FutureCycle are a great model of how to ePublish, whilst keeping some concessions to conventional publishing. If you love contemporary poetry, but favour a forward thinking attitude towards how it is distributed and consumed, I strongly recommend you have a look at their website.
The website is at the centre of their operation, hosting an archive of poetry and reviews. I found the latter particularly useful; reviews of the seemingly hundreds of new books published each week are hard to come by. Anything that makes the modern poetry maze easier to navigate and encourages a few more readers to give it a go has to be good, and the reviews are readable and astute.
My only complaint of their poetry archive is that it's very difficult to know where to begin. Confronted with a five page long list of writers whose names I hadn't encountered before, I clicked on titles that interested me, but felt a little lost. I much preferred flicking through the most recent anthology, which is available from the amazon kindle store for a relatively reasonable £6.18.
The eBooks are beautifully presented; clearly someone here is gifted with the tech skills necessary to negotiate the minefield of moving poems into the Kindle format.
To make a sweeping generalisation about the sort of poetry FutureCycle tend to go for; I noticed a trend towards the personal, with many poems attempting to encapsulate powerful memories. David B Axelrod's 'Out To Sea' is, I presume, an example of this. I thought that the calm, reflective tone of the poem contrasted pleasingly with what could otherwise have been melodramatic subject matter.
Narratives here tend to be easy to follow; there's little wordplay to distract you, and the poets tend not to omit connectives or write in a fractured way. Most of the imagery connects quickly without you having to return to it. Sometimes, this results in a more direct hit, as in Jane Ellen Glasser's 'Woman in ICU', who dreams of 'walk(ing) the aisles of a grocery store' whilst hooked up to a ventilator. In other instances, tweeness creeps in; in 'Vows for the New Year', Glasser describes 'the baton of a happy dog's tail'; a little too simple for my tastes.
Many of the poets showcased here make memorable observations. Another of Axelrod's poems, 'How to Win Friends...' features a wonderful, half admiring, half bitter description of his brother; 'I can't stand anything about him/ his racist, Rush Limbaugh point of view/ flash temper, homophobic, somewhat/ useful life.' (The turn at the end makes it). On the other hand, I often ached to read something I'd have to struggle to understand. Masochist much?
The anthologies also come out in print, should that please you. Overall: a perfectly formed small publisher for these transitional times.
Buy my book, 'Anatomically Incorrect Sketches Of Marine Animals'
Thursday, 31 March 2011
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
My Kindle arrived!
... and was left on my doorstep, which can be seen from the road, from about 11am until I got home after 6. Note to Postman: I know we live in Surrey, but that doesn't mean you can just leave brand new electronic devices lying around and expect no one to steal them. I would much rather walk to the depot.
So, after cursing a lot, I opened my package and started playing with my new toy. Overall, I'm glad I brought it, although I still think the Kindle has a lot of evolving to do. In terms of making reading completely undemanding, I think it's succeeded, with some caveats. The other big selling point - the idea that you can buy books on the go - is a little more problematic.
When I first saw the screen, I thought it was a protective sticker I needed to peel off. It has a matte quality, which makes it difficult to believe that you're holding a small, flat computer. Some of the people I've shown it to have shuddered, but it works; you could spend hours reading without exhausting your eyes or getting a headache, like you would with a PC, laptop or android phone.
However, whilst it's lighter and easier to handle than a book, I don't think using it is as instinctive as it could be. eReaders should make reading easier for people who have poor fine motor skills or poor eyesight, but I doubt the tiny keypad and cursor will appeal to either of those groups. Even with my perfect vision and skinny fingers I found it hard to type without making errors. This is important, as it makes the process of buying, organising and making notes on your books more laborious, even if you don't plan on using the experimental internet feature.
Essentially, once you've got a book you want to read up on the screen, the Kindle is pretty much perfect. It's just getting to that point...
The Kindle is, of course, conveniently set up to make it far, far easier to buy your books from Amazon than any other online store. If you're on the go, it is not, (so far as I can tell), possible to buy a new book any other way.
The selection of poetry available in Amazon's Kindle store is decidedly poor. Poetry is listed as a sub-category of fiction, with 9,989 books available at present. That may sound a lot, but around 99% are either: a. different editions of The Canterbury Tales, b. different editions of Paradise Lost, c. collections of War Poetry/Love Poetry/"Essential" Poetry, or d. Carol Anne Duffy or Seamus Heaney or another popular modern poet you've read too much of already. Number 34 in the poetry bestseller list is a guide to the Karma Sutra. There's no attempt to provide an edit, so you really need to know what you want, and if you do then you probably won't find it. Bloodaxe aren't on there at all. Salt and Faber are, but don't have much of their catalogues available. I eventually found a collection called 'Best American Poetry 2010', which turned out to be great, but I'll be looking out for ways I can get a better selection, (and then manually transfer the files to my Kindle when it's plugged in).
