How to Blog a Book of Poetry

Recently, I’ve received a lot of questions from poets who would like to blog books of poetry. Since publishing books of poetry traditionally can prove very difficult (Sorry, if that news is a shock to you.), I think blogging a poetry book  to build a large enough fan base for your work via a blog is actually quite a phenomenal idea. You also can self-publish it.

How would you go about doing this. Oh, so simply, really. Here are the steps:

1. Write a poem.
2. Post it on your blog.
3. Tell everyone you know you did so (via social networks).

Pretty, simple, huh?

Well, there is more you can do. For instance, you can:

1. Submit your poetry to contests, magazines, etc.
2. Record your poems and embed this audio version on your blog in addition to the written version (and make it available on Itunes).
3. Video yourself reading your poems and embed this version on your blog (and make it available on YouTube or also on Tout.com).
4. Participate in poetry readings.

The point is to do as much as possible to drive traffic to your blog.

Then, if you aren’t discovered by a publisher, you can either submit a proposal to an agent or publisher or self publish. You can learn more about publishing options in this post.

A great example of a blogger who is a poet is Rachel Barenblat, who is also a rabbi. She began her blog, Velveteen Rabbi, in September 2005; in April of 2008, Time.com named Velveteen Rabbi one of their top 25 blogs in their first annual blog index. She has written poetry and produced audio versions of that poetry (she doesn’t seem to do that anymore) for a long time, and has been–obviously–quite successful. Rachel’s first full-length poetry collection was  traditionally published, and is called 70 Faces: Torah Poetry. She’s also the author of four chapbooks of poetry: the skies here (Pecan Grove Press, 1995), What Stays (Bennington Writing Seminars Alumni Chapbook Series, 2002), chaplainbook (Laupe House Press, 2006) and Through, a self-published collection of miscarriage poems (2009.)

Take a look at  her blog for some inspiration — on many levels! Then go blog your poetry book.

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