How Quickly Should You Publish Your Poetry? A Beginner’s Guide to Sharing Your Work

As I was researching my last post, “A Great Big Guide to How to Write a Poem Every Day,” a few thoughts came up related to publishing all the poems that get written as part of undertaking a daily poetry challenge like the ones listed there. Should you post your poems to social media or on a blog as you go along? Should you release a collection when you’re done?

So, I’ve dedicated this post to answering those questions. It’s mainly written for poets trying to decide what to do with a bunch of poems they’ve recently written (even if they haven’t taken part in a challenge like those described in the “Great Big Guide” linked above), who don’t know much about the publishing landscape. However, I’d like to flatter myself that my position as someone who has observed the world of publishing for a few decades and professionally participated in it as an editor for a time (full disclosure: my participation as a writer is limited) means that I have something to say that those beyond the beginner stage might also find interesting. This post does not cover all the complexities of poetry publishing, though I’ve provided some resources at the bottom for those who want to learn more, which will help move you a little further along.

Ironically, this post turned out to be longer than the “Great Big Guide” that inspired it. You can use the headings if you want to skim: the general organization is long introduction, publishing individual poems, publishing a book of poetry, traps for the unwary, some final thoughts, and a list of resources.

So how quickly should you publish your poetry? There’s no single right answer: experienced poets with different personalities and circumstances will answer it differently, and the range of answers reveals different ideals warring in the background. Let me start with an anecdote.

In a course I took a few years ago, I was invited to list all the “shoulds” I had in my head as a writer. It’s a great exercise that can help make all these rules that haunt us a little less intimidating. You inevitably find that some of these rules are ridiculous, or contradictory, and you might even break out into laughter when you see the impossible problems you’ve set up for yourself in your head (ask me sometime about my “shoulds” for form and meter).

One of my favorite contradictions has to do with publishing speed. When I worked as a graduate assistant for the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, I developed a casual friendship with one of the residency poets who was only about ten years older. We were chatting one afternoon, and she said to me: “Meg, when you publish your book next year, I will invite you to come give a reading at the literary festival I run in my country.”

“Oh gosh, I don’t think I’ll have a book published next year!” I replied, feeling far from this possible version of myself she had laid out for me.

She looked at me sternly. “And why not?” The fact that she was normally a sincerely friendly person with a big smile made the admonition hit all the harder. I could dismiss it as coming out of a different country’s publishing context, but the general sentiment stuck. OK, I thought. Message received: get a book out as soon as possible. You should be sharing your work with the world and taking advantage of opportunities that will come as a result.

Flash forward to the end of the next semester when workshop was finishing up. The poet leading us, who leaned into her role as poet-mom to us 20 and 30-somethings, was giving us some parting advice: “Don’t be in a hurry to publish your first book. You’ll have to live with what you put out for the rest of your career. Take your time to make sure it’s something you’ll be proud of down the line.”

She’s not the only experienced poet who I’ve gotten that message from. Once in a class, about a year after President Clinton’s impeachment trial, C.D. Wright mentioned to us that during the investigation it had come out that Clinton had given Monica Lewinsky a book of poetry. As a good Arkansan poet, over the years C.D. had sent Clinton, her once-governor, some of her books as they were published. She told us how a colleague had joked that the gift book could be C.D.’s Just Whistle (not her first book, but relatively early in her career). She told us she said: “Oh my god, that means they’d put my book back in print. I’d rather light myself on fire on the Main Green than see my book back in print.” (To be fair, this may have been more joke than an expression of uncomplicated regret, and I don’t know if she considered Just Whistle to be rushed or not a book she was proud of – consider this anecdote just a reminder that publishing can feel uncomfortable after the fact. Also, a note that the book actually involved in the Lewinsky affair was Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass.)

So now I had another, different “should” in my head about “think carefully before you publish.” Until I brainstormed that list of “shoulds,” I don’t think I realized that I held two potentially contradictory rules in my head, both from poets with some degree of acclaim: awards, translations of their books, university teaching positions, etc… Keep that tension in mind as you read on.

