When it comes to marketing and promotion, these much-used terms, it will depend largely on the poet. The Garlic Press authors are mainly near at hand so there will be a local launch, to which the publisher comes and contributes some wine. And after that, the poet, if he or she does more readings, can get copies at cut price and sell them on to readers. There’s no pressure to be a best-seller. The primary aim is to share these poems with receptive readers.

Garlic Press pamphlets are not sold on Amazon, or a Garlic Press website, though they have ISB numbers and are properly registered and deposited in the copyright libraries. This is a labour of love, not a commercial enterprise. But you can have a copy of any of them (a list will follow and each one costs £5.00 including postage) by writing to:

Michael Laskey,
Goldings,
Goldings Lane,
Leiston,
Suffolk IP16 4EB

or emailing him on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

More poets could do this kind of thing: set up small enterprises editing and publishing and sharing poems they believe in. It’s the grass roots of reading and sharing. It is, as Michael Laskey says, such a pleasure talking and working on poems.

Garlic Press Pamphlets (price includes p&p)
           
Irresistible to Women by Dean Parkin (2003) £3.50
Hooks Working Loose by Margaret Easton (2007) £5
Just Our Luck by Dean Parkin (2008) £5
Meeting the Pilgrimage Halfway by Martin Hayden (2010) £5
Slowing the Afternoon Down by David Healey (2010) £5
Catching My Own Drift by Philip Rush (2012) £4
The Self-Forgetting Place by Rob Lock (2013) £5
You Might Have Said by Marjorie Carter (2015) £5
Reading Through the Night by Jenifer Smith (2015) £5