I participated in a challenge called “The Write Angle” through Book Leaf Publishing that ended on September 21st. The prompt was “21 poems in 21 days”. At the end of said 21 days, and after submitting a fee of $50 to participate, the writer comes away with their own published work. It sounded like just the thing to motivate me to write. After completing the challenge, however, I do have some reservations.

My first collection of poetry was also self-published, but I didn’t have to pay anything up front aside from ordering a copy of my book to approve for distribution. I thought that the admission fee meant that the challenge was being promoted by Book Leaf Publishing, but all the advertising I have seen has been geared towards bringing in authors rather than an audience. Also, halfway through the challenge, the website started advertising the next one, and then a few days later the next. All were the same “The Write Angle” challenge, all with the same submission fee, and all claiming to have a limited availability- the only difference being that the dates kept progressing. I’m left to conclude that the “challenge” was more or less just clever marketing on their part to make more money from self-publishing authors.

When I first read their submission requirements, I was given the impression that the cover art was not up to me, and that I would have to pick from a catalogue of covers upon completion of the challenge. For most writers, the cover art is done by a professional artist and, depending on their publishing agreement, the writer ordinarily wouldn’t have a say anyways. Upon navigating the submission itself, I found an option to submit my own cover art, and proceeded to throw something together at the end. I was able to use a photo that I had personally captured and edited, like with my first collection of poetry. Had I known from the beginning that making the cover myself was even an option, I would have given it more thought. Perhaps I would have toiled over it a bit. Perhaps the revelation at the end of the process was for the best. Anyways, it would have been nice to know.

The submitting part was relatively easy. Rather than the writer having to construct a large electronic document that has already been formatted correctly for print, they simply fill out the fields and Book Leaf Publishing takes care of the rest. I’m not sure if their submission process is normally that simple, but for authors who don’t have access to an editor, and don’t have a desire to format for themselves, it’s a good option. For me, I was grateful, but not entirely sure what the end result would look like. I like to be able to visually see how all the interior literature will be laid out, but that’s mostly due to me being a bit of a control freak.

My last gripe on my list of concerns is that the date is now October 5th. I sent in my submission and signed the publishing agreement on September 21st. I haven’t had any correspondence after that. It was only after digging through the website that I found that their turn around time is up to two months. I’m fine with that, by the way, but it’s just one of those things that would have been nice to know.

Anyways, thanks for reading my airing of grievances! At the end of the day, I was able to write 21 poems in 21 days, and I was pretty impressed with myself for sticking with it. Keep an eye out for future posts about that book, hopefully coming soon!