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I seem to notice a common thread running through a lot of the conversations on this forum regarding John Martin. While I don't disagree that he would have been better served to not re-write and manipulate Bukowski's work under the guise of 'editing', is it not true that if it weren't for John Martin the majority of us (myself included) would have never read or even heard of Bukowski? Not to mention the other obscure writers and poets he published. It seems to me that a lot of folks would like to see Martin crucified. I don't claim to be a scholar or expert on Bukowski but I do know what I like. If anyone would like to comment or explain this to me I welcome it but please try to do it in a manner that isn't condescending, superior or otherwise rude. Thank you
 
try to do it in a manner that isn't condescending, superior or otherwise rude.
When you qualify a question with a litany of your own insecurities, paranoia and perceived victimhood it's hard to take you seriously.
is it not true that if it weren't for John Martin the majority of us (myself included) would have never read or even heard of Bukowski?
Only if you believe John Martin was the only person on earth who would have published Bukowski. Which is untrue, as a lot of other people published Bukowski, many of them long before Martin came along.

Maybe the question should really be: Could Bukowski have been more successful and more popular if someone other than Martin had published most of his books?
 
Yes, I believe the Webbs published him before Martin. And many other people knew about and supported his genius. He was gaining much popularity in Germany too. Martin likes to puff himself up - it's something that parrots do, or something. Ha ha...(inside joke - with my own self). But really, Martin has always liked to revise history. He makes himself out to be a lot more important in Bukowski's life than he really was - in the same way he inserted himself into Buk's writing. It's habitual I guess. Maybe even an illness.
 
Martin was important, but remember that it was foreign royalties that bought Bukowski's house and new cars, it was not Black Sparrow money. So in that way, yes, Martin overstated his importance.

Martin believed that the Black Sparrow books lead to Bukowski's European success, and while they may have contributed to it, the fact is it was a non-Black Sparrow title that was the first Bukowski book to have a large number of sales in Germany (Poems Written Before Jumping Out Of An 8 Story Window). They sold more copies of that one title in Germany than Black Sparrow had sold of all their Bukowski titles combined up to that point.

Whether Martin was good for Bukowski when he was alive isn't the point anyway. When we talk about Martin's destruction of Bukowski's work, you have to understand that the worst of that happened after Bukowski was safely in the grave.
 
Bukowski was a bit too soft and slow on Martin when it came to changes made to his work, but he did respond eventually with a constructive letter to Martin a little later. His letters to Weissner are more candid and reveal the depth of his concerns about this.
 
Do we have Bukowski's tax returns? Were his foreign royalties always higher than whatever it was Martin paid him, about $10,000 every two weeks by the early 1990s, according to a recent interview?

I imagine royalties from abroad and City Lights and a few other publishers varied a great deal, but Black Sparrow paid consistently for over twenty-odd (and twenty odd) years?

Meh, what do I know?
 
Were his foreign royalties always higher than whatever it was Martin paid him[...]?
During his lifetime, yes.

Martin paid him, about $10,000 every two weeks by the early 1990s...
Bukowski was earning more than that from foreign royalties ten years earlier, in 1982 (adjusted for inflation).

And we might take Martin's $20,000 a month claim with a grain of salt, since in 1992 Bukowski said he was earning $7000 a month from Black Sparrow royalties. Unless that amount tripled over the next year or two, Bukowski never saw $20,000 a month from Black Sparrow.

Linda may have seen that amount eventually, but then shortly before he sold the Bukowski rights to HarperCollins, Martin characterized Bukowski royalties as "pennies":

pennies.png


Clearly they weren't literal "pennies," or HarperCollins wouldn't have paid what they did for the rights (they also bought the rights to Bowles and Fante Black Sparrow titles in the same deal, which, as I recall, was a little less than $2 million). In any event, and whatever the amounts were, by the time Black Sparrow started to make any significant money for Bukowski, he was near the end of his life. So he benefited - during his lifetime - much more from foreign royalties.

Look at it this way, when Bukowski bought his house in 1978, he made a 50% down payment (either $40,000 or $60,000 depending on which source you believe), then doubled his monthly mortgage payment so he could own the house quickly. In 1979 he bought a new BMW for $16,000 cash. At the time those things were happening, he was earning $500 a month from Black Sparrow.
 
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