Dear All Poets, Readers, and Others -
I have a question. A few of the fall contests request manuscripts between "60-90 pages." My manuscript comes in at a compact and tight 54-55 pages, depending on my mood. What's the etiquette here? Do I avoid sending to these contests? Am I automatically disqualified if I do send? Are the guidelines pertaining to manuscript length, unlike many of the other guidelines like reading fee and ethical concerns, more likely to be ignored or taken less seriously? Does it have something to do with printing costs or layout issues (books must fall between a certain length in order to get the best "bang for the buck" from the printer, etc)... is it lame of me to suggest such a thing?
Any and all help greatly appreciated.
Love and Peace,
Gary L. McDowell
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
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4 comments:
I posted something recently with all these questions, as I think you know.
My guess is that if it's good enough they don't even read for that sort of thing, but maybe Mary, who's in the biz all over the place, may be someone with a better angle on answering such questions...
But yes, I think many of us want to know these answers.
And seriously, though 60 pages is not necessarily hefty... I'd be VERY wary of 90... that better be one great goddamn book
I learned in a class on literary publishing, as an undergrad, that paper is cut in multiples of 16, and most economical when bound as such. So most publishers try to get the books around multiples of 16. I also was reaffirmed of this when editing Columbia Poetry Review, and by my friend Cora who is managing editor of Court Green.
48 is a pretty low number, so I am sure that most publishers are trying to get - as you said - more bang for the buyer and themselves by shooting for something of worth - 64 or more. Otherwise, there's going to be a lot of leftover, blank pages. Or, they'd have to pay to have it bound differently, which isn't as economy-friendly.
This, of course, could be off, but I was told this by reputable sources. My undergrad professor was the editor of Miami U. Press at the time.
oh, the professor is my...persona/e-mail for my ethnography classes. I don't want students being able to link to my personal blog. didn't want to be some more anonymous stalker dude, though "the professor" sounds like And1 b-ball.
- christopher a.
Gary, I changed the UA Press guidelines to 48+ pages, which seems to be the standard these days. 48 pages may be a bit slim, but I've found that mss that lean on the heavy side are often filled with things that shouldn't be there. Perhaps the thought was that the ms could be whittled down to the essentials, but I'd rather see poems that need to be together, rather than an entire ream of paper.
My new ms is 67 pages long, but that includes front matter. Once the book actually goes into production, it gets much lengthier anyway. There are many ways to paginate a poem, and this is subjective.
I would either submit it anyway, or contact the press and raise this issue. Or put in lots of extra pages with Aerosmith quotes. Just kidding.
Some presses, like UA, will actually encourage the inclusion of new work in the ms, if it fits, so the pages work out just fine.
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