Should you publish as you go and do a poem-a-day challenge in public?

While there’s never any explicit pressure to publish, some of the challenges listed in “A Great Big Guide to How to Write a Poem Every Day” indirectly encourage putting your poems out there each day as a method of accountability and community-building. When you see poets sharing their work with others in the challenge and cheering each other on, it’s quite tempting to join in. Indeed, when I took part in NaPoWriMo a few years ago, I published a daily poem and had a great time doing it (I imagined poets from my MFA program looking over my shoulder in horror that one would put rough drafts on the internet, but that may have been part of the thrill). My only regret was that due to a family crisis that came up about a week in, I stopped sharing my poems in the comments of the official challenge blog since I no longer felt I had time to adequately participate in the community – I would have had to just drop my link and run, and that didn’t feel good. But I enjoyed writing and getting it “out there” so much that I kept posting poems into the void on my little blog for the rest of the year (though not every day after NaPoWriMo).

Why did I eventually stop? I felt I was onto something. It was no longer just an experiment. That choice may sound strange to newer poets, but one of the realities of literary magazines is that they are usually only interested in work that has not appeared publicly before, even if “publicly” means your own blog or social media. I reached a point where I no longer was willing to let what I was writing be disqualified for those venues. I may get back to that blog someday, but I’m at a point where, for me, it seems better to take a more traditional route.

So, before you participate fully in a public challenge, make sure you’re OK with not being able to submit the poems you write. In general, if your poem can show up in a search engine or if large numbers of people can potentially stumble upon the link, then it’s considered published. Online workshops in closed spaces and social media limited to small groups would usually be OK – think about how similar it is to distributing a copy of your poem in-person in a class or among a few friends – though rules for individual magazines may vary. However, aside from literary magazine eligibility, you may be able to include at least some of those poems in a traditionally-published book: the poets Luisa Igloria and Dave Bonta, who put out poems daily on the blog Via Negativa, have published a number of books that include pieces that started life there.

But beyond that caveat about literary magazines, my advice would be that if you feel called to publish poems as you go when doing a poem-a-day challenge, you should do it. You may write something stellar that you’ll regret not being able to submit, but as I said in the “Great Big Guide,” the habit of writing every day is itself the antidote to that problem: you know another poem will come along. Keep going. And thank goodness we now all get to enjoy your wonderful poem, no matter where it’s published!

Should you self-publish your poems as a book when you finish the challenge?

Again, I would say this is up to you, and I think for poets who have little interest in traditional publication’s ability to grant a “stamp of approval,” this move makes sense. However, be aware of the potential drawbacks.

For many poets, what makes self-publishing a non-viable option is that self-publishing is more limited than traditional publishing in its ability to help one advance one’s career goals. Being traditionally published means someone else has contributed the labor and financial resources needed to make it happen. That doesn’t mean that self-published books are unworthy, but the world views traditional publication as an endorsement. It’s not the only way to obtain some kind of endorsement, and in the last 15 years people’s attitudes around self-publishing have started to shift, but literary circles are perhaps the places most resistant to the self-publishing wave. While there may be exceptions out there, generally it’s a prerequisite to certain opportunities, like tenure-track teaching positions at universities and major prizes. (A side note that this particular academic “poetry career path” has really only existed for the past 75 years or so – centuries ago the publishing model was different, and even among the big names of Modernism you might be surprised at whose first books were self-published.)

If you self-publish a book, it does not contribute towards moving you through the system of reputable book contests and the academic job market. It may even make you permanently ineligible for certain opportunities (I’m thinking of first and second-book contests, mainly, though when I quickly surveyed a number of first-book contests, I noticed many explicitly did not count self-published books as disqualifying). Finally, while I think it’s somewhat small-minded, it may raise questions among those examining your poetry resume about whether your work was “good enough” to get the support of an editor, or whether you’re shirking “playing the game.” (Note that the expectations are different for chapbooks.)

