If you received £180.000 (for three years) of taxpayers' money, I believe it
is a moral imperative. I also believe publishers should support their poets
and at least try to get them readings / distribute their books / get books
properly distributed (I know this is very difficult these days as bookshops
do not seem to stock poetry books any more) etc. I do not think it is a
viable policy to publish as many books as possible. Well, if you publish so
many books as Salt has done, the number of people who like you will
certainly increase with the result that they do not openly dare to criticise
you (as it has happened here when I posted a slightly critical comment and
received - with one exception - personal emails instead of public replies).
With the help of POD - something I do not believe in, I am still the
old-fashioned publisher who puts his own money on 'his' poets - and
taxpayers' money this is more easily accomplished. I also wonder about the
term 'independent' - does it mean independent from public money? We will
see!
Nonetheless my congratulations to Salt on having managed to receive such a
huge grant and on having published challenging poetry books, also important
books of literary criticism.
Wolfgang
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: British & Irish poets [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Im
Auftrag von Jeffrey Side
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 04. August 2010 20:51
An: [log in to unmask]
Betreff: Re: Ten years of publishing worth its Salt - Guardian article
I don’t think it is a moral imperative, Tony, but it seems artistically
limiting not to do so. If a publisher only publishes poets they know or who
they’ve heard of, or who they think will sell well, then the sorts of poetry
published will be more of the same.
Original Message:
Does anyone here really think that any publisher has a moral imperative to
retain an open-door policy to submissions? I do here at Shearsman, but I
assure you that I can see very good reasons for not doing so.
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