Regarding my January 18 post:

In the hopes of introducing more ideas about print/online publications (including how to get them out there to readers) and extending the invite to Blake Walmsley and others to offer more of their print/online poetry opinions and proposed solutions, I offer as an unusal example of marketing poety, Mr. Eric Zork Alan.

Zork, who I had the pleasure meeting on several occasions last year, is still in the process of giving away 6000 copies of his Stolen Snapshots book in exchange for poems to later be put on his website. If you know of a good slam venue in New York or Boston, there's a good chance you'll run into him. He's an entertaining poet and performer, and quite the ambitious soul. I don't know how well his plan works. Perhaps I should ask him when I figure out what I want to ask of him precisely. My rants have deviated from the original print vs. online, but I'd like to keep this dialogue as organic and changing as possible.

I'd also like to turn your attention to Highwater Books, formerly Cambridge based, now somewhere in Canada, still under the leadership of Tom Devlin. Though primarily a publisher and seller of comics and graphic novels, Highwaters has also printed prose works, and all of their books have a strong sense of design, making each book in itself a piece of art. I might inquire them soon. I'd rather take them than a lot of publishers out there.

Why do I offer the Highwater link? Because one of the reasons print pubs suffers in comparision to online lines is that no one thinks of the whole package. Some do. Devlin for one, Behrle's Pressed Wafer is another. His City Point is probably my favorite small press collection. His Recent Sonic News shows some nice design work on the cover too. In both cases, the novelty of design I think adds to the overall quality of the work without being too gimicky. Another advantage of print, I think. It's tough to not be gimicky on websites. Any enhancements other than the text means one too many photos or pictures or unneccessary mp3s. Ignoring these facts is why many people wonder why people even bothered with print magazines or chapbooks in the first place.

And there's something about the old Meanies that just helps them maintain their charm. The cartoons, the interviews, the Walter X art, all of the above? I'll let you be the judge.

Okay. Don't worry. I'll go to bed now.