After an onslaught of rejection from editors unable to greenlight a literary memoir about spanking people, my book finally sold to an imprint of St. Martin’s Press. I couldn’t afford a bigger apartment, but the book enjoyed critical success, sold a respectable number of copies, and, most excitingly, I got to tell Terri Gross what it felt like to tie someone up. My childhood dream became real, and like most, felt nothing like I had imagined. But I knew I was lucky. Both mine and Susie’s work offered similar fare: accessible and thoughtful content that didn’t fit a commercial mold. Mine just happened to be in genre that publishers are more willing to take a risk on.

Susie kept editing her manuscript, and kept submitting to contests, but no dice. Eventually, she started investigating the option of self-publishing. We had many conversations about the grunt work it’d entail, the potential stigma associated with “vanity” publications, and why no one had yet offered to print her manuscript. Slowly, she started the process of editing and designing her own book, and about a year later I purchased Dogs of Brooklyn online. It just arrived.

 ***

The Rumpus: So, how does it feel to have the book out, finally?

Susie Deford: Equal parts excitement and horror. Everyone keeps saying congratulations and it does feel good to have something tangible out there to show for all my work. However, I have this brain that just skips to the next thing I have to worry about, which is promoting and selling the book and all the work that entails. I’m sure you remember that and the anticlimactic moment of “I published my book and it didn’t fix everything!”

Rumpus: Oh, yeah. As much as we intellectually know otherwise, I think a lot of writers privately suspect that everything will be just great as soon as they publish a book. All humans, maybe. “If I just ______, then I can take it easy for a while. Stop feeling so insecure.” We pick some point up ahead and decide that when we get there, we will have arrived. We think this about getting into the MFA program, about getting our first lit mag publication, about getting an agent, getting a book contract. Getting a nice apartment, an iPhone, a boyfriend. It never ends. There’s always more work, more people to compare yourself to, more ways to feel you haven’t quite gotten there yet. I wish I knew how to help people avoid learning the hard way that the writing part (the living part) really is the best part. I wish I could help myself remember it, on bad days.  Also, that there is more than one way to skin a cat. Speaking of which, can you talk about your decision to self-publish the book?  What were your hesitations? Was there a deciding moment?

Deford: I was sick of hearing myself whine about rejection and not feeling like I fit in to the literary community. I realized that I was going about this whole thing wrong. I grew up a punk rock zine-making riot girl championing Kathleen Hanna and crew so I don’t know why suddenly in my adulthood it seemed like I needed to be accepted by a major publisher? I guess I thought I’d be seen as a more legitimate writer if an established publisher published me. It’s easy to compare and despair in New York. There are so many famous writers and artists who live in your own neighborhood. I realized, though, that when I started writing poetry in middle school and playing in bands in college I wanted to reach the outsider kids in Jacksonville, Florida or Peoria, Illinois—not just the literary scene. Poetry and music helped me survive growing up in a place with very little culture by letting me know there were others out there who were sensitive outsiders and artists. Also I had a good friend, Kate Travers, who has worked in publishing for years and encouraged me to self-publish. In some ways having a few people who believed in what I was doing, particularly in the industry, gave me permission to self-publish.

Rumpus:  I know! I was such an anti-establishment kid, and somehow, ironically, being a professional artist can really easily funnel you into needing the approval of somewhat arbitrary authorities. I am so bothered by the overall mentality of scarcity among artists, this anxiety that there’s not enough to go around. I have to remind myself a lot that I write because writing saved my life, because books are the love of my life. Not because I crave the approval of any one person or industry.

So, once you decided to go for it, where did you begin?

Deford: Well at that point it was 2011. I had edited the manuscript to death and sent it out to so many first book contests in the back of Poets & Writers over the years that I couldn’t bear to continue to pay them to reject me. It just seemed insane. I had been researching self-publishing options and Create Space on Amazon seemed the best deal royalty and distribution-wise.

Rumpus: It does seem insane, doesn’t it? We all know early on that being a writer means girding oneself against an infinite onslaught of rejection, but not when is a good time to say enough. I think, never, though I guess everyone must have a limit. When we were sitting at that coffee shop, how did you imagine the publishing process eventually happening?

Deford: I thought at some point, from doing readings and sending out submissions, that someone would understand what I was doing and want to publish it. But the literary world was a little afraid of the whole “book about dogs” thing and the dog world was a little afraid of poetry (even narrative poetry which tells a story in addition to being linguistically fun). I was in this weird crevice. I knew, though, that this book had an audience, particularly when Dog Fancy magazine actually paid us [Susie & photographer Dennis Riley] for a poem and photo. The editor Susan Chaney actually said in her email to me “Typically, I don’t get past the first line or two before marking an “x” for the assistant who sends out our reject letters. Couldn’t put yours down.” I also had a lot of clients and dog owners who loved my work. I really started to like the idea of appealing to people who normally hated poetry.