Seeing how poor the current selection is has made me even more keen to produce my own eBook. I've got as far as opening my PDF from episode 1 of my DIY ePublishing column on my Kindle. It was readable, but you certainly wouldn't pay for it. Advice on how to make it look better is hard to come by, but I'll let you know what I find.
So, after cursing a lot, I opened my package and started playing with my new toy. Overall, I'm glad I brought it, although I still think the Kindle has a lot of evolving to do. In terms of making reading completely undemanding, I think it's succeeded, with some caveats. The other big selling point - the idea that you can buy books on the go - is a little more problematic.
When I first saw the screen, I thought it was a protective sticker I needed to peel off. It has a matte quality, which makes it difficult to believe that you're holding a small, flat computer. Some of the people I've shown it to have shuddered, but it works; you could spend hours reading without exhausting your eyes or getting a headache, like you would with a PC, laptop or android phone.
However, whilst it's lighter and easier to handle than a book, I don't think using it is as instinctive as it could be. eReaders should make reading easier for people who have poor fine motor skills or poor eyesight, but I doubt the tiny keypad and cursor will appeal to either of those groups. Even with my perfect vision and skinny fingers I found it hard to type without making errors. This is important, as it makes the process of buying, organising and making notes on your books more laborious, even if you don't plan on using the experimental internet feature.
Essentially, once you've got a book you want to read up on the screen, the Kindle is pretty much perfect. It's just getting to that point...
The Kindle is, of course, conveniently set up to make it far, far easier to buy your books from Amazon than any other online store. If you're on the go, it is not, (so far as I can tell), possible to buy a new book any other way.
The selection of poetry available in Amazon's Kindle store is decidedly poor. Poetry is listed as a sub-category of fiction, with 9,989 books available at present. That may sound a lot, but around 99% are either: a. different editions of The Canterbury Tales, b. different editions of Paradise Lost, c. collections of War Poetry/Love Poetry/"Essential" Poetry, or d. Carol Anne Duffy or Seamus Heaney or another popular modern poet you've read too much of already. Number 34 in the poetry bestseller list is a guide to the Karma Sutra. There's no attempt to provide an edit, so you really need to know what you want, and if you do then you probably won't find it. Bloodaxe aren't on there at all. Salt and Faber are, but don't have much of their catalogues available. I eventually found a collection called 'Best American Poetry 2010', which turned out to be great, but I'll be looking out for ways I can get a better selection, (and then manually transfer the files to my Kindle when it's plugged in).
Seeing how poor the current selection is has made me even more keen to produce my own eBook. I've got as far as opening my PDF from episode 1 of my DIY ePublishing column on my Kindle. It was readable, but you certainly wouldn't pay for it. Advice on how to make it look better is hard to come by, but I'll let you know what I find.
Thursday, 24 March 2011
Do It Yourself ePublishing: Step 1
I thought it would be an easy first step.
When I decided I wanted to publish a eBook, one of the first questions that came to mind was, 'What format will I need to produce it in?' I'd noticed that most of the eBooks and magazines I'd viewed on my PC were in PDF, but was that the best option? Would it enable me to make the most aesthetically pleasing books? Would I be able to read those files on the Kindle I'm buying soon, or my boyfriend's fancy phone?
What other options did I have? Would I soon wish I'd never asked? The answer to the last question is yes.
The trouble is that every company who has brought out an eReader has created their own proprietary format. For instance, .lit files can only be read on a Microsoft Reader. New formats have been developed, claiming to have more features and more interactivity. At the other end of the scale, it is possible to publish a book as a .txt file.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_e-book_formats
Take a look at that and try not to go running straight back to the photocopier.
Luckily, some wonderful person has taken the time to compile this table, which shows you which devices will open which files.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_e-book_formats#Supporting_Hardware
Considering the effort I'm about to go to in writing and presenting my poems, making sure people can actually read them has to be my number one priority. It has to be the PDF.
Why bother boring you with all that, then? I just think it gives an insight into why eBooks have failed to take off until very recently: too much confusion for publishers and readers.
The good news then: PDF files are relatively easy to create. Even as a technological idiot, I'd feel fairly comfortable in my ability to create a presentable looking PDF. I mean, a PDF is essentially a fixed representation of anything that you can create in another application, like Word. So all I need to do, to create a very basic eBook, is take a Word document I already have, and convert it into a PDF.
