Publishing Poetry

Lesson 4: Promoting Your Work

Getting Good Reviews

Recommended reading: Poet Power! The Practical Poet’s Guide to Getting Published, Chapter 9

Single poems are seldom reviewed. Books, on the other hand, often are. Getting good reviews for your book of poetry will go a long way toward selling your work and helping you publish future work. It builds your credibility as a poet.

To get your book reviewed, send a copy along with a fact sheet to publications that review books. Poet’s Market will tell you which literary journals do reviews. Since you’ll have to send a copy of your book in order to have it reviewed, this can become costly. Therefore you’ll want to be a bit selective about which publications you send it to.

Literary magazines are not the only ones that publish book reviews. Your local newspaper probably does. Some general interest magazines do. A number of magazines and newsletters aimed toward specific groups do, as well. If your book features religious poetry, for example, look for religious magazines that include book reviews. If your book contains feminist poetry, look for feminist magazines that publish reviews.

Always send a fact sheet along with copies of your book. Your fact sheet should include a short bio, a list of publication credits, and information about your book, such as the publisher, how many pages it is, and where people can get a copy. Include the address of your website if you have one. You can also include this fact sheet with news releases you send out, if you like.

While some publications have in-house staff which reviews books of poetry, others accept reviews written by freelancers. You can’t write a review of your own book, of course, but if you know other poets or freelancers, you can ask them to write a review for you. This is yet another benefit of networking. Perhaps you can then write a review of their work.

A single review by a freelancer can be submitted to numerous publications, so this may be a more effective method of getting reviews than just sending a copy of your book to the publication.

You can include excerpts from reviews on your fact sheet, in news releases, and on your website. All of this only helps you, of course, if you get favorable reviews. The better your work is, the better your reviews will be. Poetry is a somewhat subjective thing, though, and not everyone agrees on what constitutes good work. When submitting your book for review, carefully consider what type of work a particular publication tends to favor. Sending your book to publications which have previously published your poems is always a good bet.

By the way, you can also write and submit reviews of other poetry books, which will build your list of publication credits and increase your credibility as a poet. Of course, you can usually include a couple of sentences about yourself in these short articles, providing your website address and information about any books you have written.

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