How Do You Make A Poetry Chapbook?
During the 17th through 19th centuries in the British Isles, “chapbook” referred to a small booklet that contained poems, songs, folk stories or other works with general appeal. Printers produced any material that they thought would sell and had “chapmen,” or peddlers, sell the booklets on the street. In the United States today, chapbooks refer to booklets of poetry or fiction by a single author. Today’s chapbooks may be simple booklets printed and bound at home or fine, handmade works of art. If you have access to a computer and printer, you can easily publish your own chapbook. A nice size for a poetry chapbook is 10 sheets of paper. Once you fold each sheet in half and collate them, you will have a booklet of 40 pages, measuring 8 1/2 by 5 1/2 inches. Prepare a paper mock-up of your booklet before you begin setting it up in your word processing program. This will help you visualize the layout. Lay down a stack of 10 sheets of paper and fold them in half (bringing the two 8 1/2 inch
