Skip to main content

The Failure To Monetise


The Internet doesn't really work for selling poetry, or does it?  Or is it just me?  Eyewear has hundreds of followers, loyal readers, and other lurkers - and has served a community with diligence for more than half a decade.  So - what happened when, almost a week ago, I asked for one person - anyone, anywhere, in wintertime - to buy the lone copy of Winter Tennis, at Amazon.com - so that this year my sales statement would read 1, not nil?  Well, what happened, is, nada.  No one decided to put Eyewear out of its misery, and buy the damn copy.  No units moved.  No sale.  Sucka.  This really peeves me.  The Internet is a place for giving and taking, freely - for grazing animals.  When it comes to putting money where one's mouth is, forgetaboutit.  I want to see this book sold by Valentine's Day, or Eyewear gets it.
Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
DC writes:

Don't give up - we all love Eyewear! Winter Tennis is quite pricey to buy via Amazon.co.uk - so maybe that doesn't help for potential UK customers. But I've just ordered a copy of 'Seaway' from the Poetry Book Society instead...
Sun Feb 13, 09:23:00 am 2011
Sheenagh Pugh said…
Some titles are killers - that one would put me off!
Sun Feb 13, 10:15:00 am 2011
Sue Guiney said…
Ooh, them's fightin' words. I already have a copy or I'd do it. Don't leave us, Todd.
Sun Feb 13, 01:21:00 pm 2011
EYEWEAR said…
Sheenagh - are you seriously insulting the title of my book?
Sun Feb 13, 02:00:00 pm 2011
Sheenagh Pugh said…
Todd - not really; nothing is as individual as people's reaction to titles; to me the concept of 'tennis' is inherently unsexy and uncool, possibly because in the UK it still seems like a posh person's game (probably not the case in Canada?)

I'm currently having a hell of a job trying to decide what the title of my next should be, and I haven't even got it much more than half done... I'm going to have a poll on my blog by and by and see how folk react.
Sun Feb 13, 07:30:00 pm 2011
Unknown said…
sold! to the posh person at the back. freezing cold backhand smash down the line at 00:01 on Tuesday 15th.
Tue Feb 15, 12:05:00 am 2011
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart?  A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional.  Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were.  For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ?  Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets.  But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ?  How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular.  John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se....
3 comments
Read more

Poetry vs. Literature

Poetry is, of course, a part of literature. But, increasingly, over the 20th century, it has become marginalised - and, famously, has less of an audience than "before". I think that, when one considers the sort of criticism levelled against Seamus Heaney and "mainstream poetry", by poet-critics like Jeffrey Side , one ought to see the wider context for poetry in the "Anglo-Saxon" world. This phrase was used by one of the UK's leading literary cultural figures, in a private conversation recently, when they spoke eloquently about the supremacy of "Anglo-Saxon novels" and their impressive command of narrative. My heart sank as I listened, for what became clear to me, in a flash, is that nothing has changed since Victorian England (for some in the literary establishment). Britain (now allied to America) and the English language with its marvellous fiction machine, still rule the waves. I personally find this an uncomfortable position - but when ...
15 comments
Read more

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and  Silence of the Lambs .  I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".
1 comment
Read more