To POD or not to POD
'sfunny how quickly the issue of POD generates a head of steam around here.
"Dwayne, fetch me that 44 gallon drum of vitriol--we're gonna need every last drop."
But it strikes me that it's an interesting option in the world of poetry. The terms 'well-paid' and 'poet' have not been legitimately used in the same sentence for at least the last 50 years. These days it's a subsidised activity, because it just doesn't sell well enough to make money for anyone. The only variable is who pays the subsidy--a publisher, an arts fund, the author etc. The most common mention of poetry I see at all is in agents' and publishers' submission guidelines - "NO POETRY".
That being the case, as a (presumably) little-known poet, Susie (sherri234) is fortunate indeed to have found a traditional publisher prepared to risk their own money on even a modest print run. Hoping for a decent advance to go with it is surely icing on the cake beyond the hope of the wildest optimist. The offer, which gets her work published and distributed with no outlay on her part followed by the possibility of future royalties, sounds like a reasonable deal to me, if all the other commercial terms are as per usual.
If Croesus-like riches are the goal, one is better advised to become a movie icon, a championship golfer, or a well-placed dude in the distribution chain of Columbian marching powder. As a poet, your earnings are unlikely to enable you to make a statement of conspicuous consumption anywhere other than at your local burger bar. ("Yippee, it's royalty cheque night. Upsize EVERYTHING, dammit.")
Given the grim financial reality of the poet's life, where there are so many poets and so few paying publishers in the oeuvre (and even fewer readers, it seems), it follows that a realistic poet--one of competent though unspectacular talents who is not looking to make much money out of it but who would like to see their work in print and available for sale--would be foolish not to at least consider self-publishing.
If you properly cost the time, effort and money spent on seeking out a buyer for hard-to-place work like poetry, it's easy to see how the same time and money could be used in some other activity (even cleaning toilets pays a better hourly rate than most writing) to accumulate a few hundred or a few thousand dollars to self publish, whether via offset or POD technology.
What cannot be costed is the angst, frustration and disappointment at constant rejection that so many writers suffer on the path (often) to nowhere.
There has to be a great deal of satisfaction in having a well-finished book of your own poetry in your hands, and in others' hands too. So you only sell a few dozen copies? Well, that's probably not much different to how many a publisher would sell. Did you make any appreciable money out of it? Nah, but that wasn't really the point, was it?
Is it better to have the book available now, rather than stuffing around for years living in hope yet having those hopes continually dashed? Sounds like it to me.
It is more fun trying to market your actual, existing book to potential buyers rather than trying to market your material for a book to snooty, offhand, delay-ridden, time-constrained, feedback-denying, risk-averse, uncommunicative agents and publishers with the mentality of imperfectly cultured sheep? ("I want the same, but different.") Sounds like it to me.
I think POD is made for poetry, so long as everyone stays realistic and delusion-free.
