When I started writing my first book, I knew it was destined for Amazon self-publishing. 

I had been working as a developmental editor for years at that point, so I had a pretty good understanding of the industry and the various publishing options available to me. The book I was writing was very niche, and I didn’t have any desire to commercialize it. I just wanted to write the book I wanted to write and make it available to people who would appreciate it for what it was.

So at that stage in my career and with that particular book, self-publishing on Amazon was undoubtedly the way to go.

Of course, even with my experience and the years I had spent helping other authors navigate both the self-publishing and traditional publishing paths, I still found myself feeling completely overwhelmed when it came time to put my book out into the world.

Theoretically, I knew exactly how to self-publish a book. But this was the first time I had done so for myself, which meant I had one heck of a learning curve ahead of me.

What is Kindle Direct Publishing?

As you might know by now, writers have several different self-publishing platforms to choose from. I chose to go through Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). 

For me, it was a simple choice. KDP (which was known as CreateSpace back when I published my book) was one of the more established platforms, with countless reviews from other authors verifying how seamless the process was and even outlining step-by-step directions for publishing. I liked that publishing through KDP meant my book would automatically be available through Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited Program, and since selling through Amazon was a priority of mine, publishing through their platform made the most sense.

Is Kindle Direct Publishing really free?

Self-publishing through KDP is free. But as with all publishers, KDP does take a commission for each book sold — what you pay to them comes out on the back end, after your book has been purchased by an eager reader.

It’s also important to know that while the answer to the question, “Is it free to publish a book on Amazon?” may be yes, the reality isn’t exactly that simple. 

KDP doesn’t charge anything to self-publish, but if you’re hoping to make money off the book you’ve written (even if you’re just hoping to get it into the hands of readers beyond your friends and family), you’ll likely have to make a financial investment.

Formatting your book, edits, cover designs, building an author platform — you typically have to pay for these services to create a quality book. And while you could technically skip out these steps or do everything yourself, that would likely result in a finished product that contains errors and appears less professional. Which can impact your ability to sell the book once it’s published.

So yes, Kindle self-publishing allows you to publish your book for free. But remember that getting to that point is rarely free. And once you’ve published with Amazon, the company will be entitled to its share of every book you sell.Of course, this is true with any self-publishing platform. 

So if you’re wondering, “How do I publish on Kindle?” let’s get started!

How to publish a book on Amazon using KDP

I’m here to save you some of the research I had to do by walking you through the steps of Kindle Direct Publishing. 

Here’s a step-by-step guide for how to publish a book using Kindle Direct Publishing.

Format your book for KDP

Once your book is written, edited, revised and edited again (as many times as it takes to get it right), you are ready to format for publication.

Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing makes both ebook and paperback print-on-demand publishing possible. Unfortunately, each of these options requires a different file format.

For ebook publishing: KDP uses a file format called “mobi.” This is a different type of file than used by other ebook publishers. While KDP does offer step-by-step directions for ebook formatting, this can be a bit of a complicated process, especially if you’re not comfortable with coding. I hired an ebook formatter for this step and considered it money well spent to avoid the headache and frustration of having to figure it out.

For paperback publishing: Amazon self-publishing offers step-by-step directions for preparing your file, and doing so is much simpler than preparing an ebook file. I am not especially tech-savvy myself, but I figured out the formatting of my own paperback version using KDPs instructions. That said, it took me several hours to do so. If you don’t have the time or patience to commit to that project, a book formatter can also help you with this version.

Set up your KDP account

Start by visiting the KDP registration page. You’ll sign up with your Amazon credentials, or your email, if you don’t have an Amazon account. Once signed in, you’ll want to click on “Your Account.”

From here, update all the pertinent details in the Author/Publisher Information Tab, the Getting Paid tab and the Tax Information tab.

Complete this information prior to publishing so Amazon can pay you for the books you sell.

Input your book details

Once your account details are established, you can return to the KDP home page, where you will find the “Create a New Title” heading. From here, you can select “Kindle eBook” or “Paperback.”

Regardless of which option you pick, you’ll be brought to a similar page asking you to input your book details:

Language: From a drop-down menu, select the language you would like your book to be published in.

Book title: Enter your book title (and subtitle if you have one) exactly as it appears on your book cover.

Series: If your book is part of a larger series, identify the series name and what number in the series this book will be.

Edition: If you have previously published this book and are updating it now, identify which edition you are on here.

Author: This is you!

Contributors: Did you have a co-author? Does your book include illustrations? Did you have an editor you felt was invaluable to your process, or a photographer whose pictures are prominently featured? This is where you would identify those people who helped to make your book a possibility.

