Writing and Publishing Q&A with a Bestselling Poet | Write With Me & Publish Your Book!

In today's episode, Shelby talks about the benefit of writing poetry for your mental health, answers questions about her own writing and publishing journey, what inspires her, and more. Plus, Shelby extends an invitation to join The Poetry Club, which is her online community where you can learn from bestselling poets, write regularly through live events, and find support and accountability to achieve your writing and publishing goals!

JOIN THE POETRY CLUB: The doors to the poetry club have closed but the waitlist is open! Please click here to join the waitlist and be the first to know when spots are available.  http://jointhepoetryclub.com

ABOUT SHELBY:
Shelby is a mental health author, who has grown an audience of more than 500,000 on social media who resonate with her work. She is the author of 3 poetry books, including her latest release, girl made of glass and her bestselling book, changing with the tides. Shelby also runs an online poetry community, and helps authors market themselves and their books for more sales.

resources from shelby:

·        check out Shelby’s mental health poetry books

·        Free self-love poetry print

·        Join the poetry club

·        Get help with marketing as a writer

connect with shelby:

·        Instagram: @shelbyleighpoetry

·        YouTube: Shelby Leigh Poetry

·        TikTok: @shelbyleighpoetry

Transcript

Shelby Leigh [00:00:00]:

We talk a lot in this podcast about how writing can really benefit your mental health. I didn't realize whenever I started this podcast and started interviewing guests how often this was going to come up, but it's given me the opportunity to explore more and more how writing has really impacted my mental health and my journey too. Today's episode is going to be a little bit different. 

I have asked my followers on Instagram for some questions about writing poetry, and I wanted to talk a little bit about my writing journey and publishing journey. For any of you listening who want to pursue writing as a hobby or as a career, if you have been thinking about writing poetry and getting into poetry, maybe this is your sign that you should move forward with it. And later on in the episode, I have an invitation to write with me and learn more about poetry from me too. If this isn't your cup of tea, that's okay. Come back for next week's episode. 

But I'm really excited to dive in today and answer your questions. If you don't know, I'm Shelby, and thank you for listening to Small Steps to Self Love podcast. I am a writer, I write a lot about mental health, and I have a few published books. I started off self published, promoted the heck out of my work over the course of a few years, and eventually sold enough to get the attention of some publishers. I now have two publishing poetry books with a couple publishers, and I'm working on my fourth book. But poetry didn't just impact my career, it also impacted my mental health and my ability to navigate my emotions and communicate what was going on. I've used it now for about eight years on a regular basis, journaling and writing down my thoughts. 

Whenever I first started, I didn't really realize that's what I was doing, but over time, it became really clear whenever I was upset or happy, I wanted to write about it. And I eventually realized that it was a huge part of how I express myself and heal and navigate a lot of different things. Whether you write or you like to do art or there's another creative hobby in your life that allows you to express yourself. It is so beneficial for our mental health, and I hope that if you don't have a way of expressing yourself right now, that you give something a try, whether it is writing poetry or journaling or speaking into your phone and letting it out. Talking to a friend, of course, is always helpful, but sometimes things are personal and it can take some time to want to express them. So I just wanted to say that first and foremost, let's get into some questions from my readers. 

Boundless poetry asked what's the hardest part or the most thrilling part? I think the hardest part is just being vulnerable. It's definitely gotten easier for me over the years, but especially when it comes to sharing my work. It was terrifying the first time I published my book, or I started off writing anonymously online, so whenever I first put my name on it and said, this is my work, this is me, that was really thrilling, but also scary just because it's so vulnerable. But now I think the hardest part, honestly, is writing, knowing that a lot of people are going to read it and trying to stay true to myself. I think that is the hardest part, which is completely different than what the hardest part was seven or eight years ago whenever I first started writing. And I think it's such a beneficial thing because I know people are going to read it and it's amazing to have an audience. But yeah, I think that's something that is challenging is trying not to let that affect you. 

