Recently, I have answered a surprising number of DM questions about how to become a poet/writer (in a practical/business/branding sense, not a learning the art/craft sense).
How did I get started publishing? What advice would I give someone trying to build a following? How does one monetize poetry?
So, I’m making a bit of a messy FAQ.
I don’t feel like an expert, but I do have over 200k followers across platforms and (absurdly) poetry pays my bills right now, so I’ll offer what I can.
Question #1: Do I recommend sending to magazines or publishing work on social media?
Truthfully, I'd work on your social media following first.
This doesn't mean you can't also submit work to magazines (the work you haven’t posted publicly), but... here’s the thing… I've published in magazines. Quite a few magazines. They never gained me any real attention or interest (and sometimes you wait over a year to learn if they will publish your submission and some of them charge frankly predatory "reading fees" to writers desperate to be noticed).
Gang, unless you’re trying to work in an industry that values conventional publishing credits, submitting to poetry mags might not be the best use of your time.
A decade ago, I wouldn’t have imagined writing that last sentence, but experience changed my attitude.
Poetry, especially, is made for social media. A tight, agile, jab of an artform that can connect with a reader accustomed to short/punchy posts.
The magazines and journals seem like the obvious way to go because, especially when you are first starting, it feels good for someone to tell you that your stuff is worth publishing. Most writers struggle with feeling like an imposter. But how much is that ego boost really worth to you in terms of time and effort? I never received any significant interest from book publishers, agents, etc, until I built my own audience through posting and podcasting.
Even if your eventual goal is traditional publishing, I would start with social media. I did the work of proving that my writing was marketable first and the interest from publishers followed. I think this makes perfect sense. What better way to show that you’d be a good investment/business partner than showing an aptitude for the business of attracting/engaging readers?
The practical career aspects aside, posting consistently via social media is a real-time/dynamic conversation with your readers… which can teach you quite a bit about what connects and what falls flat in your work. Poetry, when it does its job, has impact. Good prose has impact. Instant reader feedback can help sharpen our art as writers/communicators. Compare that to having a poem tucked away on page 64 of a university journal that prints 200 copies.
If you want to start "building a brand" as a poet, I'd suggest creating a Twitter, a Facebook Page, an Instagram, and maybe Tumblr (readings on TikTok might make sense too).
When you write something, post it to all of your accounts. Use hashtags to link with other poets and poetry fans. Things like #poetry and #poetrycommunity. You could even try to write poetry that is in conversation with another poet’s work and tag them.
While you’re at it, comment on other poets' work. (This is how you join a community and begin to build a following.)
This isn’t crass or tacky. This is honoring poetry as a living artform that has value to a broad, modern audience, not locking it away in niche, esoteric volumes yellowing on a bottom shelf of an English Department computer lab.
The thing "legit" publishers/publications are supposed to do for you, in theory, is connect you with readers and market your stuff. Traditionally, that’s why we want to work with publishers. They help build our brand and connect us with an audience. Small poetry magazines probably aren't much better equipped than you are to put your work in front of potential readers (and they won't care about accomplishing this goal half as much as you do).
So... put yourself out there.
You don't need to wait for gatekeepers to grant permission to share your work or to call yourself a poet. I sort of feel like I wasted years trying to impress the magazines and literary presses. And even when I had successes, it didn't seem to do much for me. A momentary pat on the back. A fleeting taste of approval. I found actual success and fulfillment when I stopped chasing "legitimacy" and started sharing my own work with the world. When I stopped focusing on trying to be impressive and started focusing on trying to connect with people, it all clicked.
It also helped when I stopped thinking of my writing as "a product" or an “IQ test” and started thinking of it as a service or a conversation. My audience isn't an afterthought. I'm writing for them. So, meeting them where they are is part of that relationship. Prestige and/or money, if they come, come later in the process. The art first. Service first. Audience first. Connection over commodity.