Description: You know that initial blurb you read when looking for books on Amazon? It’s one of the first things to show up, and it’s usually what helps you decide whether or not to purchase the book. That’s the description you’re asked to provide here. Similar to back cover copy, you want to describe your book in a way that will leave people desperate to read more.

Publishing rights: So long as you wrote the book and the work is entirely your own,  select the “I own the copyright” option.

Keywords: The keywords you select are an important part of your marketing strategy. These words will help establish how easily searchable your book is and how often your book appears in the feeds of those looking for something just like what you wrote. Out of all the fields you are asked to complete here, the keywords really are the most valuable to your ultimate success. For this reason, make sure the keywords you select are true to your book without being too generic. Focus on your setting, your characters and your overarching themes. 

For instance, a book about a teenage witch trying to save some future version of the world might do well with the keywords “magic,” “witch,” “dystopian,” “YA,” “strong female lead,” “end of the world,” and “teen hero.” Or, if we were going to publish this article as a book through KDP, these might be the keywords we would select. KDP offers some great advice on how to choose the best keywords for optimal searchability. 

Categories: Just like in a physical book shop, Amazon has categories people search through. Children’s books, YA novels, historical fiction… what category does your book fit in? And where might you find it in a bookstore?

Age and grade range: Who do you imagine your typical reader to be?

Pre-order: You have the option of publishing your book right away, or setting it up for pre-order. Immediate publishing might be best for authors who have been promising their readers a pub-date for a while and have only now just finished their book. Otherwise, choosing pre-order can often be a better marketing strategy, allowing you to build hype for your book in the lead-up to your actual publishing date, and allowing your readers to support you before the book is even available.

Upload your manuscript and book cover

Once you’ve finished filling in your book details, you’ll be taken to the Book Content section. 

Here you’ll have to work through a few final sections: 

Digital Rights Management (DRM): DRM is basically a system meant to protect authors from the unauthorized distribution of their books. While you might be fine with readers sharing your work widely and elect not to have this protection for your book, DRM helps to ensure you get paid when people read and enjoy your work. Which means it’s generally a good program to opt into.

File upload: You can choose to upload now or later, but you will have to do so before your publication date — hopefully at least several days before so you can have some time to preview the finished product and check for any errors. Once you’re ready to upload, simply select that option and KDP will walk you through the necessary steps.

Book cover: You have the option of uploading a cover that has already been created or launching KDPs cover creator. Using the cover creator can be fun, but it is also time-intensive and might not be the best option for writers who don’t have an artistic eye.

Book preview: Once you have your manuscript and cover uploaded, preview the finished product before publishing.

ISBN: Ebooks do not require an ISBN, but print books do. The good news is KDP is set up to provide you a free ISBN if you haven’t already purchased one yourself. Simply select “Assign me a free KDP ISBN,” and they will take care of it for you.

Print options: For the print version of your book, select the type of paper that should be used, the trim size, bleed settings and paperback cover finish. The default options are the most commonly used and typically what you should go with for a standard print manuscript. If, however, your book contains a lot of photos or illustrations, you may want to select better suited options for the book you are planning on publishing.

Establish your pricing: How much will your self-published book cost?

The final step of your Amazon self-publishing journey is establishing your book pricing. 

KDP offers some wonderful pricing support and advice. For ebook pricing, you simply want to ensure you’ll still make a profit after KDP takes their cut (unless you are using some limited time promotional pricing to get your book into as many hands as possible). With print pricing, you need to consider not only KDPs cut, but also the cost of printing, which will be deducted from the overall price before you receive your cut.

Pricing can be complicated because you want to price low enough to appeal to readers but high enough to still make a profit. It may be helpful to look at other books in your genre to get a sense of where you might want to price your book. The good news is you can revisit your pricing later and reset your overall cost if you find you haven’t priced correctly one way or the other.

What about editing after the book is published?

You can absolutely edit your book after it has been published. Simply revisit your KDP account, click the ellipsis next to your book in your bookshelf, and select “edit book content.”

Keep in mind: Just because you can edit your book doesn’t mean you should rush to publication assuming you’ll just fix errors later. Every reader will judge the content in front of them — and leave reviews based on that content. So make sure your book is in the best shape you can possibly get it in before publishing.

The edit option is always there, but you only get one chance to make a first impression on your readers. Don’t rely on them to be your editors and point you to the sections you should  improve.

Can you make money writing a book and self-publishing on Amazon?

This is the question almost all of my developmental editing clients ask me. And I’m going to give you the same answer I give them: It depends.

That answer is then almost always immediately followed up by: It isn’t easy, but it is possible.

