Tips on Publishing Poetry or Story Chapbooks

At the advent of chapbooks, pedlers sold them to folks who did not have formal libraries. They were an inexpensive form of entertainment for the masses, and an inexpensive form of delivery of words for the literary artists. These days, there are all sorts of publishing schemes available to writers. Some of them are pricey, and others are relatively inexpensive. Determining your need to publishing a chapbook requires three aspects to ponder:

Publication objective
Size of audience
Size of publication

Publication Objective

If your goal is to become a best seller of your writings, perhaps a chapbook is not the way to go, but if what you're aiming to sell is fairly small, conventional book publishers will not usually be interested. You might consider trying to sell your works to several literary magazines and such. On the flip side, if you are a prolific writer and have some novels in the works or have larger compilations ready for publication, you could try publishing a chapbook to get the word out about your craft.

Size of Audience

Now, if you are aiming to achieve national recognition, you will most definately want to submit your works, query letter and all, to conventional publishers. Chapbooks will help you, though, if you are trying to reach a local audience. This is not to say that a chapbook cannot garner wider attention, especially with the the Internet; however, if you just want to get in touch with the people in your area, a chapbook will definately be sufficient.

Size of Publication

Chapbooks are relatively small. Usually, they are less than 50 pages in length, though a few of them are a bit longer, and many of them are shorter. If you have a 30,000 word manuscript, your best bet is to market it as a novella. Poetry and short stories are usually what chapbooks are best suited for.

Ways to Publish

1. Self-publish at home. Chapbooks don't have to be complicated publications with a pretty glossy cover. Some card stock, printing paper, software, the right stapler and a good printer can get you started.

2. Print-on-Demand. POD publishers such as Lulu, will let you publish your book for a low to no cost. The trick with them, though, is that any time somone wants to buy your book, they will have to go through the publisher's website. Also, buying your chapbooks in bulk can be relatively more expensive, but on the flip side, you might pay absolutely nothing if you're just telling your friends and following where to buy your chapbook.

3. Find an actual chapbook publisher. They are out there. They are usually very small, and getting accepted by them can be tough. You should most definately check out the market and find a chapbook publisher who publishes works that fall in line with the type of stuff you are trying to publish.

4. Find a self-publishing company. You can order books to sell through some of these companies, and sometimes, they will do some type of marketing for you, unline POD's.

Distrubution of these books is not usually a national or world wide endeavor. Many poets use their chapbooks as an introduction to their writings, but even then, a poet needs to get the word out about his/her book.

10 Ways to Promote Your Chapbook

1. Contact small book stores in your local area to see if they will carry a few of your chapbooks on consignment.

2. Hold readings at book stores and other literary events and keep several of your chapbooks on hand for people to purchase.

3. Create a website about the kind of writing you do and sell your chapbook on the site.

4. Submit your chapbook to contests which will allow for previously published chapbooks, or submit new chapbook manuscripts to these contests.

5. If you belong to a writing group, be sure to tell your fellow group mates about your recent success. Tell them how they can purchase a copy of your chapbook.

6. Send out press releases to local newspapers.

7. You can also donate your chapbooks to libraries and other organizations.

8. Create a signature at the bottom of your e-mails that points people to the URL where they can purchase a copy of your chapbook.

9. Also create signatures that have the chapbook URL at the bottom of any message your post in any forum.

10. Consider your chapbook, no matter how simple it was to publish, a true success. When you type up your bio for other writing endeavors, or for websites, be sure to say, "Author of the chapbook "name of chapbook."