Back in September, I wrote a little bit about Carol Peters and the new project she'd begun: self-publishing her book Sixty Some in nearly every electronic format known, more or less to see what would happen, and as she says "to get the poems off [her] hands," to work on new ventures, and to learn how to publish a book electronically. I wrote her back recently to see how the book panned out, now that some time has passed.
Did you feel the book was successful?
Did it feel as if it made its way around the poem-world, or was it more a tight cadre of people who acquired it?
Would you do it again?
Yes, I did. It satisfied my immediate goals, which were to get the poems off my hands (so I could move on with new work) and to learn how to publish a book electronically.
Did it feel as if it made its way around the poem-world, or was it more a tight cadre of people who acquired it?
I heard from many of my poetry friends who either read the book online or bought it for their Kindles. I have no idea whether anyone is buying the book from Amazon or other electronic book resellers. If they are, the numbers are too small for me to be paid, and that was what I expected. My webstats indicate that one-to-five people visit Apobiz Press for an average of 1.5 minutes per visitor per day, so those folks must be reading a poem or two. I frequently hear from people who read my poems online and from editors who ask me to send work, so that's all a treat for me.
If you mean would I publish electronically again, yes, definitely. A few months ago I made the decision to stop submitting poems to journals (unless an editor solicits me) and am posting my new finished poems on my blog. When I have enough poems for a book, and/or if I feel like making another book, I will.
Have you plans to publish any other poets?
Not with today's technology—it's too difficult with no standards. I think Apple & Google will sort that out over the next couple of years. Amazon and others will go along with whatever standard develops.
What's on the horizon for you poem-wise or book-wise?
I live. I read. I write. I returned yesterday from two months on our farm in Hawaii where I wrote far more poems than expected. We work outdoors on the land, and since the weather was usually dry, we were out nearly every day. Still, I found myself writing poems early in the morning and while easing off in the late afternoon.
I also have three book-length manuscripts out to print publishers. The books are my translations of the work of a Bolivian poet with whom I've been working for about a year and a half. I have excerpts from one of those books coming out in journals later this year.
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