Hello my dear readers and writers,
I hope your day is peaceful and that you’ve found some time to stop and just breathe. At least it’s almost the weekend, right?
Lately I’ve been researching how to publish my poetry book. I still haven’t decided whether it will be a chapbook or a full-sized poetry book. Since I figured some of you may be publishing poetry too, or have already, I decided to share my findings.
Chapbook or not?
Poets & Writers’ Magazine shares with us in this article what the difference is between these two types of publications. A chapbook is usually 25 pages or less, and you can publish it yourself, or submit your chapbook manuscript to an anthology, etc. It can be a good foot in the door! This is what I’m going to try to do; I haven’t published a poetry book before so, I’m hoping my first book can be a good toes-dipping-in-the-water.
Here are some reasons you may want to choose a chapbook.
Is my manuscript ready?
How do you know when your poems are NOT ready? Well, it’s not that difficult, really. Katerina Klemer shares some obvious signs, such as: You’re always revising your poems, you know in your gut they’re not ready, all your poems ever written are in the manuscript.
When I was in college a decade or more ago, I took a Poetry II class even though I hadn’t taken Poetry I, somehow. And one of the things I learned fast when creating a manuscript was, not very many of my initial poems were going to get in the manuscript. They were wooden, with no emotion. They were too attached to rhyming. They didn’t express enough or at all, of what I wanted them to. They were too literal, too much like prose, just…rubbish. Not worthy of a poetry manuscript.
Looking through them, it was easy for me to see which ones belonged in my manuscript, and which didn’t.
How to submit
There are so many places to submit poetry, where to start? Here’s a little how-to guide, and some ideas where to submit your manuscript:
How to publish a poetry book
Where to submit the manuscript
Contest deadlines – calendar 2021
The book horrors
Here, Katerina gives a great description of what happens after your manuscript is accepted – she calls it “the book horrors”. Anxiety and chills overtake you; you’re scared, you’re bent over with anxiety, you can’t breathe. But then there’s a book launch party. Friends, family, strangeres, poetry aficionados, praise and congratulate you. You become strong again, and step out into the world owning your book, your creation. Your life is changed.
Wow, what a great-sounding feeling! I hope to achieve that. How about you?
Until next time,
Chaitanya
Typing Madly 