William Trowbridge, author of the recently released Ship of Fool, told us at AWP about an idea he’s been kicking around for years, an idea he calls “Finalist Press.” We like this idea. So much, in fact, that we’re publishing here a little essay he wrote about the subject. We could tell you more, but Bill will tell you better. Enjoy.
~
FINALIST PRESS
by William Trowbridge
A Modest Proposal for Preventing Certain American Poets from Being a Burden to their Families and Country and for Making Finalist Notifications Beneficial and which Does Not Necessitate Anyone Being Eaten.
Here comes another one: a too-thin letter from the press that sent you an earlier letter saying your manuscript was a finalist for their annual prize. Depending on the contest, that means you were anywhere from in the top 50 or so to the top 3. This follow-up letter often includes the irksome implication that, but for the sensibility of the famous poet who was the judge, you would have won. But you lost. Again. So what does that finalist notification letter, which declared your manuscript better than nearly all the 200 to 1500 other entries, finally get you? Doodely-squat, that’s what. Till now. Now, it’s another step toward certain publication, complete with the endorsement of not one famous poet but a chorus of them singing of your choice virtues cheek to cheek.
S&H Greenstamps.
Remember S&H Green Stamps? You got them with your groceries. The more groceries you bought, the more Green Stamps the store gave you to paste in your official booklet. When all the pages were filled, it could be exchanged for certain merchandise, say a set of plastic coasters. The more booklets you filled, the better the merchandise you were entitled to. Twenty-five might get you a ceiling fan or a microwave. Some of us wondered if, say, a thousand could you get you a new Chevvy. In any case, those little stamps made the stores happy, the Green Stamp people happy, the food producers happy, and the shoppers happy. A win-win solution to the fourth power.
Hence Finalist Press, which turns those finals letters of yours into gold—stamps, that is. It’s easy. You pay us a fee, maybe $50, for our official booklet containing 10 blank pages. Each time you receive a letter announcing you made the finals, you paste it in the booklet. When you fill your booklet, you send it, along with your manuscript, to us and, after authentication, we publish your book. Automatically. We won’t even read it, since so many highly qualified and approving people already have. Who are we to dispute their judgment? Maybe we’ll get around to reading it after it’s published. But if we don’t like it then, that’s too bad for us, not you.
William Trowbridge, Innovator.
Think of the time, money, and aggravation saved. No big checks to those judges, no suspicions that selection was made on the basis of friendship or connections, no contest ad expenses, no staff expenses for all the manuscript reading, no handling tons of submissions, no wait for a decision, no rejection
letters (which often contain paragraphs “hoping” the loser will submit again next year and which go even to the people whose manuscripts nobody would ever publish). And no finalist letters. Every submission wins. Everybody benefits, even the judges, whose opinions are made weightier by the near-agreement of the other judges.
And what about those judges? The people who won the contests found favor with only one. You’d have the endorsement of 10. Some may object that none of the 10 picked you as a winner. But remember those now-not-so-maddening implications that the second-place manuscript—or the 10th-place one, for that matter—might well be as objectively “good” as the first place one. Makes those contest wins look pretty molehilly, doesn’t it?
And it’s easy enough to glean blurbs from all those judges’ comments about the quality of their particular contest’s submissions: “Exceptional,” “Immensely talented,” “Such a range.”
But how will we market these books? Simple: we won’t. That’s always been the poet’s job. Miller Williams, founder and former director of one of the nation’s best university presses, has said that only one thing sells poetry books and it’s not good reviews or expensive ads. It’s the poet hitting the bricks to sell the books at readings. And wouldn’t you be willing to hit the bricks for Finalist Press, who rescued you from the throes of perpetual nice try? And by giving us that 60% of sales regular publishers get when authors sell their own books, you’ll help pay our bills, which will help open the door to publication for another decafinalist. Can Finalist Press ever make a profit or even break even? Of course not, which will put us in the same tub with almost all the other poetry publishers.
So step aside, mere winners: the finalists are coming through!
While Red Hen Press has worked since 2003 to help schools in the greater Los Angeles area with our Writing in the Schools program, there are many more worthwhile efforts taking place throughout the U.S. One such effort in Kansas City is happening at Turner High School. Groups of students at the school led by teachers Marlee Stempleman and Jessica Kendall, have joined together in the Troubadour Poetry Club.
Staff
The Bookbuilder
New Developments
justkindofstrange
Red Hen Staff
Lynnell
