Hello poetry pals! Welcome back to
another video this week I am starting a
new series about how to get published
this is a these series of videos are
going to be mainly focused on all of the
things that I learned in my masters we I
did a creative writing master's at Bath
Spa specializing in poetry and a huge
bit of what we learned was how to get
our poems into a collection and then how
to publish that collection so save
yourself 7 grand on university fees and
subscribe to my youtube channel and get
yourself some knowledge about how to get
your poems published so this series I'm
going to focus on all the different
routes into publishing that you can
possibly have so you can self publish
there's the traditional route into
publishing which I would say is more
definitely more like page poetry and
then there's this weird space for like
spoken word artists who like build a
following and there are now publishers
out there that you know concern
themselves solely with spoken word poets
and performance poets and they work in a
slightly different way as well so I'm
going to be making a few videos about
all the different ways that you can
publish your poetry but for now I'm
gonna be focusing on the traditional
route into publishing so the traditional
route into publishing as I said is very
focused on page poetry when I say
traditional I mean the establishment and
the establishment is currently page
poetry by the way I'm really sorry about
the sound I needed to be in a space
where I could easily film with a big
space beside me to put stuff and that's
my kitchen and it's a bit echoey
hopefully it's not too bad let's get
into it
so let me run through the process of
getting published
traditionally in one of the more
traditional publishing houses for poetry
and stuff like that so you start by
writing your poems ah you need to have
poems and they need to be finished and
good and happy and your thing is a poem
I've finished whatever that's a debate
for another time so you've got your
poems and you're in the process of
working on a collection I imagine what
you need to do before you submit your
entire manuscript to the publisher you
need to focus on getting individual
poems published in literary journals and
this is where your submission
spreadsheet comes in so you want to
submit you want to get a good number of
your poems individual poems published in
journals and then from there once you've
built up an acknowledgments page so an
acknowledgment spades normally comes at
the front or the back of a collection
and says where the poems have been
published before and once you've built
yourself an impressive acknowledgments
page then you can start submitting to
publishers hey future editing JC just
wanted to nip in here and say that of
course you can start sending your
manuscript to publishers without
submitting to journals but for the more
traditional big establishment publishers
they are less likely to accept your
manuscript if you haven't already built
up an acknowledgments page just wanted
to clarify that you don't have to use
this route this is just the tradition
and the normal way of doing things am I
saying that this is the right way of
doing things absolutely not but this is
just one way to skin a cat if you know
what I'm saying
literary journals and poetry journals
are they don't have a massive readership
and but the people who do read them are
a lot of editors poetry editors our
publishing houses so you just to clarify
you write your poems you get them
submitted to journals and accepted in
journals and then you send
your full manuscript now the process of
submitting to journals is long it is
tiring and it is difficult to keep track
of there are a lot of literary journals
and poetry magazines and stuff like that
out there and they take a long time to
get back to you so so long and a lot of
them don't allow for simultaneous
submissions which means you can't submit
the same poem to two different magazines
because the magazines only want to have
your poem there you can't have it
published in two different magazines so
you need to keep track of where your
poems are going and why which is why I
have made a submission spreadsheet a
submission spreadsheet is a really
useful way of keeping track of where
your poems are what magazines you have
submitted to and when that you are
expecting to hear back ok so I'm gonna
show you my spreadsheet I'm not gonna go
into every single magazine that is
listed here I'm just gonna provide it in
the description down below of all of the
magazines that I have included in my
spreadsheet so that you can use it to
build up your submission spreadsheet but
also if you have some or you've heard of
some magazines it I think I should be
including in my list then please comment
them below because I definitely want to
hear about them why don't we work
together on building a a big database
that we can all share one of the great
places to have a look for new magazines
is the Poetry Society website they have
a list of loads and loads of magazines
in the UK that you can submit to so
definitely definitely go check that out
as well
so I seemed right out so you can see it
