Black Sparrow Press office (1 Viewer)

[cirerita]

I just came across of the very few pictures I took when I went to see Martin. All the interesting material is actually on the DV tape, but I'm too lazy to take screenshots from there, so I'm just attaching these 2 images.

as I said somewhere else, a very simple, humble office. this was in 2001, a year before Martin decided to quit.

 

[mjp]

So what are the stacks in the shelves? Books yeah, but what? Seems like a mighty small inventory, unless it was just review copies or freebies to mail out, etc...

 

[cirerita]

those were all the B books, from The Days up to the newest one, plus broadsides and pamphlets. At that time, I didn't have all B books, and Martin took them from the shelves and gave them to me. He even gave me one of those matchbooks with a short B poem on it.

 

[HenryChinaski]

yeah im interested in knowing that too.

 

[cirerita]

I modified one of the images so you can see/imagine where Martin worked. The red arrow shows where his cubicle was.

 

[HenryChinaski]

damn man...that must've been nice.

 

[MarkDB]

Great! Thanks for the photos. Do you know what happened to the inventory? Ecco didn't get it, did they?

 

[mjp]

I imagine that Black Sparrow continued to fulfill orders up to a certain point, and there wasn't a lot of inventory left over. I would think that once word of the sale and folding of BS got out, booksellers snapped up what they could, and have by now sold it off or are sitting on it, waiting for the value to rise. I doubt that HarperColins/Ecco distributed any BS stock. But - as always - I could be wrong.

Since the BS runs were relatively small, I don't think there were ever warehouses full of books waiting to go to market. Martin knew his audience and business and probably operated on a slim inventory, relying on reprints when the shelves got low. That's why you have 20 or 30 printings of some Bukowski books, when a larger publishing house might do two or three for the same number of books...

 

[Jason]

There was quite a bit of inventory left over and was purchased by a couple of Bay Area book dealers.

 

[mjp]

I'd be interested to know what that inventory consisted of. One of the great things about Black Sparrow was that they kept the "big" titles constantly in print. You could order hardcover copies of just about any of the major titles right up to the end. Which I always meant to do, but never did. But you have to wonder if there were any of the smaller run titles in the inventory that was sold.

I was actually always a little disappointed by the quality of the BS hardcovers. The first time I saw one I was kind of surprised at what seemed like a quick and dirty method of using a slice of the paperback version of the cover on the spine. Anyway, some are nicer than others, but the hardcovers always seemed like an afterthought to me.

 

[Jason]

My understanding is that the inventory was pretty extensive: presentation copies, bound proofs, etc.

 

[mjp]

Really! That's interesting. Who bought them (if you know)? The presentation/proof stuff doesn't float my boat, but like-new copies of some of the more obscure titles does.

 

[Jason]

Yes, I think most of the first eds are up on ABE now...

 

[cirerita]

ABE is (or it used to be) run by S. Cooney, a good friend of Martin and the editor of the first volumes of letters. A good guy.

 

[Jason]

ABE is now owned and operated by a business located in Europe. Interesting -- didn't know Seamus was involved in it earlier on...

 

[mjp]

...S. Cooney...the editor of the first volumes of letters.

Cooney also did the first sort of bibliography-lite of Black Sparrow, The Black Sparrow Press, A Checklist, published in 1971, which lists the first 100 Black Sparrow publications.

 

[Brandon g]

I just wonder why there is a cat there.

 

[cirerita]

I think that was not the only cat there...