Very few people get rich off writing a book. And while getting rich may not be your goal, it’s important to understand that there is also a very small percentage of authors who even manage to break even on their publishing endeavors.

This is especially true for first-time authors. 

By the time you figure in the hours you spent on writing and editing, the money you spent on hiring editors, formatters, and cover designers, and whatever funds you may have dedicated to promoting your book — an author often needs to sell thousands of books to see a return on their investment.

That’s not an easy goal to accomplish. Especially if you don’t already have an established social media presence. 

You can make money writing a book, but it takes more than just writing a phenomenal book people don’t want to put down — it also takes having a phenomenal marketing plan, and knowing how to get your book into the hands of the people who will best help you to spread the word about it.

Just know it’s not as simple as hitting publish and raking the money in. Having realistic expectations about what success means to you, and how you plan to achieve that success, is the best way to avoid disappointment in your publishing endeavors.

However, writing (and selling) a book is a major accomplishment.

Once your book is published, take some time to celebrate. You’ve accomplished something huge — a goal most people won’t ever achieve themselves. You wrote a book, figured out how to self-publish on Amazon, and put your words out into the world for everyone to enjoy. That’s a big deal!

Photo by Vlada Karpovich from Pexels

The post Get Your Book on Kindle: Everything You Need to Know About Amazon Self-Publishing appeared first on The Write Life.

Write a top 10 list in the voice of a character.

Write a top 10 list in the voice of a character. Is your character a tween writing in their diary? A person making a bucket list? How about someone listing their greatest fears? What does the list they make say about the character?

Post your response (500 words or fewer) in the comments below.

This week, readers on Electric Literature’s Twitter and Instagram voted to narrow a field of 32 beautiful book covers down to their favorite of the year. Some of the margins were razor-thin—in particular, both Sin Eater vs. The Exhibition of Persephone Q in round one and Animal Wife vs. Follow Me to Ground in the quarterfinals were decided by fewer than 10 votes. But in the end, one cover prevailed.

First, let’s meet our Final Four:

Animal Wife by Lara Ehrlich, cover design and art by Caitlin Sacks

Follow Me to Ground by Sue Rainsford, cover design by Jaya Miceli, cover art by Toon Joonsen

Sometimes I Never Suffered by Shane McCrae, cover design by Crisis Studio, cover art by Toyin Ojih Odutola

The Majesties by Tiffany Tsao, cover design by James Iacobelli, cover art by Joseph Lee

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From these four contenders, each of which had already knocked out three other hopefuls on their way to the quarterfinals, a vivid ultimate pairing emerged:

We spoke to the designers of the final two about the process of designing their eye-catching covers.

James Iacobelli, designer of The Majesties

What was the most important thing for you to convey about the book? How did you use the design to get that across? I wanted to find the right simple image that would portray the luxuriousness, complexity and destruction of this novel. It had to have menace but remain beautiful. Having been a fan of Joseph Lee’s art, I knew it was a perfect match.

Did you have any interesting false starts or first drafts you can tell us about? All along, I had been interested in the concept of deconstruction. I was working with silhouettes and butterflies. None had the impact I was looking for.

What’s your favorite book cover of 2020, besides your own? I’m obsessed with Howdunit.

Caitlin Sacks, designer of Animal Wife

What was the most important thing for you to convey about the book? How did you use the design to get that across?

The author, Lara, really guided me with the direction for the cover. We wanted to emphasize the duality of the title Animal Wife. Is she the human wife of an animal? Or is she the animal? The answer changes between stories.

I think there’s this idea so many women have, that once you get married and have kids, you’re trapped. Your life isn’t your own anymore. The cover wolf/housewife can be seen as a wild animal that’s been domesticated, or she’s a wife with a growing resentment for her family. Either way, those animal instincts are bound to kick in for self preservation eventually.

Did you have any interesting false starts or first drafts you can tell us about?

Two key phrases I used as my starting point were motherhood and abandonment. The title-story “Animal Wife” is a reimagined tale of the swan maiden, where the swan transforms into an unhappy wife and mother. So my original idea was a swan swimming in a lake with a gaggle of cygnets following close behind. The swan is reflected in the water, without her children; a life where she is free from familial responsibility. We ultimately agreed that it felt too tame a cover for this book.

What’s your favorite book cover of 2020, besides your own?

Wave If You Can See Me by Susan Ludvigson. My dear friend and jaw-droppingly talented designer, Vivian Rowe, created it. She and I met at Red Hen Press, an indie non-profit publisher, where we both became lead designers. I’m in constant awe of her work. She’s a fantastic illustrator, hand letterer, and graphic designer. She’s a triple threat! Hopefully you’ll be interviewing her next year for Best Cover 2021. 

