Wheelsong Books for example, was founded on the principle that evry poet has a voice and that voice demands an audience. I deliberately set up the company to be not for profit. When authors come to me asking how much it costs to publish a book, I reply that there is no fee.
I am both amazed and appalled at the number of publishers 'out there' that cynically exploit the heartfelt desire of a poet to be published. They charge large sums of cash to provide 'editing and publishing services' that are little short of a scam. The poor poet ends up splashing out their hard earned cash for very little. What do they receive in return? Often a poorly edited and shoddily designed book that sells just a few copies. They are left with boxes of books they have paid for, but no-one wants to buy.
Popularly, this is known as a vanity press. The people behind many of these schemes are often unfair and unprincipled. They exercise little or no quality control, and all and sundry can get to publish their work no matter how good or bad it may be. Facebook and the web are full of poets desperately advertising and plugging books that no-one is interested in buying. You should be wary of any publisher who asks you for money to publish your book!
Wheelsong Books is different. We will never charge a poet to have their work published. Instead, Wheelsong offers editing, design and copyrighting services for no cost to the poet. We even agree to give ten percent of the sales return on every copy sold to the poet as royalty payments as a standard publishing agreement. If the book does well, and sells many copies, then everyone is a winner.
Everyone who is directly associated with Wheelsong Books works on a purely voluntary basis. Our small, but growing group of ambassadors helps to promote and market the efforts and publications of our poet family worldwide through social media, events and promotions. Each is chosen for their commitment and drive to helping make the enterprise a success for all. For example, our USA ambassador is Matt Elmore, and our UK ambassador is Charlene Phare.
If you are interested in publishing with Wheelsong Books, be assured that we will treat you with the respect you deserve. We will assess your poetry on its merits, and we will be totally honest with you about its quality, its viability as a commercial work, and any future efforts you might need to take to improve it. Any questions you may have about publishing with Wheelsong can be posted to the comments box below! The Wheelsong Books team looks forward to hearing from you.
All live Wheelsong publications can be found on the Wheelsong Books website.
Image from Pexels used under a Creative Commons licence
Hi! I'm JANET TAI. How do l go about sending my material to you
ReplyDeleteRequest a book proposal form from wheelsong6@gmail.com or wait for the next call for poems for Wheelsong Anthology 3 in September.
DeleteI am so honored to be part of Wheelsong because of the dedication to the righteous proliferation of information related to poetry and the opportunity to become part of that movement through publication. I honestly believe that Wheelsong can grow into something that transcends the opportunistic grubbing of talent that is out there and become a leader in this beautiful revolution of poetic empathy that is occurring as we speak. - Matt Elmore
ReplyDeleteWheelsong is proud to have you as one of our ambassadors Matt. We couldn't achieve it all without your help!
DeleteI got caught a number of years ago by something akin to a Vanity press.
ReplyDeleteAfter my grandmother died, I had written a short poem in her memory (which I have put on "Invisible Poets", titled "A memory in memory" describing a box my grandmother had, filled with scrolls, each of which had a verse of scripture. It was one of my first forays into "free verse" with no rhymes, but with three line stanzas. I had wanted to read it at the funeral service, but the vicar absolutely refused to have relatives reading out "corny poems" they had written about the deceased. (He didn't even read it - it wasn't corny).
A while later, my wife spotted an advert from a group called the Forward Press, looking for inspiring Christian poem and inviting submissions, and suggested I had a go. I submitted the poem and was delighted initially to get a reply that it had been accepted for publication in their forthcoming anthology, and they asked me for a small fee to cover the cost of one copy of the book. I guess that should have been a warning sign.
When I received the copy of the book, I found that there were over 100 poems in it, all from different poets. Though it might sound an awful thing to say it but many of these were embarrassingly awful, wince-makingly so. At the time I attended a poetry group in Oxford run by a published poet who was a senior lexicographer on the Oxford English Dictionary. Having shown him some of these examples, he said "Your stuff's much better than this".
But obviously all those people were delighted to see their very sincere poems in print - but I doubt if anyone else saw them apart from the other contributors to the book.
I would love to think that my poems are good enough to publish, and I'm not really interested in making money out of them, so if the profits are mostly given to charity from Wheelsong sales that sounds ideal to me.
