Anthony Watkins's Blog, page 15
August 3, 2023
Of course, mileage may vary, but my thoughts on the process of publishing your book:
My experience has been, with rare exception, unless you are already famous, you will get very little support from your publisher.
If you manage to jump thru the hoops, get an agent, then get a traditional book contract. it is often a better path to write the very best book you can write, offer excerpts to publications, do interviews, radio, podcasts, print and online journals, doing readings/talks at local bookstores and libraries, network with other independent writer/publishers.
I actually own a small press that publishes a few full length poetry collections, short story collections and yes, a few novels, each year.
We offer a no advance contract, some free help on editing, if we agree to publish, a generous split with the author, we promote the books on our website and a few places around the web, but the real bulk of the marketing still falls to the author as we are a very small volunteer organization with zero budget.
If you can find a place like ours, it might be better than indie publishing yourself, simply because the small publisher gives you some credibility and offers a check against publishing substandard work.
In my experience, and I have only had 1 of the thirty books I have published, I did not like the process of giving up 100% control of everything, though the small publisher that published my book Written in Darkness, was very flexible and supportive, its just that after nearly 30 years of doing everything myself, I didnt enjoy the system of having a “real publisher.”
I will probably be my own publisher from now on, and no, I dont use our publishing company to publish my books. Maybe I should. but I am not willing to tie up our limited resources on my work.
July 31, 2023
When Life is good, anyway
Yes, I still have cancer, but life is still very good!
Suzanne made a delicious meatloaf last night. I like meatloaf, but I especially love cold meatloaf sandwiches and black coffee in the early morning.
This one has G Hughes zero carb ketchup and Keto Culture keto bread, so even with a generous amount of chopped onions it still less than 5 grams for the whole sandwich, and tastes better than most things on earth.
Btw, life is good even without yummy sandwiches…
July 23, 2023
That’s just Billy, or in a real small town
From a poet who has lived a good bit of his life in small towns:
That’s just Billy, or in a real small town
In a small town
everybody knows your name
and who your mama and daddy are.
When Susie dyed her hair kool-aid red
some folks laughed, some just smiled
but they all said, ”That’s just Susie”
Except Billy who called her a Kool-aid head,
she punched him in the nose
and everybody laughed, except Billy.
But when Billy moved in with Bobby Joe,
The Black kid who played football
For the high school way aback when
In that old house down the road
to raise pine trees on his daddy’s land
Susie was his best friend
Nobody got too upset
Or called them tree huggers
though they went on about saving the earth, now and then
Maybe some thought his daddy
Ought to have raised him better than that
They all said that’s just Billy
And even when Bobby Joe did a drag show
at the library nobody complained
the old ladies said he looked kinda cute
(though they had always thought so)
In a real small town they might say
Something about the city slickers’ ways
But when it happens here, they all smile and say
That’s just Billy, and he’s funny that way
And if Susie wants to wear red red hair
And take down the biggest buck
The boys will slap her on the back
And say that’s just our Susie
And watch her skin it out
In a small town, we’re raised
to mind our own business
And let Billy be Billy.
May 17, 2023
Sunday Morning (me and Jesus)
Sunday Morning (me and Jesus)
you were waiting
on the bus,
it was Sunday morning
and I was waiting
on Jesus come.
I was dreaming
of cornbread,
you were dreaming
of New York City.
Sunday morning
and you were waiting
on the bus
Boy selling newspapers
Jesus selling cornbread
On the street corner
at least so the headline said
It was Sunday morning,
you eating cornbread,
we’re on the bus,
me and Jesus
March 29, 2023
One of my all-time favorites
In the Pizza Shop
little girl trails her mother
a shaker of parmesan cheese
clutched between her small hands,
occasionally licking the top
of cheese collected there
March 26, 2023
Just the Other Day
Just the Other Day
I stood in line
at an over-forty-hipster fair
some guy, starting to gray
sat with a cheap
1970s Smith-Corona
I would have preferred
a giant Underwood
but it was his gig.
The card table he sat behind
was beat up like too many Saturday afternoons
it earned a living at an event hall
in a strip shopping center.
On the front,
out of sturdy white construction paper
he had fashioned a sign:
Roadside Poet
Poems $2.00
When I got to the front of the line
I started to tell him what I wanted,
he held up a single finger,
inserted a sheet of paper,
typed for a few seconds,
ripped it out and handed it to me.
