Absence of the Hardback (1 Viewer)

Hello all:

Sorry I haven't checked in in a while--editorship at City Lights is wonderful, but pretty work-intensive, so I've been a little swamped of late.

In any case, you guys are going to kill me, but we've had to cancel the hardback version of Absence. The one of Portions didn't really work out for us; there were pre-orders for 500 off the top, ALL of which were returned. All of them. This was difficult to fathom, though I imagine the economy crashing during the season we published it was a factor. The other factor is that, when our distributor went around to bookstores with Absence, almost no one pre-ordered the hardback. Everyone wants the paper for price reasons. It's very disappointing because I thought the Portions hardback was a beautiful book and we seldom have the opportunity to publish hardbacks here.

So I'm not sure what to tell you all; the paperback of Portions is selling very well, but the hardback--after the initial flurry of the hardcore fans like yourselves--is just sitting there, costing us money due to warehousing the books and so on. They mock us with their future collectability, but right now, they sit there like stones.

In another note, yes the cover is still blue; the copies that have gone out so far are what we call galleys--an uncorrected advance copy in order for any writer to work on a review before it comes out--so those are all b&w to save money. Anyway--keep those galleys if you got 'em; there's only about 50 of them and there's a few typos subsequently corrected, making it a unique edition.

So again, I'm very sorry about the hardback; fire away your wrath at me, though bear in mind we really tried to make it happen, so try to cut us some slack. I think it's a pretty awesome book.

Also, to take some of the sting out of this, we're in the (very) preliminary stages of developing a third volume, but different from the others because it'll be entirely composed of Notes of a Dirty Old Man columns. Apparently there's a million of these that haven't been collected, so we thought something more focused than the more general uncollecteds we've done would be a good move at this point.

Alright--I'm outta here; let the beer bottles fly.

Best,
Garrett
 
If they don't sell, they don't sell, nothing anyone can do about that. I doubt anyone here would give you any shit for that personally.
 
It's too bad about the hard cover but at least you tried to make it happen and that's all one can do. After all, it's the words that counts. It's still a great thing City Lights is able to keep publishing some of that uncollected stuff!

we're in the (very) preliminary stages of developing a third volume, but different from the others because it'll be entirely composed of Notes of a Dirty Old Man columns. Apparently there's a million of these that haven't been collected, so we thought something more focused than the more general uncollecteds we've done would be a good move at this point.

Now, that's an awesome idea! We've often talked about all those uncollected Notes Of A Dirty Old Man columns should be published and now it seems like it's finally going to happen. My hat is off to City Lights!
 
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ah well, whaddya gonna do? you have to make money. I'm sure I can make do with the paperback.

I'm pretty happy to hear about the 'Notes' book, though.
 
Hey, no sweat.

It does seem odd that dealers will stock (and clearly sell) hardbacks of the ecco books, but avoid one from City Lights. Perhaps ecco, as part of HarperCollins, can afford to take a bit of a hit that City Lights can't.
 
Hi Garrett,

Yeah, we are rabid fans, but also understand reality. I cannot imagine anyone getting pissed at you or City Lights for making a smart business decision.

The worst part is that you did not sell as many of the hardbacks as we all thought.

Asking a publisher to put out a hardback release knowing that they will lose money on it would be wrong.

If anything, we should be mad at the bookstores that refused to buy the hardbacks and the stores that returned them, but that too is life.

All best,
Bill
 
Yes. Disappointing news, but if you can't sell them then it's the only thing to do.

Out of curiosity, how many copies have you sold of Portions? I'm guessing that a smaller run, maybe 250 or 300, would have sold out. Partly because the smaller limitation would have made it more of a "must have" for collectors, and I'm guessing you've probably sold that many anyway. I'm also curious if any copies of the hardcover have gone to libraries.
 
I would be willing to bind the books in hardcovers for a very reasonable price. They could be 1/4 bound in cloth covers. I could make these using the text blocks from the existing paperbacks. This would allow City Lights to do as few as 26 hardcovers or up to 300 hardcovers. I could also do a clamshell edition of 26 copies that would almost certainly sell out just on this forum....

Bill
 
...we're in the (very) preliminary stages of developing a third volume, but different from the others because it'll be entirely composed of Notes of a Dirty Old Man columns. Apparently there's a million of these that haven't been collected, so we thought something more focused than the more general uncollecteds we've done would be a good move at this point.

I don't think that would be a wise move, unless you want to taint CL's reputation forevermore ;) Yes, there are dozens of uncollected "Notes" columns but, believe me, many of those have not been collected for a reason. Maybe a slim volume would work, tho...
 
Garrett, nobody should fault you for a sound business decision on the hardcovers. At least you seriously considered it, and for that we thank you.

Despite cirerita's misgivings (and he knows what he's talking about), I'd love to see a collected Notes of a Dirty Old Man. Even if the quality is uneven, it would be of interest for the historical/biographical content. And face it, even second rate, so drunk he can't type Bukowski is better, more entertaining, than 99.9% of the authors out there.

A Bill Roberts hardcover would be fantastic. I'd buy that.
 
It does seem odd that dealers will stock (and clearly sell) hardbacks of the ecco books, but avoid one from City Lights.
It sounds like they ordered the hardcover Portions, but returned them because they just didn't sell.

My opinion (which is free and worth every penny) is that the cover helped to kill it. If I didn't really know Bukowski I would not have picked up Portions. It looks boring and academic. Like I'm going to learn something if I read it. ;) The cover of the new one doesn't make any progress in that department. But then City Lights has never blessed Bukowski with decent covers.

