A Market For Long Narrative Poetry?
In spirit I have struggled long to find
A manner fit to hold my roiling thoughts;
A way to slowly pour them to a mold -
And happily that manner has been found.
A writer long, inclined to stories long
And intricate, my poetry is not
Of brief and shining moments, gilded-gold;
But narrative, where stanzas many throng.
Though novels I did once compose, no more.
And even then, I timidly did not
Successful win that phantom, promised gold -
A book deal, and great fame forevermore.
An ugly begger, heiress lost and found -
Or else a tragedy of ages lost
Where myth and superstition mix. All told,
So many thousand words each poem crowds.
Pray, reader, can you tell me where to look?
What market is there? Fantasy but not
in prose - my hope of publishing grown cold.
Say, where to peddle such a verse-filled book?
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/40839. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
3 answers
Whenever I go to a bookstore, they either do not have any poetry books at all, or only a very small selection of classics shelved alongside Homer and Shakespeare.
When you search "market for poetry" in your favourite search engine, you'll find a couple of webpages that list venues that pay for short poems, mostly periodicals such as Christian Science Monitor or Slice. You'll have to research them.
But none of these publish epic poetry. Your best approach would be a two-step strategy:
Find the publishers that publish contemporary poetry (your format) or fantasy (your content) and submit. Maybe one of them will be interested.
If none of them want your work, self-publish. Be prepared for a tremendous marketing effort or be conent with a handful of readers.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/40844. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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A common market for shorter pieces is anthologies.
You didn't give a length but "long poetry" is probably still not novel length.
Anthologies tend to have themes based on the subject of the work or the communities the author belongs to, or both. For example:
These are simply examples of anthologies I've read and liked. There are countless more. While science fiction and fantasy anthologies are common, there are plenty that don't have that theme. Most do not have requirements that the author belong to a particular community either. Though if you do belong to a particular community of any kind, do some searches. This includes living in a particular city.
Look at theme broadly. For example, if Goblin Market was just written and the author was trying to publish it, it could belong with stories of fantasy, fairy tale, horror, family ties, women, sisterly love, etc.
Consider graphic novel format.
Many anthologies are for graphic novel/comic book creators. You might consider partnering with an artist and submitting to anthologies using a creative illustrative style that doesn't have to look anything like most graphic novels.
If your poem is long enough (or if you have more than one that would work together), an illustrated book that is all your own might catch the eye of publishers more than a book of an epic poem.
I can imagine, for example, pages with long but narrow text down the middle and pictures and patterns in the very large margins.
Or pictures breaking up each stanza (or set of stanzas).
Or each page of text side by side with a full page illustration.
If you go this route, take your time finding the right artist and only get one, maybe two, sample pages to show publishers. Art is expensive!
Be creative!
Epic poetry isn't a big seller unless it's older works for school children, and even then... So the more you can position your work as part of other markets, the more successful you'll be. Good luck!
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A most unwelcome answer
'Tis too late, said one.
Not here, said another.
Then silence, or rather
Mystery not yet undone.
There is an unspoken thought,
an obvious sky-ridden star:
absolute, earnest by far.
'Tis the answer you sought:
of words twisted and obscure,
many of which but manure,
the world is full in surplus.
If you write for pleasure,
Then yours is the treasure:
enjoy, and don't bother us.
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