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Letters
from Xavier Review
Editor Thomas Bonner, Jr. &
Managing Editor Robert E. Skinner
July 12, 1999
Xavier Review Press
Thomas Bonner, Jr., Editor
Box 110C
Xavier University
New Orleans, Louisiana 70125
Rudolph Lewis
1506 McCulloh Street
Apartment #2
Baltimore, MD 21217
Dear Rudy:
Thanks for your letter and check. Please find enclosed 21
copies of your book, as requested. We're glad you're pleased
about the book and its reception so far. We've made some small
sales to local book stores already, and a few to walk-ins who
read about the book in the Times-Picayune.
The book did, indeed, receive a glowing review in the T-P, and
it is worth noting that it is the first book of ours they've
deigned to review for some time. As they say, timing is
everything. The release of the book occurred the week of The
essence Festival, a large-scale African-American music event
which is staged here each year.
I am not clear on how many copies should have been sent to
Pratt Institute, or why they haven't received them. Tom's mother
has been desperately ill, and the shipment may have fallen
through the cracks. if you'll communicate tome the name and
correct address or the contact person, and how many copies they
were to receive, I'll get them off immediately. You may respond
to me by e-mail at rskinner@xula.edu.
We have no promotional material available thus far. Our
typesetter and advertisement designer is going into the hospital
for back surgery this week, and has mostly been on his back for
the past few weeks. I hope that when he is back on his feet that
we'll be able to design an advertisement for our list of
ad-swaps, and get copies to you.
Best regards,
Bob Skinner
* * *
* *
July 21, 1999
Xavier Review Press
Thomas Bonner, Jr., Editor
Box 110C
Xavier University
New Orleans, Louisiana 70125
Rudolph Lewis
1506 McCulloh Street
Apartment #2
Baltimore, MD 21217
Dear Rudy:
Enclosed are two copies of the Times-Picayune's
resoundingly positive review of your new book. They totally
ignored our last three books, so the editor's decision to devote
a half-page (25% of the book news) makes it clear that they see
your work as very significant.
We are still getting orders for the book, and we recently
made an arrangement for Barnes & Noble to carry our entire
line, so your book will go into their national database.
If you have a relationship with any bookstores in Baltimore,
you might have them get in touch with us. It is common for
bookstores in new Orleans to have autograph signings and reading
for local authors-- it may be that you can make a similar
arrangement at stores in the Baltimore area. If you can supply
us with with a a name and address, we'll also forward a review
copy to the Baltimore book editor, assuming that there is one.
Congratulations on the work you've done. We're glad for your
success thus far.
Best regards,
Bob Skinner
* * *
* *
September 15, 1999
Xavier Review Press
Thomas Bonner, Jr., Editor
Box 110C
Xavier University
New Orleans, Louisiana 70125
Rudolph Lewis
13219 Kientz Road
Jarratt, Virginia 23867
Dear Rudy:
You'll be happy to know that interest in the book seems to be
building slowly. Recently, the Louisiana Endowment for the arts
asked for a copy to review in their upcoming issue of Cultural
Vistas, which gets circulation throughout the state and
outside of Louisiana, as well. We have begun to suspect that
word-of-mouth is having some effect, too, because we've sold two
orders of two copies and one of five copies to Barnes &
Noble, which means that they are selling in B & N stores
somewhere in the nation. I hasten to add that although B & N
originally bought two copies of all our in-print titles to list
in their Extended Title Base program, I Am New Orleans is the
only XRP title to receive multiple orders. It isn't a landslide
of popular appeal, but it is an unusual occurrence for a small
press with no money for promotion. I spoke to a woman at the
Library of Congress Copyright Office yesterday, and we talked at
length about who the actual copyright holder of the book is
(with so many people and organizations involved, it called for
some discussion). As it stands now, you and Sharif will be
listed as the copyright holders of this particular book, but
since the introduction and editing of the poems involved
original work on your parts, it was decided that you two will be
named copyright holders. Thank you for your check, and here
are your 21 new books. We've put aside the additional 40, and
that leaves a small number left. depending on how things go over
the rest of the year, we may decide to bring out a second
edition, but we haven't made a firm decision on that as yet. By
all means, send us a copy of your essay on Christian, and the
piece that the Zora Neale Hurston society is publishing when it
comes out. There is little enough about Christian that want to
collect anything and everything about him. I wish that I could
help you directly with the job opportunity at UNO.
Unfortunately, the sitting dean of libraries decided to step
down to teach, and someone I don't know is interim dean.
