Should I self-publish my poetry?

Hello, All,

In my search for a book publisher of poetry, I have become frustrated because a great deal of the publishers I have seen only want "literary" poetry and poems I usually don't write. I write traditional, inspirational poems. I had a poetry chapbook that I self-published that's up on Amazon, but it hasn't been selling too well.

People I have shared my poetry with keep asking for a new poetry book, but I don't know if I should self-publish my poems or go through a POD. I know I definitely don't want to take the e-book route.

Still, I can't find many publishers with reasonable fees for even this!

Should I just do it myself? I know it'll cost more money, but I'd hate to leave all of my poetry packed away in boxes. It's hard to find magazines that publish their kind, too, and I've been using nonpaying poetry forums to see what kind of feedback I receive on them

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

--Dawn

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Self-publisning poetry can be quite cheap if you buy your own ISBN number and go straight to a printer. First get independent opinions on the poetry and have it throughly proof read and then send free review copies to *everybody*.

Thanks

Thanks for that input.

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My own post needed a bit of proof-reading

There are print-on-demand companies that specialise in poetry but I don't trust them. I would recommend a not-too-thin volume with quality colour covers and perfect binding. Make it look classy. If you have an ISBN number you can used amazon.com etc.

Poetry

There's nothing particularly cheap about an ISBN. You have to buy a block of ten numbers.

Self-publishing poetry

I would love to think that self-publishing is a wonderful way to get our many great poems and ideas out to move and help others, entertain them and reach their souls. I don't think, though, that laying out a large amount of money is the way to do that. Maybe I don't know enough about it but I, too, am gathering quite a collection of specialized poetry myself, actually helping myself deal with a progressive, fatal disease. It is touching and not gushy and I would love to publish it and think it helped someone else but I just wouldn't do it through this self-financed route. Any ideas, folks?

Financing the self-publishing

catmom: Good luck to you in getting through your disease. I would love to read your poetry.

But the financing question is a good one. You'd think all those self-published authors out there are millionaires! I can't afford $5,000 to self-publish my books. (An actual price quote from shopping around.) Or the $2500 down. Any ideas on how to finance self-publishing??

Re: Financing the self-publishing

I think you've been looking at the wrong publishers if they want $2500 or more but getting a book published doesn't mean people are going to buy it.
I self-published my first book "A Poet's Last Stand" last year. It was released in Sept. The book's website www.apoetslaststand.com didn't even get listed with all of the search engines, Yahoo, Google, MSN, ect. until July.
So far around 200 copies have been sold, most of them by word of mouth from those that have read it.
Poetry is a tough subject to sell. I have a running joke with one of my editors that I can change or even save another person's life with a single poem but I'm not a good salesman.
To date over 30 people have decided to quit drinking with the help of one poem, "There was a Man" and at least a dozen have found the strength not to take their own life with the help of "5 single Words."
Before you go any farther with getting your writing published I think you really have to stop and define what you want to accomplish.

Re: Financing the self-publishing

Thanks, amayhem.

The $2500 is actually from a price quote I got from a self-publishing company. It's the first of 3 payments that total $5,800. What company did you go through? How much did it cost? Right now, I'm only shopping around for the best deal. I'm not exactly a millionaire. (Not yet, anyway! )

The reason I want to publish my poetry into little booklets: People and family asking for them. They keep writing to me and saying how much they LOVED my first book and want to see more. I'm not expecting to get rich and famous from this!

Sure I could do it all myself a la Kinko's (that's how I published a magazine!), but I'd like to use color cover and that costs more $$$.

Take care!

--Dawn

Self-Publishing Poetry

I edit a small press literary magazine, and I have had my poetry published in numerous small press magazines as well as some larger press magazines. I write a great deal of traditional, Christian poetry, though I would not call it "inspirational" (that implies more of an upbeat quality, which does not define my work). Yes, book publication in this case is hard--book publication in any case, for a poet, is hard. Most poets start out by publishing a chapbook, which means you enter chapbook contests, which means you pay entry fees of $10-$25. It can get costly. There are some traditional publishers for books of poetry, but the competition is fierce. As a small press editor, I can tell you this--I think more people WRITE poetry than READ poetry.