Other poets may not care so much about credentials, but going through the traditional publishing process may be part of the dream of being a writer for them, and a mountain they want to climb. In contrast, self-publishing may seem like taking the ski lift (at least from the outside looking in – the reality is that it’s its own different challenge). I don’t want to appear to say here that self-published books aren’t “real books.” But I think it’s important to acknowledge that someone may prefer the traditional publication route for the satisfaction in working through it and the life experience, even if they don’t want to have a “poetry career.”

The next downside may not apply if you don’t mind if your book looks self-published or is simple – if you’re willing to ignore Amazon and other major book distribution platforms, self-publishing can be a matter of just converting a word processing document to a PDF and finding a way to sell it. I know people who have put out non-fiction books this way, and any sales success was determined more by the strength of their networks and their self-promotion (and the quality of their writing and thinking, of course) than anything else. One of those books was written and published in 24 hours (though it was a project that had long been in the tech-savvy author’s head and my guess is she had some of it written in the form of blog posts or in her notes). I bought it: it looks and reads fine and does what it set out to do. A poet who has less experience publishing things online may need longer to go from organized manuscript to available-to-purchase, but it goes to show you don’t have to belabor the production stage, if you’re willing to forego a certain level of polish.

But be aware that once you introduce book distribution platforms like Amazon and IngramSpark to the equation (mandatory for many), depending on the specifics of what you want and the quality you desire in the finished product, self-publishing is expensive and/or will require you to learn skills quite different from being creative with words. Having the right mix of friends willing to help you for free or at minimal cost can ease that burden somewhat, but that goes to show that a professional-quality book is a group effort. It’s difficult to impossible to come close to that alone, especially if you lack experience with some part of the book-making process.

Formatting poetry for publication (for print and especially as an epub file) has a learning curve. If your poems have a fairly standard layout and you’re not fussy, it may turn out all right without pulling out your hair. But if you have a specific idea of how you want your poems to appear on the page and you’re not much of a software whisperer, you will likely need to hire someone to turn your manuscript into something a self-publishing platform or printer can use to faithfully execute on your vision. And that’s before you get to the worlds of book covers, or permissions (if you’re quoting someone else’s work, even with credit), or distribution or marketing.

If you want to avoid the hassle and have an experience closer to what you would get with traditional publishing, it will cost you. I have seen some poets recommend hiring a freelance book designer or a local college student who knows Adobe InDesign as a way to save money over purchasing a package from a self-publishing company. But I’d be prepared to pay somewhere in the four-figure US dollar range if you want cover design and formatting assistance, and then be pleasantly surprised if you’re able to find people willing to do it for a little less.

These downsides are shared in a spirit of honesty, not discouragement. I think most people who want to self-publish a book can find a way to make it happen without a lot of money (and if you already know how to make a PDF and are flexible about the how, it can even be relatively easy). I actually find the potential for authors to take control of the publication process exciting, as long as you know what you’re getting into and what you might be giving up. Some writers just don’t want to undergo all the waiting and uncertainty of the traditional process. While doing some background research for this post, I came across this in-depth article on hybrid publishing (which some would say is really just paying a company to help you self-publish). It notes that a big reason why people choose this path is because they’re getting older and worry they don’t have a lot of time left. If the writer doesn’t care about traditional publication, then why should they bother with that process? While I’m still working through my own publishing journey, it’s a path I myself may choose at some point. In slightly different circumstances, with different “shoulds” louder than others, I might already have chosen it.

Poet beware: spend your money carefully

This post came about because while looking for resources to add to “A Great Big Guide to How to Write a Poem Every Day,” there was a challenge that seemed to be everywhere in the search results, and in explaining why I thought it was a bad idea, I found I had so much to say about poetry publishing that a separate post seemed to be the only humane thing to do. A company named BookLeaf Publishing continuously runs a 21-day poem-a-day challenge and offers to “publish” a book for each participant who completes it. There’s a fee of $170 to participate, though it appears to be perpetually discounted to $34. While it’s not completely clear, it seems no prompts or other guidance for writing the poems is provided: for your fee you receive an ISBN, access to their self-publishing software and cover creator, a marketing guide, and a place in their online bookstore. You’ll need to pay extra if you want them to also make your book available on more mainstream platforms like Amazon and Barnes & Noble. This is why I put the word “publish” in quotes – this is definitely not a traditional publishing arrangement.

