Fascinating Discussion of Poetry Book Sales and My Own Tips for Selling Poetry Books

Just read this very practical and interesting discussion of the realities of poetry publishing up at Real Pants. The comment thread is just as interesting, so read that too.

So, the question is, what can the average poet with a book coming out do to make sure they sell a decent number of copies? People on the comments thread (including me) had different ideas of what made for a successful poetry book. I’m interested in helping other poets succeed in hitting closer to the 800-book mark than the 30-book mark.

The first thing is, don’t despair. I’m here to say it’s possible to sell 1,000 copies of your poetry book (or even 10,000 – it happens – see my post here about how that is possible.)

But for “regular” poets who aren’t superstars with small indie presses without dedicated PR folks or a big budget, how can you make it work, or at least not put your publisher in too much debt? There’s no one magic recipe, but…

Getting the word out about your book is tough if you’re a poet with a small press, but not impossible. With my first book, Garrison Keillor read a couple of poems on Writer’s Almanac (Click here to hear one of them) and it made a huge difference – and all that took was an effort by my publisher (sending a copy to NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac) and a little luck. If you get a starred review on Publisher’s Weekly, or a review on Shelf Awareness, or you get picked up by The Rumpus Book Club, or you get your book mentioned in Oprah or Elle or some major magazine – those things can make a big difference to your book. You can’t make any of those things happen, but they could happen. Make sure you and your publisher work together to target a few of the major media outlets, even if they are long shots.
The weirdest thing today is that, even with all the social media (and I blog, use Facebook, and Twitter) my friends (and even some close family members) will still say: “Oh, you have a book coming out?” I feel like I’ve been saying it over and over, but people may or may not be paying attention. You don’t want to over-saturate your audience of friends and family with notices, but on the other hand, a postcard and an e-mail announcement and something on Facebook and twitter is NOT overkill. Because chances are, most people will overlook three of those four notices. And those are the people that already like you.
Some combination of the following: set up readings (especially if you’re a good performer – and it’s not everyone’s bag), try to get your book taught if you can (and sometimes that depends heavily on subject matter and who you are), get people to talk about your book – reviews, interviews, blog book tours, local radio, word-of-mouth, whatever. It helps if you’re a superstar but most of us aren’t superstars; having a great personality helps, too (graciousness and kindness go a long way…) Try to show up at AWP (if you can afford it – for those unaffiliated with a university the trip usually runs about $1500.)

I think the most important thing is not to 1. expect the book to sell itself or 2. expect the publisher to do all the work. If you go into it with realistic expectations, knowing you will need to put a certain amount of time and effort, I don’t think you’ll go from that wild “I’m going to publish a book” ecstasy to the depths of “I’ve published a book, but no one cared” depression.