Adobe allows you to do this online, here: https://createpdf.acrobat.com/welcome.html
Unfortunately, they would like to charge you £72 a year for their services, which seems a little exorbitant. You will be glad to discover there are many ways around this; in fact if you have Office 2007, you may already have the ability to print to PDF. I don't, so I searched through the various suggestions the web had to offer, and this was what I found easiest...
1. Go into Google Documents, and upload the file you want to turn into a PDF. Open it by clicking on it.
2. Click on File, and choose Print from the drop down menu.
3. Google will automatically turn the file into a PDF in order to print it. It will give you the option to open or save this file, so save it somewhere on your hard drive.
4. Post your PDF somewhere on the internet: you are now an ePublisher. Well done.
Of course, the file you've just created probably doesn't look very appealing to prospective readers. That's what I'll be talking about in Step 2. Before that, I think I need to calm down by writing a few poems with just a pen and a notebook.
When I decided I wanted to publish a eBook, one of the first questions that came to mind was, 'What format will I need to produce it in?' I'd noticed that most of the eBooks and magazines I'd viewed on my PC were in PDF, but was that the best option? Would it enable me to make the most aesthetically pleasing books? Would I be able to read those files on the Kindle I'm buying soon, or my boyfriend's fancy phone?
What other options did I have? Would I soon wish I'd never asked? The answer to the last question is yes.
The trouble is that every company who has brought out an eReader has created their own proprietary format. For instance, .lit files can only be read on a Microsoft Reader. New formats have been developed, claiming to have more features and more interactivity. At the other end of the scale, it is possible to publish a book as a .txt file.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_e-book_formats
Take a look at that and try not to go running straight back to the photocopier.
Luckily, some wonderful person has taken the time to compile this table, which shows you which devices will open which files.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_e-book_formats#Supporting_Hardware
Considering the effort I'm about to go to in writing and presenting my poems, making sure people can actually read them has to be my number one priority. It has to be the PDF.
Why bother boring you with all that, then? I just think it gives an insight into why eBooks have failed to take off until very recently: too much confusion for publishers and readers.
The good news then: PDF files are relatively easy to create. Even as a technological idiot, I'd feel fairly comfortable in my ability to create a presentable looking PDF. I mean, a PDF is essentially a fixed representation of anything that you can create in another application, like Word. So all I need to do, to create a very basic eBook, is take a Word document I already have, and convert it into a PDF.
Adobe allows you to do this online, here: https://createpdf.acrobat.com/welcome.html
Unfortunately, they would like to charge you £72 a year for their services, which seems a little exorbitant. You will be glad to discover there are many ways around this; in fact if you have Office 2007, you may already have the ability to print to PDF. I don't, so I searched through the various suggestions the web had to offer, and this was what I found easiest...
1. Go into Google Documents, and upload the file you want to turn into a PDF. Open it by clicking on it.
2. Click on File, and choose Print from the drop down menu.
3. Google will automatically turn the file into a PDF in order to print it. It will give you the option to open or save this file, so save it somewhere on your hard drive.
4. Post your PDF somewhere on the internet: you are now an ePublisher. Well done.
Of course, the file you've just created probably doesn't look very appealing to prospective readers. That's what I'll be talking about in Step 2. Before that, I think I need to calm down by writing a few poems with just a pen and a notebook.
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
Some free highlights...
Downloadable PDF files can either be a complete means of publishing poetry, or a tactic for persuading people to order a physical book. Prolific small press Shearsman are having a commendable crack at both, and it's resulted in a fabulous resource of free samples, and a few whole pamphlets. I'll take a look at the pamphlets that can be viewed in full for free first.
http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/ebooks/ebooks_home.html
Scanning the blurbs, I was most tempted by Hermegasmica by Andrew Nightingale; 'a non-linear murder mystery'. The format supports Nightingale's structure well; each page seems to represent a new scene, (although the divisions are not titled or numbered), and flicking through the PDF allows you to gradually make sense of the fractured plot.
I will admit that I haven't unlocked the puzzle yet, but it's been fun trying. When you're feeling a little disorientated, the details Nightingale uses to describe character and setting are more than enough to keep you engaged. 'Doing Krishna/ Q&A for a small donation/ outside the Arndale', made me giggle, as did, 'go home to listen to the womb-from-inside/ funnelled through Bang & Olufsen.'
Mark Weiss' translation of Virgilio Pinero's long poem The Whole Island, first published in Cuba in 1943, comes accompanied by a little political and literary history. Describing Pinero's persecution, and subsequent critical interpretation of his work by the Cuban literary establishment, the short introduction helped me in my enjoyment of the poem.
