Have you thought about self publishing a book of poetry?

[Tzara]

It probably paid for that trip to Japan he took.

Well, he probably made pretty good money on that book, assuming those sales figures are correct.

Let's make some basic assumptions: Like of the 160,000 total copies, 20,000 were hardcover copies at a list price of $25 and the remaining 140,000 copies were trade paperback copies at a list price of $15. Given fairly standard royalty rates (and discounting any advance, which he surely made more money than), he might have made as much as $50,000 on the hardcover books (10% of the list price on $500,000 list sales) and $126,000 on the paperback sales (6% of the list price on total list sales of $2.1 million). So, perhaps a total of $176,000 for that one book.

Hum.

Those numbers are calculated on some basic royalty information I got here.

That's a lot of money. Not to Stephen King, of course, but to a poet it's like hitting a Royal Flush in a high stakes Poker game at Bellagio.

So, hell yes, let him take a trip to Japan and, while he's at it, stay in an effin' great hotel.

 

[Angeline]

Well, he probably made pretty good money on that book, assuming those sales figures are correct.

Let's make some basic assumptions: Like of the 160,000 total copies, 20,000 were hardcover copies at a list price of $25 and the remaining 140,000 copies were trade paperback copies at a list price of $15. Given fairly standard royalty rates (and discounting any advance, which he surely made more money than), he might have made as much as $50,000 on the hardcover books (10% of the list price on $500,000 list sales) and $126,000 on the paperback sales (6% of the list price on total list sales of $2.1 million). So, perhaps a total of $176,000 for that one book.

Hum.

Those numbers are calculated on some basic royalty information I got here.

That's a lot of money. Not to Stephen King, of course, but to a poet it's like hitting a Royal Flush in a high stakes Poker game at Bellagio.

So, hell yes, let him take a trip to Japan and, while he's at it, stay in an effin' great hotel.

Exactly. Now what I don't understand is why I saw Stephen King in WalMart that one day. He's richer than Croesus. Maybe he was trawling for inspiration. WalMart is pretty scary, at least to me.

 

[WriterDom]

I feel like I have to go to Walmart because they are a dollar cheaper on groceries that cost around two to four dollars. If Ingles didn't have good deals on Chicken I'd never go there.

 

[Tzara]

Exactly. Now what I don't understand is why I saw Stephen King in WalMart that one day. He's richer than Croesus. Maybe he was trawling for inspiration. WalMart is pretty scary, at least to me.

I suppose Mr. King needed toothpaste or something. I've seen Bill Gates eating pizza in Delfino's, so the immensely wealthy at times are seen doing ordinary things and mixing with the proletariat.

I've never been inside Wal-Mart, oddly. I think those smiley face things creep me out.

 

[Angeline]

I feel like I have to go to Walmart because they are a dollar cheaper on groceries that cost around two to four dollars. If Ingles didn't have good deals on Chicken I'd never go there.

When I lost my health insurance I discovered I could still get my prescriptions at WalMart for five bucks. When I went to get my scripts I realized how cheap other stuff, like cereal, paper towels, etc., is there. We have an IGA supermarket up here that has great deals on meat and fish, but pretty sucky prices otherwise. So I've let WalMart into my heart...well my wallet.

I suppose Mr. King needed toothpaste or something. I've seen Bill Gates eating pizza in Delfino's, so the immensely wealthy at times are seen doing ordinary things and mixing with the proletariat.

I've never been inside Wal-Mart, oddly. I think those smiley face things creep me out.

They do me, also. I try not to fixate on them.

 

[Epmd607]

Jewel's book sold over a million copies. A Night Without Armor.

Alicia Keys must of sold a few copies of her book from a few years ago. I got a copy for 2 dollars at some penguin inventory sale type liquidation. It's such a terrible book, I read most of it to make sure it was terrible. They both write nice songs, borderline embarrassing poetry. Oh yeah, Billy Corgan wrote a couple poetry books. I loved smashing pumpkins, I gag when I read his poems though. Some lesser known musicians have some okay poetry books.

My favorite breathing poet is Oni Buchanan. She's firmly entrenched in the Iowa Writers, Bread Loaf, National Poetry Series club, so her stuff gets published and she's not even an old hag like Bin Ramke. I hope someday I get in trouble for saying stuff like that.

 

[Epmd607]

Well, he probably made pretty good money on that book, assuming those sales figures are correct.

Let's make some basic assumptions: Like of the 160,000 total copies, 20,000 were hardcover copies at a list price of $25 and the remaining 140,000 copies were trade paperback copies at a list price of $15. Given fairly standard royalty rates (and discounting any advance, which he surely made more money than), he might have made as much as $50,000 on the hardcover books (10% of the list price on $500,000 list sales) and $126,000 on the paperback sales (6% of the list price on total list sales of $2.1 million). So, perhaps a total of $176,000 for that one book.

Hum.

Those numbers are calculated on some basic royalty information I got here.

That's a lot of money. Not to Stephen King, of course, but to a poet it's like hitting a Royal Flush in a high stakes Poker game at Bellagio.

So, hell yes, let him take a trip to Japan and, while he's at it, stay in an effin' great hotel.