At the top of the challenge page they claim you get “100% royalty,” but further down the page the rate is 80% of the profit (which often in the book industry is a smaller portion of the cover price than you might expect). You retain all rights (read the agreement they say they’ll give you carefully), but note that if you wanted to take your book to other vendors on your own, you’d need to obtain a new ISBN and recreate your formatted files. Also note that you cannot change your book after you submit it upon challenge completion, so you’ll be publishing an early draft without well-considered revision. As a bonus, BookLeaf will nominate your collection for the 21st Century Emily Dickinson Award, but that award was created by BookLeaf, they choose 20 winners at a time (an unusually high number), they don’t seem to put out a public list of winners (very unusual for a reputable contest), and it seems more money is requested from the winners for PR services.

I won’t link to them directly, but here are their Trustpilot reviews and from there you can follow the link to their site.

I’ve made it clear above I’m no snob when it comes to self-publishing, but services in the space can vary dramatically in quality and value, and poets should be discerning. This particular offer, in my opinion, makes for a good illustration of a poor deal, even aside from the questions raised by the conflicting royalty values and the nature of the award nomination. To understand why, first know that Amazon (and often other major platforms) provides a free ISBN for use by the books for sale on their site. Also, an ISBN isn’t necessary if you don’t mind your book not being available in libraries or bookstores. Those who are committed to self-publishing several books will want to purchase their own ISBNs directly, as there’s a package deal that makes ordering ten cheaper than three. For both casual and serious self-publishers, a free ISBN isn’t a strong benefit, and I’m skeptical that BookLeaf’s marketing guide would be significantly better than what’s freely available.

Whether in some cases this is worthwhile or not comes down to the quality of the publishing software they provide. As I explained above, formatting poetry for publication is not easy, so if you just want to publish your book of poems anywhere where you can give people a link to buy it, you’re unsure you’ll publish other books in the future, and you don’t feel confident you can compile the digital files yourself, then BookLeaf may be an option. But I’d encourage you to compare them to other self-publishing service providers and dig into BookLeaf’s reviews before choosing them. I’d especially encourage young or new poets to avoid an option like this until they have a good idea of what they want to get out of publishing (see what I have to say above about why many poets will only consider traditional publication).

This is only one example of the kind of thing writers need to look out for. This blog post is a decent collection of other kinds of questionable opportunities. (The only thing I’d quibble with is how easy it is to find a poetry mentor and whether in 2025 people would be receptive to messages from strangers online…but yes paying for “mentorship” can quickly get dubious.) Basically, examine offers and agreements carefully to make sure you understand the commitment the other party is making and what’s in your court. This can be helpful for navigating any book publishing agreement (or any transaction in any arena): even a prestigious dream publisher with the best of intentions will set boundaries around what they will and won’t do for you.

Final thoughts

Reflecting on the possible perils of publishing, I think the caution expressed by the workshop professor in the anecdote at the beginning is not just about us rushing a book out – it’s also about avoiding what’s maybe the main manipulation lever pulled by people who want to take advantage of writers. Our vanity is tied up in being in print (or seeing our words on a particular website), and all the accolades that can (on occasion) come with that. That’s not to say that everyone who talks about getting your poems out there has bad intentions: poems locked up unread are prevented from working their full magic in the world. A voice is missing from the big poetic conversation. The other poet who said “why not publish a book next year?” also had a point (it’s always going to be vulnerable). But it’s good to be aware that the desire to publish can work against us financially and psychologically, leading us to feel desperate and depleting our bank accounts.

