Figuring out how to get your poetry published can feel confusing and complicated. You’ve written your poems. Maybe you have a full manuscript sitting in a folder, or a chapbook that has been almost ready for longer than you would like to admit. You want to publish, but you are not sure where to start or what to do first.
This post will walk you through the whole process from beginning to end. By the time you finish reading, you will know exactly what steps to take to get your poetry published.
1. Is Your Poetry Actually Ready for Publishing?
Before you upload your manuscript anywhere, be honest with yourself and ask: is my poetry actually ready for publishing? And I don’t mean emotionally ready, though that matters too. I mean structurally ready.
A lot of poets rush this part because they are excited to finally publish. But once a book is out, it is out. It is worth taking the time to get it right before that happens.
Here are a few things to check before you decide your manuscript is ready.
Do the poems belong together? Your poems don’t all have to be about the exact same subject, but there should be something connecting them. A common theme, a shared mood, a similar subject or experience. When a reader goes through your collection, they should feel like all the poems belong in the same book. If the poems feel too scattered and unrelated, the collection is not ready yet.
Does the collection have a clear beginning, middle, and end? A poetry book is not just a pile of poems arranged in a document. The order matters. Think about how the collection opens, how it moves, and how it ends. A reader who finishes your last poem should feel like they have been taken through something complete. If the ordering feels random, spend more time arranging the poems before you do anything else.
Are you holding on to weak poems just because you like them? Every poet has poems they are attached to that just do not fit the collection. If a poem does not match the tone or direction of the rest of the book, it probably needs to come out. Liking a poem and including it in your collection are two different decisions.
Have you put the manuscript away and come back to it? When you spend a long time working on something, you stop noticing certain things. You have read the manuscript so many times that your brain fills in what you intended to write instead of what is actually on the page. Putting it aside for a few weeks and coming back with fresh eyes makes a real difference. You will catch things you completely missed before.
If you can honestly say yes to all of those, you are ready for the next step.
2. Edit Your Manuscript
Editing is one of the most important steps in the publishing process, and it goes much further than just checking for typos.
When you edit your manuscript, you are looking at everything. Whether the poems that are supposed to be emotionally strong are actually landing the way you want them to. Whether the order still makes sense after reading it again. Whether any poems are repeating the same idea in a slightly different way without adding anything new. Whether your line breaks, titles, and punctuation are all intentional and consistent.
Go through the manuscript slowly, more than once, before you consider it done.
Getting someone else to look at it
Once you have done everything you can on your own, you need someone else to read it. You are too familiar with your own work to catch everything, so it’s advisable to get other eyes to look through your work.
If your budget allows, hire a professional editor who has experience with poetry specifically. Not just any editor, but someone who reads and understands the poetry. You can find good freelance editors and proofreaders on Fiverr or Upwork. Look at their reviews and past work before you hire anyone.
If hiring an editor is not possible right now, find readers who will be genuinely honest with you. Not people who will tell you everything is great because they do not want to hurt your feelings. Those people mean well, but they are not helping you. What you need are people who will tell you when something is not working, even if it is uncomfortable to hear. A reader who says “this poem lost me halfway through” is more useful to you than ten people who say they loved everything. One of them is actually helping you publish a better book.
3. Choose Your Publishing Route
Once your manuscript is ready, you need to decide how you want to publish it. There are two main options: traditional publishing and self-publishing.
Traditional publishing
Traditional publishing means submitting your manuscript to poetry presses and publishers. If they accept it, they handle a lot of the production work and distribution. You may receive an advance payment against future royalties. You also get the credibility that comes with being published by an established press.
The trade-offs are time and creative control. Submission processes can take months, sometimes longer. Rejections are a normal part of the process, and most poets submit to multiple presses at the same time and wait a long time before hearing back. If your manuscript is accepted, you also give up some say over things like the cover design and final layout.
If you want to go this route, start by researching poetry presses that publish work similar to yours in theme and style. Websites like Poets & Writers and Duotrope list open calls for submissions and can help you find presses that are a good fit. Read each press’s submission guidelines carefully and follow them exactly. A lot of submissions are rejected before anyone even reads the work because the poet did not follow the instructions. Submit to several presses at the same time, keep a record of your submission dates, and be patient.
Self-publishing
Self-publishing means you handle everything yourself, or hire people to help you, and your book goes live when you are ready. You keep full control over the cover, the design, the price, and when it launches. You also keep a larger share of the royalties.
The trade-off is that everything falls on you. Getting the book produced, getting it listed, and getting it in front of readers are all your responsibility.
This is not the lesser option. Many poets self-publish and do it well. It just requires a different kind of commitment.
