three months ago i published my chapbook, i am like october when i am dead, online and in print. the website has received a little over 14,000 unique visitors, and i've postal mailed about 900 copies to my internet friends and readers
for most of this post, i will try to be helpful to other beginning writers, explaining how i self-published my chapbook and what worked the best/worst. some of this post may be more in-depth than necessary. just read whatever parts are interesting to you
please also notice the 10-minute video embedded above. if you wrote a review or took a picture with my chapbook, you are probably in the video. also, there are 13 overlapping mp3s in the video
let's get into it
writing, revising, and deciding to publish my chapbook
most of the poems in my chapbook were drafted in 2009, and after a year of revising them i had 20-30 haiku-length poems. almost every poem was originally longer. i just kept removing the "ok" parts so i had only parts that made me actually laugh or feel something strongly
i spread the poems on the floor to determine an order, being most deliberate about the first poems, last poems, and the progression between funny and emotional poems
in spring 2010, i emailed a 22-page file to around twenty friends for feedback. in june 2010 i submitted a manuscript (about 20 pages) to h_ngm_n for their online chapbook series. i wanted my chapbook to be available online so i could link to it and use it to introduce people to my writing
i pulled my submission from h_ngm_n in august because i wanted to revise it more. i cut/shortened a few more poems, down to 15 poems. in september i was encouraged by a good response to my ear eater reading, and i decided to try to publish my chapbook again
i considered bearcreekfeed and pangur ban party, but i wanted to design it myself. i also wanted to publish into the public domain, and i wanted a free print version to spread the word and give to people casually. i considered asking a press to go along with these ideas, but i realized the main reason i wanted a press was just for credibility, which has recently become less important to me, so i decided to self-publish
i credit a lot of my chapbook's good reception to the long revision process. i returned to the same poems repeatedly and took out everything except what honestly and consistently excited me
promoting my chapbook online
i made my chapbook website using some of the techniques in my post "minimalist blog design using blogger," removing almost everything from a premade template
i have been surprised by the traffic to my chapbook website. there have been spikes in traffic, but there are also 30-100 visitors every day. i have not done a lot online to promote it. i just mailed print copies to other people, who promoted it online
around half my online visitors (over 5,000) came from john campbell. john campbell dominates culture and the internet. my other biggest sources of traffic were it's nice that and ron silliman
i did not get a lot of "credible" reviews. instead i about 20 reviews and more links from blogging friends, and people shared my writing on facebook. when i first tweeted a link to my chapbook, i got 10 retweets, which is high for me (a technique to get more retweets of a tweet is to add "(please retweet)" in a tweet)
although there have been 14,000 visitors to my chapbook, the total hits (56,000) indicate most visitors only read a few pages. i would guess 2,000-3,000 people read the full chapbook online
making print copies of my chapbook
i designed my chapbook to be paper efficient. each chapbook is 2 sheets of paper and 1/3 sheet of cover stock. the approximate cost is 20 cents per chapbook, but it may cost me more because of overstocking supplies
formatting a chapbook to have smaller pages is a little confusing. i took two sheets of paper, numbered each section of the paper, then sliced and folded it into a chapbook. then i marked what would have to go on each page ("cover page," "first poem") under the number i had written earlier. then i manually arranged the content in a document using columns, and i printed double sided. there may be a better wayi printed mostly on my own laser printer, using one and a half toner cartridges (my friend chris also printed 50 copies). in undergrad i made over 500 chapbooks in school computer labs, but i didn't want to deal with printing limits or lab assistants for this chapbook. i used recycled high-volume copy paper, which was around $8 per 500 sheets (i bought four packs so far)
not wanting to use all my toner on big text, i printed my covers at staples, a corporation that may not have the best values.. their copy center has 10 cent black-and-white copies. i used 67 lb. cover stock, which i couldn't find recycled where i looked
i sliced my chapbook papers into thirds at my university's library. i could slice about 10 sheets of normal paper (or 5 sheets of cover stock) with each slice. i printed most of my chapbooks in batches of 100 or 200, so i spent over half an hour slicing paper sometimes. then i collated the pages together into chapbooks (shown in the video above), which took another hour
i stapled the chapbooks together using staples' long-reach staplers. i brought refill staples so i didn't have to always ask the staff for reloads
i numbered each chapbook with a permanent marker. i don't know if this benefitted me in any way. maybe each chapbook felt more unique, or maybe it emphasized the high press run for a chapbook
spreading print copies of my chapbook