Finally, I also think the key is to keep in mind that what we really seek underneath is being seen (as poet and friend-of-the-site Ana Reisens brought up in her essay “Why Submit Your Poetry?” published last year). Don’t get me wrong: getting out there and being well-known brings rewards, can be very satisfying, and depending on what you’re trying to do with your life, it can be necessary. (And yes, I would be thrilled if I were interviewed by Terry Gross or if one of my poems ended up in a Norton Anthology.) But while it opens up the possibility for all sorts of new connections, does publishing guarantee our need to be seen on a deep level will be met? These are two different things: you can have one without the other. Could it be that your particular need to be seen might find fulfillment with just a little exposure to the right people (not necessarily the “right important” people), rather than with a glamorous ideal of poetic stardom? Sometimes what’s called for is spreading our work far and wide, sometimes we need to truly connect, and some lucky moments we may even have both.

I once found myself alone in the audience for a Poets House panel in honor of then-recently-deceased Portuguese poet Alberto de Lacerda. I didn’t know anything about him and had no preconceived notions about his work: I was supposed to attend with someone who hadn’t shown up and hadn’t told me she wouldn’t be there. She was a student of my very-soon-to-be-ex, and I think us going was his suggestion. It was one of the most difficult times of my life: I was stressed about money (moreso than usual) and failure and a lot of other things. But I remember hearing Lacerda’s friends talk warmly about the good times they had shared with him and about his writing, lovingly sharing personal stories. It left behind the formality of a poetry panel to become something closer to a real conversational exchange, and it broke through my scarcity-induced self-absorbed focus on material survival and security: That’s it. That’s what life and writing are about. You don’t really need anything else. I left the event with a little peace and grounding, for the rest of the evening at least. Beware of siren songs and how they might distract you from what matters.

End note: Ask the internet and you shall receive. I discovered that Poets House has a 2-minute video that gives an overview of the exhibition associated with the panel I attended (Lacerda had acquired many works by notable artists during his lifetime, as well as a remarkable collection of literary artifacts). A prominent theme is “friendship,” validating my memory. If you want to dive in further, the fiction writer Jhumpa Lahiri published an essay in Poetry on her recollections of Lacerda (she was one of the panelists at the Poets House event). Someone may see this as fancy-schmancy literary elite nonsense, and it’s true that the exhibition would not have happened if Lacerda didn’t have so many famous friends…but personally I think the spirit of friendship is real, and the fame element just means we get to learn about it.

Also, thank you to the fall 2025 Writing Down the Bones class: our discussion about publishing in the last week was helpful to have in my head as I wrote this post.

Additional resources

Several of these articles link to even more valuable discussions about poetry publishing, so I encourage you to dig in!

Finding Guideposts for Your Writing – I have available for purchase the recording of a talk I gave in February 2025 that shares a guided process for thinking deeply about your writing and publication goals. It will help you develop your understanding of who your “right for you” people are, explore your identity as a writer, and assist in gain clarity on what you want to achieve, so that you can better navigate the decisions you have to make as part of your writing life. It’s useful for all writers, not just poets. (Hint: if you’re reading this post at the time of publication in December 2025, next week you can get a deal involving this recording as part of a “virtual holiday market” for writers. Come back to this blog for more information soon, or subscribe to my newsletter (in the sidebar on desktop, at the bottom of the page on mobile) to have the details sent to you.)

Paying to Play: On Submission Fees in Poetry Publishing – This article is a detailed look at how much poets spend in submission fees to be published by both journals and book publishers, how abolishing this practice would not be so simple, and the role of public funding in traditional poetry publishing.

Poetry Publishing and Money: A primer for beginners – More on the financial realities of poetry book publishing. It’s written for those pursuing traditional publication, though some of the concerns are relevant to self-publishing as well (know what the likely outcome is before you invest large sums of money).

Persistence As Practice: Reflections on Five Years and 706 Submissions – If the articles above leave you feeling discouraged about PoBiz, this blog post from Ana Reisens makes for an optimistic counterpoint (Ana has taught a class on submitting to literary magazines for this website). She has approached journal submissions with prolific exuberance, and in the course of writing these reflections discovered that over five years of sending out her work, she’d paid for eight months of rent. If you like this one, I’d also suggest Ana’s post “Why Submit Your Poetry?,” which goes deeper into the thrills and lessons in the traditional journal publication route, and says a little about her experience trying the non-traditional move of posting poems on Instagram.