I’m so thankful to Red Hen for allowing me to create book covers and distract the staff with my incessant talking. I used to get in trouble for it in fourth grade, but everyone at the press seems to like it. 

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And finally, here’s your 2020 Book Cover Tournament winner:

Animal Wife by Lara Ehrlich! Congratulations to Lara, Caitlin, and Red Hen Press.

The post Announcing the Winner of Electric Lit’s Book Cover of the Year Tournament appeared first on Electric Literature.

Life these past months has sucked everywhere and for everyone–from rising COVID cases to the terrible election that loomed over our shoulders to the seemingly endless advent of strange, terrible, bittersweet news. But here in Philadelphia, life has sucked uniquely—and also offered unique triumphs. 

From the massive and organized uprising for Black life after the murder of George Floyd which lead the Philadelphia Police Department to trap and teargas protestors, to Trump’s fearmongering false claims that Philly’s poll centers were part of a stolen election (“bad things happen in Philadelphia!”) to the murder of one of our own, a Black mentally ill citizen named Walter Wallace Jr., and the unrest that followed, to the whole world watching Philadelphia’s slow and steady vote counting process in a tally that would ultimately call the election for Biden to the exceptionally raucous jubilation that once again put Philly faces on screens worldwide to the stranger-than-fiction botched press conference held here at Four Seasons Total Landscaping, Philly has been the epicenter of this whole wretched and rich pandemic era. Our skies have been filled with police and press helicopters, our friends and comrades have become sick or died or been header photos for global news stories about disease and dissent, and our neighbors were the ones unwrapping and sorting those fateful ballots. 

We are all going through it this year, but Philadelphians have found a way to dig deep into our values and take care of each other.

But through it all, and as time passes in slow, quick, meandering ways, the resiliency of Philadelphia has been a warm blanket over my shoulders, at times the only thing keeping me going. As my personal life took many ups and downs through the pandemic, Philadelphia has been a constant for me, a friend in collective healing and refuge, a muse for my writing. Much of my writing ventures into loneliness, Blackness, and the mundane and much of this year has tackled all of these themes. I ask myself when I write, “What does it mean to be Black in America? What does it mean to be lonely this year? And how do I write during such excitedly unexciting times?” Walking through different neighborhoods has helped, falling in and out of love has helped, and re-discovering and re-prioritizing not only my words, but my values have helped in all of this. We are all going through it this year, but Philadelphians have found a way to dig deep into our values and socially-distant hold space and take care of each other.  

I asked other Philadelphia writers about the moments that have defined this era for them, the moments they’ll never forget, and why they think the whole world has lately been watching Philadelphia, a city that deserves the limelight all the time but is so often overlooked. Their answers are dispatches from a place and time we are still living through, yet one that must not be forgotten, months when one of the poorest and most gritty cities in the world clashed with fascism and despair and emerged proud and united. 

West Philadelphia, where the Philadelphia Police Department brought in tanks and weapons to use against protestors on 52nd street and where Walter Wallace Jr. was murdered, has also been a site of warmth, community and action. Fiction writer Asali Solomon writes about her West Philly quarantine: 

Though I still have my health and my livelihood, each day of the last eight months have managed to bring some new kind of terrible. Yet, each of those days confirmed something I suspected, but did not know, which was that there is no place I would rather live than West Philadelphia.

I live within walking distance of my parents, in whose yard I’ve been able to safely celebrate birthdays and holidays, on a block that immediately offered itself up as a place where I would never starve or be without toilet paper. When my gym closed, I took up long walks, mainly to the scenic Woodlands Cemetery, where I’ve been able to reflect calmly on time, disease (more than a few victims of the 1918 flu rest there) and death, while staying in shape. 

There has been, of course an increase in all manners of desperate violence in West Philadelphia, as in other parts of the city. Some of it highlights the brutal inequality that rapid gentrification engenders. But at this moment, the community remains a wildly diverse neighborhood of African American, Caribbean and African, Trans, Muslim, Queer, Latinx , Asian and Asian American, Christian and atheist and heathen people, mostly wearing masks, trying not to kill each other, trying to stay alive. In fliers threatening to march here, the hate group the Proud Boys called our community “the belly of the beast.”

