How I Wrote & Published My Poetry Book | Research & Self-Publishing Tips

The importance of research to publish a book

If you’re thinking about writing a book, you’ll need to do your research. This is true whether you’re writing a poetry collection, fiction, or non-fiction book. Even if you’re an expert on your topic, you’ll need to research to ensure your book is accurate and complete or crafted in the best quality.

The research will help you understand your audience, what they want to read, and how to reach them. It will also give you ideas for marketing your book once it’s published. And if you’re self-publishing, research can be invaluable in helping you find the right publisher, distributor, and other service providers.

How to find information and resources on writing and publishing poetry

The research process for writing and publishing poetry can be daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. Using the internet and your local library can easily find information and resources on writing and publishing poetry.

To get started, try searching the web for “writing poetry,” “how to publish a poetry book,” or “publishing process for poetry.” You’ll find many articles, websites, and books to help you get started. Once you’ve found some good sources of information, visit your local library and check out some of the books they have on writing and publishing poetry.

If you’re still feeling stuck, don’t worry! There are plenty of online communities dedicated to helping poets get started. Search for “poetry forums” or “poetry groups” to find one that’s right for you. If you’re looking for more specific information on publishing poetry, try searching for some of the following:

• Poetry contests (and reading period deadlines)
• Publishers accepting submissions of poetry
• How to get published in a magazine or literary journals
• How to post your own collection on social media

In my amateur phase, research is the part of the process where I spend so much time on how to self-publish a book of poetry and then become overwhelmed by the vast amount of information. I was soon met with fears of public humiliation, only to learn most people don’t care. My ego recognizes the massive undertaking of writing and publishing a poetry book. It was a natural feeling to know all the poetry books published on Amazon, and self-publishing a finished book will rank on the 100th page no one will ever find. This would scare most writers from ever entering the publishing world.

Rather than getting bogged down by what people think, I knew it came with the trade of anything you publish online. I had to venture into the unknown world as an aspiring author. So, I kept my research simple and asked questions like how to develop ideas for the book and why I chose to produce this type of book. I wasn’t sure how to start, but I knew two things: 

1. I needed to brush up on how to write poetry, and 
2. How do I transition from a book idea to writing it and then publishing it? 

In the end, I fell into several rabbit holes on the internet. It was still unpleasant since it was similar to tossing spaghetti at a wall, hoping it would slide down and splatter the walls, revealing a message on what to do. So, what did the spaghetti leave behind?

It left behind a mess and a delicious meal. Searching the web is confusing, and this happens when you start looking for free material only to learn afterward why it is free in the first place. Here are the steps you need to take to develop a winning idea for a book and how to write and promote it.

Before arriving at the point where I had more clarity, I devoured an enormous amount of blogs, videos, and newsletters and bookmarked the most helpful ones. Start by asking priming questions to help with focus and be more specific with qualifying questions by assessing:

• identify what I know and what I don’t know
• Identify what I lack and what’s my unfair advantage
• How I brush up on the knowledge and skills I developed
• How to estimate the length of the project
• Last, where can I have all this information in a sea of many

Instead of getting ahead, I had to start with what I knew and didn’t.

What Did I Know and What I Did Not

Once I knew I wanted to produce a book, I understood poetry is still alive and less lucrative than other genres like romance or fantasy. Still, there is a market, although a smaller niche. Additionally, I knew I had a body of poems that helped me through life and had some semblance of value for others, even if it was just one person in the world.

I underestimated how long the project’s writing and rewriting phases would take. I was curious about the minimum number of poems required to be considered a book instead of a chapbook. Also, whether or not I would have to spend a lot of money on a professional editor and designer for my first book.

I could have descended further down this rabbit hole, which would have delayed me. Instead, I picked a common theme for this collection and counted how many poems I had available to include from my repository. I chose romantic love poetry as the theme; luckily, I have over 100 verses that fall under this theme. 

The next step is to determine the minimum number of pages for a book. Some sources showed 30 on the minimum and 100 on the maximum, so I aimed somewhere in the middle of about 60. That’s the easy part of what’s ahead… identifying what I lack and what unfair advantage I can leverage.

What I Lack and Unfair Advantage

Well, what I lacked was the simple part. It was everything from writing, publishing, and marketing. I learned how vital book reviews are for the book launch period. There are several strategies:

• Contact book bloggers, Bookstagrammers, and published poets to build brand awareness.
• Develop brand awareness on social media to build a large following and convert them over your email list to encourage them to review the book.
• Contact your existing friends on Facebook or LinkedIn to champion your book with reviews.
• Last, if you have a large budget. In that case, you can pay for legitimate reviews such as editorial and book review websites like NetGalley.

