The Poetry Chapbook
The chapbook was created around the nineteenth century. It was named after writers who would peddle their writing collections on the street. Writers would simply print and write their poetry, ballads and stories on paper, fold the paper in half and sometimes design a sheet of paper with hand drawings and use that as a cover for their book and sell them. Nowadays, it’s much more advanced. Chapbooks are anywhere from 16 to 40 pages long. Anything over 40 pages is considered a full length book. There is software you can purchase for desktop publishing which allows you to make the chapbook yourself. However this can be very time consuming and if you are not computer savvy, like me, it can be a daunting task. There are chapbook publishers who can either offer you publishing alone or offer contests which require an entry fee but if you win the contest they will publish your chapbook. I personally am wary of these contests. First, because you need to send a reading fee which is usu...