Welcome to the PoCoChapMo ‘24 Chapbook Progress Updates thread!
This space is dedicated to sharing your journey as you compile and create your chapbook from all the incredible work you’ve done during this month. Whether you’re just starting to organize your poems, revising your drafts, or working on your final design, we’d love to hear about your progress!
What to Share:
Current Status: Where are you in the process of creating your chapbook? Organizing poems, revising, designing, or almost done?
Challenges: What challenges have you faced in turning your poems into a cohesive chapbook? How are you working through them?
Victories: Share your small and big wins! Whether it’s completing a first draft or finalizing the title, we want to celebrate with you.
Design Ideas: Are you working on the cover, or considering different formats? Share your ideas or get feedback from fellow participants.
Support Requests: If you’re feeling stuck or need feedback on any part of your chapbook, this is a supportive space to seek advice and ideas from the community.
Remember:
No Rush: Everyone works at their own pace. This thread is here to encourage and support you, no matter where you are in the process.
Collaborate and Support: Feel free to offer advice, feedback, or even just a virtual high-five to fellow participants.
Let’s keep the energy going as we work towards completing our chapbooks! Share your progress, and let’s inspire each other to bring our poetic creations to life.
Happy writing and compiling! 🌟
The first 5 are done…
My test copy is bound! The thread is the wrong color because I wanted to use some leftovers from the last time I handbound something 15 years ago!
I want to write a small intro I think and need to make a tweak to a something I decided I didn’t like in the end… and wait for the actual covers to come (I decided to send them to a nearby print shop so they could be full bleed)… but a real life (if slightly imperfect) version is done and in my hands. How crazy!
I have ordered my proof copy to check over everything. Estimated delivery is 24 October.
I finally managed to decide what to put in my chapbook and did a test print. There were a bunch of things I didn't like, I still need to figure out what I want to do with the cover and the bind (probably saddle stitch, It's too many pages to use a sewing machine and I don't want to staple it). If you're curious about it, the pdf is here
Ok, so here is the video I mentioned I would make about how I set up and print my chapbook at home using Google Docs & Adobe Acrobat/Reader to complete it it a somewhat hacked/workaround-type of way. As I mentioned, I am going to design the book cover in Canva (or Adobe Express, or I may go full Photoshop) and then just print that separately and stick it on. If you were making a file and sending it out somewhere to print, you would want your file to have a cover, then a blank page, then all your content, a blank page, and then the back cover.
Video 1: Setting up the file in Google Docs & Printing Examples
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eoXTbgngduuwpDYA8xTSFh2x3_RZ-zx-/view?usp=sharing
Video 2: Using Preview on a Mac to see your spreads
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ypGxYPdvkvTnXMym8CItyLk6JmboR2P5/view?usp=sharing
Random Things:
If you ever are working on a text based layout and need ipsum and are not using a program that can generate it itself - there are some fun ones here - https://loremipsum.io/ultimate-list-of-lorem-ipsum-generators
I did give "two page" view a try in Acrobat since that isn't Mac specific, but it does not automatically assume the first page of the PDF is a cover, so your spreads get messed up. HOWEVER, if you did want to use it that way you could make a workaround and just add a blank page as pg 1 of your PDF.
Also, if something doesn't make sense, let me know - I didn't watch them back
Another edit: I think I know why I couldn't print a booklet from preview, my printer does not have duplex (double-sided) printing. If that is also you, you can definitely still do it from Adobe Acrobat/Reader and just have it print the front sides only, then reload the paper and print the backsides.
Tuesday, October 1, 2024
3:39 PM
A bubble bobbing through PoCoChapMo’24 has been explorative and difficult in the way of generally producing work that I like. I’ve been distracted with physical daily hurdles/challenges, living life with a severe autoimmune/dis’ease.
I’ve looked back at a few written “poems”, and they’re not as bad as I remembered.
I have learned a lot throughout this month, possibly the perfectionist within, would like a more substantial base before I create an impactful chapbook/poetry book.
My other alias/pen has a great idea, now another branch shooting out. Inspired by this last month. I believe I will go the avenue of uploading small e-books onto Kindle. I need to do more research in this regard, if this is not a good avenue, please tell me why.
