my last post used the word "addiction" to describe my bad habit of self-publishing my poetry,
and that's probably not an exaggeration . . . vanity is an addiction. An irresistible urge to see my name on a book cover.
I used to print and bind the books myself, using a double-sided printer and large stapler, and then I'd mail them out to various places for free distribution, but that became too labor-intensive, and of course expensive what with inkjet/laserjet print-cartridge prices, add the cost of paper and mailing, etc. Each homemade book I did cost over 2 dollars, total.
Then I discovered Lulu.com, and for a year or two published my books via their print-on-demand service. But each copy they produced had too high a cover price (set by them, not me)—
Lulu's price for a 104-page book for example would be at least 7 or 8 dollars, compared to which
I can buy a similar length book of equal production quality for 2 dollars and 15 cents from CreateSpace, Amazon's POD arm.
That 2.15 cost is about the same as my homemade books, but since the latter could only extend around 50 or 60 pages in length due to the nature of their production (folded/stapled), really on the average a CreateSpace book costs about half what my home-printed staple-books were running me—
I assume Amazon makes its CreateSpace prices artificially low so as to drive Lulu and the other POD places out of business,
but I don't care about that, all I care about is that I can get a perfectbound paperback copy of my 104-page poetry book for 2 dollars and 15 cents (plus shipping) . . .
I know bookstores and legitimate publishers hate Amazon/CreateSpace, but those bookstores only carry books from legitimate publishers, the same publishers
who will not publish my books. They won't publish me, so why should I give a fuck what they think about Amazon or anything else?
Open Books in Seattle, you know it? It's a "poetry only" bookstore. They won't carry my books because my books are published through Amazon's CreateSpace POD service.
I tried to donate some free copies of my CreateSpace books to this Open Books "poetry" store for distribution, and they refused to accept them.
But in any case, from now on I'm going to try to not publish any more books of my poetry.
No one wants it, even if I give it to them for free.
///
and that's probably not an exaggeration . . . vanity is an addiction. An irresistible urge to see my name on a book cover.
I used to print and bind the books myself, using a double-sided printer and large stapler, and then I'd mail them out to various places for free distribution, but that became too labor-intensive, and of course expensive what with inkjet/laserjet print-cartridge prices, add the cost of paper and mailing, etc. Each homemade book I did cost over 2 dollars, total.
Then I discovered Lulu.com, and for a year or two published my books via their print-on-demand service. But each copy they produced had too high a cover price (set by them, not me)—
Lulu's price for a 104-page book for example would be at least 7 or 8 dollars, compared to which
I can buy a similar length book of equal production quality for 2 dollars and 15 cents from CreateSpace, Amazon's POD arm.
That 2.15 cost is about the same as my homemade books, but since the latter could only extend around 50 or 60 pages in length due to the nature of their production (folded/stapled), really on the average a CreateSpace book costs about half what my home-printed staple-books were running me—
I assume Amazon makes its CreateSpace prices artificially low so as to drive Lulu and the other POD places out of business,
but I don't care about that, all I care about is that I can get a perfectbound paperback copy of my 104-page poetry book for 2 dollars and 15 cents (plus shipping) . . .
I know bookstores and legitimate publishers hate Amazon/CreateSpace, but those bookstores only carry books from legitimate publishers, the same publishers
who will not publish my books. They won't publish me, so why should I give a fuck what they think about Amazon or anything else?
Open Books in Seattle, you know it? It's a "poetry only" bookstore. They won't carry my books because my books are published through Amazon's CreateSpace POD service.
I tried to donate some free copies of my CreateSpace books to this Open Books "poetry" store for distribution, and they refused to accept them.
But in any case, from now on I'm going to try to not publish any more books of my poetry.
No one wants it, even if I give it to them for free.
///
