7 thoughts on “Cider Press Review: If You’re A Poet Trying To Publish Your First Book & You Go The Contest Route, You Need To Read This Post”

1. I avoid con­tests that charge an entry fee like face­less lep­ers. To me, the point is that edi­tors should be pay­ing ME and not the other way around.

   Caveat emp­tor, indeed…

2. Hi Cliff,

   I don’t agree entirely, because there are legit con­tests and poetry makes no money for its pub­lish­ers, but your under­ly­ing sen­ti­ment is why I even­tu­ally stopped sub­mit­ting to con­tests alto­gether and pub­lished my first book with CavanKw­erry Press, which not only took no read­ing fees (though that may have changed by the time I write this, since they are over­whelmed by sub­mis­sions), but is com­mit­ted to publishing,I think, four or five first books a year.

3. Richard

   There are so many good poets and writ­ers out there — it seems almost impos­si­ble to have ones poetry even read (unless you have already been pub­lished or know someone).

   How­ever, I will take some­time and check out the site.

   Thanks

   bar­bara

4. Bar­bara–

   It is hard to get one’s work out there as a poet, not only because there are so many good poets, but also because there are so many peo­ple writ­ing poetry, period. Stacy Lynn Brown’s story, how­ever, is worth pay­ing atten­tion to because it sounds like Cider Review Press is prey­ing (and count­ing) on poets’ desire (if not, some­times, des­per­a­tion) to get our work out there. And if you were refer­ring, in your com­ment, to CavanKerry Press, I will only say that, as far as I know, all sub­mis­sions to that press are read and con­sid­ered, and they really are com­mit­ted to pub­lish­ing first book poets.

   Good luck with your work!

5. Thank you, I will look into it. I appre­ci­ate your reply.

   Bar­bara

6. Stacy Lynn Brown’s blog affords any clear minded reader with an under­stand­ing of why her pub­lish­ing rela­tion­ship with Cider Press Review did not work. Her com­ments there reflect a writer deeply in love with her­self and her opin­ions. I’m sure that if Cider Press chose to dis­agree with her demands in any sub­stan­tive way she saw that behav­ior as oppro­bri­ous. She is after all an “artist”, as is each of her legion of care­fully edited com­ment­ing sup­port­ers. Together they have decided to raise her ambigu­ous sta­tus from suc­cess­ful poet to mar­tyr. It’s a shame they insist on scan­dal­iz­ing a per­fectly good mag­a­zine in the process.

7. SaintLo:

   Thanks for post­ing. I had, frankly, for­got­ten about this post, but I do remem­ber think­ing, after read­ing another account of what hap­pened (per­haps in Poets & Writ­ers, but I am not sure), that there was more to the story. If I have time, I will go find the link to that other arti­cle. Again, thanks.