on small publishers who sell online

When I published Inking Bitterns, I set up my own website to promote, inform about and sell it. You can find it here. I also registered the book with with Nielsens, the people who supply ISBN numbers; and I think it is from them that the big online sellers get their info on what is newly published, and, in the case of Amazon, automatically list the book. It was odd seeing all these Big Sellers advertising my book, especially because I had decided not to sell through Amazon, because they take such a big cut that I would have made a loss on each sale, quite apart from any other consideration, like, you know, TAXES.

So yesterday I got yet another email from someone who wanted the book, but had been discouraged by going to Amazon and finding that it was listed as CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE - we don't know when or if this item will be back in stock.

I tried putting a review on the Amazon page, explaining this and suggesting where prospective buyers could go to find the book. But the review wasn't accepted- it jut dropped into a hole in cyberspace.

So then I wrote to Amazon, thus:

I am the publisher of Inking Bitterns - it is a book of illustrated poetry, and I sell it at a low price because I think that's important. So I haven't used Amazon to sell it, because it would mean my making a loss on each sale. But you have listed it anyway, presumably as an automatic response to its listing by Nielsen.... and you have marked it as out of print. Feedback from other sources tells me that people wanting the book have been put off by this information; it is in fact sold through my own website, and has been ever since I published the book.
Could you please remove the listing for Inking Bitterns, or amend the information you have on your listing?
Dru Marland
Gert Macky Books

...and got this reply

 Amazon Your Account Amazon.com
Message From Customer Service
Hello,
I understand your concern about published book "Inking Bitterns" which is listed on our website; I'm very sorry for the information you found on the book.
Given the case, I would like to introduce you to our Author Central; in order to make changes into the listing of the book, "Inking Bitterns" on your end, please join our Author Central. Author Central is a resource designed to help authors become more active participants in the promotion of their books.
Amazon's Author Pages also offer customers a new way to browse favorite authors, discover new books, and more. The pages also include bibliographies, biographies, and discussion boards.
You can find out more at:
http://authorcentral.amazon.com
For further assistance, kindly click the link below so you can contact our Author central customer service through phone or email:
https://authorcentral.amazon.com/gp/help/contact-us?ie=UTF8&language=en_US&openi...
I hope this helps! We look forward to seeing you again soon.

Hmm, it didn't help. A further mail, after a complicated trawl through the Author Pages:

I would like the information on Amazon about Inking Bitterns, a book that I published, to be amended so that it does not claim that the book is out of print. The book is in print, but has never been available on Amazon because it is not economic for me to sell on Amazon.

...and another reply, which may be more helpful (time will tell)

Hello,
I understand your concern about the book you published.
I forwarded this information to the appropriate team so they can check and correct the issues found on the details page of the book.
Rest assured, as soon as I hear from them, I'll get back to you via e-mail.
Thanks for giving me time to find the resolution to your inquiry and we hope to see you again soon.
Best regards,

...Meanwhile, the book is, and always has been, available from GERT MACKY!

ars est promovere artem

I thought it looked a bit off-colour....

The Vale of Pewsey is new territory for me; I was over there a few months ago for the Art Trail, where I met my friend Jan Lane, who was also on the trail, at the Pewsey Gallery, where her work is on display. She had given them some copies of Inking Bitterns last year, and they had managed to sell them. So I was very happy to meet Sandra, who is one of the people who run the gallery, and even more happy when she asked me to drop some cards across, too.

Sandra at Pewsey Gallery, finding my cards amusing...

...then Jo at the Devizes Bookshop, cultural hub of the town, agreed to take some of my prints. So I called by to see how things were going. The upstairs gallery has work by a permanent group of exhibitors, but Jo kindly found some space for my pictures too.... 

travelling in books

 It's time to go out visiting bookshops again, now that Christmas and New Year are safely past, and the miniature copies of A Child's Christmas in Wales have disappeared from the front of the shelves, and we look forward to spring.