West Philadelphia and its community members have remained a space for joy and pleasure and has been such an anchor during these times, As a community, West Philadelphians were defiant and they took care of each other. Fellow neighbor and nonfiction writer Cate McLaughlin writes: 

I find my friends in the gathering crowd at Malcolm X Park. There is the vibration of reverence and fury each time his name, Walter Wallace, is spoken and passed gently from person to person. As the sun lowers, the police begin to close in along a deliberate perimeter around the vigil. I can’t stop thinking about Walter Wallace’s mother, about what it is to watch the sun go down on the last day your child is alive, to plead for his life, and then to wake another day. There are activists and neighbors with snacks and medic bags, the exhaustion visible above the top seams of their masks. We smile grimly to see a kid writing TRUMP PENCE OUT NOW in yellow chalk on the pavement. The first speaker is a student who has to yell to be heard over the intimidation of the helicopters, who says what she wants is to be able to spend a day learning instead of grieving.

By the time we begin to move, the crowd surges toward Market street and people come to stand and watch us pass from their stoops. We clog the intersections and folks in SUVs sound obnoxious honks of encouragement.  Improbably, a beautiful man in a turtleneck is weaving among the protest mayhem narrating the events in what might be French to some streaming platform on his phone with the ease and confidence of a cooking show host.  The cops standing guard over the big chain sneaker stores on 52nd won’t make eye contact. We ask, Who do you serve? Who do you protect? but the questions bounce off the armor meant to make each officer appear more carapace than person. Later, on the news, the newscaster will lose composure at the footage of burning cars and broken glass, his face a green screen of disbelief. All night long the helicopters dog West Philly, a sound that will stay, like gravel sewn into the wound of my sleep

This spirit of defiance and resiliency has always been in Philadelphia, as has a history of violent anti-Black policing. But for a new generation of activists and thinkers here, their christening came earlier this year, back in June. 

Writes novelist Annie Liontas, 

On June 1, Philadelphia Police officers trapped us on 676, firing multiple rounds of tear gas and pepper spray at thousands of protestors. On June 2, I began receiving Facebook messages from those who had had to flee, many of them stunned and angry, some of them in bad shape. One person dislocated his shoulder trying to climb a fence: he now needed surgery. Someone who had been deployed with Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom lamented that the police always seemed to get away with things that would get you jailed in the military. A young woman who grew up in the Richard Allen Projects before they were torn down, said, “They call our movement hostile but this is the same city that thought it was ok to bomb a Black neighborhood—my family’s neighborhood.” 

In writing about what happened on 676, which was ultimately published with NPR-WHYY, I was sent photos, shaky cell phone videos that proved that there had only been PG-13 shouting and chanting before police moved in. Until authorities ambushed protestors entering the highway’s long overpass, cars had been honking in support, people were getting out of their cars to applaud. After, I watched officers point-blank assault people who were on their knees with their heads bowed. I watched hundreds of people scrambling up a steep bank, remembering how I had had to stop to wipe my sunglasses of the residue of tear gas, how I had called out “Don’t run, don’t run,” to two teenagers, the danger of a stampede being not that we will knock each other over but that with nowhere to go, we will all suffocate. 

Not until the New York Times conducted its own investigation, with shiny infographics, did Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw acknowledge that they had turned chemical weapons banned by the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention against peaceful protestors. But the people who had been out on 676, who demanded to be heard by the city that had betrayed them—the very next day, they were back out on the streets. 

From these events in Center City, the stories expand in every direction, east to the river, and into South, and North Philadelphia. Citizens have not only found kinship in the greater city, but a greater sense of appreciation for the everyday, the mundane. Much of early quarantine rhetoric was the question of productivity–Will you write the next great American novel? As time went on, much of that went by the wayside, replaced by a focus on the home, self-care and family. Then we moved on to the anticipation of what November would bring. Instead of sitting idly by, some Philadelphians threw themselves into political organizing full throttle. Some decided enough was enough, and ran for election themselves, like writer and now elected Pennsylvania state senator Nikil Saval.

In February 2019, someone posed the question: “Why not you?” I wasn’t horrified. We launched our campaign at Hawthorne Park. There had once been around five hundred units of public housing here; they were replaced by half that much. A placard marked the place where Martin Luther King, Jr., had spoken in 1965. A hundred people had shown up, dragooned by my campaign manager. Someone cajoled the crowd into chanting, “SA-VAL FOR ALL,” to my embarrassment; a slogan we had coined as a joke had become the actual one. 

A few months later, daycares were closed. I walked around with my toddler, in a determined circle around the block, as was his preference, dramatically avoiding the few people whose paths we crossed. I talked on the phone with another candidate about whether we should cancel upcoming events. We circled the seriousness of what was taking place. That afternoon, while my son napped, I called people to ask them for money. No one had money. Some of them needed groceries and medication delivered. We began to arrange those deliveries. 

On Election Day for the primary, we all emerged from our houses, masked. The hundreds of volunteers I had never met were in front of polling places, in orange T-shirts, with giant poster-boards of my son, me somewhat blurred behind him. A baby—running for State Senate! I nabbed voters on the way in, shoved literature into their hands. I talked—to people! It was the best day of my life. That night, early results put us up by 34 percent. A City Councilperson drove to my house. “Bro, you won,” he cried. “Get drunk.” I collapsed into his arms.