102 Traditional Poetry Manuscript Presses Who Do Not Charge Reading Fees – This resource from Authors Publish Magazine is updated periodically, and this version from 2024 seems to be the most current. The magazine is a great compiler of all kinds of publishing opportunities, with a steady stream of round-ups of lit mags and book publishers in all categories. Their mission is to make the publishing world more open, accessible, and fair, and they only list traditional publishers that do not require fees.

Poetry Book Contracts: What to Know Before You Sign – The author of this article, Nancy Reddy, published her first book with Milkweed Editions. She speaks from that experience, and also interviewed a number of publishing professionals to produce this piece.

Poetry Presses Answer Your Burning Questions, Part 2 – Parts 1 and 3 of this series (on the manuscript selection process and the future of poetry publishing, links at the top of Part 2) are worth reading as well, but I think this installment about the challenges publishers face is the most relevant to this blog post. Note the very first answer given by the very first press mentions how damaging poets who avoid promoting their work can be to the ability of the publisher to survive. If you are uninterested in self-publishing because of the marketing demands, to be honest, finding a traditional publisher won’t save you from that obligation (though they should help as much as they can given their finances, and they have resources you don’t, even if it’s simply the perspective of publishing a number of books). A publisher is not a fairy godmother who will take all the work off your shoulders – authors are expected to share in the labor involved in creating and promoting a book, and there are some things only the author can do, not just at the writing and editing stages, but also at the marketing stage.

Publishing Poetry – This comprehensive resource from the University of Arizona’s Poetry Center covers revision and traditional publishing with journals and presses, but I’ve set the link to go directly to the “Alternatives to Literary Publishing” section due to the information about formatting and software there for self-publishers. The other parts are easy to access, and it’s worth checking out in its entirety for a good overview.

Self-publishing poetry on the web: risks, benefits, and best practices – With the caveat that this post was published in 2010 (ancient history for anything involving the web), Dave Bonta from Via Negativa shares the text of a discussion he had with an internet-savvy librarian on the ins-and-outs of posting your poems online. Despite the post’s age, many of the basic principles are still at play, and I thought the parts about Creative Commons licenses and accessibility for blind and deaf site visitors were especially useful.

Hybrid Publishing: Everything You’ve Always Wanted to Know – Also linked in the post text above, this is a thorough introduction to a relatively new publishing model that some would say can be the best of both worlds, traditional and DIY.

Discussions of hybrid publishing that share a range of opinions: one and two – Is “hybrid publishing” just a fancy term for a vanity press, or is it really its own animal?

Due to how vast the landscape for self-publishing can be and all the moving parts, I feel that for self-publishing, this list could be more thorough. The University of Arizona resource above is a great start, but I haven’t yet found a great “one-stop-shop” that focuses on self-publishing poetry or at least gives a decent introduction to the particular concerns involved. Do you know of one? Contact me or leave a note in the comments below. In the meantime, for general information on self-publishing, you could do worse than start at Joanna Penn’s website, and Jane Friedman is also well-known for her advice. If you want some more unconventional thinking (at least for the literary world), do an internet search for “alex hillman self-publishing” and you’ll find some of his interesting perspective. While his expertise is digital entrepreneurship and community-building, not creative writing, Alex has brilliant things to say about thriving on your own terms, independent of traditional gatekeepers and corporate/institutional behemoths, that I think anyone could benefit from.

A word of caution that, perhaps due to the need to fight against the headwinds to acceptance they still sometimes face, self-publishers can tend to be enthusiastic about that path to the point that claims that veer into hype are often made. Especially due to the particular concerns of poetry, I would be wary of statements about how easy, cheap, lucrative, or consequence-free self-publishing can be, and keep in mind that some have a financial stake in getting you bitten by the self-publishing bug. Hopefully, what I’ve written above has given you what you need to know to be skeptical.

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