Hopefully things will work out for you anyway. Thanks again
for your order. Tom and I are glad you're having such success in
selling them. Only one other XRP author has been as active as
you in selling his work, and I hope all of the interest in the
book will result in another printing. Best
regards, Bob Skinner
* * *
* * [Editorial note: You
will note that Xavier Review Press (Bonner and Skinner) lost
interest in I Am New Orleans & Other Poems By Marcus B.
Christian when they discovered they did not own the
copyright to neither the book or the introduction. [Check out
Bonner's attitude toward my introduction in his correspondence
with Ralph Adamo.]
And thus they did little or nothing thereafter to further our
aims of getting a broader audience for Marcus Christian. Later,
Bonner offered to print all 100 poems in my possession.
Obviously, they thought that this proposal would be an
opportunity to seize the copyright on our work by other means.
This proposal included a limited printing of less than 500
copies and no commitment of promotion and unlike, initially, no
promises of money for a New Orleans appearance by the editors.
This change in attitude became exceedingly apparent in the
subsequent correspondence. RL
] * *
* * *
November 8, 1999
Xavier Review Press
Thomas Bonner, Jr., Editor
Box 110C
Xavier University
New Orleans, Louisiana 70125
Rudolph Lewis
13219 Kientz Road
Jarratt, Virginia 23867
Dear Rudy:
Thanks for your letter and all the good news you had to
share. Tom and I are indeed happy that you've engaged the
interest of such people as Henry Louis Gates and Marc Morial. It
might be that such associations will be useful in attracting
more attention to Marcus Christian and your work on him.
With regarding to republishing the Marcus Christian book and
a subsequent volume, let me try once agin to explain what we
can, and cannot do. Tom and i have tried very hard to make clear
to you our limitations in printing and publicizing the work of
people we publish. We are not a true university press, in that
we get no direct financial support from Xavier University. Our
projects are all supported by outside funding, and even that is
very limited. It is for that reason that we seldom print more
than 300 copies of anything we do. This has been true for nearly
a decade, and none of us currently associated with the press has
any expectation that will change.
These factors make it impossible for us to pay for publicity
or advertising. We depend on friendly newspaper editors, ad
swaps with other academic literary magazines, and occasionally
on the energy and creativity of authors like yourself, who go to
extraordinary lengths to bring their work to the attention of
others.
I should tell you that at this point, the majority of the
sales garnered by I Am New Orleans have come through you. I
doubt that we have sold more than 50 copies through our offices
or distributors thus far. We are not a well-known press, and the
attention your book has garnered is not typical of our past
endeavors. We owe that to you.
It may be that you could get the support you're looking for
from a traditional university press which has demonstrated a
commitment to poetry and African-American literature. If so, we
would certainly make it possible for you to easily move over to
one of them. There you could at least expect a presentation in a
quality catalog, press releases, and perhaps reviews in regional
newspapers.
As for future plans, we now have another book in press, and
are about to go to press with the final issue of Xavier Review
for this year, so we probably can't do a second run (perhaps 200
copies) of I Am New Orleans before February 200. This would be a
print run of about 300 copies.
I hope you understand that our commitment here has been to
get into print deserving work that might have been missed by
larger presses. For that reason, we are non-profit. No one on
staff receives remuneration for his labor. Likewise, we are
unable to pay authors in cash. having been a writer of both
fiction and non-fiction for twenty years, I understand your
drive to make some profit from writing that has taken you years
to complete. I also know from experience how difficult it is to
realize that goal.
We are happy to continue working with you, and are proud of
the fact that you've gotten so much attention for this book.
We'll support you in any way that we can, within the limits I've
note above. if you decide to move to some other house, we'll
also support you in that. Seetha A-Srinivasan at University
Press of Mississippi is someone I've worked with on three
different African-American projects, and I'll be glad to provide
you with an introduction if you're interested.
I'm sending the last of your books to you under separate
cover. Please let me know what else Tom or I can do to help you
further.
With warmest regards,
Robert E. Skinner
Managing Editor
* * *
* *
[Editor's note: I talked this matter
over with Amin Sharif and we decided to have nothing further to
do with Xavier Review Press, Tom Bonner, and Bob Skinner.
WRITERS BEWARE!!! of wolfish editors in sheep clothing or
overseers posing as good Christian men. . . . For those who are
interested how and why ChickenBones: A Journal (www.nathanielturner.com)
came into existence will get some sense of the importance and
necessity of black writers being in cyberspace. We thus have put
the entire book online, for our commitment is to Marcus Bruce Christian,
not to publishers, not to money. RL]
posted 20 August 2005 |