In November, following the general election, I was called up to the Convention Center, again, and again, to give speeches. I screamed versions of a stump I had written for one occasion that, in a pinch, I repurposed and revised, something to the effect of: millions of us had voted, nothing will turn us back, we will fight to count every vote. The day the news networks called it was clear and hot. We marched down Market Street. Someone hit a gong, and organizers lifted a large, yellow banner to remind us that we needed to take action on climate change—that the future was not guaranteed.

As the election loomed, everyday Philadelphians came into action to help others in voting lines, to help count the thousands of mail-in ballots, or to simply reach out to others for love or support to vote. Writer and professor Elizabeth Greenspan shares her story of election day:

The day after the election, we trekked across town to the convention center, where ballots were being counted and DJs were playing. I wasn’t sure what to call it: a party, a protest, a counterprotest, an exorcism? There’s dancing in the streets, I told the kids. You can have a piece of candy, I added. They grabbed their coats and masks.

We had spent the past months talking about the election, and about living in something called a “swing state.” They had many questions. How did voting work? Why did people like Trump? Who’s going to win? We drove out to Reading, PA to canvass; we dialed into phone banks. But the dance party downtown was unlike these previous activities. There was a swaying mailbox and a frolicking city hall, countless balloons and dozens of people dancing in lines, possessed by exhaustion, determination, maybe even a kind of magical thinking. If we keep moving, we will win.

A sense of foreboding threaded through the music and play. Three days later, Pennsylvania would deliver the election for Biden, but on that day after the polls closed we didn’t yet know the outcome. That we needed to be at the convention center with a sign reading “count every vote” was frightening. Nearby, a small group of mostly men wearing MAGA hats shouted in their own little area, surrounded by a disproportionate number of camera crews and curious onlookers. The kids wanted to see them, and I told them that this is why we came, too. All of us. To make our voices heard. To be present. As we watched the angry men, I took solace in the fact that we outnumbered them—at least here, in our beloved Philadelphia. Before we headed back home, we returned once more to the dancing, which now felt less like an exercise in diversion or anxiety management and more like the creation of a necessary, fortified barrier. A manifestation of our will to prevail. We raised our hands and sang out loud and filled a bit of the street. There was nothing magical about it.

Philadelphia lit up after election news, a city and its outer suburbs helping to cement a win and a move forward. Upon hearing the news of Biden’s win, Solomon embraced with her fellow West Philadelphians:

[. . .] that Saturday when news outlets called Pennsylvania for Biden, which was basically calling Philadelphia for Biden, which was definitely a massive West Philadelphia effort, not so much on behalf of Joe Biden but as a concerted effort to rebuke the anti-human agenda of the Republican party, we celebrated like our lives depended on it. We took to the streets banging on pots and pans, emitting mask-muffled cheers, dancing. Two bands played in Clark Park, the Black cowboys showed up and champagne flowed. The party continued later, even when the streets were dark and silent, and a thick cloud of marijuana smoke drifted into my passing car. It is true that during the pandemic, I’ve had my head turned by Canada, by Jacinda Arden and by the beautiful Black country of Botswana (check their remarkably low Covid stats), but most of these days confirm that, there’s no corner of this terrible world where I’d rather live or die than this one.

Not only did the spirit of community, the warmth of rediscovering home, and the elation and resistance of the election lift Philadelphians, but also the ways we connected and reconnected to others and our writing—through the random, the whimsical, and often the pure fun. Writer Amanda Silberling found enlightenment through poetry and reality TV. She writes:

Sometimes it can be hard to remember how to find the joy in writing, but it gets even harder during a global pandemic, especially if your income is even partially tied to your creative output. So, as part of Blue Stoop‘s Wednesdays on the Stoop series, my friend and fellow writer Maya Arthur and I started a series of workshops on Zoom about “Reality TV Poetry.” Reality TV Poetry is exactly what it sounds like—you watch Love is Blind, or Chopped, or House Hunters and write poems about it. If this sounds silly, that’s because it is. But there’s something intriguing about combining these supposedly “low-brow” and “high-brow” genres—some of the writers who came to our workshops didn’t even watch reality TV, but just thought the concept of the workshop was funny (which was as good a reason as any to be there). 

