How can someone go about getting a collection of poems published? Your work is amazing and inspired me to get back into writing for myself!
bribery
whining a lot
getting drunk with influential people and extracting promises that you demand fulfillment of when they are sober and regretful
sorry! i think i am funny sometimes. also, thank you so much for the compliment! i get the nicest anons, i swear.
on to the srs bsns part of your question.
you have two paths here: traditional publishing and self-publishing. traditional publishing is, to be frank, not going to fly unless you already have a large following. this is capitalism’s fault which is why we all need to vote for bernie sanders in the 2016 election, by which i mean that a traditional publisher needs to see that you’re worth the investment/your work will sell in a way pleasing to the accountants. look at lang leav or clementine von radics: they became well-known on social media, which lead to traditional publishing contracts with ‘mainstream’ publishers (as opposed to, say, a university press). even winning a contract through smaller presses can be nigh on impossible without a social media following (read: built-in ready-made group of book buyers). the fuckin’ economy: whaddya gonna do?
(i think now would be a good time to remind everyone that while i am a poet, i am not a bullshitter, and i apologize in advance for any dream-smashing that may have just taken place.)
self-publishing is all up to you, kid. i’m self-publishing The Safest December, clementine von radics self-published her first two collections, trista mateer self-published her glorious Honeybee. it requires a lot of self-promo, research on publishing middlemen (CreateSpace, Lulu, Amazon, Smashwords), and just…a lot of knowledge about all the things that go into publishing. advertising, marketing, design, art–all the things a traditional publisher would handle for you. i asked a friend ( @wordofmypeople ) to do the cover art for The Safest December, and my other lovely tumblr poet friends such as @bunpunk and @vagabondly and @freethepoets and @ceciliewriteswords and @tristamateer have been kind enough to reblog my work and my book promo so that i look way cooler than i actually am.
tl;dr: be authentic, make friends, do good work, be grateful for the help you’re offered, don’t half-ass anything in the process.
