Whether it’s serendipity or synchronicity, or both, now that there is discussion here on Alas about racism in the publishing industry, I have received the following email from the publisher of my first book of poems, CavanKerry Press.
Dear Friend of CavanKerry:
Decisions about manuscripts received during our Winter 2009 submission period are in the final stage and decisions will be completed soon.
Absent among our finalists are titles by authors of color. We’d like to include a more diverse population of writers — and perhaps you can help.
If you know any writers of color whose work is ready for publication, we’d appreciate your notifying them to submit asap.
Writers must reside in the United States and manuscripts must be in polished state — ready for publication. Writers may submit for one category: New Voices (not yet a published author), Notable Voices or LaurelBooks. Writers should go to www.cavankerrypress.org, for more information and read CKP’s guidelines carefully. We will accept submissions until August 31.
Thanks so much.
Joan
Joan Cusack Handler
CavanKerry Press Ltd.
A not -for-profit literary press serving art and community
6 Horizon Road #2901
Fort Lee, New Jersey 07024
201–670–9065
www.cavankerrypress.org.
CavanKerry has, or will soon, publish some fine writers of color, such as Joseph Legaspi, Ross Gay and January O’Neill. I know the press has published other writers of color, but these three I happen to know about personally. I also know the press is sincere in trying to diversify their list; I was part of a discussion about that subject at one of the annual “summits” the press holds for the people it publishes. CKP makes beautiful, beautiful books–just check out the cover of my book, The Silence Of Men, and they are well worth a try if you are, or someone you know is, a poet of color with a book of poems ready to publish. If you do submit a manuscript, by all means tell CKP that you heard about the opportunity from me.
May I repost this? Do they only publish poetry?
Scratch the question – I see the answer in the title.
Repost it as much as you like, Mandolin.
Richard et al,
I forwarded this to the Carl Brandon mailing list, and several folks noticed and commented on the fact that this publisher requires a reading fee of $20. My fault; I should have looked at the link myself. Never would have forwarded it if I’d noticed.
I don’t know if this is common in poetry. The Carl Brandon Society is mostly prose writers (though some do poetry too), and among prose writers reading fees, entry fees, etc., are generally considered unethical. “Money flows toward the writer” is the principle (also known as Yog’s Law — James MacDonald, an SF writer, is Yog). This discourages scam operations and (even further) undervaluing of writers’ work. Also, since they’re apparently having trouble inducing PoC to submit, they really need to think about how prohibitive that fee is. $20 isn’t much, but given that most racially underrepresented groups are also economically disadvantaged, they’re really not helping themselves.
Maybe you could pass this along to them, Richard, since you’ve got a relationship there.
I agree with this.
However, Nora, poetry does (as you noted) have different standards. I’m given to understand that most first-time-poet’s poetry books are published after winning contests with entry fees. This company *should* consider waving its fee while they’re soliciting work from specific demographics (and I hope they do!), but it is not being unethical.
I am away from home and writing on my iPod, which is slow, so I will be brief. The point about the reading fee and writers of color is a good one that I will pass on when I get the chance. I also want to say, though, that reading fees are driven by the economics of small press poetry publishing, in which there is so little money that if a publisher does not charge a reading fee–and I have yet to hear about a reputable poetry publisher who is happy about having to do it–there will be no way to cover basic administrative costs. Even the contests Mandolin mentions make no profit off the fees they charge.
CKP did not charge a reading fee when I submitted my book to them. They only started doing so, reluctantly, when the economics left them little choice. I realize it is unfair of me to ask you to take my word on this without my giving some hard data, but, like I said, I am away from home. I will say this, though: in the poetry world the scammers tend to be those that charge a fee to publish, which is usually substantially more than $20, or that charge a series of fees along the way in the publishing process.
I will try to remember to come back to this when I get home.
I want to charge reading fees to prospective new contractors (I hire freelancers for commercial writing projects) because it does cost me quite a bit to evaluate the quality of someone’s work and to decide if they’re a good fit for projects. I can’t, unfortunately, because of the legitimate perception that people charging reading fees are generally conducting scams. So I have to find other ways to screen writers.
It is different for small-press poetry, however. There are “send us your poem and $50” scams out there, but a legitimate small press may have a legitimate need to charge a fee.
Robert:
You can, also, presumably somehow build the cost, or some of the cost, of evaluating writers into what you charge your clients, maybe not explicitly, as an item on the bill, but if evaluating writers is part of your cost of doing business, then somehow you have to make enough money to cover that cost, or some portion of that cost, for it to continue to be worth your while to do business in the way you are doing it. Small presses can’t do that. (And I realize you were not actually disagreeing with me about anything. In fact, thanks for what you said. I am just pointing out that a for-profit business model is different from the non-profit model followed by most small press poetry publishers, which I will say more about when I am home.)
I know I said I would come back to this in more detail once I was at home, but the subject is sort of near and dear to my heart. I couldn’t help myself.