Put forth your best effort. Whether a professional writer or a hobbyist, publishing your first book is a major milestone in your creative life. It not only provides physical evidence of your artistry, but can also be a catalyst for more writing opportunities and name recognition, major pluses for any writer. Therefore, get ready to do your best.
Ask for feedback on your work. If you have been writing poetry for awhile, it may be easy to edit your own work. But it still is very important to get outside feedback. What may seem to you like a beautiful and logical poetic phrase, may be ugly and nonsensical to someone else. One of the easiest ways to get feedback is through family and friends. It is best to use those who actually read poetry, or at least some form of literature for leisure, as their reactions will most likely be somewhat informed.
Get books of poetry from writers you admire. Whether it's the free verse of Walt Whitman, or the rhyming poetry to Langston Hughes or Robert Frost, one can easily get inspiration from well-regarded poets.
Buy books on poetry writing for another low cost option for editing your work. "In the Palm of Your Hand" by Steve Kowit has gotten good reviews. Another book that may be helpful is "The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry" by Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux.
Visit the writers center of a local university to get additional help. English graduate students are often employed there. Some of them may be poets themselves and can offer good advice.
Continue to hone your craft by visiting a local community writers center. Professional authors teach classes and may offer book readings for both themselves and students. It may also be worthwhile to visit the writers center's website. Here the e-mail addresses of the poetry teacher(s) may be listed and you can ask them personally for advice. Your effort in publishing a book and how long you have been writing are good items to add when contacting them. The more serious you appear to be, the more likely you are to get the attention of a busy professional writer. They may even have publishing house suggestions.
Edit and continue to edit your work. This stage cannot be over emphasized. Quality art takes time. You want the product that you present to be a solid representation of who you are as an artist.
Look for a publisher after sufficiently editing your book. Depending on your financial resources, you have several options. Traditional poetry publishers that do not require a publishing fee include Anhinga Press and Big Bridge Press. The website Every Writer's Resource has a large listing of individual websites for publishing houses that put out poetry. There are also online magazines such as Strong Verse, which takes 3 to 5 submitted poems at a time.
Make certain, before putting your work in cyberspace, that it is listed somewhere as belonging to you. You can register your book of poetry with the Writers Guild of America (East or West, depending on which side of the Mississippi River you live on). This costs $22 per submission as of 2009. For $35 (using online submission) to $45 (using a paper submission form), you can send your book to the U.S. Copyright Office. From personal experience, it takes about 3 to 6 weeks to get a confirmation letter that your work is registered using the paper method. It will most likely take less time for online submissions. Using the Writers Guild website is generally faster. Although it still takes a few weeks to get a confirmation letter back, you still get an immediate reference number for your work.
Self-publish if your book of verse is very experimental or for other reasons has been difficult to publish traditionally. There are self-publishing houses such as Dorrance, Author House and lulu, just to name a few. Additionally, there is iUniverse, Xlibris, Trafford Publishing and BookSurge-an Amazon company. The costs can range from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. But if your work is such that this is the most viable way to publish it, the expense may be worth it. Marketing tools can also be included in the self-publishing package.
Utilize alternatives to self-publishing if the fee is too steep for you. PublishAmerica is a well-recognized choice. Besides it's rather well-known name, large authorship (they claim to have published over 20,000 authors) and no cost, they provide some book marketing. There are some important caveats to using PublishAmerica, however. They have been sued for being what's called an "author-mill." This means that rather than putting each manuscript through rigorous editing and providing book marketing for the writer, the company simply publishes manuscripts without regard to quality.
Be well aware of the type of work the company does. Yours truly has used PublishAmerica twice and can say that the rumors are true, to a degree. To their credit, PublishAmerica is timely, does provide nice book covers and does publish most material, as long as it is not obviously offensive (such as racist or sexually explicit material). When it comes to editing, you must really be on your editor or editors to make sure that they remove your typos and don't add any of their own. Review proofs carefully to make sure that this is the case. When it comes to marketing, PublishAmerica does send out notices to family and friends that you specify. According to Public Relations Representative Shawn Street on newwritinginternational.com, PublishAmerica also sends out book release notices and daily sends review copies to legitimate reviewers. But the true marketing, such as arranging book readings and signings, TV appearances and movie production contacts, are all placed on the author. If you are interested in doing the work to become a well-known author, then they may be a viable option. It is not for the passive marketer. They will not do much else except publish your book.
Get the word out about your creation after the book of poetry has been published. In order to do this well, you must know the type of market that your book is most likely to impress. For a poetry book that centers on religious or inspirational themes, you might want to promote your book at a Bible Study or author fair at a local church, mosque, synagogue, religious community center or similar venue. This may be sacrilegious, depending on where you want to promote it. Try going to a church or other religious establishment where you feel the book will get a good reception. Choose the location wisely. You may have a good experience.
Go to local community writers' fairs. University English departments or writing centers may also be good places to promote work, either through book signings and/or readings.
Use bookstores to get the best exposure for your poetry book. Simply put, they are where the books are and where people interested in them go. This sounds silly, but you are already in your target market when promoting at a bookstore: you are around people who enjoy good books. Again, thinking of the types of bookstores that your work might do well in is beneficial. If you have a book of poetry for children, doing a signing at a store that caters to that type of writing only makes sense. If you live in a very small town and the promotion avenues are limited, consider traveling to the nearest large city or conduct a reading and/or signing at the local library, church or even in your home.
Promote your work online utilizing several options. Joining a local writers group can be a very effective way of not only networking but also getting the word out about about your book. If the group has it's own listserve through which it e-mails members, you may have an automatic audience for your work when a book is published.
Creating a website via Register, Yahoo, AOL or Web can be another effective marketing tool. The site can provide graphics that visually tell what your writing is about, adding interest and contact information for readers to comment on your work. The Yahoo, AOL and Web.com sites are free. Register.com is a viable option if you, or someone you know, is savvy with website production and if you don't mind spending some money. Putting links to your publisher's website, or to other places the book may be selling online such as Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Chapters, Books-A-Million, is another way to get more sales.
Set up a blog through Blogger, Thought or WordPress to promote your work using another avenue. Using a combination of techniques may be the best way to the make people aware of your work. One author, supernatural/horror writer Barbara Watkins has said on Helium.com, that "whether it be PublishAmerica, Random House, or any other legitimate publisher....you are the number one seller of your work." This is very true. Veteran and debut authors all must promote their work to get noticed and get sales, regardless of what means of publication is used.