Furry Writers' Guild Forum

Poetry Collection: Putting Out Feelers

Poetry
#41

Good information, George. Thanks for checking it out. That’s in the range I had expected. I’d aim for a few more pages, possibly 32 so as to look at least substantial enough to justify a price. $5 to $6 is not unreasonable if it’s attractive looking, which means some kind of cover art that’s suitable.

Maggie Hogarth put out a poetry chapbook a couple of years ago. It was called Blueberries and she released it as an e-book for about $3 if I remember correctly. I don’t know if she ever went to paper with it. If we ask her she might tell us if it sold at all. I have it, and recommend it.

I think we can manage a small run, whatever the minimum number would be. Realize that to get it to the con market we’d be giving some percentage to whoever agreed to distribute it. I don’t know what’s customary there. But it could go out as e-book as well, maybe a few months after the print edition. Expenses for that are lower, so the price can be lower and still bring in something to help subsidize the print if necessary.

#42

George, that’s incredibly informative, thank you very much for doing the extra leg work :smiley: I think a 24 page should be doable, especially with cement poetry like Mando recently shared. A 32 page would probably be more reasonable to the buyer, but we’ll see how many submissions we get. Considering the anthology for charity at RF goes for $10, then $5-$6 should like quite appealing. I’d be hesitatant to go $10 though. Any word on the max page count for the booklets?

As for cover art, any thoughts on Darkomi or SynthariaDesire, both from FA? Alishka? Chandraken? Those have been the most consistantly reliable artists I’ve had the pleasure of working with, though Syn’s been having some health issues over the years so I would have to see how she’s doing. If none of those, I know more I can recommend >.> Otherwise I’m open to recommends in turn :stuck_out_tongue:

As for the con market, I think FP might be the route to go. I don’t know if they’ll charge extra for the booklet to have a spot on their table, but that’s easy to inquire after. I would be immensely curious about taking it to ebooks some months later, though I don’t know the first thing about the formatting. I’d either have to get one of you lovely folks to do it or at the very least teach me :stuck_out_tongue:

#43

I’m not an expert in the American market, but my suggestion would be to go with the lowest price tag possible :slight_smile: especially if we want to do this as sort of an experiment to test if people are interested. We should aim for the largest possible audience more than reliable profit.

#44

Have you heard anything back from any publishers? It’s going to be a lot easier to have one of them handle the publishing end of it rather than doing a print run on your own. There’s also the option of doing it as a print-on-demand book through CreateSpace, and then selling it directly through Amazon and possibly getting places like FurPlanet or Rabbit Valley to distribute it at cons.

Also wanted to note, on the charity issue, there’s also always the option of going with a literacy/arts charity rather than an animal-related one.

#45

I’ll have to do a bit more research into CreateSpace before I can give a positive or negative on that. I like the idea of print-on-demand to save paper and ink just in case, but it’ll really depend on numbers and if FP or RV would be willing to work with us on that route. Heck, I have to look into the other publishers as well x.x I’ll try to get some inquiries out today and tomorrow if it’s slow enough.

I didn’t even think about that option for charity o.o I think I’m going to start a thread for suggestions and leave it open for a few months to see what folks might be interested in.

Edit: I just looked into Weasel Press and sent them an inquiry. Their Chapbooks might be just what we’re looking for. It’ll depend on if they’re up for it and how much they would sell them for- their exposure seems quite decent despite being a relatively new company.

CreateSpace looks incredibly interesting. I don’t know the first thing about formatting tools and the likes, but I really like the wide distrubution. It’s a very doable option, though I think I want an established publisher for the first initial go-around.

#46

Weasel from Weasel Press already got back to me. It turns out they saw some of the discussion on the thread already and are very interested!

I’ll be honest, I’m liking their style. Weasel was incredibly informative, answering all my questions and giving me some background info on the business as far as what they publish through and how much the costs are. We’re look at a minimum of 24 pages, and anything under 60 pages they charge readers $6-$8 for. They appear to have a strong online presence, including Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, and are represented by two other editors. They currently have zero con presence, but are aiming to change that by the end of the year. They mainly deal in poetry, which I think is a major plus for us. They even offered to send physical samples of a couple of the projects they do at the end of the month.

So definitely one to consider! Lots of pros, a few cons (specifically con-related X3), but all-in-all a definite contender.

#47

I would strongly favour a publisher with prior experience of poetry. It’s a very different animal when it comes to layout, formatting, and, in the case of a pamphlet or chapbook, the size of the physical book itself and how it’s put together.

#48

End of year for con sales isn’t bad. Our schedule isn’t going to have anything out until almost then.

I’m not familiar with Weasel Press, but there’s something to be said for dealing with someone who is accustomed to the page layout issues of poetry. It’s definitely not as simple as printing prose. The flexibility in number of pages is good too. Not that I expect we’d have 48 pages or more, but I’d like to see 32.

Certainly sounds like a reasonable option, but we’ll want to hear from any others who can do this job.

#49

I’m going to ask them how they handle concrete poetry, and request those physical samples they mentioned. Once I get them, I can send them to you guys if you’d like :3 That way we can see for certain how they handle the formatting and layout.