the first print copies of my chapbook went to friends on twitter, facebook, and my blog who volunteered to review it on their blog or spread 5-20 copies in their area. i am really grateful to these people
a lot of my online friends who reviewed my chapbook are people i found from a mutual friend like tao lin or the bear parade page on facebook. in many cases i was not a very engaging online friend to them; i mostly just added them. but these people read my writing and created an actual friendship, and i have really appreciated that
i used white mailing envelopes to package my chapbooks. around 5 copies fit easily in an envelope. with higher amounts i used an envelope and wrapped two sheets of reused paper around it to create a free shipping package. many of my packages had the word "mail" on them, which some people appreciated, and it may have made my package more memorable
i wrote notes in my handwriting for each package, and it took a long time. i understand why other authors just sign their name or don't write anything. in later notes, i encouraged people to stay in touch over email, facebook, or blog comments
shipping within u.s.a. was only 44 cents for a single chapbook because of the small size and weight, around $1.50 for a pack of 10 chapbooks, and around $2.50 for a pack of 20 chapbooks. shipping larger packages to other countries was very expensive. it was about $9 to send 20 chapbooks to england, and $6 to send 15 chapbooks to asia. the difference in price may be due to thicker packaging making it a parcel instead of a large envelope
distribution costs and donations
i did not keep perfect track of the money involved with my chapbook. i think i spent $300 on printing and shipping. after about a month, i put up a paypal donation button (easy to make under "merchant services" in paypal) and received about $150-200 in donations. i was surprised by how much people donated. two people donated $50 each; thank you to everyone who donated
was it worth making print copies of my chapbook?
richard wehrenberg jr encouraged me by saying that print copies are essential: print makes writing more tangible and intimate. online writing is easier to click away from and forget. this seems true to a degree
the biggest benefit i have noticed from print distribution is that it led some casual readers and online friends to become more enthusiastic supporters. i received over 20 pictures of people with my chapbook, and the links and support have continued into my next project
i had around 100 people stock my chapbook in bookstores or give them to friends, but i haven't heard from a lot of people who received or found those copies. i received an appreciative email from one person, a blog comment from another, and an enthusiastic facebook message from another. all the other comments i've received were from online sharing
i don't know if it was worth making print copies of my chapbook. the meme of taking a picture with my chapbook would not have happened without print copies, and most of my reviews wouldn't have happened. but i wonder what i could have done if i invested the same amount of time/effort into online promotion, getting my link on various websites
most of my traffic was online, but i'm not sure i could have gotten people's attention if i didn't give them print copies. zachary german and ron silliman both posted about my chapbook, but i'm not sure they would have acknowledged just an email with a URL
chapbook publication as an event
i hope my promotion of my chapbook has not seemed dramatic or egotistical. usually writers just release chapbooks; it is not a big deal, just like a "checkpoint" on the way to a book. my chapbook felt like more of an event in itself to me. i think the "event" feeling of my chapbook is what caused a lot of the attention
here is a list of things that may have contributed to the event of my chapbook: creating trailer and commentary videos, creating a full website with an "about" and "bonus features," encouraging people to take pics with the chapbook, encouraging people to remix/adapt the poems, having an unusual kind of distribution (public domain and free copies), announcing the chapbook a little before its release, and posting this 3-month birthday article/video
publishing into the public domain
there have not been a lot consequences of publishing my chapbook into the public domain. some people emailed me about their support, leo babauta linked to me, poncho peligroso credited my poems to the universe, and people may have felt more encouraged to remix or reblog the poems. no-one has blatantly "stolen" my writing that i know of (which i would be fine with.. please feel free to submit my poems to literary magazines. i thought poetry magazine might take my opening poem. although you would have to conceal it was previously published)
conclusion / if i did it over again
the poem i felt most unsure about in my chapbook has been the one poem that no-one has really responded to (actually some people responded to it, but only because it mentions sigur rós). if i did it again, i would maybe trust my intuition more and cut that poem
in future projects i want to emphasize online distribution more than print distribution, and embrace my role as an internet poet. for my next collection, i am offering print copies, but more of my energy will be online
ok, this is a long post, and i may seem pathetic, patting myself on the back and having a birthday party for my chapbook
thank you for reading!
follow my blog / follow me on twitter
related posts /
+ internet poetry and self-publishing
+ submitting to literary journals
+ publishing literature into the public domain
