How do you go about getting poetry published? From individual poems to a collection. Is there specific publishers?
poems are published in some magazines and literary journals... you can find comprehensive listings at www.duotrope.com... they now charge a small fee, but it's well worth it, if you intend to write seriously and submit your work often... no paying publisher will take on a collection by a new and unknown writer, so your only option for seeing a collection in book form at this point, is to self-publish... if you'd like an assessment of the quality of your work before you send it out, you can send me an email... i mentor aspiring poets along with all other writing breeds and am a fairly full time poet myself, with work having been published both in print venues and online, over the years... love and hugs, maia maia3maia@hotmail.com
Start with individual poems. If you want to publish a collection, publishing houses usuallly want to see that you have some "credit." You can submit poetry to magazines and journals to build up your publishing credentials. There are many that accept poetry, so you should start by reading and finding magazines and journals that you like. Make sure you know what kind of content they publish before you submit your work. You don't want to be published in a magazine that sucks, first of all. Second of all, if they're publishing poetry that's vastly different from the kind of stuff that you write, then chances are that submitting would be a waste of time. A lot of places prefer mail-in submissions, but I've found that e-mail submissions are becoming more and more popular. You should submit around 5 poems at once so they get an idea of what you write and so they have options, but make sure you read the submission guidelines of every publisher before submitting your work. And make sure to include a good cover letter as well. Just my experience. Hope that helps.
