farmer have also purchased The Antiquarian Repertory (Volume 3); A 
Miscellany Intended to Preserve and Illustrate Several Valuable Remains of 
Old Times: Adorned With by Francis Grose. For this reason, you might like to 
know that The Antiquarian Repertory (Volume 3); A Miscellany Intended to 
Preserve and Illustrate Several Valuable Remains of Old Times: Adorned With 
is now available.  You can order yours for just $28.01 by following the link 
below."

Well, that *is nice -- a book by Francis Grose that I hadn't known about, 
and only $28.01!  Cheap at the price.

There was a time (and I actually did this a couple of times before I 
cottoned on to what was happening, with regard to Pierce Egan's _Boxiana_ 
and a Harrison Ainsworth novel about the Admirable Crichton) when I'd have 
cheerfully sent off my money and bought the book ...

This time, my immediate thought was, "Oh goody, google books have finally 
got round to scanning this!"

(Actually, where I ended up was on the Internet Archives who, since the last 
time I looked there, seem to have added quite a considerable number of books 
by Grose to their stock, and also seem to have developed a synergistic 
relation to google.  If anyone is interested in the good Captain Francis 
Grose, you can see what's available on IA here:

        http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=francis%20grose     )

If I really wanted to, I could without too much bother construct a physical 
copy of any of these (edge stapled, printed title on the spine, etc.), 
perhaps not quite as pukka and pretty as what I'd get for my $28.01, but 
within spitting distance of it, and for only the cost of the paper and ink 
to print it.  Reason why I have the entire five volumes of the collected 
works of William Maginn on my bookshelves happily sitting beside 
commercially produced texts, and didn't have to pay an arm and a leg for 
them.

All this is about what I don't think has been much discussed, the 
*interaction between the Web and physical copies of books, and the relation 
of this to the state of computer technology (both software and hardware).

About eight years ago, I woke up with in my head what I called The 
Kalshnikov Principle -- if an Afghan tribesman can produce an acceptable 
version of a kalshnikov rifle in the village smithy, why can't I produce a 
Kalashnikov Penguin?

That was eight years ago ...  It's *much simpler now, especially since the 
HP range of inkjet printers installed as standard an *easy way to print 
double sided.  I still can't (quite) produce a perfectly bound 300 page book 
that is comparable to a Penguin text (though I'm no longer sure I'd want to) 
but I *can construct for myself a perfectly acceptable physical reading copy 
of any out of copyright text that exists on the Web.  Thank you google, and 
HP, and the useful people who make heavy duty staplers.  (Absolutely the 
*only thing you need to do this, other than what is now pretty standard for 
anyone who has a computer, is something which will punch a staple through 
150 sheets of 90 gm paper.)

And when it comes to pamphlets (where a saddle-back stapler really is useful 
though not absolutely essential) ...

What do you get when you invest $30 or whatever the current fee is to submit 
a pamphlet to a pay-to-play poetry competition?

Distribution and status.

(Assuming of course you're the lucky winner, and not one of the what would 
it be 500 other punters all paying their $30 to subsidise the activity.)

I could go on (and might, later) but I'll leave this side of things for the 
moment.

But there's a practical point here with regard to the good folks at amazon 
and their Helpful Hints.  Maybe the amazon.com people are *already 
implementing The Google Model for separating information from noise.  They 
were dead right that I *would be interested in a book by Grose.  So what 
would happen if I went to amazon and expressed interest in or rated all the 
*living writers that I'm interested in?  Maybe the amazon algorithm would 
then tell me which *other writers people who are interested in these writers 
whom I'm interested in are also interested in.  So I can expand my field of 
knowledge without having to confront the entire world wide wilderness of the 
Web.

Dunno, but I think it's at least worth trying.

Off to rate a few books on amazon (probably starting with my own).

Robin

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tim Allen" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, March 28, 2010 12:45 PM
Subject: Re: Northern Irish Poets?


There is, actually, a very important issue within all this. The
changes in the dynamic (or lack of) of poetry publishing resulting
from the internet are many, and they are going to affect both the
possible ways in which print anthologies are produced and how those
selections are perceived, like it or not.