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The Economics of Poetry Publishing

A recent article in Poets and Writers magazine about the economics of literary publishing provided some useful food for thought. The author, Joseph Bednarik, is a respected figure in literary publishing, having served for nearly a decade as marketing director of Copper Canyon Press and, before that, in a similar capacity at Story Line Press. (Full disclosure: I knew Bednarik when he worked at Story Line and handled the marketing of two of my books.)

Bednarik's thesis is grim: finding manuscripts to publish is easy, but finding readers for those published books is hard. The proliferation of Master of Fine Arts (MFA) programs in creative writing has greatly increased the number of literary/creative writers, but there hasn't necessarily been a corresponding increase in the readership for creative writing.

As a result, Bednarik notes, an increasing number of publishers must turn to outside subsidies--whether from grants, donations, or contests--to publish, because book sales alone are insufficient to repay production costs.

To those of us who work in literary publishing, there's no news here. But some of the details that Bednarik uses to support his thesis are illuminating, even startling:

• Bednarik says that, in the fifteen years he has worked in literary publishing, the publishers that employed him read more than 10,000 manuscripts submitted to contests they sponsored.

• Out of those 10,000+ manuscripts, 15 were published in book form.

• Those 15 books had sales ranging from 400 to 2,500 copies.

• In Bednarik's estimation, 2,500 sales are the minimum required for a press to break even on a book's publication (assuming it's a paperback that retails for $15). Sales of 5,000 copies would be necessary to actually turn a profit.

Assuming an average reading fee of $20, Bednarik's figures show that more than $200,000 was spent on the publication of those 15 books. Though Bednarik doesn't say, one may presume that his employers did not earn back that $200,000.

Astounding.

Bednarik goes on to suggest that creative writers have an obligation to support the presses that publish literary work. His main recommendation to increase the readership for literary writing is for creative writers to buy more books. In his words: "One solution is simple enough: If you write, read. A lot. If you want a book published and sold in the marketplace, then buy and read and recommend enough books to nourish the system you want to enter. Advocate on behalf of literature."

At one level, it's hard to argue with what Bednarik is calling for. Of course creative writers should buy work from literary presses; given a choice between reading fees for contests or buying a couple of books from the press that sponsors a contest, I can't imagine a writer who would opt for the former.

Still, I suspect, many writers already do buy as much work from literary presses as they can afford. I'm not at all certain that creative writers represent the future of literary audiences. More importantly, I think that asking how to increase the audience for literary publications is looking at the question from the wrong angle.

A more realistic approach to the question of literary audience is to recognize that the audience for nearly any literary writing in America is likely to be small or tiny. Rather than trying to increase the audience size--and therefore sales--to an impossibly high number to meet the overhead associated with publishing, it's more sensible to align the overhead with the expected demand.

In other words: Don't focus so much on growing sales. Instead, focus on driving out costs.

Based on Bednarik's figures, I'm estimating that the 15 books published cost an average of $13,000 to produce. Even if one counts the cost of administering a contest among these expenses, $13,000 sounds absurdly high to me. How is this money being spent?

I don't have access to the financials of Bednarik's employers, but I can reasonably guess that printing costs, design costs, and marketing/advertising costs form the bulk of the $13,000. At least, that's a typical breakdown for any kind of book publishing. Here's an overview in more depth:

• Printing. Traditional offset printing, which is the norm at both the publishers where Bednarik has worked, is expensive. Almost all the costs come in preproduction setup--the processing of the book pages and cover for the press. A press run of 2,000 costs only slightly more than a press run of 1,000 because the only additional cost is paper.

• Design. Many small presses contract out for book design, which can be expensive even for a small book of poems. Bednarik's current employer is well-known for the beauty of its book designs, and in fact has helped set the standard for poetry book design in the U.S. High-level design services are not inexpensive.

• Advertising. Advertising a book can be quite expensive, especially if the press is using half- or full-page ads in multiple publications.

It's not hard to imagine the production costs on a title approaching $10,000 if the press does a large offset print run, uses a graphic designer or design studio, and has an aggressive advertising program to promote the book.

If a press does in fact spend $10,000 or more on a single book, what do they get in return? Plenty of copies for distribution. A beautiful book. And lots of audience awareness of the book.

But what they may not get--at least in sufficient volume to earn back that $10,000--are sales. Sad to say, but it's true in the vast majority of cases. It's actually quite respectable for a small-press book of poetry to sell 500 copies; 1,000 sales is excellent. Statistically, few titles even approach Bednarik's "break-even" point of 2,500, let alone 5,000.

I simply can't see any justification for publishing books of poetry, or other literary writing, in this manner. A system in which expenses so greatly outpace revenue is simply unfeasible from an economic standpoint. The only way for a press to survive in such an environment is to receive massive infusions of cash from external sources--agencies, wealthy individuals, or contest entries. And this makes the press especially vulnerable, because government budget cuts or a decline in donations starve the press of revenue it needs to operate. A literary press could easily go out of business if cuts to its external funding are severe. How does this serve literature?

I believe a saner, less-risky approach to literary publishing means that the press must reduce the cost of publishing a book to the point where the book has a fighting chance to earn back its investment. Our press has taken these steps in accordance with this viewpoint:

• Print-on-demand instead of offset printing. Print-on-demand publishing, in which books are printed one-at-a-time on digital presses instead of in large batches on a offset press, has the potential to revolutionize literary publishing because it is so much less expensive. Instead of even a small press run costing several thousand dollars, books can be printed as they are ordered. The per-unit printing cost is similar, but the setup costs for print-on-demand are much lower, and the overall printing costs can be spread out over the sales life of the book instead of being absorbed up front. Additionally, print-on-demand means that there are not hundreds of unsold copies gathering dust in a warehouse. After using traditional offset printing on our first few titles--and losing money on them even though they sold well--we switched to print-on-demand, which has made a huge difference financially.

• Design in-house instead of using outside contractors. We do nearly all our own book design in-house; we are informed enough about design and printing to do a competent job with typesetting and cover layout. The cost savings are tremendous.

• Methods of marketing other than advertising. A couple of years ago, we undertook a modest advertising program for our books. We could find no measurable increase in sales that could be tied to advertising--for instance, we never saw a jump in sales for a title in the months following its advertisement. By contrast, when we started other marketing programs--such as direct mail to addresses provided by our authors, trying to get our books placed in review outlets, and so on--we did see a measurable, and almost immediate, increase in sales. And, as our authors helped to organize readings in their communities to help promote their books, a similar jump in sales followed. (We ask our authors to take an active role in helping to promote their books, particularly by doing poetry readings--the single biggest contributor to book sales.) After our advertising contract expired, it was an easy decision to discontinue advertising--a high expense with no measurable return on that investment.

This approach means that our books don't have to sell 2,500 copies to break even. We've been able to align the publication of our books with the demand that actually exists for them, rather than hoping to increase the size of that demand exponentially.

For better or worse, my press remains a bit unusual in its approach to literary publishing. Most presses still work according to the model promulgated by Bednarik. That's fine, especially if they are able to stay afloat financially to continue publishing. But with literary presses going out of business every year, it's puzzling to me why more presses do not embrace a business model that gives them a better chance to survive and even prosper. Literature certainly isn't well served by presses going out of business.

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