Hi everyone. I've been thinking of publishing a poetry book for a while now but have some problems I'd like advice on:

I'm not too confident of my writing skills. TBH, I find my writings to be cringe. While writing and posting them online, I feel happy and enjoy it but when rereading them I end up cringing. Is this normal? How do I gain confidence in my writing?

How do I go about publishing books? Especially for poetry. Do most people self publish if they're no names? How much would it cost?

Is it financially viable to publish a poetry book? Tbh I don't have much of a capital and would rather not publish if it means I'll just be losing money especially since I'll soon be in between jobs and again, don't have too much saved.

Appreciate everyone's help with this and thank you in advance!

If you must do that, can consider e-book option. Not advising on ultimately how viable is the entire gig

its a very niche product , consider studying your target markets carefully.

the content of this type of books is usually acquired taste, so don't fret too much about it. It's your own creativity.

as for whether to publish and can gain profit or not, that's an entirely different thing. if just for fun or personal satisfaction, then not much harm done (maybe). but for financial gain, you may need marketing strategy, fine tune content for targeted audiences and such. me no experience, just spit-balling here...

if you felt you works are not up to par yet... then why even think of publishing them for the masses ?

The best and free platform to publish your creative works and seek public validations are still socmed channels.

Before bringing in "financial viability" part into the equation... keep doing what you do until you felt its good enough for the next level.

This post has been edited by alanyuppie: Jul 8 2025, 12:12 PM

I would say create fans first via social media.. not easy but I think that's the best way to start.

Once you have good fan base, then you publish a book

But keep the best ones for your book and never post the contents before publishing

Think of it like cooking. If you like cooking, you can cook for yourself and friends for free. Even if it doesn't taste so good, people appreciate it. You're happy, everyone's happy.

But if you want to sell your cooking for profit, then its a different ball game. Even good writers and artists lose money before they're appreciated, like van gogh.

This. Start it with social media to see the traction.

I have actually, but I'm having trouble with the editing, designing and publishing part currently :/


At the very least I'd like not to make a loss haha. Profit would be great but as u said it would there's a lot I'd need to think about and I'm not really experienced in those parts.

Because I'm just not sure if I'm overthinking and I should give it a try or if it really isn't that good haha. I do post on socmed but getting views and feedback has been hard. At most people will like the post but I don't know what exactly their thoughts on it are. If I were to sell it, at least I could look at sales and reviews for people's opinions on my work.

Yea that's the other thing. I post everything I write (poetry wise) and then end up feeling guilty because if I've posted it online already, is it fair for me to be charging people for it later on?

True I guess.

Consider emailing KataPilar publishing.

woots, that's giving off some strong "When Life Gives You Tangerines" vibes - the main character's hobby was into poetry she finally published when she is in her 50s/60s(after all the ups and downs in her life) - so like everything in life, why wait if you can start now

here's a google doc link if you wanna read the poems from the show : Ae-Sun's Poems, hopefully you find something inspiring or at least helpful

as for publishing a hardcopy - there is a printing shop in PJ, Wilbiz (Google Maps link), they do all sorts of mass printing - brochures/pamphlets/banners/etc, you could try to arrange/sort your poems - maybe use existing poetry books as a base/template on how to present your own work - then ask the shop if they would be willing to print a draft copy - never try, never know - good luck!

Ooo, I'll check them out, thanks for the suggestion!

yoooo, thank you so much for that WLGYT doc! I'd actually wanted to read them after I finished the show bcos I loved it so much! I only remember the poem she wrote for her mom when she was a kid cos it's one of my favs. I've been writing for around 8 years now (tho for the first 3-4 years I wasn't really serious). I think that show and a few trips to the public lib made me consider publishing mine.

thank you for the printing shop suggestion also! self-publishing and printing is a bit scary but if i ever get enough courage to publish it as a hard copy I'll check that place out! for now I think after everyone's comments I'm going to try to write more poems that I'm satisfied with, then maybe start with an ebook.