properly this is my spreadsheet I use it
on Google sheets so that it is easily
available on online and so that I can
access it from my phone I can write
it from my computer and my laptop
depending on where I am most of the time
I like to work from my PC at home but
it's useful being able to access it
anywhere so for me I have across the top
are the names of all of the magazines
that I've chosen to include in my
spreadsheet the next row has the filters
on it but it also has notes about each
one so for example I got rejected from
the interpreters house but it was a good
rejection and they did suggest
resubmitting so I'm going to resubmit
when their thing reopens
I'm also you know so for the MA
anthology which is a column that most of
you if you haven't finished a degree
master's degree from Bath Spa you won't
need to have any anthology included in
yours that's just to say that it's done
and then I've been accepted for obsessed
with pipe work I've also included little
notes about how to submit so like
whether it's postal submissions or
whether it's email or whether it is
submit a bull which is an online
submitting program that you can use I'm
gonna do a separate video on all of
these methods another time but I keep
the notes down so down the left-hand
side these are the names of my poems and
as you can see they're all in different
colors the blue ones are accepted but
the red yellow and green ones are
actually whether I consider them
finished or not so the green ones are
like yeah these are perfect I don't need
to do anything to them and then the
orange ones are like these need a little
bit of work but I still plan on using
them and then the red ones are I could
delete these and wouldn't be sad so
that's a little bit of a guide for you
there I also have this extra column here
which either says faulty manufacturing
or it's left blank and that just means
whether I'm intending to include them in
my collection or not so in the final
manuscript or not because the thing is
I've written a lot of poems on this
masters as you can see this isn't even
all of them I don't think so that's like
three which means that one's fifty so I
yeah I've read written nearly 50 and
nearly 50 pounds and not all of them fit
into my collection so that's fine so
then we move on let's let's talk about
the status bar and okay so this is this
column here right next to the names and
you have accepted and where it's been
accepted you've got free which means I
can submit them anywhere they're like
free to go out or they've been submitted
and where they've been submitted or
they're on YouTube so a lot of magazines
and literary journals all of those will
consider you putting something on the
Internet as publishing it and they
therefore will not want it in their
magazine if it's already available on
the Internet
so you've got to bear that in mind if
you're going to share your poems on
Instagram or on YouTube a lot of places
do consider that as publication so my
that is one of the reasons why I don't
share a huge amount of my poems online
so then we move into the rest of here
and basically what it is is I go okay I
want to submit to the Rialto and I go
down I see which poems are free and I'll
pick them I'll submit them and then I
will put submit it and the date I
submitted them from there I will then
either hear back and we'll mark it as
rejected or I won't hear back
and after a certain amount of time it
becomes clear that they're not getting
back to me
so there's a couple of magazines here
that say it if you don't hear back
within three months then feel free to
resubmit which i think is quite a good
thing because you can see okay there and
you won it for three months that's fine
because a lot of magazines take three to
six months to get back to you I had one
my one poem that made it to the
shortlist and then got rejected and may
have my poem for six months I had to
wait six months to be rejected from them
when that I could have been submitting
that poem to any number of things
so there you have it that's like the
rough thing it really helps you to know
whether days being submitted anywhere
else it's really handy for that it helps
you keep track of it I know having
spoken to you quite a few poetry piles
that people's might people spreadsheets
all look different and they have a
different system a friend of mine also
has a software which he uses for storing
his poems and for how to organize that
and I'm gonna try that software and do a
video on that as well so this is gonna
be an ongoing journey for us so what I
want to do now is just run through like
little tips and tricks for other advice
for aids I will look at this spreadsheet
at least once a week to keep it updated
and once a week I will go through all of
the magazines that I haven't submitted
to yet and see when their submission
windows are what their submission rules
are because each place is slightly
different and I will put that all in my
calendar each day I can keep it up to
date
and know like in a couple of weeks one
of my favorite magazines their
submission window is open so I'm
get ready to submit some stuff to them
and yeah you just got to keep it updated
