Hearing Eye is an independent poetry press based in Kentish Town, London. We have published over 150 books since our first publication, Cats' Parnassus by John Heath-Stubbs in 1987. Hearing Eye is a member of Inpress. 

In the interview below, Hearing Eye's Marketing Assistant, David Floyd answers a series of questions about Hearing Eye which poets and poetry readers may be interested in.

A full version of this interview appears in Issue 8 of Sphinx magazine.  

How (and why) did Hearing Eye come to be?

It began almost by accident when John Heath-Stubbs came and read at Torriano Meeting House in 1987. He read a sequence about death: death and the politician, death and the washerwoman etc. John Rety thought the sequence was very good and suggested to Heath-Stubbs that maybe it ought to be published. Not necessarily by him. But Heath-Stubbs misheard and in the next post, Rety received a manuscript called Cats Parnassus. It was only a few poems but when they were (some time later) beautifully illustrated by Emily Johns and finally published, Peter Levi reviewed it in The Times and that edition went into three printings within two months.

John Rety is both publisher and poet. But other people are involved? How does it work? Who are the ‘team’?

Hearing Eye operates as a fairly informal collective with John Rety and Susan Johns doing the majority of the day-to-day work, in terms of deciding which books to publish, editing and managing the publication process. They also run the readings at the Torriano. John and Susan’s daughter, Emily Johns, who is a respected artist, was initially responsible for most of the artwork and layout. Emily still works on some books but Martin Parker now does a lot of the design work and occasionally poets want to do their own layout. I myself am involved with various promotional activities such as running an email list and maintaining the website, as well coming up with promotional ideas and doing anything useful which I can fit in between my job and my own poetry ‘career’. No one has an ongoing paid job at Hearing Eye. Designers are paid for specific work but everyone else works voluntarily.

Where do the Torriano readings fit in?

When the regular readings started in the early ’80s there were (so John tells me) only two or three regular poetry venues in London. Even today Torriano still attracts an amazing range of readers, from big stars in poetry terms such as Les Murray, John Hegley, Dannie Abse and Mimi Khalvati, to people who have never read anywhere else before. The vast majority of Hearing Eye books have been by people who have read at Torriano, including many who’ve started off reading a poem from the floor and, a couple of years later, have ended up having a pamphlet published.

How hard do you find it to market poetry? What are the special challenges?

We expect poets to take a major role in marketing their books. I don’t think John would turn down a really good book on the basis that the author was either unwilling or unable to get out and do readings but if poets do want people to buy and read their books, the reality is that the only real marketing machine is the poets themselves. I generally market Hearing Eye itself rather than individual books. That involves things like sending out our email newsletter and developing our website—as well as coming up with ideas like the current pamphlet subscription scheme, which encourages people to make single payment of £20.00, for which they receive six pamphlet publications over the year. We do distribute our books with spines to the book trade through Central Books and Inpress but in most cases that’s a bonus top-up to direct sales rather than an alternative. As to the difficulty of marketing poetry, it all depends what you compare it to. Any small independent organization with limited resources would find it quite hard to market biscuits. The difference is that while millions of people might want your biscuits if they knew they existed, only people who either know the poet and/or really like poetry would want to buy the poems. So you’d only ever sell a few thousand copies even if you had a massive marketing budget. My ideas are mostly aimed at making it easy as possible for people who would like to buy our books to do so.

What about the Hearing Pamphlet subscription scheme?

We do not currently get any Arts Council support and we needed a way by which people who supported Hearing Eye could make a contribution to keep things going while also getting something for it. The take-up has been pretty good although we’re always keen for more people to subscribe. Pamphlets are very important in the sort of publishing we do. They’re a good vehicle for new poets who haven’t yet got enough material to publish a full collection and also for established poets who want to try something more experimental than their usual
work. We’ve published pamphlets by established poets such as Dannie Abse and John Heath-Stubbs, as well as new writers, some of whom have gone on to considerable success in book terms.

How do you choose the authors you publish? Do you take direct submissions and if so, in what format? Or do you approach poets you have ‘spotted’?

I would always advise poets against ‘cold’ submissions – either to us or any other poetry publisher that doesn’t explicitly ask for them. It’s similar odds to winning the lottery but you don’t make any money even if you win. Most poets we publish are part of Torriano’s wider circle — people who’ve come to read from the floor at a Torriano reading and gone on to be invited to do a feature reading or two, then been asked to submit a collection—or people that John or others have met on the poetry scene. Hearing Eye has published first collections by people ranging from their early-20s to their early-80s and doesn’t discriminate on any basis beyond expecting people to show some commitment to the craft of poetry (preferably by reading some books of new poetry) and some commitment to us (by turning up at our readings and/or buying some of our books).

Do you pay your authors?

In most cases, poets get several free copies of their book (which they can sell or give to family and friends) and then have the opportunity to buy further copies at a reduced price to sell. Poets don’t have to buy any copies to sell but if you don’t want to get out there and sell books at readings, there’s limited value (for anyone) in getting your book published by a small, independent poetry publisher. Sometimes, there are other arrangements too. Hearing Eye has published collections jointly with other publishers and organizations such as The Poetry School as well as local writers groups.

Is poetry publishing today—especially for independents—in a good state? Are you optimistic or threatened?

Hearing Eye is threatened in the sense that it’s heavily dependent on the skills and hard-work of John and Susan, who may not want (or be able) to carry on doing what they’re doing forever. I hope Hearing Eye would carry on in some form if they weren’t able to run it any more but it wouldn’t be the same. The cost of producing books on short print runs is limited so it’s far less precarious than running a football team or a professional theatre. And the fact that you know you’re more likely to sell tens than tens of thousands makes poetry publishing the most suitable form of publishing for independents who have no aspiration towards financial profit. Loads of people are running small presses. I generally think that’s a good thing—even when people are just publishing themselves and their mates. With cheap computers, Lulu, Amazon and other advances, starting a small press is quite easy. Keeping going for over 20 years and publishing nearly 200 good books and pamphlets, as John and Susan have done with Hearing Eye, is a different matter. That definitely takes a particular combination of skill, commitment and madness but I think there will always be some people who have that.

It’s sometimes suggested that more people want to write poetry than read it. What’s the Hearing Eye response to this?

My response is that I don’t know if it’s true and, if it is true, I don’t really have a problem with that. If people who don’t read poetry find it enjoyable or therapeutic to have a go at writing some, that’s absolutely fine. The problem comes when people who don’t read poetry expect publishers to put time and money into publishing what they’ve written. It almost goes without saying that poetry written by people who don’t read poetry is mostly useless. But more importantly, the main point of having poems published by a small publisher is to enter into a dialogue with other people who are interested in poetry. There’s no money in it and it’s a very limited kind of glory if you’re not motivated by sharing mutual respect with other poets. That said, I don’t think the fact that a large proportion of poetry readers are also writers is a bad thing. Most football fans also enjoy playing football in the park. And most poets who make a living from poetry get most of their money from teaching it. Ideally we’d like more people with a general interest.

What are you plans for the future?

John Rety is a consistent and principled opponent of both capitalist and communist obsessions with forward planning. I think the plan is basically that if there’s enough money in the bank to publish another book or pamphlet and there’s something he wants to publish, Hearing Eye will publish it. That’s obviously a bit of a challenge to the distributors’ reps.