Usually when I go on holiday I try to return with something literary. This time you'll have to make do with the shadow of me in Egypt's Western Sahara. Well before going to Egypt I'd set some of my pieces there (including "Escape" from my poetry booklet, a pivotal piece according to a reviewer). I've written no Egyptian-based pieces since returning - the experience hasn't soaked in yet.
Back home there was good news when I started catching up with the mail - "By All Means" (my booklet of short stories) should be coming out later this year, published by Nine Arches Press. I suspect about half of it will be previously unpublished material.
Marketing will be tough - pamphlets are harder to push than books, and short stories are harder to push than poems. Still, having a poetry booklet and a story booklet out together might be mutually advantageous. I think one piece was in my original submission for both of the booklets.
My story collection "By All Means" (ISBN 978-0-9570984-9-7), published by Nine Arches Press, is on sale from 
My poetry pamphlet "Moving Parts" (ISBN 978-1-905939-59-6) is out now, on sale at the 
I don’t think it matters what you’re plugging these days, it’s tough. Yes, publishing is getting easier but that doesn’t make life any easier. In LA everyone’s an actor, well, it feels sometimes than online everyone is a writer these days. I never thought that reading would ever become a burden but that’s what happening to me. I spend all day every day reading and writing and then I come to pick up a book or some poetry – your pamphlet has been sitting on the table beside me for weeks now – and I simply can’t get into the right space to give it the kind of reading it deserves. Online I scan, pick out the relevant point, make a comment and press on. Everything is a rush and, by the end of the day, the idea of relaxing with a good book . . . well, there’s nothing relaxing about it. I do intend to do something to promote you – there, I’ve said it and so now I have to do something about it – but you’ll just have to bear with me. At the moment I’ve just released my first two books as e-books and I’m trying to promote them to a new crowd which I’m finding hard because so many e-book writers and reviewers tend to work in genres and I’m not that kind of writer.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest I’m not sure that have a collection of stories will help you promote your poetry. I see them as two distinct markets – my poetry is very different to my novels and my short stories are another beast entirely but it’ll be about eighteen months before I intend to inflict any of those on an unsuspecting public.
"To be honest I’m not sure that have a collection of stories will help you promote your poetry" - at poetry readings where people thought my stuff was just "prose chopped up" I could offer them the prose book. I was also thinking of "2 for the price of 1" bargain offers.
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