my next piece of advice is to like keep
your chin up and don't let the muggles
get you down because you just because
your poems didn't make it into their
upcoming edition doesn't mean that
they're bad poems it just means that it
didn't belong in that issue they
couldn't find a space that worked for
your poems in them and that's okay
that's a good thing I recently had poems
accepted into stand Magazine which is
one of my favorite magazines they were
like yeah it's probably gonna be early
2020 that your your poems get up and I
type great so I've got these poems which
ones have been yeah I've got two poems
that are going to be published in span
magazine that won't be out for nearly a
year
this takes a long time so be patient and
don't be hard on yourself because this
whole process takes a while my next
piece of advice is to actually if you
can read the magazines because people
who will recommend my friends will have
quite a long list here but you need to
know where it's going to suit your
poetry and where you want your
opponent's to be published because what
will happen is you might submit
somewhere and either it just totally
won't be the right thing and now know
you'll have never read their magazine
because they're like we only publish
form poetry and here you are with a
spoken word piece on a people and trying
to submit that know who are you get out
or you might be publishing somewhere
that it's just so not in your style so
you want to get to know each of the old
magazines that you want to pop get
yourself into to know if your style
suits them the other reason is what if
you submit somewhere and you get
accepted and then you realize you're
like you get the magazine
the post or whatever you get your
contribution and you're like oh this is
not the magazine I wanted my poems to be
in because you can't take that back once
that's happened so that's something to
bear in mind so be very careful about
that you want to create a list of
magazines that is right for you and not
just whilst I understand the want to
throw it out there and keep it you know
throws much shit at the walls and see
what sticks you definitely want to make
sure you're throwing your shit at the
right walls for your shit if that makes
sense I want to run through exactly how
to go about submitting your poems in the
next video but your homework for now is
to start your submission spreadsheet and
start researching the magazines that you
want your things to be included in and
maybe go out there and subscribe to a
few magazines um to see where you want
to be I've got a couple of subscriptions
that I want to start based on what I've
seen online and so I'm going to start
subscribing to magazines if you don't
have the money for like a yearly
subscription or stuff like that a lot of
magazines will sell individual copies
which can be a good way of getting a
vibe of what they do and whether your
poetry would fit there so it's worth
looking into that or some will be
available in libraries and things like
that so just go online go to the
magazine's website and see what's
available and how much you can find out
from them and then we will next week go
through how to submit your poems for a
journal other things that I'm going to
cover in this series ah I made a little
mind well how spoken word poets get
themselves published I'm going to talk
about self-publishing and whether that
can work for you and because it can it
does work for people and then we're
going to talk about competitions and
they're worth it and how to judge
whether a competition is worth doing and
now I'm going to talk about we're gonna
do how to submit and I'm also going to
talk about the Society of authors and
talk about like publishing contracts a
little bit and you know about trying to
find out how our publishing contract
works and how to make that work best for
you and your situation so is there
anything else on how to publish poems
that you want to know about if so chuck
them in the comments below message me on
instagram DM me on twitter do whatever
you want to do to let me know what you
want to learn about in terms of
publishing poetry and we'll go from
there
I hope this has been useful please let
me know if there's any big bits that I
missed please let me know if your
spreadsheet is different to mine tell me
how yours is different and what you do I
want to know and I will see you all
later
please subscribe to my channel give this
video a like recommend it to your
friends and watch all my other videos
I've been doing a load of how to write a
poem videos I've been doing book reviews
because if there's one thing I have
learnt this who improve your poetry is
to read other people's poetry and
analyze what makes it good what makes it
bad and go from that so yeah hit the
subscribe button hit the bell icon do
all of the YouTube things and I will see
you all next week thanks very much bye
my mug today is my don't let the muggles
get you down mark because that's what
you need to keep reminding yourself when
you're submitting and justly to journals
and they take so long to get back to you
that you just want to be rejected by the
end of it
