Poetry Hut Blog

Poetry News:

1. — Blas Falconer’s collection of poems, A Question of Gravity and Light, is about nameless people, perennial outsiders who find themselves in situations they hadn’t planned upon —
2. — Professor denied tenure. Reason? Flarf. —
3. — Bangor publisher suing Amazon in anti-trust case —
4. — For the first time, anyone with access to the Internet can hear tapes of Robert Penn Warren’s 1964 interviews with prominent Civil Rights activists like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Malcolm X and the Rev. James Lawson —
5. — Surrealism’s founding texts sold —
6. — A collection of 35 of William McGonagall’s poems fetched more than $13,000 at auction. —
7. — Isn’t it a little bit late to be claiming you wrote “Footprints in the Sand” —
8. — Queen is asked to appoint first female Poet Laureate after 22 men in 340 years —
9. — It pains me to say it, but I used to hate Emily Dickinson —
10. — Frieda Hughes reflects on the aviary she built in her garden —

I had a nice visit with my sister. It was weird to visit Knoxville again after almost (exactly!) a decade. (My M.S. degree is from UT.) Some things looked different, some things looked the same. Looks like they fixed up World’s Fair Park and that area by the Tennessee Theater downtown. I’m really looking forward to having my sister only a few hours away, though I know she’ll be busy with grad school. We had a lot of fun together — always do — and she cut my bangs for me, whoo! I cried when I dropped her off at the airport yesterday, though I’ll see her again in July LOL.

Thanks for your support of my book. I haven’t got any complaints but I guess the people who think that I’m a blowhard or that I’m talentless aren’t apt to email me about it. I am also behind on my email right now — I’m not ignoring anybody.

Since my last post regarding this topic:

1. The Washington (state) Atty General has said “talk to the  hand  Feds.”

2. The National Writers Union (I am a member - they are UAW Local 1981 btw] has called for Justice Dept. and Congressional investigations.

3. AuthorHouse and Lulu.com have caved, though I can’t find any official announcement about Lulu.com.

Given the state of the Justice Department these days, the US Government’s servile toadying to Corporations, and the fact that Congress was pretty much elected so they would end the Iraq War and yet … therefore I, for one, welcome our new BookSurgian overlords.

I’m still not buying anything from Amazon.

Not a lot of blogging is taking place about this issue lately, but here’s an article from Publishers Weekly:
Amazon: Friend or Foe?.

Poetry News:

1. — Poet d.a. levy memorialized in new book —
2. — Write, stop, pivot, punch —
3. — But tomorrow is another day that he can enjoy twice, full of bees, birds, and breezes in a beet field —
4. — Road Scholar Copy Edits America —
5. — Sinéad Morrissey’s Through the Square Window won the 2007 National Poetry Competition. What do you think of it? —
6. — In a 1946 article in the Atlantic Monthly magazine, Mr. Hall described himself as “shame-faced and apologetic,” but claimed that Fern had come to him in a dream and dictated her poems to him —
7. — Flarf Poets Still Not Dead Yet, I See —

Amazon has threatened publishers who sell direct at discount on their own websites with punitive action LOL. Just LOL.

I posted some links last week regarding Amazon.com’s attempt to force publishers to use Amazon’s BookSurge print-on-demand service. Or the book won’t be available for sale on Amazon. I think Amazon took some non-BookSurge POD book’s “buy” buttons off, too. Is that still the case? My friend Scott’s book is only available through the used book interface now.

Evidently, most (all?) print-on-demand services (other than BookSurge) use Lightning Source to actually print the book. Lightning Source is a subsidiary of Ingram Book Group, which is a local (to me) Nashville company. (The printing biz is big in Nashville.)

I find it strange that I haven’t seen any local media stories about this, since Ingram is such a large local company (and the family is so prominent in the community). Unless I missed any mainstream media articles about this, the only local attention this has gotten is from some well-respected local bloggers — Rex Hammock & Newscoma. I guess POD is small potatoes in the business world.

POD & the WWW are 2 of the main reasons that I think that, for American poetry, this is one of the most exciting periods of time, ever. OK, I understand that hardly anyone buys poetry books these days, but for those of us who do, whoo boy, is there a groaning table.

An overview of why this sucks so much for small publishers.

A more detailed analysis of how this would affect a small poetry publisher.

And in the “first they came for POD” department: Newspapers, magazines, press syndicates, not just e-book and POD publishers, should beware of Amazon’s lock-ins.

So what can you do about it? Here are some ideas:

There are contact addresses here, so you can tell Amazon to quit bogarting POD distribution.

Boycott them & quit generating revenue for Amazon.com via your websites.

The Authors Guild is seeking input that will help them move forward with legal plans because of Amazon’s possible violation of antitrust laws.

This article suggests that the California Attorney General would be most interested in Amazon’s business practices.

(I still plan on using Lulu.com to publish my poetry manuscript this year.)