NEW SOCIETY FOR YOUNG POETS IN FULL TIME EDUCATION
Most published poets are themselves all to aware of how difficult it is to get their first
foot on the road to being published. Writers in general find this hard enough, but poets even more so as it is perceived as
such a specialist field with a smaller commercial market.
Of course there are alternatives to the mainstream publishing houses - like self-publishing,
which has been employed by some famous writers and poets, but this can be expensive and to a degree some business knowledge
that isn't always desirable to every poet. There is also the far more dangerous and immoral Vanity Publishing route that so
many poets fall foul of. Like pyramid selling, these publishers make most of their money out of the so-called beneficiaries
- in this case the poets themselves.
Writing Poetry is a growing art and craft as can be seen by the number of internet forums
that are springing up around the world. Poets enjoy writing, but also want and need to have their work read. The Internet
has certainly given poets a medium where they can be read and even recognised by comments mainly from their peers, but once
again, most poets crave to have their work in print.
Philip G. Bell is a writer and poet from England, who has experienced all the issues raised
here. He has had work published, has self published and has read his work on BBC radio. Most of all though, he enjoys passing
on the enjoyement of both reading and writing poetry to Children and Young Adults and it was with this in mind that he founded
a not-for-profit society called:
The Young Poet Society.
In the relatively short time that the society has been up and running, the interest shown
amongst young poets is growing at an amazing rate. The YPS web site at www.youngpoetsociety.com was getting significant hits within days of its launch. Enquiries and applications are coming in from all around the world.
The society is different from many organisations in that it's two main roles are to run
prize competitions and to offer royalty based publishing contracts to talented young poets.
The competitions are free to enter and are in part to identify potential publication candidates.
Bolder young poets can apply direct to be assessed for publication.
Young Poets are initially published in Chapbook format (Small booklet format, but using
high quality materials) and their work is promoted via the society Internet Bookshop.
However part of the contract, defines the society as a literary agency representing
its poets to mainstream publishers and the YPS longer term goal is to give its poets a chance to be seen for the talent
they have.
Publishers have the advantage that much of the vetting work and advisory stages have
been done by the society.
The Society aims to be self funding from sponsors and fund-raising events as well as raising
some income from its poets (50-50 share of profits from sale of books). Once the Society is big enough we hope to register
with the UK Charity Commission.
