Hey y’all,
I struggled to find more diverse information than what I researched last week since this is not research on a particular industry but an exploration of how to market myself as a published artist and make my art known to the world. I began with the initial prompt and tailored it to being an author of poetry. With that initial recommended prompt I received information that I’d found on my own during the last couple weeks’ assignments. It just further confirmed that I do not have enough experience as a writer to be thinking about getting published just yet. ChatGPT recommended that I participate in writing workshops, build a portfolio, attend poetry readings, literary festivals, and poetry communities. I plan to look into spoken words nights around the city to share my poetry and conduct research on how a live audience receives my work. I’m also going to put my best foot forward with the portfolio that I’m going to be building later in the semester. From there, I began to have a conversation with the AI to refine my answers. I found that having it speak to me from the perspective of a career counselor was most helpful. I asked it a few different questions, but this was the most helpful: “How should I go about obtaining a literary agent? I am a first time poetry author with no previously published works.” This prompt gave me the most helpful answer pertaining to my next steps in this journey. I told me that I need to have a polished manuscript. I intend to collect my fifteen best poems and create a manuscript out of them. It advised that I build a portfolio which is great because I have to do so for this course. It recommended that I write a query letter which I kew nothing about beforehand. A query letter is basically a document that introduces you, summarizes your manuscript, and details what’s unique about your poetry. With these things, literary agents ask you to submit a manuscript package which includes the query letter, author biography, and a poetry sample. It also recommended establishing an online presence. Once I can get copyrights on my work I plan to create an instagram page so that I can promote it on social media. I also wasn’t entirely sure what literary agents specifically helped with so I asked ChatGPT “What are the benefits of having a literary agent as a new poetry author?” It gave me some pretty good insight as to why having a literary agent would be a good idea. Of course they help you gain a wider spectrum of publishing opportunities, but they also help negotiate contracts, help with editing, help with marketing and promotion, help you with navigating the book industry, as well as boosting your credibility and visibility as an author.
I’m still not quite ready to be seriously looking for a publisher or literary agent, but from my conversation I do know what I need to work on to get to that point. I plan to first and foremost create my portfolio. I’m going to do more research into contemporary poets and their work for inspiration purposes. Then, I’m going to start working on and editing fresh ideas I’ve had this year and go to writers workshops as well as spoken word nights. Afterwards, I plan to work on a manuscript and manuscript package to send to literary agents once I’m finally ready.