Publishing and Marketing A Poetry Chapbook: Experiments, Successes, and Failures (Episode 5: Giveaways, KDP Select, and a return to Social Media)

2 Days Until Roll-Out We are getting close folks. If you were to check right now, you would see that both the paperback and kindle are live in Amazon right now.  So why am I claiming the roll-out is still two days away? On Monday, Feb. 3, my book will be free on Amazon for

Publishing and Marketing A Poetry Chapbook: Experiments, Successes, and Failures (Episode 4: Talk To People (The Long Game, Email Marketing)

3 Days Until The Book Is Live As I mentioned in the last post, the book is actually already live, at least the paperback version is. I broke down some of the reasons for that in the last post. The kindle version will go live tomorrow, and it will be priced at $4.99. Here’s a

Publishing and Marketing A Poetry Chapbook: Experiments, Successes, and Failures (Episode 3: Pre-Launch Strategies)

6 Days Until Air Alright, I have 6 days left until my book will officially be live on Amazon, but I’m going to let you in on a little secret. It’s actually already live.  At least in paperback form. Why do I already have it live if I’m not officially releasing it until next week?

Publishing and Marketing A Poetry Chapbook: Experiments, Successes, and Failures (Episode 2: Creating Your Book Cover)

9 Days Until Launch I have about 10 more poems to write in the next 9 days in order to fill out this book. So I obviously am spending all of my time writing and perfecting these poems right? Well, about that… You guessed it. Instead, I decided to jump ahead to cover design. Why?

Publishing and Marketing A Poetry Chapbook: Experiments, Successes, and Failures (Episode 1: The Grand Beginning)

The Trials and Tribulations Of An Artist Who Hates Marketing So it begins. The grand experiment. As some of you know, I have self-published one poetry book, The Cosmic Hello: Lessons in Codependence if you click that link it will allow you download that book for free, and join my email list. Or if you

How To Stop Chasing Happiness, And Just Be Happy

Get Yourself Off The Hedonic Treadmill “Most people are like all stomachs: they cannot remain satisfied for a long time.” ― Mokokoma Mokhonoana When I was getting my undergrad in English, I was not always the most studious member of my university. I wrote recently on the ways I’ve had to trick the laziness out of

How To Deal With Tragedy

What Ancient Greek Tragedies Can Teach Us Today     “He who climbs upon the highest mountains laughs at all tragedies, real or imaginary.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra     I’m an English teacher at an all-boys school, and sometimes it’s my job to make high school boys interested in literature that was written

A Lazy Man’s Guide To Being (Slightly) Better – 4 Step’s To Living A Better Life

Don’t Worry, There’s Still Beer and Netflix     “Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.” ― Mark Twain   I am a serial procrastinator. I always have been. Sometimes I make myself feel better about it when I read articles like this one, which mentions procrastinators being more

“I’m Lovin’ It”: How Brands Make Money Off Of Emotional Manipulation

Am I Going To Get Sued For This?     “Advertising is legalized lying.” — H. G. Wells   People see between 4,000 and 10,000 ads a day according to some experts. That same article mentions an anecdotal account of a man who counted 487 ads before he finished his breakfast. Of course all of these aren’t necessarily

Full Length Collection available on Amazon!

I am so happy to announce my first collection:The Cosmic Hello: Lessons in Co-Dependency is now available on Amazon. Here is the back cover blurb: C. Alexander is a small-town Southern born poet who now lives in New England. He has his MFA from Lindenwood University, and dabbles in print and spoken-word poetry. He has a