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  • Samuel Smith

About Poetry Chapbooks

11/11/2013

3 Comments

 
Poetry chapbooks, are on average about 25 pages, give or take a few pages, and are typically saddle bound. Generally, when gathering poems for a poetry chapbook, you would choose poems from your poetry collection, which are based upon a similar theme, such as love, spiritualality, humor ect. 

The normal contents for a chapbook include a table of contents, an acknowledgements page, the chosen poems and an author's biography. The acknowledgements should include the names of your poems which were previously published and where they were published. Poetry chapbooks are an excellent way to represent a collection of your best works, such as Poems that have been accepted for publication or have won prizes.

Regardless of the material you choose to publish in your chapbook, there are no rules as to what constitutes the contents. Over all, it is best to stick with a theme, but they may contain a varied array of topics, whatever you choose to use, consider the overall mood. You could use an epic poem, to tell a story throughout the chapbook. Maintaining some sort of organization with the placing of your poems is key, because you want to keep the reader interested.

Once you place the organization of your poems, read through it and see how well it flows. Reading a poem aloud is a great technique to help decide how well it flows. One way to differentiate your best poems from all the rest is by feedback. Was the poem chosen for publication in a journal? What type of comments did you receive from readers? Always pick your best poem as the first poem to be placed in your chapbook. 


Keep the number of poems per page to one. You want to make sure each poem receives the attention it deserves. Use a sans serif font for your body like Garamond or Minion and a Serif font is recommended for the title font. Publishing a chapbook of poetry is a good way to inexpensively share your poetry with friends, family, fans, and poets alike.

Normal pricing for chapbooks will run about 5 to 10 dollars each. If you are looking for publication with a large or a small press, arranging a chapbook for submission is a good place to begin. Many small presses and literary magazines will accept unsolicited manuscripts in lieu of contests held for chapbook publication. 


Still, regardless of being accepted for publication by a large or a small press, the author should expect to volunteer his or her own time into the marketing as well. 12 pt. is a nice size font for poetry books, for most fonts like Times New Roman. Be consistent with the design of your book, such as the spacing between the title of the poem, the body of the poem and number your pages, making sure the page numbers match the table of contents. You can use 1' margins all the way around. 

The best size book to self-publish is 6 x 9, as this is the most widely accepted book size by distributors. Proofread your manuscript several times. Chapbooks are a smart way to display the best of your poetry. You can include a photograph of yourself on the back cover, with a biography, or a description of the book. 


If you are interested in Self-Publishing a poetry chapbook you can contact us at: shoestringpublishing4u@gmail.com

3 Comments
Travis Hall
4/4/2020 12:58:16 pm

This was very educational.

Reply
phyllis segura
6/7/2020 11:19:52 pm

Do you realize that the information you are giving here about fonts is completely incorrect. Garamond and Minion are serif fonts. I don't know what else is incorrect but if you can't get that right I have no confidence in the rest.

Reply
Erica R link
1/8/2021 04:47:04 am

Hello mate greatt blog post

Reply



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