Okay, Laurel asked me what is your most important tip about marketing on social media? My most important tip about marketing on social media is really experimenting with the messaging for your book. If you have a book out, if you are just simply writing poetry for the sake of writing poetry and you want to share with others at this point, the most important tip would be engaging and interacting with other people, really bringing the social to social media and getting to know other poets, other writers and readers that love poetry. Because there are so many amazing readers out there who love poetry. And that's how you're going to grow your community and make new friends and feel like you are really a part of something. But whenever you have a book out, I think the most important marketing tip is really experimenting with the type of messaging that you're saying about your book, the types of benefits that your book has, what your readers will really take away. The impact of your poetry book is really important. It takes time to experiment with this and see what really resonates with your readers, but you have to lean into that and really be confident about my book is worthy, my book is valuable, it has emotion, it has meaning to it, and here's why you should read it. 

A piece of me in poetry asked, where do you find the most inspiration? I write a lot about my own personal experiences and so I pull a lot from past poems that I've written journaling, and I also do monthly workshops with my poetry community called the Poetry Club. And that really helps me with inspiration. Just having these set times once or twice a month where I am sitting down with a group of other poets and writing it really helps me get writing done. When did you first start writing poetry books was another question that was asked, and I unintentionally wrote a poetry book in 2015. Whenever I first started college, I decided to start writing a poem a day for a year. And I did not expect to put those poems into a book. It was something that my readers on. It was tumblr back in the day, encouraged me to put a book together. And so I didn't really write those poems with the intention of them being in a book. But that is my first book. It's called It starts like this. A collection of poetry. And that's when I first started. And then shortly after that, I started actually writing my second book, which is Changing With the Tides. It has been my bestseller and really the book that changed my career as a poet. 

So, yeah, I would say like 2017 ish is when I started. Okay. Sky one clouds says I'm writing a poetry book. Is it okay if the poems are different in terms of theme, topic, et cetera? Absolutely. So I really recommend that you have different themes and different topics. There are collections that are just one theme, and that's awesome too. But you can definitely break up your themes and topics into different sections if you'd like. I find that poetry books that do cover multiple themes are really interesting. It gives you a change of pace and isn't very repetitive. So absolutely. My books cover different themes from mental health, anxiety, insecurity, self love, relationships. 

So it's kind of rolled into the mental health and relationship themes, but I break them into different categories as well. So a lot of the things that we've talked about are questions and strategies and advice that I give to the members of the Poetry Club, which is my online poetry community of more than 100 poets. 

And I'm very, very excited to share that. We are open for new members today when this episode comes out, June 14 through the 18th, which is the Sunday following when this episode comes out. So if you are listening to this episode live, you are invited to join us. There are limited spots available, so we should be open through the 18th, but it is possible that spots are going to fill up a little bit sooner than that. It is such a beautiful community and we have both ends of people getting into poetry and exploring it as a hobby, as well as people pursuing poetry from a professional standpoint and publishing books and learning how to market. So we do have both sides of it. If you are not fully ready to dive into I want poetry to be my career, that's okay. There is room for you here. 

What we do is multiple events per month. Our next one is actually this Saturday, where we will be learning about writing through trauma, and we have a guest poet there to teach the workshop for us. We also do another monthly event per month, whether that is a write in where we all just gather on Google Meet. It's a video call. We write for an hour and we share, which is optional, but there's different prompts to inspire you and get you writing regularly. We also have a library of over 100 prompts in the Poetry Club. We have worksheets and workbooks to help you plan and write and publish your poetry book. We have dozens of workshop replays from bestselling published poets such as Nikita Gill, amanda Lovelace Myself ari B kofer donovan Beck blythe. Baird, sierra de Molder I could keep going on and on. We've had some incredible poets come in and teach for the Poetry Club, and we will continue to have incredible poetry joining us in the Poetry Club every month for workshops too. So if you love poetry, if you are passionate about poetry, or if you are thinking that poetry is something you want to get into, this is for you. 