Immediately after Inking Bitterns came off the press at the beginning of December, I did a quick rush around our local shops. Responses were variable. Some people absolutely loved the book, and gladly took copies. Chief among them was Kathryn Atkins at the Durdham Down Bookshop, who is an enthusiastic promoter of literature and poetry, both in the shop and in Henleaze Library, where she helps to run events. She managed to sell thirty copies of Inking Bitterns in December. Thirty! Gentle reader, that is pretty good going, I can tell you....

We also enjoyed our trips to Devizes and Calne, whose independent bookshops are such nice places to go to, which is presumably why they are still in business. And last week I went over to Thornbury, another nice shop with a good local section, which I like to see.

 You can see the map of stockists here.

Less welcoming was the fairly large independent bookshop in a South Wales county town whose manager looked rather wearily at the book and dismissed it as a 'local book', doomed to vanish without trace. Or the Bath indie shop where, I was told, they only get their books from a central distributor. The folk at Bath's other bookshop, Toppings, were charm itself, and plied me with tea; but they explained that their poetry section is already humungous (they collaborate with Bath Spa Uni's poetry department, apparently) , and my slim volume would vanish without trace into it; so, unless people came in demanding it...

Prize for most unusual stockist goes to NB Electra, afloat on the Grand Union Canal and somewhere near Tring just at the moment (her position is tagged on the map). Suzanne, Electra's skipper, kindly took a bunch of books with her, as we figured that they would appeal to canal folk. So, if you should be on the towpath (or indeed chugging along the cut) and see her, do say hello!

Inking Bitterns on BBC Radio Bristol with Steve Yabsley

Deborah Harvey, John Terry and I were on Steve Yabsley's afternoon show on BBC Radio Bristol, talking about our book Inking Bitterns - poems and pictures for wild places. We talked for half an hour, and each read two of our poems. We also managed to discuss Morris Minors, skip-diving, seafaring, gender transitioning, and poetry in general. It was quite a wide-ranging discussion!

Radio has been described as a very visual medium, but even so, you would not have been able to see the pictures that went with the poems, just by listening to the interview - which you can hear as a podcast HERE (We are on about 30 minutes into the programme, just after the Beatles track!)

So here are the pictures and the poems that we read, together as they are in the book. Click on the images to see them larger. By the way, as I said on the programme, we are not selling through Amazon; but you can get it at Gert Macky, and all (well, some. Not many yet TBH) good book shops.

 

inking bitterns - poems and pictures for wild places

 ...is now published.

It's a collection of poems from Colin Brown, Liz Brownlee, Stewart Carswell, Alana Farrell, Deborah Harvey, Alan Summers, John Terry and Cathy Wilson;  and it's illustrated throughout by me.

It costs £5, and you can easily buy it online from the Gert Macky website. Or, if you have the good fortune to live in Bristol (and if not, then why not?) - you can get it in the Durdham Down Bookshop, or Stanfords in Corn Street.

After our quick jaunt round Wiltshire yesterday, it can also be found at Devizes Books and the Corsham Bookshop,  both fine shops worth a visit even without the prospect of this particular book.

We'll be reading from the book at Halo, Gloucester Rd, on Monday 2nd December, and at Foyles on Friday 6th December.

And I'll be at the Local History Book Fair at the Bristol Record Office on Saturday 7th December, which is very handy for the Create Centre, who have their Festive Fair at the same time.

gert macky

gert macky, originally uploaded by Dru Marland.

Here's the logo for Gert Macky Books, at least until something simpler comes along. I think the chap in the basket may be Brunel. Maybe the woman is Sarah Guppy, Bristolian pioneer of the modern suspension bridge.

I'm ploughing on with the pictures for Inking Bitterns, an anthology of wildlife poetry, to which some really rather good poets have contributed some really nice poems. More details on the poets in question later, though Deborah Harvey, Alana Farrell, John Terry, Liz Brownlee and Alan Summers are in there for sure.

Here are some redwings, on my drawing board at the moment.

It's getting quite exciting; it only occured to me a couple of weeks ago that the anthology might be a good idea, and now I'm trying to get it all done and published in good time for Christmas.