A Step-by-Step Guide on How to Publish Your Poetry Book

A Step-by-Step Guide on How to Publish Your Poetry Book

Robert Frost” Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.”

Publishing a poetry book can be an exhausting and wearing task all in all. It is said that if a poet falls in love with you, you’ll live forever. When a reader reads a poet’s work, it can be admired for plenty of reasons; perhaps aesthetics, creativity, and intellectual prowess top the list. Writing poetry is tiring and can consume hours, turning days, yet publishing the piece of art can be pretty challenging, especially for budding and amateur poets.

Having the right approach is key to success in all kinds of ventures, be it poetry to pottery; you can achieve every milestone that you have aimed for. Here are a few factors to consider before contacting any publishers.

Table Of Content

• Understand Your Poetry Collection
• Write Quality Poetry
• Habit of Revising Your Poetry
• Point of Submission
• Acceptance & Contract
• Promotion
• DOs and DON’TS of Publishing
• Publishing Option
• Self-Publishing
• Traditional Publishing
• Conclusion

Understand Your Poetry Collection

Poetry is an art, and having the knack to understand one’s poetry is an art itself; the first key to how to publish poetry is having ample knowledge about it while there’s no such poet that has no understanding about it; this can vary from rhyming words to meanings and the authentic use of analogies in your piece of work weighs quite much.

Suggested Read: How to Write a Book While Working Full-Time

Write Quality Poetry

Well, this may sound entitled. Perhaps not every poet is a poet; this is a paradoxical statement, yet it has its true meaning. Every writer/poet on earth is under the impression that they write quite well. On the contrary, to fall under this category of published poets, there are a few characteristics to consider to be called one. For instance, the piece of poetry should make sense in every word. If a reader has missed out on the earlier line, he should get the hang of the previous ones through the one he reads at that moment. Does it make sense?

Habit of Revising Your Poetry

The golden rule is always to thoroughly revise your work not just once but at least a couple of times. This eradicates the chance of every minute mistake you might have made while in the flow of writing mojo; this can help make a crisp piece of writing and bring the best possible work to benefit in a self-publishing poetry book.

• Leave your poetry aside for some time and then come back to read it again with a fresh mind.
• Read your piece aloud; this helps in identifying grammatical errors and repetitive words portraying different analogies.
• Ask your colleagues and peers to give you feedback on your poetry; if everything aligns, you’re ready to publish your poem book.
• Lastly, reinforce the true intent of the poem. Your poetry becomes a must-read if it portrays the exact ideas you had while jotting them down.

Point of Submission

Prepare your poetry for all the platforms and forums you have in mind to submit; about now, you must have made ample corrections and revisions, and now you’re all set to publish a poetry book under your name. Get the formatting done, and you’re good to sail into the world of poetry. One thing you must keep in mind is that if the formatting is incorrect, the publishers may refuse to publish your poetry. A few things to ensure correct formatting can be:

• Using double spacing on a white paper with Times New Roman font
• Sigma rule, every poem should begin on a new page leaving one-inch margins from left and right.
• Always begin the title of the poem from the left-hand corner and the poet’s contact information in the right-hand corner.
• Lastly, reinforce the true intent of the poem. Your poetry becomes a must-read if it portrays the exact ideas you had while jotting them down.
• Number your poem’s pages in a sequence.
• Ensure to save your working file in PDF form as well.

Research goes into all types of professions, and so is with poets; market research begin marketing can play a vital role in the succession of poetry’s publication. You may want to consider a few literary agents to get you through this troublesome process for a nominal fee; they may also be able to give you apt feedback for your poetry and find ways to enhance your writing abilities and how you can improve it on every attempt. However, there’s a higher probability for publishers to publish poetry directly through independent authors’/writers/poets.

Visit a bookstore close to your vicinity

You may want to have a look at similar poetry collections to yours and see their writing styles and, most importantly, who published those books to have an idea if they’d be willing to get you onboard.

Use some online resources:

There are numerous platforms you can look up online about who can publish your poetry, like Amazon , Lulu, Kobo inc, CreateSpace, etc. The Internet is filled with all the helpful resources you want to use.

