Any location suits poet's corner
Thursday June 07 2001
IF we are to believe the e-business evangelists, one of the biggest benefits of digitising a company is that location becomes unimportant and any potential customer base is immediately multiplied.
Jessie Lendennie, founder and managing director of Salmon Publishing Ltd, the Lahinch-based poetry publisher, has been won over to the idea to such an extent that she has become something of an evangelist herself, moving from Galway to establish a publishing house in the shadow of the Cliffs of Moher.
Lendennie first arrived in Ireland in 1981, choosing to pursue a writing career in Galway. She immediately became involved in a writers' workshop that was attached to the then University College Galway.
As the workshop grew in size and stature, it began to publish its own poetry newsletter (a photocopied affair), eventually moving into book publishing in the mid-1980s, receiving funding from the Arts Council to publish the poetry of Eva Burke.
"It just got bigger and bigger," says Lendennie. By 1988, a proper publishing company had been created and Siobhán Hutson, the person who now designs the Salmon books and website, joined the team. In 1994, the move to a stunning location close to the Cliffs of Moher was made, Lendennie already taking the promises of e-business seriously. The company has now published around 200 books, and makes a small profit every year, suggesting that she was right.
The company has had internet access for six years, despite Lendennie's initial concerns that her remote location might cause connectivity problems. The first Salmon website was launched around four years ago.
The site was designed by a professional who also looked after hosting and search engine registration, for which Lendennie paid £300 (euro 381). Almost immediately, responsibility for the site was taken over by Siobhán Hutson, Salmon's in-house designer, despite her having no background or training in the area.
Today's site is largely unchanged from the original, relying on a simple and clear design, emphasising the poetry more than anything else. The largest aspect of the site is an online bookshop, through which Salmon sold 3,000 of its 13,000 book sales last year. Orders come in as encrypted emails, which are then decrypted online.
"I have nothing against shops," she says, laughing, "but the poet is just not very well served in bookshops. Ireland is better than anywhere else but still not great. And then you've got a lot of people out there who are interested in poetry. If you do a web search under the word 'poetry', you'll get thousands of things. I'm just wondering how these people can be brought together."
The Salmon site attracts around 350 hits per day, of which 200 come from North America. The result is that the majority of Salmon poetry buyers are American, the reverse of the situation before the online bookshop was launched.
It's not just about selling online, however. Lendennie is also well-used to using the Salmon website to promote the company, and as a market research tool.
"Quite apart from the fact that we do decent sales on the site, it's a promotional tool," she says. "If I'm trying to get publicity in New Orleans, or trying to contact a university in Tasmania to do a reading, I just give them our website name. I don't have to do the endless mailing that I would have otherwise."
The internet has also helped Lendennie's administrative workload. The nature of Salmon's work means that she is constantly in receipt of unsolicited manuscripts or requests for advice from aspiring poets. In response to this, she has created an 'Advice to writers' section and a 'Publisher's diary' on the site.
"I get more people writing in wanting to be published than books sold," she says. "The 'Publisher's Diary' is meant to deal with a lot of that. It'll be some young fella or woman somewhere in Pennsylvania or Australia who'll sit down and think, 'I'm doing a search for poetry publishers'. They may not even notice that we're in Ireland.
"For those, I have a few different types of stock replies that I'll adjust a little bit. I'd never hurt anyone's feelings I'd say I'm doing a pretty good service. And every now and then, out of the blue, we'll get a professional poet. A few people have come in that way."
The site also features a poetry forum, where like-minded people can discuss their interests and, perhaps, leverage off each other's experiences. This section of the site's visitors are buyers waiting to buy, according to Lendennie.
"I'm definitely working on changing these people into buyers," she says. "I'm amazed at the number of people who are desperate to find out how to publish their own stuff but don't read contemporary poetry."
One Salmon effort that may remedy this is its 'Poem of the week' which is emailed every Wednesday to a marketing list. This list can then be informed of specific offers, such as Christmas deals or vouchers.
As for the production side of Salmon's publishing, the books are currently printed in the States, with designs usually sent via FedEx. Lendennie hopes that the company will be saved this expense when an ISDN line is installed, something she has been awaiting for a number of months.
"We use the internet a lot," she says. "We do research on it, and Siobhán is always working on the site. The phone bills can be a bit high and our connection is slow.
"We're getting a high-speed line, which we need for contacting colleges and marketing. The only drawback is that it will cost us a lot, and we've been waiting forever." The headaches are worth it, however.
- REALITY BYTES
