Here is some of the e-mail he sent me, he said it was okay to post here....
>> Hey Peter,
> Or should I call you Mr Publisher?!?!?!
>
> It suddenly dawned on me as I was opening the book...
> Why didn't you say anything?
> Nifty little production by the way,
> I hope you are still in the business,
> You are obviously very talented.
Thanks for the kind words. I haven't done much publishing since the late 80s when my kids made the transition from talent to solid food.
But it's true I published that book. And owing to various difficulties including not finding enough of those little dollhouse door knobs, the collapse of my publishing empire, losing my day job and other things, a few copies of the book never got circulated and that's how I was able to send you one--it's been warehoused for 20 years. I still have 1 or 2 that came back from bookstores damaged or from wrong addresses and such, and one other pretty good one that I posted on Amazon yesterday. After that, there's no more where they came from.
I ran into the photographer Michael Montfort at the post office in Hollywood when I was mailing one of the books, and he told me Bukowski loved it and had just shown it to him at his house. But I didn't talk to Bukowski about it after the book came out, because after it came out John Martin took umbrage and felt that it violated his lifelong deal with Bukowski, and suddenly I was negotiating with Martin and I don't remember Bukowski entering into the discussion.
I had developed cordial relations w/ Bukowski through publishing many of his poems in various littles magazines before that, and from having hooked him up with my friend Patrick Roth who made the first feature film from Bukowski's work, a pilot for German TV I think (Bukowski appeared in it, kind of like Alfred Hitchcock introducing the story. After its premiere in Hollywood I never heard anything else about it but it was quite good. I think the story was called "The Killers".)
As I started publishing books I would ask Bukowski if he'd care to do a chapbook of some kind but he always said no until one day he said yes. But somehow, in making the deal with Bukowski, I flew sideways around John Martin. His lifetime contract with Bukowski was not yet legendary. In other words I had been a fool rushing in where angels feared to tread. So Martin wouldn't let Bukowski sign the endsheets.
I put the book out anyway, having already gone to the expense of printing it. Martin asked me to send him 10% of of the edition (i.e., about 25 copies) so that he could sell them to his best customers with Bukowski's signature on them, and both of my kneecaps are intact to this day.
> Thanks again,
> And I hope to hear from you,
> Eric (here is a great forum, I would think you could contribute some
> valuable knowledge.... Click here: Charles Bukowski
That's a great site--had never seen it.
The manuscripts section reminded that I published and accepted some poems from Bukowski in the 70s and 80s whose eventual fate I never learned. A couple of them I never did get around to publishing, and some may not have ended up in books. I'm not enough of a Bukowski scholar to know.
I published a magazine in 1980 called "Orpheus" whose first issue included a 4-page solid unindented virtually unpunctuated slab of primo Bukowski from 1978. When I Googled the title just now, which is "kuv stuff mox out," I expected to see what book it got reprinted in but there are no references to it. I sold the manuscript for $100 about 10 years ago in a state of desperation, a state which has lasted to this day despite the hundred bucks. But I do have a couple of copies of the issue which I'm now inspired to put on eBay.
> You know you could have gotten a lot more for A Visitor ____
> If you said that you were the publisher and the book was uncirculated
> etc.
> (I even see a copy on ABE where the price is jacked up $100 because
> you signed it)
That I didn't know. I signed it? Hmm. I do remember someone asking me to sign one. I think it was a local bookseller to whom I also sold a Bukowski mss. That's pretty exciting. Right now, even if I signed a check for $100 it wouldn't be worth $100. But as I say, I'll think of something.
> I hope you asked more on Amazon, I haven't checked.
I think I listed it at $200. I'm not really clear on how that works so I don't know what their cut is or whether I have to sell it if they find a buyer.
> You ought to introduce yourself on that Buk forum,
> I am sure you would find many buyers,
> And certainly many ears.
Ears I don't need. As for buyers, I don't need many more of them either as I handed over most of my archives to USC Special Collections and don't have much left to sell. I do uncover things once in awhile.
Every time I drive past Bukowski's childhood house, which is in a strangely invisible and out-of-the-way pocket of L.A., neither Hollywood nor Southcentral nor Westside, I wonder if someone should buy it and start a Bukowski museum. A syndicate of concerned fans.
> Looking at this book, man,
> The world certainly is unfair
> If you aren't currently publishing.
This was all before the internet. It would be easier now to communicate w/ one's niche audience for such books. So I might start up again someday. On the other hand, In those days I made a living as a typesetter and printing broker so I had access to the means of production but now, with everybody doing their own graphics and printing, those skills are not in demand and it would cost me more out-of-pocket. The list price for the series of books that included Visitor was something like $15.
> I've heard that John Martin is a prick.....
I would have preferred that he take up his issue with Bukowski instead of me. What he paid his lawyers to shake me down could have been put to better use in some other way. But that was my only contact with him. I'm in the middle of putting on eBay a long Bukowski poem I published in 1980 that includes this: "...I don't even use a major commercial publisher and I used to live off of one nickle candy bar a day typewriter in hock I printed my stuff with a pen and it came back..." So obviously John Martin had a role to play and played it well. Here, I'll attach to this the scan I made for eBay.
Okay, I am totally in awe, maybe it's just me (probably just me) but how depressing is this?!,... ANybody else out there have a copy of this title? If not, quick, go to Amazon!