#50

Yeah, I’d really like seeing them :slight_smile: since I’m probably gonna submit concrete stuff.

Wow, I’m gonna have to write a bunch! So far I’m working on two. How many do you think I should have? I wouldn’t want to make them do extra work just for one.

(Of course, if they’re all accepted)

#51

So I got another reply from Weasel already!

I’m going to quote directly from the email for this: In regards to Concrete Poetry, we’ve handled a lot of different styles and forms and weird variations so I’m not opposed to Concrete Poetry. It would take some work on the layout portion, but that’s the fun part of putting together a layout. We use Adobe InDesign for putting most of our books together, though I have an editor that uses Lucid Press, both programs are rather flexible

So concrete shouldn’t be a problem :smiley:

o.o Color interior illustrations are an option. For under 60 pages, it’d bump the price up to the $8-$10 range. Sixty pages and up, $12-$15 range. I didn’t even know that was an option. Should I just tell him we’ll stick with B&W or should we look into splurging a bit? Do you think readers might be interested in it?

As for cons, Weasel’s looking into Furry Fiesta since it’s only a four hour drive from where they are. Also one of their authors is going to a con at the end of the year who’s offered to take some furry-related material with them. Gonna try to hit up Oct/Nov. I’ll see when’s the latest they would need the submissions for that since it feels like it would be pushing it a bit.

They included four pdfs of their released that are out or coming out so we can see the layout. I can’t open them on this comp, but I’m going to ask if I can forward them to Alt and possibly one other person who seriously wants to help with the big decission making and the likes. The physical copies will be sent at the end of the month, and I’ll send them on after I have the chance to look at them :3

#52

Some more info from Weasel. Contributor copies could take some time, from one to two months depending on the number of copies. Longer for some international areas. So that’s something to note.

They have a Youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/systmaticwzl/videos
It’s a show of some of the local attention they get. I can’t watch the videos at work, but could be worth checking out. They also have a few reviews on Amazon and small blogs.

I also got permission to forward the pdf’s to those involved with making this happen. Alt, you’ve got mail!

Onto other publishers, I can’t access RV’s website on the work comp. Like, not at all, in the least, not one bit. I’ll try poking at them this weekend though.

So the publishers of interest so far are FurPlanet and Weasel, with some interesting pros and cons for both.

Edit: Weasel said they need two, maybe three weeks time to go from a collection to a Collection X3 They also send PDFs so we can varify it all looks good!

#53

I would suggest keeping the price as low as possible, so people are more likely to take a punt on it. There’ll be time to get all fancy later if the thing takes off!

#54

Though a publisher may not have con-presence, that may be not as important as one might think. In short, if they run a viable business wither cons so far, then you know they’re doing something write with their poetry. They’ll also probably have links, distributions, contacts etc to better represent poetry that a publisher who does not do poetry.

Also, I’m going to put a tentative volunteer in for editing. I’d guess after three years solid of English literature I have a decent grasp of poetic conventions, however, I’ve never been an editor before, so I leave it up to you both. =)

#55

I think either Weasel or FurPlanet would be a fine choice. I will say, though, if you’re trying to sell the book within the fandom, don’t underestimate the worth of having it available at cons. It’s easy to assume that people will just buy it online and most sales will come from there, but that’s a big mistake I made with my first novel. Furries buy books at cons.

That doesn’t mean I’m arguing for that aspect to be the deciding factor, but it is a factor that needs to be considered along with everything else.

#56

I agree with both huskyteer and PT in that you want to keep costs low for the first trial, and then go for a fancier poetry book if the first one has some moderate success. I think it’s also absolutely crucial to sell these at conventions since folks look for things to buy there. Weasel press or fur planet seem like equally great opportunities. Weasel press has significant experience with editing and publishing poetry. Furplanet is going to have a very strong con presence.

#57

Okay, so another decision made: No colored illustrations for the inside to help keep costs low :3

I don’t know how the following info will effect you guys, but after I made an inquiry to Weasel about the possibility of white font on black backing, he replied with the following infor:

"Yes, this is possible. Did you have an idea on book size? If not, I’d recommend at least a semi-large size, 5.5in x 8.5 in or larger pretty much. Smaller sizes could make images look a little squished.

Also, for images, it’s recommended that contributors submit their images in at least 300dpi to prevent blurring in the printing process. I’ve attached something quick on a Half-Letter document to show what it would look like digitally."

He showed me an example of what it would look like using Mando’s WIP, and I gotta say, it looks really sharp and clean o.o

#58

Yes, they are right about the size. And I was thinking that the best way to do the shaped poem(s) is by making a graphic image. It should be high resolution and a non-lossy format (.gif or .bmp as opposed to .jpg or .png, for example) and let the printer scale it down. Full edge bleed of the black background will probably be costly too, so we may have to settle for a white margin around the black background if we go with that.

#59

Since I plan to have them ready for way before submissions are opened, my idea was to ask directly to them what to do and rework them accordingly. Already expecting having to use images, it’s just about figuring out the most suitable program for doing it.

I wouldn’t have any problem with a margin, honestly.

#60

Wait… the whole book text in white font on black, or do you just mean the cover? If it’s the whole book, that might be a little hard for some people to read.