Today is

By: Ikedi Ani-okoye.

Chapbook history

In the 1600's most cultured socialites considered chapbooks vulgar. These 'flimsy' booklets were often sold in less than reputable establishments and contained a variety of less than quality poetry, stories, ballads and political dissent. Often filled with spelling mistakes, factual blunders and little in the way of quality assurance these chapbooks often connected with the uncultured alone.

Publishing Chapbook

There are several ways of publishing your chapbook. You can do it yourself with a printer and a heavy duty stapler; you can submit a manuscript to a literary entitiy that publishes chapbooks; or you can try a self publishing company. It is fairly easy to get your poetry bound in a chapbook, but the real challenge is trying to promote it.

What? Chapbook

Chances are, either you’ve never heard of a chapbook (mention one to many people and hear, “Chat-book? What’s that?”), or you assumed they’re purely for poets. While the latter was once true (before desktop publishing software), it is no longer the case. And as for the former—chat-book—well, not a bad name for it, given its power to enable you to share your words; but its not the correct term for this small booklet composed of a few pages of printed material, generally including a cardstock cover.

CONCLUSION

Chapbook is a generic term to cover a particular genre of pocket-sized booklet, popular from the sixteenth through to the later part of the nineteenth century. No exact definition can be applied. Chapbook can mean anything that would have formed part of the stock of chapmen, a variety of pedlar. The word chapman probably comes from the Anglo-Saxon word for barter, buy and sell.

The term chapbook was formalised by bibliophiles of the nineteeth century, as a variety of epherma (disposable printed material.) It includes many kinds of printed material, such as pamplets, political and religious tracts, nursery ryhmes, poetry, folk tales, children's literature and almanacs. Where there were illustrations, they would be popular prints .