It read:
Here is your poem,
where is my two dollars?
I started to sputter
about how that was hardly a poem,
he took it back,
looked over my shoulder
and handed it to the next guy
“No poem for you,”
in his best Seinfeld character
March 25, 2023
Template for your Empty Suit Press – Crazy Poet Press NaPoMo Contest Winning chapbook
Congrats! You have already WON!
You are the winner of the Empty Suit Press
Crazy Poet Press NaPoMo Writing Contest!
As April approaches, you will see more and more scamy offers from “Presses” encouraging you to join in the great “write-a-poem-a-day-for-the-month-of-April” challenge, and offering to publish your poems in a book.
The thing is, you will pay a small fortune for a book they will make no effort to sell to anyone but you.
So, Empty Suit Press has come up with a guaranteed winner contest that cuts out the middle man. You may wonder what we get out of it? Nothing, I just really hate scams, and especially scams targeted at poets and writers.
Here is the way the Empty Suit Press Guaranteed Winner Poetry Contest works:
Download the template attached here, write a poem every day, preferably one no longer than 30 lines and with no more than about 120 words (so they fit nicely on a ½ page of typing paper).
Then paste your poems into the template. (You might even find a free template on line somewhere that you like better, if so, use it.) either try printing it out on your home printer of take it to a print shop and have them print it for you. For about $60, you should end up with 20 or so copies. Give one to your mother! She will be you biggest fan, even if she thinks your poems are kinda weird (she may be rightJ…) give some to your friends, your 3rd grade teacher who either encouraged you or who said you could never be a published writer, keep a couple copies for yourself, and whenever you are feeling blue, remember, you are a published poet, a winner of the
International Empty Suit Press – Crazy Poet Press, NaPoMo Poetry Chapbook Contest!
You may use the empty Suit Press imprint, or the Crazy Poet Press one, or make up your own, or go look at some of my books if you can find them and steal the name of any press I have ever used, including Sleeping Bear Press, Falling Down Press, Barking dog in the window Press, Pine Planting Press, Iron and Steel Press, Lemonade Press… you are as legit as you wanna be!
And this scam only cost you $50-$100 in your own printing costs.
If you like, for $3, mostly to offset the hassle and the mailing costs, I will send you an official winner certificate from whichever press of mine you have selected, though I really think that is over doing it.
You can contact me at anthonyleewatkins@gmail.com if you have any questions, or want to buy something from me, though I am NOT trying to sell you anything!
If you are ever in the area of one of my poetry readings, please come. I spend about half my time reading my poems, and the other half talking about how poets can become better poets, and can become better known. Oh, by the way, I can be booked for events at a fairly reasonable rate.
To book me contact Suzanne Robinson at poetryawatkins@gmail.com
March 19, 2023
The Last Time
we had money
we bought waffles and pancakes
and three dollar coffees.
I bought new shoes
that were shiny and wore cufflinks
when we went to
the great little Indian restaurant
that is now closed.
You wore the pearl earrings
I bought you,
and we drove to
New Orleans on a whim.
I got powdered sugar
on my good shirt eating beignets
at the Café du Monde
in the French quarter
and listened to the sax players
compete around Jax Square.
We had crawfish in Mobile
and I don’t even know
where they came from.
These days I keep a running total
in my head as I put
items in the buggy at Publix,
the last time we had money
I just threw everything in.
March 18, 2023
Yellow Underneath
And the paint is yellow
on the walls, even
where it peals away
it is yellow underneath
except the living room
that is lime sherbet green,
And there are no bugs
in the house or garden
the pest control man sprays
everything with poison
to keep us safe,
And everything
is brilliant green
and closely mown,
And the neighbors’ kids
play the music too loud
at the pool party,
But we crank up
the window unit
and barely hear a thing,
But the sound
of ten thousand locusts
in my ears even
on the quietest night
And the paint is yellow.
Lord Give Me Strength…and a Machete
Somewhere in the Andes
strangers share coffee
before hacking each
other to death.
Somewhere in the mountains
of Peru
strangers drink coffee
before being hacked to death.
Somewhere in the Andes
I sit with a stranger
and drink coffee.
