Tag: Self-publishing

Why I’m Publishing a Chapbook

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I thought to myself that if I was to publish a book full of poems that it would be best to publish a chapbook. What’s a chapbook? A chapbook, which has been produced for hundreds of years, is a shorter book comprising only 50 pages or fewer. Many poets publish their first books, being chapbooks to display their work. 

The other reasons I decided to publish a chapbook are:

It’s Less Costly

Since there are only a certain amount of pages… the way I see chapbooks is that it’s the same way a mixtape is of music to albums. There’s a small amount of time towards publishing a chapbook versus publishing a full-blown book, so to speak.

I Wanted to Dip My Foot in The Waters First

I didn’t want to go full in when publishing an actual full-fledged book, for me I wanted to see what the process was, get an idea how a book is published, plus I had to take into consideration the cover page, spine, and back cover which are all important factors, and trust me I’ve learned a lot with the process. I had no clue what bleeding is on a page or what exactly a spine was, so it was an eye opener. So when I’m ready to publish a full-fledged book of poems, then I’m ready.

Quicker Results

With less amount of writing to do means less time to write the manuscript. I know some people may look down on that, but what I mean by this is basically what I’ve stated earlier, I wanted to dip my foot first, see what the process is of how publishing a book works and then work on any improvements that are needed when publishing a book that needs more time at hand.

It’s Suitable For Self-Publishing

Even though I still think that it’s vital to find a publisher, self-publishing for me was the best decision I’ve made, and I’ll continue to go this route. Here, I can afford to put a little of money into this because it’s a cheaper route to go. For me, it makes no sense to find a publisher for them to put in all the work, get no royalties just to conduct a 40 page chapbook, it just makes no sense. Plus, there’s more creative freedom, which I’ll explain further on the reasons I went into the direction of self-publishing.

Why I Named My Book ‘The Lover’s Pool’

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Do you notice that the word lover is not plural and more so singular? 

This is because it’s not about two people, it’s about oneself and how one is managing through life while finding themselves and loving themselves.

The pool reflects anxiety and how to cope with it while keeping your head above water. The theme will be ethereal, something magical, something special, all while one realizes that these are temporary floods at hand. 

There’s Math In Publishing a Book

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Let me explain:

I never knew the importance of the measurements of a book until now. There’s so many intricate details when coming with not only the order of pages, but the measurements of the front and back cover, the book spine, and my poems being placed correctly.

What is a book spine?

So with my research in many articles on Google, a book spine is the outside edge of a book that you’d see at a library or bookstore — that usually carries the title of the book. The spine allows the book to open and close, and measures the number of pages there are and the sizing of the front and back cover. This is one of the most important factor when putting together your book.

PDF vs. Word

Since Amazon is my main publishing site, pdf is my best friend! When know how to process everything and exporting it from word to pdf… that’s when magic happens. For me I have a MacBook Air, therefore the Microsoft word is not compatible with the software. In November, when I was putting things into place with my poems, I was going back and forth with my phone, editing and converting my work back and forth. My android supports Microsoft, which was easier to upload everything on Amazon KDP as opposed to my laptop. But then I discovered Google Docs, and that makes a ton of difference, making my life easier and stress free.

Kindle Was Another Challenge

Not only will I be selling my book as Paperback, but also through Kindle. I thought that uploading everything through Kindle word would be easier then publishing a physical book, but I was wrong. All of my poems kept cramming together, looking like some amateur work, even though I am new to the self-publishing world. I still want my work to be clean and concise. Then I discovered Kindle Create. You can download it on your phone or computer. Just make sure you’re on the legit app.

Each day as I’m processing my work, I’m learning something new. It’s been 5 months of waiting… with twists and turns around the corner. I did state that the finishing touch would be to have a great book cover, and that this would be the last project of my work. One thing that I’ve learned from that was that I had to do things on my own terms… not depending on anyone else. I’ve had a great network of people giving good advice, but when coming to finding an artist… that’s been tough. But there are things are progressing closer and closer. 

The finishing touches are near.

A Change of Plans

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I know I said that I was ready to write a series of topics that interested me, but there’s been a slight change in that project.

For the last month, I’ve curated a new blog that’s inspired me to extend writing my thoughts in a poem format.

It’s with great excitement that the work that I’ve been putting into these poems will be part of my new project of self-publishing my first book.

This has been a long time coming. I’ve had so many people saying that I should write a book, I just didn’t know how I’d go about writing one. In the past, so many thoughts had run through my mind as to what I’d write about. I’ve considered writing short stories, children’s books, and memoirs. I knew I could write them, but I wanted something I could resonate with, what I believed to be as genuine as I could be. It struck me that poems would be the best format to express my feelings creatively.

For the last three years, with everything going on, especially being diagnosed with Epilepsy, I went into a confusing place. It was a dark place, but I was also hopeful and felt a sense of freedom.

Doing therapeutic things like running, listening to music, and journaling spurred a need to expand my creativity. I expressed this beyond writing. As I became vegan, my interest in baking came about. I even dipped into playing the keyboards( it’s an ongoing process); all of these things helped my journey toward getting into a place of clarity. I can’t stress enough how journaling has inspired me to write poems.

My choice in going towards the self-publishing route was already a plan that I made even before coming up with a full plan as to what I’d write. I’m just ready to display my work out to the public… big or small.

This is all in fun for me, not something where I’m considering to be famous…it’s a creative project of mine.

On this blog, I’ll be sharing my journey in the stages of the process of writing the book.

The other topics that I’d plan to do will be in pause, as this will be taking up a lot of time for me. I need to focus.

Get ready for this journey and also what I plan on writing: the themes, how long I plan on writing this, and also the title.

Let’s get started!