Tracking down chaps

Tried to order my friend Jeff Hardin's chapbook, Deep in the Shallows, to teach in my intro CW course this fall. They're sold out. I'm glad I have a copy, and that we got one for the Stadler Center's library. GreenTower Press did a fine job on this book (it's even hand-sewn) and I wish they could find the moolah to run a second printing.

Ended up ordering Jeff's second chap, The Slow Hill Out, though Pudding Press (which cranks out a helluva lot of chapbooks--too many, IMHO) says it will take "several weeks" to get them.

And another chap, Sophie Wadsworth's Letters from Siberia, is proving difficult to order in quantity (I only need fifteen copies): Comstock Review Press offers limited payment options, so I don't know yet if I'm gonna get this one.

Other presses make ordering a breeze: Kent State even provides me with desk copies when I ask for them. But really small presses, too, seem to manage their book orders well: Ander Monson's New Michigan Press (I'm teaching Michael Sowder's A Calendar of Crows again; it's a great "starter book" for my intro class), for example. And last year I ordered Betsy Sholl's wonderful Coastal Bop from Oyster River Press and had no problems; I'm using it again this year.

Hey, folks: take a good look at how the other guys are doing this. Poets want our books to sell with as little hassle as possible.