the self-publishing diaries

While next week's task is sitting down for the first time in at least a year and looking at the COLLAPSOLOGIES mss. that I will be getting ready for publication in July, I've spent some time this week ironing out the very first teaser trailer and putting some final touches on the cover (a peek coming very soon, so keep an eye out, as well as the first full video poem). I've also been thinking about the graphics and such I want to use to promote the book and the general style of the video.  I have my usual interest board to guide me as I iron it all out, and a general sense of the sort of style I want these to be in, as well as lots of saved stock images and video clips to play with. 

I will probably make anywhere up to 5 video poems (which are also trailers), some audio-recorded pieces, and some reels, as well as boxy Instagram graphics. I'd love to have these done by the time the book comes out (things with AUTOMAGIC were more chaotic and only recently did I record the last audio recording I had planned, several months later.) They all go a long way toward keeping the book on the radar and moving occasional copies long after that initial slew of sales with each launch.  I also have not been doing any live readings the past few years due to covid, and thought it feels like they might be a possibility now, I have yet to have any impetus to plan them for these past two books, so audio recordings and videos are where it's at. (I am not a particular fan of zoom readings, though I think it has less to do with poetry and more workplace-related trauma circa 2020-2021. I avoid it as much as possible.)

So it's a lot to do in two months, but I feel like I want to get this book into the world particularly swiftly since it already feels like I've been sitting on it forever and perhaps its cultural moment, as a 2020 dumpster fire book,  is steadily dwindling I suppose. Also, it contains the tabloid poems, which are sometimes my most favorite recent writing. (I say this, but I swear it changes daily.) There are also at least one, possibly two mss. in the wings for the next couple of years--RUINPORN for sure, maybe the Persephone book, though I may keep that one chapbook-length and part of something a little larger in scope I've been plotting recently.