Which platforms should you use for self-publishing?
For self-publishing, I recommend using two types of platforms: one for publishing directly on Amazon, and one for distributing everywhere else.
For Amazon, publish directly on Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing). KDP is free to use and lets you publish paperbacks, hardcovers, and Kindle ebook editions. It uses print-on-demand, which means books are only printed when someone orders them, so you don’t have to buy stock upfront. Publishing directly on KDP gives you better royalty rates for Amazon sales than going through a third party. Also, you enjoy certain direct features or benefits from Amazon KDP you wouldn’t get if you use a third party.
For reaching other platforms, use what is called an aggregator. An aggregator is a platform that distributes your book to multiple retailers and libraries at once. Instead of setting up your book on ten different platforms separately, you upload it once and the aggregator handles the distribution.
Draft2Digital is the aggregator I personally use and recommend. It distributes to platforms like Apple Books, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and many others. It also gives your book access to library networks like OverDrive, which a lot of poets don’t think about but is worth having. You can also choose exactly which platforms you want your book to appear on (for eBook), rather than sending it everywhere automatically.
IngramSpark is another strong aggregator, especially if getting your book into physical independent bookstores and libraries is important to you. Their distribution network is one of the widest in the industry.
The setup that works well for many self-publishing poets is this: publish directly on KDP for Amazon, and use Draft2Digital or IngramSpark to reach everywhere else.
I have a separate post here that covers all of these platforms in more detail, if you want to compare them before deciding.
4. Write and Format Your Manuscript
Before you can upload your book anywhere, you need to have your manuscript properly written and formatted. Let’s start with where you write it.
What software should you use to write your manuscript?
Use whichever writing software you are comfortable with, but keep in mind that poetry has specific formatting needs that not every software handles well. Unlike a novel, which is mostly continuous paragraphs, poetry is written in stanzas. You have line breaks, spacing, and sometimes text positioned in a specific way for effect. A software that shifts your formatting unexpectedly is going to be frustrating to work with.
Google Docs and Microsoft Word are both good options and are what most poets use. I personally used Google Docs for my own manuscript and then uploaded the document directly to Draft2Digital, which handles the rest of the formatting for the ebook.
For ebooks, both Google Docs and Word work well. Most aggregators and platforms accept them directly.
For print books, the formatting requirements are more involved. Print formatting needs to be more precise because things like margins, page size, and how text sits on the page matter in ways they do not for ebooks. Microsoft Word can handle print formatting if you set it up properly, but there are also dedicated formatting tools like Atticus and Vellum that make the process easier. I have a separate post that covers formatting software options for poetry in more detail here, including which tools work best for print versus ebook. That is worth reading before you decide what to use.
If formatting feels like too much to handle on top of everything else, you can hire a formatter on Fiverr or Upwork. It is a reasonable thing to outsource, and a good formatter will know exactly what each platform requires.
How to format your ebook
Ebook formatting is simpler than print formatting. You do not need to worry about page dimensions or margins because ebook readers adjust the display automatically depending on the device and screen size.
What you do need to get right is the spacing inside your poems. Make sure there is a double space between each stanza so the stanzas are clearly separated when someone reads the book. Each poem should also start on a new page. Those two things will take you a long way with ebook formatting.
I have a free downloadable step-by-step guide and Microsoft Word Templates bundle here that walks you through the full ebook formatting process for poetry, including how to set things up in your document before you export. It also includes print book formatting. You can check it out here.
How to format your print book
Print formatting is more detailed. Unlike ebooks, the layout of a print book is fixed, so what you set up is exactly what appears on the page. That means you need to get things like your page dimensions, margins, and spacing right before you export your file.
The first thing to decide is your trim size, which is the physical dimensions of your printed book. Common trim sizes used for poetry collections include:
- 5 x 8 inches: compact and popular for poetry
- 5.25 x 8 inches: slightly wider, good if your lines need a bit more horizontal space
- 5.5 x 8.5 inches: a balanced size that works well for most poetry layouts
- 6 x 9 inches: a good option if your poems have longer lines
Once you have chosen your trim size, you need to set your margins. Margins are the blank spaces around the edges of each page that keep your text away from the edges and from disappearing into the binding. The right margin size depends on your trim size and your total page count.
Amazon KDP has a page on their website that shows the minimum margin settings required based on your trim size and page count. That is a good place to start. Most designers also recommend adding a little extra space beyond the minimum, especially on the inside margin, which is the side that goes into the binding.
I have a full post on poetry book formatting and layout that covers all of this in more detail, including page order, trim sizes, and everything else you need to know before you format your print manuscript.
