It's always cost money to do anything. Why do you think our pal Bukowski had to work shitty jobs for 30 years.
Do you think he would have paid to submit his work to some lit mag or anthology? I highly doubt it. Contests have always had payments attached to them but the horrible practice of making writers pay to submit their work to these little journals ("reading fees") only sprang up in the last ten or so years ago. To me, that's the worst thing you can do to a writer, short of what Martin did to Buk--put the burden of payment on them to have their work seen--NOT published mind you, but MERELY seen.
This wasn't meant to be a personal attack. Somehow in the past lit journals and whatnot didn't need money from writers to have their work read. They figured it out. Good luck with your book.
When you are drunk most of the time, you tend to get shitty jobs... Buk was a drunkard most of his life and because of this he usually took the path of least resistance. He had a slacker mindset. He worked the angles. He managed to climb out of that pit thanks to his second wife, Linda, but he knew that pit was waiting for him to slip up; waiting to suck him down into the pit. Most of us have worked shitty jobs, haven't you? I've worked since I was 19 (50 years)! How about you?
Every poet must serve somebody when they start out including Buk. Walt Whitman self published Leaves of Grass and all of its subsequent revisions. Do you think he would have done that if he could find a publisher who would do it for him? Poetry is a niche market. It's a hard sale. You have to be in it for the long haul (I've run Lummox Press since 1994) and have traveled all over. the western US hawking books!
Art Goodtimes, a poet friend of mine, from the Western slope of Colorado sent me this comment yesterday: "without publishers poets are silenced". Without John Martin and Black Sparrow Press, Buk's 'voice' would have not been heard; without John's investment in Buk, he wouldn't have been able to focus on writing. John paid Buk a "wage" that covered his food and drink, plus his rent and utilities. For Jon it was an investment. He gambled on Buk and he won!
Like many poets, you seem to suffer under the delusion that poetry is a pure art and should be untainted by filthy lucre. But really, money is the grease that moves things along. Can you exist without money (without living with your parents)? Nowadays you'd be hard pressed to find a 'garret' to live in, much less anyone who would let you run a tab so you could eat, drink and be merry!
That $5 shipping fee covers the postage plus the 'book box'. I will find the funds to assemble and publish the book from the loyal patrons that help me present the various book projects I do each year. It will be a fine looking book full of fine work. Have you ever seen one of the books published by Lummox Press?
rd
Are you accepting multiple submissions given the reading fee would be paid for each? If not that's cool, just wanted to clarify. Dziękuję!
No, it's $5 for a contributor's copy....which might contain 3 pieces of your work or only one piece. That number depends on whether I like what I read.
Bukowski split costs with the publishers of his early chapbooks more than once. That's not paying to be read, but it's paying to be published.
Yeah, they "figured it out" by paying for everything themselves, out of their own pockets.
Now times have changed and you have to figure it out. The first step might be to stop asking someone else to pay the costs of publishing your writing.
Ever heard of the NEA? They handed out money like there was no tomorrow (and eventually that came true). Unfortunately I came on the scene just a little bit too late to get on that gravy train. So Lummox books have had to cover the costs of printing; or die!
Working out a business deal with a publisher to put out your work is one thing. Paying to have your work "looked at" for potential publication is another, sadly.
In the past, and still now in some instances, publishers of journals (which is what we're addressing primarily here) did "figure it out" and not for the most part by paying out of their own pockets. They had advertising, patrons, applied and won grants and--they cultivated loyal subscribers. They didn't put the burden on writers who gave them the content for their publications almost always without remuneration.
Sure, things have changed and I'm not averse to financing my own work. But there are still models of publishing which involve concerns that finance and put out an author's work without expecting anything upfront. Especially a fee to "read" their stuff.
AGAIN I MUST POINT OUT, IT'S NOT A READING FEE, IT'S A FEE TO ENSURE THAT YOU GET A CONTRIBUTOR'S COPY!!!!!!!!!!!!
Are you accepting multiple submissions given the reading fee would be paid for each? If not that's cool, just wanted to clarify. Dziękuję!
I hope you will send me the shipping fee along with some of your work before May 15th. Maybe you'll even pass the word to your fellow poets about this project. Do you live in the US? If not please remember that the shipping fee is $15. rd