A chapbook publisher that pays to make the book.

What we look for

We read chapbook manuscripts of poetry and short prose — usually a single author’s work gathered around a theme, a voice, or a thread that holds the pages together. Most chapbooks we publish run 20 to 40 pages. We read every submission ourselves, and a manuscript is judged on the work, not on a name or a list of prior credits.

If you have been searching for chapbook publishers or poetry chapbook publishers that take unsolicited manuscripts and never charge the author to publish, that is exactly what this is.

How to submit a chapbook

Submissions run through our submissions page, where we post the current guidelines and any open reading periods. In short:

• Create an account and send your manuscript through the submissions system. A $10 reading fee is paid there, once, per submission.
• Include your poems or short prose as a single manuscript, with a title and a short cover note.
• We read on-screen and reply through the same system, so you can follow where your work stands.

The $10 reading fee

Since 2024 we charge a nominal $10 reading fee per submission. We resisted it for years and we are not happy about it, but the volume of machine-generated manuscripts made an open inbox unworkable. The fee filters out bots and casual mass-submitters, and it means the manuscripts that do arrive get read by a person — carefully, usually more than once.

It is a reading fee and nothing more. It buys consideration, not a decision, and paying it does not improve anyone’s odds. The series stays selective.

The reading fee applies to the International Chapbook Series only. Our literary journals — Poetry Quarterly, Haiku Journal, Three Line Poetry, Tanka Journal, 100 Word Fiction, and the others — remain free to submit, as they always have been.

What being published means here

When we accept a manuscript for the International Chapbook Series, we pay to produce the book — layout, cover design, printing, a unique ISBN and barcode, and a listing in our bookstore. The copyright notice stays in your name, and you see the terms before anything is signed. That is what makes us a publisher rather than a printer.

Publication rights are shared between you and the press: we keep the chapbook in print, and you stay free to use your own poems without asking us. Republish them in journals, in anthologies, on your website, or in a later book — no permission, no cut of what you earn. The single limit is that no more than half the poems from a chapbook may appear in any one future collection, so the edition stays a work in its own right. Anthologies and reprints are not capped. The full guidelines spell this out.

Accepted authors receive 10 copies and publication as payment for the collection. Beyond those, author copies are 50% off in lots of 100 or more, with shipping a flat $10 whatever the quantity.

We want writers to benefit from their own work, so the discount is there for you to sell the book yourself and keep the profit. At 100 or more your cost is about five dollars against a $10 cover price, so a copy sold at a reading or a workshop leaves you roughly five dollars. We take no cut and no royalty on author copies — whatever you sell them for is yours. The offer stands if you want it; plenty of authors simply take their 10 copies and leave it there.

Prefer to publish it yourself?

Not every chapbook is looking for a publisher. If you would rather make the book on your own terms and keep every copy, our chapbook printing service hand-binds finished books from about five dollars a copy, and you keep all rights and all sales. Either way, the chapbook publishing FAQ answers the questions that come up most.