I've decided not to bother with the idea of publishing a book of poetry, and to concentrate instead on the magazine market. Just about any editor can tell you, that for the most part, poetry doesn't sell. Those who publish poetry do so for love, not for money. The same goes for poets. With all my magazine credits, I've never earned more than $20 for a single poem.

If you just want to put your work in print so you can share it with friends and family, why not consider formatting it yourself using a desktop publishing program and then getting a 100 or so copies printed up at a local copy shop? You could get perfect binding and it would look as good as any chapbook, and should run you no more than $2-$3 a book. Don't publish a book just to publish a book. If it's friends and family who want to read your work--you can provide it at much lower cost to yourself. And, you may want to consider not publishing your book at all--because some magazines will not even consider previously published material. You may want to "save" your best poems for submissions to magazines.

The inspirational market does exist, though it is not large. A market for traditional, rhymed verse exists also, but again, it is small. But it DOES exist. However, as an editor, I can tell you good traditional verse is very hard to come by; most poets who use rhyme seem to have no sense of meter or to use rhyme in a jarring, obtrusive manner.

You can check out my Resources for Writers page, which includes many religious markets, as a starting point in your search for magazines in your market:

www.literatureclassics.co...urces.html

Re: Self-publishing poetry

Thanks, skylar!

I notice Able Muse is on that list. I submitted to them months ago but never got a reply. Also, looking at their Web site, it shows Summer 2003 as last publication.

I'm really beginning to think that paying a ton of money to self-publish is not a good idea if it's poetry. Poetry is very hard to sell (look at my first book! Only ten copies sold since 1993 publication!). Yes, you can market the heck out of your poetry books, but the bottom line is that people are very "iffy" with poetry. I should just print them myself and sell them myself, thereby gauranteeing refunds in the event books are returned to me. I'm learning all I can about self-publishing and the mechanics of registering for copyright, ISBN, LCCN and LOC CIP. Again, I'm not expecting to make millions from these books; my goal is to safely share my poetry (having it copyrighted) and make people happy from it. Whether I do that through Kinko's or by a professional book printer is still up in the air. I just don't want to spend a ton of money to do it with.

Take care!

--Dawn

Re: Self-publishing poetry

The copyright should only cost you $30. I'm not sure what the ISBN fee is, but it can't be too high. You'll also have to deposit the required number of copies (two?), so that will cost a little. Since vanity presses don't do any real marketing or distribution for you anyway, I'd just go with a standard, lower-cost printer. However, before you publish a book at all, you might want to try to build your list of literary magazine publication credits first. It takes about 10-15 rejections for every acceptance to a literary magazine, I'd estimate.

Re: Self-publishing poetry

The ISBN for my chapbook cost $50 and copyrighting that collection cost $30. Luckily though, I won a contest at Shadow Poetry where the prize was chapbook publication plus $100. They covered the cost of publishing the chapbook, but I had to pay for the ISBN and copyright. However, having won the $100, I just used that money to pay for it.

Here's a link that you may want to check out: www.poetrytodayonline.com/page7.html
There are a couple of articles about self-publishing a chapbook that you may find helpful.

Also: celaine.com/little_poem_press_info.html
It's small and new and I don't know that much about it, but it couldn't hurt to check it out.

My chapbook was published by Shadow Poetry, but like I said before, I was lucky enough to win a contest. Otherwise, it would've cost me around $300.

Hope some of my info was helpful. Good luck.

Re: Self-publishing poetry

Thank you, missluckypenny.

I am going to enter Shadow Poetry's next contest. I'm in the process of sending poems "everywhere" (even to England!) to get some publishing credits. Of course after a year of doing this, I have a nice collection of rejection slips, but I know I must keep trying.

Some self-publishers I've checked out have offered to include the cost of an ISBN in their plans, while some leave it up to the author.

I'm still considering the self-publishing route. But, yes, I'm trying to get my poems published on- and offline, too.

Have a great day!

--Dawn

Check out these services.