I will definitely miss this focussed time spent sharing with one another here, yet I think I will join the Poetry Cove to continue evolving my creative poetic spirit.
~C.L.A.S
Ok, I know I am basically babbling to myself over here - but wanted to mention, I had to get a bit creative with my margins on my PDF file (removing them selectively on the correct sides depending on if it was an odd or even page) because my printer is just a normal little home printer and does not print full bleed PDFs which is only exacerbated when you print in booklet form because of the printer margins on both ends.
If anyone else happens to be going this weird route I am and doesn't understand what I am talking about in the page setup, let me know and I can either show you or better explain.
Ok, enough talking to myself over here now. 🤪
If you are creating your chapbook as single pages somewhere that allows you to save a PDF (and doesn't already have a way to view the spreads) (and have a mac).... you can open the PDF in Preview and change the view to be "two pages" it will take the first page of your PDF and assume it is a cover, and then show the rest of the pages as spreads.
I mention this because I decided to just do it all in docs for the text layout (which I know is not the MOST advanced way of laying out text, but this doesn't have to be insanely fancy design at this point), and then take advantage of booklet printing from Adobe Acrobat (or Reader). So in case anyone else was doing that and wanted a way to digitally preview how it might look, I thought I would mention it.
I know there are tools that do this, and if you are going the Canva route like Adam did, then you'll need to do the the potential flipping and figuring out of the pages yourself - and I don’t know if there is a way to see your spreads other than printing a copy. I assume if you are using InDesign or anything fancy you already know all these things anyway.
I have conceded for this year. I lost my devises and lost the small momentum I had. Enjoyed reading and following other people’s journey. This needs me to allocate more time than I did. Also, given postage costs in Australia (to and from) electronic chapbooks are more viable. But I would need to do a small print run so I could deposit a copy in NSW State Library. I will still keep working on the skills in the poetry cove forum threads
With nothing new to write for it today, turning towards actually figure this out now... about a week ago I started pulling out the poems I think I am going to include. If I count the Haiku & other super short poems as 1 poem each, I am at I think 17 poems... though I am vacillating on some of them.
My plan is to make sure they are all in the condition I want them in and do a first pass at sequencing them and see if there is a gap I can fill with something else I wrote in the month, or if something stands out in a bad way. I am also currently debating if I want to dive back into InDesign (it's been about 6 years since I've used it but I do technically know how to - and could get a free trial again 🤔) or hack my way through it in either Canva or misusing Photoshop.
My current cover design idea involves polaroid emulsion transfers or some other mixed media situation, at one point I thought about having them be truly 1/1 - but I think I may scan them, not sure yet there. It's possible that whole idea will go out the window.
Current Status: I'm trying to decide whether to approach this as a scrap book and just put everything I have written in chronological order or actually get rid of the poems that I don't care much about and make it a proper chapbook. I know I have the title because Bert unknowingly gave it to me in one of his feedback comments: Buried in Brambles. I'm designing this in InDesign, I am working on the typeset at the moment and trying to decide between Adobe Jensen and Minion because "first world problems". There's probably going to be images with the words because DUH.
Challenges: Mostly choosing what stays and what goes. I see themes and patterns emerging, but I guess having been a poet for a month doesn't give me much to work with, so sometimes I feel a bit like this is more of a "mum look what we did at Kindergarten with air clay" kind of situation, rather than "here's my pottery collection"
Victories: Hey, I actually stuck with it! In a month that has been quite a lot, to be honest. I am proud of myself and thankful for the support
Design Ideas: TBD. It's gonna be A5, most likely though.
I have created myself a template in canva based on the publishing standard of picture books at 32 pages. It has blocks for margins so I can visually see them, a tip I got from YouTube. I have six pages yet to fill as I finish my uncompleted poems from the month. I wanted to go with this so future chapbook all can match up on the shelf and compile to a bigger idea I have that I talked briefly on in the other forum tabs.
I plan on doing this via PoD due to New Zealand having less than ideal shipping and exorbitant costs. I will use the Kindle Create software for making the ebook version optimised for e-readers. So far so good with no issues.