Etsy Poetry

A quick update as a I like to post the big news over here although I don't check in very often now I mainly use my Wordpress site.

For a very long time now I have been looking for a new, fun and innovative way of selling my poetry. And I have finally found one. I am now selling custom written poetry on Etsy where people can specify exactly what they want in a poem and I will write it for them.

One of the huge downsides to blogging is once you have shown a piece of poetry on a blog or website it is no longer eligible for entry into almost all competitions or magazine/book submissions. I have spent the last six months trying to come up with a way to share, promote and sell my poetry. I have been looking at non-traditional paths, a way to allow my poetry to fit around my business. Finally I settled on this, and I really think it will suit me very well.

I love to write poetry for people. This is the main thing I realised during my Three Random Words project and I wanted to combine this with my knowledge and love of Etsy. All of this tied into my decision to sell individual, personalised poems on Etsy.

My whole Etsy shop runs in US dollars and so I will be charging $25 for a haiku and $50 for a longer form poem.  Haiku poems can be on on a specific theme, location, topic or including a particular word. Longer poems can also be on any theme, topic or including several words. There is clearly more scope the longer the poem is.

As the poet, the main problem that arises for this sort of arrangement would be the copyright of the poem. I would keep copyright but give up the right to share, distribute, broadcast or publish the poem either in print or online for twelve months from when the poem was handed over to the customer.

Please do pop over to Etsy and have a look at some of the listings. While you are there have a wander around the site, there is a lot to see!

Vick.