Join a writing group

This helps a ton in brainstorming different ideas, streamlining them, and channelizing them for better use. You may have a different approach to a subject and vice-versa for other writers, and this can prove to be fruitful as having a different perspective on the same topic can broaden your horizon in no time. This activity can also help in connecting you to different publishers to find out about their needs in-depth, and a few literary agents, or might get you a chance for your poem book publishing.

Poetry submission

Now that you have already researched quite a lot about the market trends, needs, and the type of content the publishers require from poets. You’re all set to set your feet in the field of literary journals and waste no time getting started with it. Just ensure to follow all the guidelines a publishing platform wants you to; guidelines follow may vary from one publishing to another. Some of the rudimentary guidelines that remain unchanged for all publishings are as follow;

• Follow the submission guidelines of the chosen publisher.
• Only submit your work; no need to incorporate comments or personal opinions.
• Follow the etiquettes of submission, do not try to pull antics like submitting refused poems.
• Submit your poem with a precise cover letter incorporating each and every detail that has been requested by the respective publisher.

After all the labor of your hard work concludes in submission, take a deep breath and wait for the feedback. Awaiting feedback can be immensely exhausting, but the possibility of successful publishing may be a sigh of relief. It is not necessary that feedback must always be in indie authors favor 100% of the time. It can also lead to refusal. Perhaps this may lead to quite many improvements that you may need to look into to have a successful self publishing company.

Acceptance & Contract

Once you’re accepted for publishing poetry online, you will be notified via an email with a contract with all the terms and conditions mentioned specifying your rights as an author and the publisher as an owner of that content. Before signing any contract, go through all the clauses carefully, and you should mutually agree to all the terms in case you do not face any inconvenience.

Promotion

Once you’ve been through the entire process of poem book publishing, you’re free to promote your work on all possible social media platforms and let people know that your book is publicly available to be purchased. Some traditional ways of promoting your poetry book are

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter
• Attend events like public speaking to have more access to the public, where you can talk briefly about your publishing poetry and target readers directly.
• Reach out to fellow poets and get their feedback in return with a small shoutout on social forums.
• Reap some benefits with personalizing web presence that you can easily get with any
  author website design service.

DOs and DON’TS of Publishing

Keeping in mind how to publish a poetry book, there are certain DOs and DONT to be aware of prior while you write your poetry-published piece.

Take a look at all the do’s to incorporate into publishing poetry.

Write a lot of poems

Embarking on the journey of a poet, to become a fine poet, one must write hundreds of poems to be able to deliver a few impeccable ones that may change the history of the literary community, and the destiny of the writing career of a poet. Pick your strongest, finest, and the one you can swear by to publish.

Keep one writing style

Once you start writing, you may figure out your own writing style, which is one unique point of each author/poet, and stick with it throughout. This helps every published poet to be distinguished from others.

Compile and organize your poems

Strike a balance in your poems and organize them in a sequence by placing the best ones first and then followed by the others while having a correlation with each other.

Edit your poem collection

Do all the needful corrections and carefully edit the manuscript repetitively time after time before self-publishing the poetry.

Design your poetry pages

The interior of poetry weighs a lot for an aesthetic appeal. From formatting pages to designing the entire book, a poet has to be extremely creative. After descriptively talking about all the DOs, let us walk y’all through the DON’TS ensuring to keep away from them.

Look through all the possibilities of errors

Even the finest and the most experienced writers sometimes need help to identify their mistakes and typos. It is highly recommended to do revision a few times to be able to eradicate errors.

Don’t shy away from jotting your thoughts

The true essence of poetry lies in the context of the poetry and how willing the poet is to open up to his audience.

Don’t keep your book unnecessarily long

Readers get bored when the book unnecessarily looks, and it bores readers; chances are you might lose genuine and potential readers in that bet.

Don’t try to be trendy forcefully

In trying ways to look trendy, you may miss out on your own unique essence as a poet. As a result, this may kill your innovation.

Never forget your target audience

Always remember your audience that your poetry is a medium to communicate to them; keep your collection intact, keeping your persona in mind.

