A poet recently wrote to ask me if he should send me a review copy of his book. Many poets do, and I do my best to help them spread the word and market their book.
One of my goals with 32 Poems is to help promote the work of the writers we publish. We do that by submitting 32 Poems to places that regonize poems — the big yearly anthologies, major poetry web sites, etc.
Another way I help to promote the work of writers is to post my “notes” to my blog. These are not reviews. Instead, they are a collection of my first-draft thoughts in response to the book. We do get a fair number of visitors to this blog, and it certainly adds up over time.
For 32 Poems Contributors: If your book is published on a small press with a small budget — not Norton, David Godine, HM, etc — then I also offer (as space allows) the opportunity to have a complementary ad for your book on the back of 32 Poems. I can’t guarantee that space will be available and art needs to be provided by the writer. We only have room for two ads per issue, and we’re only published two times a year. An ad will give you visibility to the hundreds of people reading 32 Poems. It goes to all of our subscribers and lives on in libraries at Johns Hopkins, University of Florida, Yale, Brown, etc.
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I think that this is a really wonderful, generous policy for 32 Poems to offer to small presses and emerging poets.
It’s been lovely to see you blogging so often as of late. AND to be up to my elbows in your manuscript. Good stuff! Better than good.
I have, foolishly, taken my first step toward participating in Maureen’s NaPoWriMo project. Tune in to the blog and watch me struggle with my own perfectionism…right now, I’m planning to take down poems within 24 hours of posting. That keeps them reasonably unpublished, right?
Thank you. I may also be foolish — it’s not too late — and participate in a NaPoWriMo. I’m not sure what Maureen is doing (or who she is exactly) but I’ll find out on your blog. I’m not sure I can post drafts to my blog.
Do you have a policy about ads for university press publications?
I’ve been thinking about that since you asked. We would give priority to the indie presses that do not have large budgets and second priority to university presses. Since 32 is an indie press, I am drawn towards helping the other insane people (like me) who are creating ways to get poetry into the world despite limited funding (or no funding).