I just shared this with a writer and musician friend up in New Jersey.

I had no idea that making a poetry chapbook was so easy — especially with the formatting options for Microsoft Word. Many of us are so excited (and maybe even overwhelmed) by the online and indie publishing arenas that we forget about a more traditional approach like this.

To me, it seems like a nice way to at least seek exposure.  I’ve kicked around the idea of doing a public reading once or twice; it’s actually easy to sign up at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City.  (I regrettably never got around to it.)

But the “pocket-size” chapbook here looks so inexpensive to produce that it would make a nice handout for after a live reading, even if it includes only a handful of a writer’s best poems.  If you write on a continuous basis, something like that would also be an interesting variation of the “annual Christmas letter.”

The options here would also work for a limited collection of prose, I would think.  And depending on the quality of the printer, it would work for reproductions of artwork as well.

http://www.pw.org/content/diy_how_to_make_and_bind_chapbooks?cmnt_all=1