The Art of Chapbook Publication

I am asked often how to make a chapbook. 

Here are some simple steps to make a product with a good production value:

• Use a word processing software program that is compatible with the creation of pdf's. 
• Structure your chapbook with front matter, content, and back matter.
• Front Matter should have informative elements for your reader like:
• Title page
• Copyright/Publishing page
• Table of Contents
• Contents should be in logical/chronological order with numbering
• Back Matter should have extras for your reader like:
• Author biography
• Thank you
• Dedication (maybe Front Matter for Print books)
• Publisher's mark
• Book design cover art to visually explain your poetry with images instead of words with:
• Title 
• Tag line, if applicable 
• Author's (pen) name

The time and dedication to put all these elements together is necessary to give your audience a complete sense of what message, feeling, or thought you wanted to convey to them. 

Many publishers will charge around $1,000 for their time, original art work, and editing services. 

So if you would like me to do a chapbook for you in pdf format with my original design cover art, editing, layout, and internal design services, please note that I charge a fee. 

Anthologies I usually do for free or a reading fee of $1 per poem/microfiction prose piece. Then I will give the anthology out for free for one day and then begin to charge for my time per chapbook sold.

Considering many people do not buy anthologies, I am usually out my time. 

Thems the breaks. 

So if you would like to hire me to do your chapbook under 50 pages including original artwork, front/back matter and contents. Then set a goal of a $250 to $300 budget. That is with the originator handing in a typo free document. 

Since my original cover art starts out at the $200 price point, poets and writer's are really getting a great deal. If you would like to hire me to accomplish a New Year's goal of a publication credit for 2020, then please go over to my Sonoran Dawn Studios social media page and write me a private message. 

I take Paypal. 

Thank you!

*****

Please be advised that there is a $50 nonrefundable payment due before any work can begin as to safeguard my time creating a cover design mock up for you. Then you can decide after the mock up if you would like to continue, if you do, then $200 of the overall completed chapbook fee will also be nonrefundable. 

It is unfortunate but I have ran into people who want to see the product before payment only to take the work for themselves and leave me without compensation. It does not happen often but now I put in barriers to those individuals who have dishonorable intentions. 

Thank you for your understanding. 

The Classics Never Get Old

As a disabled American, I cannot afford much on a fixed income. Internet is a medical necessity but overpriced as a luxury service. Not when I would pay sixty-five dollars in town for the same supplement bottle I buy online for under thirty. The internet ends up paying for itself. 

A tight budget means no cable. I cannot watch any of my favorite shows. The current fodder plastered on the small screen is chalk full of psychological manipulations and political pageantry. None of it is very satisfying and definitely more psyop than entertainment. I turned my set off for the summer. 

That was until Antenna TV began airing the Johnny Carson Show. First the network had the show on at 10:30pm. Great, I don't have to listen to the unfunny people of the other current late night talk shows. Then Johnny got switched to an hour later. 

All the shows I did not get to see because I was too young to watch; I had school the next day are now available to me. Well, every day except Fridays when I would catch a view from time to time. 

This old show from the sixties to the nineties was insightful, informative, and entertaining. The combination that is lacking in entertainment nowadays. From film to television, to reality shows, Hollywood is too geared toward teaching me how to sit and beg like a dog instead of having a real dog do the tricks. 

I surf by show after show that has gays, lesbians, or interracial couples. That's fine to see a mixture of people. We are the United States. The line I see entertainment crossing is social engineering us to think or feel one way or another.

Everything is about balance and our entertainment should represent our cultural wealth, not just a few segments of society. I'm still trying to find that richness, which is not celebrated on the screen.

I am a crazy person. I believe people should marry out of love and not because a film or show made it cool. A couple will not last long if they don't have anything in common. Love sometimes is just not enough. 

Even though in my stories, love is rewarded. I write in the Jane Austen school of thought where every woman should marry for love and always marry up. That is what makes a good story. Will s/he find their match in [insert character name here]? 

We are innately attracted to the romantic archetype. We also have other structures we love to watch. Performers performing to make us laugh or cry. Sometimes performers perform for the sake of a smile on another person's face.

Vaudville antics with interviews and comedians is a wonderful combination. I wish I could find more of that type of goodwill today. I turn on the television and receive a guttural dose of social justice warriors gone wild. 

And mad. These people seem very angry over every little damn thing. Everything is a personal mission. A boycott. A vendetta. 

Bored now. 

I like entertainment. 

How can I order that to be played instead of all the divisiveness?