Pinero's poetry lies somewhere between Lorca's garish images and Ginsberg's lists of depraved happenings, both chronologically and stylistically. It's immediately arresting. You can see why his critics have accused him of focusing on the surface of things, but that surface is brighter than the pattern in which a magic eye picture is buried. The poem is, in places, a little too busy, a little too desperate to push its grotesqueness under your nose, but as a freebie it is definitely of interest.
Shearsman also offer sample PDF's of all their books, of which my personal favourite is A Curious Shipwreck by Steve Spence. Spence plays with myths, ancient and modern, twisting truisms and familiar phrases into jolting monologues. I'm convinced they're not nonsense; they articulate something, I just can't summarise it for you. Read the sample.
http://www.shearsman.com/archive/samples/2010/spenceSPL.pdf
I find it a little disappointing that Shearsman haven't made all of their books available in PDF - I'd be more than happy to pay for electronic versions. I wonder if their decision reflects either the writers dislike of electronic publishing, or difficulties in setting up a practical system?
http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/ebooks/ebooks_home.html
Scanning the blurbs, I was most tempted by Hermegasmica by Andrew Nightingale; 'a non-linear murder mystery'. The format supports Nightingale's structure well; each page seems to represent a new scene, (although the divisions are not titled or numbered), and flicking through the PDF allows you to gradually make sense of the fractured plot.
I will admit that I haven't unlocked the puzzle yet, but it's been fun trying. When you're feeling a little disorientated, the details Nightingale uses to describe character and setting are more than enough to keep you engaged. 'Doing Krishna/ Q&A for a small donation/ outside the Arndale', made me giggle, as did, 'go home to listen to the womb-from-inside/ funnelled through Bang & Olufsen.'
Mark Weiss' translation of Virgilio Pinero's long poem The Whole Island, first published in Cuba in 1943, comes accompanied by a little political and literary history. Describing Pinero's persecution, and subsequent critical interpretation of his work by the Cuban literary establishment, the short introduction helped me in my enjoyment of the poem.
Pinero's poetry lies somewhere between Lorca's garish images and Ginsberg's lists of depraved happenings, both chronologically and stylistically. It's immediately arresting. You can see why his critics have accused him of focusing on the surface of things, but that surface is brighter than the pattern in which a magic eye picture is buried. The poem is, in places, a little too busy, a little too desperate to push its grotesqueness under your nose, but as a freebie it is definitely of interest.
Shearsman also offer sample PDF's of all their books, of which my personal favourite is A Curious Shipwreck by Steve Spence. Spence plays with myths, ancient and modern, twisting truisms and familiar phrases into jolting monologues. I'm convinced they're not nonsense; they articulate something, I just can't summarise it for you. Read the sample.
http://www.shearsman.com/archive/samples/2010/spenceSPL.pdf
I find it a little disappointing that Shearsman haven't made all of their books available in PDF - I'd be more than happy to pay for electronic versions. I wonder if their decision reflects either the writers dislike of electronic publishing, or difficulties in setting up a practical system?
Welcome
to my new blog, in which I'll be sharing my thoughts on poetry's belated transition into the digital age.
Considering the ease with which you can buy music online, both the quantity and quality of poetry available online is disappointing. At least, it is at first glance.
I hope this blog will become a useful guide to what is available; small publishers who've made their pamphlets available in PDF, literary magazines for your eReader, and any other useful resources I find for poetry readers and aspiring poets.
I'm also going to be blogging my own attempt at becoming an online publisher. I may not be well equipped to take this voyage; at the time of writing I am an unpublished poet, and my grasp of technology is poor. Nevertheless, I believe that the internet ought to make starting out easier for people like me. At the very least, I hope my failure keeps you entertained.
If you would like to suggest something I should feature here, please comment, or email me at poetry after ink @ hotmail. co. uk (without the gaps).
Considering the ease with which you can buy music online, both the quantity and quality of poetry available online is disappointing. At least, it is at first glance.
I hope this blog will become a useful guide to what is available; small publishers who've made their pamphlets available in PDF, literary magazines for your eReader, and any other useful resources I find for poetry readers and aspiring poets.
I'm also going to be blogging my own attempt at becoming an online publisher. I may not be well equipped to take this voyage; at the time of writing I am an unpublished poet, and my grasp of technology is poor. Nevertheless, I believe that the internet ought to make starting out easier for people like me. At the very least, I hope my failure keeps you entertained.
If you would like to suggest something I should feature here, please comment, or email me at poetry after ink @ hotmail. co. uk (without the gaps).
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