I knew I did not have the brand name of authors like Stephen King or William Shakespeare, widely known by many. I don’t have a back catalog of books to flash around nor the reputation as some leader in my unrelated industry to establish a swath of trust. I described myself as an “information technology specialist by day and author by night who loves spending his time between adventurous activities, being an ardent learner on many topics” in my elevator pitch. I wasn’t moved by that statement because I don’t have a renowned author or platform like the New York Times to raise public awareness and trust from readers.

I pondered what leverage I could take advantage of; “what makes me a fascinating person at a cocktail party.” Then I stumbled upon a phrase called “unfair advantage” by Ash Ali and Hasan Kubba in their book The Unfair Advantage. The book emphasizes discovering and developing a strength rather than working on a weakness. Ash Ali and Hasan Kubba argue that we all have an unfair advantage in life—some ability, talent, or relationship that provides us an advantage over others.

I don’t have the financial wealth, networks, ivy league education, or prominent brand name. However, I have an insufferable drive, an insatiable passion for what I pursue, and a creative quirkiness to breed new life into my work. So I ran with that and moved on to the next step, brushing up on the knowledge and skills of writing poetry and then taking a book idea to market.

Brushing Up on the Skills and Project Scope

With poetry, there was no way I was willing to publish a collection of poems in their original state. The number of times I cringed would have left me paralyzed. However, they were insightful, offering me the wisdom of history and an observer of human nature as I philosophically mulled over the enigma of love. So with these historical artifacts, I just had to breed new life in each poem in a language I resonated most with but needed to figure out how. Thus, I picked up a few how-to-write poetry books on Amazon to jump-start my creative writing career:

• The Everything Writing Poetry Book
• The Sound of Poetry
• The Ode Less Travelled

Then I pulled some more sources on the web, but I needed more. As a result, I had to read the works of poetry that have survived the test of time and still hold renown and influence many poets, authors, and artists today. I was primarily interested in the periods from Dante Alighieri through William Shakespeare, Lord Byron, Edgar Allan Poe, and the end of Robert Frost’s generations. Because anything newer would not have been a reliable benchmark for being a timeless piece of art. 

Although, I have a bias towards the musicality of older poems that is rarely found these days with the abundance of Free Verse. The project scope, a 30,000 feet view from above I broken down into four parts:

• Ideation: ideas, planning, researching, organization, systems, and incubation
• Writing & revision: writing routine, revision phases, collaboration with poetry editor and book designer (book cover), research
• Publishing: Copyright, LCCN, ISBN, solo or publishing company? Publishing platforms strategy
• Marketing: book metadata (description, categories, keywords, and pricing), author website and email list, book launch, email, and social media strategies

The Gist

When I set out to write and publish my first book of poetry, I needed to figure out where to start. I had never written a book before, let alone one of poetry. But I was driven by a passion for the art form and a desire to share my work with the world. I knew it started by asking, “how to publish a poetry book.” Through hours of research and many trial-and-error attempts, I recognized how much of the research played a tremendous role in transforming a final draft of a poetry collection into a published book.

• If you’re thinking about writing a poetry book, you’ll need to do your research. Using the internet and your local library can easily find information and resources on writing and publishing poetry. To get started, try searching the web for “writing poetry,” “how to publish a poetry book,” or “publishing process for poetry.”
• With any preparation, be honest about what you do and don’t know, and then validate some of your assumptions. With a book, you want to find out if there is a market for it, do you have an existing body of work to produce or need to create, and what are your budget and timeline? Are there resources to help fill in the gaps of knowledge?
• Regarding gaps of knowledge, when you’re starting, there are skills and knowledge you will lack. When you take an idea to market, it will require the ability to manifest the thought into words through consistent writing sessions. This will need your publishing, advertising, and marketing strategies, and the availability of time and goals will limit this. Also, if you’re aware of your unfair advantage, you can take advantage of it. This will enable you to get the most out of your experience when bringing a book to market.
• Suppose you’re a newcomer to the scene of becoming a published author. In that case, there are more skills to brush up on and something new to learn if you already have some knowledge about this topic. There are plenty of resources, and take your time seeking the most effective one. Pick a few and practice what you learn. 
• The project scope for a published book is thorough, and having an honest view of each stage will better set you up for success, especially with a system in place to remain consistent and deliberate and what needs to get done daily.