Poetry never sells, apart from when it does

Reading through the winter 2010 issue of Poetry News, the newsletter of the Poetry Society (content not on-line), I find a grim interview with Chris Hamilton-Emery of Salt Publishing (www.saltpublishing.com). Chris reports that Salt's sales are down in 2010 by 42% to bookshops but 60% overall. He posits that the traditional business model for selling poetry (and other literary material) has crumbled due to limited stocking by bookshops, major store closures and the shift to accessing poetry on-line. And then there is the recession. Chris is not completely downhearted, looking at different business models. That Salt exists still is only due to their "Just One Book" campaign which encouraged people to save Salt one book at a time. He remarks that there is a "disjunction between people wanting their tax to be spent on a business [though the Arts Council or university patronage] but not their disposable income." Yikes. Time to row for the shore.
But three pages further on there is an interview with Jenny Swann, once of Five Leaves but sailing under her own steam since 2008 (the last of the sailing metaphors) with Candlestick Press. The review indicates that poetry can sell, without Arts Council support, in pamphlet form. Jenny certainly does have a different business model, by selling beautiful pamphlets "instead of a card". On a recent trip to London I saw her pamphlets in racks in bookshops including the London Review Bookshop, the British Library and a Waterstone's or three. You can find out about Candlestick at www.candlestickpress.co.uk. She has the advantage of Carol Ann Duffy editing two Christmas collections, with eight more planned over her laureateship. That will have made a huge difference, but I have no doubt Candlestick would still be doing well without that bonus.

Up all night

Busy at 4.35am on the night of Sunday 21st March? Thought not. In that case why not listen to Up All Night on Radio 5 with Jenny Swann and Andy Croft reading from The Night Shift. For their sake I am glad to say it is a pre-recorded programme, though some might say that is being a bit pathetic. People should suffer for their art. Those with other commitments at that time can find the programme via I player for seven days afterwards.

Finally made it to The Night Shift

"I have no idea of the statistics, but most poets who choose to write about the night seem to find their inspiration in town rather than country: the “starless and bible-black” town of Dylan Thomas; the Night Waitress of Lynda Hull “bitter with sleeplessness”; God speaking to Vernon Scannell “beyond the dark sky and its white rash of stars on a frosty night on Ealing Broadway”. But I have had another (almost) night job: milking cows on a farm in west Wales. There is real beauty in the wintry pre-dawn hour of a farm: the cows’ breath and sweat mingling in misty patches; the frost fringing trees and grass and the silence before the dogs wake and the work begins.

One day, when Today is a memory, I shall write about it. But there’s enough in this delightful anthology to last until then."

So writes John Humphrys in the introduction to our poetry collection The Night Shift which has finally made it to the printer after an age tracking down permissions. Lynda Hull, Dylan Thomas and Vernon Scannell were easy, but some stumped us. One we gave up on was a Middle English poem that had come out in a number of translations, over different editions, over different publishers. We were never quite able to work out who to ask for version we had found. Another American publisher had a long queue of people passing us on, from publisher to agent, from agent to publisher. Still, The Night Shift is in press. Thanks to all those writers who gave permission a long time back, and thanks to our patient editors Michael Baron, Andy Croft and Jenny Swann. And to anyone who has ordered the book... we get it back on Feb 12th. It has moved into a hardback, at the same price of £9.99.