Guidelines for March Street Press
3413 Wilshire
Greensboro NC 27408

Parting Gifts is dead, at least for the moment. Never made a dime of profit, never found an audience, better dead than in the red. The editorial vision of March Street Press relies entirely on a deeply entrenched collection of prejudices. We are highly suspicious of work that turns too heavily on rhyme or meter. Poetry of the kind that can be found in Hallmark cards, church bulletins, or high school haiku magazines will probably never appear in our publications.

We publish more poetry than fiction, but fiction is actually our first love. The problem is that we have such high standards and peculiar preferences that it’s hard to find fiction to publish. We prefer very short fiction, between 500 and 1000 words. The language in the fiction we publish has to be as strong as the language in poetry—not a misplaced word. And it has to tell a story.

Chapbooks should be 25–50 pages. When we accept a chapbook, we often make suggestions—sometimes strong ones—involving inclusion and exclusion of poems or specific lines or stanzas that don’t work for one reason or another. That’s what real editors do. If you don’t think that your work needs an editor, you shouldn’t be sending it to one.

Something has come up twice in the past few months: a poet presents a book of poems, about 90% of which had been published in another book with a different press, with a few poems added or replaced. We at March Street would have thought that this would be obviously unethical, but in both cases, the author seemed surprised to discover that it was a problem. We small publishers put our hearts and souls (and a bit of cash) into bringing obscure, unpublished poets a bit of limelight. So when we discover that we're just recycling the same few poems under a different title, we feel used and cheated.

We usually accept 20–30 book manuscripts per year. We accept no government grants or loans. For that reason, we occasionally have to turn away excellent manuscripts for lack of resources to publish at a particular time. We wish we could publish everything of quality that we receive. When we accept a manuscript, we send the author ten copies of the finished book free (a $90 value at retail) and we are open to providing a limited number of review copies and promotional materials (such as postcards or posters for readings) on request, so long as the privilege isn’t abused.

Checks and money orders (U.S. currency only) should be made out to March Street Press.

March Street Press is always seeking chapbook manuscripts. Economic pressures have forced a $20 reading fee. We encourage authors to submit a computer disk with the manuscript in electronic form along with the paper manuscript. Include SASE with your submission. We can’t seriously consider a submission unless it is accompanied by SASE and reading fee. Please don’t bother sending a selection of poems and asking us to make a decision about the book based on them.

And now a word about a writer’s responsibility to his or her constitution. The ACLU is involved in a seemingly perpetual fight to protect our First Amendment rights. I hope you will drop a few bucks in an envelope and send them to the ACLU at 132 West 43rd Street, New York, New York 10036.

Any questions? Please send email to March Street Press.
Here is the "agreement" I try to attach to the first set of galleys I send to the author. It stands in place of a contract and returning the galleys to me represents agreement to its terms. The agreement can be nullified by either party notifying the other of its nullification.

Here are the proofs. please mark them up in red or some other contrasting color.

I will need letters of release from all the mags listed on the ack page. Most mags now put “all rights revert to author upon publication.” If you’d photocopy those copyright notices, that will do for release. Write in pen on the copies which poems the page refers to.

I will need some blurbs, so make a couple of copies of the galleys (be sure to make one for yourself after you’ve marked it up in case the proofs get lost in the mail) and send them to buddies who have name recognition--poets, professors, whatever. Tell them to give you a 50-word blurb. Warning: you will have to do the same for them someday.

I will need a 50-word biography as well, referring to yourself in the third person. Highlights and nothing cute (e.g. joe smith is the father of three dachshunds named George Foreman. Hobbies include curling, tatting, and banging his head on the floor.) My experience with cute is that you’ll always regret being cute somewhere down the line.

When the book is ready, you’ll get ten free copies. When I sell books, you’ll get 15% of whatever I get, so generally it’s in your interest to get a mailing list together, and we can cooperatively hammer together a release and order form. 15% of full cover price is more than 15% of what I get from booksellers and distributors.

I will give you the same 40% discount I give booksellers on any additional copies you order from me. I don’t pay royalties on books I sell to you.

If you place some books in bookstores, let me know how many and I’ll give you an additional 10% discount on those. You will be serving as a distributor, so it’s only right that you get the same rate as jobbers. If you’d like some postcards, tell me how many and I’ll put those together for you. If you want posters 8.5x11, I will design it and either I can do the copying or I can send you the original and you can do it. Up to you.

I don’t do copyright registration. Technically, it’s copyrighted as soon as the ink leaves your pen, but if there were ever a dispute, it’s better to have the book registered with the library of congress. It costs a bit of money and they’ll want two copies for the shelves of the library. I will be glad to replace the copies. If you send out copies to review publications, I will replace those as well.

People have asked me to say a word about Poet's House, a poetry library in New York. I don't send my books there anymore, but I have in the past. I'd like to urge people to send two copies of all of their published books to Poet's House so it will have as complete a collection as possible.

http://www.poetshouse.org/
Poets House is located at 72 Spring St., 2nd Floor, New York NY 10012. The library is free and open to the public Tuesdays through Fridays 11 am until 7 pm and Saturdays 11 am until 4 PM. (212) 431-7920, info@poetshouse.org.

I no longer hand bind books, unless I have need for five copies or so. I’m working with a printer who does an excellent job. But he has requested that my orders be 50 or more. So, though I can provide you with five or ten or whatever you need or can afford at a given time, I humbly request that you order in quantities of fifty or more. Because this part of the operation is out of my hands, my general request is that you order books at least three weeks ahead of when you need them. If you email me to send you 50 copies overnight, I simply can’t do that.

When it comes time to start sending out copies, be sure people know I charge $2 shipping and handling for five or less, $5 for more than five. I’m not a jerk about it. If I get a check for the cover price, I’ll eat the postage, but most people don’t mind a nominal charge for delivery.

We can discuss pricing. Generally if it’s under 40 pages, I charge a cover price of $9; 40 to 60, generally $15; 60 to 100, $18; more than 100, $20. There is a direct relationship between the size of the book and the cost of production.

It will be listed on my online catalog and I will make every effort to get it out through Baker and Taylor, The Book House, Yankee Book Peddler, other distributors, and Amazon. I no longer deal directly with Amazon as I did in the early days, so I can’t guarantee the book will be up there on a specific date or that the picture will appear with it. Please have ALL YOUR FRIENDS go to the Amazon page and write embarrassingly complimentary things about you and the book. If you have no friends (don’t feel bad--it’s not that uncommon among poets), log onto Amazon under several different names and write the embarrassingly complimentary reviews yourself.

Amazon has been terrible to work with, so I prefer to deal directly with customers, but it should appear on Amazon and can be ordered through them. I don’t do credit cards, but there is a button in the center of my home page (www.marchstreetpress.com) where a person can “donate” to the press and it accepts credit cards, so a person could use that to transfer funds to me and send me an email letting me know, and I would then ship the books.

I think that answers most of the common questions I get. If you have more questions, feel free to write to me at 3413 Wilshire, Greensboro NC 27408-2923 or email me at rbixby@earthlink.net. I don’t do telephones. Don’t like ‘em. I’m a social worker by training and virtually all of my worst moments have been on the telephone.

thanks for sending me your excellent book and I hope you like what I have done with it. Peaches.