call: hand-to-hand book sale tales

Inspired by this recent blog post at Vouched Books (thanks to Leslie Pietrzyk, prof at Converse College, for sharing on FB & of course to VB for writing in the first place), I’d like to make a Call for Hands – true tales about your fave hand-to-hand poetry book sales. 

Be it at readings, literary festivals, or in your office cubicle, if you’re a poet you’ve most certainly sold a book hand-to-hand – and it’s that personal one-on-one sales that keep us selling. Oh, sure, some poets will say they’re not interested in sales or that poetry, actually, doesn’t sell. Well, if you have a book the reality is you need to sell it. If you want another book. If you want to help keep our small presses alive. If you want to keep poetry alive. 

So, then, here’s the call: send me an email at lori@loriamay.com (rather than posting here in response, so we can keep these stories accumulated for a later reveal) sharing a favorite hand-to-hand sales moment. Maybe you sold a book to someone who “just doesn’t get poetry” or maybe you met a fellow poet and struck up a conversation that turned into a years-long friendship. Go on. Dig up the past and share the goods. Because, industry necessity or not, we all do enjoy sharing our work with others. 

Send in your fave moments of doing so and I’ll compile a hit list for the world (or at least my modest blog readership) to see. Who knows. You may just inspire a shy seller to get out there and work it a bit more. 

Send your hand-to-hand poetry book sales recaps to lori@loriamay.com. 

(Yes, of course, if you’re compelled to share your prose sales story, send it along. I’m open!)