Publishing Poetry

Lesson 4: Promoting Your Work

Creating a Website

A website is a simple but effective way to promote your work. Every poet wishing to be published should have one.

Post a brief bio of yourself and some samples of your work. Consider carefully which poems you will include on your website. Poems posted on your site will usually be considered to be published there. If you publish a poem on your website, you may have difficulty selling it later.

If the poem has already been published, be sure you know which rights were sold. You may not be able to publish it on your site. If you do post a previously published poem, include information about when and where it was published. You may want to include a link to the websites of those publications, as well.

If you have a book soon to be published, put that information on your website. Make sure to explain how readers can get a copy of your book. It’s a good idea to include a link to your publisher and/or a bookseller such as Amazon.com where your book can be purchased. You want to make it as easy as possible for people to buy a copy.

If your book is self-published, you can also sell copies of it on your website. It’s a simple matter to set up an account through PayPal at paypal.com which will allow you to accept credit card payments.

If you will be doing a poetry reading for the public in the near future, include that information on your website. Make sure to provide all the information someone would need if they wanted to attend the reading: where, when, etc.

Your website will only help you if people visit it. Whenever you write a news release or send a copy of your published work to a reviewer, provide your website address for those who might want more information. Whenever you give a poetry reading, pass out business cards or copies of a poem with your website address included. If you are a regular on any on-line forums, include your website address in your signature line. A number of poetry-related websites will also allow you to add a link to your site on their site, sometimes in return for putting a link to their site on yours.

If you don’t know anything about designing a website, that’s not a problem. Get someone to design one for you. Even if you have to pay for it, it shouldn’t cost you much. You only need a simple site. You want the focus to be on the quality of your poetry, not the design of the site itself. You will want the site to be attractive and easy to use, though, in order to encourage visitors.

You can visit the websites of a number of well-published poets by going to www.agondon.com/poetrylinks and clicking on the name of the poet whose site you’d like to see. You’ll find some good examples of websites here, and also get to read some good poetry.

Put your submissions in the mail!

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