I was reading some of my old work the other day, specifically one of my old poems (bird) and a short essay (bliss). And I thought it might be nice to get them published somewhere.

Not really for the money or for fame, but just to share it with a wider audience or something. But where does one do such a thing? Outside writing one's own book (I'm not about to impromptu create a bunch of stuff to fill an entire book), or doing the whole self-publishing thing (I'm not that vain, nor do I think I could ever cover the costs of such a thing), I'm not sure where one could publish their own works for public consumption.

Any ideas?

Hi, PreZ. It's a tough market out there, for getting one's stuff published. Years ago I would have recommended going to your public library and having a look through the current edition of the annual Writer's Marketplace for publishers looking for specific genres. But I don't think that's the best source anymore these days.

Getting an agent, too, is a good idea – but generally an agent won't talk to you unless you've already published. A lot of people take to self-publishing on account of that. The whole publishing game has changed with the coming of websites, blogs and such.

Best suggestion I think I can offer is for you to join a writers' guild. My man has been a member of the Horror Writers Association for years, and he gets a headsup about upcoming anthologies that way.

Anyway, wishing you luck!

-- Nephele

Hrm, these kind of things seem more geared to the 'I want to be a writer' types. I don't, I just think a few of my old pieces are worth sharing to a wider audience - but I have no author ambitions (I'm authoritarian enough here, badoom-tish!). I just thought there might be some kind of journal or publication or something that would publish works from private citizens (selectively of course, not just any old crap) for wider distribution to interested parties.

Oh well - guess I'll just have to enjoy my own works myself

Well, I guess you could try submitting your essays to places like TheDailyBeast.com. I have a couple of friends who fairly regularly publish there, but I'm not sure whether TDB takes their stuff because they've already got books out. I've never really investigated it, but it might be worth it to drop a line to TDB.

Bloggers with a wide audience might highlight some of your stuff. I've published (gratis) a few articles on onomastics that way.

-- Nephele

To be fair, it really depends what size audience you're looking for. If you're just reasonably happy to have yourself read by anyone other than yourself, I've actually found that the audience here is polite, encouraging and if critical, constructively so.

My only advice if you do not want to make a full book or self publish is to maybe try getting in contact with a magazine or newspaper, etc...that caters to the type of poems you have and see if they might be willing to publish them that way. At least it would be a start. You might also create another website (or put it on another website) that has a wide range of people who taken enjoyment from poetry.

You can always submit your writings to Playboy. That's how Stephen King got started.

~spidey

If you don't want to self publish (which would also save you the trouble of finding a means of distribution), then it depends on the kind of audience you want, I guess. You could publish online (on a blog or site of your own or someone else's). That way, your work is easily accessible for many people. It might be worth looking into copyrights or other protection of your work if you decide to do this.

Other than that, I think there still are (small) publishers who will publish poetry. If they make a book containing poems of debuting authors, then they could include you. Then you'd be published in a book It is a niche market in a tough time, so you'd have to look hard to find them. And they'd have to accept your work, of course. If I were you, I would go to a good, local bookstore and see who published the poetry books. Also, ask the people working there. Especially the person responsible for buying the books might know which publishers are good and might accept new authors.

The best advice I can give for publishing essays is to find a magazine or newspaper to publish it. If you are good enough, they'll publish your stories or essays even if you are not a professional author or journalist. Good writing is good writing, and any author had to start somewhere. It can mean that you have to write to a lot of magazines or papers, so be prepared to do that if you really want to reach a broad(er) audience. From what I've heard, generally speaking this rule applies: the bigger (or more respected) the journal, mag, newspaper, etc., the more difficult it is to get published in it. Depending on your ambitions, you can try the really big names, but also the more local ones. They might be easiest (and still are read by many people often).

Having just gone through the creation of a publishing company and the completion of our first book I can say it was/is an adventure that I would recommend to anyone.

For poetry I would try to find an artist who's style/work matches what you are writing about then you provide that much more of a visual to an end viewer.

The old venues are seemingly dying on the side of the road. The return model that the average publisher is forced to use to deal with the major chains is ridiculous. That combined with e-books is pretty seems like a pretty depressing course.

When we chose the materials for the book we went with the best paper we could get (wanted the ragged edge but they were out), as thick of a softback material as we could get, and tried to put craftsmanship throughout.

I love poetry and hope to eventually release something, but as was said above, ensure your market will support your run. If this is something to just test the waters, possibly a vanity press isn't a bad idea. Work through a run of 50-100 and see how you feel. However, if you want complete control over its output, then you should probably purchase InDesign, or some other publishing software and work from the ground up.

Honestly is was a blast filled with stress. The last day the truck with books shows up and we had to order inside delivery, but he only has a pallet jack to push 4000 pounds of books up the driveway... So my whole family is behind this huge stack of books, shoving it up the driveway.

Also as far as printers are concerned... Do not settle for a printer. Ensure you are satisfied with the quality. We went with Edwards Brothers out of Ann Arbor Michigan and were, all in all, really pleased.

Please realize that this post is from someone who has only produced one book, but just got through the process about 2 weeks ago, so it is fresh in my head. And my family and I did all the work, no agent, no designer, no illustrator, no nothin.

Tyr
http://www.adaslegend.com