Rumpus: I love that. I mean, isn’t that part of our job, to reach the unconverted? If not ours than whose? I hear a lot of writers despair about how people don’t read anymore, or don’t care about poetry, but sometimes there’s a tinge of preciousness to it. Writers are incessantly talking about how the publishing industry is fucked up and dying, all while trying to work the system at the same time. It’s like a bad parent whose love we still crave. What’s your perspective on this?

Deford: I think it’s more important for me to write, not to think about publishing. Obsessing about publishing never does anything good for my brain; it only takes me to some very dark places. Publishing continues to change, yet very few writers actually make a living off publishing their books. Writers usually make money off teaching or some other profession. I think the best thing a writer can do is get a job that affords them time to write. That’s why I’m so grateful for dog walking and training. Dog training particularly is amazing because I get to help dogs and their people have better lives together. Hopefully, if one continues to write, publishing—self or otherwise—will follow.

Rumpus: It seems like, with the decline of corporate publishing, and the rise of bloggers, self-publishing, and one-person presses, that the field is getting more even, and a lot bigger. I see it happening in all the arts. Well-known performers (like Louis CK) are streaming video from their personal websites, and making movies on their flip-cams. It seems both exciting and overwhelming to me. Do you see this as a good thing? Is self-publishing the future?

Deford: The internet and technology has done this really cool thing and made everyone all D.I.Y! Shit, even the actor James Franco who could probably get any major publisher to take his first novel just sold his book to Amazon publishing. I totally think it’s a good thing and that self-publishing is the future. I think readers should be able to decide what they want to read, not just a few people at publishing houses telling people what they can read. Blogs, self-publishing, etc. makes this possible.

Rumpus: I agree, in that I don’t want my choices strained by people whose concerns aren’t congruent with mine, though I do have to admit that it helps to have someone straining all the dross. It just needs to be someone I trust. I guess that’s what social media is for, and the advantage of have a lot of friends who are committed readers. There’s just so much out there now; a part of me fears that some of the truly excellent work will get lost in the multitudes. I sort of have faith that what needs to find its way to the surface of our cultural consciousness ultimately will, but I also suspect that to some extent, that’s just wishful thinking.

The book looks beautiful—actually a lot more impressive than many of the books put out by small (and big) presses. Like a lot of authors, I often wished I had more control over the design of my book. How did the design process work for you?

Deford: I wanted the book to look as professional as possible so Kate Travers hooked me up with a great freelance book designer named Claudean Wheeler. I hired her and we started going back and forth with design ideas and edits. I had a few friends look over the manuscript and design elements to quadruple check everything. One of the things I went back and forth on a lot was whether to have photos in the book or not. Dennis Riley had collaborated with me taking copious amounts of photos of the dogs and Brooklyn. I wanted to make sure if we included them that it didn’t drive the cost up, but also that they looked good and like they belonged in the book. We wound up including only a few, the rest will be posted online on the Dogs of Brooklyn Facebook page and other places while promoting the book.

Rumpus: I think the photos are a really great complement to the poems. That’s a great example of something a major publisher would most likely laugh at a writer suggesting. I was allowed a lot of input in the cover design for Whip Smart, and I think that that was more the exception than the rule. A major pro of having a traditional publisher, for me, was getting a kick-ass editor who helped me make the book better. For some people, however, it’s a disaster.  Do you feel like you got to choose your own editors, in peers?  Do you wish you had a single editor?

Deford: I liked having an array of friends and family members, writers and non-writers look over everything and give feedback. My mentor, the poet Barbara Hamby, helped a lot with the layout of the book and gave it one of its first major edits. Towards the end of the process, Nathan Strobel, a brilliant young writer who works for me at my dog walking company helped a lot with editing. He laboriously went over every page. I cannot emphasize enough how important having a few people around you who support and encourage your work is.

Rumpus: Agreed. I’ve had a lot of students who are fixated on getting an agent, and while an agent (sometimes) can be instrumental in getting your work ready for editors, as an editor can be in readying the manuscript for publication, your work will rarely reach the hands of those people unless it’s first been scoured by lots of other studied eyes. The most important thing any writer can cultivate, aside from diligent writing habits and a thick skin, is a stable of peers with whom to trade work.  I trust these people implicitly. And I trusted my editor, too, though it occurred to me early on in the process that it’d have been catastrophic otherwise. Being able to choose your own editors is definitely lower risk, because you also know what aesthetic taste you are choosing.