5. Sort Out Your Cover and Your ISBN
Your cover is one of the most important parts of your book. For someone browsing online, it is often the first and only thing they see before deciding whether to click on your book. A weak cover will cost you readers even if the poetry inside is good.
If you are not a designer and you do not have strong design skills, hire a professional. There are book cover designers on Fiverr who specialize in poetry books and work at reasonable rates. Look at their portfolios, check their reviews, and choose someone whose style feels right for your book.
If you have design skills and want to keep your costs low, Canva has book cover templates that work well for poetry books. Just make sure whatever you create looks intentional and specific to your book, not like a generic template.
One thing to know before you start designing: an ebook only needs a front cover. That is the image readers see when browsing online, and it is all you need to upload. A print book is different. For print, you need to design the full wraparound cover as one single file. That means the back cover, the spine, and the front cover are all designed together as one image and exported as a PDF. They are not uploaded separately.
Because the spine width changes depending on how many pages your book has, you need to get the exact dimensions for your specific book before you start designing the print cover. Amazon KDP has a cover calculator on their website where you enter your trim size, page count, and paper type, and it gives you the exact dimensions and lets you download a template to use as a guide. If you are publishing on another platform, check whether they offer a similar template tool as well.
Your ISBN
An ISBN is a unique identification number that every published book needs. It is how retailers, libraries, and distributors track and list books in their systems. Without one, your book cannot be listed in most places.
Most self-publishing platforms will offer you a free ISBN when you sign up. It is tempting to take it, especially when you are trying to keep costs down. But I strongly recommend buying your own ISBN instead, and here is why.
When you use a platform’s free ISBN, that ISBN belongs to the platform, not to you. It is tied to their system. This means if you ever want to move your book to a different platform, or distribute it through multiple retailers, you cannot take that ISBN with you. You would need a separate ISBN for each platform, which means your book is listed as several different publications instead of one. Libraries and bookstores also use ISBNs to order books, and a platform-tied ISBN can create problems when they try to source your book through their usual channels.
When you own your own ISBN, your book is listed under your name or your own imprint. You can use the same ISBN across every platform. It looks more professional, and you are in full control.
In the US, you can buy an ISBN through Bowker at myidentifiers.com. Outside the US, check your country’s official ISBN agency. Buying in a bundle is more cost-effective if you plan to publish more than one book.
6. Upload, Order a Proof, and Publish
Once your files are ready, the uploading process on most platforms walks you through each step. You will create your account if you have not already, fill in your book details, which includes the title, author name, book description, categories, and keywords, and then upload your interior file and your cover file.
Every platform has its own file requirements, so check what format they accept before you export your files. KDP, for example, accepts Word documents, PDFs, and ePub files for the interior. Draft2Digital accepts Word documents and converts them for you. Each platform has a help section that explains exactly what they need.
After you upload everything, order a physical proof copy before you publish. This applies to print books. What looks fine on a screen does not always look the same on paper. Margins can be smaller than expected. A font that reads well on screen can look small in your hands. Reading through a physical proof gives you the chance to catch those things before your readers do.
Go through the proof carefully. Check the margins, the font, the spacing between stanzas, the page order, and how the cover looks in person. If anything needs fixing, update your files, upload them again, and then publish.
A Few Things Nobody Tells You
Stay away from vanity presses. If a company calls itself a publisher and asks you to pay them to print your book, that is not a real publishing deal. Real publishers pay you, not the other way around. Vanity presses charge poets for services you can do yourself on KDP or Draft2Digital for free or very cheaply. They often promise distribution and marketing that does not actually happen. If you are unsure about a company, look them up on Writer Beware before you pay anything or sign anything.
Price your book like it has value. Most poetry paperbacks sell between $9.99 and $14.99. Factor in your printing costs, the platform’s royalty percentage, and what feels fair for the work you put in. Do not undercharge because you are not sure people will buy it.
Your book description matters more than you think. It is not a summary of your collection. It is what convinces a stranger to spend money on your book. Write it around the feeling and themes of the collection. Read the descriptions on poetry books you admire and notice what they say and how they say it. Take your time with this.
Start building your audience before the book is out. You do not need a massive following, but having people who already know your work before you launch makes a real difference. An email list, even a small one, is worth more than any social media following because you own it and no algorithm can take it away.
Now You Know What to Do
Publishing your first poetry collection is completely doable. There are more steps than most people expect, but none of them are impossible once you know what you are working toward.
Start with the manuscript. Get that right first. Then edit. Then choose your route and your platforms. Then handle the formatting, the cover, and the ISBN. Then upload, proof, and publish. Each step follows the last.
You wrote the poems. That was the hardest part. The rest is just getting them out of the folder. You’ve got this!