There is no certain level that you have to be you don't have to have ever written a poem before if you want to join us. But on the other side, we also have people who have published multiple books, and so it is a wide range of experiences and backgrounds where we can all give advice to each other. We all have different experiences that are valuable. So it is a beautiful group and beautiful community. We have a private Facebook group that I'm in every single day, reading your poems, responding to your poems, answering your questions about publishing and poetry and marketing and all of the above. And so if that sounds like something you are interested in, that could benefit you. Setting aside some time to write and learn every single month and make progress toward your goals, I would love to invite you to head to Jointhepoetryclub.com to be a part of our community. On that page you will learn everything that is included in the club. You will find testimonials from our incredible members who are enjoying it. We've had members since I opened the club in November 2021 who have stayed for the past year and a half in the club. 

But we only open to new members every few months. So I definitely invite you to come along and join us. And now I'm going to let a few Poetry Club members share their experience in the club.

Speaker B [00:10:09]:

Hello. My name is Alejandra. I'm 26 years old and I'm from Mexico City. To be honest, joining the Poetry Club has been one of the best decisions I have ever made. The best memories that I've had are with Sierra de Modler and Amanda Lovelace's workshops. I really enjoy them. And I also like the opportunity with Blythebird and I just think it has impacted my poetry a lot.

Speaker C [00:10:33]:

Hey, I'm victoria. I would say there were probably two main reasons why I joined. The first is that sometimes writing can feel pretty lonely, especially starting out as a self published poet. So I was excited for the opportunity to invest in my own growth as a poet and to be able to connect with a community of others who are doing the same thing. In these last few short months since I joined the club, I have felt so seen by the others in the group. I felt comfortable to share my work, including really vulnerable pieces that I honestly haven't shared with anyone else. And I was able to receive encouragement and connection from those in the group, including Shelby. She always comments as well on the post and I find that really meaningful to be able to connect with her specifically along with all the others in the group. I would say the second reason that I joined is just insights on how to sell more books, improve my social media accounts and marketing. And I can already say that I have learned several helpful things just through the videos worksheets. I've also been able to connect with fellow poets on Instagram and we've been able to support one another and share each other's work and that's helped to grow my social media platform as well. It has definitely been worth it to join and I definitely feel more connected than I've ever felt before in my writing journey.

Speaker D [00:11:48]:

I joined Poetry Club because I wanted to meet other people that were in the poet community and I also wanted to learn from others, meaning that I wanted to learn from going to the workshops and learning from people who have been really successful at self publishing or garnering a publisher later on. The Poetry Club impacted my writing and myself quite a bit. I think it really just gave me the opportunity to read other people's writing and to get feedback. I also was able to read my poems out loud and share them with not just people who were my readers, but people who were my peers or people who have had their work published. I really just want to thank Shelby for bringing all of these people together. It's been a great way to connect, meet people. We really want to cheer each other on, read each other's work, learn from each other, and I think this is a great way to do that because we really get to know each other in a different way. I love the write ins during Poetry Club. It really gives me a chance to sit down for an hour, work on something that I've either been working on or we get prompts and you're able to work on a new poem. Writing are so fun because after you're done writing, you have two opportunities to do so. You get to just share and I love getting the feedback and it's so fun to hear that during this time everybody's written something different and I really love that aspect of Poetry Club.

Speaker E [00:13:19]:

Joining the Poetry Club was a spur of the moment decision, really. I hit a revision slump with my novel around the time Shelby announced National Poetry Month on a newsletter. So I took a chance and became a member. Best decision ever. Reading work by talented group members, playing with the prompts and watching the workshops, rekindled my love for poetry. I wrote more poems in April than I have in the last ten years, and I absolutely, thoroughly enjoyed myself. My favorite thing is rewatching old workshops and doing old monthly lessons and then just letting my words flow.

Shelby Leigh [00:13:57]:

Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope whether you write poetry or you don't, that you're feeling a little bit inspired to do something creative today, whether that is writing some poetry, journaling painting, listening to some music, and just letting your thoughts run wild, taking a walk in nature, whatever it is that you're feeling called to do. I hope that you have a wonderful day, a wonderful week, and I will see you in next week's episode. Bye.