It used to be an option. Now it’s a necessity.
When a poet first approaches me about publication, if they’re not web-savvy, they don’t read the guidelines on the website. They don’t read the blog. They don’t get the free downloads. They don’t order publications or subscribe. So they have little understanding of how I work. This don’t, as Shania Twain says, impressa me much.
When I publish a pamphlet, I do an email flyer. There are paper ones too, of course, but the first orders come in as a direct result of the email flyer. If the poet is online, with email contacts, those people are the first to order – a small flood of them. If they have no email ‘friends’, there’s a tiny dribble. I need that flood, right? It’s what pays for the next publication.
When the process of putting a pamphlet together reaches white-hot excitement, I need to be able to bounce pdf files back and forward, sometimes very fast. Doing this by snail is a killer. I can do it, but it holds things back horribly. Besides, I haven’t got time. Not any more.
Once the publication is done, it goes into the ‘shop’ on the website. For some poets, about 75% of sales come that way. These are the poets who have a web life. Non-Faber pamphlets don’t sell in shops, remember?
Facebook drives lots of people barmy with continual ‘events’ notices. Nevertheless, it’s one of the ways new publications get noticed. You don’t have to be a Facebook/Twitter aficionado. You just have not to ignore this business. It’s hard to find readers for poetry. ALL the methods are important.
If you’re a poet, being online is not just about you. It’s about knowing what’s going on with other poets – who’s won what, who’s annoying whom, who’s just published a book you want to read, who’s reading at an event in your area. If you don’t take an interest in these things, who’s going to take an interest in you? What goes around comes around.
If you lived in the nineteenth century, you couldn’t have been a poet if you didn’t write letters. I still write letters. I LOVE letters.
Letters are optional now. Emails are not.
I wonder if nowadays the bar should be raised. Being comfortable with e-mail is a rock-bottom minimum, I’d say. I do the newsletter for a local group of 70 writers. About 68 use e-mail. About 35 prefer an e-mailed PDF newsletter to a paper one. Half a dozen or so have blogs or maintained sites. More than that have Facebook accounts. I think the latter 2 are becoming minimum requirements for authors.