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Monday, October 30, 2023

Poetry Trains 

New Poetry Trains on a site to help authors develop readership.

As it happens, if a few people read your poetry every year, you'll move pretty high in the poetry ratings. You can ask kindle unlimited how much poetry is actually read, cover to cover, and they'll tell you, much less than romance novels for example. They keep track. They have a formula for how much a page of poetry is worth, compared to, say, a page of romance novel. Do they each count as the same page? The poetry has far fewer words, but you have to think more to read it.

But I maintain that whoever reads your poetry, it doesn't matter. A reader is a reader. I'm not going to pay anyone to read it, but if I can get reads by hustling some other way, I'll do it.

In this case, reading other people's poetry is actually kind of gratifying. I have something to compare.

Monday, October 09, 2023

The unbearable lightness of being...a poet 

The world is at war - in Ukraine, and in Israel, and earthquakes are killing people in Africa and Afghanistan - do I really have the right to be over her, in the USA, writing poetry? Well, as a poet, I have a compulsion, in my case to put it into haiku and put a season in there somewhere - but yes, I'd say I'm going to do that whether there is a war or not. I feel bad hawking my poetry books on the market out there, when somewhere, on the Gaza strip, some kid is hiding in his basement. But I can't do much about him. Well actually I can speak out for peace, but that doesn't do much. I could put my pleas for peace in poetry. But nobody reads poetry (see below). Better to just put it on a huge sign.

I've never been entirely comfortable with the persona of being a poet out there in the world. I can present myself to people as an author, no problem - as a short story writer, or a biography writer, whatever - but as a poet, it's hard. Maybe it's because a lot of the poets I met and listened to were pretentious. I don't actually remember that, though, and I don't even think I've met all that many. It seems to me you can be a poet and still be down-to-earth, friendly, not pretentious at all. It's not part of the job description or even part of what people think of you when you say that, necessarily. I should be able to just go on out there and slide right into the social whirl as a poet.

Easier said than done. When I think of the things I could have done with my 9/11 book, the main reason I didn't do them (public readings, etc.) was this problem of image as a poet. I just don't want to go out there into the world as a poet. I'm not sure why. I love writing poetry. I am a poet. What's the problem?

I'll do some deep contemplation and get back to you.

Wednesday, September 06, 2023

Marketing Poetry 

This is a very cynical post about marketing poetry. If you can't take my all-encompassing negativity, get out now while the getting's good.

Actually I'm in a pretty good position - my small book (below post) is in the top ten again in Japanese Poetry & Haiku (kindle rating) although, to be honest, paperback sales are grim. Nobody buys poetry. Very few people actually read it. I'm not even sure those are the same people.

But I'll tell you the secret of what limited success I've had. It's kind of like virtually anything nobody would ever want to see. You make friends with them, then, you ask them to read it. If they like you, and they like other stuff you've done or written, they'll agree. It's not because they naturally like poetry or would want to grab poetry off the shelf. The number of people who actually grab poetry off the shelf and buy it is apparently very small. But the number of friends you have that are willing to take your suggestion is large in comparison. That's why I have good ratings.

Really, all is fair in the poetry marketplace. It doesn't matter why they picked up your book and read it. Your overall popularity is based on the number of people who actually read your book, not the degree they liked it, or whether they picked it and bought it off a poetry shelf. If they read it because you asked them to, that counts. Or if they read it because they decided to market their book by reading yours, that counts too. They read it.

Now the problem is here: If the majority of your readers don't like poetry, much less haiku, then you don't really have an audience. And presumably the people out there who do like poetry and haiku, are either skipping over your book, or have never seen it. Now that's a problem because you're really missing a large pool of potential readers. But I'd argue that's really a pretty small pool. I'm missing them, yes, but there aren't that many to begin with.

Do you think the nation has just turned away from poetry? THat we no longer value the artful use of words? I'd guess, yes. It's the way it is, but that's the way it is.

Monday, August 21, 2023

September Tuesday 



A hundred haiku from that one horrific day

$4.70 + shipping on Amazon
$1.99 on Kindle
Free on Kindle Unlimited

Monday, May 08, 2023

Chat GPT takes on haiku 

Those of you who follow this blog know that I care a lot about my haiku (look down a few posts) and I know it's a sensitive subject what actually defines haiku.

The other day I had a stroke of marketing luck, namely two people reading my book at almost the same time, and as a result my book e pluribus haiku anthology was at #8 in Japanese Poetry & Haiku (ebook ratings). I was so proud of myself, I pointed it out on Twitter and got ready to brag on it a little.

Then, I noticed that #4 was written by Chat GPT.

The book, Autonomous Haiku Machine, was actually written or compiled by Anthony David Adams (editor) in 2021, and he says clearly that the machine wrote all the haiku. When I encountered it at about one or two this afternoon, I downloaded it and read about half of it. Here are a few of them:

2.
The white egrets fly
to the faraway shores
of an evening sky


3.
I love my love
I love my love
I love my love


10.
I love the moon
I love the sun
I love the mountains


I actually kind of like the first one, though it doesn't have a season. Haiku should not only direct you to nature, but also be clearly in a time of year, if not a month or a week. For example, the words "tax day" can point you to April 15, but can't direct you to nature although the rest of your haiku may do that. Anyway with #2 we can see the egrets and can see nature so that's good. But that's where it falls apart. You can see #3 and #10 only get weaker. #10 has some nature, yes ok. But it really doesn't say much.

Well, maybe Chat GPT was a beginner at that point, and didn't have a database stored up with white egrets in it. Or, the database only had a white egret in it, and it didn't want to be repetitive.

Haiku is a wide open field. You don't need 5-7-5 syllable structure to call something haiku. You apparently don't need nature or even a season anymore either; in other words, I don't think this Chat GPT character is the only one flaunting the rules. I don't mind if this guy gets a few reads and a few sales out of being experimental with Chat GPT. In fact I'd like to see if one could get Chat GPT to count syllables, or to build 5-7-5 blocks so that one could make lots of haiku out of them. I know it's been done, electronic haiku, but I'm not ready to make a survey of what computers have written so far.

Tonight I checked in to the Amazon Japanese Poetry & Haiku page fully expecting this book to be #1, since I downloaded it this afternoon. Instead it was #13, and mine was now #14. They update their lists every few hours based on new sales and downloads, and it's very possible that they haven't counted my early afternoon download which might put this book up on top. If it's on top, #1, that's kind of a travesty, I would say, but it's an electronic travesty. By that I mean Chat GPT and the electronic world can fill up with tripe that is called haiku or called short stories, which doesn't make them good, but rather just fills up the space and makes it harder to find what's good. I'm surprised in reading the JPH boards that there is so much up there that isn't actually haiku at all, and isn't even poetry as far as I can tell, but rather more like anime cartoons. I haven't read them, though, and besides who am I to say? Sometimes they put stuff in there just because it's close, and people don't mind.

Maybe I should keep my eye on this trend.

Tuesday, April 04, 2023

All from before is now obsolete 

Haiku about a very alarming April
Kindle Special
TUE-TH Apr. 4-6
https://www.amazon.com/All-before-now-obsolete-Haiku-ebook/dp/B087TK42LR


Wednesday, February 22, 2023

e pluribus haiku anthology 

Kindle Special
WED-FRI Feb. 22-24
https://www.amazon.com/Pluribus-Haiku-Anthology-3487-ebook/dp/B08X2YRQB2

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