We wrote poems about Tyra Banks shaving our heads on America’s Next Top Model, how we’d get voted off the island on Survivor, or how it felt to watch Giannina become a runaway bride on Love is Blind. It’s refreshing to write about a fantasy, but more often than not, reality TV offers us a new angle to think through our own experiences. Scenes from Queer Eye and House Hunters moved our group of Philadelphia writers to talk about gentrification in our city, while other times, we playfully debated whether football is actually just reality TV marketed toward old men. It was healing to get at least a little bit of writing done, but more than anything, it was necessary to take time to laugh and think about something aside from the scary, isolating months that waited ahead. Being a writer doesn’t always have to be about producing something that other people want to read. In times like these, finding joy and community in being a writer is just as important as the literal writing.

I am so proud to call myself a writer and a Philadelphian. Through all this, layered upon its history of struggle, leadership and disinvestment, Philadelphia has remained a consistent and formidable force. Recently, I walked from my home in West Philadelphia on 46th Street to Penn’s Landing. It was a brisk fall day and after cocooning in my room, I decided I needed to breathe some fresh air through my mask. I walked through Clark Park, passing friends’ socially distant hangs and bocce ball players. I walked through Penn’s campus with only a handful of students and employees into Rittenhouse Square and the retail corridor on Walnut Street. The shops were quiet with few customers but the park bustled with people on benches, soaking in some of the last days of good weather. I walked by the restaurants of the Gayborhood, open and ready for pick-up and delivery, and the cobble streets of Society Hill into South Street, and finally came to Penn’s Landing. I sat down between the hum of the highway and the small crowds forming along the shops and restaurants of South Street, picked up my journal, took a deep breath and wrote. 

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In this article from 1960, poet and author Richard Armour explores the importance of light verse and gives helpful hints to the hopeful poet.

Writer’s Digest, October 1960

By Richard Armour

Light verse is a kind of poetry that anyone can write. Whether anyone can write it well enough to make it salable is another question. Oddly, it is at once easy to write and hard to write. It is easy to write light verse that will amuse a friend but hard to write light verse that will amuse an editor. Of course, an editor can become a friend, after he has bought a few dozen verses, but even then he is a little different from your other friends, because when he says, “I laughed and laughed over this one,” he has to send you a check, unless he hastily adds, “but I was out-voted.”

It’s Easy to Write

What makes light verse easy to write, in some fashion, is that it is (and it should be) brief. It can be as short as two lines, and the lightness is likely to go out of it if it becomes much longer than, say, sixteen. Thus, it can be written in short snatches of time, and composed in one’s head while one is physically busy about something else—while shaving or driving or ironing or washing the dishes. Since it requires no such investment of time as writing a novel or a short story or an ambitious serious poem, it is no catastrophe if you fail a few times, or even a few hundred times.

Another thing that makes light verse easy to write is that it demands no research (that is, not usually), no erudition, no profound thinking. Publishable light verse is within the grasp of almost anyone, and the “almost” is put in there just to be on the safe side. But even if it is within your grasp, it takes some grasping, and maybe some stretching.

Rx: A Bit of Talent, A Bigger Bit of Work

For, comparatively easy though it may be, writing light verse requires a little bit of talent or aptitude and more than a little bit of work. Otherwise, so much first-rate light verse would be flooding the editors that they would by now be overstocked for the next ten years. Actually, the only thing that inundates them is unusable material, doggerel that does not come even close to publishable standards. There is always a dearth of light verse that is fresh in idea and nicely turned. Not that editors are begging for it, as they sometimes beg for humorous prose, but they can use it.

A word, at this point, about what light verse is. My own definition in this: poetry written in the spirit of play. Many, I know, will insist that light verse is not poetry, and much of it I have read (and written) probably is not. I confess that I am more comfortable when called a “light verse writer” or a “light versifier” than a “poet.” But light verse, at any rate, uses the devices (rhyme, meter, etc.) of poetry, and I hope can be admitted into the family, at least as a Cinderella sister. When a real poet is in a playful mood or a light verse writer turns poetic—in the first instance producing some of the poems of T. S. Eliot and W. H. Auden and Robert Graves, and in the second instance, some of the light verse of Phyllis McGinley and David McCord and John Betjeman— the line between poetry and light verse is hazy indeed. Perhaps there are two distinguishable species, which might be identified as “light verse” and “light poetry,” but I think this would be quibbling.