Hello, I've been reading your thread and thought I'd mention a few options for self- publishing POD. Check out Lulu.com and checkout Instant publisher.com. Lulu is free and you get royalties, whereas InstantPublisher you pay for the production of your books, but it seems very reasonable. I just published my first collection @ Lulu.com. Email me if I can help.

email address

sorry, my email address. is [email protected]

Poetry Magazines

As far as submitting poetry to be published and/or promoted by magazines I like Poetic Voices, www.poeticvoices.com - They have published three articles I have written and will include my poem "Dates" in their October Issue. There also is The Poetry Sharings Journal. They have included eight or nine of my poems in their monthly editions. It's sent out to around 20,000 people.
Getting and keeping your poetry out in the eye of the public is not easy but VERY important if you are planning on putting out a book.

Lulu

I have not heard very good things about Lulu.com ......

What have you heard?

What have you heard about Lulu?

Re: What have you heard?

I have heard that the charges for the fee is "absolutely outrageous" (someone else's words), that you don't publish with ISBN numbers (which I would have to get on my own, anyway) and that it's hard to get any of your books into bookstores. Dot-com publishers are basically seen as vanity presses so that hurts the reputation. I have also heard that you request writers use your own ISBN, which would then mean that YOU own the book, and that you "lowball" writers. You'll notice Lulu.com is also on the Bewares Board.

Re: What have you heard?

I have heard that their site and service has recently been overhauled, or so to speak.

I actually chose not to get an ISBN just yet, but may add one later. My goal was/is to have a book of my poetry produced at minimal cost.

They do offer 2 ISBN services, a "Basic" service for $35 and an "ISBN Plus" service for $99.

What these services do is give you a scanable barcode and get your book listed in Books in Print.
The Plus service also gets you listed in Ingram's database, so stores can order them wholesale.

Their fees don't seem too bad, especially considering I don't need to spend a penny out of pocket to get my book published.

It is explained on this page of their site:

www.lulu.com/themes/home/...#basicisbn

I DO NOT WORK FOR LULU, NOR DO I GET ANYTHING FROM REFERRALS.

I checked several options, Iuniverse, 1stBooks, and others and found this was the best for me, that's all. This was the easiest way for me to get something in print with little (or in my case, no) cost.

I chose lulu for myself, because I didn't (and still don't) have money to lay out for books that may or may not sit and collect dust in my closet. I figure, If I have to lay out a couple hundred bucks for a "set up fee", I need to move a lot of product in order to break even.


I am waiting for a copy of my own book. Should probably arrive later this week. I'll comeback and comment on the quality when it arrives. If it's a rip-off, I be the first to say so, trust me.

Getting books into stores is completely another story. I think that we, as self-publishers, will have the same difficulty regardless of who we chose to do the actual production of our books. I think it can be done, but it will be difficult.

I was a personal manager for several independent bands and music artists for a few years and I know how tough it was to get stores to carry indie music cd's, barcodes and all. I have 600 CD's of an extremely talent (but now defunct) band sitting in my garage, a year and a half after the initial release.
It seems to me that Indie publishing might be the same game with a different product.

Self-publishing

Don't plan on getting a POD book carried by any bookstores, they won't. The cost per book makes it impossible to sell the books and make a profit for them since they work on usually a 50-100% markup ratio.

Re: Self-publishing

That's pretty much what i figured too. The only way I figure that would work would be if you could buy a bulk order from the manufacturer, at a discount (which some will do) and then try to get some carried by a local store on consignment in conjunction with an appearance. (I have had some CD's placed at a couple Barnes and Noble stores that way, but I had a great relationship with the right store managers who had the authority to allow that).

But you're right, I wouldn't expect anything wide-spread. They prefer to play with the Big Boys.:hat After all, it is business.

Re: Self-publishing

Bookstores normally don't carry POD books because POD publishers usually have a "no return" policy and the stores end up with a surplus of books they can't sell.

I'd definitely want to have an ISBN for my book, though. As a self-publisher, that would be my job to obtain.

I'd like to keep an eye on Lulu, though, before committing to them. See if their reputation improves and all.

There's also a company I found called Wasteland Press and their prices for chapbooks seems reasonable.

What about InstantPublisher

Have you checked out InstantPublisher? They are about the best priced book printer I have found. They have an online instant quote system that is pretty neat. Their website is www.instantpublisher.com