JF Ptak Science Books LLC  Post 389

I wasn’t sure from the cover of this exceptionally obscure work by Frank
Engels if this was
supposed to be (confused by the tone and the extended double tilde) declarative or interrogatory, or whether poetry was
supposed to generate income or if you were supposed to hurt
it/extract-exact revenge.  On opening the pamphlet, which was
published by Mr. Engels in the beautifully-named but
poetically-challenged Flushing, New York (home of the World’s Fair and
Archie Bunker) in 1937, we find that it does not disappoint, and assures that all of the classes of what this thing could be are accommodated. 

In general, though, Mr. Engels wants to let you help him make money by telling you how to make money writing poetry of all sorts and shapes, and where to sell it, and how, and by what means.  Engels tells us that “there are different schools of poetry, and each contributes something to literature”, and that the best poetry “makes vast appeals to the broadest interests of the reading population”.Poems can be short or “book-length”, and we’re bolstered by the “recent poll” taken where 62,000 readers in 252 newspapers in 39 states sent in the names of their favorite poems, and the 12-line “Trees” by Joyce KIL(L)MEr was third on the list.  So it “doesn’t take much to be a poem liked by many”, and that you “don’t have to be a Longfellow” and write a book-length poem to make money in poetry.  

It is best to appeal to “those fields of universal human appeal:  grief, joy, hope, despair, love, simple truth, true humor”, especially when trying to sell poems to magazines. “Timelessness should be considered” we are warned, and that the poem be “neat and easily read”.  Also, avoid selling the same poem more than once to a magazine, and “avoid this unfortunate error”. 

Next we are told to consider “selling by mail”, selling “in pamphlet and card form”.  I’m not sure what that means, though the poetic reader is told that “Boyd’s City Dispatch, 114 East 23rd Street, NYC, furnishes a list of 5,145 millionaires interested in art; they could , no doubt, furnish a list of wealthy poetry appreciators”. Oh, dear.  Mr. Engels says that “old folks” who can no longer work but whose minds and poetry are good can make money in this manner.

Next genre for poetry sales is “greeting card verse”, which offers “opportunities for those who can turn out this sort of work”, and that the “Greeting Card editors are the friendliest editors in the publishing field”.  The sales genre for “syndicating poetry”, for the “prolific versifier”, is just so far beyond reason, such an uninhabitable planet of possible expectations. that it is beyond comment. 

Engels approaches direct selling as a possibility for the ease of being able to produce everything at home, with “Poems of varying lengths being produceable (sic)  into a folder”. Engels explains that one of his own “little booklets” “of 14 rhymes totalling (sic) 308 lines…cost two cents a copy to print and sells for ten cents”.  Also I found the following nugget: “poems about dogs artisitically (sic)  lettered and framed can be sold direct or thru stores or agents for cents cents to a dollar, depending on size…” 

This drags on for quite some time, even though its only three pages long.  Perhaps the best of these selling scenarios, though, is the “trailer poet”.  “There are quite a number of trailer poets, poets who live and travel in trailers, who make their livings by selling their poems…there are upwards of 300,000 trailer travelers in America as this is being written, and the prediction of trailer manufacturers is that the number will mount to millions.  Think of it,a million of more roamers whose needs, from popcorn to poems, will probably be supplied by roamers”.  Well.  I’m not terribly sure about what “roamers” are in Engels’ mind, though I’ve got a good idea that they’re dustbowlers, trying to make their way somewhere where they were not unwelcomed.  Engels reminds the reader that these people needed poetry too, and that they could be sold your poem pamphlet for 10 cents, if you had a good one to sell.  If only the “trailer people” had a penny to spare…

JF Ptak Science Books LLC   Post 392

A quickly-found pamphlet offers a rejoinder to yesterday’s post on making fistsfull of dollars selling poetry:  selling prose.  The idea is obvious, but the cover isn’t, and the ideas behind the idea of selling prose are anything but common, though they are uncommonly bad.  The very often self-referenced author of this bit, James M. Ross, writes his way towards the heart of every scribbling wanna be, offering the tines of broken plastics forks and other charitable possibilities and false hope about how and where to sell your sweaty work.  The publisher, “The House of Little Books” at 156 Fifth Avenue (a lovely 13-storey building built in 1895), brought out an oversize and skinny (and unpaginated) effort in Mr. Ross’s work, publishing the thing in 1939.  I can’t imagine that it did many people outside the author much good, though it may have made an interesting prop under-the-arm prop for the subway ride home after work. 

Mr Ross was a writer of considerable experience–he claims, remarkably, that he was the “special correspondent” for a (listed) 50+ newspapers, plus the author of many plays and pamphlets and other tearsheets–though it really doesn’t bolster the gruelly advice that he offers to the dreaming writing reader.  Most of the advice is for selling little pieces to newspapers, or selling tips and leads to newspapers, or at least telling where reporters may find a story with the hope of reward coming at the end.  All of which doesn’t really sound like writing per se to me. Then again, the pamphlet is actually well written.   Chapter One, for example is entitled, incredibly, “Where You Live Does Not Matter”, and makes the case for fame finding the writer no matter where the writer lives.  Ross makes the case for various editors and owners of the NY Times having been small town boys–true enough, but they didn’t actually RUN their business from Chattanooga.  They moved away.  To New York City.  Ross forgets that part, and mentions a few other famous small town writers to bolster his point:  Roy Howard, Edna Ferber, Fanny Hurst, Irvin Cobb; though Edna and Fanny and Irvin didn’t stay small for long.  Ross also mentions the dramatically- and difficult-to-say-three-times-fast named Westbrook Pegler (try it!), who I think started in a small town and stayed there.  Not that there’s anything wrong with small place.  I live in Asheville NC for crying out loud, so I’m not having a poke at the small experience–its just the name of the chapter and the logic of the writer that I’m having a run at. 

Chapter Two doesn’t get much better:  “Where is News?”.Perhaps if
the “is” was italicized the sub might’ve made a little sense. Chapter
Three follows close by on the heels of incredulity:  “Many Newspapers
Pay for Tips” is a claim that I’ve not heard too often; but for Mr. Ross to make the claim that someone could make a living doing this
stretches the truth a bit.  “As has often happened, items you telephone
in will finally be accepted without question and your pay check will
come along.” 

As much as something can be tedious for only 40 pages or so, this is, and drags on for fourteen chapters, offering shamelessly and  mainly useless tidbits for the flowering reporter/tipster/writer. Ross tells us to “Keep Your Eyes Open” (Chapter Eight) for stories that you might “find on the street”, and also to expand our horizons to include writing for “myriads of church publications”.  And on and on; every one dead-data morsel that we are offered in this book takes the place of two good data points already in our head.  No doubt if you read this book a thousand times you’d have nothing at all left in your noggin.