13/06/2024
Now that we are done with Bnap anniversaries anthologies, I have thought about where to take the anthology in a way that makes me keep going. Depending on the kind of interest I will be doing Bnap chapbooks. 10-15 poets every year. The poets will finance print run of 25 of their chapbook. 18-25 pages, each chapbook will cost $4 ...I think post is $25 ...so it means a budget of $125 for those outside Zim, or a little less if I can send them with buses for poets in Zim neighbourhood. Those in Zimbabwe if you can pick in Harare, no post. On top of that we also want to post audios or videos of poets reading their poems in the chapbooks. Those in harare we can even arrange recording. Even discussions at my home studio. We might even start this year, depending on interest. You have to pay the $100 print fee first before I invite you to send your chapbook. I am taking this route because as I have noted several times the open Bnap we have done for 10 yrs was not even making money for me who would not sleep days on ends working on it and also it has achieved it's purpose. Now it's upto each poet to push forward with the journey, putting their own money where it matters. Thank you for this wonderful journey and hope in the next ten years we will be doing these new Bnap chapbooks together. Maybe after 10 years we will go back to the old format to discover and give more space to new talents or we would move into another format. Good day
Just to make it clear...whilst in the last few years I gave first preference to former Bnap and Zimbolicious or any anthology contributors to publish their individual first collection without demanding they have stronger publishing trade record elsewhere. I have realized most first time poets I published have absolutely no clue on selling themselves and their poetry. So the day you publish them is the last day they post about their book or try any means to sell. Some of whom I have confronted about this and they throw shade at me. So as I noted no more first timer publishing a full length collection...one has to start with chapbooks until they learn how to sell themselves and their poetry. We have to change, we can't anymore publish books that don't sell. This also applies to poets I have previously published their first collection who didn't push their books. FYI, Maya Angelou would have 80 plus readings or events in a year, that's at least an event every week...promoting her own work. And yet writers here think someone else has to do that job for them, theirs is to wait for the royalties.
