A chapbook is a small booklet, usually somewhere between eight and forty pages, holding a short run of poems or prose. It is stapled down the spine or sewn with thread. You can read one in a sitting. That is really the whole definition, and most of what people will tell you about chapbooks beyond that is convention rather than rule.
Where the word comes from
Chapbooks were the cheap print of their day. From the sixteenth century onward, peddlers called chapmen carried them from town to town and sold them for a penny or two: ballads, folk tales, crime stories, almanacs, religious tracts, whatever people would part with a coin for. The “chap” is not short for chapter. It comes from an old word for trade, the same root that gives us the word cheap. These were books made to be affordable and passed hand to hand, not shelved and admired.
The modern poetry chapbook kept the shape and, I think, the spirit. Still short. Still cheap to produce. Still meant to be handed to someone.
What makes a chapbook a chapbook
There is no committee enforcing this, but a booklet that gets called a chapbook usually has most of these traits:
- Short. Eight to forty pages. Twenty to thirty-two is the sweet spot for poetry.
- A page count that divides by four, if it is folded and stapled down the middle. One sheet folded in half gives you four pages, so the arithmetic is not optional.
- Simply bound. Staples through the fold, or thread. No glued spine, no case binding.
- Coherent. One voice, one thread, one preoccupation running underneath. A chapbook is not a sampler of everything you have ever written.
If you want the distinction between a chapbook and its neighbours, the pamphlet and the zine, I go through it on chapbook vs pamphlet vs zine. The short answer is that the lines are blurry and nobody will arrest you.
Why poets make them
A full-length collection is a long wait. You need seventy pages of poems you can defend, a publisher willing to take them, and then a year or two while the thing crawls through production. A chapbook is the answer to wanting to put work in a reader’s hands before all that.
It is also a real object to sell at a reading, a credential when you submit elsewhere, and a way to find out whether a group of poems actually holds together. Plenty of full collections started as a chapbook that refused to stop growing.
What goes inside one
Twelve to twenty-four poems, in an order you have thought hard about. A title page. An acknowledgements page if any of the poems appeared in journals first, which is a courtesy and also quietly tells a reader you have been publishing. A contents page if it helps; plenty of chapbooks skip it.
The sequence does more work than beginners expect. It is the difference between a stack of poems and a book. I wrote a separate piece on ordering the poems in a chapbook because it deserves the room.
Two ways to get one made
Make it yourself. Copy paper, a printer, a long-arm stapler, an afternoon. This is how most first chapbooks come into the world and there is nothing second-rate about it. Start with how to make a chapbook, then design the interior and bind it.
Have it printed. A print shop gives you square edges, a proper cover stock, and fifty identical copies you are not ashamed to sell. You will need a print-ready PDF and a page count that works. What it costs depends mostly on how many you order; I break the numbers down in what chapbook printing costs.
Before either route, settle the physical shape of the thing: trim size, page count, margins. That is covered in chapbook format, size and page count.
Getting one published
The other route is to let a press do it. Small presses run open reading periods and contests for chapbook manuscripts, and a good many of them are worth your postage. Contests usually charge an entry fee and pay a prize; open reading periods often charge nothing. Read what the press has published before you send anything, because a chapbook press has a taste and you can usually see it in two minutes on their website.
I keep a list of places taking manuscripts on the chapbook publishers page, and the process itself, from manuscript to contract, is on how to publish a chapbook.
Where to start today
Print out every poem you think might belong. Spread them on a table. Take away the ones that are only there because you like them, and keep the ones that are talking to each other. If you are left with twelve, you have a chapbook. The rest is paper and staples.
Common questions about chapbooks
What is a chapbook in poetry?
A short collection of poems, usually 8 to 40 pages, bound with staples or thread rather than a glued spine. It holds a single sustained idea or voice instead of a poet’s complete work, which is what separates it from a full-length collection. Most poets publish one or two chapbooks before a first full book.
How many pages is a chapbook?
Between 8 and 40 pages, and most often 20 to 32. If it is saddle-stapled, the total has to divide by four, because a single folded sheet produces four pages. Publishers running chapbook contests usually ask for a manuscript of 16 to 30 pages of poems, not counting the title page and acknowledgements.
What size is a chapbook?
5.5 x 8.5 inches is the most common, because it is a sheet of US letter paper folded in half, which means you can make one at home with no trimming. 5 x 8 and 6 x 9 are also standard. A5 is the usual equivalent outside the US. There is more on this in chapbook format, size and page count.
What is the difference between a chapbook and a zine?
Mostly intent and finish. A chapbook is usually a curated literary work, typeset with some care and often sold or submitted to presses. A zine is self-published by definition, frequently photocopied, and prizes immediacy and a handmade look over polish. Physically they can be identical booklets. I go through it properly in chapbook vs pamphlet vs zine.
What were chapbooks and chapmen in history?
Chapbooks were cheap, small, popular booklets printed from roughly the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, carrying ballads, folk tales, almanacs, religious tracts and sensational stories. Chapmen were the travelling peddlers who sold them, going village to village with a pack of goods. Because chapbooks were affordable and did not require a bookseller, they were how printed stories first reached ordinary readers, which is why they matter in the history of print culture and literacy.
Do you get paid for publishing a chapbook?
Rarely in any meaningful way. A press will typically give you author copies and sometimes a small royalty or a contest prize. Chapbooks are not a source of income; they are a way to get a body of work into the world, sell a few copies at readings, and build a publication record. Anyone promising you money for one is selling something.