I did subsequently publish a few poems in a small magazine (Pulsar, which still exists as a web-zine), and also read out a few poems on BBC Radio Oxford, when they were requesting listeners poems during the pandemic. They were intending to publish the collection with the title of my poem "Light will return" as the title of the collection, but unfortunately the project got shelved due to difficulties getting it printed during the slow emergence from the pandemic, backlogs, supply chains etc.
Perhaps you might let me know if it's worth pursuing a route to publication via Wheelsong.
I just wanted to add that having Googled Forward Press it seems they are a publisher of short stories, and I don't know if they are the same company as I dealt with. Having put the name there, I wouldn't want it thought that I was maligning a more genuine company.
DeleteSorry to hear you had such a bad experience with vanity press. Unfortunately, as I stated in my post, such publishers are only interested in taking a poet's money, and take little care over the quality of the poetry they put out there. Well, why would they? They now have the money from 100 or so poets. Wheelsong takes special care only to publish poetry that is of high quality. Anyone who purchases a Wheelsong book is assured that their book contains great poetry (I make sure of this personally!). We are also very honest with those who apply with a book proposal - and I reject more than I accept!
DeleteThank you for the heads up on Vanity Press! Yes, ads can pop up anywhere enticing unknowing poets. Your warning is certainly appreciated. Again, thank you! ~Fatamira
ReplyDeleteI'm pleased to hear this post has been useful Karin.
DeleteI am a practicing poet from Nigeria and, I would have love to publish my poetry with Wheelsong books. Though I have had the privilege of posting fewer of my poems on the 'Invisible poet' platform; could my kind of poetry be accepted? Auaduma Adookorn.
ReplyDeleteHi Auaduma. It's not easy to answer until we see some examples of your poetry. Request a book proposal form by emailing wheelsong6@gmail.com
DeleteNever a truer word said Steve!
ReplyDeleteWould love to publish my poetry with your company . Can I have a form to share my desire. Sushma
ReplyDeleteI have had many published in Forward Press.and they didn't charge. There was Triump House as well. Marian Dunham
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely amazing that Wheelsong books are helping those with voices to be heard even little. May God bless you all.
ReplyDeleteI read this from begining to the very end, great info and scary too. We can be told that our poetry may NOT pass the mister huh, Steve. The whole article was SUPER interesting tho'.
ReplyDeleteI do want to put a proposal through, for my poetry book but only great poems get in. Itakes me wonder what to choose out of hundreds of poems. Do you understand what I am trying to say. Steve, Matt or Charlene?
When I know I have the time needed to go through so many of my poems, I definitely will. I just use my phone, nothing more right now but hope to have a computer available soon. Thank you for the opportunity and I noticed this blog is 2023. Glad I didn't miss it. God Bless! Thank you, Steve.
I have poetry book ready to go, but I'm really scared the first was a flop on kdp. Then this one someone offered but I had to pay £1,00 for the privilege, I don't even know £1,00 looks like. Thankfully someone here on IP realised and helped not take it further. So now the sits in fear on the shelf unpublished and unloved.
ReplyDeleteSo many scammers out there to make a profit off of innocent writers… paying to be published is a major red flag to be sure. I am honored to use my poetry to make a difference with the sales of Wheelsong books going straight to charity. Long live poetry against poverty! Thank you for the eye opening article Steve.
ReplyDeleteI can’t express how grateful I am to Wheelsong and Steve and everyone that is a part of this wonderful enterprise to make poets visible again, for their kindnesses to me and the opportunity to realize a dream that never would have become reality without them. I’ve never met such a selfless and kind-spirited group of people, and I am more than honored and very humbled to be a small part of that family. I hope I can add something positive to the community here, and give back a bit of the altruism that has been shown to me. I have heard many nightmare stories of those who have been taken advantage of by these sham companies, and it is a blight on the writing community as a whole. When Steve approached me and I shared it with others, they all reacted the same way, negatively, and while I personally knew Wheelsong was the real deal, the response was evidence of how many people have been taken advantage of. Thank heaven for the safe community that has been created here, where quality poets can come and know they’ll be treated with respect, kindness and honesty. I am blessed to be among you - thank you so, so much!
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