Selling books is still selling, and you limit your market when you don't bother to try to be appealing to a wide audience. Or an audience that was born after 1950.

Covers sell books, like it or not. Just like albums in the prehistoric days. I would bet good money that everyone reading this bought an album based on the cover alone at least once. But you never bought a classical album based on a generic layout. That's what the City Lights books look like to me. Generic highbrow "classics."

Just saying.
 
Well, the Erections cover wasn't that bad, and it did help to sell books, as B. used to say in interviews back then: "I have this ugly mug that sells books" or something like that.

erections.jpg
 
Hey guys:

I sincerely appreciate the kind response here; we really tried, even announced it and put it in the catalog, but we hardly got any pre-orders from the stores. Not sure why--Portions itself was even cheap for a contemporary hard cover of such length. HarperCollins (that is to say, Rupert Murdoch, who owns it) has a lot more clout to get books in bookstores; if you publish Sarah Palin (Regan Books = HarperCollins) and sell such quantities, the bookstores are going to cater to you.

I'll bring Bill's idea to the attention of the Board here to see what they say; we might be able to do something like that in a limited quantity.

About a proposed NOADOM volume: again, this is still in the exploratory stages, but David Calonne just emailed me a bibliography of 71 pieces, so I'm hoping we can pan enough gold out of it to make such a volume viable. Anyway, we'll keep people posted on this one.

The big hurdle in terms of covers is getting rights to a good photo of Buk, which is generally too expensive for us to do. Linda B. took both cover pix we've used, so they were "in-house" as it were. But trying to get a younger or more iconic pic of Buk is tough stuff. I'd use the "Erections" pic again since we split that book into the two current books, but the way the licensing works, we only had rights to use the pic on "Erections" as is (or rather was). (It's like our Ginsberg books, now also owned by Mr. Murdoch; the way Allen set things up when he moved to pre-Murdoch Harper & Row is that City Lights has perpetual rights on our original Ginsberg books in their current form, but we can't alter the contents in any way. We could change the covers but they're pretty iconic; the black & white Pocket Poets Howl is what people want when they come to the store so it's not in our interest to update them.)

Anyway, Absence is right around the corner and I'm lovin' it; "The Invader" right now is my fave.

Talk to youse soon!

g
 
Yeah no righteous anger here. I'll be sad my companion volume doesn't have a hardcover buddy to snuggle up to, but it'll save me a few bucks... Sucks it didn't work out, but at least its still arriving. Good luck with that third volume!
 
Anyway, Absence is right around the corner and I'm lovin' it; "The Invader" right now is my fave.

Great story. I don't know if David talks about this in his intro to the book -I don't have a copy- but a couple of stories from the mid 80s, such as "The Invader", were rejected by the American mags, but they were accepted by a few European outfits -basically Playboy in Germany, France, the Netherlands and probably other countries. I wonder why ;)
 
Oh well - ordered the soft cover today after the alert from City Lights. Wow - they are expensive - especially for their own book! The book is cheaper on amazon and for nearly the same postage had it sent to Australia for what City Lights asked for domestic. I'd like to support City Lights but ...
 
Oh well - ordered the soft cover today after the alert from City Lights. Wow - they are expensive - especially for their own book! The book is cheaper on amazon and for nearly the same postage had it sent to Australia for what City Lights asked for domestic. I'd like to support City Lights but ...

Yeah sorry City Lights, but Amazon UK with free delivery let me order this for less than your charging. And I've not had a booked bashed with Amazon's packaging yet whereas your 'Portions From a Wine-Stained Notebook' package... oh my word... :(

And it looks like City Lights haven't told Amazon that there's no hard cover - you can still pre-order one today...
 
Amazon in the US cancelled my hardback preorder. So maybe it's just the UK that haven't updated (?).
 
Funny, Amazon UK still offers a hard cover of the book.

Too bad Amazon UK does'nt offer free shipping to Denmark as they do to UK citizens, but on the other hand, they want £11.99 for the book and Amazon.com only want $11.87. Both are pre-order prices.
Anyway, I ordered a copy from City Lights. Their price is the same as Amazon.com's pre-order price and their shipping price is 49 cents cheaper than Amazon.com's, plus you get the book right away. So it's the best offer for European non-UK citizens.
 
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[...] the best offer for European non-UK citizens.

MAY be.
But it will also be available at your friendly neighborhood bukowski-shop as soon as it's out.

Price isn't sure yet, but will be fair.
(I assume, it may cost 12.80 EUR just as 'Portions'. Do the maths in terms of currencies: amazon.co.uk: 11.99 £, amazon.de: 12.99 EUR. - Now compare!)
Shipping in Germany free. Shipping inside Europe is 3,- EUR.


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Roni, I wish I had thought about your Bukowski-shop before ordering from CL. You match their price including shipping (for European non-UK residents). I've done the math and your price inc. shipping to European countries is €15.80, which equals CL price of $23.87 by and large - but you can ship faster to European countries than CL!
Who wants to wait up to a month when you can have the book in 3-4 days? You're offering a good deal!
 
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Just got this e-mail from City Lights:

We are pleased to inform you that the following item has been sent out today:

Absence of the Hero
Uncollected Stories and Essays, Vol. 2: 1946-1992
2
Paperback - Qty 1
It's going to Southern California, the Santa Clarita Valley, north of Los Angeles. Hope the packaging is decent.
 

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