So here’s another surprise: The Spring Ghazals blog is back, tho with quite a bit different format than in the past. From here on out, I’ll be posting the actual poems from the book, two per week (I’m thinking Wednesday & Saturday as an ongoing schedule, tho this week’s poem will post on Friday). That means there should be posts thru July, at which point I’ll assess what the blog’s ongoing function might be. But from now until then, it’ll be all poetry, all the time.
This means a choice of course, for you as poetry reader, not to say, consumer. You can read all the poems on the blog over the course of these next several months, gratis, or you can shell out actual money to have a book. An interesting thought I’ve been entertaining recently is that books may not go obsolete as some have predicted, but instead become “premium” items. Just as many recording artists now allow you to “pay what you want” (sometimes even without setting a minimum price) for downloadable music, but charge for CDs or, even more especially, vinyl, the future of publishing” may follow suit in some way, especially as the net allows poets & fiction writers to become independent artists, operating outside the traditional publishing models. Time, as usual, will tell—even if it doesn’t tell us.
So, please swing on by from time to time to read the poems! They will be posted in “book order,” with the first poem, “Ghazal 4/24” appearing on Friday January 21st, & then one poem each on subsequent Wednesdays & Friday until the manuscript is complete.
& now for a words from our sponsors!
The Spring Ghazals can be purchased at any of the following online outlets:
Lulu
Amazon
Barnes & Noble (new—& a bargain at $11.40 US!)
Amazon UK (£7.94)
Both Amazon & Lulu have the book for $12 US.
As you know if you’ve been a regular reader here, The Spring Ghazals was published in February of this year, then re-published with better distribution in September. The book is available on Lulu.com as well as Amazon & its international outlets. It may be available from other sources as time goes on.
However, in the time the book has been out, it’s sold seven copies. In order to break even on the distribution package, I would need to sell 25. That struck me as a realistic goal, but at this point it really is kind of a questionable proposition. No books have been sold since some time in October.
Given this fact, I’m really questioning the purpose of this blog, which was intended to introduce people to the book in hopes that folks would buy it. However, at this point the readership has dwindled to a handful of people at most, & I suspect a high percentage of those who do drop by (based on what I see in the stats) are folks who’ve already bought The Spring Ghazals. Obviously, I appreciate those folks a lot, but the blog wasn’t intended to “preach to the choir,” as it were.
This being the case, I believe I’m going to lock the door & shutter the windows here, at least for the time being—not to say it’s permanent, but Robert Frost’s Banjo, my main blog, is a going concern & everything takes time. I’d also like to finish my translation of Apollinaire’s Alcools (which is being posted in book order on my blog of the same name), & that project has stalled quite woefully.
I do think Music Theory for Poets is a good series, & I’m thinking of moving it over to Robert Frost’s Banjo, re-running the first two installments, & then adding more. It’s possible that over time I’ll move most of the content from this blog to Robert Frost’s Banjo. Given the much wider readership, perhaps I’ll have at least some more success marketing The Spring Ghazals from that site.
There are some other plans in my mind about The Spring Ghazals, & because of that, I’ll keep the blog online in case I want to return to it at some future point. For now, I’ll just say thanks to the people who participated here, & especially to those who bought the book, & even more especially to the people who wrote wonderful reviews & interviews in an attempt to promote it.
Hope to see you at Robert Frost’s Banjo!