[Caveat: Different goals require different approaches. If your goal is, for example, a career in teaching creative writing in academia, then University managed magazine credits are more relevant to you. Are you trying to build a CV or are you trying to build an audience? When seeking advice, go to people who are doing the sort of work you would like to do. There is no one right answer about how to approach/manage your creative efforts.]
Question #2: But if I post my writing on social media, how do I protect my copyright and stop people from stealing my work?
In short, you have copyright protection just by virtue of writing/creating something. The FAQs on the US government Copyright page states, "Your work is under copyright protection the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form that it is perceptible either directly or with the aid of a machine or device."
https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html
Posting it publicly gives you the added bonus of a time-stamped record of when you posted it.
No, you typically can’t sell/submit poetry you’ve posted on social media to magazines because it will be considered “previously published” (see my answer to question #1 for why this doesn’t bother me).
Yes, anyone could plagiarize your work, which is also true if it appears in a book or magazine. If they try to make money from it, while claiming it as their own, you have legal recourse (as I understand it... I'm not a lawyer).
It becomes a bit of a philosophical question. Do you want to connect with an audience more than you're afraid of being robbed? Yes, sometimes I see folks posting my work without attribution. This is annoying, but not exactly devastating.
I never run out of words/ideas and it isn't exactly difficult to prove I wrote/posted something first (if I really want to bother with such things). As far as I know, nobody ever made a successful writing career via direct plagiarism and learning to shrug off the copy/paste culture of social media hasn't harmed me in any way I can detect.
So, for me, posting my work serves my goals.
Question #3: How do I monetize my work?
The answer to question #1 is deeply relevant here. Audience comes first. In all honesty, I didn’t create a Patreon page or think of publishing poetry collections until I had readers/listeners actively asking me for such things. I didn’t start with products and aim to generate demand. I generated demand, through sincere engagement, and then created products to suit that demand based on reader/community input.
Audience first.
If your primary goal is income, may I gently suggest that poetry isn’t the place to spend your time.
Question #4: How did you publish your poetry collections?
In short, I self published them when my audience was large enough for that option to make sense to me.
So, I am not tech savvy in the least, but the person who formats/publishes my poetry collections uses KDP (via Amazon). It takes a bit of skill to get the formatting/setup correct, but I recall seeing a variety of freelancers who will do the formatting work for a fee (and you should absolutely pay for such services). The other challenge is cover art, but there are endless options to tackle that. It’s fun and easy to connect with artists you admire and ask about their availability/fees for commission work. Be polite, communicative, and upfront about your budget and timeline. You can likely find an artist within your budget, but absolutely plan to pay for your art.
(You may well also want to hire a reputable freelance editor. I’m lucky to be married to a gifted poet and writing professional, so I can trade baked goods for editing services. If this wasn’t the case, I’d hire an editor.)
I think self publishing is a great option, especially for poetry. In fact, I contacted one of my favorite authors for advice (hint: he posts lots of raccoon photos) and he told me that there is really no downside to going the self-pub route for poetry. Most big publishers don't want poetry (unless you’re already famous) and the small publishers who do publish poetry take a large cut of your profits without giving much in return. It's not like they have big marketing budgets or giant followings to help sell your book, so why share your profits? Legitimacy? Friend… let go of legitimacy. It doesn’t have your best interests at heart.
So, despite the pretentious old academic in me who still gets itchy about the very idea of self publishing, it makes a lot of sense for poetry… especially if you have built an audience first.
[Note: It may start to sound like I have no love for traditional publishing. That’s not true. I am working with a couple traditional publishers as I write this. It’s just that context matters. Think of publishing as a business partnership. Ideally, a long-term partnership. As a writer, you know what you are bringing to the table (the work). So, ask yourself what your potential publisher is bringing to the table and what you are giving up in return. This equation needs to balance. It needs to make sense for both partners.]
I plan to expand this post as I receive more questions. Please comment with anything else you would like me to mention. I hope this is helpful.