Chapbook Questions vs Published Work. Questions....

Pushingfordream said:

I have recently started writing a lot of poetry. For now I am not thinking about publishing a chapbook, but I just have questions.

How many poems are in a chapbook?
How/Why do people choose to publish chapbooks? (Besides getting published)
Do chapbooks have themes or are they just a compilation of random poems?
What is the difference between a poem collection and a poem chapbook?

I'm also wondering how many places you submit a three poem collection to?

Lastly more personally, how often do you write poetry? Once a week? Once a day? Twice a day?
How many submissions show up on your submittable?

Click to expand...

Hello! Congratulations on writing poetry.

Chapbook lengths vary, but between 20-30 pages is a good standard length for a lot of publishers/contests.

People publish chapbooks if they have a project (like a series) that isn't long enough to merit a full-length chapbook. They also do it because a lot of chapbooks are made beautifully. And lots of other reasons I'm sure.

Chapbooks can have a theme or not, either way. Even if it's just "random" poems though, ideally there should be some kind of link between the poems. Sometimes other readers will help you find the links before you can yourself.

What do you mean by a three-poem collection? A series? I'd say to submit it to as many places as you can! I don't know if you read any lit mags, but this is a great time to start. You can learn the publishing landscape better and see who publishes what kind of work. Places that publish other poets you like are generally good starting points.

As far as how often I write poetry, I do something related to writing poetry most days. If I don't write something new, I revise or submit. But everybody is different. Find your own groove. As far as the submittable queue, I generally have a long one, but I also write flash fiction, short stories and nonfiction.

Best of luck!