It Had Better Be Good and Light

The important distinction, for one who wishes to be read (i.e., to be published), is between “good” and “bad,” and it had better be good. The financial rewards of light verse are not comparable to those of the novel or short story. For one thing, a piece of light verse is not likely to be sold to Jerry Wald or one of the other Hollywood producers and made into an Oscar-winning movie. Nor are the foreign rights, in Sweden and Brazil, likely to be fought over. But light verse in magazines can bring as much as ten dollars a line (here is where brevity really hurts!) and can earn additional dollars through reprints in The Reader’s Digest, Coronet, and other magazines, and inclusion in anthologies and textbooks. This is peanuts, perhaps, but chocolate-covered peanuts. Currently, a few magazines have humor pages on which they use light verse, along with short prose humor, epigrams, and cartoons. Examples are “Post Scripts” in The Satevepost, “Look on the Light Side” in Look, and “Light Housekeeping” in Good Housekeeping. But the chief use of light verse today is as filler material to break the monotony of back pages of solid prose.

Lightens Hearts of Advertisers

Like cartoons, light verse catches the eye of those who merely thumb through magazines, and thus, by forcing them to pause, gladdens the advertisers on these pages. It is a humble function, but a useful one. Many readers, as we all know, read these short pieces first, before settling down to the stories and articles. And I suspect that the light verse is more likely to be read than the serious poems, in those magazines which carry both.

Markets are constantly changing, for light verse as for any other form of writing. Some magazines have changed in format, now omitting light verse. However, there are also magazines that have suddenly begun to use light verse. One of these is Mccall’s. And there are those new magazines, like Together and Family Weekly, which, happily, have the good sense and good taste to publish light verse regularly.

Ideas, by the way, are precious. It has been nearly 25 years since I sold my first pieces of light verse to The New Yorker and The Saturday Evening Post. In that time, I have contributed more than 5,000 pieces to well over 100 magazines. To sell these 5,000, I have written perhaps 10,000. Assuming each of the 10,000 to contain a separate idea, you will see why I sometimes wonder whether there is anything left to write about. Now that I have achieved some confidence with techniques, I have run low on ideas. How I envy the fresh minds of my versifying juniors, bubbling with clever things to say.

“How” Rates With “What”

But in light verse, perhaps even more than in serious poetry, how you write is as important as what you write. Indeed, light verse depends on skill (or tricks) more than serious poetry. The meter should be accurate, so as not to throw off the reader and make him falter in the reading. The rhymes should be precise and, if possible, amusing in themselves. Recently, I had a little piece in Good Housekeeping that was reprinted in The Reader’s Digest. I am not especially proud of it, but it illustrates how a very short bit of verse can be brought off with virtually nothing but an unusual rhyme.

Here it is, called “Slow Motion”:

Kids eat their spinach

Inach by inach.

And I am still followed around by another silly little thing, written some years ago, that depends almost wholly on the rhyme. It appeared first in The Saturday Evening Post, then in The Reader’s Digest, and subsequently in various anthologies, occasionally over some other author’s name. It is “Going to Extremes”:

Shake and shake

The catsup bottle;

None will come,

And then a lot’ll.

Archibald MacLeish has said that “A poem should not mean but be.” This may be true of serious poetry; or some of it, but it is not true of light verse, except possibly things like Edward Lear’s nonsense poems and Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky.” Even the playful verses quoted above, and leaning heavily on their rhymes, say something. Not much, it is true, but something. Without the assistance of an unusual rhyme, it is possible to make such a wry, and sadly true, observation on human nature as this, called “Middle Age”:

Middle age

Is a time of life

A man first notices

In his wife.

In longer, more ambitious pieces of light verse, there is room for developing a thought, exaggerating details, doing some metrical fancywork, and bringing off a surprise or special twist at the end. Even in eight or twelve lines, it is possible to write what amounts to a humorous short story, or short short, with a bit of mood and climax. I myself like a piece of verse that is funny all the way, and not merely in its surprise conclusion, but this is hard to manage.

Trade Secrets

Back in 1947, I wrote Writing Light Verse, a book that has recently come out in a revised edition. Since it is the only book on this minor art or craft, I can safely say it is the best. In its pages, I told so much about subjects and verse forms and titles and endings and marketing and all the rest that one of my competitors wrote me rather sharply, saying I had given away all our trade secrets. But if there are any trade secrets, they should be shared with those who want to enter the trade, I, for one, should like to see more and better light verse written—and published. My suggestion to potential light verse writers is that they {1) keep their eyes and ears open for fresh ideas, (2) learn the rudiments, and if possible the nuances, of rhyme and meter, (3) read what is being currently written in the magazines, and (4) study the old (and middle-aged) masters of light verse, among whom I would include Arthur Guitennan, Samuel Hoffenntein, F.P.A., Dorothy Parker, Phyllis McGinley, Morris Bishop, David McCord, Margaret Fishback, Ethel Jacobson, Ogden Nash, E. B. White, and John Updike. I have two shelves devoted to light verse and keep several collections on my bedside table. If you turn out not to be a light verse writer, you can be the next best thing—a light verse reader.

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