We're excited to announce our latest project XPRESS, digital chapbooks re-imagined for this century that provide more opportunity and faster delivery than ever before.
When we began BIP, we envisioned a 3-tier system to our releases. The first was our premier class of single-author collections, these are your traditional poetry books produced with immense time and care. Second was our semi-annual journal POETICS and anthologies, these are more quick moving and engage a larger number of authors. We're now introducing our third tier, which aims to be akin to a fast moving river of content, lower cost and much faster to get into the hands of readers, which we're lovingly calling XPRESS.
Chapbooks have a long proud tradition in poetry as, essentially, mini-collections. Whereas a full poetry book is typically 80-100 pages of poetry with a total final page length over 100 pages, the chapbook is a more modest 30-60 pages, usually averaging 40 pages. However, they sometimes get unfairly stigmatized as the effort of someone who can't produce enough content for a full collection or who can't get a full book published. We think that's short sited and misses a great opportunity.
The history of the chapbook actually stretches back to 1824 when "chapmen", hawkers of cheap books ('chap' being the same root for our word "cheap"). Today we'd call these pamphlets or booklets, little prints of less than 24 pages created from folded single sheets featuring short stories, ballads, political or religious tracts, or poetry. The term has gone out of style for all but poetry.
(Image by Lindsay Eyink (CC))
In the late 1980's and early 1990's we saw an explosion of new material onto the scene in the style of periodicals known lovingly as 'Zines'. With any photocopier or printer you could make up a batch and hand them out to friends or around town and a wild burst of new creativity was unleashed. It is with that energy that we're approaching our chapbooks.
'Zines are the punk rock of publishing'
We want to provide a platform for new voices, for sharing ideas and creativity without all the restraint and commitment that comes with a full collection. Maybe you have some style of poetry you want to explore but you're not sure it'll really be right for you and your readers, make a chapbook! Maybe your working towards a book but you want to get feedback from a wide group of readers before you commit to a certain direction, make a chapbook! Maybe your a new writer still trying to find your voice, make a chapbook!
We want to take away all the rules and provide a level of publishing that removes all the fear and frustration. We hope this provides a new avenue for first time poets to take the next step from submitting single poems here and there to putting together something you can really be proud of and share with your readers.
Submissions are now open. We are excited to see what you'll share with the world!