So, what are the main pros and cons of the experience so far?

Deford: The huge advantage of self-publishing is complete control of the process, but with that comes a lot of responsibility. I had to pay for the design and initial copies of the book and postage to send to various reviewers etc. Thankfully, the book is print-on-demand so I don’t have tons of boxes of books in my apartment. The major disadvantage is that I don’t have a publicist or publishing house pushing the book for me. Distribution in bookstores may or may not be an issue. In addition to Amazon.com, Create Space has an extended distribution channel, which distributes through Ingram and Baker and Taylor after the title had been out for a few months. We’ll have to see how that plays out.

Rumpus: It definitely sound like more out-of-pocket expenses, and fewer resources for publicity, although I know of so many writers whose major-publisher publicists couldn’t even remember their name. I had a pretty great publicist, but I also totally dogged him, and worked my own ass off to get the book out there. A lot of people hire private publicists in addition to their assigned publicists. I think that in most cases, the writer is going to have to bust ass to get any attention, publicist or no publicist. This might be one of the disadvantages to having such a crowded market. We are selling ourselves so much more these days than was required in the past. I’m not sure Hemingway’s agent was talking to the guy about making himself a brand.

Overall, what’s the best advice you would give someone considering self-publishing?

Deford: There is no deadline, so just make the book as well written, designed, and edited as possible before you put it out there.

Rumpus: Good advice all around; everyone is always in such a damn hurry to get their shit out there (myself included). What are you working on now?

Deford: I’m working on a Young Adult book about a punk rock alcoholic teenager who gets sober and has to deal with all of the changes that come along with that, good and bad. I felt like there were a lot of books out there glorifying teenagers drinking and drugging, but not really delving into the experience of being a sober teenager and how awkward, yet awesome that can be. So that and walking and training dogs—business as usual.

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“The thing that really sad about this is they’ve asked one of our most respected publishers to do this.”

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“You have to be prepared to hustle. You have to be willing to promote your book, and do readings, and plan your own events because there’s no support staff at the micropress to do it for you.”

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“BC offers three publishing “packages” at three prices: $549 for the professionally formatted print/e-book package; $299 for the user-formatted print/e-book package; and $99 for the e-book only package. Each package provides the user with ISBN, distribution options, pricing and earning information, and marketing help.”

(Via The Book Bench)

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(Via The Book Bench)

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“Years of academic research taught me two things. First, reality is as complicated as it is, not as complicated as we want it to be. Some phenomena have an irreducible complexity that will defeat any big-idea effort at simplification. Detailed research has, not surprisingly, cast doubt on the reality of wise crowds, tipping points, and long tails. Second, most of the easy big questions about the way the world works have been answered. The questions that remain are really hard. Big ideas, then, can only reinvent the wheel or make magical claims.”

(Via The Book Bench)

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The resurgence may have something to do with the blowback—BlazeVOX authors have been defending the press since someone first told the blogger and others to “go fuck themselves,” because they have no clue about the realities of publishing today.

I’ve spent much of the last day trying to sort this story out, and in some ways, I feel I’m no better off than when I started, mostly because of all the screaming, and because everyone, it seems to me, is a little bit right.

Brett Ortler, who wrote the post that might have killed BlazeVOX, does come off as entitled, and makes some unwarranted conclusions about Geoffrey Gatza’s honesty. His comparison of Gatza’s request for money to help defray the costs of publishing to a 419 scam was, in my view, irresponsible. If you’re going to accuse someone of dishonesty, you’d better have more to go on than a gut feeling.

But Ortler did raise some important questions about BlazeVOX’s business model, and I think it’s important to remember that in the end, a press, even one which focuses on experimental literature, is a business, and this business, as Michael Kelleher points out, is how Geoffrey Gatza makes a living. It’s a “meagre livelihood” according to Kelleher, and I have no reason to doubt that—it’s not a revelation that nobody gets rich publishing poetry.

One of the primary expenses for any press, by the way, is paying people to do the work of selecting, editing, and designing books. Evan Lavender-Smith’s comment at The Barking showed a complete disregard for the work Gatza did in running BlazeVOX himself. If people who run presses are expected to do it for nothing, then only the independently wealthy or those with other sources of income will be able to run them. Workers deserve wages (an especially important sentiment given that yesterday was Labor Day in the US).

