On publishing a book of poetry

My new poetry collection is almost complete, and I’m considering different options for publishing it. I had the benefit of a traditional publisher with my last two books.

But copyright developments in the marketplace as well as thoughts about profitability are leading me to take a hard look at self-publishing.

If you’ve been following the columns I’ve written about the Faulkner vs. National Geographic case, you’ll see how cloudy copyright issues can be. It’s my opinion Judge Lewis Kaplan erred in his decision on that case.

I actually read his decision, all of it.

I also read amazon.com reviews posted by those who purchased the Complete National Geographic collection. Everything I read there drives home my position—the CNG was not an archival collection of the original issues. I love the reader’s comment exclaiming, “I have to watch a damn Kodak commercial?”

I seriously doubt the judge had the foresight to experience sample CDs from the collection, but I could be wrong about that. You’d think they’d have demonstrated the product in a courtroom where such a sweeping decision would take place.

My point is that some of these photographers, whose heirs actually sided with Faulkner, signed a contract before technology made such a collection possible. There would have been no way for them to foresee the creation of this product. As a consequence, their beautiful photographs are rendered to pathetic images in many cases, according to reader reviews. That would make any artist feel pretty lousy because this distorts, possibly even damages, the integrity of the original artwork. After all, you hear the name ‘Geographic’ you automatically think pictures.

At this point in my career, I see contracts that ask for everything but the kitchen sink. That’s one reason I don’t submit poetry anymore to online magazines. Most lit zines can’t pay a writer—they just don’t have the budget. But at least if I have my poetry in a collection that I own, I will have some control over where it’s published.

The downside is the time necessary for making sure the book gets distributed, possibly by placing it with a distribution channel who has arrangements with a major wholesaler.

I actively participated in the marketing of both my other books, so I figure I’d have to do the same if I were to invest my own money in publishing my work.

I saw on the National Writers Union site there’s a report for members about this subject. I haven’t read it yet, but the gist of the report focuses on comparable benefits for self-publishing if your books are done through a small traditional press as mine are rather than a big house.

Publishing is changing drastically, in no small part because of technology. It pays to weigh any decision beforehand, for we learn much at the expense, often unfairly assessed as in the National Geographic case, to others.

Prayer for our Troops: National Poetry Month

Prayer for Our Troops

With the setting of a hostile sun
most of us will never see,
when you might welcome dreams
if you could safely drift away,

Know your perils slip into our prayers
like footsteps behind us on a lonely street.
We may not bring our palms together;
we may pray from our kitchen or our car.

But even if we do not know your name,
in your darkest corridor we wrap
our prayers around you, like armor
shielding you with grace.
--Kay B. Day
____________________________

This poem was first published at The Tank, National Review Online, in a post by W. Thomas Smith, Jr., April 6, 2007. Smith, a distinguished journalist and author, had traveled to Iraq to cover the war for a number of media, and since he's a friend, I was pretty concerned about him. He's inspired poetry before and I'm sure he will again. You can read some of Smith's words about the war in an article published at National Review and CBS News, The Emotional Roller Coaster of Combat.

Bonsai, Texas deputy Gilmer Hernandez and poetry

Lately the variety in subject matter has kept me on my freelancing toes.

National Poetry Month is just around the corner, and you can read my Poetry Beat column suggesting ways to celebrate and asking how your city celebrates at The Writer magazine online. There are many columns archived there. I did a column with poets who blog, learning how blogging connects writers to readers. There's an interview with New England’s accomplished Powow Poets and a visit with poet Lee Slonimsky whose wife novelist Carol Goodman uses his poetry in her mystery novels. As an aside, I’d like to recommend any of Goodman’s books; she’s mainstream but literary and her works are page-turners. She’s amazing.Her new novel The Sonnet Lover comes out soon. Slonimsky’s poetry is also amazing; he has a new book out Pythagoras in Love.

My column at The Writer is premium content, so it’s for paid subscribers only.

Other recent publications include the Christian Science Monitor. If you’ve never eaten a kumquat, have a look at my essay to see what you’re missing. That's my fully loaded kumquat tree in the photo on this page.

There’s another essay in CSM published last week about the love poem clinic Dorothy Fletcher and I did at Starbucks Coffee Company in Jacksonville’s Lakewood community. For this essay, CSM staffer Scott Wallace did a very clever illustration.

I learned a lot about bonsai while covering a workshop for the Florida Times Union.

There’s an essay at Family Security Matters about the plight of Gilmer Hernandez, a Texas deputy who’s being handed the rawest deal imaginable from the federal government.

I have an article in an anthology, Faces of Freedom, a hardcover book edited by Rebecca Pepin, co-anchor for Tri Cities newscast in Tennessee. All proceeds from that book will go to charity. And another anthology to be issued by the WOMPO group of poets will include a sonnet I wrote.

Soon to come—a story on an environmentally friendly community in St. Augustine, written for a national magazine, another story for The Writer about Jendi Reiter and Adam Cohen’s Winning Writers site, and various essays and news stories. I freelance for UPI, but don’t get a byline for that work.

Meanwhile two book manuscripts stare me down every morning and will soon demand to be released into the world.

If you’re in the Jacksonville, St. Augustine, or Daytona areas, come see me at the events listed in the upper left corner on this page. All events except the Center Academy workshop are open to the public.

Hope you'll read some of my stories and if you do, I hope you enjoy them.

Never ever a dull moment.

Sometimes, getting dumped is a good thing

Dear G.
for 1970

I meant to write you sooner, but our nights
are just as busy as our days. We find
small pleasures, and take them to such heights
the altitude confounds the mind.
This evening we walked along the harbor–lights
that span the bridge are like a strand of pearls
across the greatest river in the world.

I believe there is no place as grand
as my Florida. G., you should know, I met
my husband here. He rummaged through sand
and dug me up, giving birth to this duet
that’s lasted 20 years, and I’ll bet
it’ll go 20 more at least. So, G.,

Since you were the lone assailant of my heart,
for making me an epithet for misery,
for infidelity you sculpted into art,
for walking out, citing your complete ennui,
Thanks. Your deceit sent my true love to me.

--Kay B. Day

--from the book A Poetry Break (Ocean Publishing,2004)