Publishing Options

There are many ways of publishing your book as a poet; perhaps there are two best ways of publishing them.

• Self-publishing
• Traditional Publishing/Commercial Publishing

Self-Publishing

Self-publishing is a process where the author/poet goes through the entire publishing process himself, which includes publishing, editing, proofreading, formatting, and designing the entire book layout by himself, which is a crucial task in itself for self published authors. All of these steps are done without any help from a publisher or a publishing company, solely through their own resources.

Let’s discuss the benefits of Self-Publishing.

Creative control: When you know how to self-publish a poetry book, you may be able to retain control of your own book more than any publisher as a middleman. All the commercial poetry publishers will take ownership of your content, the book cover, page, and in fact, the title.

Increased Royalty rates: With a traditional publisher, the royalty rate can vary from 7% going up to 25% all the way, and if you’re an independent author, they might jack up to 70%. This means you’re losing money at the hands of the publishers for publishing poetry books that belong to you.

Minimal waiting: Once you have gone through the process of proofreading and formatting, you will likely want to see them in the online bookstore as soon as possible. The time that comes with a sellable product can be between a couple of days to a week, whereas an online file can be uploaded within 6 hours.

A chance to be known by yourself: Nobody can become a bestseller or a big publisher in the publishing industry overnight; everything comes through time and hard work. The worst scenario would be driving traffic or readers to your content as a first-timer to publishing journey merely to get attention. Perhaps once you have, there may be many publishers who would want to collaborate in the future.

Cons of Self-Publishing

Less visibility: As a budding or self-publishing author, it may be a tough task to draw attention to your book initially, and you may struggle to retain the audience. Readers heavily rely on the validation associated with certain book publishers.

Increased costs: For self-publishing authors, every cost has to be upfront, like editing, marketing, printing, etc., whereas for traditional publishers, all the costs are divided in the business.

Nobody to back you: Self-publishing means everything needs to be done single-handedly; a publishing company may have an army to help out at every step. Perhaps self-publishers may not have that luxury.

Traditional Publishers

Traditional Publishers are those who print and publish content by collaborating with different authors solely for profit. It may include magazines, books, newspapers, etc.

Pros of Traditional Publishing

No upfront costs: Commercial publishers don’t charge authors a dime; they provide them the attention of potential readers and draw traffic towards their publishing to do business. In some cases, publishers may offer some advance compensation that may be reaped later through high royalties.

Enhanced credibility: Big publishers have a name and prestige for themselves in the market and among the audience, which gives them the validation of being authentic and worthy of a read resulting in more profit through sales.

Industry know-how: Publishers know exactly what to sell and how to sell their product to their audience; they know what their targeted audience looks for and comes after. So if a good publisher is collaborating with you, you’re in good hands.

Validation: Writers most often publish without looking into the feedback of the first few readers; having a concrete signed contract allows an author and validates to go ahead with the publishing, which means it’s good enough to be a self published book.

Cons of Traditional Publishers

Losing rights: This is the most grievous issue for most writers; once you have signed up with a publisher, you lose all the rights to them, from amendments in the book to the cover page. Everything has to be decided by them, and an author cannot sell, publish or reclaim his own book.

Unforeseen delays: The path to the collaboration of being published through well-known publishers can be painfully slow; days can turn into months even after submitting the first draft, which can be agonizing.

Contradiction with opinions: Having many people onboard may have many opinions, and they might collide with each other creating disagreements on different steps. This can make the publishing process even more difficult.

CONCLUSION

Be it Self-publishing or Traditional Publishing of your poetry book, it has its own pros and cons; the author must weigh his scenario and the milestone one has in mind and should plan accordingly.

Whichever method one opts for should be ready to dive in with an open mind and should be readily willing to see the outcome. Whether you choose to go with Self-Publishing or Traditional Publishing, a good writer cannot be kept away from his audience, readers find their authors wherever they are and vice versa.

Have faith in your skills and get started with it today; if you have it in you, nobody can stop you from being the best author/poet of poetry editors in the future. Now that you know where to publish poems online and how to self-publish poetry, now is the best time to dive into it and get started with it already!