When I was an undergraduate and was waiting tables to make ends meet, I occasionally got customers who were never satisfied, and I would remark to my fellow servers that if only they did our jobs for a week, they’d change their attitudes. I think perhaps the same goes for the relationship between writers and editors. As a writer, I see editors as gods, powerful beings who can create happiness by selecting the acceptance form letter rather than the rejection form letter. As an editor, I see myself (sometimes at least) as a janitor, wading through piles of muck from people who have sent out work without bothering to see what the submission requirements are (or if they exist), and without bothering to see if their work even fits the journal they’re submitting to. Caroline Crew’s short rant at We Who Are About to Die does a good job of describing this feeling. Editing is hard work, and people sometimes forget that it is work at all.

And I don’t even publish books (yet). I’m learning firsthand the amount of effort that goes into book design, and let me tell you, the learning curve is steep.

There’s never enough money for poetry. The amount that Gatza was asking some of his poets to contribute toward the cost of publication was roughly the equivalent of ten poetry prize entry fees. Back when I submitted to contests, if someone had told me that if I enter ten contests, I’m guaranteed to be published by one of the presses I sent to, I’d have jumped at the chance, and I know I’m not alone in this.

And authors today, even established, popular authors, must expect to spend money and time promoting their own work. The problem here has to do with when Gatza asked for the money, and how. Ortler’s complaint that the acceptance felt like a bait-and-switch is a legitimate one, even if Gatza didn’t intend it that way, and by all accounts, he didn’t. But when HTMLGIANT introduced the term “vanity press” into the discussion, they raised questions about the legitimacy of the other books BlazeVOX has published in the past.

What does it mean for a publication to be legitimate? A friend of mine had a publisher offer to put out her collection of poems as a handmade book, in a very limited print run. It’s the sort of thing that’s right up her alley, as she works in visual arts as well, and yet she hesitated because she is also a university professor and she was afraid that the book wouldn’t count toward her tenure. She was also worried that the poems, once published in that format, wouldn’t be eligible for inclusion in a book by a more mainstream publication. Concerns about legitimacy aren’t limited to people on the tenure track.

As Shanna Compton points out, it’s inaccurate to call BlazeVOX a vanity, or subsidy press because a subsidy press takes all comers with the ability to pay, and Gatza didn’t do that—he worked closely with his authors in the design and editing process, and only ever asked for partial subsidies of publication costs. Cooperative or collective publishing seems to be a better term here. What is less acceptable is that he sought submissions without mentioning up front that that was the plan.

The publishing world is in flux; business models which have worked in the past are not working so well now, if at all, and never really worked for poetry. As Bruce Covey writes in his Facebook post on the subject, “Random House 20 years ago couldn’t afford to pay for a book tour for Kenneth Koch in the way they could for first-book fiction writers.” Even a famous poet with a major press in a more auspicious era faced these issues.

Most small presses have responded to harder economic times with the contest model, but that is also highly problematic at best, as David Alpaugh argued in 2008 in Rattle, and (unfortunately), poetry e-books seem to be facing the same problems of legitimacy that online journals faced only a decade ago. But poetry e-books from respected publishers will probably have the reading public’s confidence sooner than later.

They will have to, as the print model of publication becomes even more unsustainable. The poetry collection, designed and printed as a mass-market product, isn’t dead yet, but its days are numbered. I would be surprised if we see them much at all in ten years; instead, I expect to see a continued resurgence in limited-run handmade books and in multimedia poetry e-books.

The question is not over whether authors will spend their own money on their publications—that answer is yes. My payment for publishing A Witness in Exile earlier this year was 150 copies, and the ability to buy more at cost from the press. I might have broken even so far, given what I’ve spent to attend AWP last year and on review copies and postage, but if I have, it’s not by much, and the press has almost certainly lost money. And my story isn’t unusual. Read Daniel Nester’s piece on buying his own books for a penny if you want some more evidence of that.

Geoffrey Gatza’s sin here seems to be one of asking for money inartfully and at the wrong time in the process. Brett Ortler’s sin was assuming dishonesty when poor communication was really the problem. There are no victimizers here, even if more than one person feels like a victim.

I’m glad Gatza decided not to shutter BlazeVOX, but I hope he gets someone to help him on the business end of things. He’s not registered as a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, which means he can’t apply for grants and the like. He probably should be a 501(c)3, but that takes time and expertise of the kind that generally charges hundreds of dollars per hour. And that money has to come from somewhere.

Ideally, that money would come from sales of poetry collections, but the ideal and the real are not the same. This is the problem of our age, and the eventual move to electronic publishing will only mitigate the problem, not solve it, because editors still need to be paid for their time and energy and poets still deserve some remuneration for their work. This cannot become a volunteer-only industry, not if we want poetry to thrive.

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