Dude probably did something lame like giving it all away to an african charity or something, instead of buying a hot car. That guy that got credit for Sheryl Crow's song didn't even know about it until huge royalty checks started coming to his house. That's the Royal Flush, having a book in a small bookstore then getting popstar type checks in the mail. She said she needed one last song for the album, like some filler song, the producer told her to go to the bookstore and just use some poetry book. I think she said the book was terrible. Wyn got a poetry career out of it. I promise when I'm a popstar I'll use someone's literotica poem as lyrics and give them credit on my zillion seller.

 

[Tzara]

Probably my favorite breathing poet, James Lineberger publishes through Lulu to bypass the bs of the professional publishing world. And it is not like he couldn't get a publisher if he wanted to. Takes too much away from writing, I am sure.

If you look at simply making your work available and making whatever money you can from your poetry (which is, unless you're very lucky, not much), publishing at Lulu.com makes a lot of sense. Consider how much money you would likely make if (and that's a big if) you got a book published by someone like BOA or Copper Canyon or one of the university presses:

Say you sell 1500 copies (pretty good for someone with no previous book publication) of a trade paperback at $15 each. If your royalty rate is 10% of list (which for a trade paperback is probably high), you'd make a whopping $2250 (10% of the total sales of $22,500).

If you printed the same book at Lulu.com and charged $15 a copy against a $7.50 cost per book (I'm guessing here, but the guess is based on what I've seen acquaintances get charged), you take in $2250 after selling 300 copies.

Now, you'd likely sell more copies if published by a "real" publisher, and the prestige factor might matter to you (especially if you are a college professor), but simply from a money standpoint, it might actually be better to self-publish.

It'll be interesting to see what happens as print-on-demand services get more sophisticated.

 

[WriterDom]

If you order 250 books at Lulu you can get them for 3.50 each. But I don't know if that includes poetry books because poetry books has its own weird section. I think it is just for making a few copies. For more that 250 you have to ask but usually the more you order the cheaper they are.

 

[Tzara]

If you order 250 books at Lulu you can get them for 3.50 each. But I don't know if that includes poetry books because poetry books has its own weird section. I think it is just for making a few copies. For more that 250 you have to ask but usually the more you order the cheaper they are.

I was thinking of print-on-demand rather than pre-ordering copies, so there wouldn't be much in the way of up-front costs.

If you pre-ordered copies, you'd have to sell even fewer copies to make the same amount of money.

 

[WriterDom]

Unless things have changed there is a set up fee with print on demand. That adds a lot to a small run of books.

 

[The_Fool]

I got to be lazy. Impressive did it for me. Link here. Print version is not hooked up yet but I have faith that it will be soon.

 

[Tzara]

I got to be lazy. Impressive did it for me. Link here. Print version is not hooked up yet but I have faith that it will be soon.

This is simply excellent. Congratulations on your incipient publicationism, Mr. Fool.

 

[EroticOrogeny]

I got to be lazy. Impressive did it for me. Link here. Print version is not hooked up yet but I have faith that it will be soon.

Congratulations ! Quite a few pages - how long did it take to download it all?

 

[EroticOrogeny]

On NPR this morning:
Already Poor, Poets Don't Much Mind The Recession

 

[annaswirls]

Lulu, no set up costs unless you hire them to do something for you. Just upload the PDF, set your price and go.

People order as they wish. I don't think people do it for the money, just to make their work available to anyone who wants it. On demand.

 

[annaswirls]

I got to be lazy. Impressive did it for me. Link here. Print version is not hooked up yet but I have faith that it will be soon.

Congratulations! You have a nice editor. It is hard work! I would much rather write

 

[hmmnmm]

Stumbled onto Cafepress a few days ago. Magnificent fantasies bloomed. Not only could one do poetry, but just about anything you can print anything on: t-shirts, calendars, greeting cards, postcards, even CDs, and more. There was excitement in this world. Thought I'd entered heaven. One slight hitch however: You can set up a free shop but you're allowed only one item per thing, like, 1 t-shirt, 1 greeting card, 1 book... You can expand the options but not for free. Then there's the base price. They have base prices already set. They're a bit high. Not that money matters so much to me but to even to make a non-metaphorical dime, it would be pretty pricey.

When in the heavenly phase, I just picked something somewhat randomly and the random choice was postcards. Got pretty excited about those possibilities: poetry on a postcard, poetry with a pretty picture, just that creates plenty of potentials. Well. One pack of one postcard, which includes 8 of them is $5.99. You could also buy them yourself, but even if you aspired to try your hand at selling (which, like Ange, is not my strongest talent, in fact it's pretty minimal), to even break even... because let's not forget the shipping, which brought one 8 pack of postcards to something like $12. To even barely break even, it would be something like a buck-fifty for one postcard. I can't imagine too many people who would fork over a buck-fifty for one postcard.

Then i thought about Calendars. Thought that could be rather cool too: pictures and poems on calendars. But it's about the same as the postcards: like, seventeen bucks. I just can't picture too many folks handing over 18 or 20 bucks for a calendar, even a really special one.

The dreams were swell while they lasted, but it just doesn't seem to be a very good deal.

So looks like back to Lit. Oh how I love Lit. And really, if someone was really into your poems and stuff, and they had a printer... they could sort of make their own book or collection.